by Tad Williams
How could I forget? Vansen wondered, but this time his thoughts were only for himself. I have been asked to help the murderers of my people. And, may the gods help me, I think I will have to do it.
After the confusing conversation between Gyir and Vansen, only a little of which he remembered, let alone understood, Barrick fell back into sleep again. The nightmares that plagued him in the next hours were much like others he had suffered in his old life—dreams of rage and pursuit, dreams of a world that he did not recognize but which recognized him and feared him—but they seemed fuller now, deeper and richer. One thing had changed, however: the girl with dark hair and dark eyes now appeared in every dream, as though she were as much his twin as Briony, his own flesh and blood. Barrick did not know her, not even in the suspended logic of a dream, and she took no active part in any of his dire fancies, but she was there through it all like a shepherd on a distant hilltop, remote, uninvolved, but an indisputable and welcome presence.
Barrick woke up blinking. His companions had moved him into the single shaft of light (if something so weak could be graced with the name) that fell through the grille and into their cell, illuminating the crudely mortared stones.
He sat up, but the cell spun around him and for a moment he felt as if the corpse-pit itself they had seen had somehow reached up to clutch him, to pull him down into the stink and the jellying flesh. He managed to crawl to the privy-hole at the far end of the narrow cell before vomiting, but his aim was hampered by his convulsive movement. Even though his stomach had been almost empty, the sour tang quickly filled the small space, adding shame to his misery. Ferras Vansen turned away as Barrick retched again, bringing up only bile this time—an act of courtesy by the guard captain that only made Barrick feel worse. He still had not forgotten that Vansen had struck him—must the man condescend to him as well? Treat him like a child?
He tried to speak but could not summon the strength. He was hot where he shouldn’t be, cold where he shouldn’t be, and his bad arm ached so that he could barely stand it. Vansen and Gyir were watching him, but Barrick waved away the guard captain’s helping hand and ignored the throbbing of his arm long enough to crawl back to the cell wall. He wanted to tell them he was only tired, but weakness overcame him. He let them feed him a morsel of bread moistened with water, then he fell yet again into miserable, feverish sleep.
What day was this? It was a discordant thought: the names of days had become as much of a vanishing memory as the look of the sky and the smell of pleasant things like pine needles and cooked food. The silence suddenly caught his attention. Barrick rolled over and sat up, certain in his panic that the Qar and the guardsman had been taken away and he had been left alone. He gritted his teeth through a moment of dizziness and fluttering sparks before his eyes, but when the sparks cleared he saw that Vansen and Gyir were only a short distance away, slouched against the wall, heads sagging in sleep.
“Praise all the gods,” he whispered. At the sound of the prince’s voice Gyir opened his red eyes. Vansen was stirring, too. The soldier’s face was gaunt and shadowed with unkempt beard. When had the man become so thin? “How are you feeling, Highness?” Vansen asked him.
It took Barrick a moment to clear his throat. “Does it matter? We will die here. Everything I ever thought...said... it doesn’t matter now. This is where we’ll die.”
Do not give in to despair yet. Gyir’s words were surprisingly strong. All is not lost. Something in this place seems to have strengthened my... Barrick could not understand the word—the feeling was of something like a small, fierce flame. My abilities, you would say—that which makes me a Storm Lantern.
Funny. I feel worse than I have since I left the castle. It was true: Barrick had actually experienced some easing of the nightmares and strange thoughts after leaving home, especially during the days he had ridden with Tyne Aldritch and the other soldiers, but since he and his companions had entered this hellish hole in the ground the old miseries had come back more powerfully than ever. He could almost feel doom following just behind him like a shadow. Do you think it is that horrible Jikuyin who has done it to me, that giant? I felt as though his voice...it hurt me... Gyir shook his head. I do not know. But there is something strange about this place—stranger even than the presence of the demigod himself, I think. I have spent much of the last days casting out my net, gleaning what thoughts I can from the other prisoners, and even some of the guards, although most of them are little more than beasts.
You can do that?
I can now. It is strange, but this place has not only given my strength back to me, I think it has even made me a little stronger than I was before.
Barrick shrugged. Strong enough to get us out of here?
He felt sure that Gyir would have smiled regretfully if he had a mouth like an ordinary man. I think not—not by pitting strength alone against the powers of both Ueni’ssoh and great Jikuyin. But do not despair. Give me a while longer to think of something. I need to learn more of the great secret of this place.
Secret? Barrick saw that Vansen was listening raptly, too— might even be carrying on his own conversation with Gyir. Instead of the burst of jealously such a realization usually caused, this time he felt oddly connected to the man. There were moments he hated the guard captain, but others when he felt as though he were closer to Ferras Vansen than to any other living mortal—except Briony, of course. Gods protect you, he thought, his heart suddenly, achingly full. Oh, strawhead, what I would give just to see your face, your real face, in front of me...!
I have not wasted the time while you were lost in fever dreams, Gyir told him. I have found a guard who works sometimes in the pit—one who watches over the prisoners who put the bodies on the platform and send them up to the wagon-slaves. Can you...see his thoughts? Can you see what’s down below us?
No. The guard has a curious emptiness where those memories should be.
Then what good is he to us? Barrick was weary again. How absurd, when he had been awake such a short time!
I can follow him—stand inside him as I stood inside the thoughts and feelings of the woodsprite. I can see what he sees down in the depths.
Then I will go with you again, like last time, Barrick said. I want to see. Gyir and Vansen actually exchanged a look, which infuriated him. I know you two think me weak, but I will not be left behind in this cell.
I do not think you are weak, Barrick Eddon, but I do think you are in danger. Whatever about this place troubles you grew worse when I carried your thoughts with me last time. And Ferras Vansen and I will not leave—only our thoughts will. You will not be alone.
Barrick should have been too weak for fury, but he wasn’t.
Don’t speak in my head and tell me lies. Alone? How could I be more alone than stuck here with your empty bodies? What if something happens to you and your thoughts are...lost, or something like that? I would rather it happens to me, too, than to be left here with your corpses.
Gyir stared at him a long time. I will consider it. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, either,” Vansen said out loud.
Barrick did his best to regain his mask of cold control. “I know you don’t follow orders you don’t like, Captain Vansen, but unless you have given up your allegiance to me entirely, you are still sworn to my family as your liegelords. I am the prince of Southmarch. Do you think to order me as to what I may and may not do?”
Vansen stared at him, a dozen different expressions moving across his face like oil spreading on a pool of water. “No, Highness,” he said at last. “You will do what you think best. As always.”
The guardsman was right, of course, and Barrick hated that. He was a fool to take such a risk, but he had told the truth—he was far more terrified of being left alone.
“Doirrean, what are you doing? He is too far from the fire— he will be cold and then ill.” Queen Anissa leaned forward in her bed to glare at the nurse, a sturdy, sullen girl with pale, Connordic features.
“Yes, Highness.” The young woma
n picked up both the baby and the cushion underneath him, taking care to show just how much trouble she was being put to, and then used her foot to move the chair closer to the large fireplace. Sister Utta could not help wondering whether a healthy baby was not at more risk from flying sparks than from a few moments naked in an otherwise warm room. Of course, I’ve never had a child, though I’ve been present for my share of births. Perhaps it feels different when it’s your own.
“I just cannot understand why I am saying things over and over,” Anissa declared. Her thin frame had rounded a little during her pregnancy, but now the skin seemed to hang loosely on her bones. “Does no one listen? Have I not had enough pain and suffer...sufferance?”
“Don’t fret yourself too much, dear,” Merolanna told her. “You have had a terrible time, yes, but you have a fine, fine son. His father will be very proud.”
“Yes, he is fine, is he not?” Anissa smiled at the infant, who was staring raptly up at his nurse in that guileless, hearttugging way that babies had—the only thing about them that ever made Utta regret her own choices in life. It would be appealing, she thought, perhaps even deeply satisfying, to have an innocent young soul in your care, to fill it like a jewel case with only good things, with kindness and reverent thoughts and love and friendship. “Oh, I pray that his father comes back soon to see him,” the queen said, “to see what I have done, what a handsome boy I have made for him.”
“What will you name him?” Utta asked. “If you do not mind saying before the ceremony.”
“Olin, of course. Like his father. Well, Olin Alessandros— Alessandros was my grandfather’s name, the grand viscount of Devonis.” Anissa sounded a bit nettled. “Olin. What else would I name him?”
Utta did not point out that the king had already had two other sons, neither of whom had been given his name. Anissa was an insecure creature, but she had reason to be: her husband was imprisoned, her stepchildren all gone, and her only claim to authority was this tiny child. Small surprise she would want to remind everyone constantly of who the father was and what the child represented.
Somebody knocked at the chamber door. One of the queen’s other maids left the group of whispering women and opened it, then exchanged a few words with one of the wolf-liveried guards who stood outside. “It is the physician, Highness,” she called.
Merolanna and Utta exchanged a startled look as the door swung open, but it was Brother Okros, not Chaven, who stepped into the room. The scholar, dressed in the winecolored robes of Eastmarch Academy, bowed deeply and stayed down on one knee. “Your Highness,” he said. “Ah, and Your Grace.” He rose, then added a bow for Utta and the others. “Ladies.”
“You may come to me, Okros,” called Anissa. “I am all in a trouble. My milk, it hardly ever flows. If I did not have Doirrean, I do not know what I would do.”
Utta, who was impressed that Anissa was nursing at all—it was not terribly common among the upper classes, and she would have guessed the queen would be only too glad to hand the child over to a wet nurse—turned away to let the physician talk to his patient. The other ladies-in-waiting came forward and surrounded the queen’s bed, listening.
“We haven’t spoken to Okros yet,” said Merolanna quietly, “and this would be a good time.”
“Speak to him about what?”
“We can ask him about those strange things the little person said. That House of the Moon jabber. If it’s to do with Chaven, then perhaps Okros will recognize what it means. Perhaps it’s something that any of those doctoring fellows would know.”
Utta felt a sudden pang of fear, although she could not say exactly why. “You want to...tell him? About what the Queen’s Ears said?”
Merolanna waved her beringed hand. “Not all of it—I’m no fool. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone that we heard all this from a Rooftopper—a little person the size of my finger.”
“But...but these matters are secret!”
“It’s been a tennight or more and I’m no closer to finding out what happened to my son. Okros is a good man—a smart one, too. He’ll tell us if he recognizes any of this. You let me take charge, Utta. You worry too much.”
Brother Okros had finished with the queen and was writing down a list of instructions for her ladies. “Just remember, he is too young for sops.”
“But he loves to suck the sugar and milk from my finger,” said Anissa, pouting.
“You may give him milk on your finger, but not sugar. He does not need it. And tell your nurses not to swaddle him so tightly.”
“But it will give him such a fine neck, my handsome Sandro.”
“And bent shoulders, and perhaps even a pigeon chest. No, tell them to swaddle him loosely enough that the act would not wake him if he was sleeping.”
“Nonsense. But, of course, if you are saying it must be so...” Anissa looked as though she would probably deliberately forget this advice as soon as the physician had left the room.
Okros bowed, a smile wrinkling his thin, leathery face. “Thank you, Your Highness. Blessings of the Trigon—and Kupilas and our good Madi Surazem—upon you.” He made the sign of the Three, then turned to Merolanna and Utta, bowing again. “Ladies.”
Merolanna laid a hand on his arm as he passed. “Oh, would you wait for a moment outside, Brother Okros? I have something I would ask you. Will you excuse us, Anissa, dear? I mean, Your Highness? I must go and have a little rest—my age, you know.”
Anissa was gazing raptly at her infant son again, watching Doirrean swathe him in linen. “Of course, dear Merolanna. You are so kind to visit me. You will come to the Carrying, of course—Sandro’s naming ceremony? It is only little while from now, on the day before the Kerneia—what do you call that day here?”
“Prophets’ Day,” said Merolanna.
“Yes, Prophet’s Day. And Sor Utta, you are most certainly welcomed for coming, too.”
Utta nodded. “Thank you, Highness.”
“Oh, I would not miss it for a bag of golden dolphins, Anissa,” Merolanna assured her. “Miss my newest nephew being welcomed into the family? Of course I will be there.”
Okros was waiting for them in the antechamber. He smiled and bowed again, then turned to walk beside them down the tower steps. Utta saw that the duchess really was tired —Merolanna was walking slowly, and with a bit of a limp because of the pains in her hip.
“What can I offer you, Your Grace?” Okros asked.
“Some information, to be honest. May I assume you still have not heard anything from Chaven?”
He shook his head. “To my deep regret, no. There are so many things I would like to ask him. Taking on his duties has left me with many questions, many confusions. I miss his counsel—and his presence, too, of course. Our friendship goes back many years.”
“Do you know anything about the moon?”
Okros looked a little startled by the apparent change of subject, but shrugged his slender shoulders. “It depends, I suppose. Do you mean the object that rides the skies above us at night and sometimes in the day—yes, see, there it is now, pale as a seashell! Or the goddess Mesiya of the silver limbs? Or the moon’s effect on women’s courses and the ocean’s tides?”
“Not any of those things,” said Merolanna. “At least I don’t think so. Have you ever heard of anything called the House of the Moon?”
He was silent for so long that Utta thought they had upset him somehow, but when he spoke he sounded just as before. “Do you mean the palace of Khors? The old moon demon conquered by the Trigon? His palace is spoken of in some of the poems and stories of ancient days, called by that name, House of the Moon.”
“It could be. Did Chaven ever own something that could be called a piece of the moon’s house?”
Now he looked at her carefully, as though he hadn’t really noticed the duchess until just this moment—which was nonsense, of course. Utta knew it was her own nerves making her see phantoms.
“What makes you ask such a question?” he said at last.
“I never thought to hear such dusty words of scholarship from you, Your Grace.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Merolanna was annoyed. “I’m not a fool, am I?”
“Oh, no, Your Grace, no!” Okros laughed—a little anxiously, it seemed to Utta. “I meant no such thing. It’s just that such old legends, such...trivial old stories...it surprises me to hear such things from you when I would more expect them from one of my brother scholars in the Eastmarch library.” He bowed his head, thinking. “I remember nothing about Chaven and anything to do with the House of the Moon, but I will give it some thought, and perhaps even have a look at the letters Chaven sent to me over the years—it could be some investigation he had undertaken that I have forgotten.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “May I ask what makes you inquire about this?”
“Just...something that I heard,” Merolanna said. “Doubtless a mistake. Something I thought I remembered him saying once, that’s all.”
“And is it of importance to you, Your Grace? Is it something that I, with my humble scholarship and my friends at the academy, could help you to discover?”
“No, it’s really nothing important,” said Merolanna. “If you find anything about Chaven and this House of the Moon thing, perhaps we’ll talk more. But don’t worry yourself too much.”
After Okros had taken his leave the women made their way across the Inner Keep toward the residence. Flurries of snow were in the air, but only a few powdery scatterings had collected on the cobbled paths. Still, the sky was dark as burned pudding and Utta suspected there would be a lot more white on the ground by morning.
“I think that went rather well,” said Merolanna, frowning. Her limp had become more distinct. “He seemed willing to be helpful.”
“He knows something. Couldn’t you see?”
“Yes, of course I could see.” Merolanna’s frown deepened in annoyance. “All these men, especially the scholars, think that such knowledge belongs to them alone. But he also knows now that he’ll have to give something to get something.”
“Did it ever occur to you such a game might be dangerous?”