by Tad Williams
“We have to hope there won’t be a siege. Because if there is, we’ll have to do more than leave those people to fend for themselves. We’ll have to burn that part of the city down.”
“What? Just to keep the besiegers from getting their hands on the stores there?”
“And the wood, and everything else that we don’t destroy. As it is, you . . . we . . . will probably have to stand by while the catapults throw the stones of our own city onto us.”
“You don’t know that, and neither does Avin Brone.” Her anger seemed mostly sadness. “Nobody knows anything! There haven’t been any sieges of proper cities in the Marchlands for half a hundred years—I heard Father talk about it once. Some people say there won’t ever be again because of cannons and bombards and . . . and all those other things that blow stones and metal balls through the air. There’s no point.”
It annoyed Barrick to be told things about war by his sister. It annoyed him even more that she had clearly been paying more attention than he had. “No point? So what should we do, just surrender?”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
The hour wore on as they rode in silence up the coast road into the lower reaches of Landsend. The chill air carried little except the clean tang of the pines and the ever-present smell of the sea.
Briony finally said, “We can’t be certain it will be a siege, Barrick. We don’t even know what these twilight creatures plan—they’re not men, they’re something else. Only the gods can guess what they’ll do.”
“We’ll have an idea soon enough. If they’ve marched into Daler’s Troth, we’ll meet people who know something about them and how they fight. We’ll send you back word as soon as we hear anything.”
She turned abruptly to face him. “Oh, Barrick, you will be careful, won’t you? I’m so angry with you, I don’t want you to go.”
He felt himself stiffen. “I’m old enough to decide for myself.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s right.” She stared, shook her head. “I’m frightened for you. Don’t let’s argue anymore. Just . . . just don’t do anything foolish, please. No matter what . . . what dreams you have, what you fear.”
The cold heaviness that had cast a shadow over him all day was abruptly pierced by a shaft of regret and love. He looked at his sister, her so-familiar face—his own face, but seen in a bright mirror, open where he was pinched and hidden, golden and pink where he was angry, bloody-red, and corpse-pale—and wished that things had turned out a different way. For just as he had been struck earlier that day by the powerful certainty that some unstoppable downward slide had begun, so also he couldn’t help feeling deeply, wordlessly, that he and his beloved twin, his best and perhaps only friend, would never again be together in this way.
The certainty hit him now like a blow in the stomach: a gulf would open between them, something wide and deep. Was it death whose cold breath he could almost feel, or something stranger still? Whatever it was, he began to shudder and it quickly became so strong that he could barely stay upright in his saddle. Suddenly he pitched forward, falling down some dark tunnel, flailing away into a nothingness where a cold, knowing presence awaited him. . . .
“Barrick!” He heard her terrified voice as if from the other side of a crowded, noisy room. “Barrick, what’s wrong?”
The roaring in his ears eased a bit. The gray day returned and pushed back the darkness. He was leaning low over his saddle, his head almost on his horse Kettle’s neck. “I’m well enough. Leave me alone.”
A measure of Briony’s fright was that she had seized his crippled arm. He snatched it back and straightened up. No one around them seemed to be staring, but he could tell by the studied way in which they all looking at anything except the prince and his sister that they had only just averted their eyes.
“The gods make a mockery of us,” he said quietly.
His attention distracted by his near-swoon, he had failed to notice that they had arrived at the field. The mustered men were waiting below them in ragged array among the shorn stalks of grain, a thousand or more of the earliest arrivals who had been chivvied into lines by their sergeants, but still did not look much like an army. More men streamed in every day from the provinces, but instead of joining this westbound company most of the newcomers would bolster the defenses of Southmarch itself.
“Don’t say such things about the gods,” Briony pleaded. “Not when you are about to go away. I can’t bear it.”
He looked at her and despite his shame and misery, felt a thump of love for her in his chest. After all, what else did he have in this world? What else did he fear to lose? Nothing. He reached out and patted her hands where they clutched the reins of her horse Snow. “You’re right, straw-head. I’m sorry. And I don’t mean it. I don’t believe the gods are mocking us.”
And he was telling the truth. For in this open place, beneath this low gray sky, Barrick had suddenly decided that he did not believe in the gods at all.
After clambering all the way down the treacherous paths hidden below the balcony at the end of the Maze—who could have guessed there even were such things as paths going down to the Sea in the Depths? Who used them, the temple brothers?—Chert had finally reached the shore to stand on the rounded stones in a madness of shimmering colors, but he couldn’t find any evidence of how the boy had crossed the silvery sea. He couldn’t help wondering whether he was being punished by the Earth Elders for bringing an outsider down to the sacred Mysteries, for approaching their deep haunts without the proper ceremony. He felt impious just being so close to the Shining Man, which loomed like a mountain at the center of its island. Even here on the shore he could still make little sense of it except for its roughly manlike shape. It wasn’t easy even to see that much: the Shining Man’s uneven glow lit the ceiling and reflected from the Sea in the Depths as well, so that all the walls of the huge cavern were painted with smears of wobbly, many-hued light.
But why would the Elders punish me and yet allow the boy to cross? Chert felt a moment of doubt. Perhaps he had not seen Flint at all—perhaps he had been fooled by a bat’s shadow, by his own fatigue, or more likely by the heady, disturbing air of the deepest Mysteries.
Then he saw a movement again on the island, a shadowy silhouette against the glow of the Shining Man that pushed all uncertainty from his mind. “Flint!” he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth, jumping up and down on the rocky shore. “Flint! It’s me, Chert!”
He fancied that the shadow froze for a moment, but there was no reply to his call and an instant later it vanished in the confusion of pulsing light.
Cursing, he hurried up and down the shore again, but still could find no trace of how the boy had crossed the metallic underground sea. As he stood, muttering in exhausted frustration, he suddenly remembered another small person in his charge, one he had almost completely forgotten in the excitement of seeing what he felt sure was the boy.
“Beetledown! Fissure and fracture, I’ve left him up there alone for an hour or more!” And sick, too, having trouble getting a full breath. Chert was stabbed with the sharp point of his own helplessness—so many things gone wrong and no way to fix any of them. The boy—everything in life had gone wrong since the moment he and Opal saw that sack dropped beside the Shadowline.
We should have left him there, he thought, and even with the aching in his heart, the love he had to admit he felt for the pale-haired child, it was hard to argue with that thought.
He scrambled back up the path, which was really little more than a goat track—but whoever heard of goats living a thousand feet below the ground? That thought had scarcely passed through his head when he saw something gleaming farther up the cliffside, something pale that stood between himself and the balcony at the end of the Maze. He stared in amazement at what he could only believe in these hot, flickering depths must be a sort of fever-vision.
Even on the surface in the waking world—at least this side of the Shadowline—there was no su
ch thing as a deer with skin white to the point of translucence, a ghostly stag with weirdly slender legs and antlers like a tangle of sprouting roots, not to mention those huge, milky-blue eyes that glowed bright as candleflame. But that was what seemed to be staring down at him, at least for one astonishing moment. A heartbeat later it was gone.
Chert paused, clinging to a jutting outcrop, suddenly light-headed and fearful he might fall. Could it have been real? Or had he breathed too deeply of the Mysteries?
Oh, Lord of the Hot Wet Stone, help me—was that what I saw on the island, too? One of those things and not Flint at all? But unless the light and shadow had distorted the island-shape beyond anything he could credit, surely what he had seen there walked on two legs, had a round head—had been, in fact, a person.
When he reached the spot where the glassy-white deer had stood, he found no sign of anything living.
Chert was feeling quite sickened with terror of the gods and their sacred places by the time he reached the spot where he had left Beetledown: it took him a few stupefied moments to be quite certain he was standing before the same knob of stone where he had left the Rooftopper, even though his own coral lantern was sitting where he had placed it, still gleaming.
The little man, however, was nowhere to be seen.
His stomach now roiling so that he feared he might be sick—he had lost everyone in his charge, all those who needed him most!—Chert got down on his hands and knees, holding the lantern close to the ground as he searched desperately around the base of the limestone knob for some sign of his companion. He could only pray to the very gods he had impinged upon that when he found him, Beetledown would still be alive.
It was an undignified position to be in, but he did not care at all until he heard a small voice, a yard or so from his ear, say, “Didst tha drop somewhat?”
“Beetledown! Where are you?”
“Just here, hinden this clutter of stone whatnots, but mind tha come quiet. Don’t scare un away.”
“Scare who away?” The Funderling crept forward, his gloom lightening a little for the first time since he realized he could not reach the Shining Man’s island. Against all reason, he felt a small swell of hope. “Is it Flint? Did you find my boy?”
“Not unless thy boy wears whiskers and long tail.”
Chert stopped. The bowman was crouching a bit unsteadily in the fork of a two-part stalagmite, a formation that did not reach Chert’s waist but was a hilltop for the little man. Beetledown had his bow trained on something Chert couldn’t see until he crawled closer and marked the shiny black eye and twitching nose in the shadows. Startled by his appearance, the rat flinched and began to skitter along the stone wall, but one of Beetledown’s tiny arrows smacked against the wall just in front of its head and it froze again, only its nose moving.
“How long have you been trying to kill it?” Chert asked, amused as well as relieved. He would never have taken the Rooftopper for such a poor shot, but he supposed the heady, close airs of the caves had taken a toll. “Are you really that hungry?”
“Hungry? Th’art a huge, daft thing. No idea to eat it, I foremeant to ride it.”
“Ride it?”
“Too far for me to walk back to the good air,” explained Beetledown. “But now here tha stand with thy huge, daft shoulder.” The tiny man smiled weakly. “So will tha carry me back home again?”
“You were going to ride this rat?” Chert was coming to his understanding slowly, but he had the beginnings of an idea. “All the way back up?”
“A Gutter-Scout am I,” Beetledown said a little indignantly. “Well-used am I to breaking a wild ratling to the saddle.” He shook his head. “And I’ll tell ’ee true—I cannot take this heavy, choking air much longer.”
“Then let’s catch that rat. He might make us both happy.”
Beetledown was putting the last touches on a makeshift saddle—more of a harness, really—constructed from one strap of the coral lantern knotted with threads and fraying cloth from Chert’s shirt. The saddle’s eventual recipient was currently a prisoner in the bottom of Chert’s bag, happily scavenging up the crumbs left there from the meal Chert had purchased at the Salt Pool. And after he ate, Chert hoped, the beast might stop trying to bite.
“But why will tha stay?”
“Because there has to be a way onto that island—the boy’s there, after all. And I’m going to find it.”
“P’raps a boat there is, that un’s found and crossed with.”
Chert’s heart sank. He hadn’t thought of that. “Well, even so,” he said at last, “if he comes back across, I’ll be here to make certain he doesn’t get away again. And what if he needs help? How do you cross quicksilver with a boat, anyway? What if it . . . overturns or comes apart. They come apart sometimes, don’t they?”
“Never tha hast been on a boat, true?” said Beetledown with a little smile.
“True,” Chert admitted.
“And I’m to ride away, then send ’ee help. From where, good Master Funderling?”
“My wife Opal, if you can find her again. Otherwise, ask any of my folk to take you to her.”
Beetledown nodded. He pulled a knot tight on his rat-bridle, squinting at it with a sharp, experienced eye. “Un’ll do.” He stood. “Perchance ’twould be better were I to send some of yon temple fellows—what did tha call uns? The Metal Marching Brothers, somewhat?”
“The Metamorphic . . . Oh, fissure and—I never thought of that! And they’ve already met you—they’ll know who you are. Of course.” He was angry with himself for not coming up with such an obvious idea, but events had overwhelmed him.
He helped Beetledown fasten the harness. The rat was calmer now but still not precisely docile and it took no little time. The Rooftopper was patient and skillful, however, and at last Chert was gingerly holding the rat in place while Beetledown climbed onto the creature’s back. As soon as Chert took his hand away, the rat tried to bolt, but the Rooftopper gave the creature a stinging slap on the muzzle with his bow; the rat squealed and tried to take off in another direction and was again punished. When all the cardinal points had proved equally dangerous, the rat crouched low and motionless except for huffing sides and anxiously blinking eyes.
“Un’s learning,” said Beetledown with satisfaction.
“Take a little of the coral light,” Chert told him, breaking off one of the brightest bits; the Rooftopper fastened it under one of the straps of the rat’s harness. “It’ll make it easier to see in some of the dark places. Good journey, Beetledown. And thank you for your help and kindness.” He wanted to say something more—he had a sense that this exceptionally small man had become more than an odd acquaintance, that a friendship, however unlikely, had sprung up between them, but Chert was not a man comfortable with sentiment. In any case, he was tired and very frightened. “The Earth Elders protect you.”
“And the Lord of the Peaks watch over ’ee in thy turn, Chert of Blue Quartz.” The Rooftopper kicked his booted heels against the rat’s sides, but the animal didn’t move. Beetledown smacked his bowstaff against the creature’s flank and it scuttled forward. He was still flicking its hindquarters with the bow, this time trying to get it to turn, as rider and mount vanished into the shadows of the path leading away uphill; all Chert could see of them in the last moments was a moving point of light, the piece of coral strapped to the rat’s back.
“That is, if un can find ’ee again ’neath all this mucky stone!” Beetledown called back to Chert, his small voice already sounding as though it came from miles away.
The straggling end of the army had finally disappeared around a bend in the coastal highway, heading toward the Settland Road and the hills, leaving behind only a few hundred watchers and a muddy, trampled field. It wasn’t right, Briony knew—this army should have marched out with trumpets, with a parade through the streets, but there hadn’t been time to arrange such a thing—nor, to be honest, would she have had the heart for it. But the people would be frightened
because of this near-secrecy, a thousand men simply gone. In the past, wars had almost always begun with a brave show.
Perhaps the day is coming for a different kind of war, she considered, although she had no idea what such a thing might be. The world is changing swiftly, after all, and not entirely for the worse. Besides, the times are too grim for parades and trumpets.
But then again, she thought, perhaps that is when we need such things most.
She couldn’t eat her food and couldn’t stop weeping. Barrick went away like a man to the gallows, was all she could think. His jests, the cheerful farewell when he kissed her the last time, had not fooled her. Rose and Moina were desperate to get her to lie down, but sleep was the last thing Briony could do, and in any case it was only late afternoon.
Oh, Barrick! she thought. You should have stayed with me. You should have stayed. She sniffled angrily, ignored a maid’s offer of a kerchief and wiped her nose with her sleeve instead, getting a tiny bit of pleasure out of hearing her ladies-in-waiting moan their disapproval.
“I will go and talk to Lord Brone,” she announced to them. “He said there were things he needed to speak to me about—siege preparations, no doubt. And I will have to talk to Lord Nynor about feeding the new muster that just came in from Helmingsea.”
“But . . . but shouldn’t they come to you?” Rose asked. “I will walk. I like to walk.” She immediately felt better. Having something to do was so much better than sitting helplessly, thinking about Barrick and the others riding off into . . . what?
Halfway across the inner keep, her ladies scuttling after her like baby quail, the women followed by a contingent of anxious guardsmen, Briony suddenly remembered what she had forgotten from yesterday—or had it been the day before that? That idiot poet’s message, the mysterious potboy asking to see her. She slowed and was almost knocked down by Rose and Moina in their blind hurry to keep up.