by Tad Williams
The masked figure did not reply, but bowed. Yasammez turned away from the Mirror Hall—it was not yet time to seal the Pact of the Glass, although that time would come before she left Qul-na-Qar again—and made her way to her old chambers overlooking the sea and the dark twilight sky. The crowd that had gathered inside the great castle and followed her through the halls like ants through a rotting tree were left to stand, to wait, to stare at each other in glee or shame or madness, and eventually to disperse.
It did not matter. There would be a time for all of them, Yasammez knew.
She had donned her plate armor, forged in Greatdeeps in the days before the Book, cured for centuries in an ice mountain without a name. The black spikes covered it like the quills of her namesake, a dark bristling that was obscured but not hidden by her cloak, which seemed almost as insubstantial as a thundercloud. Her head was bare: she had set her featureless helmet on the table beside her, as though, like a favored pet, she wished it to watch the proceedings.
Seven other figures sat at the round table in Lady Porcupine’s chamber. It was dark in the room, only a single candle burning, its flame a-tremble before the open windows, but Yasammez and her allies did not need to see each other.
Some of what they said was spoken, some passed only in shared thought.
“Eats-the-Moon, what of the Changing tribe?”
“Many are with us. I smell anger. I smell readiness. Ours were often the first of the People to meet the stone apes, back in the world before defeat, and the first to suffer as well. Not all are fighters, but those who are not shall be ears and eyes for the rest, swift fliers, silent crawlers.”
“Many? What number is that?”
A growl. “Many. More than I can count.”
“And Greenjay? What of the Tricksters?”
“Cautious but willing to listen, as you would expect. Our tribe always likes to determine which side will win, and then join that side at an opportune time—not too late, but most definitely not too early.”
“Your honesty is commendable.”
“Can a frog be taught to fly? I tell you only what is true.”
“There will be no winner in this fight, even if we triumph. This is only a moment in the great defeat. But the mortals will suffer, and our own suffering will become less. What the stone apes inherit when we are gone will no longer taste sweet to them—will never taste sweet again. Make no mistake, the time has come for your Tricksters—and all the others, too—to decide the manner of their passing—not as individuals, but as families of the People.”
“But why, Lady? Why must we allow defeat? Still we are strong, and the old ways are strong. It is only our resolve that has been weak.”
“I have not yet come to you, Stone of the Unwilling. Soon I will ask you what the Guard of Elementals thinks . . .”
“Ask me now.”
A pause. “Speak.”
“They think as I think. That we can retreat no farther, and that we can no longer live with exile and defeat. We must push them from our lands. We must put fire to all their houses and sickness in all their beds. We must shake down their temples and bury their cruel iron in the ground where it can become something clean again. We must bring on the Old Night.”
“I have heard you. But no matter what they wish, will your tribe follow where I lead, whatever path I may choose? Because only one can lead in this thing.”
“Can you lead, my lady? What of the Pact?”
“The Pact of the Glass will come to naught, an empty promise. But the old rules cannot be ignored, so I have agreed. It has been signed. Only an hour ago, I put my blood on it.”
“You signed the Pact? Then have they given you the Seal of War?”
For answer she lifted her helmet from the table. In the dark room the thing that had been hidden beneath it gleamed like molten stone. She lifted the red gem on its heavy black chain and put it on, let the stone fall with a dull clank onto her breast. “Here it is.”
For a moment only the sound of the ocean was heard, the waves pounding against the rocks.
“The Guard of Elementals will follow you, Lady Yasammez.”
The others spoke, one by one, telling her of their tribes, of their readiness or unreadiness, but all agreed—there were enough to muster. There were enough to cross the line and make war.
“Then I have one more thing to show you.” Yasammez reached beneath her great cloak. Buckles clicked. A moment later she lifted her scabbard and dropped it on the table, then wrapped her hand around the hilt of the sword and pulled it out. From point to pommel it was as white as packed snow, as licked bone. The candle flame, taxed by one too many chill breezes, shuddered and died. The only light in the room now was the subtle blindworm glow of the sword itself.
“I have taken Whitefire from its sheath.” The voice of Yasammez, the People’s Fire of Vengeance, was matter-of-fact, whether aloud or in winged thought. Her words had weight because of who she was and what she said. “It will not be sheathed once more until I am dead or until what was taken from us is ours and the queen lives again.”
Briony found him outside, to her surprise and annoyance, wandering in the quiet and somewhat gloomy west garden of the residence. Except he was not wandering: he was staring up at the roofline where the chimneys clustered like mushrooms that had sprouted after rain.
“I . . . Did you see that?” Barrick rubbed his eyes.
“See what?”
“I thought I saw . . .” He shook his head. “I thought I saw a boy on the roof. Is it the fever? I saw many things when I had the fever . . .”
She squinted, shook her head. “Nobody would be up so high, certainly not a child. Why aren’t you in bed? I came to see you and they told me you had refused to stay in your chamber.”
“Why? Because I wanted to see the sun. But it’s almost gone. I feel like a corpse, lying in that dark room.” His face had closed again, the moment’s vulnerability replaced by something harsher. “It’s not like you need me, in any case.”
Briony was shocked. “What do you mean? Merciful Zoria, Barrick, not need you? You’re all I have left! Gailon has just left the castle—left Southmarch entirely. He will be back in Summerfield in days, full of discontent, telling anyone who will listen about it—and many people will listen to the Duke of Summerfield.”
Her brother shrugged. “So what can we do? Unless Gailon’s talking treason, we can’t stop him saying what he wants. In fact, it wouldn’t be easy to do even if he were talking treason. Summerfield Court has walls almost as thick as Southmarch and the Tollys keep a small army there.”
“It’s too early to worry about things like that, and if the gods are kind or Gailon has a shred of honor, we may not have to. But we have problems enough, Barrick, so no more of this nonsense, please. I need you to be well. Better a few days bored and restless in bed now than you being ill all through the winter months. Let Chaven tend you.”
“No more of what nonsense?” He shot her another of his suspicious glances. “Are you certain you don’t just want me out of the way so you can do something foolish? Pardon Shaso, perhaps?”
Her heart felt like a lump of lead. How could her twin, her beloved other half, think such things? Had the fever really changed him so much? “No! No, Barrick, I would never do such a thing without your approval.” He was staring at her almost as if she were a stranger. “Please, now is not the time for you and I to argue. We’re all that’s left of the family!”
“There’s still Merolanna. And the Loud Mouse.”
Briony grimaced. “That’s a strange thing, now you mention it. I have never seen Aunt Merolanna so distracted—perhaps over Kendrick, but it seems odd. She was strong as stone before the funeral, but has been grieving like a madwoman since, hardly leaving her chambers. I’ve been to see her twice and she’s barely spoken to me, as though she can’t wait for me to leave. In fact, it seems that all the family we have left is at loose ends. Oh, and here’s another surprise—since you mentioned her, I should tell
you that our stepmother has asked us to dine with her tomorrow night.”
“What’s that about?”
“I don’t know. But let’s be openhearted and believe she wishes to be closer to her stepchildren now that Kendrick is gone.”
Barrick’s snort made his feelings clear.
“Another thing. Have you seen the letter Father wrote? The one Kendrick received from Hierosol the day before . . . before . . .”
Barrick shook his head. He looked annoyed—no, it was something more. He almost looked frightened. Why? “No. What does it say?”
“That’s just it—I don’t know where it’s gone. I can’t find it.”
“I don’t have it!” he said sharply, then waved his hand in weak apology. “I’m sorry—I suppose I really am tired. I don’t know anything about it.”
“But it’s important we find it!” She looked at him, saw that it was no good pressing; he was exhausted. “Whatever the case, never forget, you are needed, Barrick. I need you. Desperately. Now go to bed. Rest, and let me do what needs to be done tomorrow, then I’ll tell you about it when we go to dine with Anissa.”
He looked at her, then looked around the garden. The sun had sunk behind the residence’s western wing and the roofs were rapidly becoming dark silhouettes; an entire army of fever-children could have been hiding there now.
“Very well. I will stay in my bed for tomorrow,” he said. “But no longer.”
“Good. Now, I’ll walk back with you.”
“You see, I don’t like sleeping,” he told her as they made their way down the path. Almost without her noticing it, he had taken her hand, as he had done when they were both children. “I don’t like sleeping at all. I have such very bad dreams—all of our family being cursed, haunted . . .”
“But that’s all they are, Barrick, dear Barrick. Just dreams. Fever dreams.” But his words had started a chill in her, even as the first evening breezes swirled through the garden and made the leaves of the hedges and ornamental trees scrape and rustle.
“I dream that darkness is coming down just like a storm,” he said, almost whispering. “Oh, Briony, in my dreams I see the end of the world.”
15
The Seclusion
THE BROTHER’S MAIDEN DAUGHTER:
She vanishes when we are all upright
Appears when we lay ourselves down
Look! Her crown is of gold and heather-blossom
—from The Bonefall Oracles
THE SECLUSION, Qinnitan quickly discovered, was not a building, or even a group of buildings, but something vastly larger, a walled city within the autarch’s immense palace, sandstone brick buildings set in carefully husbanded grounds, most with shrines and scented gardens at their centers, all connected by hundreds of covered walkways that provided much-needed shade, so that one of the Seclusion’s residents could travel from one side to the other, a journey that might take the best part of an hour, without ever feeling the direct touch of the harsh Xandian sun on her skin. It truly was a city all by itself, home not just to the autarch’s hundreds of wives, but to the army of people necessary to care for them, thousands of maids, cooks, gardeners, and petty bureaucrats, and not a single one of them a man.
None were men in the conventional sense, but there were certainly many hundreds of people within the Seclusion’s great high walls who had been born with at least the basic elements of masculinity, but who simply had not, for one reason or another, managed to hang onto all of them.
The Seclusion took up a sizable section of the autarch’s gigantic Orchard Palace, just as the palace itself took up a large portion of Great Xis, Mother of Cities. In truth, the Seclusion’s share was proportionately larger than other sections of the ancient and monstrous sprawl of buildings formally known as Palace of the Flowering Spring Orchard, because those who lived and worked in other parts of the great palace could share gardens and dining halls and kitchens, but the Seclusion must be kept separate and protected, and so each function had to be carefully reproduced within its walls and staffed only with women or Favored.
If the Seclusion was a small city, the Favored were its priests and governors. Because of the famous sacrifice of Habbili, son of Nushash, Xis had always been a kingdom in which the castrated were held in some esteem—it was almost as established a route to the corridors of power as the priesthood. In fact, the Favored ruled not just the Seclusion, but many of the bureaucracies of the Orchard Palace, so that the more daring soldiers of the autarch’s army sometimes sourly joked—in private, of course—that real men weren’t wanted in most of the palace, and would only be welcomed in the one place they were absolutely barred, the Seclusion. The actual truth was that many ordinary men who still wore their stones held positions of influence throughout the autarch’s court, like Pinimmon Vash, the paramount minister. The Favored as a group were some of the autarch’s mightiest subordinates, but they were by no means all-powerful. They had to struggle, as did everyone else in the Orchard Palace, for every fleck of attention from the God-King Sulepis, from whom all power and glory radiated like the sun’s light. But in the metaphorical darkness of the Seclusion, that country of women in which women held no nominal power—although the more important of the autarch’s wives were powers unto themselves—the Favored ruled virtually without rivals.
The Favored of the Seclusion, perhaps in deference to a tradition no one could now remember (or perhaps for other, less exalted reasons) considered themselves women, not tremendously different from those over whom they watched, and made the traditional attributes of womanhood their own, although exaggerated into parody: they were almost all extremely excitable, romantic, vengeful, fickle. And of course the wives and their born-female servants had their own complicated webs of influence and intrigue as well. Altogether, walking into the Seclusion was like entering a magical cave out of a story, a place strung with invisible strands and snares, full of beautiful things guarded by deadly traps.
Qinnitan’s own role in the place was confusing from the first, and within days of entering she had begun to long for the certainty of her old life, for her uncomplicated role as one of the youngest and thus lowest of the low among the Hive Sisters. All the autarch’s wives and wives-to-be—and it was hard to tell sometimes what the difference in status meant, since he so seldom visited any of them—were of infinitely greater importance than any of the Seclusion’s servants, and yet the hundredth wife, let alone new-minted Qinnitan who was something closer to the thousandth, had to wait weeks for even the briefest appointment to see Cusy, the immensely fat chief of the Seclusion’s Favored—the Eunuch Queen, as she was sometimes laughingly called in the Orchard Palace. But nobody in the Seclusion would ever have laughed at old Cusy to her face. Of all the denizens of that place, only Arimone, the autarch’s paramount wife—a flinty, beautiful young woman known as the Evening Star, who was the autarch’s cousin and had been the wife of the last older brother Sulepis had murdered to clear his path to the throne—would have stood up to Cusy without a great deal of consideration. Since Arimone lived almost as removed from the Seclusion as the autarch himself (she had her own little palace and grounds nestled at one end of the vast compound like the inmost chamber of a nautilus, and no one, not even the other high-ranking wives, came there without an invitation) there was nobody to challenge the Eunuch Queen’s authority.
Qinnitan had the fantastic luck—or so it seemed at the time—to be taken under the wing of Luian, one of Cusy’s deputies, a motherly Favored (at least in size and demeanor, since she was not particularly old) who took an unexpected interest in the new wife and within days of Qinnitan’s arrival invited her to come to her chambers and drink tea.
Qinnitan was treated to the promised tea, along with powdered Sania figs and several kinds of sweet breads, in a tented, cushion-strewn room in Luian’s chambers. The meal was accompanied by a gale of gossip and other useful information about the Seclusion, but it was only at the end of the meal that Luian explained why her eye had lit on Qinnitan
.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” she said as Qinnitan bent to kiss her hand in farewell. Qinnitan had been caught by the fact of Luian’s large hands, one of the few things now that betrayed her beginnings as a man, and so she did not for a moment understand the question.
“Recognize you?” Qinnitan said when the import finally sank in.
“Yes, darling girl. You don’t think I lavish my time on every little queen that comes through the door of the Seclusion, do you?” Luian patted her chest as if the idea gave her breathing problems; her jewelry rattled. “My goodness, we have had two already this month from Krace, which is practically the moon. I was shocked to hear they even spoke a human language. No, my sweetness, I asked for you because we grew up in the same neighborhood.”
“Behind Cat’s Eye Street?”
“Yes, my darling! I remember you when you could barely walk, but I see you don’t remember me.”
Qinnitan shook her head. “I . . . I must admit I don’t, Favored Luian.”
“Just Luian, dear, please. But of course I was different then. Big and clumsy, studying to be a priest. You see, that’s what I thought I would be until I was Favored, and then I lost my taste for it. I even went to your father once for advice. I used to walk up and down the alleys between Cat’s Eye and Feather Cape Row, reciting the four hundred Nushash prayers, or trying to . . .”
Qinnitan let go of Luian’s hand and stood up. “Oh! Dudon! You’re Dudon! I remember you!”
The Favored waved her fingers languidly. “Sssshh, that name! That was years ago. I hate that name these days—ungainly, unhappy creature. I am much more beautiful now, am I not?” She smiled as if to mock herself, but there was something other than self-mockery involved in the question. Qinnitan looked at the person before her—it was a little harder to think of Luian as female now, after the recollection of her former self—discreetly examined the broad features, the thick makeup, the large hands covered in rings, and said, “You are very beautiful now, of course.”