To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1

by Tad Williams

  After a little consideration, she decided to leave the door alone and take her chances with accidental discovery. She took a stub of candle from her cloak and held it to the flame of Gan Itai’s lamp, then climbed through and pulled the panel closed behind her. She held the candle-end in her teeth as she climbed the ladder, saying a silent prayer of thanks that her hair was wet and still cropped short. She hastily dismissed an image of what might happen if someone’s hair caught fire in a narrow place like this.

  When she reached the hatchway, she dripped some wax on the passageway floor to hold the candle, then lifted the trapdoor and peered through the crack. The hold was dark—a good sign. She doubted that any of the sailors would be walking around among the precariously stacked barrels without light.

  “Cadrach!” she called softly. “It’s me! Miriamele!”

  There was no reply, and for an instant she was sure that she had come too late, that the monk had died here in the darkness. She swallowed down the clutch in her throat, retrieved her candle, then climbed carefully down the ladder fixed to the sill of the hatchway. It ended short of the ground, and when she dropped the remaining distance she struck sooner than she expected to. The candle popped from her hand and rolled across the wooden flooring. She scrambled after it, burning herself with a panicky grab, but it did not go out.

  Miriamele took a deep breath. “Cadrach?”

  Still unanswered, she snaked her way through the leaning piles of ship’s stores. The monk was slumped on the floor beside the wall, head sunken on his breast. She grabbed his shoulder and shook, making his head wobble.

  “Wake up, Cadrach.” He moaned but did not awaken. She shook harder.

  “Ah, gods,” he slurred, “that smearech fleann ... that cursed book ...” He flailed as if caught in a terrible nightmare. “Close it! Close it! I wish I had never opened it....” His words fell away into unintelligible mumbling.

  “Curse you, wake up!” she hissed.

  His eyes opened at last. “My ... my lady?” His confusion was pitiable. Some of his substance had withered away during his captivity: his skin hung loosely on the bones of his face and his eyes peered blearily out of deep sockets. He looked like an old man. Miriamele took his hand, wondering a little that she should do so without hesitation. Wasn’t this the same tosspot traitor she had pushed into the Bay of Emettin and hoped to watch drown? But she knew he was not. The man before her was a miserable creature who had been chained and beaten—and not for any real crime, but only for running away, for trying to save his own life. Now she wished she had run with him. Miriamele pitied the monk, and remembered that he had not been entirely bad. In some ways, he had even been a friend.

  Miriamele suddenly felt ashamed of her callousness. She had been so certain about things, so sure about what was right and what was wrong that she had been ready to let him drown. It was hard to look at Cadrach now, his eyes wounded and frightened, his head bobbing above the stained robe. She squeezed his cold hand and said: “Don’t fear—I will return in a moment.” She took her candle and went off to search the ranked barrels for Gan Itai’s promised tools.

  She squinted at faded markings as footsteps echoed back and forth overhead. The ship rolled abruptly, creaking in the grasp of the storm’s first winds. At last she found a barrel helpfully marked “Otillenaes.” When she had also located a pry-bar that hung near the ladder, she unlidded the cask. A treasure trove of tools were packed inside, all neatly wrapped in leather and floating in oil like exotic supper birds. She bit her lip and forced herself to work calmly and carefully, unwrapping the oozing parcels one at a time until she found a chisel and a heavy mallet. After wiping them off on the inside of her cloak, she took them back to Cadrach.

  “What are you doing, Lady? Do you plan to favor me with a blow from that pig-slaughterer? It would be a true favor.”

  She frowned, fixing the candle to the floor with hot wax. “Don’t be a fool. I’m going to cut your chains. Gan Itai is helping us to escape.”

  The monk stared at her for a moment, his pouchy gray eyes surprisingly intent. “You must know that I cannot walk, Miriamele.”

  “If I have to, I will carry you. But we will not go until tonight. That will give you a chance to rub some life back into your legs. Perhaps you can even stand up and try pacing a bit, if you are quiet about it.” She pulled at the chain that hung from his ankles. “I suppose I must cut this on each side or you will rattle when you walk, like a tinker.” Cadrach’s smile, she guessed, was mostly for her sake.

  The long chain between his leg irons ran through one of the tying-bolts in the floor of the hold. Miriamele pulled one side taut, then set the chisel’s sharp blade against the nearest link to the shackle. “Can you hold it for me?” she asked. “Then I can use both hands on the hammer.”

  The monk nodded and clutched the spike of iron. Miriamele hefted the mallet a few times to get the feel of it, then raised it above her head.

  “You look like Deanagha of the Brown Eyes,” he whispered.

  Miriamele was trying to listen to the creaking rhythm of the boat’s movement, hoping to find a noisy moment in which to strike. “Like who?”

  “Deanagha of the Brown Eyes.” He smiled. “Rhynn’s youngest daughter. When his enemies surrounded him and he lay sick, she pounded on his bronze cauldron with her spoon until the other gods came to rescue him.” He stared at her. “Brave she was.”

  The boat rolled and the timbers gave out a long, shuddering groan.

  “My eyes are green,” Miriamele said, then brought the mallet down as hard as she could. The clank seemed loud as thunder. Certain that Aspitis and his men must now be racing toward the hold, she looked down. The chisel had bitten deep, but the chain was still uncut.

  “Curse it,” she breathed and paused to listen for a long, anxious moment. There seemed no unusual sounds from the deck above, so she lifted the mallet, then had a thought. She took off her cloak and folded it over, then folded it once more. She slid this cushion beneath the chain. “Hold this,” she ordered, and struck again.

  It took several cuts, but the cloak helped soften the noise, though it also made striking a hard blow more difficult. At last the iron link parted. Miriamele then pounded laboriously through the other side as well, and even managed to sever one side of Cadrach’s wrist chains before she had to stop. Her arms felt as though they were afire; she could no longer lift the heavy mallet above her shoulder. Cadrach tried, but was too weak. After he had struck at it several times without making an appreciable dent, he handed her back the hammer.

  “This will be sufficient,” he said. “One side is enough to free me, and I can wrap the chain about my arm so it will make no noise. The legs were what mattered, and they are free.” He wiggled his feet carefully to demonstrate. “Do you think you could find some dark cloth in this hold?”

  Miriamele looked at him curiously, but got up and began a weary search. At last she returned. Aspitis’ knife, which had been tied to her leg with a scarf, was in her hand. “There’s nothing around. If you really need it, we’ll take it off the hem of my cloak.” She kneeled and held the blade over the dark fabric. “Shall I?”

  Cadrach nodded. “I will use it to tie the chains together. That way they will hold unless someone pulls them hard.” He exerted the effort to grin. “In this light, my guards will never notice that one of the links is made of soft Erkynlandish wool.”

  When they had done this, and when all the tools had been wrapped and replaced, Miriamele picked up her candle and stood. “I will be back for you at midnight, or just before.”

  “How is Gan Itai planning to work this little trick?” There was a flavor of his old ironic tone.

  “She has not told me. Probably she thinks it’s best I know little, so I will worry less.” Miriamele shook her head. “There she has failed.”

  “It is not likely that we will get off the boat, nor that we will get far even if we do.” The painful effort of the last hour showed in Cadrach’s every halting moveme
nt.

  “Not likely at all,” she agreed. “But Aspitis knows that I am the High King’s daughter and he is forcing me to marry him, so I do not care what is likely or unlikely.” She turned to go.

  “No, Lady, I imagine you do not. Until tonight, then.”

  Miriamele paused. Somewhere in the hour just passed, as the chains were falling away, an unspoken understanding had arisen between the two of them ... a sort of forgiveness.

  “Tonight,” she said. She took the candle and made her way back up the ladder, leaving the monk sitting in darkness once more.

  The hours of evening seemed to inch past. Miriamele lay in her cabin listening to the mounting storm, wondering where she would be this time tomorrow.

  The winds grew stronger. The Eadne Cloud heaved and rolled. When the earl’s page came and rapped at the door to say that his master bid her come to a late supper, she claimed illness from the restless seas and declined the invitation. A while later, Aspitis himself arrived.

  “I am sorry to hear you are sick, Miriamele.” He lounged in the doorway, loose-jointed as any predator. “Perhaps you would like to sleep in my cabin tonight, so you will not be alone with your misery?”

  She wanted to laugh at such hideous irony, but resisted. “I am sick, Lord. When you marry me, I will do what you say. Leave me this last night to myself.”

  He seemed inclined to argue, but shrugged instead. “As you wish. I have had a long evening, preparing for the storm. And, as you say, we still have our entire lives before us.” He smiled, a line thin as a knife-slash. “So, good night.” He stepped forward and kissed her cold cheek, then stepped to the small table and pinched the wick of her lamp, snuffing the flame. “This will be a rough night. You do not want to start a fire.”

  He walked out, pulling the door closed behind him. As soon as his steps had receded down the passageway, she leaped from her bed to make sure he had not somehow locked her in. The door swung open freely, revealing the dark corridor. Even with the upper hatchway closed, the wail of the wind was loud, full of wild power. She closed the door and went back to her bed.

  Propped upright, swaying to the ship’s powerful movements, Miriamele drifted in and out of a light, restless sleep, surfacing with a start from time to time, the rags of dream still clinging, then hastening to the passageway and up the ladder to sneak a look at the sky. Once she had to wait so long for the moon to reappear in the stormclouded heavens that, still not completely awake, she feared that it had vanished altogether, chased away somehow by her father and Pryrates. When it appeared at last, a winking eye behind the murk, and she saw that it was still far from the place of which the Niskie had spoken, Miriamele glided back to her bed.

  It even seemed that once, as she lay half-awake, Gan Itai opened the door and peered in at her. But if it was truly her, the Niskie said nothing; a moment later, the doorway was empty. Soon after, in a lull between gusts of wind, Miriamele heard the sea-watcher’s song keening across the night.

  When she could wait no longer, Miriamele rose. She pulled out the bag she had hidden underneath the bed and removed her monk’s clothing, which she had put away in favor of the lovely dresses Aspitis had provided. After donning the breeches and shirt and belting the loose robe close about her waist, she donned her old boots, then threw a few select articles into the bag. Aspitis’ knife, which she had worn that afternoon, she now thrust under her belt. Better to have it available than to worry about discovery. If she met someone between here and Gan Itai’s cabin, she would have to try and hide the blade under the robe’s wide sleeve.

  A quick inspection proved the corridor empty. Miriamele tucked her sack under her arm and moved as silently as she could down the passageway, aided in her stealth by the rain that was beating down on the deck above her head like a drum struck by a thousand hands. The Niskie’s song, rising above the storm noises, had a weird, unsettled quality, far less pleasant to the ear than usual. Perhaps it was the Niskie’s obvious unhappiness coming out in her song, Miriamele thought. She shook her head, disturbed.

  Even a brief glance out through the hatchway left her drenched. The torrential rains were being swept almost sideways by the wind, and the few lamps still burning in their hoods of translucent horn banged and capered against the masts. The Eadne Cloud’s crewmen, wound in flapping cloaks, hurried about the decks like panicked apes. It was a scene of wild confusion, but even so, Miriamele felt her heart grow heavy. Every seaman aboard seemed to be on deck and hard at work, eyes alert for a tearing sail or a flapping rope. It would be impossible for her and Cadrach to sneak from one side of the boat to the other unobserved, let alone lower the heavy landing boat and escape over the side. Whatever Gan Itai had planned, the storm would surely bring the scheme to ruin.

  The moon, though almost completely obscured, looked to be near the place that the Niskie had indicated. As Miriamele squinted into the rain, a pair of cursing sailors approached the hatchway dragging a heavy coil of rope. She quickly lowered the door and scrambled back down the ladder, then hurried along the passage to Gan Itai’s room and the Niskie-hole that led to Cadrach.

  The monk was awake and waiting. He seemed a little improved, but his movements were still weak and slow. As Miriamele wrapped the length of chain around his arm and secured it with the strips from her cloak, she worried about how she would manage to get him across the deck to the landing boat unobserved.

  When she had finished, Cadrach lifted his arm and wagged it bravely. “It is almost no weight at all, Lady.”

  She stared at the heavy links, frowning. He was lying, of course. She could see the strain in his face and his posture. For a moment she considered reopening the barrel and having another try with hammer and chisel, but she feared to take the time. Also, with the ship pitching so strongly, there was a great chance she might somehow wound herself or Cadrach by accident. She doubted their escape would succeed, but it was her only hope. Now that the time had come, she was determined to do her best.

  “We must go soon. Here.” She pulled a slim flask out of her sack and handed it to Cadrach. “Just a few swallows.”

  He took it with a wondering look. After the first gulp, a smile spread over his face. He took several more long drinks.

  “Wine.” He licked his lips. “Good red Perdruin! By Usires and Bagba and ... and everyone else! Bless you, Lady!” He took a breath and sighed. “Now I can die happy.”

  “Don’t die. Not yet. Let me have that.”

  Cadrach looked at her, then reluctantly handed over the flask. Miriamele upended it and drank the last few swallows, feeling the warmth trickle down her throat and nestle into her stomach. She hid the empty vessel behind one of the barrels.

  “Now we will go.” She picked up her candle and led him to the ladder.

  When Cadrach at last made his way up the ladder and into the passageway of the Niskie-hole, he stopped to catch his breath. As he wheezed, Miriamele considered the next step. Overhead, the ship hummed and vibrated beneath the downpour.

  “There are three ways we can get out,” she said aloud. Cadrach, steadying himself against the rocking of the ship, did not seem to be listening. “The hatchway out of the hold—but that opens directly in front of the aft deck, where there is always a steersman. In this weather someone will certainly be there and be wide awake. So that’s out.” She turned to look at the monk. In the small circle of candlelight, he was staring down at the passageway boards beneath him. “We have two choices. Up through the hatchway in the main passage, right past Aspitis and all his sailors, or down this passage to the far end, which probably opens onto the foredeck.”

  Cadrach looked up. “Probably?”

  “Gan Itai never told me and I forgot to ask. But this is a Niskie-hole; she said she uses it to get across the ship quickly. Since she always sings from the foredeck, that must be the place it leads to.”

  The monk nodded wearily. “Ah.”

  “So I think we should go there. Perhaps Gan Itai is waiting for us. She didn’t say how w
e should get to the landing boat or when she would meet us.”

  “I will follow you, Lady.”

  As they crawled along the narrow passageway, a huge concussive thump made the very air in their ears seem to burst. Cadrach let out a muffled cry of terror.

  “Gods, what is it?” he gasped.

  “Thunder,” said Miriamele. “The storm is here.”

  “Usires Aedon in His mercy, save me from boats and the sea,” Cadrach groaned. “They are all cursed. Cursed.”

  “From one boat to another, and even closer to the sea.” Miriamele began inching along again. “That’s where we’re going—if we’re lucky.” She heard Cadrach come scrambling after her.

  Thunder tolled two more times before they reached the end of the passage, each peal louder than the last. When at last they crouched beneath the hatchway, Miriamele turned and laid her hand on the monk’s arm.

  “I’m going to snuff the candle. Now be quiet.”

  She inched the heavy door up until the opening was as wide as her hand. Rain flew and splashed. They were just below the forecastle—the steps mounted up only a few paces from the hatch—and some twenty cubits from the portside railing. A glare of lightning momentarily illuminated the whole deck. Miriamele saw the silhouetted shapes of crewmen all around, caught in mid-gesticulation as though painted on a mural. The sky was pressing down on the ship, a roil of angry black clouds that smothered the stars. She dropped down and let the hatchway close as another smack of thunder rattled the night.

  “There are people all around,” she said when the echoes had faded. “But none of them are too close. If we get to the rail and wear our hoods up, they may not notice we are not of the crew. Then we can make our way aft to the boat.”

  Without the candle she could not see the monk, but she could hear him breathing in the narrow space beside her. She had a sudden thought.

  “I did not hear Gan Itai. She was not singing.”