by Tad Williams
“Briony!” he shouted now, “I’m here!”
He could not reach her, and he knew that she was not hearing his words, but he thought she could at least feel him. It was glory to see her, cruelty to have so little of her. Even so, just the sight of her utterly familiar and perfect Briony-face reminded him of who he was: Barrick. He was Barrick Eddon, whatever might have happened to him, wherever he might be. Even if he had been dreaming this— even if he was dying and it had all been some strange illusion the gods had set for him on the doorstep of the next world—he had remembered who he was.
“Briony,” he said, but more quietly now as the clouds covered the face in the mirror. For a moment, just before it disappeared, he thought he saw a different face, a stranger’s face, astoundingly, a girl whose black hair was streaked with a red like his own. He could not understand what was happening—to go from that most familiar of all faces to one he had never seen before...!
“Why are you in my dreams?” she said in surprise, and her words pattered in his head like cooling rain. Then the black haired girl was gone too, and so was almost everything else—the faceless men gone, the Portrait Hall gone, the flames of the terrible conflagration grown as transparent as wet parchment and the castle itself going, going... As the terror lost its grip a little he was startled, frightened, confused, and even excited by the memory of that new face —seeing it had felt like cold water in a parched mouth—but he let it go for the moment so he could cling instead to what was more important: Briony had touched him, somehow, across all the cold world and more, and that great goodness had kept him in the world during a moment when he would otherwise have chosen to leave. He was still footless and confused by the dream he was in, but he understood that he had chosen to remain for now on the near side of Immon’s fateful gate, however wretched and painful living might be.
Like a man fighting upward from the bottom of deep water, Barrick Eddon began to thrash his despairing way back toward the light.
Vansen had just finished making a space for the prince and wrapping him in his own tattered, stained wool guardsman’s cloak when Barrick’s feverish murmuring quieted and the boy’s body, which had been as tight as a bowstring, suddenly went limp. Even as horror flooded through Vansen... I lost the prince! I let him die!
...The boy’s eyes snapped open. For a moment they rolled wildly, fixing on nothing, as if he tried to stare right through the stone of the long, low cavern cell in search of freedom. Then the young prince narrowed his gaze on Ferras Vansen. The soldier thought that the boy was going to say something to him—thank him, perhaps, for carrying him all this way, or curse him for the same reason, or perhaps just ask what day it was. Instead, the prince’s eyes abruptly welled with tears.
Sobbing, snuffling, Barrick thrashed his way out of both the cloak and Vansen’s restraining grasp, then crawled across the floor to an empty spot near the adjoining wall where he huddled with his face in his hands, weeping unrestrainedly. Several of the other prisoners turned to watch him, the expressions on their inhuman faces varying from mild interest to uncomprehending blankness. Vansen clambered to his feet to follow the prince.
I suspect he will not thank you. Gyir’s voice in his head was still a novelty, and not an entirely pleasant one—like a stranger making himself at home in your house without permission. Let the boy grieve.
“Grieve for what? We’re alive. There’s still hope.” Vansen spoke aloud—he didn’t know the trick of talking without words and did not care to learn. Already this place, this shadowland, was doing its best to take away all that made him who he was. He was not going to help speed the process.
Grieve for all he has realized he is losing. The same thing to which you also cling so tightly—his old idea of who he was.
“What do you...? Get out of my head, fairy!”
I do not dig into your thoughts, sunlander. Vansen could feel the irritation—no, it was something deeper—in Gyir’s words. The featureless face showed no more emotion at this moment than the prow of a boat, but the words came with pulses of anger, as though each thought hummed like an apple wasp. Even as diminished as I am, I cannot help knowing a little of your strongest feelings, Gyir said, speaking ideas that Vansen somehow understood as words. Any more than if you were sick or frightened someone could avoid smelling the stink in your sweat. Another wave of contempt came from him. And in truth I can do that as well, much to my sorrow. You sunlanders all smell like corruption and death.
Struck by curiosity, Vansen ignored the insult. “How is it I can understand you at all? I couldn’t before.”
I did not know you could until just now. In other, less dangerous circumstances, it would be quite an interesting puzzle to consider.
Vansen watched Prince Barrick as the boy’s sobbing grew weaker. A few of the smaller prisoners that had been driven off by Barrick’s sudden move had edged back into the area surrounding him, but they seemed to be regarding him with more fear than interest. “Will any harm come to him there?”
Gyir briefly turned his yellow eyes toward Barrick. I think not. Most of those in this room are afraid of me. They are right to be, even crippled as I am.
Vansen saw that the fairy spoke the truth: even in this large underground prison chamber, stuffed to overcrowding with scores of creatures of at least a dozen different types and sizes, some of which appeared quite fierce, the three of them were being given a great deal of room to themselves. “But they’re not afraid of you enough to let you go.”
The nearly faceless creature watched Vansen for a long moment, as though considering his existence for the first time. You too can speak to me without speaking aloud, Ferras Vansen. It was not his own name Vansen sensed in Gyir’s wordless speech so much as his face. It was unutterably strange to see himself both so clearly and so strangely, even to see his face suddenly pull into a scowl of frightened disgust—as if someone had put a looking glass inside his thoughts.
“Stop! I want nothing to do with such...black magic.”
You would refuse to stop talking aloud, even if it means that you are endangering the boy—your prince? We will never find a way to escape if half our conversation is spoken out loud. There are still folk in this land who understand the sunlander tongue, as the raven did. I do not doubt Jikuyin has a few among his slaves.
Ferras Vansen thought for a long time, then nodded, although the very idea of sharing the substance of himself with the faceless, inhuman creature made him feel queasy and terrified. “Well, then. Show me.”
It is simple, man of the hills. All you need to do is think that you are speaking the words—hear yourself speaking but keep the sounds locked inside you. I will guide you.
Strangely, the fairy was right—it was simple. Once he found the proper trick of imagining himself talking in just the right way, he discovered that Gyir could hear what he said as clearly as if he had formed it with air and tongue and lips. Had it been the power of the godling Jikuyin’s voice that had unlocked this skill? But then why had Barrick Eddon been able to do it from the first?
Why can I suddenly understand you? he asked the fairy. And what can we do to escape this place?
If I knew already how we might free ourselves, Gyir said with an undercurrent of something that felt a little like scorn, or perhaps was the bitter tang of self-dislike, I would not be conversing about the boy’s mood and how you gained the gift of true speech, but beginning to make a plan. Now Vansen could feel the fairy’s anger clearly, as a man in water would feel another man thrashing helplessly close by.
I dislike being a prisoner, too—perhaps more than you do. We will talk later about escape.
Then, with a considered effort that Vansen could feel like a gust of cooling air, Gyir swept away his own fury. For now, we must try to understand better why we are being held, he said, and it was as if the moment of rage had never happened. That is our first step—it will set the direction for all others. The fairy paused for a long time then, and Vansen felt the silence in a way he never h
ad before. As for what has made you able to understand me, Gyir said at last, I said it was interesting because it seems to hint at an answer to a question my people have long debated—at least those in the Deep Libraries to whom such tasks are given. This came as a blur of ideas Vansen could only barely riddle out, and he was certain he was missing most of what the fairy intended. There is little we can do at this moment except... Interesting? I don’t understand you? He looked to Barrick again, who had recovered himself a little. The boy’s eyes were red and his cheeks still wet, but he seemed to be listening to Vansen’s conversation with Gyir. I don’t understand, he repeated.
Ah, but you do, and that is the crux. Gyir, who had been crouching, finally sat down and pushed his back against the sooty, rough-carved stone wall. Look around you. Do you see these creatures? Drows and bokkles and all manner of things even less savory? These are the Common Ones —all creatures of our lands, some even related to my folk, but they are not the trueblood People. Vansen could feel the emphasis with which Gyir spoke the word, as if it were a thing of power, something to conjure with. Most especially, they are not High Ones. Among the Twilight folk, only those called the High Ones have the gift of speaking with their hearts, as we say it—the True Speech, which cannot lie, the speech we are using now.
So why should I be able to do it? Vansen asked. He was fearful of what the answer might be—some taint in his family, some witchy blood, another mark of shame laid on his quiet, hard-working, abashed people.
Some say that all the sunlanders once could speak with us this way—that they, or at least some of them, were of the same great branch as the People, that they cameof the People and not just after them. Perhaps Jikuyin merely thrust the gift of True Speech upon you, somehow —his kind, the Old Ones, are grandchildren of the Formless and have many powers that are unknown. But also it may simply be that when he spoke to you the power of his voice cleared the channels of your heart as a great flood may scour clean riverbeds long filled with silt. It is possible he only gave back to you that which is the birthright of your kind.
But...but Prince Barrick... Vansen turned and saw the boy staring back at him with something in his eyes that looked almost like hatred. Shaken, it took him a moment to remember what he had been saying and to form the words in his mind. Prince Barrick could speak to you already, and understand you, long before we met this thing you call Jikuyin. Vansen could not approach the complexity of images which Gyir used when he “spoke” their captor’s name, but he felt certain just his horrified memory of the ogre’s massive, ravaged face would be enough.
Prince Barrick is different, Gyir said abruptly, otherwise he would have been dead long ago and you would not have followed him here. That is all I may say.
“Don’t talk about me.” The boy wiped angrily at his eyes. “Don’t.”
Why can’t I hear him—Barrick—in my head? asked Vansen.
It could be in time you will, Gyir replied. Or it could be that both of you can only speak with me.
Vansen wanted to go to the prince, to bring him back to sit with them, but something in the boy’s expression kept him seated where he was. Why are we here in this mine or prison or whatever it is? Why aren’t we dead? And what is the monster who’s captured us? Does he have any weaknesses? You said he was one of the Old Ones, a god or a god’s bastard.
Gyir looked at him for a few moments before answering. As to why we are not dead, I cannot say, Ferras Vansen, but it is clear that Jikuyin wants slaves more than he wants corpses. The fairy looked as though he was almost asleep, red eyes only half open. What he wants them for, I do not know, but this place has an old, grim reputation. As to what he is, I told you—a grandchild of the Formless.
This means nothing to me. I have never heard of such a god.
You have, but among your people the true lore is almost lost. Even here, in our own land, the stories have become children’s tales. You remember the raven’s little tale of Crooked and his great-grandmother, Emptiness? There were bones of truth buried in it, but the flesh was corrupt. The truth at its core is that the Formless begat both Emptiness and Light, and those two in turn begat gods and monsters. The One in Chains is such a one—a small monster, not a god but a demigod. Still, he is a great power.
And that’s whose prisoner we are? asked Vansen. His head was beginning to hurt from all this think-talking. Why have I never heard of them—of any of them?
“You have,” said Barrick. He sounded as though he had a mouthful of something bitter. “You know them all, Captain— Sva, the Void, and Zo, her mate, the First Light. All the rattling nonsense the priests talked...and it’s all real.” He seemed on the verge of tears again. “All of it! The gods are real and they will destroy us all, for not believing. We can no longer pretend it isn’t true.”
They will not destroy us, said Gyir, and although your kind and mine may well destroy each other, it will not be the gods’ doing. But he did not sound as certain as he had before, and Vansen wondered suddenly if it was really true that the True Speech could not lie. They are all gone from the earth now, long gone. Only a few of their lesser children like this crippled demigod remain.
Vansen had to take a breath, pained by such sacrilege from an inhuman creature—the gods gone? I still do not understand you. Sva and Zo? I have heard of them, but what of Perin and the Trigon? What of the gods we know, at whose temples we worship?
They are all one family, said Gyir. One family and one blood. And long before your folk or mine had even thought to clothe ourselves, they were spilling that blood.
“It’s pointless,” protested Barrick, putting his hands over his ears as though he could block out the soundless words that way. “This talking—any of this! It changes nothing.” His face reddened and seemed to crumple. The boy was crying again, rocking in place. “I thought it was all priest’s lies. Instead, I am being p-p-punished...punished for my miserable, flyblown, shit-stained pride!”
Vansen clambered to his feet and hurried to the prince’s side. “Your Highness, it is not your fault...”
“Leave me alone!” the boy shrieked. “Do not speak to me of things you know nothing about! What could you know of a curse like mine?” He threw himself down on his stomach and banged his forehead against the stone, like a man in a terrible hurry to pray.
“Prince Barrick...! Barrick, get up...” Vansen put his arms around the boy’s chest and tried to lift him, but the prince fought his way loose, and as he did so struck Vansen hard in the face.
Barrick did not even seem to notice. “No! Don’t you touch me!” he groaned. “I am filthy! On fire!” A froth of spittle hung at the corners of the boy’s mouth and on his lower lip. “The gods have chosen me for this suffering, this curse...!”
Vansen hesitated only a moment, then drew back and slapped the prince full in the face. Barrick stumbled and fell to his knees, shocked into silence. His hand slowly came up to his cheek. He drew it away and stared at it as though expecting to see blood, although Vansen had hit him only with his open hand. “You...you struck me!”
“I apologize, Your Highness,” Vansen said, “but you must calm yourself, for your own sake if nothing else. We cannot afford to bring down the guards, or start a fight with other prisoners. You may punish me for my crime as you wish if we make it home to Southmarch again. You may even have me put to death for it, if it pleases you...”
“Death?” said Barrick, and in an instant the flailing child was gone, his place taken by someone who looked like him but was eerily self-possessed. Barrick’s anger, hot a moment before, had suddenly turned icy. “You’re a fool if you think you’re going to get off that easily. If the impossible occurs and we return to Southmarch alive, I’m going to tell my sister how you feel about her and then order you to join her bodyguard, so you have to look at her every day and know that she is looking back at you with disgust, that she and all the other ladies of the court are marveling together at the sight of the most arrogantly foolish and pitiful idiot who ever lived.”<
br />
The prince turned away from him. Gyir seemed lost in his own secret thoughts. Ferras Vansen had no choice but to sit silently, holding his stomach as though he had been kicked.
22. A Meeting of the Guild
As a marriage gift, Silvergleam gave to Pale Daughter a box of wood, carved with the shapes of birds, and in it she put all that she could remember of her family and old home. When she opened the box, its music soothed her heart. But her father Thunder could not make music to cool the burning of his own anger. He called out to his brothers that he was afflicted, dying, that his heart was a smoldering stone in his chest. They came to him and he told them of the theft of his daughter, his dove.
—from One Hundred Considerations, out of the Qar’s Book of Regret
“I don’t like it,” Opal said. “No good can come of telling everyone.”
“I’m afraid this once I can’t agree with you.” Chert looked around the front room. Evidence of the distractions of the last days were everywhere—tools uncleaned, dust on the tabletop, unwashed bowls and cups. “I am no hero, old girl. I’ve come to the limit of what I can do.”
“No hero—is that what you say? You certainly have been acting like you thought you were one.”
“Not by choice. In all seriousness, my love, you must know that.”
She sniffed. “I’ll put the kettle on. Did you know the flue is blocked? We’ll be lucky if the smoke doesn’t kill us.”
Chert sighed and sank deeper in his chair. “I’ll see to the flue later. One thing at a time.”
He had been so tired that when the ringing began he did not at first realize what it was. Half in dream, he imagined it as the bells of the guildhall, that the great building was floating away on some underground river, being sucked down into the darkness below Funderling Town... “Is that our bell?” Opal shouted. “I’m making tea!” “Sorry, sorry!” Chert climbed onto his feet, trying to ignore the protesting twinges from his knees and ankles. No, he was definitely not a hero.