by Tad Williams
Who are you? he asked again.
I told you, I don’t know. Then she smiled, a surprising flash of amusement that transformed her solemn little face into something astounding. I’m a dreamer, I suppose, or maybe I’m a dream. One of us is dreaming this, aren’t we? But that was a jest, he knew. She was no idle wisp of either his fancy or her own—she was strong and practical. He could feel it. And who are you?
A prisoner, he told her, and knew it was true. An exile. A victim.
Now for the first time he felt something other than kindness from her, a sour taste in her reply. A victim? Who isn’t? That isn’t who you are, that’s just what’s happening to you.
He was torn between his desire to feel her sweetness again and the need to explain just how badly life and the gods had treated him. The gods? They were trying to kill him!
You don’t understand, he said. It’s different with me. But he found that here on this bridge over Unbeing, this span that led away in either direction to unseen and unknowable ends, he couldn’t explain why that was. I’m…wrong. Crippled. Mad in the head.
If you expect me to feel sorry for you because you dream of impossible places and people without names, she said, some of her sly humor creeping back, then you’ll have to try something else instead.
He wanted to let himself enjoy her, but he could not. If he did—if he belittled his own miseries—how could he even exist? The only thing that made his suffering bearable was the knowledge that it also made him different—that he had been elected somehow for this pain. But I didn’t ask to be like this! His despair rose up in a howl of fury. I didn’t want things to be this way! I don’t have the strength for any more!
What do you mean? Her amusement was gone—she was looking at him again, really looking. He would not recognize this blurry, occulted phantom even if he stood face-to-face with her, at least not by her features, but he would know the quality of attention she gave him anywhere, in any disguise.
I mean it’s too much. One horror after another. The gods themselves… The monstrousness of it all could not be explained. I’m cursed, that’s all. I’m not strong enough to live with it any longer. I thought I could—I’ve tried—but I can’t.
You don’t mean that. It’s a kind of…showing off.
I do mean it! I’d rather be dead. Dead, he might not see his beloved twin soul ever again—or this one either, this new friend in darkness—but at this moment he didn’t care. He was tired of the burden.
You can’t ever say that. Her thoughts were not plaintive but angry again. We all die. What if we only get one chance to be alive?
What if it’s all pain?
Push against it. Escape it. Change it.
Easy to say. He was disgusted and furious, but suddenly terrified she would leave him alone on this bone-white span over nothing—no, worse than nothing.
No, it’s not. And it’s even harder to do, I know. But it’s all you have.
What is?
This is. All of it. You have to fight.
Will you…will you come back to me if I do?
I don’t know. A flash of sweetness in the nothing, a smile like a fluting of birdsong in the dark before sunrise. I don’t know how I found you, so I can’t say if I’ll ever find you again, dear friend. Who are you?
I can’t say—I’m not sure. But come back to me—please!
I’ll try…but live!
And then the bridge, the pit, the girl, everything was gone, and Barrick Eddon was swimming slowly back up through the ordinary soundings of dream and sleep.
Ferras Vansen was relieved to see that the prince’s miseries seemed to have eased a bit. Barrick was no longer making that terrible wheezing noise, and although he still lay stretched on the stone floor of their cell he seemed to be resting now instead of suffering. Vansen, who had tried to comfort the prince once and had been hit in the face by a flailing hand for his trouble, let out a breath. Apparently he would live, although Vansen was still not entirely certain what had sickened him so badly. It seemed to be something to do with…
So what was that thing? he demanded of Gyir. That…door. You haven’t told me anything since we came back into our own heads except “Grab the boy’s legs” when he was thrashing on the floor. Why do you keep silent?
Because I am trying to understand. Gyir’s thoughts traveled slowly as summer clouds. What we saw seemed to have only one explanation and I do not trust such seemings. But the more I think, the more I come back again and again to the same conclusion.
What conclusion? Vansen looked to the prince, who had sat up, but was hunched over like a small child with a bellyache. I am only a soldier—I know nothing of gods, fairies, magic. What is happening here?
You saw the pine tree and the owl, Gyir said. They are Black Earth’s symbols. What else could we have seen except the fearful gate of Immon, as you would name him—the way into the palace of Immon’s master, bleak Kernios himself?
It was not the familiar Trigonate god Vansen saw in his mind’s eye now, not a statue or a painting on a church wall, but a memory from his early life in the dales—whispers of the dark man with his mask and his heavy gloves, who would grab wicked children (or maybe even good ones if he caught them alone) and drag them down beneath the ground.
Kernios…the god of the dead? Are you telling me that we are standing on top of the entrance to his palace? It was one thing to meet even a terrifying giant like Jikuyin and be told he was a demigod, another thing to be told that one of the all-powerful Trigon made his home just beneath their feet in this very spot, the dark brother whose frowning eyes had been on Ferras Vansen since he had drawn breath, the shadow that had haunted his dreams as long as he could remember. But how could that be? Why would it be here?
It could be anywhere. It simply happens to be here. Or a doorway does, at least. Where other doorways are, who can say…?
But what does that mean? If the gate’s here, the whole palace has to be here, too, doesn’t it? Buried down there in the stone?
Gyir shook his head. There was a small furrow between his eyes that showed his worry, the only sign of recognizable feelings on that bleak expanse. The ways of the gods, their dwellings and habits, are not like ours. They walk different roads. They live in different fields, some of which we cannot even tread. One side of a doorway is not always in the same place or even time as what is on the other side. The fairy lifted both hands, made a sign with them that spoke first of connection, then separation. It is confusing, he admitted.
Vansen thought about his own experiences trying to find his way around behind the Shadowline, then tried to imagine something that would confuse even creatures like Gyir who had been born and raised in these shifting, unfixed lands. But why are they digging it out? he asked. The giant and that gray man—why would they want to go near it? Ferras Vansen had a sudden, terrifying thought. Is…Kernios on the other side of that? Waiting?
No, he is gone, Gyir said. All the gods are gone, Perin Shatterhand and Kernios and Immon the Black Pig—at least all those gods whose names I know. Banished to the lands of sleep.
“Then why are they digging?” In his agitation Vansen spoke aloud. After so much time, the croaking sound of his own voice irritated him. “For treasure?”
“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.