Last King of Osten Ard 02 - Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  “For Kementari!” Vinyedu cried through clenched teeth, her face a mask of effort, her eyes so wide the whites showed at the bottom. “Kementari, may memory never fade!”

  And suddenly, with a long, scraping sound like the hiss of a giant serpent, the piece of column beneath her feet lurched forward, and she and Vinyedu both tumbled to the floor. The upper part of the pillar wobbled, but for a moment it seemed nothing else would happen. Tanahaya lay half on top of Vinyedu at the pillar’s base, sick with hopelessness at her failure.

  Then the top of the pillar slowly tipped out and downward. The rope went taut and yanked loose a section of the ceiling’s web of stone. Tanahaya heard a loud cracking, as if the ice on a frozen lake was parting, then more shards of stone began to fall from the ceiling.

  She had only a few moments to huddle over Vinyedu, who had struck her head in the fall and lay senseless. More deep groans and cracks came from above her. For an instant, the entire chamber seemed to shiver, then the massive stony filigree broke apart and began to fall, some of the chunks as large as banquet tables. Above the sound of shearing stone she heard screams of agony from the Hikeda’ya, and some that might have been the Pure as well. For a brief moment it seemed some massive creature had lifted the Place of Sky-Watching like a child’s toy and begun to shake it into pieces. Then something struck her and wiped away her entire world in a single burst of silent whiteness.

  * * *

  Qina hacked at the reeds with her knife, reflecting for perhaps the hundredth time on how small and inadequate the blade was for such a chore.

  “For a fellow who loves to slide on thin ice above freezing water,” she said, “I would think my beloved would not have such a problem with boats.”

  Snenneq, who because of his bulk was following her, smacked at a few reeds with an impatient wave of his hand. “They are doubtful things, boats. One moment you are upon the water and life is good. Next moment you are under it, and life is less so.”

  “So it is better to trudge and slash our way alongside the stream, enjoying all of the biting insects and none of the swift travel?”

  Snenneq gave her a sorrowful look. His insistence on approaching the ancient Sithi city on foot had been the source of discord for several days. “Which would you rather have, my bride-to-be, a swift trip or a happy Snenneq?”

  “That is not a question whose answer you wish to hear, I think.”

  She could not understand him sometimes. So brave and full of confidence when he was climbing a dangerous cliffside or sliding on ice, he became a child at the mere thought of traveling on water, or of getting into it at all. In all their summers together at Blue Mud Lake she had never seen him even wade in the shallows. He had always told her that he had other, more important things to do, but now she knew the truth. “A Singing Man cannot turn away from experiencing things,” she told him grumpily. “My father often says that.”

  “Your father is a wise man, but he cannot tame my fearful heart like he tames wild wolves. It does no good to shame me, Qina. There is no help for it. The thought of boats turns my heart to something tiny and chill.”

  It was not as though they were avoiding getting wet by sticking to the riverbanks, she reflected sourly. It had rained on and off for several days—not the warm rains they had felt earlier in the year, but the cold, heavy rains of winter—and despite her oiled leathers she felt sodden and unhappy. Little prickly things had worked their way into every crevice beneath her clothing. She could only hope they were bits of river plants and reeds and not crawling things that would bite her all night, but she was fairly certain they would prove to be the latter.

  “May we at least find a place to stop and perhaps clean ourselves and sleep?” she asked. “We have seen no sign of your stone gates yet, or bridges, or whatever it is you look for, and the sun is almost gone.”

  “You are right about that,” he said. “Look, there is Sedda in the sky, waiting for the dark to fall so she can shine.” He pointed at the ghostly white moon where it hung against the deepening blue of the afternoon. “Perhaps it is time to look for somewhere we—”

  Qina made the sign for silence. For once—perhaps because he was tired and short of breath—Snenneq did not need to be told twice. He moved up behind her and waited.

  “What do you hear?” he whispered at last, so close to her ear that she could feel his warm breath despite the cold breeze blowing down the river valley.

  She shook her head. She was not entirely certain, but thought she had heard a splashing that seemed out of keeping with the general noises of the river. These shadowy backwaters surrounded by waving reeds were exactly the sorts of places where voracious Qallipuk often lay in wait, though they had not seen one since the outward journey with Morgan.

  After standing some long moments in silence, Qina still had not heard a repetition of the noise that had startled her, and was just about to continue when she heard it again—a series of splashes, each like a fish breaking water to take a fly, but too numerous to be fish this early in the afternoon. She turned to see if Snenneq had heard it too, and could tell by his wide eyes that he had. The noise was definitely coming from the river, perhaps less than a stone’s throw from where they were now crouching in the reeds.

  “Are we being followed?” he whispered.

  “Who would walk in the water to follow us?” she murmured. “Let us move a little closer.”

  They went forward slowly on hands and knees. The liquid burble of the Aelfwent grew louder as they carefully parted the reeds and crawled toward the river at an inchworm pace that made Qina’s heart beat fast. We are like beetles, hugging the ground, she thought. If something moves above us, one of those ghants in the trees, it will be on us before we know.

  Qina only kept from flinching by her determination to stay ready to flee if necessary. She edged forward until the river’s confident, gurgling voice sounded just before her. She waited until Snenneq crawled up beside her, then cautiously spread the last curtain of reeds so she could see the river.

  Something was thrashing its way down the water just a few paces out from the bank. For an instant she thought it was another of the hideous ghants and her heart seemed to force its way up into her mouth, but this thing was different, with longer arms and a more manlike shape, although she could see in the very first moments that it was no man.

  A moment later she saw that it was not alone, either. Another long-limbed shape was pushing through the deeper water at the center of the river, not walking but swimming. And behind it came a third. The trailing two were smaller than the first, but all had the same half-shiny gray skin, lumpy as a frog’s, and they all moved through the water with weird confidence—any normal creature in the same situation would be thrashing and fighting to stay afloat in the swift, deep river.

  Snenneq took a deep, surprised breath. The leading creature seemed to hear him, and stopped to look around, standing tall against the river current with an economy of movement that was startling. It turned in their direction, looking for the source of the sound, and for a moment Qina felt sure she was seeing some terrible demon, something that her great-grandmother might have told her about during a long winter’s night. Its face was nightmarish, a pair of bulging, shiny black eyes and then a noseless expanse of gray skin. The mouth was almost circular and red against the otherwise gray skin like a bloody wound. The thing stared toward the reeds where they hid and let out a strange wet hooting noise, like an owl drowning in a rain barrel. Then it turned back against the current and began half-swimming, half walking along the bottom again, leading the two smaller creatures forward until they all vanished from sight around a bend in the river.

  Qina was shaking so that she could barely support herself, even on hands and knees.

  “Daughter of the Mountains watch over us!” Snenneq said quietly, half in fright, half in amazement, after some time had passed. “Those were kilpa or I am a croohok!”


  “Kilpa?” Qina could only shake her head. “I have not traveled or read as much as you, beloved, but kilpa are creatures of the southern oceans. How could they be here, in the north—and in a river?”

  “I do not know,” Snenneq said. “But I have seen pictures in your father’s scrolls and read the tales of many travelers. I know what I know.” A little of his stubbornness had returned. “Those were kilpa. They should not be here, like the ghant should not have been here. But that does not change what is.”

  “But why? What is happening that these things are leaving their homes and coming here?”

  “I do not know.” Snenneq let out a long breath. “I cannot even make a guess, my only love. But it is clear we must be careful every step of the way, and even within the ruined Sithi city itself. Only the ancestors can guess what other horrors we will encounter.”

  “I am shaking,” she said. “I want to find a safe place—far from here, at least for the night. I cannot go farther, and I do not want to face darkness beside this river.”

  “Neither do I, my beloved,” Snenneq said. He gave her a sickly smile. “Perhaps now my dislike of the water does not seem quite so foolish, eh?”

  She had no answer to that.

  * * *

  In the first instants, as he saw Tanahaya scramble up the column and throw her rope over the stone web that was all that remained of the domed ceiling, Morgan was horrified, thinking she meant to escape and leave him behind. Then, when she began to climb back down again, he thought she was going to take him with her after all, and he felt a momentary flush of hope. Then she began tying off the rope and hope disappeared in a cloud of utter confusion.

  By the time he understood what his companion was actually trying to do, it was too late to help her: the other Sitha, the grim mistress of the Pure, had seen Tanahaya’s purpose and climbed up to add her strength. All Morgan could do was stand in the rainy chaos of the Place of Sky-Watching, wondering what would happen next as Sithi and Norns fought and died all around him.

  And then it happened.

  At first only a few pieces of the roof fell, though they were all large enough to cause serious harm. Morgan pushed himself back against the curving walls of the great chamber and watched in fearful astonishment as the entire complicated stone web of the domed ceiling rippled like a bedcover being shaken out by Hayholt chambermaids. The middle of the ceiling shuddered as a vast, slow wave passed through the whole thing. The center drooped, then the whole branching structure came down with a noise like the end of the world, crushing or tipping the columns beneath, obliterating the ferns and small trees that had grown beneath the broken dome, stones piling on top of each other as they collapsed. Morgan did not even hear the cries of those caught beneath it because the noise of the roof falling was like the continuous roar of a giant.

  A single piece of stone bigger than a fist spun out of the falling stones and hit him in the chest, knocking him back against the wall and dropping him to his hands and knees. He fought for breath, blackness closing around him for long moments. When he could see again, it was over.

  The great room was as silent as if a spell had been cast over it. All but a few of the torches in the chamber had blown out at once. The lattice of stone that only moments before had curved overhead had now tumbled in shards of angled stone, most of them bigger than he was. At first he could see no living thing anywhere, and could not even guess where in the wreckage Tanahaya might lie buried, but then he saw half a dozen more dark shapes slipping into the great room on the far side of the massive pile of rubble. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered as quickly as he was able through the unblocked door behind him.

  Every childhood aspiration to heroism, every impulse of bravery, urged him to go back and find Tanahaya, but with all that stone fallen on her Morgan knew she must be dead. He could hear the voices of the Norns rising, their language as liquidly unintelligible as the Sithi’s speech but full of hisses and sounds sharp as knives. Terror overwhelmed him. He was alone again. The only person who had cared for him was gone. His only choice was to run from those soulless, white-skinned things.

  A few torches still remained in their sconces, illuminating the curving hallway. He came to a place where the passages split, and for a moment thought to take the one that seemed more level, thinking he could find his way out of the city and into the forest. But he could hear the White Foxes calling to each other from in front now as well as behind, so he plunged down the sloping track that led into the deeper reaches of the city. His eyes were dry, but a powerful despair had gripped him; his legs felt weak as if he were stumbling through a foul dream.

  Another crossing appeared before him, then another, and each time he could only choose and hurry on, with no way to guess where he was going and no hope but to find somewhere to hide from the pursuing Norns. In the upper part of the city the walls had all been carved in fine detail, but now the passages were little more than rocky gouges, and instead of stunning animal shapes the walls were decorated with grotesqueries, crude things with no faces, faces with no eyes, as though he was fleeing from sense into madness. As the tunnels twined and turned, it almost seemed he was being carried helplessly through the interminable gut of some great serpent.

  Swallowed, he thought, and it echoed over and over in his head. Swallowed. Eaten.

  Midway down a corridor he thought he heard new voices just ahead of him, though the air currents were strange in the forking tunnels and he could not be sure. Still, he stopped and turned back, then picked a cross-corridor that seemed to lead away from the harsh whispers. But a moment later he heard a soft sound, a patter so faint that it might have been falling leaves, if leaves fell beneath the ground, and he stopped short, his sword Snakesplitter wavering in his hand as he tried to decide what to do.

  A moment later a cloaked shape came around a bend in the corridor—one of the Norns, holding a strange bronze sword with a serrated edge like the teeth of a wolf. It was too late to run: Morgan could only shrink back against the wall and lift Snakesplitter in front of him. He could see the pale face and the empty black eyes in the depths of the hood as the Norn soldier saw him and hurried forward, drawing back his blade, and Morgan prepared for a fight to the death, most likely his own. But in that moment, as silent prayers of regret for all his foolish mistakes fluttered through his head, Morgan’s attacker abruptly staggered to a halt and dropped his sword. The Norn reached up with suddenly clumsy arms, trying to dislodge something from the back of his neck, his pale face a mask of bewilderment, then he sank to his knees, blood drooling from his lips.

  Morgan did not wait to learn what had happened, but turned and dashed back up the corridor. Before he could reach the cross-passage something struck the back of his head, filling his skull with sparking fire, and he fell.

  * * *

  • • •

  Morgan did not wake so much as float up from dark emptiness into confusion. It was too dark to see anything, but he could feel hard stone against his shoulder on one side. He was leaning back against something complicated that was more yielding than stone, but his head was throbbing and he could only lie helplessly in place, trying to find his thoughts again to reassemble them in some meaningful order.

  Something cold slipped against his throat just below his jaw and pressed until he could feel how sharp it was. Morgan let out a little grunt of astonishment and pain. The blade at his neck pressed even tighter.

  “Do not speak,” said a voice in his ear, cold and harsh and very oddly accented. “Others coming.”

  He heard voices above and outside the place where he lay, and realized he was in a sort of narrow cave or crevice. Soft footfalls echoed mere inches away, and Morgan thought that if he had been sitting upright he could have reached out and grabbed at the ankles of whoever was passing this hiding-spot, but instead he lay as still as he could manage until the steps faded again—quickly, because they had been so q
uiet to begin with.

  Whatever was happening, at least the one with a blade at his throat hadn’t killed him outright. “I won’t give you away,” Morgan whispered.

  “Silence,” was the only reply. The blade stayed snug against his throat.

  More time passed. He could tell now that he was half-sitting on whoever held him captive, and that his captor was no bigger than he was. “Who are you?” he asked at last. “What do you want of me?”

  He could feel warm breath against his cheek. “I am Nezeru, once a Sacrifice.” It was a woman’s voice, but even as he realized it he understood that she was also a Norn, and his heart flopped in despair like a dying fish. “Now Hikeda’ya hunt me. Zida’ya hunt me. All want me dead.”

  “But I’m not either of those,” he told her. “I’m a mortal.”

  “That is why you live,” she said, and pushed the knife against his throat until he felt its bite again. “All want me dead. Hikeda’ya—my enemies. Zida’ya—my enemies. And you will be . . .” She went silent for a moment, searching for a word.

  “Your ally?”

  “No. Shield.” She kept the knife against the base of his jaw as she moved out from under him, then dragged him away from the opening with surprising strength, pulling him deeper into the blackness of her hiding place. “To kill me, first they must kill you. That way I take more with me before I die.”

  Afterword

  Sir Zakiel of Garwynswold was a hard man. The lines of his stern face might have been sculpted from dense stone. His bearing was always rigid and his eyes were always clear. But now, Tiamak thought, the acting constable looked as though something had eroded him from within. His skin looked almost gray, and his eyes were red around the lids.