by Tad Williams
“So how did this blasted other marsh man wind up with Tiamak’s boat?” Isgrimnur grumbled, digging the mud from his bootheels with a stick. They had come ashore to make a temporary camp while they decided what to do; the ground in this spot was somewhat soggy. “And what’s happened to Tiamak? Do you think this fellow waylaid him for his flatboat?”
“Look at him,” Cadrach said. “This man could not strangle a cat, I am sure. No, the question is not how he got the boat, but why Tiamak isn’t in it with him, and what happened to this unlucky fellow in the first place. Remember, this is the first of Tiamak’s folk we’ve seen since we left Kwanitupul for the marshes.”
“That’s true.” Miriamele stared at the stranger. “Maybe whatever happened to Tiamak’s villagers happened to this man, too! Or maybe he was running away from it... or
... or something.” She frowned. Instead of finding their guide, they instead had discovered a new mystery to make things even more complicated and unpleasant. ”What do we do?”
“Take him with us, I suppose,” Isgrimnur said. “We will want to ask him questions when he wakes up—but the Aedon only knows how long that will be. We can’t afford to wait.”
“Ask him questions?” Cadrach murmured. “And how, Duke Isgrimnur, will we do that? Tiamak is a rarity among his people, as he told us himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I doubt this fellow can speak anything other than the Wran-tongue.”
“Damn! Damn and damn and thrice damned!” The duke colored. “Begging your pardon, Princess Miriamele. He’s right, though.” He pondered a moment, then shrugged. “Still, what else can we do? We’ll bring him.”
“Maybe he can draw pictures, or maps,” Miriamele offered.
“There!” Isgrimnur was relieved. “Maps! Clever, my lady, very clever. Maybe he can do that, indeed.”
The unknown Wrannaman slept through the rest of the afternoon, not stirring even when the boat was scraped down the muddy bank and relaunched into the watercourse. Before departure, Miriamele had cleaned his skin, discovering to her relief that most of his wounds were not serious—at least the ones she could see. She could think of nothing else to do.
Isgrimnur’s thankless task of trying to find a safe passage through this treacherous and unfamiliar land was made easier by the relatively straightforward nature of this section of the waterway. Because there were few side streams and few forks, it had seemed easiest to simply remain in the center of the watercourse, and so far it was working. Although there had been a few junctures at which Isgrimnur could have gone a different way, they were still seeing occasional houses, so there seemed no cause yet for worry.
Somewhat after the sun had passed the midpoint of the sky, the strange Wrannaman suddenly woke up, startling Miriamele, who was shading his eyes with a broad leaf as she mopped his brow. The man’s brown eyes widened in fear as he saw her, then darted from side to side as though he were surrounded by enemies. After a few moments his hunted look softened and he became calmer, although he still did not speak. Instead, he lay for a long while staring up at the canopy of branches sliding past overhead. He breathed shallowly, as though just to keep his eyes open and watching represented the farthest limit of his strength. Miriamele talked softly to him and continued moistening his brow. She was certain that Cadrach was right when he guessed that this man could not speak her tongue, but she was not trying to tell him anything important: a quiet and friendly voice, she hoped, might make him feel better even if he did not understand any of her words.
A little over an hour later the man was at last recovered enough to sit partway up and take a little water. He still seemed quite confused and ill, so it was no surprise when the first noises he made were moans of discomfort, but the unhappy sounds continued even as Miriamele offered him another drink. The Wrannaman pushed away the skin bag, gesturing up the watercourse and showing every sign of extreme disquiet.
“Is he mad?” Isgrimnur peered at the man suspiciously. “Just what we need, some mad swamp fellow.”
“I think he’s trying to tell us to turn back,” Miriamele said, then realized with a sudden vertiginous drop in her innards what she was saying. “He’s telling us it’s ... bad to go the way we’re going.”
The Wrannaman at last found his words. “Mualum nohoa!” he gabbled, obviously terrified. “Sanbidub nohoa yia ghanta!” When he had said this again several times, he tried to drag himself over the side and into the water. He was weak and distracted; Miriamele was able to restrain him with little difficulty. She was shocked when he burst into tears, his round brown face as defenseless and unashamed as a child’s.
“What can it be?” she asked, alarmed. “He thinks it’s dangerous, whatever it is.”
Isgrimnur shook his head. He was helping Cadrach keep the boat off the tangled bank as they negotiated a bend in the waterway. “Who knows? Could be some animal, or some other group of marsh men who are at war with these fellows. Or it could be some heathen superstition—a haunted pond or something like.”
“Or it could be what emptied Tiamak’s village,” Cadrach said. “Look.”
The Wrannaman sat up again, straining to escape Miriamele’s grip. “Yia ghanta!” he burbled.
“Ghanta,” Miriamele breathed, staring across the waterway. “Ghants? But Tiamak said ...”
“Tiamak may have found out that he was wrong.” Cadrach’s voice had dropped to a whisper.
On the far side of the watercourse, now revealed as the flatboat made its way past the bend, sprawled a huge and bizarre structure. It might almost have been built in parody of Village Grove, for like that place it was obviously the dwelling place of many. But where the village had clearly been the work of human hands, this lopsided agglomeration of mud and leaves and sticks, although it stretched up from the water’s edge into the trees to many times a man’s height, and along the bank for what looked like well over a furlong, was just as clearly not built by human beings at all. A buzzing, clicking sound issued from it and out across the Wran, a great cloud of noise like an army of crickets in an echoing, high-arched room. Some of the builders of the huge nest could be seen clearly, even from the far side of the wide canal. They moved in their distinctive manner, dropping deftly from one stump of branch to a lower, scuttling swiftly in and out of the black doors of the nest.
Miriamele felt both terror and a certain disgusted fascination. A single ghant had been disturbing. From the size of the dwelling, she did not doubt that hundreds of the unpleasant creatures were sheltering in this pile of dirt and sticks.
“Mother of Usires,” Isgrimnur hissed. He turned the boat and poled rapidly back up the waterway until the bend in the river shielded them once more from the alarming sight. “What kind of hell-thing is that?”
Miriamele squirmed as she remembered the mocking eyes that had watched her bathe, dots of jet pivoting in an inhuman face. “Those are the ghants Tiamak told us about.”
The sick Wrannaman, who had fallen into deathly silence when the nest came into view, began to waggle his hands. “Tiamak!” he said hoarsely. “Tiamak nib dunou yia ghanta!” He pointed back to where the nest lay hidden from their view by a wall of greenery. Miriamele did not need to speak the Wran-tongue to know what the strange man was saying.
“Tiamak’s in there. Oh, God help him, he’s in that nest. The ghants have him.”
14
Dark Corridors
The Stairs were steep and the sack was heavy, but Rachel felt a certain joy, nevertheless. One more trip—just one more time that she would be forced to brave the haunted upper rooms of the castle—and then she would be finished.
Just off the shadowy landing, halfway down the stairs, she stopped and set down her burden, careful not to let the jars clank. The doorway was hidden by what Rachel the Dragon felt sure was the oldest, dustiest arras in the entire castle. It was a measure of the importance of her hiding hole remaining inconspicuous that she could pass it every day and leave it uncleaned. Her very soul rebel
led each time she had to lay her hands on the moldering fabric, but there were circumstances when even cleaning had to take second place. Rachel grimaced. Hard times make odd changes, her mother had always said. Well, if that wasn’t Aedon’s holy truth, what was?
Rachel had taken great care to oil the ancient hinges, so when she lifted the tapestry and pushed at the handle, the door swung in almost silently. She lifted her bag over the low threshold, then let the heavy tapestry slip back into place behind her so it would again hide the door. She unshielded her lamp, set it in a high niche, and went to work unpacking.
When the last jar had been removed and Rachel had drawn a picture of the contents on its outside with a straw dipped in lamp-black, she stepped back to survey her larder. She had labored hard over the last month, surprising even herself with her daring pilferage. Now she wanted only the sack of dried fruit she had spotted on today’s raid, then she would be able to last out the entire winter without risking capture. She needed that sack: a lack of fruit to eat would mean the clenches, if not something worse, and she could not afford to become ill with no one to tend her. She had planned everything with great care so that she could be alone: there was certainly no one left in the castle she could trust.
Rachel had searched patiently for just the right place to make her sanctuary. This monk’s hole, far down in one of the long-unused sections of the Hayholt’s underground rooms, had worked out perfectly. Now, thanks to her ceaseless hunting, it was stocked with a larder that many a lord of troubled Erkynland might envy. Also, just up a few flights she had found another unused room—not as well-hidden, but with a small slit window that protruded just above ground level. Outside that window hung the drain spout from one of the Hayholt’s stone gutters. Rachel already had a full barrel of water in her cell; as long as the snows and rains lasted, she would be able to fill a bucket every day from the spout outside the room above, and not have to touch her precious store of drinkable water at all.
She had also scavenged spare clothing and several warm blankets, as well as a straw mattress, and even a chair to sit in—a fancy chair, as she marveled, with a back on it! She had wood for the tiny fireplace, and so many rows of jars of pickled vegetables and meats and wrapped piles of hard-baked bread were stacked along the walls that there was scarcely room to walk from the door to the bed. But it was worth it. Here, in her hidden room filled with provender, she knew she could last the better part of a year. What might happen by the time the provisions ran out, what event might take place that would allow her to leave her den and reemerge into daylight, Rachel wasn’t sure ... but that was something she could not worry about. She would spend her time staying safe, keeping her nest clean, and waiting. That lesson had been pounded into her since childhood: Do what you can. Trust God for the rest.
She thought about her youth a great deal these days. The constant solitude and the secretive nature of her daily life conspired, limiting her activities and throwing her back on her memories for entertainment and solace. She had remembered things—an Aedonmansa when her father had been feared lost in the snow, a straw doll that her sister had once made for her—that she had not thought of for years. The memories, like the foodstuffs floating in the briny darkness of the jars she was rearranging, were only waiting to be taken out once more.
Rachel pushed the last jar back a little farther, so that they made an even row. The castle might be falling apart, but here in her haven she would have order! Only one more trip, she thought. Then I won’t have to be afraid any more. Then I can finally have a little rest.
The Mistress of Chambermaids had reached the top of the stairway and was reaching for the door when a feeling of immense cold suddenly swept over her. Footsteps were approaching on the other side of the door, a dull ticking sound like water dripping on stone. Someone was coming! She would be caught!
Her heart seemed to be beating so swiftly she feared it would climb right up out of her chest. She was gripped by a nightmarish immobility.
Move, idiot woman, move!
The footsteps were growing louder. She finally pulled back her hand, then, seeing that movement was possible after all, forced herself to back down onto a lower step, looking around wildly. Where to go, where to go? Trapped!
She backed farther down the slippery steps. Where the stairway bent around the corner there was a landing, much like the one where she had discovered her new home. This landing, too, was graced with a musty, ragged arras. She grabbed at it, struggling as the heavy, dusty cloth resisted her. It seemed too much to hope that a room was hidden behind this one, too, but at least she could press herself flat against the wall and hope that the person who was even now pulling at the door above her was shortsighted, or in a hurry.
There was a door! Rachel wondered momentarily if there hung a single tapestry in the sprawling castle that didn’t shield some hidden portal. She tugged at the ancient handle.
Oh, Aedon on the Tree, she mouthed silently—surely the hinges would creak! But the hinges did not make a sound, and the door swung open quietly, even as the door at the top of the stairs above her scraped across the stone flags. The noise of bootheels grew louder as they descended the steps. Rachel pushed herself through and pulled the door after her. It swung most of the way closed, then stopped with a little less than a hand’s width remaining. It would not shut.
Rachel looked up, wishing she dared to unshutter her lantern, but grateful that at least there was a torch burning fitfully in the stairwell outside. She forced herself to search carefully, even though black spots were swirling before her eyes and her heart was rabbiting in her breast. There! The top of the arras was caught in the door ... but it was far above where she could reach. She grasped the thick, dust-caked velvet to shake it free, but the footsteps were almost on the landing. Rachel shrank back from the open crack of the doorway and held her breath.
As the noise came closer, so, too, did the sensation of cold—a bone-deep chill like walking out of a hot room into mid-winter winds. Rachel began shivering uncontrollably. Through the crack of the doorway she saw a pair of black-clad figures. The quiet noise of their conversation, which had just become audible, abruptly ceased. One of them turned so that its pale face was momentarily visible from Rachel’s hiding place. Her heart lurched, seeming to lose its beat. It was one of those witch-things—the White Foxes! It turned away again, speaking to its companion in a low but oddly musical voice, then looked back up the steps they had just descended. Another clatter of footsteps came echoing down the stairwell.
More of them!
Rachel, despite a horror of moving or doing anything at all that might make a noise, began to back away. As she stared at the partially opened doorway, praying that the things would not notice how it was ajar, Rachel kept feeling behind her for the rear wall. She took several steps backward, until the doorway was only a thin vertical line of yellowish torch-glow, but still her hand encountered no resistance. She stopped at last and turned to look, terrified by the sudden idea that she might stumble over something stored in this room and send it clattering to the ground.
It was not a room. Rachel stood in the mouth of a corridor that led away into darkness.
She paused for a moment, forcing herself to think. There was no sense in remaining here, especially with a flock of those creatures just beyond the door. The stark stone wall was devoid of hiding places, and she knew that any moment now she might make an involuntary noise, or worse, grow faint and fall noisily to the floor. And who knew how long those things might stand there, murmuring to themselves like carrion birds on a branch? When their fellows all arrived, they might next enter this very passageway! At least if she went now she might find some better place to hide or another way out.
Rachel tottered down the corridor, trailing one hand along the wall—the horrible, grimy things that she felt beneath her fingers!—and holding the darkened lantern in front of her with the other, trying to make sure that it did not bump against the stone. The thin sliver of light from the doorway
disappeared behind a bend in the hallway, leaving her in utter darkness. Rachel carefully pulled back the lantern’s hood a little way, allowing a single beam to leap out and shine on the flagstones before her, then began to walk swiftly down the passageway.
Rachel held the lamp high, squinting down the featureless corridor into the unexplored darkness beyond the pool of light. Was there no end to the castle’s maze of passageways? She had thought she knew the Hayholt as well as anyone, yet the last few weeks had been a revelation. There seemed to be another entire castle beneath the basement storehouses that had once been the downward limit of her experience. Had Simon known about these places?
Thinking of the boy was painful, as always. She shook her head and trudged forward. There had been no sound of pursuit yet—she had finally caught her fear-shortened breath—but there was no sense standing around waiting.
But there was a problem to be solved, of course: if she dared not go back, what could she do? She had long ceased trusting her ability to find her way in this warren. What if she took a wrong turn and went wandering into darkness forever, lost and starving... ?
Fool woman. Just don’t turn off from this hall—or at least mark the turn if you do. Then you can always find the landing and the stairs again.
She snorted, the same chuff of sound that had reduced many a novice chambermaid to whimpers. Rachel knew discipline, even if it was she herself that needed it this time.
No time for nonsense.
Still, it was strange to be wandering here in these lonely, between-ish spaces. It was a little like what Father Dreosan had said about the Waiting Place—that spot between Hell and Heaven where dead souls waited for judgment, where they remained for a timeless time if they were not bad enough for the former but not ready for the latter. Rachel had found this a rather uncomfortable idea: she liked her distinctions clean and forthright. Do wrong, be damned and burnt. Lead a life of cleanliness and Aedonite rigor and you could fly up to heaven and sing and rest beneath eternal blue skies. This middle place that the priest had spoken of just seemed unpleasantly mysterious. The God that Rachel worshiped should not work in such a way.