by Tad Williams
“Let us go inside,” she said.
Simon laughed and felt his anger ease.
Standing beside the Sitha made the Observatory seem even eerier. The shadowed staircases which wound up the walls of the cylindrical room made him think of the insides of some huge animal. The tiles, even in the near-darkness, glimmered faintly, and seemed to be assembled in patterns that would not quite lie still.
It was odd to realize that Aditu was almost as much a youngling as he, since the Sithi had built this place long before her birth. Jiriki had once said that he and his sister were “children of the Exile,” which Simon understood to mean that they had been born after the fall of Asu‘a five centuries ago—a short time indeed in Sithi terms. But Simon had also met Amerasu, and she had come to Osten Ard before a single stone had been set on another stone anywhere in the land. And if his own vigil-night dream had been correct, Amerasu’s elder Utuk’ku had stood in this very building when the two tribes had separated. It was disturbing to think of anything living as long as First Grandmother or the Norn Queen.
But the most disturbing thing of all was that the Norn Queen, unlike Amerasu, was still alive, still powerful ... and she seemed to have nothing but hatred for Simon and his mortal kind.
He did not like thinking about that—did not, in fact, like thinking about the Norn Queen at all. It was almost easier to understand crazed Ineluki and his violent anger than the spiderlike patience of Utuk’ku, someone who would wait a thousand years or more, full of brooding malice, for some obscure revenge....
“And what did you think of war, Seoman Snowlock?” Aditu asked suddenly. He had sketched for her the bare outlines of the recent struggle as they exchanged news during their walk to the Observatory.
He considered. “We fought hard. It was a wonderful victory. We didn’t expect it.”
“No, what did you think?”
Simon took a moment before replying. “It was horrible.”
“Yes, it is.” Aditu took a few steps away from him, sliding into a spot beneath the wall where the moonlight did not penetrate, vanishing into shadow. “It is horrible.”
“But you just said you wanted to go to war in Hernystir with Jiriki!”
“No. I said I wanted to be with them. That is not the same thing at all, Seoman. I could have been one more rider, one more bow, one more set of eyes. We are very few, we Zida‘ya—even mustered together riding out of Jao é-Tinukai’i, with the Houses of Exile reunited. Very few. And none of us wished to go into battle.”
“But you Sithi have been in wars,” Simon protested. “I know that’s true.”
“Only to protect ourselves. And once or twice in our history, as my mother and brother are doing in the west now, we have fought to protect those who stood by us in our own need.” She sounded very serious now. “But even now, Seoman, we have only taken up our arms because the Hikeda’ya brought the war to us. They entered our home and killed my father and First Grandmother, and many more of our folk as well. Do not think that we rush out to fight for mortals at the waving of a sword. These are strange days, Seoman—and you know that as well as I.”
Simon took a few steps forward and tripped on a piece of broken stone. He bent to rub his toe, which throbbed painfully. “S’Bloody Tree!” he cursed under his breath.
“It is hard for you to see here at night, Seoman,” she said. “I am sorry. We will go now.”
Simon did not want to be babied. “In a moment. I’m well.” He gave the toe a final squeeze. “Why is Utuk’ku helping Ineluki?”
Aditu appeared from out of the moon-shadow and took his hand in her cool fingers. She seemed troubled. “Let us talk outside.” She led him out the door. Her long hair lifted and fluttered in the wind, caressing his face as he walked beside her. It had a strong but pleasing scent, savory-sweet as pine bark.
When they were out on open ground once more, she took his other hand in hers and fixed him with her bright eyes, which seemed to gleam amber in the moonlight. “That is most certainly not the place to name their names, nor to think of them too much,” she said firmly, then smiled a wicked smile. “Besides, I do not think I should let as dangerous a mortal boy as you be alone with me in a dark place. Oh, the tales they tell of you around your camp, Seoman Snowlock.”
He was irritated but not altogether displeased. “Whoever ‘they’ are, they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Ah, but you are a strange beast, Seoman.” Without another word, she leaned forward and kissed him—not a short, chaste touch as she had given him at their parting many weeks ago, but a warm lover’s kiss that sent a shiver of amazement running up his back. Her lips were cool and sweet as morning rose petals.
Far before he would have wished to stop, Aditu gently pulled away. “That little mortal girl liked kissing you, Seoman.” Her smile returned, mocking, insolent. “It is an odd thing to do, is it not?”
Simon shook his head, at a loss.
Aditu took his arm and tugged him into motion, falling into step beside him. She bent to pick up the boots she had discarded, then they walked a little farther through the wet grass beside the Observatory wall. She hummed a brief snatch of melody before speaking. “What does Utuk’ku want, you asked?”
Simon, confused by what had happened, did not respond.
“That I could not tell you—not with certainty. She is the oldest thinking creature in all of Osten Ard, Seoman, and she is far more than twice as old as the next most ancient. Be assured, her ways are strange and subtle beyond even the understanding of anyone except perhaps First Grandmother. But if I had to guess, I would say this: she longs for Unbeing.”
“What does that mean?” Simon was beginning to wonder if he was truly sober after all, for the world was slowly spinning and he wanted to lie down and sleep.
“If she wished death,” Aditu said, “then that would be oblivion just for herself. She is tired of living, Seoman, but she is eldest. Never forget that. As long as songs have been sung in Osten Ard, and longer, Utuk’ku has lived. She alone of any living thing saw the lost home that birthed our kind. I do not think she can bear to think of others living when she is gone. She cannot destroy everything, much as she might desire to, but perhaps she hopes to help create the greatest cataclysm possible—that is, to assure that as many living folk accompany her into oblivion as she can drag with her.”
Simon stopped, horrified. “That’s terrible!” he said with feeling.
Aditu shrugged, a sinuous gesture. She had a lovely neck. “Utuk‘ku is terrible. She is mad, Seoman, although it is a madness as tightly woven and intricate as the finest juya’ha ever spun. She was perhaps the cleverest of all the Gardenborn.”
The moon had freed itself from a bank of clouds; it hung overhead like a harvester’s scythe. Simon wanted to go to sleep—his head felt very heavy—but at the same time he was loath to give up this chance. It was so rare to find one of the Sithi in a mood to answer questions, and even better, to answer them directly, without the usual Sithi vagueness.
“Why did the Norns go into the north?”
Aditu bent and picked a sprig of some curling vine, white-flowered and dark-leaved. She knotted it in her hair so that it hung against her cheek. “The two families, Zida‘ya and Hikeda’ya, had a disagreement. It concerned mortals. Utuk‘ku’s folk felt your kind to be animals— worse than animals, actually, since we of the Garden do not kill any creature if we can avoid doing so. The Dawn Children did not agree with the Cloud Children. There were other things, too.” She lifted her head to the moon. “Then Nenais’u and Drukhi died. That was the day the shadow fell, and it has never been lifted.”
No sooner had he congratulated himself on catching Aditu in a forthright mood than she had begun to grow obscure.... Still, Simon did not linger over her unsatisfying explanation. He did not really want any more names to leam—he was already overwhelmed with all the things she had told him tonight; in any case, he had another purpose in asking. “And when the two families parted,” he
said eagerly, “it was here, wasn’t it? All the Sithi came to the Fire Garden with torches. And then in Leavetaking House they stood around some thing built of glowing fire and made their bargain.”
Aditu lowered her eyes from the sliver of moon, fixing him with her cat-bright stare. “Who told you this tale?”
“I saw it!” He was almost sure by the look on her face that he had been right. “I saw it when I had my vigil. The night I became a knight.” He laughed at his own words. Fatigue was making him feel silly. “My knight-night.”
“Saw it?” Aditu folded her hand around his wrist. “Tell me, Seoman. We will walk a little while longer.”
He described his dream-vision for her—then, for good measure, he told her of what had happened later when he used Jiriki’s mirror.
“What happened when you brought the Scale here shows that there is still potency in Rhao iye-Sama’an,” she said slowly. “But my brother was right to warn you off the Dream Road. It is very dangerous now—otherwise I would take the glass and try to find Jiriki myself, tonight, and tell him of what you told me.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. Her hair drifted like smoke. “Because of the thing you saw during your vigil. That is fearful. For you to see something from the Elder Days, without a Witness ...” She made another of her strange finger gestures, this one tangled and complex as a basket of wriggling fish. “Either you have things in you that Amerasu did not see-but I cannot believe that First Grandmother, even in her preoccupation, would fail so abjectly—or there is something happening beyond anything we suspected. That worries me greatly. For the Earth-Drake’s Eye to show a vision of the past that way, unbidden ...” She sighed. Simon stared. She looked worried—something he would not have believed possible.
“Maybe it was the dragon’s blood,” Simon offered. He raised his hand to indicate his scar and shock of white hair. “Jiriki said I was marked somehow.”
“Perhaps.” Aditu did not seem convinced. Simon felt slightly insulted. So she didn’t think he was special enough, did she?
They walked on until they had crossed back over the ruptured tiles of the Fire Garden and were approaching the tent city. Most of the merrymakers had gone to their beds; only a few fires still burned. Beside them, a few shadowy shapes still talked and laughed and sang.
“Go and rest, Seoman,” Aditu said. “You are staggering.”
He wanted to argue, but knew that what she said was true. “Where will you sleep?”
Her serious expression changed to one of genuine amusement. “Sleep? No, Snowlock, I will walk tonight. I have much to think about. In any case, I have not seen the moon on Sesuad’ra’s broken stones for almost a century.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Sleep well. In the morning we will go to Josua.” She turned and walked away, silent as dew. Within moments she was only a slender shadow disappearing across the grassy hilltop.
Simon rubbed at his face with both hands. There was so much to think about. What a night this had been! He yawned and headed toward the tents of New Gadrinsett.
“A strange thing has happened, Josua.”
Geloë stood in the door of his tent, unusually hesitant. “Come in, please.” The prince turned to Vorzheva, who was sitting up in bed beneath a mound of blankets. “Or perhaps you would prefer we go elsewhere?” he asked his wife.
Vorzheva shook her head. “I do not feel well today, but if I must lie here this morning, at least there will be some people to keep me company.”
“But perhaps Valada Geloë’s news will distress you,” the prince said worriedly. He looked to the wise woman. “Can she hear it?”
Geloë’s smile was sardonic. “A woman with a baby inside her is not like someone who is dying of old age, Prince Josua. Women are strong—bearing a child is hard work. Besides, this news should not frighten anyone ... even you.” She softened her expression to let him know she was joking.
Josua nodded. “I deserved that, I suppose.” His own answering smile was wan. “What strange thing has happened? Please, come in.”
Geloë shrugged off her dripping cloak and dropped it just inside the doorway. A light rain had begun to fall soon after dawn, and had been pattering on the tent roof for the better part of an hour. Geloë ran her hand through her wet, cropped hair, then seated herself on one of the stools Freosel had built for the prince’s residence. “I have just received a message.”
“From whom?”
“I do not know. It came to me with one of Dinivan’s birds, but the writing is not his hand.” She reached into her jacket and pulled forth a bundle of damp feathers, which softly cheeped; its black eye gleamed through the gap between her fingers. “Here is what it bore.” She held up a small curl of oilcloth. With some difficulty, she managed to pull a twist of parchment from the cloth and open it without unduly discommoding the bird.
“Prince Josua. ”
she read,
“Certain signs tell me that it may be propitious for you to begin thinking about Nabban. Certain mouths have whispered in my ear that you might find more support there than you suspect. The kingfishers have been taking too much of the boatmen’s catch. A messenger will arrive within a fortnight, bearing words that will speak more clearly than this brief message can. Do nothing until that one has arrived, for your own fortune’s sake. ”
Geloë looked up as she finished reading, her yellow eyes wary. “It is signed only with the ancient Nabbanai rune for ‘Friend.’ Someone who is either a Scrollbearer or of equivalent learning wrote this. Perhaps someone who would wish us to believe that a Scrollbearer wrote it.”
Josua gave Vorzheva’s hand a gentle squeeze before he stood up. “May I see it?” Geloë gave him the note, which he scrutinized for a moment before handing it back. “I do not recognize the hand, either.” He took a few steps toward the tent’s far wall, then turned and paced back toward the door. “The writer is obviously suggesting that there is unrest in Nabban, that the Benidrivine House is not as loved as it once was—not surprising with Benigaris in the saddle and Nessalanta pulling the reins. But what could this person want of me? You say it came to you with Dinivan’s bird?”
“Yes. And that is what most worries me.” Geloë was about to say more when there was an apologetic cough from the doorway. Father Strangyeard stood there, the wisp of red hair atop his head plastered to his skull by rainwater.
“Your pardon, Prince Josua.” He saw Vorzheva and colored. “Lady Vorzheva. Goodness. I hope you can forgive my ... my intrusion.”
“Come in, Strangyeard.” The prince beckoned as though to summon a skittish cat. Behind him, Vorzheva smiled to show she did not mind.
“I asked him to come, Josua,” said Geloë. “Since it was Dinivan’s bird—well, you can understand, I think.”
“Of course.” He waved the archivist to one of the vacant stools. “Now, tell me about the birds. I remember what you told me about Dinivan himself—although I can still scarcely credit that the lector’s secretary would be part of such a company.”
Geloë looked a little impatient. “The League of the Scroll is a thing that many would be proud to be part of, and Dinivan’s master would never have been troubled by anything that he did on its behalf.” Her eyelids lowered as some new thought came to her. “But the lector is dead, if the rumors that have come to us here are true. Some say that worshipers of the Storm King murdered him.”
“I have heard of these Fire Dancers, yes,” Josua said. “Those of New Gadrinsett who fled here from the south can talk of little else.”
“But the troubling thing is that since this rumored event, I have heard nothing from Dinivan,” Geloë continued. “So who would have his birds, if not him? And if he survived the attack on the lector—I am told there was a great fire in the Sancellan Aedonitis—then why would he not write himself?”
“Perhaps he was burned or injured,” Strangyeard said diffidently. “He might have had someone else write on his behalf.”
“True,” Geloë mused, “but
then I think he would have used his name, unless he is somehow so frightened of discovery that he cannot even send a message by bird that bears his rune.”
“So if it is not Dinivan,” said Josua, “then we must accept that this could be a trick. The very ones who were responsible for the lector’s death may have sent this.”
Vorzheva raised herself a little higher in the bed. “It could be not either of those things. Someone who found Dinivan’s birds could send it for their own reasons.”
Geloë nodded slowly. “True. But it would have to be someone who knew who Dinivan’s friends were, and where they might be: this message has your husband’s name at the top of it, as though whoever sent it knew it would come straight to him.”
Josua was pacing again. “I have thought about Nabban,” he muttered. “So many times. The north is a wasteland—I doubt Isorn and the others will find more than a token force at best. The people have been scattered by war and weather. But if we could somehow drive Benigaris out of Nabban ...” He stopped and stared up at the tent ceiling, frowning. “We could raise an army, then, and ships.... We would have a real chance to thwart my brother.” His frown deepened. “But who can know whether this is real or not? I do not like to have someone pull at my strings like this.” He slapped his hand against his leg. “Aedon! Why can nothing be simple?”
Geloë shifted on her stool. The wise woman’s voice was surprisingly sympathetic. “Because nothing is simple, Prince Josua.”
“Whatever it is,” Vorzheva pointed out, “whether it is a true thing or a lie, it says that a messenger will be sent. Then we will learn more.”
“Perhaps,” Josua said. “If it is not just a ploy to keep us hesitant, to make us delay.”
“But that does not seem likely, if you will pardon my saying so,” Strangyeard piped up. “Which of our enemies is so powerless that they would stoop that low... ?” He trailed off, looking at Josua’s hard, distracted face. “I mean ...”
“I think that makes sense, Strangyeard,” Geloë agreed. “It is a weak play, and I think Elias and his ... ally ... are beyond such things.”