by Tad Williams
“They talked, young one, but about what I cannot say. They talked the night away, but I was on deck, with the sea and my songs. Besides, it is not my place to spy on the ship’s owner. Unless he wrongly endangers the ship, it is not my place to do anything at all except that which I was born for: to sing the kilpa down.”
“But you brought me Cadrach’s letter.” Miriamele looked around to make sure the passageway door was closed. “That is not something Aspitis would want you to do.”
For the first time, Gan Itai’s golden eyes showed a trace of discontent. “That is true, but I was not harming the ship.” A look of defiance crept onto the lined face. “We are Niskies, after all, not slaves. We are a free people.”
She and Miriamele looked at each other for a moment. The princess was the first to look away. “I don’t even care what they were talking about, anyway. I’m sick and tired of men and their wars and arguments. I just want to go away and be left alone—to climb into a hole somewhere and never come out.”
The Niskie did not reply, only watched her.
“Still, I will never escape across fifty leagues of open water.” The uselessness of it all pulled at her, making her feel heavy with despair. “Will we make land anytime soon?”
“We will stop at some of the islands in Firannos Bay. Spenit, perhaps Risa—I am not sure which ones Aspitis has chosen.”
“Maybe I can escape somehow. But I’m sure I will be heavily guarded.” The leaden feeling seemed to grow stronger. Then an idea flickered. “Do you ever get off the ship, Gan Itai?”
The sea-watcher looked at her appraisingly. “Seldom. But there is a family of Tinukeda’ya—of Niskies—at Risa. The Injar clan. Once or twice I have visited them. Why do you ask?”
“Because if you can leave the ship, you could take a message for me. Give it to someone who might get it to my Uncle Josua.”
Gan Itai frowned. “Certainly I will do it, but I am not sure that it will ever get to him. It would be a piece of long luck.”
“What choice do I have?” Miriamele sighed. “Of course it’s foolish. But maybe it would help, and what else can I do?” Tears abruptly welled in her eyes. She wiped them away angrily. “No one will be able to do anything, even if they want to. But I have to try.”
Gan Itai stared in alarm. “Do not cry, child. It makes me feel cruel for having dragged you out of your hiding place in the hold.”
Miriamele waved a tear-dampened hand. “Someone would have found us.”
The Niskie leaned forward. “Perhaps your companion would have some idea of who to give your note to, or some special thing that could be written in it. He seems to me a wise man.”
“Cadrach?”
“Yes. After all, he knew the true name of the Navigator’s Children.” Her voice was grave but proud, as though knowing her people’s name was evidence of godlike wisdom.
“But how . . .” Miriamele bit off the rest of her question. Of course Gan Itai knew how to get to Cadrach. She had already brought a note from him. But Miriamele was not quite sure that she wanted to see the monk. He had caused her so much pain, sparked so much anger.
“Come.” Gan Itai rose from the pallet, climbing to her feet as easily as a young girl. “I will take you to him.” She squinted out the narrow window. “They will not bring him food for almost another hour. That will leave plenty of time for a pleasant conversation.” She grinned, then moved quickly across the small room. “Can you climb in that dress?”
The Niskie slid her fingers in behind a board on the bare wall and pulled. A panel, so closely fitted that it had been all but invisible, came free; Gan Itai set it down on the floor. A dark hole lined with pitch-smeared beams showed where the panel had been.
“Where does it lead?” Miriamele asked, surprised.
“Nowhere, particularly,” Gan Itai said. She clambered through and stood up, so that only her thin brown legs and the hem of her robe showed in the opening. “It is merely a way to get quickly to the hold or the deck. A Niskie-hole, as it is called.” Her muffled voice had a slight echo.
Miriamele leaned in behind her. A ladder stood against the far wall of the tiny cubicle. At the top of the confining walls, a narrow crawlspace extended in both directions. The princess shrugged and followed the Niskie up the ladder.
The passageway at the top was too low to be negotiated except on hands and knees, so Miriamele knotted the end of her skirt up out of her way, then crawled after Gan Itai. As the light of the Niskie’s room disappeared behind them, the darkness pulled in closer, so that Miriamele could only follow her nose and the quiet sound of Gan Itai crawling. The beams creaked as the ship flexed. Miriamele felt as though she were creeping down the gullet of some great sea beast.
Some twenty cubits from the ladder, Gan Itai stopped. Miriamele bumped into her from behind.
“Careful, child.” The Niskie’s face was revealed in a growing wedge of light as she pried up another panel. When Gan Itai had peered through, she beckoned Miriamele forward. After the darkness of the crawlspace, the dim hold seemed a cheerful, sunlit place, though all that lit it was a propped hatchway at the far end.
“We must keep our voices low,” the sea-watcher said. The hold was stacked nearly to the rafters with sacks and barrels, all tied down so they would not roll free in high seas. Against one wall, as though he, too, were restrained against capricious tides, was the huddled figure of the monk. A heavy length of chain was at his ankles; another depended from his wrists.
“Learned one!” called the Niskie. Cadrach’s round head came up slowly, like a beaten dog’s. He stared up into the shadowed rafters.
“Gan Itai?” His voice was hoarse and weary. “Is that you?”
Miriamele felt her heart plummet in her breast. Mercieful Aedon, look at him! Chained like a poor dumb brute!
“I have come to talk to you,” the Niskie whispered. “Are the warders coming soon?”
Cadrach shook his head. His chains rattled quietly. “I think not. They never hurry to feed me. Did you give my note to ... to the lady?”
“I did. She is here to talk to you.”
The monk started as if frightened. “What? You brought her here?” He lifted his clanking shackles before his face. “No! No! Take her away!”
Gan Itai pulled Miriamele forward. “He is very unhappy. Speak to him.”
Miriamele swallowed. “Cadrach?” she said at last. “Have they hurt you?”
The monk slid down the wall, becoming little more than a heap of shadows. “Go away, Lady. I cannot bear to see you, or to have you see me. Go away.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Speak to him!” Gan Itai hissed.
“I am sorry they have done this to you.” She felt tears coming. “Whatever has happened between us, I would never have wished to see you tormented this way.”
“Ah, Lady, what a dreadful world this is.” The monk’s voice had a sobbing catch to it. “Will you not take my advice and flee? Please.”
Miriamele shook her head in frustration, then realized he could not see her up in the shadow of the hatchway. “How, Cadrach? Aspitis will not let me out of his sight. Gan Itai said she would take away a letter from me and try to get it to someone who will deliver it—but deliver it to whom? Who would help me? I do not know where Josua is. My mother’s family in Nabban have turned traitor. What can I do?”
The dark shape that was Cadrach slowly stood up. “Pelippa’s Bowl, Miriamele. As I told you in my letter. There may be someone there who can help.” He did not sound very convinced.
“Who? Who could I send it to?”
“Send it to the inn. Draw a quill pen on it, a quill in a circle. That will get it to someone who can help, if anyone useful is there.” He lifted a weighted arm. “Please go away, Princess. After all that has happened, I want only to be left alone. I do not wish to have you see my shame any longer.”
Miriamele felt her tears overspill her eyes. It took a few moments before she could talk. “Do you want anything?”
/> “A jug of wine. No, a wineskin: it will be easier to hide. That’s all I need. Something to make a darkness within me to match the darkness around me.” His laughter was painful to hear. “And you safely escaped. That, too.”
Miriamele turned her face away. She could not bear to look at the monk’s huddled form any longer. “I’m so sorry,” she said, then hurriedly pushed past Gan Itai and retreated a few cubits up the crawlspace. The conversation had made her feel ill.
The Niskie said some last words to Cadrach, then lowered the panel and plunged the tiny passageway into darkness once more. Her thin form pushed past, then she led Miriamele back to the ladder.
The princess was no sooner back into daylight when a fresh bout of sobbing came over her. Gan Itai watched uncomfortably for a while, but when Miriamele could not stop crying, the Niskie put a spidery arm around her.
“Stop, now, stop,” she crooned. “You will be happy again.”
Miriamele untied her skirt, then lifted the corner and wiped her eyes and nose. “No I won’t. Nor will Cadrach. Oh, God in Heaven, I am so lonely!” Another storm of weeping came over her.
Gan Itai held her until she stopped crying.
“It is cruel to bind any creature that way.” The Niskie’s voice was tight with something like anger. Miriamele, her head in Gan Itai’s lap, was too drained to reply. “They bound Ruyan Vé, did you know? The father of our people, the great Navigator. When he would have taken the ships and set sail once more, they seized him in their anger and bound him in chains.” The Niskie rocked back and forth. “And then they burned the ships.”
Miriamele sniffled. She did not know who Gan Itai was talking about, nor did she care at this moment.
“They wanted us to be slaves, but we Tinukeda’ya are a free people.” Gan Itai’s voice became almost a chant, a sorrowful song. “They burned our ships—burned the great ships that we could never build again in this new land, and left us stranded here. They said it was to save us from Unbeing, but that was a lie. They only wanted us to share their exile—we, who did not need them! The Ocean Indefinite and Eternal could have been our home, but they took our ships away and bound mighty Ruyan. They wanted us to be their servants. It is wrong to put anyone in chains who has done you no harm. Wrong.”
Gan Itai continued to hold Miriamele in her arms as she rocked back and forth and murmured of terrible injustices. The sun fell lower in the sky. The small room began to fill with shadow.
Miriamele lay in her darkened cabin and listened to the Niskie’s faint song. Gan Itai had been very upset. Miriamele had not thought the sea-watcher held such strong feelings, but something about Cadrach’s captivity and the princess’ own tears had brought up a great outpouring of grief and anger.
Who were the Niskies, anyway? Cadrach called them Tinukeda’ya—Ocean Children, Gan Itai had said. Where did they come from? Some distant island, perhaps. Ships on a dark ocean, the Niskie had said, from somewhere far away. Was that the way of the world, that everyone longed to go back to some place or some time that was lost?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Lady Marya? Are you awake?”
She did not answer. The door slowly swung open. Miriamele cursed herself inwardly: she should have bolted it.
“Lady Marya?” The earl’s voice was soft. “Are you ill? I missed you at supper.”
She stirred and rubbed her eyes, as if awakening from sleep. “Lord Aspitis? I’m sorry, I am not feeling well. We will talk tomorrow, if I feel better.”
He came on cat-soft feet and sat down on the edge of her bed. His long fingers traced her cheek. “But this is terrible. What ails you? I shall have Gan Itai look to you. She is well-versed in healing; I would trust her past any leech or apothecary.”
“Thank you, Aspitis. That would be kind. Now I should probably go back to sleep. I’m sorry to be such poor company.”
The earl seemed in no hurry to leave. He stroked her hair. “You know, Lady, I am truly sorry for my rough words and ways of the other evening. I have come to care deeply for you, and I was upset at the idea that you might leave me so soon. After all, we share a deep lovers’ bond, do we not?” His fingertips slid down to her neck, making the skin tighten and sending a chill through her.
“I fear I am not in good condition to talk about such things now, Lord. But I forgive you your words, which I know were hasty and not heartfelt.” She turned her eyes to his face for a moment, trying to judge his thoughts. His eyes seemed guileless, but she remembered Cadrach’s words, as well as Gan Itai’s description of the gathering he had hosted, and the chill returned, bringing a tremor that she was hard-pressed to conceal.
“Good,” he said. “Very good. I am glad you understand that. Hasty words. Exactly.”
Miriamele decided to test that courtier’s sincerity of his. “But of course, Aspitis, you must understand my own unhappiness. My father, you see, does not know where I am. Perhaps already the convent will have sent word to him that I did not arrive. He will be sick with worry. He is old, Aspitis, and I fear for his health. You can see why I feel I must forsake your hospitality, whether I wish to or not.”
“Of course,” said the earl. Miriamele felt a flicker of hope. Could she have misread him after all? “It is cruel to let your father worry. We will send him word as soon as we next make landfall—on Spenit Island, I think. And we will give him the good news.”
She smiled. “He will be very happy to hear I am well.” “Ah.” Aspitis returned her smile. His long, fine jaw and clear eyes could have served as a sculptor’s model for one of the great heroes of the past. “But there will be more good news than just that. We will tell him that his daughter is to marry one into of Nabban’s Fifty Families!”
Miriamele’s smile faltered. “What?”
“Why, we will tell him of our coming marriage!” Aspitis laughed with delight. “Yes, Lady, I have thought and thought, and although your family is not quite so elevated as mine—and Erkynlandish, as well—I have decided for love’s sake to spit in the face of tradition. We will be married when we return to Nabban.” He took her cold hand in his warm grip. “But you do not look as happy as I would have hoped, beautiful Marya.”
Miriamele’s mind was racing, but as in a dream of fearful pursuit, she could think of nothing but escape. “I ... I am overwhelmed, Aspitis.”
“Ah, well, I suppose that is understandable.” He stood, then bent over to kiss her. His breath smelled of wine, his cheek of perfume. His mouth was hard against hers for a moment before he pulled away. “After all, it is rather sudden, I know. But it would be worse than ungentlemanly of me to desert you ... after all we have shared. And I have come to love you, Marya. The flowers of the north are different than those of my southern home, but their scent is just as sweet, the blossoms just as beautiful.”
He stopped in the doorway. “Rest and sleep well, Lady. We have much to talk about. Good night.” The door fell shut behind him. Miriamele immediately leaped from her bed and drove home the bolt, then crawled back under her blanket, overcome by a fit of shivering.
3
East of the World
“I’m a knight now, aren’t I?” Simon ran his hand through the thick fur of Qantaqa’s neck. The wolf eyed him impassively.
Binabik looked up from his sheaf of parchment and nodded. “By an oath to your god and your prince.” The troll turned back to Morgenes’ book once more. “That is seeming to me to fit the knightly particulars.”
Simon stared across the tiled expanse of the Fire Garden, trying to think of how to put his thought into words. “But . . . but I don’t feel any different. I’m a knight—a man! So why do I feel like the same person?”
Caught up in something he was reading, Binabik took a moment to respond. “I am sorry, Simon,” he said at last. “I am not being a good friend for listening. Please say what you were saying once more.”
Simon bent and picked up a piece of loose stone, then flung it skittering across the tiles and int
o the surrounding undergrowth. Qantaqa bounded after it. “If I’m a knight and a grown man, why do I feel like the same stupid scullion?”
Binabik smiled. “It is not only you who has ever had such feelings, friend Simon. Because a new season has passed, or because a recognition has been given, still it is not changing a person very much on the inside. You were made Josua’s knight because of bravery you showed on Urmsheim. If you were changing, it was not at the ceremony yesterday, but on the mountain that it was happening.” He patted Simon’s booted foot. “Did you not say that you had learned something there, and also from the spilling of the dragon’s blood?”
“Yes.” Simon squinted at Qantaqa’s tail, which waved above the heather like a puff of smoke.
“People, both trolls and lowlanders, are growing in their own time,” said the little man, “—not when someone says that it is so. Be content. You will always be extremely Simon-like, but still I have been seeing much change in the months we have been friends.”
“Really?” Simon paused in mid-toss.
“Truth. You are becoming a man, Simon. Let it happen at the swiftness that it needs, and do not be worrying yourself.” He rattled the papers. “Listen, I want to read something to you.” He ran a stubby finger along the lines of Morgenes’ spidery handwriting. “I am grateful beyond telling to Strangyeard, that he brought this book out of the ruin of Naglimund. It is our last tie to that great man, your teacher.” His finger paused. “Ah. Here. Morgenes writes of King Prester John:“. . . If he was touched by divinity, it was most evident
in his comings and goings, in his finding
the correct place to be at the most suitable time,
and profiting thereby . . .”
“I read that part,” Simon said with mild interest.
“Then you will have noticed its significantness for our efforts,” the troll replied.
“For John Presbyter knew that in both war and