(Shadowmarch #1) Shadowmarch

by Tad Williams

  In the midst of such strange times their little procession was not the oddest thing the people of Funderling Town had heard of, but it was certainly one of the odder things they had actually seen: by the time Chert reached his house with Flint and the acolyte he was surrounded by a ragtag parade of children and more than a few adults. He did his best to ignore their questions and fondly mocking comments. He had no idea what time it was, or even what day. The young temple brother Antimony at the front end of the litter told him it was Skyday, fourth chime. Chert was astonished to realize that he had been almost three days in the lower depths.

  Poor Opal! She must be cracked with worry.

  The news had run ahead on child feet; a crowd of neighbors waited at the mouth of Wedge Road to join the throng. The tale had reached his own house as well: Opal ran out before he had even reached the dooryard, her face a confusion of joy and terror.

  He tried not to be upset that the first thing she did was throw her arms around the senseless boy, even though it nearly upset the litter. He was even wearier than he had realized, and could only struggle to hold his end up and shake his head in silent dismissal of his neighbors’ questions. Burly Antimony helped clear a path to the door.

  “He isn’t dead,” Opal said, kneeling beside the boy. “Tell me that he isn’t dead.”

  “He’s alive, just . . . sleeping.”

  “Praise the Elders—but he’s so cold!”

  “He needs your nursing, dear wife.” Chert slumped onto a bench.

  She paused, then suddenly rushed to him and put her arms around his neck, kissed his cheeks. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re not dead either, you old fool. Disappearing for days! I’ve been fretting over you, too, you know.”

  “I’ve been fretting over me as well, my girl. Go on, now. I’ll tell you all this strange story later.”

  Antimony helped Opal move the boy to his bed, then turned down her distracted offer of food or drink and went out instead to placate the waiting crowd with some unspecific answers. Chert suspected the acolyte didn’t find this too dreadful a chore. From what he knew, the temple brothers, especially the younger ones, didn’t get much chance to come up to Funderling Town: the market trips and other such opportunities for distraction and temptation were reserved for the older, more trustworthy brothers.

  He could hear Opal in the bedroom, crooning over the boy as she took off his dirty rags, cleaning him and checking for injuries just as the Metamorphic Brothers had done. Chert didn’t think fresh smallclothes would be the thing that woke the boy, but he knew very well his wife needed to do something.

  Chert looked up at a rustling noise, aware for the first time that he was not alone in the room. A very young woman, one of the big folk, sat on their long bench in the shadows against the wall, staring back at him with an air of patient detachment. Her dark hair was gathered untidily and she wore a dress that did not quite fit her thin frame. Chert had never seen her before, could think of no reason on or under the earth why someone like her should be in his house, even on a day of such bizarre branchings and cross-tunnels.

  “Who are you?”

  Opal came out of the back room with a look close to embarrassment on her face. “I forgot to tell you, what with the boy and all. She came about the second chime or so and she’s been waiting ever since. Said she must speak to you, only to you. I . . . I thought it might be something to do with Flint . . .”

  The young woman stirred on the bench. She seemed almost half-asleep. “You are Chert of the Blue Quartz?”

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “My name is Willow, but I am nothing.” She stood up; her head almost touched the ceiling. She extended a hand. “Come. I have been sent to bring you to my master.”

  35

  The Silken Cord

  THE CRABS:

  All are dancing

  The moon is crouching low for fear

  He will see the naked Mother of All

  —from The Bonefall Oracles

  AS THE GREAT HAND CLOSED around her, she felt it ringing like a crystal, a deep, shuddering vibration that had nothing to do with her, but which ran through that monstrous hand like a blood pulse, as if she were bound to a temple bell big as a mountain. The impossibly vast shape lifted her and although she could not see its face—it stood in the center of some kind of fog, light-shot but still deeply shadowed, as if a lightning storm raged inside the earth—she could see the greater darkness that was its mouth as it brought her nearer, nearer . . .

  She shrieked, or tried to, but there was only silence in that damp, empty place, silence and mist and the dark maw that grew ever larger, spreading above her like a rolling thunder-cloud. The titanic thing was going to swallow her, she knew, and she was frightened almost to death . . . but it was also somehow exciting too, like the shrieking, terrified childhood joy of being whirled in the air by her father or wrestling with her brothers until she was pinned and helpless . . .

  Qinnitan awakened wet with perspiration, heart galloping. Her wits were utterly jangled and her skin twitched as though she lay in the middle of one of the great hives in the temple covered in a slow-buzzing blanket of sacred bees. She felt used by something—by her dream, perhaps—even defiled, and yet as her heart slowed a languid warmth began to spread through her limbs, a feeling almost of pleasure, or at least of release.

  Qinnitan slumped back in her bed, breathing shallowly, overwhelmed. Her hand strayed down to her breasts and she discovered the tips had grown achingly hard beneath the fabric of her nightdress. She sat up again, shocked and disturbed. The idea of that dark, all-swallowing mouth still hung over her thoughts as it had hung over her dream. She leaped to her feet and went to the washing tub. The water had been sitting since the previous night and was quite cold, but instead of calling for the servants to bring her hot water, she squatted in it gladly and pulled her nightdress up to her neck, then splashed herself all over until she began to shiver. She sank down into the shallow bath, still trembling, and put her chin on her knees, letting the water wick up the linen nightdress until it clung to her like a clammy second skin.

  The rest of the day was quieter and more mundane, although the torments of the endlessly droning prayers and the drinking of the Sun’s Blood were as bad as ever. If Panhyssir or the autarch were trying to kill her with that potion, they were taking a ridiculously long time about it, she had to admit, but whatever they intended, they were certainly making her miserable.

  Just after Qinnitan’s evening meal the hairdressing servant came to dye her red streak—her witch streak, as her childhood friends had named it—which was beginning to show at the roots again: Luian and the other Favored had decreed within days of her arrival that such a mongrel mark had no place on one of the autarch’s queens. The hairdresser also dried her hair and arranged it into a pleasing style, on the one-in-a-thousand chance the autarch should finally call for her that very evening. Qinnitan tried to sit quietly; this hairdresser had a way of poking you with a hairpin—and then apologizing profusely, of course—when you moved too much.

  I doubt she pulls that trick with Arimone.

  But Qinnitan didn’t like thinking about the Paramount Wife. Since the day Qinnitan had gone to her palace, there had been no further invitations and no outward sign of hostility, but it was not hard to see the way those wives and wives-to-be who considered themselves friends of the Evening Star watched Qinnitan and made clear their dislike of her. Well, they might think themselves friends of the great woman, but she doubted Arimone looked on them the same way; Qinnitan felt sure there was little room for friends or equals of any kind in the world of the Paramount Wife.

  The hairdresser was finishing up just as the soldiers on the walls outside began to call out the old ritual words for the sunset change of the guard—“Hawks return! To the glove! To the glove!” Qinnitan, reasonably certain that the autarch was not going to break his nearly year-long habit and summon her tonight, was looking forward to an hour or two of time to herself before sleep and
whatever unsettling dreams might come with it. She thought she might say her evening orisons, then read. One of the other brides, youngest daughter of the king of some tiny desert land on the southern edge of Xis, had loaned her a beautifully illustrated book of poetry by the famous Baz’u Jev. Qinnitan had read some of it and enjoyed it very much—his descriptions of sheepherders in the arid mountains who lived so close to the sky they called themselves “Cloud People” spoke of a freedom and simplicity that seemed achingly attractive to her. The young desert princess seemed quite nice, really, and Qinnitan entertained a hope that one day they might become friends, since they were two of the youngest in the Seclusion. This did not mean she had abandoned all sense, of course. She never touched the book without wearing gloves. The tale of a Paramount Wife from a century or so before who had dispatched a rival by having poison painted on the edges of a book’s pages was one of the first cautionary stories Qinnitan had heard upon coming to her new home.

  That tale spoke much of the Seclusion, not just the murderousness of the place, but the fact that the older wife had been willing to wait weeks or even months for the autarch’s new favorite to cut her finger in such a way that the poison could enter when she turned the pages. Whatever men might say about women and their reputed fickleness, the Seclusion was a place of immense patience and subtlety, especially when the stakes were high. And what stakes could be higher than to be certain it was your own child who would one day sit on the throne of the most powerful empire in the world between the seas?

  Gloves or no, Qinnitan was looking forward to a little time with the epic simplicity of Baz’u Jev, so it was disappointing—and, as always in the Seclusion, a little frightening—when a messenger came just as the hairdresser was leaving.

  She was startled to recognize the mute boy who had come into her room not a fortnight before. He was wearing a loose tunic tonight, so she could not see how his wound had healed, although he seemed perfectly well. He would hardly meet her eyes as he handed her the roll of parchment, but although that saddened her, it was not as though she was surprised that he didn’t want to be her friend; she had almost stabbed him to death with a dressing pin, after all.

  Strangely, the message was not tied or sealed in any way, although she could tell from the strong violet perfume that the paper was Luian’s. She waited until the hairdresser had gone out into the passageway before unrolling it.

  The letters had been made in a great hurry. It read:

  Come now.

  There was nothing else.

  Qinnitan did her best to be calm. Perhaps this was just an example of Luian in a bad mood. They had spoken only occasionally in the last weeks, and had taken tea together in their old way just once, an awkward occasion in which the subject of Jeddin was in the air the entire time but never acknowledged. The two of them had labored through a conversation of what should have been interesting gossip, but which had instead seemed like wearying labor. Yes, it was unusual for Luian to write in this hurried, informal way, but it might be evidence of some great swing of feeling—after all, Favored Luian was prone to moments of heightened emotion that might have come out of a folktale, or even from a book of love poetry. Perhaps she planned to shame Qinnitan for being a bad friend. Perhaps she planned a weeping renunciation of her own rights to Jeddin—if even Luian could be that self-deceiving. Or perhaps she just wished them to be on good terms again.

  All the same, Qinnitan found herself following the mute boy across the Seclusion with a heavy, untrusting heart.

  Qinnitan was shocked to find a huge, ugly man weeping in Luian’s bed. Several heartbeats passed before she realized it was Luian herself she was seeing, a Luian without face paint or wig or elaborate dress, wearing only a simple white nightgown damp with tears and sweat.

  “Qinnitan, Qinnitan! Praise to the gods, you’re here.” Luian threw her arms wide. Qinnitan could not help staring. It really had been Dudon under that paint, after all—the lumpy, self-absorbed boy who had walked up and down the streets muttering the Nushash prayers. Qinnitan had known it, of course, but until now she had not really seen it. “Why do you shy away from me?” Luian’s face was red and mottled, wet with tears. “Do you hate me?”

  “No!” But she could not bring herself to enter that embrace, not from fastidiousness so much as the sudden fear of swimming too close to someone who might be drowning and dangerous. “No, I don’t hate you, Luian, of course not. You’ve been very kind to me. What’s wrong?”

  It was a wail that just avoided turning into a scream. “Jeddin has been arrested!”

  Qinnitan, for the second time that day, felt as though her body was no longer her own. This time it seemed to have become a statue of cold stone in which her thoughts were trapped. She could not speak.

  “It is all so unfair!” Luian snuffled and tried to cover her face with her sleeve.

  “What . . . what are you talking about?” she finally managed.

  “He has been arrested! It is the talk of the Seclusion, as you would know if you came out to eat the evening meal instead of sitting in your ch-chambers like a h-hermit.” She wept a little more, as though at Qinnitan’s unsocial behavior.

  “Just tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t know. He’s b-been arrested. His lieutenant has been made chief of the Leopards, at least for now. It’s Vash’s doing, that horrid old man. He’s always hated our Jin . . .”

  “For the love of the gods, Luian, what are we to do?” Qinnitan’s mind was already racing, but in a weary, defeated way, as if she were a runner at the end of a long chase instead of just at the beginning.

  Luian sobered a little, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “We must not lose our heads. Of course, we must not lose our heads. We must stay calm.” She took a deep breath. “It is possible he has done something that has nothing to do with us . . . but even if they suspect the worst, he will never tell. Not Jeddin! That is why I called you here, to make you swear to say nothing, not even if they tell you he has confessed. Don’t speak a word—they will be lying! Our Jin will never say a word to Pinimmon Vash, not even . . . not even if they . . .” She burst out weeping again.

  “They would torture him? Kill him? For sneaking into the Seclusion?”

  “Oh, yes, perhaps.” Luian flapped her hands in agitation. “But that is not the worst of it.” She suddenly realized the mute boy was still standing in the doorway, waiting for further orders and she waved him away with angry gestures.

  “What is not the worst of it? Are you saying he has done worse things than proclaiming his love for one of the autarch’s wives? Than smuggling himself into the Seclusion where whole-bodied men are killed on sight? By the Bees, what other crimes did he have time to accomplish?”

  Luian stared at her for a moment, or rather this familiar yet unfamiliar man who talked like Luian stared, and then burst into tears again. “He wished to . . . to . . . to depose the Golden One. The autarch!”

  In the first lurch, Qinnitan thought her heart might never beat again. She could speak only in a strangled whisper, which was perhaps just as well. “He . . . was going to kill the autarch?”

  “No, no!” Luian looked aghast. “No, he would never raise his hand against the Golden One. He has sworn an oath!” She shook her head at Qinnitan’s foolishness. “No, he was going to kill the scotarch, Prusas the Cripple. Then the autarch would fall and . . . and somehow, Jeddin thought, he would be able to take you for his own.”

  Qinnitan could only back away, waving her arms in front of her as though to keep away some approaching beast. “The fool! The fool!”

  “But he will never tell—he will never speak a word of it!” Luian was up on her knees now, arms spread again, begging Qinnitan to come back and be enfolded. “He is so brave, our Jin, so brave . . . !”

  “Why did you help him? Why did you let him put your life and . . . and my life at risk?” Qinnitan was shaking, full of rage and terror. She wanted to run at Luian and beat that doughy, wet face with her fists. �
��How could you do that?”

  “Because I loved him.” Luian fell back against the cushions. “My Jin. I would even help him to have you. I would do anything he asked.” She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed, but she was smiling. “You understand about love. You are a woman. You were born a woman. You understand.”

  Qinnitan turned and ran out the doorway.

  Luian called after her, “Say nothing! He will never say a word, our Jin will never . . .”

  Qinnitan reached the corridor, her thoughts tumbling like pearls from a broken necklace. Was Luian right? Would Jeddin’s warrior code keep him silent even under torture?

  But it’s not fair! I didn’t do anything! I sent him away!

  She heard footsteps then—not the sandaled thump of the Seclusion’s guards, men big as oxen, but not the whispering slide of barefooted women either. She hesitated, but decided she did not want to be seen so close to Luian’s rooms. It would make it seem as though they had something to hide, meeting in the very hour of Jeddin’s arrest. If Luian was right, that Jeddin could hold his secrets even under torture, the best hope was that all should seem normal, blameless.

  Qinnitan stepped back into a shadowy cross-passage just before the approaching figure turned the corner into the main hallway; she silently thanked all the gods there was no lamp in the wall niche. She looked for somewhere to hide, but could only draw back close against a tapestry that hung on the wall. If whoever was passing gave anything more than the quickest glance, they would see her.

  She flattened herself and turned her head away, knowing that the magic of eyes invariably drew the attention of others, especially unwanted attention. Whoever it was stalked by without slowing. Qinnitan let out a silent sigh of relief. She crept to the edge of the cross-passage and saw a short, stocky shape turn into Luian’s chambers. It took her a moment to realize who had just passed.