Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  “What better way to promote understanding than to force them out of their hall and make them bend a knee in front of the queen on the street?”

  “What understanding are we trying to promote?” wondered Froye, but since he asked it as though he truly wanted to know, she took his question at face value.

  “Whatever understanding that has prompted this invitation,” she said. “Do not forget that I owe the sea watchers a great debt.”

  Froye nodded, but Jurgen did not know the story. “Truly, Majesty?”

  “Truly, Jurgen, and I will tell you about it some day. But now I must go in, because that is the noon bell ringing.”

  A group of what she took for Niskie dignitaries were waiting inside the hall, dressed in the same heavy cloaks as the others she had seen, but with richer fabrics and less muted colors. She was pleased and surprised when the youngest of them stepped forward and pulled back his hood.

  “Greetings, Your Majesty,” he said. “You honor us with your presence.”

  “Gan Doha. It’s good to see you again.” She looked around the high-ceilinged chamber, its walls decorated not with paintings or tapestries, as would be the case in other such places, but carved wooden shapes that reminded her of those hanging in the Taig in Hernystir, except that she could not tell what these carvings were meant to represent. She began to glimpse a pattern to their arrangement, but before she could give it much thought Gan Doha bowed and then extended his hand.

  “Let me lead you,” he said. “The elders wait for you in the Talking Hall downstairs. I fear the invitation is for you alone, Majesty, not your soldiers.” He shook his head sadly. “My people are very particular about such things. Our secrets have been kept for centuries, and though we will gladly share them with you, honored queen, there are limits. I apologize.”

  “Preposterous!” said Froye. “The queen does not go anywhere without the Erkynguard!”

  “Then we must regretfully say that we have asked the queen here for no purpose,” said Gan Doha. “Would the Church of Usires allow soldiers into the lector’s private chapel? Do not fear—no harm will come to Queen Miriamele while she is here. That I can promise you.”

  “You can’t do it, Majesty.” If Sir Jurgen meant to whisper to her, the young knight reckoned without his anger. He was was loud enough to make some of the Niskies take a step back. “I can’t let you go off on your own with these . . . people. For one thing, your husband would never forgive me if something happened to you. And I would never forgive myself.”

  Miriamele looked at him for a moment, then at Count Froye. At last she turned back to Gan Doha. “Could I bring one guard with me? Sir Jurgen was ordered by my husband to be my special protector.”

  Gan Doha thought about it for a moment, wide, heavy-lidded eyes downcast. At last he looked up. “I think it can be done. But your guard will have to stay silent. And if he harms anyone in his zeal to protect you, the elders will be very angry. Angry with me, I hasten to say—not you, Majesty.”

  “Very well. Do you hear, Sir Jurgen?” She did her best not to smile at the knight’s fiercely serious face. “You may come along, but you must be silent and try not to kill anyone without asking me first.”

  The knight looked from her to Froye, then surveyed the hall as though making certain that assassins were not already lurking and waiting. “Your wishes are all that matter to me, my queen.”

  “Good,” she said. “Froye, I beg your pardon, but I must leave you here for a little while with the rest of the guards.”

  “How long, Majesty?” The count was clearly not happy.

  Miri looked at Gan Doha, whose sun-browned face showed little expression. “Perhaps an hour of the clock,” he said. “The elders can be slow to come to the point sometimes, but they know that Your Majesty’s time is precious.”

  “Very well,” she said. “We are agreed. Lead on.”

  Gan Doha took a torch from a sconce on the wall, then led Miriamele and Jurgen through a nondescript wooden door that opened onto a narrow stairwell with unfinished wooden walls gone gray from years of salt air. They descended several flights, until Miri saw that the wooden walls had become rough-cut stone and realized that they must have left the guild hall. They were climbing down into the bedrock of the Porta Antiga itself.

  Jurgen stopped on the next landing. “Is this a trick?” he demanded. “Does this stairway never end?”

  “I told you that the elders were waiting downstairs.” Gan Doha sounded amused.

  Even Miri feeling a bit reluctant, they followed him farther down, and at last reached the bottom. Gan Doha led them through another door and into a chamber that quite beggared Miriamele’s expectations.

  The vast space had been cut into the very stone of the promontory on which the Porta Antiga was built. In places along the base of the wall and floor Gan Doha’s torch revealed chisel marks, but the upper surfaces had been carefully smoothed and covered in painted pictures. Miri thought she could make out big-eyed creatures and strange, misshapen ships ranging all the way up the wall from eye level to the shadows of the high stone ceiling. Strangest of all, though, was the single immense decoration that hung from that ceiling, a slender, curving object almost as long as the chamber itself—so long that at first Miri took it for the backbone of some impossibly huge fish or a whale. It shone in the torchlight, as smooth as if every inch had been lovingly polished by thousands of hands. Jurgen stared at it with his mouth open.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “It is called the Spar,” Gan Doha told her. “It is the only remaining piece of the great ship that brought our ancestors to Jhiná-T’seneí, before it was swallowed by the sea. You know of the Eight Ships, do you not, Majesty?”

  “The ones that carried the Sithi and . . .” for a moment she could not think of the proper name the Niskies used for themselves, “. . . and the Tinukeda’ya here from their old land.”

  “From the Lost Garden, yes.” Gan Doha nodded, and for a moment they all stared up at the gleaming timber. “It is a beautiful thing, is it not?”

  “It’s so big!”

  “So were the Eight Ships, the stories tell,” said Gan Doha. “Big as cities. Now let us go to the elders.”

  And even as he spoke, a light bloomed at the far end of the great stone chamber, and for the first time Miri saw a table there, with a number of shapes seated around it.

  Did they only now light a lamp, she wondered? Have they been sitting here in the near-dark, waiting for us? She felt a little superstitious shiver.

  Almost two dozen Niskies were ranged around the long, rough table. Gan Doha introduced them, but the names slid past her in a flurry of unfamiliar sounds and only the last one captured her attention.

  “. . . And this is Gan Lagi, the eldest of my clan,” Gan Doha finished, indicating a squat, extremely weathered woman. The elder’s eyes were large and hooded like a sea turtle’s, and she scarcely moved except to incline her head toward the queen.

  “Thank you for coming to us, Queen Miriamele,” said the old Niskie woman in hoarse Westerling. “We welcome you beneath the Spar.”

  “I am honored,” Miri said. “And I will be forever grateful to your clan. I will never forget Gan Itai, and I would like to do something to honor her memory.”

  “You honor her well simply by taking us seriously,” Gan Lagi told her. “And we know that you have little time before your absence makes those who came with you fretful.” The old Niskie stole a sly glance at Sir Jurgen, who seemed caught in a strange and disturbing dream, glancing from the assembled Niskies and then up to the mighty Spar, then back to the sea watchers again. “Now we must speak of the things my people need you to know.”

  “Do you rule over all the Niskies?” Miri asked her.

  “Me? Rule over all the folk?” Gan Lagi shook her head. “I do not even rule over my own clan. They ask me for advice and I giv
e it. Sometimes they even show wisdom and follow it.”

  Miri heard Gan Doha make a snorting noise beside her—a quiet laugh, she realized. “Very well. And is it advice you wish to give me?”

  “Not advice, Majesty. A warning, perhaps.”

  Miri felt Jurgen stiffen beside her and inch closer. “Go on,” she said.

  “You know a bit of our history, I think. My kinswoman Gan Itai told you some of it when you were together on the Eadne Cloud.”

  “Yes. She told me about you, the Tinukeda’ya, but I do not remember much. I learned more later on from the Sithi.”

  “The Zida’ya do not always tell the truth about us,” said Gan Lagi sourly, “but that is not to our point today.” Her eyes were sharp in their nets of wrinkled flesh. “It is important for you to know that we Tinukeda’ya have some gift for seeing and for understanding. Sometimes we know things before other mortals know them. Sometimes we have even glimpsed the days to come in ways that our Keida’ya masters could not.”

  “Keida’ya?”

  “An old name for the tribe from which both the Zida’ya and Hikeda’ya spring—those you call Sithi and Norns. But even when we see what is coming, we Ocean Children are not always believed.” Some of the other elders made quiet moaning noises.

  “I fear I do not take your point,” Miri said.

  “It is coming,” Gan Lagi promised. “In long-ago days, before Nabban rose, many of us lived in the island city of Jhiná-T’seneí. We foresaw a great disaster would come to that city, and we warned our masters who did not believe us; so countless Keida’ya perished when the earth shook. Jhiná-T’seneí was swallowed by the sea, and in the north mighty Kementari was thrown down as well, all its columns and walls broken into dust. By the time your grandfather grew up there—Warinsten as the mortals now call it—only rubble and old stories remained of the immortals’ great city of Kementari. But many Tinuka’ya escaped those two disasters and settled here on the coast.”

  “I have learned a little about those ancient days, but not much.”

  “The history is not so important. I tell you about it only so you will understand that we Tinukeda’ya sense things others often do not. That is important to know, because of late our people have been greatly afflicted with visions and voices.”

  “Visions?”

  “And voices, yes. They come to us mostly in our dreams and call on the Tinukeda’ya by our ancient names, and always they summon us north. And it is not only the scryers and horizon-watchers among us who have these dreams. They come to many, including some folk of Nabban who have only a little Niskie blood in them.”

  Miriamele was puzzled. “Voices that summon you north? What do these voices say, exactly?”

  Gan Lagi shook her head emphatically; her hood slipped backward a bit, revealing her sparse white hair and the rough, almost scaly skin of her neck and cheeks. “The voices do not often use words, Queen Miriamele, so it is difficult to explain. They put ideas in our heads, ideas of being safe from earthly woes, or about a great cause—the dreams are different for nearly everyone. But the meaning is always clear: Come north! You are summoned! And the dreams are very strong, very . . . convincing. Of course, most of us do not trust them—I certainly do not, not after all the evil that has come to us out of the north. But we felt you and your husband should know of these dreams that summon us.” She made a simple gesture, spreading her hands toward the other Niskies, two dozen pairs of wide eyes listening in silence. “You are the only ones we trust.”

  “But why would you be summoned? Do you think the Norn Queen wants you to fight for her?”

  Gan Lagi shrugged. “We cannot say. When the dreams first started we sent some of our clansfolk north to investigate, but none have returned. All is mystery, but we thought you should be told what we know. That is all I have to say.” Gan Lagi bobbed her head—almost a bow, but not quite. “The other elders and I thank you for honoring us with your presence.”

  Niskies did not seem to make courtly small talk. The conversation finished, Gan Doha led her and Jurgen back across the great chamber and up the stairs once more. Miri was puzzled and troubled by the strange warning, and it was only when they reached the last flight that she realized Jurgen had been silent the whole time. “Are you well, sir?” she asked him.

  He did not reply for several more steps. “I am your sworn bondsman, Majesty. I know all the good you and King Simon have done, and I have heard all the stories of the strange things you two have seen. But I am not sure until today that I truly believed them.”

  She was amused, despite her concern over the Niskies’ strange message. “And do you now?”

  “I must thank you, Majesty.” Then, to her surprise, he tried to drop to a knee in the narrow stairwell.

  “Get up, Jurgen, please.”

  He rose. She could see his cheeks were flushed as Gan Doha opened the door and let in the light of the guildhall. “I beg your pardon, Majesty,” the knight said. “But I want to thank you. I had wondered if I would ever see something as astounding as what you and the king have seen. Now I have. I . . . I do not know what else to say.”

  “I am glad it brought you pleasure,” she said, “but I hope you never have to see some of the less enjoyable things Simon and I encountered.” Froye and the guards were hurrying toward her, the count’s face showing his fulsome relief that she was safe. “There are many I wish every day that I could forget.”

  12

  Blood and Parchment

  Seventeenth Day of Tiyagar, Founding Year 1201

  My dear Lord Tiamak,

  My greetings to you. I hope that God gives good health to you, your lady, and our king and queen.

  I write to you from Kwanitupul, which I reached two days ago after a voyage that seemed to stop at every port on every island and every inch of coastline. More specifically, I write from the common room of the inn that was once Pelippa’s Bowl, but which is now called The Welcome Harbor, a grossly deceitful name—

  * * *

  • • •

  Brother Etan looked up at the noise of the inn’s front door creaking open. “Where are you going, Madi?”

  His erstwhile guide, who must have crossed the common room with unusual stealth to get so far before being noticed, turned in the doorway with a look of profound disappointment on his face. “What do you mean, Father Etan, my darling? I am just stepping out into the dooryard for some air. It is a power of hot today, you see. God love us, but I am sweating like a dray horse.”

  “I suspect you are more dry than hot, especially in the mouth and throat. God hates a drunkard, Madi.” Etan gave him a hard look. “But I will be writing for a while here and have nothing for you to do at present. If you wish to go out, you may. But take your children with you.” He waved at Plekto and Parlippa, who were stretched on the floor, slowed by heat, lazily tormenting the inn’s old three-legged dog. The beast showed the two young bandits its teeth but seemed to have no more interest in getting up than they did.

  “Ah, but Father Etan,” said Madi, “it would do them a world more good to watch you at your work—a Godly man doing Godly things. I try so hard to give them proper instruction, especially about the Lord Usires and the Execution Tree and such, but they do not listen to me.” He dutifully made the Sign of the Tree on the breast of his none-too-clean jerkin.

  Whether Madi actually gave his children religious instruction was open to question. The closest Etan had heard was him telling the children that if they did not do what their father said, God would kill them—but he could not dispute that the two creatures were sorely in need of correction. During a day’s stopover in Repra Vessina he had actually stumbled across them at work in the town square. They had tied up Parlippa’s leg so only one limb showed below her ragged shift, and Plek was begging passersby to help his crippled sister with a coin or two.

  “Perhaps we will read together from t
he Book of the Aedon later on,” Etan said. “I think we might all take a useful lesson from the tale of Mamarte and the Deceivers. But for now, take your children with you so that I may work in peace.”

  Madi shook his head. “Ah, that is hard, Father Etan. Terrible hard, my dear one.”

  “And for the last time, I am not ‘Father,’ I am a ‘brother’—Brother Etan. I belong to the Sutrinian Order.”

  “And a fine order it is, too,” said Madi hopefully. “Charity, kindness, alms for the poor—all those sort of thing, bless you and keep you.”

  Etan gave him a stern look. “I know you spent less than half of the coins I gave you yesterday on this room, so don’t bother to ask for more.”

  Madi went out the door, still shaking his head, his progeny now in train. “Travel is supposed to broaden a man, bring to him wisdom and great-heartedness,” he called over his shoulder. “What happened to the generous soul I met on the dock in Erchester? I fear for the change in you, Brother.”

  You were right, my lord, to say that I would see things on this journey that would change me, and that I would remember forever. My first sight of Nabban as we rounded the headland astonished me, and I could not help thinking of St. Velthir in our Book of Prophets, who first saw that great expanse of white towers from the mountains and said, ‘Here is a city as great as a nation, as big as the sea. The men who live here must be mighty indeed and more in need of the word of God than any other place on the teeming earth.’

  The neighborhood of Josua’s old inn, where we are presently lodging, is no different from most along the waterfront of Kwanitupul. In truth, because of its many canals, houseboats, and rows of stilt-houses extending out into the swamps, almost everywhere is waterfront in this city on the edge of the marshes.

  The inn that Josua formerly owned has had at least four owners as well as two other names since then, as far as I can discover, and there may have been more of both. All of yesterday I spent searching out the oldest residents of the street even to be sure this truly was the place that had once been Pelippa’s Bowl, since that name is all but forgotten. It is owned now by a man so thin and sour-faced that I marvel anyone without an errand like mine would ever stop here. But neither that old miser nor anyone else seems to have any useful memories of the prince, his wife, or their children, let alone where any of them might have gone, although one old woman told me she remembers a man who had ‘the same name as the old king’s son’, and said he was ‘a handsome, tall fellow’. You might think that she would have realized he had not only the same name but the same missing hand. But perhaps I expect too much from ordinary folk, who have their own worries.