Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  “You keep saying that word.” He vaguely remembered hearing it before, perhaps as part of one of his grandfather’s stories. “You’re talking about the creatures in the trees? They looked like some kind of squirrels to me.”

  “I have never seen Tinukeda’ya in forms so crude and animal-like, but they were still Changelings, I promise you.” She put a hand on his leg. “You are damp from these fogs. I think it has been long enough now that we can go down. I have a place that will be safe for tonight.”

  He was conscious of her hand in a way he had not been of anything in a while. “Damp?”

  “You mortals die if you become too wet, don’t you? You take fever and die.”

  “Not if we’re just a little wet.”

  “Still.” She was perched atop the branch again in moments, balanced and sure-footed as a bird. He caught his breath to see how nimble she was—it made his own hard-won climbing skills seem small indeed. “Your people saved my life. I could not allow you to die without trying to help.”

  She climbed down first, jumping the last ten cubits to land almost perfectly balanced. Despite his weeks in the trees, Morgan could not hope to match her, but he did his best not to seem like an ordinary clumsy mortal.

  “What do you have on your feet?” she asked after he reached the ground.

  He showed her. “The troll Snenneq made them. They’re for walking on ice, but I used them to climb the trees.” He said it with more than a little pride.

  “Strange,” was all she said, then “Follow.”

  It was all he could do to keep up.

  * * *

  • • •

  The Sitha led him to a cave nestled in the rocks at the far side of the entrance to the Misty Vale. “We cannot make a fire,” she said as she ushered him in. “The Hikeda’ya would smell it if they are still anywhere close.”

  Morgan looked around the cavern. It was little more than an empty space in the midst of a jumble of boulders, but the entrance was hidden by a spread of gorse. He thought of ReeRee and her troop and felt a momentary ache of loss.

  “Changelings,” he said out loud, remembering what Tanahaya had called the Chikri. “What does that mean?”

  “Do you know the Niskies of the south? The sea-watchers?”

  “Yes. I’ve seen them.”

  “And the dwarrows who live in deep mountain places?”

  That sounded familiar, but only barely. “Perhaps.”

  “Then you know the Tinukeda’ya. They are called Changelings because they grow to fit the places they are, the way they must live.”

  “But the things I was in the trees with—they were animals!”

  “It is true I have never seen any Tinukeda’ya so far different from the shapes I know, but I swear by my calling as a scholar that I could not mistake those eyes, those voices.”

  Morgan remembered the night he had found all the Chikri listening to the oldest of their troop and the strange shiver it had given him to hear them and to see their rapt attention. Animals? Fairy creatures? It was all too much for him, and he realized he was so exhausted that he could not think without effort. He slid off his sword belt and used the scabbard for a pillow, then pulled his cloak tight around him.

  “I just need to close my eyes,” he said. “Only for a moment.”

  “Then sleep, mortal.” He thought he heard something almost like fondness in her voice—something he had not heard from any other Sitha except the beautiful Aditu. “I will watch over you.”

  * * *

  • • •

  In his dream, the tree in which he perched was full of singing angels, wispy shapes he could not see. Their soft, wordless voices filled the treetops, and he wanted nothing more than just to listen, but something large was moving in the great darkness below, searching for the singers, and only he seemed to realize it. He tried to call out and warn them but his throat had clamped shut and no matter how he tried he could not make a sound.

  “Silence,” said a voice in his ear, and he realized that someone was holding a hand over his mouth. He stopped fighting, then opened his eyes to see the shadowy interior of the cave, the tumbled rocks a myriad of colors in the soft morning light filtering through the bushes covering the entrance. He remembered where he was.

  Tanahaya took her hand from his mouth. “You were crying out in your sleep. That is not a good thing to do when Hikeda’ya could still be somewhere near.”

  “I’m sorry.” He felt the last of the dream dissolving like the mist of the strange valley. “It was . . . that giant thing.”

  “The ogre of Misty Vale.” She nodded. “I am not surprised. We are among the few who have seen it and lived, I think.”

  “What did you see? What was it?”

  She made a movement like a snake shedding skin. He took it for a shrug. “Nothing but shadow,” she said. “The mist was too thick.”

  “But what was it?”

  “Better to turn your mind instead to what we will do next. There are other dangers here in the great woods beside the ogre.”

  He felt chastised and it made him angry. Hadn’t he survived for a long time in the forest on his own? Again he remembered the way Jiriki had talked down to him, as if he were a foolish child, and also the contempt of the scarred chieftain Khendraja’aro for all mortals, even the grandchildren of kings and queens.

  Yes, she saved me, he thought. But that doesn’t mean I have to love the Sithi.

  But as the dream faded, so did much of Morgan’s irritation. For the first time in a long while he thought how nice it would be to have a cup of wine. No, not just a cup, he thought, but an entire cask to himself, and the leisure in which to drink it all. Instead, Sitha or no Sitha, he was still lost in the middle of the forest and his stomach was aching.

  “Is there anything to eat?”

  Tanahaya seemed amused. “None of the things your people eat, I think, but there is bread and a little honey wrapped in that leaf beside you.”

  There was, and Morgan fell on it like a beast, devouring it so quickly that he barely tasted the glorious sweetness of the honey as he hurried it down his throat. As soon as he had finished he wished he could start all over again. “We mortals eat honey and bread too.” He licked the last honey from his lips, then searched his beard for crumbs. “That was good. Is there any more?”

  “I gave you what I would have eaten myself,” Tanahaya said, but without rancor. “I did not expect to have a guest.”

  “I didn’t expect to be anyone’s guest either.” So much talking made his head ache a little, but it was exciting to be with someone who could actually answer him. “Why did you save me?”

  “Why? What a strange question. Your people saved me, did they not?”

  “I suppose.”

  “When I set out from H’ran Go-jao I came across your trail at the forest’s edge, but it led in the opposite direction from where I was told Jiriki had taken you. I did not know the reasons you had turned around—and still do not, although I saw fires out on the meadowlands, so I can guess—but I could not leave you alone to die in the forest. That would be a poor return of the favor your people showed me.”

  “I wasn’t dying. I found things to eat. I lived with the Chikri.”

  “If you mean those Tinukeda’ya, I have seen the evidence so I must believe you. Perhaps Jiriki and Aditu were right about this too—there is more to your kind than we Zida’ya sometimes wish to believe.”

  A memory of Likimeya’s voice in his head came to Morgan suddenly, but he did not share it. Tanahaya might just have saved him, but he didn’t truly know or trust the Sithi, however much his grandparents might favor them.

  And it makes no sense in any case, he thought. Why me? Why would a Sithi monarch speak to me, a mortal? And would she speak to me in dreams?

  I will keep this to myself, he thought. At least for now. I am a
prince, after all. I can keep my own counsel.

  “Are you still hungry?” Tanahaya asked. “This is the season for dove eggs. I could find some for you.”

  “Do your people eat eggs?”

  She smiled gently, as if remembering something. “Sometimes. Only when they have not quickened.” She saw his expression. “Only when they will not become a young bird.”

  “But how do you know without cracking them open?”

  “By smell, of course.” She gave him an odd look. “But perhaps you cannot smell anything because of your own scent, Morgan. It is very . . . pungent.”

  He sat back, still thinking of honey and bread, but eggs had now made their way into his imagination too and were causing quite a commotion there. “You said my smell was why the Norns couldn’t find me, so that’s good, right?”

  “Perhaps. But now that we travel together I cannot smell anything but you. I will have to consider which is the greater asset, your invisibility from our enemies or my ability to know those enemies are near.”

  “Then we’re traveling together?”

  “Unless you know how to find your own way home—yes, Morgan of Erkynland, I believe we are. For it is back to your grandparents’ dwelling I am bound, to fulfill the duty my friends laid upon me so many moons ago. You would be wise to travel with me.”

  Suddenly the light sifting down into the tumble of stones seemed warmer, splashing the colors of an inspiring day all over the uneven, rocky burrow. “I do want to go home, by all God’s angels. Yes, I’ll go with you.” He suddenly remembered. “And thank you. Thank you, Tanahaya, for helping me.”

  She nodded.

  “What month is it?” He knew he was talking a lot, but he was thrilled to have a partner for conversation and was reluctant to be quiet again, although he sensed she would have preferred it. “What day?”

  Her clear golden brow furrowed ever so slightly. “I do not remember the name for the ninth month in your tongue—is it ‘Septander’? By my reckoning, it is the eleventh day of the Sky-Singer’s Moon.”

  “Septander?” He and Eolair had left the Erkynguards to go with the Sithi in early Tiyagar-month. “Elysia’s Mercy, have I truly been in the forest that long? Two months?”

  “It is a noble feat that you have lived so long without help. Be proud. Your people will certainly be proud of you.”

  “Yes, perhaps.” But he was not entirely certain of that. He could imagine how his grandparents would feel when he returned with the news that only he had escaped, that the troop of Erkynguards and Count Eolair were all dead and the mission had been a failure. “Perhaps.”

  “There is no sense spending the daylight hours talking here,” she said. “You would rather travel in daylight, I suspect, and it is definitely better for avoiding Hikeda’ya scouts. Let us start walking.”

  * * *

  • • •

  As the morning warmed they made their way up into the rocky heights that formed the northern side of Misty Vale by dint of sheer hard work, much of it requiring the use of hands as well as feet, and reached the top not long before noon. They stopped so Morgan could remove his climbing irons; Tanahaya, who had been climbing in bare feet, took her soft boots from her belt and put them back on. Even in full sunlight, Misty Vale was a trough of billowing white below them, and Morgan was relieved he couldn’t see anything. As he got back to his feet, he wondered where the Chikri might be in that grim, dangerous expanse, and felt another pang of worry for little ReeRee.

  Now that the worst of the climbing was over and he didn’t have to worry about falling, the events of the previous day kept spinning through his mind, over and over as they made their way through the woods. Despite Tanahaya’s clear preference for silent travel, he could not stop himself from asking more questions.

  “Why are there Norns here? My grandparents and their company were also attacked by some coming back from Elvritshalla. What are the White Foxes doing so far from their mountain or wherever it is they live? Will they make war on us?”

  “Their presence is a bad sign,” she agreed. “When I heard from Jiriki and Aditu what happened to your grandparents’ caravan, it made my decision to return to the Hayholt clear. Something strange is happening—something frightening, I think—and it seems plain to me that Dawn Children and Sunset Children must work together to protect ourselves.”

  “Dawn Children. That means . . . ?”

  “My people, the Sithi—the Zida’ya. And yours are called Sudhoda’ya—Sunset Children.”

  “Why ‘sunset’?”

  He could not see her face, but she sounded as though she was growing tired of answering questions. “Because this world is better shaped for your kind than ours,” was all she said.

  An hour later they came down another long slope cluttered with deadfall. Morgan could hear the sound of rushing water. “What’s that?”

  “We have caught up to the course of the Dekusao again, the river that runs from Misty Vale. You would call it ‘Narrowdark.’ That will be a good place for you to wash the stink from you.”

  “But I thought you said my smell was useful.”

  “I said I must think, and I have thought—and you must wash.” She sounded like Countess Rhona now, or one of the other no-nonsense women from back home. Morgan could not help recoiling a bit—that tone never brought anything good for him. “Yes,” she said sternly, “it shields you somewhat from the noses of Hikeda’ya scouts, but it keeps me from scenting anything myself, and on top of it, I have just realized that since you smell so strongly of—what did you call the climbing Tinukeda’ya?”

  “Chikri.”

  “Yes, the ‘Chikri’—I have realized that the creatures who eat the tree-dwellers, wolves and bears, must also smell you everywhere you go. And I do not wish to fight a bear.”

  “I did! I fought a bear!” He was about to tell her a version that emphasized his bravery and resourcefulness, but felt compelled for some reason he could not explain to tell the truth instead. “It almost killed me. That’s why I was up in the trees in the first place. That and ReeRee.”

  “ReeRee?” As she tried the name they emerged from a copse of aspen trees and he could finally see the river, wider than the name “Narrowdark” suggested, glinting jade green in places, but black as tar where it ran deep. “What is a ReeRee?”

  He explained how the small creature had first come to him and how he had lived with her troop. “Strange,” she said as she led him down the slope to the river’s broad, sandy banks. “All of it. But you did well.”

  “And I can show you all kinds of things that are safe to eat!”

  “We will eat later. Now, I think this is a good spot for you—a quiet backwater. You may bathe the stink from your skin.”

  “Are you sure . . . ?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  He sat down and took off his belt and sword, then doffed his cloak and pulled off his shirt before he saw that Tanahaya was still standing and watching. Morgan was not unduly modest—countless guards, servants, and more than a few tavern girls had seen him naked—but something about the Sitha abashed him.

  “Are you going to watch? I can clean myself.”

  Tanahaya stared at him for a moment as though she did not understand, then nodded in a distracted way and moved farther down the riverbank until he could not see her anymore.

  The river was wide and strong, but Tanahaya had picked a bend where the current was slowed by rocks and spread into a shallow, relatively placid pond on the near side. He stripped off the rest of his clothes and waded out. The water was so cold that the first thing he did was curse and retreat back into the shallowest edges, but he braced himself for the chill and manfully waded back in until it was above his waist. Every part of him below that point felt like it had been packed in snow.

  Still, once the worst of the shock was over he found himself almost hu
ngry for the feeling of water on his skin as weeks’ worth of grime washed away. In fact, for a brief moment the lost familiarity of getting clean seemed so satisfying that he began to sing one of his grandfather’s Jack Mundwode songs. But before he had sung more than a few hooting words he remembered the patient, death-pale Norns that had walked right beneath them like stalking cats, and he abruptly fell silent.

  There was no sign of Tanahaya, so he climbed up the bank and gathered his clothes, then brought them back to the river to wash. He did his best, but it was clear that none of them would ever truly be clean again. Still, it was pleasant to know he had at least removed most of the fleas and spiders and clinging leaves. When he finished he looked for a place to dry them, but the sun had slid behind the trees and the bank was in deep shade. He waded to the edge of the backwater and then scrambled from one rock to the next until he reached the bend, where the shining sun beamed across the river bank without impediment. He was laying out his breeks on a pair of wide, flat stones at the river’s edge when he heard the sound of someone singing.

  It was a trill of melody he did not recognize, and although he could sense the shape of words in the flow of sound, he could not understand them. It must be Tanahaya, he realized after a moment. He sloshed a little way through the shallows until he reached a pair of tall stones standing straight in the water as if they had been set there. He could see her in the river just ahead. She was washing herself too, a slender expanse of golden skin in thigh-high water.

  A part of him wanted to warn her that he had stumbled onto her bathing place, but he was captured by the unexpectedness. It was strange, too, to see the whole shape of her at once, the hidden nakedness of someone he had scarcely thought of before that moment as female. He felt a stirring in his chest. She did not have the womanly shape he most fancied, curvaceous and wide-hipped; despite her long, wet, white hair, he thought Tanahaya looked more like a boy, her supple back tight with smooth muscle, her legs long beneath her small backside. But she was graceful in her every movement—oh, so graceful—and the river water sliding down her skin seemed to catch every ray of the sun and send it bouncing outward again, cloaking her in a shiny dazzle that sparkled with rainbow colors.