Shadowplay s-2

by Tad Williams

  “Because they are mad,” grunted Barrick, rolling over. “The Qar are mad, but the gods and demigods are even more so. This whole land is cracked and deathly.” The prince couldn’t yet sit up straight, but he was doing his best to hide his discomfort, and Vansen couldn’t help admiring him for it.

  Gyir must have said something to him then, because there was a pause before the prince said aloud, “Because I can’t. It hurts my head too much. I’ll just have to be careful what I say. Can you talk to both of us at the same time?”

  I will try, Gyir said. You think us all mad, man-child? I wish it were only so, then our problems might not be so great. You speak from pain, because the essence of the gods hurts you, even when they are absent. In a way, you seem much like me. We have both felt the power of this place, only in different ways.

  “What are you talking about?” Barrick asked.

  You are sensitive, it seems, as I was and as all the Encauled would be—sensitive to the voice of Jikuyin, sensitive to the Pig’s gate and to the throne room of Black Earth beyond. But it is a little strange, almost as if...as if... Gyir closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. No, he told them, opening his eyes again. It matters not. Listen, though, and I will tell you some things that do matter. The fairy settled himself on the stone floor of the cell and briefly closed his red eyes in thought.

  When Kernios was driven out, he told them at last, he left behind everything that was material, all that was of flesh or the world... Vansen was puzzled, uncertain if he had understood Gyir correctly. Driven out?

  “Explain,” Barrick said. “I’m tired of guessing.”

  Yes, driven out. He and the other gods were banished from these lands and cast into the realm of sleep and forgetting.

  “Banished by who?”

  I will try to explain all, but you two must not interrupt me with questions—especially you, Prince Impatience, since you are speaking aloud so anyone can hear. Gyir’s anger flashed like lightning through his thoughts. We are fortunate —I sense there is no one near who can hear what I say in your heads or who speaks your mortal tongue—but do not stretch your luck. We are in terrible, terrible danger— worse even than I had feared. The fairy raised his fingers to his temples as though his head pained him. Please, let me begin where I need to begin. Even to Vansen, still not entirely familiar with this way of conversing, it was impossible to mistake the desperation in Gyir’s every thought.

  Prince Barrick raised his hand in surrender or permission.

  First you must understand something of my own history. I am not merely a warrior. In fact, it is the most unlikely thing I could have become. Those of my folk who are most like your people in shape—for it was a shape we all shared, once—are called “the High Folk,” not because looking like a sunlander is comely, but because it is the old way of seeming. But even some of the High Ones are so different from your kind as to be almost unrecognizable, either born dissimilar or because they can change their outward appearance. Some of them have been figures of terror to your kind for thousands of years. Others, like the Guild of Elementals, take earthly shapes only when it suits them, like the gods themselves.

  And then there are folk like me, who although we come from the great families of power that have kept the most of the old seeming, yet we ourselves are born different— freakish even among our varied folk. I am one such—one of the Encauled, as those of my malady are named. We are born with this tissue of flesh over our faces that we must wear all our lives, but we are granted other gifts— senses that are stronger than most, an understanding that allows us to find our way when even the powerful might become lost. Among the People, we Encauled often become the guides, the searchers, those who explore different ways. Some of us take service in the Deep Library in the House of the People, which is our great city and capital. The Library is where we speak with the spirits of those who have left their flesh, as well as with some who have never worn flesh. Serving the Library is an exacting and noble pursuit.

  That would likely have been my calling, but my parents fell afoul of one of the court rivalries and my father was killed. My mother was driven out of the House of the People by a faction who held strong allegiance to King Ynnir—although, to be fair, they did not always act as the king would have wished, nor could he always control them. My mother and I wandered for years, taking service at last with Yasammez—Lady Porcupine, the great iconoclast, the woman who belongs to no one but herself. In her house in the Wanderwind Mountains I grew, and when my mother at last became weary of the many defeats and disappointments of her life and surrendered to death, I was raised in Yasammez’s martial service, my gifts used not for contemplation but for warfare on behalf of the woman who had taken me in and raised me almost as her own.

  Because of her, Jikuyin is not the first of the demigods I have met. When I was barely old enough to carry a sword I fought with my mistress at Dawnwood against Barumbanogatir, a fearsome bastard of old Twilight—the one you sunlanders call Sveros the Evening Sky. Giant Barumbanogatir killed three hundred of my lady’s finest warriors before she brought him down at last with a spear through his great shield and into his throat. After that we fought other wars for the People, against the Dreamless and the treacherous mountain Drows, struggling and dying to keep our people safe even as the people themselves shunned us—even as all but Queen Saqri treated us like vicious animals to be tied at the edge of camp but never to be allowed any closer.

  You see, only Saqri of the Ancient Song recognized us for what we were—the sharp sword in the People’s sheath, which even when it is not drawn gives others pause, makes them think and weigh their lusts against their fears. Yasammez is of the queen’s own family, and Saqri honored her as one of the oldest and purest of the High Ones still living. Queen Saqri knew that my mistress had been given in long life and in courage what the king and queen and their ancestors had surrendered in return for the gift of the Fireflower, the boon of the last god to our ruling family.

  A boon that has now become a curse... Ferras Vansen could feel thousands of years of confusing, dangerous history swirling like deep black waters just behind the fairy’s words. He wanted to ask what the Fireflower was, but Gyir for once was speaking so openly that Vansen feared to distract him.

  My lady Yasammez had been fighting for the People long centuries before ever I was born. At the dreadful, infamous battle of Shivering Plain, during one of the last of the wars of the gods, she destroyed the earthly form of Urekh, no god’s bastard but a true god himself, who wore the pelt of a magical wolf as his invulnerable armor. For that alone she would be remembered and celebrated until time’s candle gutters out, but it is not why I speak of that battle. That was the same day of which I told you before, where Jikuyin delayed his coming, hoping to manipulate the results to his own advantage, and instead was struck down by Kernios himself, blinded and nearly killed.

  Vansen remembered the story of Jukuyin riding late onto the field with his Widowmakers, then realizing he had bought more trouble than he could afford, since Perin, Kernios, and the gods called the Surazemai were winning and the rest of the gods and Qar were already in flight.

  Kernios hurt him, you said.

  Indeed. Black Earth wounded Jikuyin so gravely that he would never heal. But now, for some reason, the demigod is digging his way into the very throne room of Black Earth —the one your kind call Kernios.

  So what is Jikuyin going to do?

  Make right what was done to him, somehow. Perhaps the god’s mighty spear Earthstar lies behind that gate, or perhaps Jikuyin seeks a more subtle prize. But if he does manage to open that doorway into Kernios’ earthly realm, I can feel that Jikuyin will gain in power—gain immeasurably. His long-ago defeat cast him down into weakness—what you see before you is scarcely a shadow of what he was on the day he rode out onto Shivering Plain—but he is one of the last living bastards of the true gods. If he gains that strength back he will be the most powerful thing that walks on the green world.

  But we
can’t do anything to stop him, Vansen said. Can we?

  I fear we must, said Gyir.

  Are you telling me it is up to us to defend all the world?

  Vansen turned to Barrick to see if the boy understood Gyir’s riddling words, but the prince only stared back at him balefully, still struggling for breath.

  Of course—but also to save our own lives. Great magicks —the oldest, most powerful magicks—need blood and essences—what your kind call the souls of people or animals—to succeed. They need sacrifices. The word came like the tip of a dagger, cold and sharp, almost painless at first. Especially the sacrifice of those who are themselves powerful in some way.

  What are you talking about? But Vansen had already guessed.

  I suspect now that we have not been worked to death like the other poor creatures poisoned by the gateway to the gods’ realm because Jikuyin needs one of us—most likely me, since I am of the Encauled—or perhaps even all of us to unlock the way into Kernios’ throne room. He needs our blood. He needs our souls.

  One thing you had to say for Ferras Vansen, Barrick decided. The guard captain never stopped...trying. If his stolid normality and his rude health had not already been sufficient reasons to hate him, then his relentless willingness to keep pushing and fighting—as if life were a game and there would be some ultimate tally, some adding-up of accounts—would have more than sufficed. Barrick had always thought optimism was another name for stupidity.

  But the dark-eyed girl would admire him, he realized with a pang.

  “So what do we do?” Vansen asked Gyir quietly, speaking aloud so the prince could hear. The man was also thoughtful. Barrick wanted to hit him with something. “Surely we cannot simply wait for them to...to burn us on some barbarous altar.”

  “You might want to consider the small matter of a mad demigod and all the demons and beasts who serve him and who would happily tear us to shreds,” Barrick pointed out with more pleasure than one would normally expect to accompany such a sentence. He was tempted to help Gyir and the soldier anyway, just so they could discover the futility of all such scheming. He supposed it wasn’t entirely their fault. They had not felt, as he had, the true strength of this place, the horrific, overwhelming power that remained in Greatdeeps even if the god himself was gone—if he was truly gone. Whatever made Barrick sensitive also clearly made him wise: he alone seemed to understand the pointlessness of all this discussion.

  But would she think it was pointless? Barrick knew she wouldn’t, and that made him feel ashamed again. Shame or certain death, he thought —what splendid choices I am always given.

  Of course, said Gyir. We would be fools if we thought our chances anything but bad. However, we have no choice. As I told you, I have something here which must be carried to the House of the People at any cost, so we must resist Jikuyin and his plans.

  “It’s all very well to talk,” Barrick said. “But what can actually be done? What hope do we have?”

  There must be no more talking in spoken words, Gyir told him, even if it causes you pain. I will speak to both of you, and I will translate what each of you say to me, back and forth. It will be slow, but even though I do not feel anyone spying on us, if we are going to talk about what we might do, I can no longer risk being wrong.

  Very well, Barrick said. But what point is there in talking about fighting Jikuyin, anyway? He’s a giant—a kind of god!

  Gyir slowly nodded. Pointless? Likely. It will take preparation and luck, and even so we will probably gain nothing but a violent death—but at least the death will be of our own choosing, and that is worth more than a little.

  However, first I must find the serpentine, and think of a way to lay my hands on it.

  The what? Barrick did not recognize the idea that went with the snaky word-picture—a trail of fire, a sudden expansion like a pig’s bladder too full of air. What do you mean?

  Gyir paused for a moment as if listening. I spoke of it before. The burning black sand, the Fire of Kupilas. Ah, Ferras Vansen reminds me that your people call it “gunflour.”

  Gun-flour? How would we get our hands on such stuff, locked in this cell? demanded Barrick. Might as well ask for a bombard or a troop of musketeers while we’re at it— we won’t get any of them.

  They are using the swift-burning serpentine in the earth below us every day, Gyir told him. They pack it into the cracks and speed their digging that way, by smashing apart the stones. It is here in Greatdeeps, somewhere. We have only to find it, and steal some.

  And then fly away like birds, said Barrick. How will we do any of those things? We are prisoners, don’t you realize? Prisoners!

  Gyir shook his head. No, child. You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

  32. Remembering Simmikin

  The renegade gods Zmeos the Horned One and Zuriyal the Merciless (who was his sister and wife) were banished to the same Unbeing which had swallowed Sveros, father of all, and for a while peace reigned on heavenly Xandos. Mesiya, the wife of Kernios, left him to shepherd the moon in the place of dead Khors, and Kernios generously took Zoria to be his wife, caring little what dishonor she had suffered.

  —from The Beginnings of Things, The Book of the Trigon

  It was odd, Briony reflected, how much traveling with a troop of players was like going on a royal progress. In each town you stopped for a night and entertained the locals to keep them sweet, pretending as though you had never been in a more delightful place until they were safely behind you, then complaining about the take and the poor quality of local food and lodgings.

  The main difference between this journey and her father’s occasional jaunts through the March Kingdoms was that as part of the king’s progress you stood a smaller chance of having stale vegetables thrown at you if the local citizens didn’t like the way you spoke your piece. That, and the royal faction brought along enough armed guards that no one cheated anyone too obviously.

  Tonight, this thought occurred to her with some force. Although the hour was long past midnight, instead of sharing a comfortable hayloft or even a spare tavern room, they were making their way along a rutted roadway through southernmost Kertewall in a drenching rain. It had turned out that the keeper of Hallia Fair’s biggest tavern, which they had just left, was also the brother of the local reeve, and when he had claimed that the Makewell troop had cheated him on the takings from the night’s performance— although Pedder Makewell’s sister Estir swore it was the other way around—they got no support from the reeve and his men, and in fact were stripped of an even larger pile of coin than the innkeeper had claimed in the first place. Thus, here they were, poor and hungry again despite an evening’s hard work, soaking wet in the middle of the night as they trudged off in search of a town more congenial to the playmaking arts.

  Briony was walking in the cold rain because the giant Dowan Birch was unwell and she had given him her place in the wagon. She did not mind doing so—he was a kind person, and even when he wasn’t ill walking made his oversized feet ache—but she wished this adventure could have begun in a friendlier month of the year, like Heptamene or Oktamene, with their bonny, balmy nights.

  “Zoria, give me strength,” she murmured under her breath. Finn Teodoros lifted the shutter and leaned his head out the tiny window of the wagon. “How are you faring, young Tim?” It amused the poet to call her by her boy’s name, and he did so as often as possible. “Miserable. Miserable and wet.”

  “Ah, well. The price we must pay for the gifts the gods grant us.”

  “What gifts are those?”

  “Art. Freedom. Masculine virtue. Those sorts of things.” Pleased with himself beyond any reason, the fat playwright pulled the shutter down just before she could hit him with a gob of mud.

  In this most extraordinary of times, traveling with the players had begun to seem almost ordinary. It had been almost half a month since Briony had come upon them, and possibly longer—it was hard to keep track without the machineries of court etiquette to remind her of
things like what day it was. Eimene, the year’s first month, had become Dimene, although it was hard to tell the difference: there had been little snow in this dark, muddy year, which was a small blessing, but the rains continued to fall and the wind continued to blow, frigid and unkind. Despite all that had happened since Orphanstide, Briony was not used to living out of doors and doubted she ever would be.

  They had made their way roughly south, following the Great Kertish Road along the Silverside border, back and forth across the edge of Kertewall, stopping in every town big enough to have a place to perform and enough money in the citizen’s pockets to make it worthwhile. That said, on every stop some people paid with vegetables or other foodstuffs, and in many of the smaller villages there were no coins at all in the box at the end of the night, but a few small loaves set on Estir Makewell’s wooden trunk (which served as the company’s turnstile gate) along with enough dried peas and parsnips to provide the players with a meal of soup and bread after they had finished performing. Although the spiritual instruction of The Orphan Boy in Heaven was popular, and scenes from the Theomachy (the war of Perin and his brothers against the bad, old gods) were always a favorite, what the villagers liked best were the violent history plays, especially The Bandit-King of Torvio and Hewney’s infamous Xarpedon, where Pedder Makewell always provided such a monstrous, entertaining death for the title character. Briony, who had seen too much of the true heart’s essence of late, was still not entirely comfortable with watching Makewell or Nevin Hewney staggering about spouting pig’s blood from a hidden bladder, but the spectators could not seem to get enough of it. Although they reacted with anger and outrage over the death of a hero or an innocent, especially if it was well-staged, they yelped with glee when the wicked, horned god Zmeos was pierced with Kernios’ spear, and they laughed uproariously as Milios the Bandit-King coughed out his life after having been mauled by a bear, moaning, “What claws! What foul, treacherous claws!”