Poison

by Chris Wooding

  The hall was one of many in the Hierophant’s castle, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber of black stone with mighty pillars supporting a broad balcony upon which Poison stood with Fleet and a few other observers. On the floor of the hall, where fine rugs were laid and where time-dimmed pennants hung against the walls, were those Lords and Ladies of the Realms that had chosen to attend. Poison studied them closely.

  Foremost was Aelthar and his retinue. He was arguing with an enormous, stone-skinned gargoyle that crouched on a broad set of steps, guarding the double doors at the top. Poison took a moment to adjust her perspective. Aelthar was about seven feet, so the gargoyle was easily ten, fifteen when it flexed the bat-wings that grew from its shoulders. Its fanged face was set in a snarl, and its eyes glowered like coals.

  “He cannot deny us!” Aelthar cried, losing control in his fury. “The masters and mistresses of the Realms are all here assembled. We insist upon an audience.”

  “You may insist,” the gargoyle rumbled, “but the Lord Melcheron will not see you. He is writing, and will not be disturbed.”

  “We know he’s writing!” Aelthar snapped. “That’s why we’re here! Now let us pass!”

  “In the Realm of the Hierophant, as in your Realms, his word is law. You may not pass.”

  Poison let her eyes range over the others assembled in the room. She had already enquired of Fleet their names, though she had forgotten some. One she remembered particularly well was Grugaroth, the Ur-Lord, the Troll King.

  He was the only one in the room that was an equal in size to the gargoyle, even stooped as he was. He had short, thick legs, massive forearms and an enormous lower jaw from which two tusks protruded, one of them broken. Fleet had informed Poison that he had broken it in a cataclysmic three-day battle with his predecessor, Mgwar, from whom he took the mantle of power. His skin was thick and brown and leathery, plated with natural armour and tufted with thick clumps of hair. He was dressed in besmirched brown and scarlet, and carried an improbably huge hammer across his back. Bloodshot eyes burned red in his soot-smeared face. He was a mountainous creature, dark and dirty from the deep mines and belching fire-pits from which he came. But most importantly to Poison, he was an enemy of Aelthar.

  “Fleet?” she asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “Who or what is Myghognimar?”

  She remembered the name for its sheer unpronounceability; Aelthar had mentioned it when they had eavesdropped on his conversation with Scriddle.

  “It’s the sword that Aelthar carries,” Fleet replied. “It was forged by a legendary dwarrow master in the mines of Grugaroth’s kingdom: the finest blade in creation, so they say. Many centuries ago, the phaeries and the ur-people made war on each other, and Aelthar – who was a great general at the time – was responsible for defeating and slaying Grugaroth’s half-brother Nuiglan at the Battle of Karss Forge. He took Myghognimar as the spoils of his victory. The phaeries were eventually driven out, but Grugaroth never forgot. He hates Aelthar, and every sight of that blade reminds him of the vengeance he owes the Phaerie Lord.”

  Poison watched the Troll King with interest. After a time, she glanced over the other Lords and Ladies of the room. They came in all sizes and aspects, a dozen or so, each with their retinues eyeing each other warily. There was the Daemon Lord, his skin a sulphurous black. There was the manifestation of Eternity, a sparkling, blank-faced humanoid who, it was said, was responsible for regulating the natural laws of the worlds – to make sure up was up, down was down, time flowed and so forth. She spotted the Umbilicus, the mouthpiece of the Spirit Lord, who could not take on physical form but who spoke through this corpselike entity, hanging in mid-air as if suspended on invisible meathooks, surrounded by an unearthly green glow. The Gomm, whom Aelthar had referred to when they were eavesdropping, was not present. But there was one other that she was looking for, one she hoped would not be here. . .

  She felt a tickling on the back of her hand, where it gripped the balcony. Looking down, she saw with a thrill of horror that a large beige spider was crawling across her knuckles, unhurriedly walking over her skin. With a spasmodic twitch of disgust, she sent it flying from her hand and over the balcony.

  “What is it, Poison?” Fleet asked, having noted her violent movement.

  “A spider,” she said, looking around. Just a little too much of a coincidence that a spider should appear at the very same moment she was thinking about. . .

  Ah. There she was.

  Asinastra was at the end of the balcony, her face and her dreadful gaze covered by a moth-eaten white veil, hunched amid the straggle of her own filthy hair. Even though Poison could not see those black, paralysing eyes, she knew that Asinastra was looking malevolently at her.

  Poison felt herself go cold inside, but she refused to show it. She met Asinastra’s veiled stare levelly. The Spider Lady had not forgotten who had stolen her dagger.

  “She can’t hurt you,” said Fleet at her shoulder. “Not here. The Hierophant’s protection extends to everyone within his Realm.”

  Poison did not break the stare. “I hope you’re right,” she replied quietly.

  As she watched, Asinastra slipped away, disappearing through a doorway. She felt a palpable relief that the creature had left, but it was soured by a terrible foreboding. Asinastra was here, and she would be coming to visit Poison sooner or later. Only the Hierophant’s protection provided any shield for her; and it seemed a thin shield indeed, the width of a word.

  “Why are they all here?” she asked Fleet suddenly, indicating the Lords and Ladies below.

  Fleet stirred and cleared his throat. “The Hierophant has begun to write,” he said. “Sometimes a Hierophant takes personal charge of writing a tale. That tale is invariably important in some way; more important than most.”

  “But they’re scared of him. Why?”

  “The Hierophant’s stories are not just stories,” Fleet replied. “They change things. You see, the Antiquarians are recorders; what we know goes into the books in the Great Library, which write themselves. We can only observe. But the Hierophant is a creator. What is written in the Hierophant’s handwriting becomes truth, becomes law. You already know of Amrae’s Law. When he wrote that down, all Lords and Ladies were bound by it. Not just by choice, but bound. They cannot refuse a human their single audience; they cannot harm you while it is in progress. It is impossible for them to break that edict. Amrae wrote that law to give humans a fairer footing in the other Realms, so that their voices could at least be heard. The whole of the Realms waits now to see what new laws might come from the tale that the Hierophant is writing. And they tremble in fear.”

  “What will he do?” Poison asked.

  “Who can say?” Fleet answered with a shrug. “What would you do?”

  “I’d write a great leader for humanity,” she said, without hesitation. “Like Alambar Burl, but better. One who would unite us, and lead us in driving the phaerie out of our Realm, so that no more babies would be taken, no more lives lost to the cruel places that we are forced to live in. I’d create him, or her, and give them to our people, so that we can claim back what is ours.”

  “An admirable notion,” said Fleet approvingly. “Something like that is exactly what Aelthar fears. But there is no way of knowing. The tale cannot be read until it is finished; like the books in the Great Library, it will not be visible until the last line is written. Only the Hierophant knows what it is that he is creating.”

  At that moment, Aelthar turned away from the gargoyle in a fury, and he chanced to look up to the balcony. His eyes met with Poison’s and his brow clouded like thunder. She felt a terrible chill in her heart as she met that gaze, but she forced herself to return it with sullen violet intensity. Scriddle followed his master’s eyes to Poison, and then blanched as Aelthar turned his stare upon his secretary. Poison guessed that Scriddle had not told the Phaerie Lord how the hum
ans had escaped him. Then Aelthar stalked away, with Scriddle and the other phaeries following him. Grugaroth sneered as he passed by, and the dwarrows, ogres and trolls that surrounded him growled at the phaeries, who ignored them disdainfully.

  Poison found that she was sweating. It had been unwise to come here; better that Aelthar did not know where she was, since he wanted her dead. Between him and Asinastra, she had some powerful enemies here.

  “Don’t be afraid, Poison,” Fleet reminded her, guessing her thoughts. “All guests are under the protection of the Hierophant while in this castle. None dare harm you here.”

  “I know. You said before,” Poison replied, unconvinced. She watched as the Lords and Ladies dispersed slowly from the hall, their faces – those that had any – disappointed and angry.

  “Come on,” said Fleet suddenly. “Would you like to meet the Hierophant?”

  Poison blinked in surprise. “But I thought. . .”

  “He won’t see any of them,” Fleet said, with a twinkle. “But I’m sure he won’t mind a little intrusion on our part.”

  Poison was glad of any excuse to leave. “Why not, then?”

  They entered the Hierophant’s chamber quietly. Fleet put a finger to his lips to hush her as they slipped through a small side-door, and she crept into the room behind him. There had been a guardian outside – much like the gargoyle that defended the more ostentatious double doors which Aelthar had been trying to gain access to – but this one had ignored them completely.

  “They are trained to allow through certain people,” Fleet explained in a whisper. “I am one of them; and since you are with me, then so are you.”

  The chamber was large and predictably lined with books. A plush four-poster bed rested in one corner. One wall was taken up by an enormous round window, with a patterned frame of concentric circles, against which the rain lashed. Every so often, lightning flickered and thunder boomed, but Poison was so used to the storm by now that she barely noticed. It had not abated one bit since she had arrived here.

  The Hierophant was sitting at a vast and ornate writing desk, his quill wagging as he wrote in a massive leather-bound volume. He seemed unbelievably old, thin and wrinkled with a long white beard that trailed down over his lap. His bald head was marked with liver spots, nicks and bumps. A thick robe of green velvet was draped across his shoulders, burying his shrunken frame in its folds.

  For a long while, Poison watched him. The only sound apart from the storm was the scratching of the quill nib. The Hierophant was staring hard through his round-lensed glasses at the paper, and writing with furious vigour. Eventually, he stopped with a sigh, and glanced up at them. Though they had not made a sound, he had known they were there all along.

  “Ah, Poison!” he said in a thin, dry voice. “How good to look upon you with my own eyes. My name is Melcheron, the Hierophant.”

  Poison glanced uncertainly at Fleet. “It’s my honour to meet you,” she replied. “I didn’t know I was expected.”

  “Everyone’s expected,” the old man said, tapping the side of his forehead with one wrinkled finger. “I knew you’d come. I brought you here.”

  “How did you bring me here?” Poison said, unable to keep the scepticism out of her voice.

  Melcheron did not answer her question; instead, he beckoned her. “Come closer. Let me see you. Fleet, could you give us a moment alone?”

  Fleet bowed. “I’ll be outside,” he said, and departed.

  Poison approached the Hierophant with some measure of wariness. She did not like his faintly disconcerting manner, nor the impression she got that he knew more than he was saying. As she got close, she glanced at the book he was writing in. As Fleet had said, there appeared to be nothing there; but the inkpot on the desk was filled with something that looked like particularly viscous water, which she assumed he had been writing with.

  He squinted at her with eyes that seemed to have yellowed with age, like parchment.

  “Yes, yes, I see I was right. You know, don’t you?”

  “Know what?” Poison said automatically, before cursing herself for saying the most obvious thing.

  As she had guessed, the Hierophant’s answer was evasive. “You know, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. You’re trying to second-guess me, aren’t you? Ha! Good! Good!”

  “Do you remember Myrrk?” Poison asked him suddenly.

  He cackled with glee. “Good! Good! Change the subject; go on the offensive! Oh, you’ll be a gem, my little Poison.” He took off his glasses and wiped a tear from his eye with one bony knuckle. “Myrrk, you say? Yes, I remember him. A sad sort.”

  “He remembers you,” Poison said. “He says you didn’t bother to work out all the details, like what he eats since he can’t get fish. Do you know what that means?”

  “Assuredly!” Melcheron said. “I do it all the time! I can’t account for every single thing in the world, Poison! I’d go mad!”

  Poison’s expression indicated that she thought he was halfway there already.

  “Still,” he continued, growing suddenly sombre, “Myrrk’s not the only one that complained about it. It’s been happening more and more, you know. People are noticing. Do you think I’m slipping, Poison? My memory’s not what it used to be. Do you think they see the holes?”

  “What holes?” Poison asked, feeling a growing frustration inside her.

  “The holes!” Melcheron said. “The plot holes!”

  Poison could take no more.

  “Tell me what you mean!” she cried, losing her temper. “Everyone I have met since I set foot outside my home town has been incapable of giving me a straight answer! What does it mean? Why do I keep coming across parts of the world that seem taken straight out of a phaerie tale? Why did Myrrk seem to think that you were responsible for him not having anything to eat? Who are you?”

  Melcheron did not seem in the least shocked by her tirade.

  “You already know, Poison,” Melcheron said slowly. “You don’t need me to explain it.”

  Poison felt something sink into a cold, dark abyss inside her. She did know. She had had a growing suspicion since the start, a nameless idea that fed on every experience, every sight, every sound. But it was an idea too terrible to contemplate, too awful even to dare think.

  “You know,” he croaked. “Though you will not admit it to yourself.”

  “I need to know for sure,” she said. “I need to hear you say it.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather live with the uncertainty? In time, you can forget. You can persuade yourself that you were only being foolish. You can be like the others, the ones who never question, like Aelthar and Peppercorn and Bram, even like Fleet. He doesn’t know. None of them know but you, and me, and a few others like Myrrk. And look what became of him.”

  The words were a temptation that was almost greater than Poison could bear. She wanted to shut her eyes and clap her hands to her ears and run away from this. She wanted the bliss of ignorance. But that was not her way, and never would be.

  “Say it,” she hissed.

  Melcheron sighed and bowed his head gravely.

  “All of it: the Realms, the Lords and Ladies, your parents, even you, Poison. All of it is fantasy. All a creation. You, Bram, Fleet, Peppercorn, Aelthar: you dance to my tune, whether you will it or not. My words shape your destiny. I am the author of you, of everything you have been and are. You are merely my character, albeit an important one. But a character nonetheless; a fiction. My fiction.”

  He raised his head and looked her in the eye.

  “All you know is a story, Poison. And I am the storyteller.”

  The void in the pit of her stomach yawned dizzyingly, threatening to swallow her. She felt the strength flee her limbs, and she had to hold on to the edge of the Hierophant’s desk to stop herself from falling.

  “I . . . I don’t understan
d,” she stammered.

  “I am telling a tale, Poison, and you are part of it,” he repeated patiently. “Hard to grasp, I know. Myrrk had the same trouble. He was part of another tale I wrote, a long time ago. A minor cog, a plot device to speed along the heroes; but he really became quite impossible once he learned what the role was. I shouldn’t have made him quite so bright. . .”

  “You’re lying,” Poison breathed. “You can’t . . . you don’t control the world.”

  The Hierophant cackled gleefully. “Of course I don’t. But I control your world, Poison. The Realms were created many aeons ago, in a time lost to history, by the original Hierophant. Since then, there have been uncountable successors, each one telling their stories, each adding stitches to the tapestry. But a character will take on a life of its own, as any storyteller knows. The tale that Myrrk was part of finished a century ago; yet he lives on somewhere. You see, the world around you is merely an accretion of stories, built over endless time; it evolves of its own accord. But now and then it becomes necessary to manipulate that world.” He tapped a forefinger to the side of his wrinkled head. “And that, as they say, is where I come in.”

  “This is idiot philosophy,” Poison protested desperately. “You insane old man!”

  “You know it in your heart, Poison. You’ve felt it. You never existed before I brought you into being. The Black Marshes never existed, nor your family, nor the wraith-catchers. They were all my latest additions to the world. I created you for the purpose of my tale. Of course, Aelthar has been around for a long time; I didn’t need to make him up. But he is as powerless to resist the force of my tale as anyone else, and just as ignorant.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Poison whispered, her shoulders sagging.

  “Doing what?” the Hierophant asked innocently.

  “Why are you telling me this? Why torture me so?”

  The Hierophant studied her with rheumy eyes. “Because you asked me,” he said. “It’s in your nature. I wrote you that way.”