by Tad Williams
“God only cares about His soldiers and what they do. So if someone happens to put a spear through me, don’t worry—I’ll be on my way to Heaven like a stone out of a sling. They can only kill your body, son. Your soul is beyond any mortal harm. If we survive this day, it means we may have to wait another sixty years or more before we can stand before the Lord’s great throne.”
Isgrimnur had never felt as reassured by the explanation as his bluff, pious father likely meant him to, but it had set things in a different light.
I wish it were true now, he thought. I wish we had nothing to fear but death. But fighting the Norns was different: thinking of their dark, empty eyes and their ghostly faces, the duke could not help feeling that his soul was in danger—that there were powers that could not just keep him from Heaven but also drag him away to wander in darkness forever. And Isgrimnur was by no means the only one who felt that way: a few enterprising Rimmersgard soldiers had emptied the font at an abandoned church they had passed weeks ago, in their march north, and were now selling the holy water at a brutally high price. Soldiers were rubbing it on their faces and other exposed skin, even drinking it, in the hope of somehow protecting themselves not only from the blades of the White Foxes, but even from the immortals’ very existence.
The dawn light was strong enough now to touch the weathered gray stones at the top of the ruined castle’s highest tower, a building whose odd, thorny shape and unfamiliar construction whispered that its makers had not been human. The air was chilly but not as bitter as it had been. That was something. Too much cold sapped the strength from a man’s limbs.
Isgrimnur ignored the pounding of his heart and the sourness of his stomach as he looked to his captains, then turned and pointed to the catapult men.
“Let fly,” he called. “Knock down those walls. Push the whiteskinned bastards’ faces into the mud.” He turned back to his captains. “With your men, now. We will soften them up a bit, first with stones, then with arrows. Then it will be fieldwork, men—all hard graft until we drive them out.”
The first catapult arm leaped forward with a hum and a loud clack. A stone flew through the air and knocked an edge off one of the freestanding walls.
“Soon!” Isgrimnur shouted. “Captains, keep your men at the ready. Soon we will pay them back for Naglimund and the Hayholt!”
Except for a few Sacrifice sentries and the chanting Celebrant priests around Ekisuno’s coffin, most of the Hikeda’ya survivors who crowded now into the root-tapestried hall were of Viyeki’s own Order of Builders, several score of battle-trained engineers resting quietly or moving like shadows in that ancient place, illuminated by gray morning sky, the ruin’s only roof. They could all hear the battle noises from the hill outside the tower, but could do nothing except wait to see if the Order of Sacrifice’s defense failed. If it did fail—and Viyeki thought that likely—they would all have to retreat to the tunnels, then sell their lives down in the dark in hopeless resistance against the victorious mortals. Viyeki should have been frightened at what lay before him, at the thought of never seeing his wife or home again, but he was too angry. The more he thought of it, the more he felt certain that Yaarike was right: the Order of Sacrifice as well as Akhenabi and his Singers had been foolishly overconfident, with no plan made for retreat and no attention given to any outcome except victory.
As if he had guessed what his host-foreman was thinking, Magister Yaarike made a gesture of summoning. Viyeki went to him.
“Yes, Master?”
“Let us walk a little ways apart. What I have to say—and show—is not for these others.”
Viyeki followed him to the emptiest section of the great hall. The broken spiral columns in each angle of the sixteen-sided room showed him that the tower had been built back in the era of either the fourth or fifth Royal Celebrants. He knew that even now, so many years after Viyeki had left the academy behind, Yaarike would be annoyed with him for not remembering which.
Even in his despair and fury at their situation, Viyeki could not help being excited that his master had so often singled him out on the retreat from the south, treating him almost as an equal. Magister Yaarike was more than the head of an order, although that would have been honor enough to assure a place among the tombs of the greatest; he was also the oldest member of Clan Kijada, a family that had been powerful long before the Hikeda’ya and their kin had fled the Garden and come to these lands. Viyeki’s own parents were distinguished enough, a justiciar and an admired court artist, but his Enduya clan had never been of much importance—a middling noble house whose children mostly became palace clerics or low-ranking Sacrifice officers.
But Magister Yaarike had always looked beyond Viyeki’s indifferent family heritage, and for that the host foreman was extremely grateful. He doubted any other magister of the Builders would even have given one of such middling birth a position of importance: Yaarike was one of Nakkiga’s few leaders for whom “unconventional” did not always mean “untrustworthy.”
“I wish to ask you a favor, Viyeki-tza,” Yaarike said when they were far enough from the others for private speech.
“Anything, Master.”
A slight frown. “Do not make broad promises without knowing what you are promising, Host Foreman, or what may happen in the Song of Fate after you have sworn. Remember the old saying, ‘When one finger bends, none of the others can stay perfectly straight.’”
Viyeki bowed. “Apologies, High Magister. I should have said, ‘Tell me and I will do all that I can.’”
“Better.” Yaarike turned his back on the rest of the room, shielding the two of them from view with the wide expanse of his magisterial robes, then reached into his tunic at the neck and carefully drew out something that gleamed even through his cupped hands, as though he held a live coal. “See.” Yaarike raised the object, still keeping it close to his body, and lifted away his upper hand. What he held seemed not just to reflect the sparse light but to contain some inner fire of its own: the magister’s pale face was warmed to a ruddy sunset color by its glow.
Viyeki half-closed his eyes as he leaned toward it, the object’s beauty too much to take in all at once. “It is magnificent,” he said at last. “What is it, Master? Something very unusual indeed, I think. And very old.”
Yaarike nodded. “Your eye is good, Host Foreman. It is indeed a thing of great age. Here, take it. Feel its weight.”
Viyeki accepted the chain and its dangling pendant, shielding its glow as he had seen his master do. It was surprisingly heavy, but it was typical of the high magister that he should have worn it so long without a word of complaint. The chain was thick and plain, and even in the poor light of the hall Viyeki could see it was made of some strange metal too pale to be copper but too pink to be gold or anything more ordinary. The pendant was the size of his palm, shaped like a rounded triangle hanging point-down. At its otherwise featureless center glimmered a large oval stone of a sublime red-orange color.
“What am I holding?” Viyeki asked at last.
“It is called The Heart of What Was Lost,” the magister said. “My forefather Yaaro-Mon brought it from our people’s ancient home in Venga Do’tzae when we left that place.”
“This truly came from . . . from the Garden, Master?” He had heard of such artifacts, but other than those that Queen Utuk’ku wore for festivals, he did not think he had ever seen one, let alone held it in his hands.
“The gem did, yes. You know the tales of Hamakho Wormslayer, of course.”
Viyeki nodded. He could not imagine any of their people who did not know Hamakho, the ancient hero and founder of the queen’s clan.
“When Hamakho was dying,” the magister said, “he drove his great sword Grayflame into the stone threshold of the Gatherer’s Temple in the very heart of the Garden. But when the time came to board the ships, no one could pull Hamakho’s blade from the threshold, so it was left behind, another sa
crifice to the Unbeing that claimed our homeland. But my forefather Yaaro-Mon prised this gem from the sword’s pommel. Here, hold it up and I will show you something marvelous.” So saying, Yaarike reached into the sleeve of his robe and produced a small crystal sphere known as a “cleric’s lamp.” With a brief stroke of his fingers it smoldered into light. “Come closer—I do not want to make too bright a glare and attract attention. Look through the gem with the light behind it.”
Viyeki had to turn the heavy pendant on its back and look through it sideways to see what Yaarike meant, then could not help making a small sound of astonishment. For the first time in days their situation, the fighting outside and the implacable mortal enemy, slipped from his thoughts. “It is beautiful, Master! Someone has carved the interior!” Inside the hemispheric gem some careful hand had delineated a city of tall, graceful towers standing upon the cliffs above a great ocean. With Yaarike’s lamp behind it, the whole artful scene was colored by the gem itself, so the miniature city seemed to bask under bright vermillion skies. “Who made such a wonderful thing?”
“Yaaro-Mon himself. The carving depicts great Tzo, our beloved city on the shores of the Dreaming Sea, lost with all the rest to Unbeing when the Garden fell. Like your own father, Viyeki-tza, my great-grandfather was an artist, and the voyage from the Garden to these lands was a long one. But now it serves as a reminder of all that the People left behind—all that makes us who we are.” He nodded gravely, as if in answer to some question, but Viyeki had not asked one. “I will take it back now, before one of the others notices my light and comes to intrude on us.” Yaarike accepted the heavy pendant and hung the chain around his neck again, sliding the necklace down into his tunic until it was invisible.
“I am honored that you showed it to me, Master.”
“I do nothing without reason, Host Foreman. I showed this to you because I want you to make me a promise about it, but also because I want to make a promise to you.” Yaarike shook out his robes until they hung correctly again. Even in such terrible circumstances the magister was correctly dressed at all times: despite months of hardship and bloody battle, he looked as composed as if he stood in his own home. “If I should fall here or somewhere else before we reach Nakkiga, Host Foreman Viyeki, I wish you to take the Heart of What Was Lost and carry it back to my family. It will belong to one of my children or grandchildren if they return from our defeat in the South, may the queen’s eye watch over them. It is Clan Kijada’s most precious heirloom. Will you accept this charge?”
“With pride and gratitude, Master. Your trust is an honor to my whole family.”
“Do not let it go too much to your head,” said Yaarike, amused. “If the Heart becomes your responsibility, that will be because I am dead.”
Viyeki’s face almost went slack with dismay, but he managed to conceal it. “I spoke without thinking, Master. I beg your forgiveness.”
Yaarike showed him a thin smile. “Granted. And now my promise to you. I have watched you a long time, Viyeki sey-Enduya. Over the years I have been impressed by your skills with tools and plans but even more with the way you think for yourself, which it grieves me to say is rare among our people in these fallen days. Thus, it is my wish that one day you will follow me as High Magister of the Order of Builders, and I have written a letter to the Queen’s Celebrants to say so. That letter is among my effects. If I do not survive this adventure of ours, when you take the Heart, take that letter and others you will find in my possession as well and carry them all to Nakkiga.”
Viyeki stood as if thunderstruck, unable for a moment to find his voice. “Truly, Magister? You wish me to be your successor?”
The magister showed a hint of a mocking frown. “If I did not, this would be an oddly complicated and impractical jest, Host Foreman.”
Viyeki dropped to his knees. “I will struggle all my life to live up to the honors you have heaped on me.”
“And may that life be a long and useful one, Viyeki-tza.” But before Yaarike could say more, hoarse shouts echoed from somewhere nearby, clearly the triumphant cries of Northmen. The crowd of Builders in the ruined hall murmured uneasily and pressed closer together facing the doorway, weapons raised.
“Well, it seems that the time to make dispensations for the future is over.” Yaarike took Viyeki’s elbow, and for a moment seemed to need the support. “Let us stand with the others and be ready to fight. The present is all we have—or whatever remains of it.”
Isgrimnur had done his best in just a few days to instill some kind of wider discipline into Vigri’s men. Unlike the soldiers Isgrimnur had brought back from the south, they still liked to fight in the chaotic Northern style, attacking and falling back individually or in small groups, as the mood struck them. Even with a huge advantage of numbers, this kind of brawling was a bad idea against an enemy as crafty and patient as the Norns, and the duke had set Sludig and several other trusted lieutenants to work trying to teach the rudiments of the more ordered fighting style of the Erkynguard, but within moments of the attack beginning it was clear that the lessons had not really taken. Eager for glory, young Floki and a dozen of his father’s bondsmen did not stop at the first set of broken walls to wait for the rest of their comrades, but hammered through the first Norn defenses and rushed uphill toward the round tower where the Norn commanders were presumed to be. Immediately afterward a shower of arrows sealed the way behind them.
It was impossible to know whether Floki and his followers still survived or had been cut down. Isgrimnur could only be grateful that Brindur was on the far side of the field and had not seen what happened to his son: He would have taken his best men and charged after Floki, compounding the mistake.
So this is what it comes to. I do not tell Brindur what has happened to his son for fear of something worse happening. Usires save me, command is more often a curse than a blessing. Isgrimnur certainly understood Floki and the rest—just the sight of the enemy’s rigid, corpse-pale faces was enough to raise a red mist of hate before his own eyes—but he could not concern himself with the fate of one mere man or even a dozen, not when the fate of thousands hung on his decisions.
No matter, he told himself, and waved another line of men up the hill. There will be time for regrets later. There is always time for regret.
As the day went on the sun should have burned through the fog, or at least so it seemed to Porto on the slopes below the ruins. Instead the mists grew thicker, swirling on the cold breeze until it was almost impossible to see the valley walls or even the old castle. He and Endri hung back to defend the catapult-gunners from counterattack. Black arrows whistled down from the hillside, and occasionally, when the mists cleared for a moment, Norns could be seen peering from the shadows like the unburied dead, but the White Foxes never left the cover of the ancient walls.
The catapult men kept busy, flinging stone after stone at the great tower near the top of the hill, but although they struck it time and again they could not bring it down. As the day lengthened, mists began to swallow up the scarce afternoon light entirely, so that it seemed that night would arrive long before sunset. Determined to break the resistance before dark fell, Duke Isgrimnur and his captains led a troop carrying siege ladders in an attack on the central tower, the last whole piece of the age-old castle. Now the Norns finally came out, and although Porto and Endri were not part of the struggle, it was clear that the fighting was terrible and bloody.
Then, in the middle of the assault, a great braying sound came echoing down from the ridgetop above the castle. Recognizing the horns that had blown at the commencement of battle in the morning, Porto thought a second force of Rimmersmen had made their way up into the valley heights and now meant to attack the castle from above, and his heart filled with hope.
But the blare of horns came instead from a party of scouts hurrying back from farther down the valley. The Northmen up on the ridge were shouting and waving their arms, and in only a fe
w moments Porto went from cheering to mouth-gaping silence as he listened to the growing thunder of something rushing toward them along the valley floor.
The mists began to boil, then a host of armored riders appeared out of the tatters of gray fog at the bottom of the pass, thundering up the valley toward them. The newcomers were all in white or black, riding horses and even stranger creatures.
“Good God!” Endri cried. “What are they?”
“More Norns.” Porto had been worried already, fearful of the battle and of this strange place, but now he felt his insides turning to ice. The oncoming Norn troop seemed big enough to roll through the entire valley like a floodtide, sweeping them all to death or worse.
Porto pushed past fleeing catapult engineers to grab Endri and drag him away from the great machine. All around the base of the hill Rimmersmen broke their lines and scattered, many scrambling upslope to join with their fellows who had surrounded the tower, but the Norn riders were among them in mere moments, stabbing and slashing with weird, angular blades. Some of them rode goats tall as horses, unnatural creatures with eyes yellow as sulfur; but the rider who caught Porto’s attention was the leader, a horned figure with a terrible, inhuman face. The apparition wore white plate armor and rode a huge white horse.
At his first panicked glance, as the newcomer dealt death with a long, silver-gray sword to any mortal unlucky enough to be caught within its reach, Porto thought the horned figure some kind of demon summoned by the fairies, a creature straight from Hell. But as he dragged Endri out of the path of the oncoming troop and the leader galloped by, he realized that the demonic face was only a helmet in the shape of an owl’s head.
It was all Porto could do to fend off the blows smashing down on him from above, but he held his shield up and managed to keep Endri behind him as he backed out of the path of charging Norns. He took a hard swipe to his helmet, and although it almost knocked him down, he stayed on his feet; a moment later the greater part of the Norn troop had ridden past him and up the hill into the ruins. A quick look showed him that Endri seemed to be unhurt.