by Tad Williams
“After all, we don’t want the Evening Star to think we aspire to become the Light of the Morning, do we?" a Favored named Rusha had said with mocking severity. “We shall be beautiful—but not too beautiful.”
Luian, who had been a bit absent of late, as if ashamed of her part in bringing Qmnitan to meet Jeddin, had not been involved in the preparations for the audience, but she had sent one of her Tuani women to help Qinnitan arrange her hair, which was now piled atop her head and held in place with jeweled pins. Qinnitan had been quite taken with her own image in the glass when it was done, but that seemed like pure foolishness now. Arimone, who was perhaps ten years older than Qinnitan, was unquestionably the most beautiful woman she had ever seen or even imagined, like a temple image of Surigal herself, her hair jet black and so long that even in a braid it coiled like a sleeping snake all over the cushions on which she sat. Qinnitan could only wonder what such an amazing cascade of hair would look like untethered and brushed out, she also felt certain everyone else who met Arimone, most assuredly including any whole men, were meant to wonder about that as well.
The autarch’s paramount wife had an arresting figure, small-waisted and wide-hipped, both features accented by her clinging robe, and she also had a perfect, heart-shaped face, but it was her eyes—huge, thick-lashed, and almost as black as her hair—that made her look as though she belonged with the other goddesses in Heaven rather than languishing among mere mortals in the Seclusion. Qinnitan, who was already frightened and felt a bit of an impostor in her fine clothes, suddenly felt not like one of the all-powerful autarch’s chosen brides, but like the dirtiest street urchin imaginable.
“Come, come, sit with me,” Arimone said in a voice so light and musical it suggested years of exhausting practice. “Will you take some tea? I like to drink it cool on days like this, with plenty of mint and sugar. It’s very refreshing.”
Qinnitan did her best to seat herself without tripping over any of the striped cushions mounded at the center of the room. In one corner a young girl played the lute with surprising skill. Several other servant girls, when they were not waiting on the paramount wife, sat talking quietly in the corners of the room. Two youths with the dewy, beardless faces of the Favored stood behind the cushions waving fans of peacock feathers. The decoration of the receiving room seemed designed to remind visitors of one thing and one thing only—a bedchamber, which was after all the root of Arimone’s power. She had not yet given the autarch an heir, but he had spent much of his first regnal year traveling through all his lands, so none of the other wives dared even whisper rumors of unhappiness in the royal bed. Should another year pass without sign of a male heir, of course, they would do almost nothing else.
“Forgive me for waiting so long before having you to visit,” said the paramount wife. “You have been here, what, half a year?”
“More or less, Highness.”
“You must call me Anmone—as I said, we are all sisters here. I have heard much about you, and you are just as charming as I imagined.” She raised an eyebrow that had been plucked into a line as delicate as a spider’s leg. “I hear you are great friends with Favored Luian. The two of you are cousins, are you not?”
“Oh, no, High… Arimone We are merely from the same neighborhood.” The first wife frowned prettily. “Am I so foolish, then? Why did I think she and you…?”
“Perhaps because Luian is a cousin of Jeddin, the chief of the Leopards.” Arimone was watching her closely, Qinnitan suddenly wished she had kept her mouth shut. She was even more disturbed to realize that she was still babbling about it. “Luian talks of him much, of course. She is… she is very proud of him.”
“Ah, yes, Jeddin. I know him. He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?” The Evening Star was still looking at Qinnitan in a way that made her very, very uncomfortable. “A fine, firm piece of manflesh. Don’t you think so?”
Qinnitan did not know what she was supposed to say. The women of the Secluded talked very frankly about men, in a way that virginal Qinnitan often found embarrassingly informative, but this seemed somehow different, as though she were being tested in some way. A chill ran over her. Had the paramount wife heard rumors? “I have scarcely seen him, Arimone, at least since we were all children together. Certainly he could not be as handsome as our lord the autarch, all praise to his name, could he?”
Her hostess smiled as if at a well-played gambit. Qinnitan thought she heard a few of the slave girls giggle behind her. “Oh, that is different, little sister Sulepis is a god on earth, and thus not to be judged as other men. Still, he is very taken by you, it seems.”
The footing was again unsteady. “Taken by me? You mean the autarch?”
“Of course, dear. Has he not had you given special instruction? I hear that you are with that wheezing priest Panhyssir almost every day. That there are prayers and . . rituals of preparation. Arcane practices.”
Qinnitan was confused again. Hadn’t this happened with all the wives? “I did not know that was unusual, Mistress.”
“Arimone, remember! Ah, I suppose it is not surprising that the autarch has become interested in something new. He knows more than the priests, has read more of the ancient texts than they have themselves. He knows everything, my oh-so-clever husband—what the gods whisper to each. other in dreams and why they live forever, the old, forgotten places and cities, the secret history of all of Xand and beyond When he speaks to me, I can scarcely understand him sometimes. But his interests are so widespread that they do not last for long, of course. Like a great golden bee, he moves from flower to flower as his mighty heart leads him. I am sure whatever has taken his interest this time will be… short-lived.”
Qinnitan flinched, but she was puzzled and determined to find out why the other wives seemed to think of her as different. “How… how were you prepared, Arimone? For marriage, I mean. If you will forgive an impertinent question. This is all very new to me.”
“I imagine it is You may not know, but of course I was married before.” My current husband murdered my only child, then killed my first husband, too, and made his death last for weeks, she did not say, nor did she have to—Qinnitan already knew it, as did everyone else in the Seclusion. “So my circumstances were a bit different. I came to our lord and master’s bed already a woman.” She smiled again. “We are quite intrigued by you, many of us here in the Seclusion. Did you know that?”
“You… you are?”
“Ah, yes, of course. A very young girl—a child, really—” Arimone’s smile was a bit cold, “from, let us be frank, an undistinguished family. None of us can quite imagine what it was that lifted you to the Golden One’s eye.” She spread her hands, which glittered with rings. The nails were half the length of her long, slender fingers. “Other than the beauty of your innocence, little sister, which is of course charming and formidable.”
Never in her life, even standing before Autarch Sulepis, had Qinnitan felt less significant.
“Come, will you have a little more tea? I have prepared a surprise for you. I hope it will be a pleasant one. Will you promise not to tell on me if I do something that is a little naughty?”
Qinnitan could only nod.
“Good.That is how it should be between sisters. So you will not be too shocked if I tell you that I have brought a man into my house today—a true man, not one of the Favored. You are not afraid to meet a true man, are you? You have not been so long away from the streets of your childhood that you view them all as monsters and rapists, do you?”
Qinnitan shook her head, confused and frightened. Did the first wife know about Jeddin? Why else all this taunting?
“Good, good. In truth, he is very harmless, this man. So old that I do not think he could mount a mouse.” She laughed between her teeth and her serving girls echoed her. “He is a storyteller. Shall I summon him?” The question was not meant to be answered: Arimone lifted her hands and clapped. A moment later a bent figure in colorful clothes stepped through one of the curtained doors
and into the receiving room.
“Hasuris,” she said, “I apologize for keeping you waiting.”
“I would rather wait for you in a dark alcove than be served honeyed figs by any other woman, Mistress.” The old man bowed low to Arimone, then gave Qinnitan a look so saucy and self-satisfied that he might as well have winked at her. “And this must be the young wife you told me of. Greetings, little Mistress.”
“You are a shameless flirt, Hasuris,” said Arimone, laughing. “None of your nonsense or the Golden One’s guards will come and you will join the Favored.”
“My stones and I adventure together only in memory, Great Queen,” he said, “so it makes little difference. But I suppose their departure could be painful, so I will stay silent and behave well.”
“No, to behave well you must not stay silent at all. Instead you must tell us a story. Why else would I have brought you here?”
“To admire the turn of my calf?”
“Wretched old fool. Tell us a tale. Perhaps…” Pondering, or pretending to, the paramount wife put a ringer to her red, red lips. Even Qinnitan could not help staring at her like a lovesick boy. “Perhaps the story of the Foolish Hen.”
“Very well, Great Queen.” The old man bowed Now that he was closer, Qinnitan could see that his white whiskers were stained yellow around his mouth. “Here is the tale, although it is a rather simple one, without any good jokes but the last one:
“Once there was a very foolish hen, who preened and preened herself, certain that she was the most beautiful of her kind in all creation,” he began.
“The other hens grew weary of her posturing and began to talk behind her back, but the foolish hen paid no attention at all. ‘Jealous, that is all they are,’ she told herself. ‘Who cares what they think? They are of no importance compared to the man who feeds us. That is someone whose opinion matters, and who will recognize my quality.’ So she set out to gain the attention of the man who came every day to spread corn on the ground.
“Every time he arrived, she would push her way out from the midst of the other hens and strut back and forth before the man, head held high, breast shoved forward. When he looked away, she would call to him—’Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!’—until he looked her way again. But still he treated her no differently from any of the others. The foolish hen became very angry and resolved to do whatever it took to be noticed.”
Qinnitan was feeling a chill again. Was there a point to this story? Was Arimone suggesting that the younger wife had gone out of her way somehow to attract attention? The autarch’s? Or someone else’s? It was all too difficult to understand, but the penalties would be no less mortal because the crimes weren’t altogether clear. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to be back in the Temple of the Hive, surrounded by the sweet hum of the sacred bees.
“The foolish hen could not sleep for trying to imagine a way to get the man’s attention. Her lovely voice had not moved him. Perhaps he needed to see that she valued him more than the others did, but how could she do that? She resolved to eat more of the corn he dropped than anyone else, and so she followed him from the first moment he arrived until he went away again, pecking at the other hens to drive them away and eating as much corn as she could,, manage. The other hens despised her as she grew fatter and sleeker, but still the ‘* * * * *man did not speak to her, did not single her out in any way. She decided she would fly to him and show him that she alone was worthy of his attention. It was not easy, because by now she was quite plump, but by practicing every day she at last managed to stay aloft long enough to flutter a good distance.
“One day, after the man finished spreading the corn and began to walk back to the house, the hen flew after him. It was harder than she thought it would be and she did not catch up to him until he had already gone through the door. She hurried after and flew inside, but it was dark and she could not see, so she began to call out —’Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!’ —to let him know she had arrived.
“The man came to her and picked her up. Her heart was full of joy.
“ ‘I have tried to ignore you, you fat thing,’ he said, ‘because I was going to save you for the Feast of the Rising at the end of the rainy season, but here you are in my kitchen, shouting at the top of your lungs. Clearly it is the great god’s will that I eat you now! And so speaking, he wrung her neck and set a fire in the oven…”
Qinnitan stood suddenly and the old man Hasuris fell silent. He looked a little shamefaced, as if he had somehow guessed the story might upset her, which didn’t seem possible. “I… I don’t feel very well,” she said. She was dizzy and sick to her stomach.
Arimone looked at her with wide eyes. “My poor little sister? Can I get you something?”
“No, I… I think I had better go home I’m v—very s—s—sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth—she had a sudden, powerful urge to vomit all over the first wife’s beautiful striped cushions.
“Oh, no, must you really? Perhaps it would be better for you to have a little more mint tea. Surely that would settle your stomach.” Arimone picked up Qinnitan’s cup and held it out to her, gaze doe-innocent. “Go ahead, little sister. Drink some more. It is made to my special recipe and it cures nearly all ills.”
Filled with horror, Qinnitan shook her head and stumbled out without even bowing. She heard the slaves laughing and whispering behind her.
29. The Shining Man
FIVE WHITE WALLS:
Here is the shape with its tail
In its mouth
Here is the inside turned outside, the outside in
—from The Bonefall Oracles
“Listen carefully,” Chert said when he had put some distance between himself and the temple of the Metamoric Brothers. He raised his hand to his shoulder to let Beetledown climb onto his palm, then held him so that he could see the man’s tiny face. “If your nose is telling you the truth and this is the way Flint went, I think I know where he’s going.”
“If my nose?” The Rooftopper’s features screwed up in indignation. “Wasn’t bred for it like the Grand and Worthy, me, but leaving un out, there be not a better sniffiter in all of the Southmarch heights.
“I believe you.” Chert took a deep, shaky breath. “It’s just that where he’s headed.” His knees felt weak and he had to sit down, which he did carefully the Rooftopper was still standing on his hand. For the first time that Chert Blue Quartz could remember, he wished he were outside, under the sky, instead of beneath the unimaginable weight of stone that had been the top of his world almost all his life, and had always held that place in his thoughts. “Where he’s headed is a very strange place. A sacred place. Sometimes it can be a dangerous place.”
“Cats? Snakes?” The Rooftopper’s eyes were wide. Despite his growing fear, Chert almost smiled. “No, nothing like that. Well, there might be animals down there, but that’s the least of my worries.” “Because th’art a giant.”
Now Chert did smile: being called a giant was something that would probably never happen to him again. “Fair enough. But what I need to tell you is that I have a decision to make. It’s not an easy one.”
The little man looked at him now with keen interest, just like Cinnabar or one of the other Guild leaders being presented with a tricky but possibly lucrative bargain. The Rooftoppers were not just like people, they were people, Chert knew that now; they were just as complicated and lively as the Funderlings or anyone else. So why were they so small? Where did they come from? Had they been punished by the gods, or was there something even stranger in their origins?
Thoughts of the gods and their fabled propensity for vengeance were, at this moment, more compelling than usual.
“Here is my problem,” he told Beetledown. “I told you before that places like the temple… that some of my people might frown on you being there. We are uncomfortable with outsiders seeing the things that are most important to us.”
“Understood,” said the little man.
“Well, I think Flint has gone deeper still
into… into what we call the Mysteries. And I know that many of my people will be upset if I bring an outsider there. It was one reason I haven’t even taken Flint anywhere near the place, even though he is my foundling son.”
“Then time has come for me to go back to my own home.” Beetledown sounded quite cheerful about it, and Chert wasn’t surprised: the little man had become less comfortable the longer and deeper their journey became. In fact, he seemed positively to glow with satisfaction at the thought that his travels below ground were about to end, which made Chert’s already wretched position even more so.
“But I’m afraid to lose so much time—if the boy’s down there, it’s been hours already. It’s a dangerous place, Beetledown. Strange, too. I… I’m very frightened for him.”
“So?” The Rooftopper frowned in puzzlement, then gradually his tiny brows unkinked, although the understanding obviously brought him no happiness. “Tha wants to take me down with.”
“I can’t think of anything else to do, any other way to track him—there are many paths, many ways. I’m sorry. But I won’t take you against your will.”
“Th’art much the bigger of us twain.”
“That doesn’t matter. I won’t take you against your will.”
Beetledown’s frown returned. “Tha said ‘twas a sacred place—banned to outliers.”
“That’s why I said I had a difficult decision. But I’ve decided I’d rather break the law and take you into the Mysteries than leave my boy alone down there any longer than I have to—if you’ll go. Besides, the boy himself is no Funderling, so the law’s already fair cracked and riven, as we say.”