1 2 This book is dedicated to my children, Connor Williams and Devon Beale, who as I write this are still small but extremely powerful. They amaze me every day. Someday, when they are grown and their mother and I have ambled on to the Fields Beyond, I hope the two of them will be warmed by the knowledge of how fiercely we loved them, and a tiny bit embarrassed by how wickedly they took advantage of it, charming, funny little buggers that they are. 3 4 No book is written without help, and few authors need as much help as I do, so . . . on with the parade of gratitude! Many thanks, as always, to my fabulous wife, Deborah Beale, for her unfailing support and brilliant help and discerning reader's eye, and to my most excellent agent Matt Bialer, for having my back when the quibbles are flying. Thanks also to our talented assistant, Dena Chavez, who keeps Deborah and I as close to sane as we are ever likely to get, in part by immense organizational skill, in part by preventing my beloved children from helping me too much when I really need to finish something. My overseas editors, Tim Holman in the UK and Dr. Ulrike Killer in Germany, have been big supporters of my work and give me a great deal of confidence with all the projects I undertake. They have my overwhelming gratitude, too. And of course all my friends at DAW Books - who also (conveniently!) happen to be my American publishers - including Debra Euler, Marsha Jones, Peter Stampfel, Betsy Wollheim, and Sheila Gilbert, cannot escape much vigorous thank-ification. Betsy and Sheila have been my editors and partners-in-crime since I started on this wild book-writing endeavor 5 6 twenty years ago, and the more years that pass, the more I come to realize what a great gift that has been and how lucky I am. Thanks, guys. We've had fun, huh? Last but not least, I must also mention that this particular book owes a huge debt of gratitude and inspiration to all the mad, wonderful folk on the Shadowmarch.com bulletin board, a repository of wisdom, support, silliness, and recipes for rhubarb like no other. Thanks for Shadowmarch (the online project) are especially due to Josh Milligan and the incomparable Matt Dusek, the latter still helming the site as Tech Wizard in Residence. I hope many of you new readers will come and join us - I spend a lot of time kibitzing on the board there, and I'd enjoying meeting you. 7 8 Author's Note For those who wish to feel securely grounded in the Who, What, and Where of things, there are several maps and, at the end of the book, indexes of characters and places and other important materials. The maps have been complied from an exhaustive array of traveler's tales, nearly illegible old documents, transcripts of oracular utterances, and the murmunngs of dying hermits, not to mention the contents of an ancient box of land -office records discovered at a Syannese flea market. A similarly arcane and wearying process was responsible for the creation of the indexes. Use them well, remembering that many have died, or at least seriously damaged their vision and scholarly reputations, to make these aids available to you, the reader. 9 10 19. The God-King Contents 20. Lost in the Moon's Land 21. The Potboy's Dolphin A Brief History of Eion 22. A Royal Appointment Prelude 23. The Summer Tower 24. Leopards and Gazelles PART ONE: BLOOD 25. Mirrors, Missing and Found 1. A Wyvern Hunt 26. The Considerations of Queens 2. A Stone in the Sea 3. Proper Blue Quartz PART THREE FIRE 4. A Surprising Proposal 27. Candlerstown 5. Songs of the Moon and Stars 28. Evening Star 6. Blood Ties 29. The Shining Man 7. Sisters of the Hive 30. Awakening 8. The Hiding Place 31. A Night Visitor 9. A Gleam of Pale Wings 32. In This Circle of the World 10. Halls of Fire 33. The Pale Things 11. Bride of the God 34. In a Marrinswalk Field 12. Sleeping in Stone 35. The Silken Cord 36. At the Giant's Feet PART TWO: MOONLIGHT 37. The Dark City 13. Vansen's Charge 38. Silent 14. Whitefire 39. Winters Eve 15. The Seclusion 40. Zoria's Flight 16. The Grand and Worthy Nose 17. Black Flowers Appendix 18. One Guest Less 11 12 A Brief History of Eion, With special Attention paid towns on the Eionian coast, grew as well, until it had to Rise of the become by far the most populous city of the northern lands. By about two centuries before the advent of the March Kingdoms of the North. blessed Trigon, it had grown to rival in size and Summarized by Finn Teodoros, scholar, sophistication many of the decadent capitals of the from Clemon's. The History of Our Continent of southern continent. Eion and its Nations, Hierosol in its early years was a city of many gods and many competing priesthoods, and matters of doctrinal at the request of his lordship Avin Brone, dispute and godly rivalry were often settled by slander Count of Landsend, Lord Constable of and arson and bloody riots in the streets. At last, the Southmarch followers of three of the most powerful deities - Perin, Presented this Thirteenthth day of Enneamene, lord of the sky, Erivor of the waters, and Kernios, in the year 1316 of the Holy Trigon. master of th e black earth - made a compact. This trigon, the coalition of the three gods and their followers, quickly lifted itself above all the other · priesthoods and their temples in power. Its leader took the name Trigonarch, and he and his successors For almost a thousand years before our Trigonate became the mightiest religious figures in all of Eion. Era, history was written only in the ancient kingdoms With rich trade flooding through its ports, its army and of Xand, the southern continent that was the world's navy growing in power, and religious authority now first seat of civilization. The Xandians knew little about consolidated in the hands of the Trigonate, Hierosol their northern neighbor, our continent of Eion, became not just the dominant power in Eion, but because most of its interior was hidden by impassable eventually, as the empires of the southern continent mountains and dense forests.The southerners traded Xand spiraled down into decadence, of all the known only with a few pale -skinned savages who dwelled world. Hierosoline supremacy lasted for almost six along the coasts, and knew little or nothing about the hundred years before the empire collapsed at last of mysterious Twilight People, called "Qar" by the its own weight, falling before waves of raiders from the scholarly, who lived in many places across Eion, but Kracian peninsula and the southern continent. were and are most numerous in the far north of our Younger kingdoms in Eion's heartland rose from continent. Hierosol's imperial ashes. Syan outstripped the As generations passed and Xandian trade with Eion others, and in the ninth century seized the Trigonate increased, Hierosol, the chief of the new trading port itself, moving the Trigonarchy and all its great church 13 14 from Hierosol to Tessis, where they still remain. Syan the dying, and even the priests of Kernios would not became the seat of fashion and learning for all Eion, help perform ceremonies for the dead. Entire villages and is still by most measures the leading power of our were left empty except for corpses. By the end of the continent today, but its neighbors have long since first year it was said that a quarter of the people in the shrugged off the mantle of the Syannese Empire. southern cities of Eion had succumbed, and when the plague returned with the warm weather the following spring, and even more died, many folk believed the · end of the world had come. The Trigon and its priests declared that the plague was punishment for the Since a time before history, the men of Eion have irrehgiousness of mankind, but most men at first blamed foreigners and especially southerners for shared their lands with the strange, pagan Qar, who poisoning the wells. Soon, though, an even more were known variously as the Twilight People, the Quiet People, or most often "the fairy folk." Although obvious culprit was suggested - the Qar. In many places the mysterious Twilight People were already stories tell of a vast Qar settlement in the far north of considered to be evil spirits, so the idea that the Eion, a dark and ancient city of dire report, the Qar at first lived in many places throughout the land, plague was caused by their malice spread quickly through the frightened populace. although never in such concentrations as men, and mostly in rural, untraveled areas. As men spread The fairy folk were slaughtered wherever they were across Eion, many of the Qar retreated to the hills and found, whole tribes captured and destroyed. The fury mountains and deep forests, although in some places spread across Eion, spearheaded by makeshift they remained, and even lived in peace with men. armies of men calling themselves "Purifiers," There was little trust, though, and for most of the first dedicated to eradicating the Qar, although it is millennium after the Trigon the unspoken truce doubtful they killed more fairies than they did their between the two peoples was largely due to the small own kind, since many villages of men already numbers of the Twilight folk and their isolation from devastated by the Great Death were burned to the men. ground by Purifiers as a lesson to those who might resist what they considered their sacred mission. As the year 1000 approached, the Great Death came, a terrible plague that appeared first in the southern The remaining Twilight folk fled north, but turned to seaports and spread across the land, causing great make a stand at a Qar settlement called Coldgray woe. It killed in days, and few who were exposed to it Moor, less than a day's walk from where I sit writing survived. Farmers deserted their fields. Parents this in present -day Southmarch ("Coldgray," although abandoned their children. Healers would not attend an accurate description for the site of the battle, was 15 16 apparently a misunderstanding of Qul Girah, which peasantry. Clemon suggests means "place of growing" in the Anglin's descendants had divided the March Country fairy tongue, although his sources for this are up into four March Kingdoms - Northmarch, unknown to me.) The battle was terrible, but the Qar Southmarch, Eastmarch, and West-march, although were defeated, in large part due to the arrival of an Southmarch was the chief of them - and these, army led by Anglin, lord of the island nation of governed by Anglin's family and its clan of noble Connord, who was distantly connected by blood to the relations, ruled the northern lands in general Syannese royal family. The Twilight People were harmony.Then, in theTngonate year 1103, an army of driven out of the lands of men completely, back into Twilight People swept down out of the north without the desolate, thickly forested lands of the north. warning. Anglin's descendants fought bitterly, but they Like thousands of other less famous mortals, Karal, were pushed out of most of their lands and forced to the king of Syan, was killed in the battle at Coldgray fall back to their southernmost borders Only the Moor, but his son, who would reign as Lander III, and support of the small countries along that border would later be known as "Lander the Good" and (known as "the Nine") allowed the March folk to hold "Lander Elf -bane," granted the March Country to off the Qar while waiting for help from the great Anglin and his descendants to be their fief, so that kingdoms of the south - help which was painfully slow they could be the wardens of humanity's borders in coming. It is said that in the midst of this terrible against the Qar. Anglin of Connord was the first March struggle a sense of true northern solidarity - as well as King. a certain distrust of the southern kingdoms - was created for the first time. Only a fierce winter that first year allowed the humans · to hold the Qar in place in the March Country In the spring, armies arrived at last from Syan and Jellon After Coldgray Moor, the north experienced a century and the city-states of Krace. Although men far of relative peace, although troops of mercenary outnumbered the Twilight folk, the battle against the soldiers known as the Gray Companies, who had Qar raged off and on across the north for long years. risen during the dreadful times following the Great When the March Kingdoms and their allies at last Death and the collapse of the Syannese Empire, defeated the invaders in 110? and tried to pursue the remained a powerful danger. These lawless knights Qar back into their own lands to eliminate the threat sold themselves to various despots to fight their once and for all, the retreating fairy folk created a neighbors, or chose an easier enemy, kidnapping barrier that, although it did not keep men out, nobles for ransom and robbing and murdering the confused and bewitched all who passed it. After 17 18 several companies of armed men disappeared, with In Our Present Day. only a few maddened survivors returning, the mortal Containing the opinions of Finn Teodoros, allies gave up and declared the misty boundary they Himself, named the Shadowline to be the new border of the and no Responsibility to the late Master demon of lands of men. Anverrin. Southmarch Castle was reconsecrated by the Trigonarch himself- - the Qar had used it as their In this Year of the Trigon 1316, three hundred years fortress during the war - but the Shadowline cut after Coldgray Moor and two centuries since the loss across the March Kingdoms, and all of Northmarch of the northern marchlands and the establishment of and much of East-march and Westmarch were lost the Shadowline, the north has changed little. The behind it. But although their northern fiefs and castles shadow-boundary has remained constant, and were gone, Anglin's line survived in his great - effectively marks the outer edge of the known world - grandnephew, Kelhck Eddon, whose bravery in the even ships that wander off course in northern waters fight against the fairy folk was already legendary. seldom return. When the border nations known as the Nine banded together and gave their loyalty to the new king at Syan has almost entirely lost its hold over its former Southmarch (in part for protection from the rapacious empire, and is now merely the strongest of several Gray Companies, who were growing strong again in large kingdoms in the heartland of Eion, but there are the chaos following the war against the Twilight other threats. The might of the Autarch, the god-king People), the March King once more became the of Xis on the southern continent, is growing. For the greatest power in the north of Eion. first time in almost a thousand years, Xandians are exerting power across the northern continent Many of the countries on the southernmost coast of Eion have · already begun to pay the Autarch tribute, or are ruled by his puppets. The House of Eddon in all its honor still rules in Southmarch, and our March Kingdom is the only true power in the north - Brenland and Settland, as is commonly known, are small, rustic, inward-looking nations - but the March King's descendants and their loyal servants have begun to wonder how much farther the Autarch's arm might reach into Eion and 19 20 what woe that might mean for us, as witness the unfortunate events that have befallen our beloved monarch, King Olin. We can only pray that he will be Prelude brought back safe to us. This is my history, prepared at your request, my lord. I Come away, dreamer, come away. Soon you will hope it pleases you. witness things that only sleepers and sorcerers can (signed,) FinnTeodoros Scholar and Loyal Subject of see. Climb onto the wind and let it bear you - yes, it is His Majesty, Olin Eddon. a swift and frightening steed, but there are leagues and leagues to journey and the night is short. Flying higher than the birds, you pass swiftly over the dry lands of the southern continent of Xand, above the Autarch's startlingly huge temple-palace stretching mile upon mile along the stone canals of his great city of Xis. You do not pause - it is not mortal kings you spy upon today, not even the most powerful of them all. Instead you fly across the ocean to the northern continent of Eion, over timeless Hierosol, once the center of the world but now the plaything of bandits and warlords, but you do not linger here either. You hurry on, winging over principalities that already owe their fealty to the Autarch's conquering legions and others who as yet do not, but soon will. Beyond the cloud-scraping mountains that fence the southern part of Eion from the rest, across the trackless forests north of the mountains, you reach the green country of the Free Kingdoms and stoop low over field and fell, speeding across the thriving heartlands of powerful Syan (which was once more powerful still), over broad farmlands and well-traveled roads, past ancient family seats of crumbling stone, and on to the marches that border the gray country 21 22 beyond the Shadowline, the northernmost lands in short ride back across the Shadowline, all that dwells which humans still live. on this side of that invisible wall is in perpetual quiet evening. The meadows are deep and dark, the grass On the very doorstep of those lost and inhuman shiny with dew. Couched on the wind, you observe northern lands, in the country of Southmarch, a tall old that the roads below you gleam pale as eel's flesh and castle stands gazing out over a wide bay, a fortress seem to form subtle patterns, as though some god isolated and protected by water, dignified and had written a secret journal upon the face of the misty secretive as a queen who has outlived her royal earth. You fly on over high, storm-haloed mountains husband. She is crowned with magnificent towers, and across forests vast as nations. Bright eyes gleam and the patchwork roofs of the lower buildings are her from the dark places beneath the trees, and voices skirt. A slender causeway that joins the castle to the whisper in the empty dells. mainland, stretches out like a bridal train spreading out to make the rest of her city, which lies in the folds And now at last you see your destination, standing of the hills and along the mainland edge of the bay. high and pure and proud beside a wild, dark, inland This ancient stronghold is a place of mortal men now, sea. If there was something otherworldly about but it has an air of something else, of something that Southmarch Castle, there is very little that is worldly at has come to know these mortals and even deigns to all about this other: a million, million stones in a shelter them, but does not entirely love them. Still, thousand shades of darkness have been piled high, there is more than a little beauty in this stark place onyx on jasper, obsidian on slate, and although there that many call Shadowmarch, in its proud, wind- is a fine symmetry to these towers, it is a type of tattered flags and its streets splashed by down- symmetry that would make ordinary mortals sick at stabbing sunlight. But although this hilly fortress is the the stomach. last bright and welcoming thing you will see before You descend now, dismounting from the wind at last entering the land of silence and fog, and although so that you may hurry through the mazy and often what you are shortly to experience will have dire narrow halls, but keep to the widest and most brightly consequence here, your journey will not stop at lit passages it is not good to wander carelessly in Qul- Southmarch - not yet. Today you are called na-Qar, this eldest of buildings (whose stones some elsewhere. say were quarried so many aeons ago that the oceans You seek this castle's mirror -twin, far in the haunted of the young earth were still warm) and in any case, north, the great fortress of the immortal Qar. you have little time to spare. And now, as suddenly as stepping across a threshold, The shadow-dwelling Qar have a saying which you cross into their twilight lands. Although the signifies, in rough translation: "Even the Book of afternoon sun still illumines Southmarch Castle, only a Regret starts with a single word." It means that even 23 24 the most important matters have a unique and simple would marvel at their sameness after having seen the beginning, although sometimes it cannot be described Qar, the Twilight People, gathered here in their high, until long afterward - a first stroke, a seed, a nearly dark hall. Some are as stunningly fair as young gods, silent intake of breath before a song is sung. That is tall and shapely as the most graceful kings and why you are hurrying now the sequence of events that queens of men. Some are small as mice. Others are in days ahead will shake not just Southmarch but the figures from mortal nightmares, claw-fingered, entire world to its roots is commencing here and now, serpent-eyed, covered with feathers or scales or oily and you shall be witness. fur. They fill the hall from one end to the other, ranked according to intricate primordial hierarchies, a In the deeps of Qul-na-Qar there is a hall In truth there thousand different forms sharing only a keen dislike of are many halls in Qul-na-Qar, as many as there are humankind and, for this moment, a vast silence. twigs on an ancient, leafless tree - even on an entire bone-dead orchard of such trees - but even those who At the head of the long, mirror -hung room two figures have only seen Qul -na-Qar during the unsettled sleep sit on tall stone chairs. Both have the semblance of of a bad night would know what hall this is. It is your humanity, but with an unearthly twist that means not destination. Come along. The time is growing short. even a drunken blind man could actually mistake them for mortals. Both are still, but one is so motionless that The great hall is an hour's walk from end to end, or at it is hard to believe she is not a statue carved from least it appears that way. It is lit by many torches, as pale marble, as stony as the chair on which she sits. well as by other less familiar lights that shimmer like Her eyes are open, but they are empty as the painted fireflies beneath dark rafters carved in the likeness of eyes of a doll, as though her spirit has flown far from holly bough and blackthorn branch. Mirrors line both her seemingly youthful, white-robed figure and cannot long walls, eac h oval powdered so thick with dust that find its way back. Her hands lie in her lap like dead it seems odd the sparkling lights and the torches can birds. She has not moved in years. Only the tiniest be seen even in dull reflection, odder still that other, stirring, her breast rising and falling at achingly darker shapes can also be glimpsed moving in the separated intervals beneath her robe, tells that she murky glass. Those shapes are present even when breathes. the hall is empty. The one who sits beside her is taller by two hands' The hall is not empty now, but full of figures both breadth than most mortals, and that is the most beautiful and terrible. Were you to speed back across human thing about him. His pale face, which was the Shadowline in this very instant to one of the great once startlingly fair, has aged over the centuries into markets of the southern harbor kingdoms, and there something hard and sharp as the peak of a windswept saw humanity in all its shapes and sizes and colors crag. He has about him still a kind of terrible beauty, drawn together from all over the wide world, still you 25 26 as dangerously beguiling as the grandeur of a storm murmur Only the last words are loud enough to hear. rushing across the sea. His eyes, you feel sure would be clear and deep as night sky, would seem infinitely, By star and stone, the act is done, coldly wise, but they are hidden behind a rag knotted Not stone nor star the act shall mar." at the back of his head, most of it hidden in his long moon-silver hair. He is Ynnir the Blind King, and the blindness is not all Ynnir pauses for a long moment before he speaks his own. Few mortal eyes have seen him, and no again, with a hesitation that might almost be mortal, living mortal man or woman has gazed on him outside but when he speaks, his words are clear and sure. of dreams. "Take him." The four figures raise the litter. "Let no one see you in the sunlight lands. Ride swiftly, there The lord of the Twilight People raises his hand. The and back." hall was already silent, but now the stillness becomes something deeper Ynnir whispers, but every thing in The hooded leader bows his head once, then they are that room hears him. gone with their sleeping burden.The king turns for a moment toward the pale woman beside him, almost "Bring the child." as if he expected her to break her long silence, but Four hooded, manlike shapes carry a litter out of the she does not move and she most certainly does not shadows behind the twin thrones and place it at the speak. He turns to the rest of those watching, to the king's feet On it lies curled what seems to be a mortal avid eyes and the thousand restless shapes - and to manchild, his fine, straw-colored hair pressed into you, too, dreamer. Nothing that Fate has already damp ringlets around his sleeping face. The king woven is invisible toYnnir. leans over, for all the world as though he is looking at "It begins," he says. Now the stillness of the hall is the child despite his blindness, memorizing his broken. A rising murmur fills the mirrored room, a features. He reaches into his own gray garments, wash of voices that grows until it echoes in the dark, sumptuous once, but now weirdly threadbare and thorn-carved rafters. As the din of singing and almost as dusty as the hall's mirrors, and lifts out a shouting spills out through the endless halls of Qul-na- small bag on a length of black cord, the sort of simple Qar, it is hard to say whether the terrible noise is a object in which a mortal might carry a charm or chant of triumph or mourning. healing simple Ynnir's long fingers carefully lower the cord over the boy's head, then tuck the bag under the The blind king nods slowly. "Now, at last, it begins." coarse shirt and against the child's narrow chest. The king is singing all the while, his voice a drowsy Remember this, dreamer, when you see what is to 27 28 follow. As the blind king said, this is a beginning. What he did not say, but which is nonetheless true, is that what begins here is the ending of the world. PART ONE BLOOD "As the woodsman who sets snares cannot always know what he may catch," the great god Kernios said to the wise man, "so, too, the scholar may find that his questions have brought him unforeseen and dangerous answers." - from A Compendium of Things That Are Known, The Book of the Trigon. 29 30 strawhead. I just don't want the bother." "You are a dreadful liar," she told her brother gently. 1 Twins, they were bound to each other in ways as close as lovers' ways. "And no one can kill a dragon with a spear, anyway. A Wyvern Hunt How did the men at the Shadowline outpost let it past?" THE NARROWING WAY: "Perhaps it crossed over at night and they didn't see it. It isn't a dragon, anyway, it's a wyvern - much smaller. Shaso says you can kill one with just a good Under stone there is earth clop on the head." Under earth there are stars; under stars, shadow "What do either you or Shaso know about wyverns?" Under shadow are all the things that are known. Barrick demanded. "They don't come trotting across the hills every day. They're not bloody cows." - from The Bonefall Oracles, out of the Qar's Book of Regret Briony thought it a bad sign that he was rubbing his crippled arm without even trying to hide it from her. He looked more bloodless than usual, blue under the The belling of the hounds was already growing faint in eyes, his flesh so thin he sometimes looked almost the hollows behind them when he finally pulled up. His hollow. She feared he had been walking in his sleep horse was restive, anxious to return to the hunt, but again and the thought made her shudder. She had Barrick Eddon yanked hard on the reins to keep the lived in Southmarch Castle all her life, but still did not mare dancing in place. His always-pale face seemed like passing through any of its mazy, echoing halls almost translucent with weariness, his eyes fever- after dark. bright. "Go on," he told his sister. "You can still catch She forced a smile. "No they're not cows, silly, but the them." master of the hunt asked Chaven before we set out, Briony shook her head. "I'm not leaving you by remember? And Shaso says we had one in yourself. Rest if you need to, then we'll go on Grandfather Ustin s day - it killed three sheep at a together." steading in Landsend." He scowled as only a boy of fifteen years can scowl, "Three whole sheep? Heavens, what a monster!" the expression of a scholar among idiots, a noble The crying of the hounds rose in pitch, and now both among mud -footed peasants. "I don't need to rest, 31 32 horses began to take fretful little steps. Someone the long grass. Her heart thumping in her breast, she winded a horn, the moan almost smothered by the brought. Snow to a halt and jumped down, certain she intervening trees. had almost killed some crofter's child. "They've seen something," She felt a sudden pang. "Are you hurt?" "Oh, mercy of Zoria! What if that thing hurts the It was a very small man with graying hair who stood dogs?" up from the yellowing grass, his head no higher than Barrick shook his head in disgust, then brushed a the belly -strap of her saddle - a Funderling of middle damp curl of dark red hair out of his eyes. "The dogs?" age, with short but well-muscled legs and arms. He doffed his shapeless felt hat and made a little bow. But Briony was truly frightened for them - she had "Quite well, my lady. Kind of you to ask." raised two of the hounds, Rack and Dado, from puppyhood, and in some ways they were more real to "I didn't see you . . ." this king's daughter than most people. "Oh, come, "Not many do, Mistress." He smiled. "And I should Barrick, please! I'll ride slowly, but I won't leave you also . . ." here." Barrick rattled past with hardly a look at his sister or His mocking smile vanished. "Even with only one her almost-victim. Despite his best efforts he was hand on the reins, I can outride you any hour." favoring the arm and his seat was dangerously bad. "Then do it!" she laughed, spurring down th e slope. Briony scrambled back onto Snow, making a muddle She was doing her best to poke him out of his fury, of her riding skirt. but she knew that cold blank mask too well only time "Forgive me," she said to the little man, then bent low and perhaps the excitement of the chase would over Snow's neck and spurred after her brother. breathe life back into it. Briony looked back up the hillside and was relieved to · see that Barrick was following, a thin shadow atop the gray horse, dressed as though he were in mourning. But her twin dressed that way every day. The Funderling helped his wife to her feet. "I was going to introduce you to the princess." Oh, please, Barrick, sweet angry Barrick, don't fall in love with Death. Her own extravagant thought "Don't be daft." She brushed burrs out of her thick surprised her - poetical sentiment usually made Briony skirt. "We're just lucky that horse of hers didn't crush Eddon feel like she had an itch she couldn't scratch - us into pudding." and as she turned back in distraction she nearly ran "Still, it might be your only chance to meet one of the down a small figure scrambling out of her way through 33 34 royal family." He shook his head in mock-sadness. "Our last opportunity to better ourselves, Opal." The harriers and sight hounds seemed reluctant to She squinted, refusing to smile. "Better for us would enter the stand of trees, although their hesitation did mean enough copper s to buy new boots for you, not make them any quieter. The clamor was atrocious, Chert, and a nice winter shawl for me. Then we could but even the keenest of the hunters seemed content go to meetings without looking like beggars' children." to wait a short distance up the hill until the dogs had driven their quarry out into the open. "It's been a long time since we've looked like children of any sort, my old darling." He plucked another burr The lure of the hunt for most had little to do with the out of her gray -streaked hair. quarry anyway, even so unusual a prize as this. At least two dozen lords and ladies and many times that "And it will be a longer time yet until I have my new number of their servitors swarmed along the hillside, shawl if we don't get on with ourselves." But she was the gentlefolk laughing and talking and admiring (or the one who lingered, looking almost wistfully along pretending to admire) each others' horses and the trampled track through the long grass. "Was that clothes, with soldiers and servants plodding along really the princess? Where do you suppose they were behind or driving oxcarts stacked high with food and going in such a hurry?" drink and tableware and even the folded pavilions in "Following the hunt. Didn't you hear the horns? Ta-ra, which the company had earlier taken their morning ta-ra! The gentry are out chasing some poor creature meal. Many of the squires led spare ho rses, since it across the hills today. In the bad old days, it might was not unusual during a particularly exciting hunt for have been one of us!" one of the mounts to collapse with a broken leg or She sniffed, rec overing herself. "I don't pay heed to burst heart. None of the hunters would stand for any of that, and if you're wise, neither will you. Don't missing the kill and having to ride home on a wagon meddle with the big folk without need and don't draw just because of a dead horse. Among the churls and their attention, as my father always said. No good will higher servants strode men-at-arms carrying pikes or come of it. Now let's get on with our work, old man. I halberds, grooms, houndsmen in mud-stained, don't want to be wandering around near the edge of tattered clothes, a few priests - those of lesser status Shadowline when darkness comes." had to walk, like the soldiers - and even Puzzle, the Chert Blue Quartz shook his head, serious again. "Nor king's bony old jester, who was playing a rather unconvincing hunting air on his lute as he struggled to do I, my love." remain seated on a saddled donkey. In fact, the quiet hills below the Shadowline now contained what was · more or less an entire village on the move. 35 36 Briony, who always liked to get out of the stony short while. Surely he could not think they were in reaches of the castle, where the towers sometimes danger here, only a few m iles from the castle in the seemed to blot out the sun for most of the day, had country the Eddon family had ruled for generations? "I especially enjoyed the momentary escape from this saw you turn from the hunt and ride off without a word great mass of humanity and the quiet that came with to anyone, boy," he said. "What were you thinking?" it. She couldn't help wondering what a hunt must be Barrick shrugged, but there were spots of color high like with the huge royal courts of Syan or Jellon - she on his cheeks. "Don't call me `boy.' And what affair is had heard they sometimes lasted for weeks. But she it of yours?" did not have long to think about it. The old man flinched and his hand curled. For a Shaso dan -Heza rode out from the crowd to meet frightening moment Briony thought he might actually Barrick and Briony as they came down the crest. T he hit Barrick. He had dealt the boy many clouts over the master of arms was the only member of the gentry years, but always in the course of instruction, the who actually seemed dressed to kill something, legitmate blows of combat; to strike one of the royal wearing not the finery most nobles donned for the family in public would be something else entirely. hunt but his old black leather cuirass that was only a Shaso was not well-liked - many of the nobles openly few shades darker than his skin. His huge war bow maintained that it was not fitting for a dark-skinned bumped at his saddle, bent and strung as though he southerner, a former prisoner of war as well, to hold expected attack at any moment. To Briony, the master such high estate in Southmarch, that the security of of arms and her sullen brother Barrick looked like a the kingdom should be in the hands of a foreigner. No pair of storm clouds drifting toward each other and one doubted Shaso's skill or bravery - even once he she braced herself for the thunder. It was not lo ng in had been disarmed in the Battle of Hierosol, in which coming. he and young King Olin had met as enemies, it had "Where have you two been?" Shaso demanded. "Why taken a half dozen men to capture the Tuani warrior, did you leave your guards behind?" and he had sail managed to break free long enough to knock Olin from his horse with the blow of a Briony hastened to take the blame. "We did not mean hammering fist. But instead of punishing the prisoner, to be away so long. We were just talking, and Snow the twins' father had admired the southerner's was hobbling a little . . ." courage, and after Shaso had been taken back to The old Tuani warrior ignor ed her, fixing his hard gaze Southmarch and had survived nearly ten years of on Barrick. Shaso seemed angrier than he should unransomed captivity, he had continued to grow in have been, as though the twins had done more than Olin's estimation until at last he was set free except simply wander away from the press of humanity for a for a bond of honor to the Eddon family and given a 37 38 position of responsibility. In the more than two formality that she knew masked his dislike of some of decades since the Battle of Hierosol, Shaso dan-Heza her family's broader eccentricities - removed his green had upheld his duties with honor, great skill, and an velvet hat and bowed to them. "Princess Briony, almost tiresome rigor, eclipsing all the other nobles so Prince Barrick. We were concerned for your well- thoroughly - and earning resentment for that even being, cousins." more strongly than for the color of his skin - that he She doubted that was entirely true. Barring the had advanced at last to the lofty position of master of Eddons themselves, the Tollys were the closest family arms, the king's minister of war for all the March in the line of succession and they were known to have Kingdoms. The ex-prisoner had been untouchable as ambitions. Gailon had proved himself capable of at long as the twins' father sat on the throne, but now least the appearance of honorable subservience, but Briony wondered whether Shaso's titles, or even she doubted the same could be said for his younger Shaso himself, would survive this bleak time of King brothers, Caradon and the disturbing Hendon. Briony Olin's absence. could only be grateful the rest of theTollys seemed to As if a similar thought passed through his head as prefer lording it over their massive estate down in well, Shaso lowered his hand. "You are a prince of Summerfield to playing at loyal underlings here in Southmarch," he told Barrick, brusque but quiet. Southmarch, and left that task to their brother the "When you risk your life without need, it is not me you duke. are harming." Briony's brother Kendrick seemed in a surprisingly Her twin stared back defiantly, but the old man's good mood considering the burdens of regency on his words cooled some of the heat of his anger. Briony young shoulders during his father's absence. Unlike knew Barrick would not apologize, but there would not King Olin, Kendrick was capable of forgetting his be a fight either. troubles long enough to enjoy a hunt or a pageant. Already his jacket of Sessian finecloth was The excited barking of the dogs had risen in pitch. The unbuttoned, his golden hair in a careless tangle. "So twins' older brother Kendrick was beckoning them there you are," he called. "Gailon is right - we were down to where he was engaged in conversation with worried about you two. It's especially not like Briony to Gailon Tolly, the young Duke of Summerfield. Briony miss the excitement." He glanced at Barrick's funereal rode down the hill toward them with Barrick just garb and widened his eyes. "Has the Procession of behind her. Shaso gave them a few paces start before Penance come early this year?" following. "Oh, yes, I should apologize for my clothes," Barrick Gailon of Summerfield - only half a dozen years senior growled. "How terribly tasteless of me to dress this to Barrick and Briony, but with an uncomfortable way, as though our father were being held prisoner 39 40 somewhere. But wait - our f ather is a prisoner. Fancy after it in a frenzy. that." "Gods!" said Briony in sudden fear, and several Kendrick winced and looked inquiringly at Briony, who around her made the three-fingered sign of the Trigon made a face that said, He's having one of his difficult against their breasts. "That thing is huge!" She turned days. The prince regent turned to his younger brother accusingly to Shaso. "I thought you said you could kill and asked, "Would you rather go back?" one of them with no more than a good clop on the head." "No!" Barrick shook his head violently, but then managed to summon an unconvincing smile. "No. Even the master of arms looked startled. "The other Everyone worries about me too much. I don't mean to one . . . it was smaller." be rude, truly. My arm just hurts a bit. Sometimes." Kendrick shook his head. "That thing is ten cubits long "He is a brave youth," said Duke Gailon without even or I'm a Skimmer." He shouted, "Bring up the boar the tiniest hint of mockery, but it still made Briony spears!" to one of the beaters, then spurred down the bristle like one of her beloved dogs. Last year Gailon hill with Gailon of Summerfield racing beside him and had offered to marry her. He was handsome enough the other nobles hurrying to find their places close to in a long-chinned way, and his family's holdings in the young prince regent. Summerfield were second only to Southmarch itself in "But . . . !" Briony fell silent. She had no idea what size, but she was glad that her father had been in no she'd meant to say - why else were they here if not to hurry to find her a husband. She had a feeling that hunt and kill a wyvern? - but she suddenly felt certain Gailon Tolly would not be as tolerant to his wife as that Kendrick would be in danger if he got too close. King Olin was to his daughter - that if she were his, he Since when are you an oracle or a witching-woman? would make certain Briony did not go riding to the she asked herself, but the worry was strangely potent, hunt in a split skirt, straddling her horse like a man. the crystallization of something that had been The dogs were yapping even more shrilly now, and a troubling her all day like a shadow at the corner of her stir ran through the hunting party gathered on the hill. eye. The strangeness of the gods was in the air today, Briony turned to see a movement in the trees of the that feeling of being surrounded by the unseen. dell below them, a flash of red and gold like autumn Perhaps it was not Barrick who was seeking Death - leaves carried on a swift stream Then something burst perhaps rather the grim deity, the Earth Father, was out of the undergrowth and into the open, a large hunting them all. serpentine shape that was fully visible for the space of She shook her head to throw off the swift chill of fear. five or six heartbeats before it found high grass and Silly thoughts, Briony. Evil thoughts. It must have vanished again. The dogs were already swarming been Barrick's sorrowing talk of their own imprisoned 41 42 father that had done it. Surely there was no harm in a Almost every time it draws back a little there's day like this, late in Dekamene, the tenth month, but lit something new. Do you remember that Edri's Egg by such a bold sun it still seemed high summer - how crystal, the one big as a fist? I found it just sitting in could the gods object? The whole hunt was riding in the grass, like something washed up on a beach." Kendrick's wake now, the horses thundering down the "This whole place - it's not natural." hill after the hounds, the beaters and servants "Of course it's not natural. Nothing about the bounding along behind, shouting excitedly, and she Shadowline is natural. That's why the Qar left it suddenly wanted to be out in front with Kendrick and behind when they retreated from the big folk armies, the other nobles, running ahead of all shadows and not just as a boundary between their lands and ours, worries. but as a a warning, I suppose you'd call it. Keep out. I won't hang back like a girl this time, she thought. But you said you wanted to come today, and here you Like a proper lady. I want to see a wyvern. are." He looked up to the line of mist running along the And what if I'm the one who kills it? Well, why not? grassy hills, denser in the hollows, but still thick as eiderdown along the hilltops. "We've almost reached In any case, her brothers both needed looking it." after."Come on, Barrick," she called. "No time to mope. If we don't go now, we'll miss it all." "So you say," she grunted wearily. Chert felt a pang of shame at how he teased her, his good old wife. She could be tart, but so could an · apple, and none the less wholesome for it. "Yes, by the way, since you asked. The girl's name's Briony." "The girl, the princess - her name's Briony, isn't it?" "And that other one, dressed in black. That's the other Opal asked after they had been hiking again for a brother?" good part of an hour. "I think so, but I've never seem him so close.They're Chert hid a smile. "Are we talking about the big folk? I not much for public show, that family. The old king, thought we weren't supposed to meddle with that Ustin - those children's grandfather - he was a great sort." one for festivals and parades, do you remember? "Don't mock. I don't like it here. Even though the sun's Scarcely a holy day went by. overhead, it seems dark. And the grass is so wet! It Opal did not seem interested in historical makes me feel all fluttery." reminiscence. "He seemed sad, that boy." "Sorry, my dear. I don't like it much here either, but "Well, his father's being held for a ransom the along the edge is where the interesting things are. 43 44 kingdom can't afford and the boy's got himself a something breathing in and out That is why we find gammy arm Reasons enough, perhaps." things here, when the line has drifted back toward the shadow-lands." He could feel a heaviness to the air "What happened to him?" unusual even for this haunted place, a heightened Chert waved his hand as though he were not the type watchfulness: it made him feel reluctant even to to pass along idle gossip, but it was only for show, of speak. "But from the moment two centuries ago when course. "I've heard it said a horse fell on him. But Old the Twilig ht People first conjured it up, it's never Pyrite claims that his father threw him down the moved any closer to us, Opal. Until now." stairs." "What do you mean?" "King Olin? He would never do such a thing!" "It's come forward." He didn't want to believe it but he Chert almost smiled again at her indignant tone for had spent as much time in these hills as anyone. "Like one who claimed not to care about the doings of big floodwaters coming over the banks. At least a dozen folk, his wife had some definite opinions about them. paces ahead of where I've ever seen it." "It seems far-fetched," he admitted. "And the gods "Is that all?" know that Old Pyrite will say almost anything when he's had enough moss-brew . . ." He stopped, "Is that all? Woman, the Twilight People made that frowning. It was always hard to tell, here along the line to keep men out of the shadowlands. No one edge where distances were tricky at the best of times, crosses it and returns, not that I've ever heard of. And but there was definitely something wrong. before today, it hasn't moved an inch closer to the castle in two hundred years!" He was breathless, "What is it?" dizzy with it. "I have to tell someone." "It's . . . it's moved." They were only a few dozen "You? Why should you be the one to get tangled up paces away from the boundary now - quite as close with this, old man? Aren't there big-folk guards that as he wanted to get. He stared, first at the ground, watch the Shadowline?" then at a familiar stand of white oak trees now half smothered by mist and faint as wandering spirits. For He waved his hands in exasperation. "Yes, and you the first time he could remember, the unnatural murk saw them when we went past their post-house, had actually advanced past their trunks. The hairs on although they didn't see us, or didn't care They might the back of Chert's neck rose. "It has moved!" as well be guarding the moon? They pay no heed to anything, and the task is given to the youngest and "But it's always moving.You said so." greenest of the soldiers. Nothing has changed on this "Slipping back from the edge a wee bit, then coming foggy border in so long they don't even believe up to it again, like the tide," he whispered. "Like anything could change " He shook his head, suddenly 45 46 troubled by a low noise at the edge of his hearing, a curled about the horses' feet, as though their shadowy tremble of air. Distant thunder? "I can barely believe it land would not entirely let them go. myself, and I have walked these hills for years. "The One of th e riders slowly turned toward the trees where dim rumbling was growing louder and Chert finally the two Funderlings lay hidden, a glint of eyes in the realized it wasn't thunder. "Fissure and fracture!" he depths of the shadowed hood the only indication it swore. "Those are horses coming toward us!" was not empty. For a long moment the rider only "The hunt?" she asked. The damp hillside and close- stared, or perhaps listened, and although Chert's leaning trees seemed capable of hiding anything. every fiber told him to leap to his feet and run, he lay "You said the hunt was out today." as still as he could, clutching Opal so tightly that he could feel her silently struggling to break his painful "It's not coming from that direction - and they would grip. never come so far this direction, so near to " His heart stumbled in his chest. "Gods of raw earth - it's coming At last the hooded figure turned away. One of its from the shadowlands!" fellows lifted something from the back of its saddle and dropped it to the ground. The riders lingered for a He grabbed his wife's hand and yanked her stumbling moment longer, staring across the valley at the distant along the hill away from the misty boundary, short towers of Southmarch Castle. Then, without a sound, legs digging, feet slipping on the wet grass as they they wheeled and rode their ghostwhite horses back scrambled for the shelter of the trees. The noise of into the ragged wall of mist. hooves seemed impossibly loud now, as though it were right on top of the staggering Funderlings. Chert still waited a dozen frightened heartbeats before he let go of his wife. Chert and Opal reached the trees and threw themselves down into the scratching underbrush "You've crushed my innards, you old fool," she Chert grabbed his wife close and peered out at the moaned, climbing up onto hands and knees. "Who hillside as four riders erupted from the mist and reined was it? I couldn't see." in their stamping white mounts. The animals, tall and "I . . . I don't know." It had happened so quickly that it lean and not quite like any horses Chert had ever almost seemed a dream. He got up, feeling the ache seen, blinked as though unused to even such of their clumsy, panicked flight begin to throb in all his occluded sunlight. He could not see the faces of the joints. "They just rode out, then turned around and riders, who wore hooded cloaks that at first seemed rode back . . ." He stopped, staring at the dark bundle dark gr ay or even black, but which had the flickering the riders had dropped. It was moving. sheen of an oily puddle, yet they too seemed startled "Chert, where are you going?" by the brightness of this new place. A tongue of mist He didn't intend to touch it, of course - no Funderling 47 48 was such a fool, to snatch up something that even sprites and bogles even on this side of the those beyond the Shadowline did not want. As he Shadowline that could mimic the voices of loved ones moved closer, he could not help noticing that the large in order to lure travelers off the path to certain doom. sack was making small, frightened noises. Why expect better of something that actually came from inside the twilight country? "There's something in it," he called to Opal. "Aren't you going to do anything?" "There's something in lots of things," she said, coming grimly after him. "But not much between your ears. "Do what? Any kind of demon could be in there, Leave it alone and come away, you. No good can woman." come of it." "That's no demon, that's a child - and if you're too "It's . . . it's alive." A thought had come into his head. It frightened to let it out, Chert of the Blue Quartz, I will." was a goblin, or some other magical creature He knew that tone all too well. He muttered a prayer banished from the lands beyond. Goblins were wish- to the gods of deep places, then advanced on the granters, that was what the old tales said. And if he sack as though it were a coiled viper, stepping freed it, would it not give those wishes to him? A new carefully so that in its thrashing it would not roll shawl . . . ? Opal could have a queen's closet full of against him and, perhaps, bite. The sack was held clothes if she wished. Or the goblin might lead him to shut with a knot of some gray rope. He touched it a vein of firegold and the masters of the Funderling carefully and found the cord slippery as polished guilds would soon be coming to Chert s house with soapstone. caps in hands, begging his assistance. Even his own "Hurry up, old man!" so-proud brother. . . He glared at her, then began cautiously to unpick the The sack thrashed and tipped over Something inside knot, wishing he had brought something with him it snarled. sharper than his old knife, dulled by digging out Of course, he thought, there could be a reason they stones. Despite the cool, foggy air, sweat had beaded took it across the Shadowline and tossed it away like on his forehead by the time he was able to tease the bones on a midden. It could be something extremely knot apart. The sack had lain still and silent for some unpleasant. time. He wondered, half hoping it was so, whether the An even stranger sound came from the sack. thing inside might have suffocated. "Oh, Chert." His wife's voice was now quite different. "What's in there?" his wife called, but before he had "There's a child in there! Listen - it's crying!" time to explain that he hadn't even opened the cursed thing, something shot out of the heavy sack like a He still did not move. Everyone knew there were stone from the mouth of a culverm and knocked him 49 50 onto his back. sniffed it, and crammed it into his mouth, scarcely bothering to chew before swallowing. Finished, the Chert tried to shout, but the thing had his neck gripped boy looked at Opal with fierce expectancy. She in clammy hands and was trying to bite his chest laughed in a worried way and felt in her pocket until through his thick jerkin. H was so busy fighting for his e she located a few pieces of dried fruit, which she also life that he couldn't even make out the shape of his set on the grass. They disappeared even faster than attacker until a third body entered the fray and the bread. dragged the clutching, strangling monstrosity off him and they all tumbled into a pile. "What's your name?" she asked the boy. "Where are you from?" "Are you . . . hurt . . . ?" Opal gasped. Searching his teeth with his tongue for any fragments "Where is that thing?" Chert rolled over into a sitting of food that might have escaped him, he only looked position. The sack's contents were crouching a short at her. distance away, staring at him with squinting blue eyes. It was a slender -limbed boy, a child of perhaps five or "Dumb, it seems," said Chert. "Or at least he doesn't six years, sweaty and disheveled, with deathly pale speak our . . ." skin and hair that was almost white, as though he had "Where is this?" the boy asked. been inside the sack for years. "Where . . . what do you mean?" said Chert, startled. Opal sat up. "A child! I told you." She looked at the "Where is this . . . ?" The boy swept his arm in a circle, boy for a moment. "One of the big folk, poor thing." taking in the trees, the grassy hillside, the fogbound "Poor thing, indeed!" Chert gently touched the scraped forest. "This . . . place. Where are we?" He sounded places on his neck and cheeks. "The little beast tried older than his age somehow, but younger, too, as to murder me." though speaking were a new thing to him. "Oh, be still You startled him, that's all." She held out "We are on the edge of Southmarch - called her hand toward the boy. "Come here - I won't hurt Shadowmarch by some, because of this Shadowline." you What's your name, child?" When the boy did not Chert gestured toward the misty boundary, then reply, she fumbled in the wide pockets of her dress swung himself around to point in the opposite and withdrew a heel of brown bread. "Are you direction. "The castle is over there." hungry?" "Shadow . . . line?" The boy squinted. "Castle?" From the fierce glint in his eye, the boy was clearly "He needs more food." Opal's words had the sound of very interested, but he still did not move toward her. an inarguable decision rendered. "And sleep You can Opal leaned forward and set the bread on the grass. see he's nearly falling over." He looked at it and her, then snatched the bread up, 51 52 "Which means what?" But Chert already saw the decided might be as much fear as bravado - before shape of it and did not like it much at all. following after her. "Which means we take him home, of course." Opal "No good will come of it," Chert said, but quietly, stood, brushing the loose grass from her dress. "We already resigned through long expenece to whatever feed him." complex doom the gods had planned for him In any case, better some angry gods than an angry Opal. He "But. . . but he must belong to someone! To one of the didn't have to share a small house with the gods, who big-folk families!" had their own vast and hidden places. He sighed and "And they tied him in a sack and left him here?" Opal fell into step behind his wife and the boy. laughed scornfully. "Then they are likely not pining for his return." · "But he came . . . he came from . . ." Chert looked at the boy, who was sucking his fingers and examining the landscape. He lowered his voice. "He came from The wyvern had been brought to bay in another copse the other side." of trees, a dense circle of rowans carpeted with "He's here now," Opal said. "Look at him. Do you bracken. Even through the milling ring of hounds, wild really think he's some unnatural thing? He's a little with excitement but still cautious enough to keep their boy who wandered into the twihght and was tossed distance, perhaps put off by the unusual smell or out again. Surely we, of all people, should know better strange slithering movements of their quarry, Briony than to believe everything that has to do with the could see the length of the thing as it moved restlessly Shadowline is wicked. Does this mean you plan to from one side of the copse to the other, its bright throw back the gems you've found here, too? No, he scales glimmering in the shadows like a brushfire. probably comes from some other place along the "Cowardly beasts, dogs," said Barrick. "They are fifty boundary - somewhere leagues and leagues away! to one but still hold back." Should we leave him here to starve?" She patted her "They are not cowards!" Briony resisted the urge to thigh, then beckoned."Come along with us, child. We'll push him off his horse. He was looking even more take you home and feed you properly." drawn and pale, and had tucked his left arm inside his Before Chert could make further objection Opal set cloak as though to protect it from chill, though the off, stumping back along the hillside toward the distant afternoon air was still sun-warmed. "The scent is castle, the hem of her old dress trailing in the wet strange to them!" grass. The boy paused only to glance at Chert - a look Barrick frowned. "There are too many things coming the little man first thought was threatening, then 53 54 across the Shadowline these days. Just back in the coiffed and dressed noblewomen who had spring there were those birds with the iron beaks that accompanied the hunt, most riding decorously on killed a shepherd at Landsend. And the dead giant in sidesaddles, a few even carried in litters - their Daler's Troth . . ." awkward progress had slowed everyone else quite a bit, to Briony's disgust - took the opportunity to The thing in the copse reared up, hissing loudly. The withdraw to a nearby hillock where they could watch hounds started away, whining and yipping, and the end from a safe distance Briony saw that Rose several of the beaters shouted in terror and scuttled and Moina, her two principal ladies-in-waiting, had back from the ring of trees. Briony could still see only spread a blanket for her between them on the hillside a little of the beast as it slipped in and out through the and were looking at her expectantly. Rose Trelling gray rowan trunks and the tangled undergrowth. It was one of Lord Constable Brone's nieces, Moina seemed to have a head narrow as a sea horse's, and Hartsbrook the daughter of a Helmingsea nobleman. as it hissed again she glimpsed a mouth full of spiny Both were good -hearted girls, which made them teeth. Briony s favorites out of what she thought of as a It almost seems frightened, she thought, but that did mediocre stable of court women, but she sometimes not make sense. It was a monster, an unnatural thing found them just as silly and hidebound as their older there could be nothing in its dark mind but relatives, scandalized by the slightest variation from malevolence. formal etiquette or tradition. Old Puzzle the jester was "Enough!" cried Kendrick, who was holding his sitting with them, restringing his lute, biding his time frightened horse steady near the edge of the copse. until he could see what food the ladies might have in "Bring me my spear!" their hamper. His squire ran to him, face wan with dread, looking The idea of withdrawing to the safety of the hill and determinedly at anything except the hissing shape watching the rest of the hunt while her ladies-in- only a few paces away. The young man, one of Tyne waiting gossiped about people's jewelry and clothes Aldritch's sons, was in such terrified haste to hand was too painful. Briony scowled and waved at one of over the spear and escape that he almost let the long, the beaters as he staggered past with several of the gold -chased shaft with its crosshaft and its heavy iron heavy spears in his arms. "Give me one of those." head fall to the ground as the pri nce reached for it "What are you doing?" Barrick himself could not easily Kendrick caught it, then kicked out at the retreating handle the long spears with only one arm, and had not youth in irritation. bothered to call for one. "You can't go near that Others of the hunting party were calling for spears as creature Kendrick won't let you." well With the kill so close, the two dozen immaculately "Kendrick has quite enough to think about Oh, gods 55 56 curse it." She scowled. Gailon of Summerfield had in the long jaws. seen and was spurring toward them. "Oh, hurry!" she said, miserable but also strangely "My lady! Princess!" He leaned out as if to take the exc ited. Again she could feel the presence of invisible spear from her, and only realized at the last moment things swirling like winter clouds. She said a prayer to that he would be overstepping. "You will hurt yourself." Zoria. She ma naged to control her voice, but barely. "I do The dogs began to swarm into the copse in numbers, know which end points outward, Duke Gailon." a flood of low shapes swirling in the dappled light beneath the trees, barking in frightened excitement. "But this is not fitting for a lady . . . and especially with There were more squeals of pain, but then a strange, such a fearsome beast . . . !" creaking bellow from the wyvern as one of the dogs "Then you must make sure and kill it first," she said, a got its teeth into a sensitive spot. The barking bit more gently but no more sweetly. "Because if it suddenly rose fiercely in pitch as the beast fought its reaches me, it will get no farther." way through the pack, trying to escape the Barrick groaned, then called the bearer back and took confinement of the trees. It crushed at least one of the a spear for himself, clutching it awkwardly under one hounds under its clawed feet and gutted several arm while still holding the reins. others, shaking one victim so hard that blood flew everywhere like red rain. Then it burst out of the "And what are you doing?" she demanded. leaves and moving shadows into the clear afternoon "If you're going to be a fool, strawhead, someone has sunlight, and for the first time Briony could see it to protect you." whole. Gailon Tolly looked at them both, then shook his head It was mostly serpentine body, a great tube of muscle and rode off toward Kendrick and the hounds. covered with glimmering red and gold and brown "I don't think he's very happy with us," Briony said scales, with a single pair of sturdy legs a third of the cheerfully. From somewhere back along the hillside way down its length. A sort of ruff of bone and skin she heard the master of arms shout her name, then had flared out behind the narrow head, stretching her brother's. "And Shaso won't be either. Let's go." even wider now as the thing rose up on those legs, They spurred forward. The dogs, surrounded now by head swaying higher than a man's as it struck toward. a ring of men with spears, were beginning to find their Kendrick and the two other nobles closest to it. It had courage again. Several of the lymers darted into the come on them too quickly for the men to dismount and copse to snap at the swift-moving, reddish shape. use their long boar spears properly. Kendrick waited Briony saw the long neck move, quick as a whipcrack, until the strike had missed, then dug at the creature's and one of the dogs yelped in terror as it was caught 57 58 face with his spear. The wyvern hissed and loud cracks, and the prince and his mount collapsed sideslipped the blow, but as it did so one of the other downward into a maul of red-gold coils. men - Briony thought it might be Tyne, the hunting- As Barrick and Briony stared in horror from twenty mad Earl of Blueshore - drove his spearhead into the paces away, Sum-merfield and Blueshore both began thing's ribs just behind its shoulders. The wyvern to jab wildly at the agitated monster and its prey. contorted its neck to snap at the shaft Kendrick seized Other nobles hurried forward, shouting in fear for the the opportunity to drive his own spear into the prince regent's life. The crush of eager dogs, the creature's throat, then spurred his horse forward so writhing loops of the injured wyvern's long body, and that he could use its force to pin the wyvern against the thrashing of the mortally injured horse made it the ground. The spear slid in through a sluice of red- impossible to see what was happening on the ground. black blood until the crosshaft that was meant to keep Briony was lightheaded and sick. a boar from forcing its way up the shaft stoppe d it. Then something came up suddenly out of the long Kendrick's horse reared in alarm at the thing's grass, speeding toward her like the figurehead of a agonized, furious hiss, but the prince stood in his Vuttish longboat cutting the water - the wyvern, stirrups and leaned his weight on the spear, making a desperate lunge at escape, still dragging determined to keep the thing staked to the earth. Kendrick's spear in its neck. It darted first to one side, The dogs swarmed forward again; the other members then to the other, hemmed in bv terrified horses and of the hunt began to close in too, all anxious to be in jabbing spears, then plunged through an opening in at the kill. But the wyvern was not beaten. the ring of hunters, straight at Briony and Barrick. In a sudden, explosive movement the thing coiled A heartbeat later it rose before them, its black eye itself around the spear, stretching its neck a surprising glitter ing, head swaying like an adder's as it measured distance to bite at Kendrick's gloved hand. The them. As if in a dream, Briony lifted her spear. The prince's horse reared again and he almost lost his grip thing hissed and reared higher. She tried to track the on the spear entirely. The monster's tail lashed out moving head, to keep the point firmly between it and and wrapped around the horse's legs. The black her, but its looping motions were quick and fluidly gelding nickered in terror. For a brief moment they deceptive. A moment later Barrick's spear slipped were all tangled together like some fantastical scene from his clumsy, one-handed grasp and banged from one of the ancient tapestries in the castle's sideways into Briony s arm, knocking her weapon out throne room, everything so strange that Briony could of her hands. not quite believe it was truly happening Then the The wyvern's narrow jaws spread wide, dripping with wyvern tightened itself around the legs of Kendrick's bloody froth. The head lunged toward her, then horse, crushing bones in a drumroll of fright-eningly 59 60 suddenly snapped to one side as though yanked by a string. 2 The monster's strike had come so close that when she undressed that night Briony found the thing's caustic spittle had burned holes in her deer-hide jerkin A Stone in the Sea it looked as though someone had held the garment over the flames of a dozen tiny candles. The wyvern lay on the ground, an arrow jutting from WEEPING TOWER: its eye, little shudders rippling down its long neck as it died. Briony stared at it, then turned to see Shaso Three turning, four standing riding toward them, his war bow still in his hand. He looked down at the dead beast before lifting his angry Five hammerblows in the deep places. stare to the royal twins. The fox hides her children. "Foolish, arrogant children," he said. "Had I been as - from The Bonefall Oracles. careless as you, you would both be dead." This was one of Vansen's favorite spots, high on the old wall just beneath the rough, dark stone of Wolfstooth Spire, and also one of the most satisf ying things about his given task: he had good reason to be up here in the stiff breeze that flew across Brenn's Bay, with nearly all of Southmarch, castle and town, arranged beneath him in the autumn sun like objects on a lady's table. Was it shameful that he enjoyed it so? When he was a child in the dales, Ferras Vansen and the boys from the next croft had liked to play King on the Hill, each trying to hold a singular place at the top of some hummock of soil and stone they had chosen for their battleground, but even in those instants when the others had gone tumbling down to the bottom and Ferras had stood by himself, master of the high place, 61 62 still the foothills had loomed over them all, and beyond gates from sunup until sundown, and by its grandeur, those hills the northern mountains themselves, the antique splendor of the king's hall and the massive achingly hi gh, as if to remind young Ferras even in residence whose roofs seemed to have as many triumph of his true place in life. When he had grown chimneys as a forest had trees? If not, Ferras Vansen older, he had learned to love those heights, at least couldn't understand it: how could you spend every day those he could reach; at times he had purposely let beneath the splendid season-towers, each of the four the sheep wander off, trading one of his father's a different shape and color, and not stop to stare at sometimes violent punishments for the pleasure of them? following the straying herd into the high places. Until Perhaps,Vansen considered, it was different if you his manhood, he knew no greater pleasure than a were born in the midst of such things. Perhaps. He stretch of afternoon when he could clamber up to one had come here half a dozen years ago and still could of the crests and look out over the folds of hillock and not begin to grow used to the size and liveliness of the valley that lay before him like a bunched blanket - place. People had told him that Southmarch was as deep, dark places and airy prominences that no one nothing compared to Tessis in Syan or the sprawling, else in his family had ever seen, although they lay ancient city-state of Hierosol with its two -score gates, less than a mile from the family croft. but here were riches to spare for a young man from Vansen sometimes wondered if this hunger for height dark, lonely Daler's Troth, where earth and sky were and solitude the gods had put in him might not be both oppressively wet most of the time and in winter stronger now than ever, especially with the much the sun seemed scarcely to top the hills. greater number of people around him in Southmarch, As if summoned by chill memory, the wind changed, swarms of them filling the castle and town like bees in bringing needles of cold air from the ocean that a hive. Did any of them, noble or peddler, soldier or pierced even Vansen s mail shirt and surcoat. He serf, ever look up as he did and wonder at the pulled his heavy watch-cloak more tightly around him, loftiness of Wblfstooth Spire, a black scepter-shape forced himself to move. He had work to do. Just that loomed over even the castle's other towers as the because the royal family and, it seemed, half the distant snowcapped mountains had dominated the nobles in the March Kingdoms were across the water hills of his boyhood country? Did any of the other hunting in the northern hills did not mean he could guardsmen marvel at the sheer size of the place as afford to spend the afternoon lost in useless thought. they walked the walls, these two great uneven rings of That was his curse, after all, or at least so his mother stone that crowned Midlan's Mount? Was he the only had once told him: "You dream too much, child Our one secretly thrilled by the liveliness of the place, the kind, we make our way with strong backs and dosed people and animals streaming in and out through the mouths " Strange, because the tales she had told to 63 64 him and his sisters in the long evenings, as the single worse and far more shameful - he dreamed of the small fire burned down, had always been about clever wrong things. young men defeating cruel giants or witches and winning the king's daughter. But in the light of day she "He's like a hawk, that one," a soldier at the residence had instructed her children, "You will make the gods guardhouse said quietly to his companion as Vansen angry if you ask for too much." walked away, but not so quietly that Vansen didn't His Vuttish father had been more understanding, at hear. "You don't ever want to rest for a moment least sometimes. "Remember, I had to come far to because he'll just drop down on you, sudden-like." find you," he liked to tell Vansen's mother. "Far from Vansen hadn't even punished them when he found those cold, windy rocks in the middle of the sea to this them with their armor off, playing dice, but he had fine place. Sometimes a man must reach out for made his anger bitingly clear. more." Vansen turned back. The two guardsmen looked up, The younger Ferras hadn't completely agreed with the guilty and resentful. "Next time it might be Lord Brone old man, certainly not about the place itself - - their instead of me, and you might be on your way to the croft in the hills' dank green shadows, where water stronghold in chains. Think about that, my lads." seemed to drip from the trees more than half the year, There was no whispering this time when he went out. was to him a place to be escaped instead of a "They can like you or they can fear you," his old destination - but it was nice to hear his father, a captain Donal Murray had always said, and even in onetime sailor who by habit or blood was a man of his last years Murroy had not hesitated to use his very few words, talk of something other than a chore knobby knuckles or the flat of his hand to reinforce young Ferras had forgotten to do. that fear in a soldier who was insolent or just too slow And now it seemed Vansen had at last proved his in his obedience Vansen had hoped when he was mother wrong, for he had come to the city with promoted to Murray's place that he could substitute nothing, and yet here he was, captain of the respect for fear, but after nearly a year he was Southmarch royal guard, with the north's gr eatest beginning to think the old Connordman had been stronghold spread before him and the safety of its right. Most of the guards were too young to have ruling family his responsibility. Anyone would be proud known anything except peace. They found it hard to of such an achievement, even men born to a much believe that a day might come when stealing a nap on higher station. duty or wandering away from their posts might have But in his heart Ferras Vansen knew his mother had fatal consequences for themselves or the people they been right. He still dreamed too much, and - what was protected. 65 66 Sometimes it was hard for Vansen himself to believe and throne hall, jumble of temples and shops, stables it. There were days here on the edge of the world, in a and houses, from the high-timbered mansions of the little kingdom bounded by misty, ill-omened mountains nobility nestled inside the Old Wall to the stacked in the north and the ocean almost everywhere else, hovels of those of less lofty station, piled so leaningly where it seemed like nothing would ever change but high that they turned the narrow streets between them the wind and weather, and those would only be the into shadowy arbors of dark wood and plaster Most of familiar small changes - from wet to slightly less wet the buildings of Southmarch had been connected over and then back to wet again, from swirling breeze to the years by a ramshackle aggregation of covered stiff gale - that so wearied the inhabitants of this small walkways and tunnels to protect the denizens from the stone in the shallows of the sea. wet northern weather and the often ruthless winds, so that sometimes all the castle's disparate structures, built over generations, seemed to have fused together Southmarch Castle was ringed by three walls the like the contents of one of the tide pools in the rocks huge, smooth outwall of gray-white southern granite at the ocean edge of Brenn's Bay, where stone and that circled the mount and whose foundations in many plants and shells grew together into one semiliving - places were actually beneath the waters of Brenn's and no longer sepa rable - mass. Bay, a skirt of fitted stone which, along with the bay Still, there was sun here, Ferras Vansen told himself, itself, made the little sometimes-lsland into what had far more of it in a year than he had seen in his entire been for centuries a fortress that could resist any youth in the Dales, not to mention fresh winds off the siege, the New Wall, as it was called (though no one sea. That made it all bearable, and more than could remember a time before it had existed), that bearable: there were times when just being in the surrounded the royal keep and touched all the place filled him with joy. cardinal towers except the one named for summer, and the Old Wall that bounded the inmost heart of the keep, and within whose protective shadow lay the By the time the afternoon had begun to fade, Vansen throne hall and the royal residence These two edifices had walked most of the uneven circle of the Old Wall, were as riddled with hallways and chambers as stopping at each guard post, even those that anthills, so old and vast and beset by centuries of consisted of nothing more than a lonely soldier with a intermittent neglect that they both contained rooms pike standing before a locked door or gate and trying and passages that had not been entered or even not to doze. Drunk on sea air and some rare time to remembered for years. pursue his own thoughts without the distractions of The smaller buildings that surrounded them made the command, Vansen briefly considered a course around lower castle just as intricate a maze as the residence the much lengthier New Wall, but a look at the harbor 67 68 and the sails of the newly arrived carrack from the stairwell and disappeared from his sight. By the Hierosol reminded him that he could not afford the time Vansen reached the stairs he could not discern time. There would be a hundred tasks before the end that particular dark, hooded cloak in the throng of of the day; the visitors must be safely lodged, people in the narrow streets below the wall. guarded, and watched, and Avin Brone, the lord So I am not the only one who likes the view from high constable, would expect Vansen to take charge of the places, he thought. He felt a pang; it took him a task himself. The ship had four masts - a good-sized moment to realize, to his surprise, that it was vessel, which meant that the envoy might have come loneliness. with a sizable bodyguard.Vansen cursed quietly. More than one day's pleasurable solitude was going to be "You're too much inside yourself, Vansen," old Murroy sacrificed to this ship and its passengers. He would had once told him. "You think more than you talk, but have to keep his men and the southerners apart as that's little use when the others can see so plainly much as possible. With King Olin a captive of what you're thinkin'. They know that you think well of Hierosol's Ludis Drakava, there was much bad blood yourself, and often not so well of them. The older men between the Hierosolines and the Southmarch folk. in particular, Laybrick and Southstead, don't like it." When he came out of the small guard tower by the "I do not like men who . . . who take advantage," West Green, he was distracted from his planning by Vansen had answered, trying to explain what was in the sight of someone else on the walls, a cloaked and his heart but not quite having the words. "I do not like hooded figure that seemed slight enough to be a men who take what the gods give and pretend it's woman or a young boy. For an illogical moment he their due." wondered if it could be her, the one he dared not think of too often. Had fate somehow brought her here Hearing that, Murroy's leathery old face had creased alone to this place where they could not help but in one of his infrequent smiles. "Then you must not speak? The thought of all the things he might say to like most men." her, careful, respectful, sincere, passed through his Ferras Vansen had wondered ever since whether his mind in a heartbeat before he realized that it could not captain's words were true. He liked Captain Murroy be her, that she was still out with the others hunting in himself slightly more than he feared him, or at least he the hills. liked the man's brutal evenhandedness, his As though this swirl of confused thoughts made a unwillingness to complain, his occasional flashes of sound as audible and frightening as a swarm of sour humor. Donal Murroy was staying that way to the hornets, the hooded figure suddenly seemed to notice end: even as the wasting sickness stole his life, he him; it immediately stepped down from the wall into offered no complaint against fate or the gods, saying 69 70 only that he wished he had known what was going to so you keep an eye on me after I'm gone." happen so he could have given his wife's lying, bragging younger brother a thrashing while he still had He hadn't cried when the captain died, but he the strength. "As it is, I'll have to leave it to the next sometimes felt as if he wanted to when he thought man whose hospitality or good sense he offends. I about him now. The captain's manner of going had hope it's some one who has the time to beat him within been much like that of Ferras' own father, now that he a hair of his useless life." thought on it. He hadn't cried for Pedar Vansen either, Vansen marveled at how the older man could laugh and hadn't been to his father's grave in the old temple despite the racking cough and the blood on his lips yard at Little Stell for years, but that wasn't really so and stubbled chin, how his shadowed, deep-sunken surprising. Vansen's sisters, what was left of the eyes were still as bright and heartlessly fierce as a crofter's family, were all in Southmarch-town now, hunting bird's. settled with husbands and children of their own. "You'll follow me as guard captain, Vansen," said the Daler's Troth was several days' ride away in the hills dying man. "I've told Brone. Himself has no powerful to the west. His life was here now, in this dizzyingly objections, though he thinks you a bit young. The large and crowded citadel. great man's right, of course, but I wouldn't trust that He made his way around to the western tower of the ass Dyer with the bung from an empty cask and all the Raven's Gate. The men in the guardhouse there had older men are too fat and lazy. No, it's you, Vansen. a well-stoked fire and he stopped to warm his hands Go ahead and muck things up if you want to. They'll before going to see what Lord Brone wanted done just come and put flowers on my grave and miss me." about the southerners. The easy chatter had fallen off Another laugh, another spray of red-tinged spittle. when he had come in, as usual, and all the men were "Thank you, sir." standing around in awkward silence except for Collum Dyer, the officer in charge, closest thing to a friend "Don't bother, lad If you do it right, you'll spend all Ferras Vansen had. He dreaded the day he would your life working at it with no more payment than a have to draw that line Murroy had talked of so often, little land to build a house and p'raps a spot in a and discipline Dyer for something - whatever Dyer felt proper graveyard at the end of it instead of the potter's about Vansen was certainly not fear, and did not quite field " He wiped his chin with a gnarled hand. "Which seem like respect either - because he was certain that reminds me - don't let them forget there's a place set would be the day that their friendship, slight as it was, aside for me in the guards' cemetery. I don't want to would end. end up out in the western hills somewhere, but I don't want Mickael Southstead pissing on my grave, either, "Been out wandering the walls, Captain?" Dyer asked 71 72 him Vansen was grateful that Dyer at least named him by his rank in front of the men That was a small nod of respect, wasn't it? "Any sign of invading forces?" 3 Vansen let himself smile. "No, and Perin be thanked for that, today and every day. But there is a Proper Blue Quartz Hierosoline ship in the harbor and there will be fighting men on board, so let us not take things too lightly, either." THE BIRD WHO IS A RIDDLE: He left them and made his way down the stairs to the sloping road that led up to the Great Hall. The lord Beak of silver, bones of cold iron constable had his work chambers in the maze of corridors behind the throne room, and at this time of Wings of setting sun the day Vansen felt certain he would be there. As he Claws that catch only emptiness walked up the road toward the vast carved facade, - from The Bonefall Oracles where the guards were already straightening at their young captain's approach, he looked up at the high hall nestled in the midst of the Mount's towers like a The boy from behind the Shadowline stopped to stare gem on a royal crown and felt a clutch of worry that at the castle's jutting towers. The three of them were something might change, that some error of his own on the lower reaches of the hill road now, which or the whim of feckless gods might take all this away wound down through rolling farmlands to the edge of from him. the city on the shoreline. The heights of Midlan's Mount were still distant across the causeway, I am a fortunate man, he told himself. Heaven has Wolfstooth Spire looming above all like a dark claw smiled on me, far beyond what I have earned, and I scratching the belly of the sky. "What is that place?" have everything I could want - or nearly so. I must the child asked, almost in a whisper. "Southmarch accept these great riches and not ask more, not anger Castle," Chert told him. "At least the part with the the gods with my greed. towers out on that rock in the middle of the bay - the I am a fortunate man and I cannot, even in the bit on this side is the rest of the town. Yes, foolishness of my secret heart, ever forget that. Southmarch . . . some call it Shadowmarch, did I already say that? On account of it's so close to the . . ." He remembered where the boy came from and trailed off. "Or you can call it `The Beacon of the 73 74 Marches, ' if you like poetry." brother were safe - he had thought she had kind eyes. But if something had happened to them, he reasoned, The boy shook his head, but whether because he surely folk would be talking about it. didn't like poetry or for some other reason wasn't clear. "Big." It took the best part of the fading afternoon to make their way through the city to the shore, but they "Hurry up, you two." Opal had marched ahead. "She's arrived at the near end of the causeway with a little right - we have a long walk yet." time to spare before the rising tide would turn Midlan's The boy still hesitated. Chert laid his hand on the Mount back into an island. boy's arm. The child seemed strangely reluctant, as The causeway between the shore and the castle on though the distant towers themselves were something the Mount was little more than a broad road of piled menacing, but at last he allowed himself to be urged stones, most of which would vanish under the high forward. "There's nothing to be afraid of, lad," Chert tide, but the place where it met the docks outside the told him. "Not as long as you're with us. But don't castle gate had been built up by generations of wander off." fishermen and peddlers until what hung over the water The boy shook his head again. there was nearly a small town in itself, a sort of As they made their way down from the hilly farmlands permanent fairground on the wind-lashed doorstep of into the mainland town, they found wide Market Road Midlan's Mount. As the Funderling, his wife, and their lined with people, almost entirely big folk. For a new guest trudged across the piers and wooden moment Chert wondered why so many people had platforms filled with flimsy, close-leaning buildings come out of their houses and shops to stare curiously whose floors stood only a few cubits above the reach at two Funderlings and a ragged, white-haired boy, of high tide, dodging wagons and heavily laden foot- then realized that the royal family's hunting party must peddlers hurrying to cross back over the causeway have passed just ahead of them. The crowd was before nightfall, Chert looked out through a crack beginning to disperse now, the hawkers desperately between two rickety shops, across the mouth of reducing the prices of their chestnuts and fried Brenn's Bay to the ocean. Despite the last of the breads, fighting over the few remaining customers. He bright afternoon sun there were clouds spread thick heard murmurs about the size of something the and dark along the horizon, and Chert suddenly hunters had caught and paraded past, and other remembered the shocking thing that the arrival of the descriptions - scales? Teeth? - that made little sense riders and the mysterious boy had driven from his unless they had been hunting something other than mind. deer. The people seemed a little dispirited, even The Shadowline! Someone must be told that it's unhappy. Chert hoped the princess and her sullen moved. He would have liked to think that the king's 75 76 family up in the castle already knew, that they had the young princess and her brother, Briony's taken all the f acts into careful consideration and frightened gaze when she thought she had run him decided that it meant nothing, that all was still well, but down, the prince s face as troubled and impersonal as he couldn't quite make himself believe it. the sky out beyond the Mount, and he felt a sudden warmth that almost, if it had not been so ridiculous, Someone must be told. The thought of going up to the felt like loyalty. castle himself was daunting, although he had been inside the kee p several times as part of Funderling They need to know, he decided, and suddenly the work gangs, and had even led a few, working directly idea of what might be coming closer behind that line with Lord Nynor, the castellan - or with his factor, in of moving darkness pushed anything so abstract as any case. But to go by himself, as though he were a the good graces of the royal family from his mind man of importance. There was another way to pass the news, and he would use it Everyone needs to know. But if the big folk do not know, someone must tell them. And perhaps there will even be some reward in it - enough to buy Opal that new shawl, if nothing else. · Or at least to pay for what this young creature will eat when Opal gets him home. Although his horse was dead, left behind for three He regarded the boy for a moment, horrified by the servants to bury on the hillside where the wyvern had sudden realization that Opal might very well intend to died, Prince Kendrick himself had suffered little more keep him. A childless woman, he thought, was as than bruises and a few burns from the creature's unpredictable as a loose seam in a bed of sandstone. venomous froth. Of all the company he was the only Hold now, one thing at a time. Chert watched the one who seemed in good cheer as they made their clouds hurrying across the ocean, their black expanse way back toward the castle, the huge corpse of the making the mighty towers suddenly seem fragile, wyvern coiled on an open wagon for the amazement delicate as pastry. Someone needed to tell the king's of the populace. Market Road was crowded with people about the Shadowline, there was no arguing it. people, hundreds and hundreds waiting to see the If I go to the Guild, there will be days of argument, prince regent and his hunting party. Hawkers, then Cinnabar or puffed -up Young Pyrtte will be tumblers, musicians, and pickpockets had turned out appointed messenger and I will get no reward. too, hoping to earn a few small coins out of the Nor will you get the punishment if you're wrong, he spontaneous street fair, but Briony thought most of the reminded himself. people seemed glum and worried. Not much money was changing hands, and those nearest the road For some reason he again saw before his mind's eye 77 78 watched the nobles go by with hungry eyes, saying I wish we'd never come. She looked up to the pall of little, although a few called out cheers and blessings clouds in the northeastern sky. It was as though some to the royal family, especially on behalf of the absent foreboding thing hung over the whole day, a crow's King Olin. Kendrick had been splashed in blood from wing, an owl's shadow. She would go home and light head to foot; even after he had washed and then a candle at Zona's altar, ask the virgin goddess to rubbed himself with rags and soothing leaves, much send the Eddons her healing grace. I wish they'd just of him was still stained a deep red. Despite the itch gone out and killed that creature with arrows in the where the wyvern s spittle burned him, he made it a first place. Then Dado would be alive. Then Barrick point to wave and smile to the citizens crowded in the wouldn't be trying so hard not to cry that his face has shadows of the tall houses along the Market Road, turned to stone. showing them that the blood was not his own. "Why the grim look, little sister?" Kendrick demanded. Briony felt as though she, too, were covered with "It is a beautiful day and summer has not entirely left some painful substance she could not shake off. Her us yet." He laughed. "Look at the clothes I have twin Barrick was so miserable about his clumsy failure ruined! My best riding jacket. Merolanna will skin me." even to raise his spear properly that he had not Briony managed a tiny smile. It was true - she could spoken a word to her or anyone else on the ride already hear what their great-aunt would have to say, home. Earl Tyne and others were whispering among and not just about the jacket. Merolanna had a tongue themselves, no doubt unhappy that the foreigner that everyone in the castle, except perhaps Shaso, Shaso had stolen their sport by killing the wyvern with feared, and Briony would have given odds that the old an arrow. Tyne Aldritch was one of that school of Tuani only hid his terror better than others did. "I just . nobles who believed that archery was a practice fit . . I don't know." She looked around to make sure that only for peasants and poachers, an activity whose her black-clad twin was still a few dozen paces behind primary result was to steal the glory from mounted them. "I fear for Barrick," she said quietly. "He is so knights in war. Only because the master of arms angry of late. Today has only made it worse." might have saved the lives of the young prince and Kendrick scratched his scalp, smearing himself anew princess was the hunters' unhappiness muttered with drying blood. "He needs toughening, little sister. instead of proclaimed aloud. People lose hands, legs, but they continue with their And more than a dozen of the dogs, including sweet lives, thanking the gods they have not suffered worse. Dado, a brachet who in her first months of life had It does no good for him to be always brooding over his slept in Briony s bed, lay cold and still on the leafy injuries. And he spends too much time with Shaso - hillside beside Kendrick's horse, waiting to be buried the stiffest neck and coldest heart in all the in the same pit. marchlands." 79 80 Briony shook her head. Kendrick had never envoy? That bandit who calls himself Protector of understood Barrick, although that had not kept him Hierosol can't think we have found all the ransom for from loving his younger br other. And he didn't the king yet. A hundred thousand gold dolphins! It will understand Shaso very well either, although the old take us at least the rest of the year to raise it - we man was indeed stiff and stubborn. "It's more than have dragged every last copper out of the temples that . . ." and merchant houses, and the peasants are already groaning under the new taxes." She was interrupted by Gailon Tolly riding back down the road toward them, followed by his personal "Peasants always groan, my lord," said Gailon. "They retinue, the Summerfield boar on their green-and-gold are as lazy as old donkeys - they must be whipped to livery brighter than the dull sky. "Highness! A ship has work." come in from the south!" "Perhaps the envoy from Hierosol saw all these Briony's chest tightened. "Oh, Kendrick, do you think nobles in their fine clothes, out hunting," Barrick it's something about Father?" suggested sourly. None of them had noticed him riding closer. "Perhaps he has decided that if we can The Duke of Summerfield looked at her tolerantly, as afford such expensive amusements, we must have though she might have been his own young and found the money." slightly sheltered sister. "It is a carrack - the Podensis out of Hierosol," he told the prince regent, "and it is The Duke of Summerfield looked at Barrick with said there is an envoy on board sent from Ludis with incomprehension Kendrick rolled his eyes, but news of King Olin." otherwise ignored his younger brother's gibe, saying, "It must be something important that brings him. Without realizing it, Briony had reached out and Nobody sails all the way from Hierosol to carry a letter grabbed at Kendrick's red -smeared arm. Her horse from a prisoner, even a royal prisoner." bumped flanks with her brother's mount. "Pray all heaven, he is not hurt, is he?" she asked Gailon, The duke shrugged. "The envoy asks for an audience unable to keep the terror from her voice. The cold tomorrow." He looked around and spotted Shaso shadow she had felt all day seemed to draw closer. riding some distance back, but lowered his voice "The king is well?" anyway. "And another thing. He is as black as a crow." Summerfield nodded. "I am told the man says your father continues unharmed, and that he brings a letter "What has Shaso's skin to do with anything?" from him, among other things." Kendrick demanded, irritated. "Oh, the gods are good," Briony murmured. "No, the envoy, Highness. The envoy from Hierosol." Kendrick frowned. "But why has Ludis sent this Kendrick frowned. "That is a strange thing." 81 82 "The whole of it is strange," said Gailon of The boy squinted up at the lowering worm for a Summerfield. "Or so I hear." moment through his pale lashes, then shut his eyes tight. "Come on, you two!" Opal called. "It will be dark soon." · Chert led the boy under the gate. Guards in high- crested helmets and black tabards watched curiously, If the nameless boy had seemed disturbed by his first unused to the sight of a human child being led by glimpse of the castle, he appeared positively terrified Funderlings. But if these tall men wearing the Eddons' by the Basilisk Gate in the castle's massive outwall. si lver wolf-and-stars emblem were concerned by the Chert, who had been in and out of it so many times he oddity, they were not concerned enough to lift their had lost count, allowed himself to see it now with a halberds and move out of the last warm rays of the stranger's eyes. The granite facing four times a man's sun. height - and many more times Chert's own small The princess and her party had already reached their stature - was carved in the likeness of a glowering destination. As the Funderlings and their new ward reptilian creature whose twining coils surmounted the reached arcade -fenced Market Square in front of the top of the gate and looped down on either side. The great Trigon temple, Chert could see all the way to the monster's head jutted out above the vast oak -and-iron new wall at the base of the central hill, where the doors, its staring eyes and toothy mouth dressed with lights of the inner keep were as numerous as fireflies thin slabs of gemstone and ivory, its scales edged on a midsummer evening. The keep's Raven's Gate with gold. In the Funderling guilds, if not among the was open and dozens of servants with torches had big folk, it was common knowledge that the gate had come out from the residence to meet the returning been here far longer than the human inhabitants. hunters, to take the horses and equipment and guide "That monster is not alive," he told the child gently. the nobles to hot meals and warm beds. "Not even real. It is only chiseled stone." "Who rules here?" asked the boy. The boy looked at him, and Chert thought that It seemed an odd sort of question, and now it was something in his expression seemed deeper and Chert who hesitated. "In this country? Do you mean in stranger than mere terror. name? Or in truth?" "I ... I do not like to see it," he said. The boy frowned - the meaning was chopped too fine "Then close your eyes while we walk through, for him. "Who rules in that big house?" otherwise we will not be able to reach our house. That It still seemed a strange thing for a child to ask, but is where the food is." Chert had experienced far stranger today. "King Olin, 83 84 but he is not here. He is a prisoner in the south." of the Stone Bed, a Funderling charm for good luck in Almost half a year had passed since Olin had left on childbirth. his journey to urge the small kingdoms and The strange gleam in the boy's eyes faded. principalities across the heartland of Eion to make "He's heard of Duchess Merolanna," Chert told Opal. federation against Xis. He had hoped to unite them "He must be from these parts." against the growing menace of the Autarch, the god- She rolled her eyes. "He'll probably remember a lot king who was reaching out from his empire on the more when he gets a meal and some sleep Or were southern continent of Xand to snap up territories along you planning to stand in the street all night talking to the lower coast of Eion like a spider snaring flies, but him of things you know nothing about?" instead Olin had been delivered by the treachery of his rival Hesper, King of Jellon, into the hands of the Chert snorted but waved the boy forward. Protector of Hierosol, an adventurer named Ludis More people were streaming out of the castle than Drakava who was now master of that ancient city. But were going in, mostly inhabitants of the mainland part Chert scarcely understood all the details himself. It of the city whose work brought them onto the Mount was far too much to try to explain to a small, hungry and who were now returning home at the end of the child. "The king's oldest son Kendrick is the prince day Chert and Opal had a hard time forcing their way regent. That means he is the ruler while his father is against a tide of much larger people Opal led them out gone. The king has two younger children, too - a son of Market Square and through echoing covered and daughter." walkways into the quieter, somewhat gloomy back A gleam came to the boy's eyes, a light behind a streets behind the south waterway, called Skimmer's curtain. "Merolanna?" Lagoon, and its docks, one of two large moorings inside the castle's outwall. The Skimmers had carved "Merolanna?" Chert stared as if the child had slapped the wooden dock pilings into weird shapes, animals him. "You have heard of the duchess? You must be and people bent and stretched until they were almost from somewhere near here. Where are you from, unrecognizable. The colorful paint was dulled by the child? Can you remember now?" dying light, but Chert thought the carved pilings still But the small white-haired boy only looked back at seemed as strange as ever, like trapped foreign gods him silently. staring out across the water, trying to get a glimpse of "Yes, there is a Merolanna, but she is the king's aunt some lost homeland. The still shapes even seemed to Kendrick's younger brother and sister are named mourn out loud as boats full of half-naked Skimmer Barrick and Briony. Oh, and the king's wife is carrying fishermen unloaded the day's catch on several of the another child as well." Chert reflexively made the sign smaller docks, the air of the lagoon was full of their 85 86 groaning (and to Chert's ear, almost completely most of the muddy streets were lit only by the tuneless) songs. candlelight and firelight that leaked from soon -to-be- shuttered windows. The big folk were happy to build "Aren't those people cold?" the boy asked. With the their ramshackle buildings one on top of the other, sun now behind the hills, chill winds were beginning to ladders and scaffolding thick as hedgehog bristles, so run across the waterway, sending white-tipped that they almost choked off the narrow streets entirely. wavelets against the pillars. The stench was dreadful. "They're Skimmers," Chert told him. "They don't get Still, this whole place has good bones, Chert could not cold." help thinking, strong and healthy stone, the living rock "Why not?" of the Mount. It would be a pleasure to scrape away Chert shrugged. "The same reason a Funderling can all this ugly wood. We Funderlings would have this pick something up off the ground faster than you big place looking as it should in a trice. Looking as it once folk can. We're small. Skimmers have thick skins. The did. gods just wanted it that way." He pushed away the odd thought - where would all "They look strange." these big folk go, for one thing' "They are strange, I suppose. They keep to Chert and Opal led the boy down the narrow, sloping themselves. Some of them, it's said, never step length of Stonecutter's Way and through an arched farther onto dry land than the end of a loading dock. gate at the base of the New Wall, leading him out from Webbed feet like a duck, too - well, a bit between the beneath the evening sky and into the stony depths of toes. But there are even odder folk around here, some Funderling Town. claim, although you can't always tell it to look at This time Chert was not surprised when the boy them." He smiled. "Don't they have such things where stopped to stare in awe: even those big folk who did you come from?" not particularly trust or like the small folk agreed that The boy only looked at him, his expression distant and the great ceiling over Funderling Town was a marvel. troubled. Stretching a hundred cubits above the small people s town square and continuing above all the lamplit They were quickly out of the back alleys of Skimmer's streets, the ceiling was a primordial forest carved in Lagoon and into the equally close-leaning neighborhoods of the big folk who worked on or along every perfect detail out of the dark bedrock of the Mount. At the outer edges of Funderling Town, closest the water. The light was failing quickly now and to the surface, spaces had even been cut between the although there were torches at the crossings and even a few important people being led by lantern-bearers, branches so that true sky shone through, or so that 87 88 when night fell (as it was falling even now) , the first scenes of Funderling history. Opal, for all her evening stars could be seen sparkling through the occasional spikiness of tongue, had never made him gaps in the stone. Each twig, each leaf had been feel bad that the two of them should live in such a carved with exquisite care, centuries of painstaking modest dwelling while her sisters-in-law were work in all, one of the chief marvels of the northern queening it in a fine house. He wished he could give world. Birds feathered in mother-of-pearl and crystal her what she deserved, but Chert could no more have seemed as though they might burst into song at any stayed in the place, subservient to his brother Nodule moment. Vines of green malachite twined up the - or "Magister Blue Quartz," as he now styled himself- pillar -trunks, and on some low branches there were - than he could have jumped to the moon. And since even gem-glazed fruits hanging from stems of his brother had three strong sons, there was no longer improbably slender stone. even a question of Chert inheriting it should his brother die first. The boy whispered something that Chert could not quite hear. "It is wonderful, yes," the little man said. "I am happy here, you old fool," Opal said quietly as "But you can look all you want tomorrow. Let us catch they stepped through the door. She had seen him up with Opal, otherwise she will teach you how a staring at the house and had guessed his thoughts. tongue can be sharper than any chisel." "At least I will be if you go and cle ar your tools off the table so we may eat like decent people." They followed his wife down the narrow but graceful streets, each house carved back into the stone, the "Come, boy, and help me with the job," he told the plain facades giving little indication of the splendid little stranger, making his voice loud and jovial to interiors that lay behind them, the careful, loving labor cover the fierce, sudden love he felt for his wife. "Opal of generations. At each turning or crossing oil lamps is like a rockfall - if you disregard her first quiet glowed on the walls inside bubbles of stone thin as rumblings, you will regret it later on." blisters on overworked hands. None of the lights were He watched the boy wipe dust from the pitted table bright, but they were so numerous that all night long with a damp cloth, moving it around more than the ways of Funderling Town seemed to tremble on actually cleaning it. "Do you remember your name the cusp of dawn. yet?" he asked. Although Chert himself was a man of some influence, The boy shook his head. their house at the end of Wedge Road was modest, "Well, we must call you something - Pebble?" He only four rooms all told, its walls but shallowly shouted to Opal, who was stirring a pot of soup over decorated. Chert had a moment of shame the fire, "Shall we call him Pebble?" It was a common remembering the Blue Quartz family manor and its name for fourth or fifth boys, when dynastic claims wonderful great room covered with deeply incised 89 90 were not so important and parental interest was mark it. waning. But the light did not go entirely unobserved. A small, "Don't be foolish. He shall have a proper Blue Quartz black-painted skiff slid silently and almost invisibly family name," she called back. "We will call him Flint. across the misty lagoon and stopped at the end of the That will be one in the eye for your brother." dock. The lantern-bearer, outline obscured by a heavy hooded cloak, crouched and whispered in a langu age Chert could not help smiling, although he was not seldom spoken in South-march, or indeed anywhere entirely happy about the idea of naming the child as in the north. The shadowy boatman answered just as though they were adopting him as their heir. But the quietly in the same language, then handed something thought of how his self-important brother would feel on up to the one who had been waiting for almost an learning that Chert and Opal had brought in one of the hour on the cold pier - a small object that disappeared big folk's children and given him miserly old Uncle immediately into the pockets of the dark cloak. Flint's name was indeed more than a little pleasing. Without another word, the boatman turned his little "Flint, then," he said, ruffling the boy's fair hair. "For as craft and vanished back into the fogs that blanketed long as you stay with us, anyway." the dark lagoon. The figure on the dock extinguished the lantern and · turned back toward the castle, moving carefully from shadow to shadow as though it carried something Waves lapped at the pilings. A few seabirds bickered extremely precious or extremely dangerous. sleepily. A plaintive, twisting melody floated up from one of the sleeping -barges, a chorus of high voices singing an old song of moonlight on open sea, but otherwise Skimmer's Lagoon was quiet. Far away, the sentries on the wall called out the midnight watch and their voices echoed thinly across the water. Even as the sound faded, a light gleamed at the end of one of the docks. It burned for a moment, then went dark, then burned again. It was a shuttered lantern; its beam pointed out across the dark width of the lagoon. No one within the castle or on the walls seemed to 91 92 Doubtless you will solve it with further study." "And a few dozen more dead birds," whispered 4 Barrick. His sister frowned. "But I still owe Your Highness the day's debt of entertainment." The old man tucked the dove carefully A Surprising Proposal into the breast of his checkered outfit. "Well, we know what he's having for supper," Barrick THE LAMP: told Briony, who shushed him. "I will find some other pleasantries to amuse you," Puzzle continued, with only a brief wounded look at The flame is her fingers the whispering twins. "Or perhaps one of my other The leaping is her eye as the rain is the cricket's renowned antics? I have not juggled flaming brands song for you for some time - not since the unfortunate All can be foretold accident with the Syannese tapestry. I have reduced the number of torches, so the trick is much safer now . - from The Bonefall Oracles . ." "No need," Kendrick said gently. "No need. You have Puzzle looked sadly at the dove that he had just entertained us long enough - now the business of the produced from his sleeve. Its head was cocked at a court waits." very unnatural angle, in fact, it seemed to be dead. Puzzle nodded his head sadly, then bowed and "My apologies, Highness." A frown creased the backed away from the throne toward the rear of the jester's gaunt face like a crumpled kerchief. A few room, putting one long leg behind the other as though people were laughing nastily near the back of the doing something he had been forced to practice even throne room. One of the noblewomen made a small more carefully than the dove trick. Barrick could not and somewhat overwrought noise of grief for the help noticing how much the old man looked like a luckless dove. "The trick worked most wonderfully grasshopper in motley. The assembled courtiers when I was practicing earlier. Perhaps I need to find a laughed and whispered behind their hands. bird of hardier constitution. We're all fools here. His dark mood, alleviated a little Barrick rolled his eyes and snorted, but his older by watching Puzzle's fumbling, came sweeping back brother was more of a diplomat. Puzzle was an old Most of us are just better at it than he is. Even at the favorite of their father's. "An accident, good Puzzle. best of times he found it difficult to sit on the hard 93 94 chairs. Despite the open windows high above, the from these people. He hated them all, loathed throne room was thick with the smell of incense and everyone in the castle . . . except, he had to admit, his dust and other people - too many other people. He sister and brother ... and perhaps Chaven. . . . turned to watch his brother, conferring with Steffans "Lord Nynor tells me that the envoy from Hierosol will Nynor the lord castellan, making a joke that set not be with us until almost the noon hour," Kendrick Summerfield and the other nobles laughing and made announced as they approached. old Nynor blush and stammer. Look at Kendrick, "He said he was unwell after his voyage." The ancient pretending like he's Father. But even Father was castellan looked worried, as always; the tip of his pretending - he hated all this. In fact, King Olin had beard was chewed short - a truly disgusting habit, in never liked either priggish Gailon of Summerfield or Barrick's opinion. "But one of the servants told me that his loud, well-fed father, the old duke. he saw this envoy talking to Shaso earlier this Maybe Father wanted to be taken prisoner, just to get morning. Arguing, if the lazy fellow is to be trusted, away from it all . . . which he is not to be, necessarily." The bizarre thought did not have time to form "That sounds ominous, Highness," suggested the properly, because Briony elbowed him in the ribs. Duke of Summerfield. "Stop it!" he snarled. His sister was always trying to Kendrick sighed. "They are both, from appearance, make him smile, to force him to enjoy himself. Why anyway, from the same southern lands," he said couldn't she see the trouble they were in - not just the patiently. "Shaso sees few of his own kind here in the family, but all of Southmarch? Could he really be the cold north. They might have much to talk about." only one in the kingdom who understood how "And argue about, Highness?" Summerfield asked. wretched things were? "The man is a servant of our father's captor," Kendrick "Kendrick wants us," she said. pointed out. "That's reason enough for Shaso to argue Barrick allowed himself to be pulled toward his elder with the man, is it not?" He turned to the twins. "I know brother's chair - not the true throne, the Wolf's Chair, how little you both care for standing around, so you which had been covered with velvet cloth when Olin may go and I'll send for you when this fellow from left and not used since, but the second-best chair that Hierosol finally graces us with his attendance." He previously stood at the head of the great dining table. spoke lightly, but Barrick could see that he was not The twins gently elbowed their way past a few very happy with the envoy's tardiness. His older courtiers anxious to snatch this moment with the brother, Barrick thought, was beginning to develop a prince regent. Barrick's arm was throbbing. He wished monarchical impatience. he were out on the hillside again, riding by himself, far "Ah, Highness, I almost forgot." Nynor snapped his 95 96 fingers and one of his servants scuttled forward with a "Please, Briony," said the prince regent, but although leather bag. "He gave me the letters he bears from the Duke of Summerfield looked dismayed by her your father and the so-called Lord Protector." rude remark, Kendrick was mostly amused Still, he had been distracted from the letter and was watching "Father's letter?" Briony clapped her hands. "Read it the maid's approach as carefully as anyone else. to us!" Selia was young but well -rounded. She wore her black Kendrick had already broken the seal, the Eddon wolf hair piled high in the manner of the women of and crescent of stars in deep red wax, and was Devonis, the land of her and her mistress' birth, but squinting at the words. He shook his head. "Later, although she kept her long-lashed eyes downcast, Briony." there was little of the shy peasant girl about her. "But Kendrick . . . !" There was real anguish in her Barrick watched her walk with a kind of painful greed, voice. but the maid, when she looked up, seemed to see "Enough." Her older brother looked distracted, but his only his brother, the prince regent. voice said there would be no arguing. Barrick could Of course, Barrick thought. Why should she be any feel the strain in Briony's abrupt silence. different than the rest of them . . .? "What's all that rumpus?" asked Gailon Tolly a "If it please you, Highness." She had been only a moment later, looking around. Something was season in the marches, and still spoke with a thick happe ning at the other end of the throne room, a stir Devonisian accent. "My mistress, your stepmother, among the courtiers. sends her fond regarding and asks leave for talking to "Look," Briony whispered to her twin. "It's Arissa's the royal physician." maid." "Is she unwell again?" Kendrick truly was a kind man It was indeed, and Barrick's sister was not the only although none of them much liked their father's one whispering. Now that the twins' stepmother was second wife, even Barrick believed his brother's close to giving birth, she seldom left her suite of concern was genuine. rooms in the Tower of Spring. Selia, her maid, had "Some discomforting, Highness, yes." become Queen Arissa's envoy to the rest of the great "Of course, we will have the physician attend our castle, her ears and eyes. And as eyes went, even stepmother at once. Will you carry the message to Barrick had to admit they were a most impressive pair. him yourself?" "See her flounce." Briony did not hide her disgust. Selia colored prettily. "I do not know this place so well "She walks like she's got a rash on her backside and yet." she wants to scratch it on something." 97 98 Briony made a noise of irritation, but Barrick spoke up. little more carefully, but if she was startled by the "I'll take her, Kendrick." growl in Briony s voice she did not show it. "Both of you, so very kind." "Oh, that's too much trouble for the poor girl," Briony said loudly, "going all the way across to Chaven's When they had passed through the Raven's Gate and rooms. Let her go back to assist our suffering acknowledged the salutes of the guards there, Selia stepmother. Barrick and I will go." paused. "I go from here to the queen. You are certain I do not go with you?" He looked at his twin in fury, and for a moment regretted putting her on the list of people he did not "Yes," said Barrick's sister. "We are certain." despise. "I can do it myself." The girl made another courtesy and started off toward "Go, the both of you, and argue somewhere else. " the Tower of Spring in the keep s outer wall. Barrick Kendrick waved his hand. "Let me read these letters. watched her walk. Tell Chaven to see to our stepmother at once. You are "Ow!" he said. "Don't push." both excused attendance until the noon hour." "Your eyes are going to fall out of your head." Briony Listen to him, Barrick thought. He really does think hurried her stride and turned into the long street that he's king. wound along the wall of the keep. The people who Even accompanying the lovely Selia could not redeem saw the twins moved respectfully out of their way, but Barrick's mood, but he still took care to make sure that it was a crowded, busy road full of wagons and loud his bad arm, wrapped in the folds of his cloak, was on arguments, and many scarcely noticed them, or did her opposite side as they went out of the throne room their best to make it appear that way. King Olin's court into the light of a gray autumn morning. As they had never been as formal as his father's, and the descended the steps into the shadowed depths of people of the castle were used to his children walking Temple Square, four palace guards who had been around the keep without fanfare, accompanied only by finishing a morning meal hurried to fall in behind them, a few guards. still chewing. Barrick caught the girl's eye for a "You're rude," Barrick told his sister. "You act like a moment and she smiled shyly at him. He almost commoner." turned to make sure she was not looking over his "Speaking of common," Briony replied, "all you men shoulder at someone else. are alike. Any girl who bats her eyes and swings her "Thank you, Prince Barrick. You are very kind." hips when she walks into the room turns you all into "Yes," answered his twin. "He is." drooling bears." "And Princess Briony, of course." The girl smiled a "Some girls like to have men look at them." Barrick's 99 100 anger had congealed into a cold unhappiness. What combats almost always moved to swift bloodletting, did it matter? What woman would fall in love with him, then an embrace before the wounds had even anyway, with all his problems, his ruined arm and all stopped seeping. his . . . strangeness? He would find a wife, of course, "I'm sorry," he said, although it didn't sound much like even one who would pretend to revere him - he was a an apology. "Why should you care what Summerfield prince, after all - but it would be a polite he. and Blueshore and those other fools think, anyway? I will never know, he thought. Not as long as I am of They are useless, all of them, liars and bullies. I wish this family I will never know what anyone truly thinks that war with the Autarch really would come and they of me, what they think of the crippled prince. Because would all be burned away like a field of grass." who would ever dare to mock the king's son to his "That's a terrible thing to say!" Briony snapped, but face? there was color in her cheeks again instead of the "Some girls like to have men look at them, you say? dreadful, shocked paleness of a moment before. How would you know?" Briony had turned her face "So? I don't care about any of them," he said. "But I from him now, which meant she was truly angry. should n't have told you what Father said. He meant it "Some men are just horrid, the way they stare." as a joke." "You think that about all of them." Barrick knew he "It is no joke to me." Briony was still angry, but he should stop, but he felt distant and miserable. "You could tell that the worst of the fight was over. "Oh, hate all men. Father said he couldn't imagine finding Barrick," she said abruptly, "you will meet hordes of someone you would agree to marry who would also women who want to make eyes at you You're a prince agree to put up with your hardheadedness and your - even a bastard child from you would be a prize. You mannish tricks." don't know how some girls are, how they think, what There was a sharp intake of breath, then a deathly they'll do . . ." silence Now she was not speaking to him either. He was surprised by the frightened sincerity in her Barrick felt a pang, but told himself it was Briony who voice So she was trying to protect him from voracious interfered first. It was also true, everyone talked about women! He was pained but almost amused. She it. His sister kept the other women of the court at doesn't seem to have noticed that the fairer sex are arm's length and the men even farther. Still, when she having no trouble resisting me so far. did not speak for half a hundred more steps, he began They had reached the bottom of the small hill on to worry They were too close, the pair of them, and which Chaven's observatory-tower was set, its base although both were fierce by nature, wounding the nestled just inside the New W all, its top looming other was like wounding themselves Their word- above everything else in the castle except the four 101 102 cardinal towers and the master of all, Wolfstooth "Yes?" he said impatiently, glancing in their direction. Spire. As they climbed the spiral of steps, they put The physician had lived in the marchlands so long he distance between themselves and the heavily had scarcely a trace of accent. "Do you seek armored guards. someone?" "Hoy!" Barrick called down to the laboring soldiers. The twins had been through this before. "It's us, "You sluggards! What if there were murderers waiting Chaven," Briony announced. for us at the top of the hill?" A smile lit his face. "Your Highnesses! Apologies - I "Don't be cruel," said Briony, but she was stifling a am much absorbe d with something I have just giggle. received, tools that will help me examine a star or a mote of dust with equal facility." He carefully lifted one of the plates, which proved to be made of solid glass, Chaven - he probably had a second name, something transparent as water. "Say what you wish about the full of Ulosian as and os, but the twins had never been unpleasa ntness of its governor, there are none in all told it and had never asked - was standing in a pool of the rest of Eion who can make a lens like the grinders light beneath the great observatory roof, which was of Hierosol." His mobile face darkened. "I am sorry - open to the sky, although the clouds above were dark that was thoughtless, with your father a prisoner and a few solitary drops of rain spattered the stone there." floors. His assistant, a tall, sullen young man, stood Briony crouched down beside the case and reached a waiting by a complicated apparatus of ropes and tentative hand toward one of the circles of glass, wooden cranks. The physician was kneeling over a which gleamed in an angled beam of sunlight. "We large wooden case lined with velvet that appeared to have received something from this ship as well, a contain a row of serving plates of different sizes. At letter from our father, but Kendrick has not let us read the sound of their footsteps Chaven looked up. it yet." He was small and round, with large, capable hands. "Please, my lady!" Chaven said quickly, loudly. "Do The twins often joked about the unpredictability of the not touch those! Even the smallest flaw can spoil their gods' gifts, since tall, rawboned Puzzle, with his utility . . ." gloomily absorbed manner, would have made a much better royal astrologer and physician, and the Briony snatched her hand back and caught it on the cheerful, mercurial, dexterous Chaven seemed clasp of the wooden case. She grunted and lifted her perfectly formed to be a court jester. finger. A drop of red grew on it, dribbled down toward her palm. But, of course, Chaven was also very, very clever - when he could be bothered. "Terrible! I am sorry. It is my fault for startling you." 103 104 Chaven fussed in the pockets of his capacious robe, catch their breath when the trio appeared and hurried producing a handful of black cubes, then a curved past them down the stairs, bound for the Tower of glass pipe, a fistful of feathers, and at last a kerchief Spring. that looked as if it had been used to polish old brass. Briony thanked him, then unobtrusively pocketed the dirty square of cloth and sucked the blood from her · finger instead. "So you have received no news yet?" the physician A girl no more than six years old opened the door to asked. Anissa's chambers in the tower, made a courtesy, "The envoy is not to see Kendrick until noon." Barrick then stepped out of the way. The room was felt angry again, out of sorts. The sight of blood on his surprisingly bright. Dozens of candles burned in front sister s hand troubled him. "Meanwhile, we are of a flower -strewn shrine to Madi Surazem, goddess running an errand Our stepmother wishes to see you." of childbirth, and in each corner of the room new "Ah." Chaven looked around as though wondering sheaves of wheat stood in pots to encourage the where his kerchief had got to, then shut the lenses blessing of fruitful Erilo. A half dozen silent ladies-in- back in their case. "I will go to her now, of course. Will waiting lurked around the great bed like cockindrills you come with me? I wish to hear about the wyvern floating in one of the moats of Xis. An older woman hunt. Your brother has promised me the carcass for with the sourly practical appearance of a midwife or examination and dissection, but I have not received it hedge -witch took one look at Barrick and said, "He yet, although I hear troubling rumors he has already can't come in here. This is a place for women." given the best parts of it away as trophies." He was Before the prince could do more than bristle, his already bustling toward the door, and called back over stepmother pulled aside the bed's curtains and peered his shoulder, "Shut the roof, Toby. I have changed my out. Her hair was down, and she wore a voluminous mind - I think it will be too cloudy tonight for white nightdress. "Who is it? Is it the doctor? Of observation, in any case." course he can come to me." With a look of pure, weary despair, the young man "But it is the young prince as well, my lady," the old began turning the huge crank. Slowly, inch by inch, woman explained. with a noise like the death groan of some mythological "Barrick?" She pronounced it Bah-reek. "Why are you beast, the great ceiling slid closed. such a fool, woman? I am respectably dressed. I am Outside, the twins' four heavily armored guards had not giving birth today." She let out a sigh and reached the obse rvatory door and had just stopped to collapsed back out of sight. 105 106 By the time Chaven and the twins had crossed the Loud Mouse. open floor to the bed, the curtains were open again, "And have you been faithfully taking the elixir I have tied up by the maid Selia, who gave Barrick a quick made up for you?" smile, then caught sight of Briony and changed it to a She waved her hand. "That? It binds up my insides. respectful nod for both of them. Anissa reclined, Can I say this, or is it impolite? My bowels have not propped upright on many pillows. Two tiny growling moved for days." dogs tugged at a piece of cloth between her slippered Barrick had heard enough of the secrets of the feet. She was not wearing her usual pale face paint, sickbed for one day. He bowed to his stepmother, and so looked almost ruddy with health. Barrick, who then backed toward the door and waited there. Anissa unlike B riony had not even tried to like his stepmother, held his twin for a moment with impatient questions was certain they had been summoned on a pointless about the lack of news from the Hierosoline envoy and errand whose real purpose was only to relieve complaints that she had not been given Olin's letter Anissa's boredom. before Kendrick, then Briony at last made a courtesy "Children," she said to them, fanning herself. "It is kind and edged away to join him. Together they watched of you to come. I am so ill, I see no one these days." Chaven kindly and quickly examine the queen, asking Barrick could feel Briony's tiny flinch at being called a questions in such a normal tone of voice that it almost child by this woman. In fact, seeing her with her dark escaped Barrick's notice that the little round doctor hair loose, and without her usual paint, he was was folding back her eyelid or sniffing her breath while surprised by how young their stepmother looked. She doing so. The other women in the room had gone was only five or six years older than Kendrick, after back to their stitching and conversation, excepting the all. She was pretty, too, in a fussy sort of way, old midwife, who watched the physician's activities although Barrick thought her nose a little too long for with a certain territorial jealousy, and the maid Selia, true beauty. who held Anissa's hand and listened as though She does not compare to her maid, he thought, everything her mistress said was pure wisdom. sneaking a glance, but Selia was looking solicitously "Your Highnesses, Briony, Barrick." Despite the fact at her mistress. that he had one hand down the back of the queen's "You are feeling poorly, my queen?" asked Chaven. nightdress, Chaven had managed to take the small "Pains in my stomach. Oh, I cannot tell you." Although clock he wore on a chain out of the pocket of his robe. she was small-boned and still slender even this close He held it up for them to see. "Noon is fast to giving birth, Anissa had a certain knack for approaching. Which reminds me - have I told you of dominating a room. Briony sometimes called her the my plan to mount a large pendulum clock on the front 107 108 of the Trigon temple, so that all can know the true after the sudden death of Olin's brother, Prince Lorick, time? For some reason, the hierarch is against the as King Ustin their father had been on his own idea. deathbed, his heart failing. For a while, civil war had seemed likely as various powerful families had put The twins listened politely for a moment to Chaven's themselves forward as the best protectors of the grandiose and rather baffling plan, then made underage heir, but Brone had made some kind of excuses to their stepmother before hurrying out of the bargain with the Tollys of Summerfield, Eddon Tower of Spring they had a long way to go back relations and the chief claimants to a greater role in across the keep. Their guards, who had been the governance of Southmarch, and then, with gossiping with the queen's warders, wearily pushed Steffans Nynor and a few others, Brone had ma naged themselves away from the tower wall and trotted after to keep the child Olin on the throne by himself until he them. was old enough to rule without question. The twins' father had never forgotten that crucial loyalty, and · titles and land and high responsibilities had fallen Brone's way thereafter. Whether the Count of Landsend's loyalty had been completely pure, or The crowd that was gathered in the huge Hall of the driven by the fact that he would have lost all chance March Kings - only the Eddon family called it "the for power under a Tolly protectorate was beside the throne room," perhaps because the castle was their point everyone knew he was shrewd, always thinking home as well as their seat of power - looked a much beyond the present moment. Even now, in the midst more serious group than the morning's disorganized of conversation with the court ladies or gentlemen, his rout Briony again felt a clutch of worry. The castle eye was roving across the throne room to his guard almost appeared to be on war -footing half a troops, looking for sagging shoulders, bent knees, or a pentecount of guardsmen stood around the great mouth moving in whispered conversation with a room, not slouching and talking quietly among comrade. themselves like the twins' bodyguards, but rigidly Gailon Tolly, Duke of Summerfield, was in the Great erect and silent Avin Brone, Count of Landsend, was Hall as well, along with most of the rest of the King's one of the many nobles who ha d appeared for the audience Brone was Southmarch Castle's lord Council - Nynor the castellan, last of Brone's original allies, the twins' first cousin Rorick, Earl of Daler's constable and thus one of the most powerful men in Troth, Tyne Aldritch, Blueshore's earl, and a dozen the March Kingdoms. Decades earlier, he had made what turned out to be the shrewd choice of giving his other nobles, all wearing their best clothes. unstinting support to the then child-heir Olin Eddon Watching them, Briony felt a flame of indignation. This 109 110 ambassador comes from the man who has kidnapped breath. Gods, why can't it all start? my father. What are we doing, dressing up for him as As if the heavenly powers had taken pity on her, a though he were some honored visitor? But when she murmur rose from the crowd near the doorway as a whispered this thought to Barrick, he only shrugged. small company of armored men in tabards decorated "As you well know, it is for display. See, here is our with what looked from this distance to be Hierosol's power gathered!" he said sourly. "Like letting the golden snail shell took up stations on either side of the roosters strut before the cockfight." entrance. She looked at her brother's all-black garb and bit back When the dark-skinned figure came through the door, a remark. And they say we women are consumed with Briony had a moment of bewilderment, wondering, our appearances. It was hard to imagine a lady of the Why is everyone making such a fuss for Shaso? Then court wearing the equivalent of the outrageous she remembered what Summerfield had said. As the codpieces sported by Earl Rorick and others of the envoy came closer to the dais and Kendrick's male gentry - massive protrusions spangled with makeshift throne, which he had set in front of his gems and intricate stitching. Trying to imagine what father's grander seat, she could see that this man was the women's equivalent might be threatened to set her much younger than Southmarch's master of arms. laughing out loud, but it was not a pleasant feeling. The stranger was handsome, too, or Briony thought The fear that had been gnawing at her all morning, as he was, but she found herself suddenly uncertain of if the gods were tightening their grip on her and her how to judge one so different. His skin was darker home, made her feel that such a laugh, once started, than Shaso's, his tightly curled hair longer and tied would not stop - that she might end by having to be behind his head, and he was tall and thin where the carried from the room, laughing and weeping together. master of arms was stocky. He moved with a compact, self-assured grace, and the cut of his black She looked around the massive hall, lit mostly by hose and slashed gray doublet was as stylish as that candles even at midday. The dark tapestries on every of any Syannese court favorite. The knights of wall, figured with scenes of dead times and dead Hierosol who followed him seemed like clanking, pale- Eddon ancestors, made her feel close and hot, as skinned puppets by comparison. though they were heavy blankets draped over her. Beyond the high windows she saw only the gray At the last moment, when it seemed to the entire room limestone prominence of the Tower of Winter with a as though the envoy meant to do the unthinkable and blessed chink of cool sky on either side. Why, she walk up onto the very dais where the prince regent wondered, in a castle surrounded by the water was sat, the slender man stopped One of the snail-shell there nowhere in that great hall that a person could knights stepped forward, cleared his throat. look out on the sea? Briony felt suddenly out of 111 112 "May it please Your Highness, I present Lord Dawet contentment, as though everything he could have dan-Faar, envoy of Ludis Drakava, Lord Protector of wished was assembled in this one chamber. His gaze Hierosol and all the Kracian Territories." passed across Briony, then stopped and returned to her. His smile widened and she fought against a "Ludis may be Protector of Hierosol," Kendrick said shiver. Had she not known who he was, she might slowly, "but he is also master of forced hospitality - of have found it intriguing, even pleasing, but now it was which my father is a recipient." like the touch of the dark wing she had imagined the Dawet nodded once, smiled. His voice was like a big day before, the shadow that was hovering over them cat rumbling when it had no need yet to roar. "Yes, the all. Lord Protector is a famous host. Very few of his The envoy's long silence, his unashamed guests leave Hierosol unchanged." assessment, made her feel she stood naked in the There was a stir of resentment in the crowd at this. center of the room. "What of our father?" she said out The envoy Dawet started to say something else, then loud, her voice rough when she wished it could be stopped, his attention drawn to t e great doors where h calm and assured. "Is he well? I hope, for your Shaso stood in his leather armor, his face set in an master's sake, he is in good health." expressionless mask. "Ah," Dawet said, "I had hoped "Briony!" Barrick was embarrassed - ashamed, to see my old teacher at least once more. Greetings, perhaps, that she should speak out this way. But she Mordiya Shaso." was not one to be gawked at like a horse for sale. She The crowd whispered again. Briony looked at Barrick, was a king's daughter. but he was just as confused as she was. What could Dawet gave a little bow. "My lady. Yes, your father is the dark man's words mean? well, and in fact I have brought a letter from him to his "You have business," Kendrick told him impatiently. family. Perhaps the prince regent has not shown it to "When you are finished, we will all have time to talk, you yet . . . ?" even to remake old friendships, if friendships they are. "Get on with it." Kendrick sounded oddly defensive. Since I have not said so yet, let it be known to all that Something was going on, Briony knew, but she could Lord Dawet is under the protection of the March not make out what it was. King's Seal, and while he is engaged on his peaceful mission here none may harm or threaten him." His "If he has read it, Prince Kendrick will perhaps have face was grim. He had done only what civility some inkling of what brings me here There is, of required. "Now, sir, speak." course, the matter of the ransom." Kendrick had not smiled, but Dawet did, examining "We were given a year," protested Gailon Tolly angrily the glowering faces around him with a look of quiet Kendrick did not look at him, although the duke, too, 113 114 had spoken out of turn. on their faces. By contrast, Kendrick looked ashy. "Yes, but my master, Ludis, has decided to offer you "Damn you, speak your piece," he said at last - a another proposition, one to your advantage Whatever croak. you may think of him, the Lord Protector of Hierosol is Lord Dawet displayed an expression of carefully a wise, farsighted man. He understands that we all constructed surprise. He looks like a warrior, Briony have a common enemy, a thus should be seeking nd thought, but he plays the scene like a mummer. He is ways to draw our two countries together as twin enjoying this. But her older brother was not, and bulwarks against the threat of the greedy lord of Xis, seeing him so pale and unhappy set her heart beating rather than squabbling over reparations." swiftly. Kendrick looked like a man trapped in an evil "Reparations!" Kendrick said, struggling to keep his dream. "Very well," Dawet said. "In return for reducing voice level. "Call it what it is, sir. Ransom. Ransom for the ransom for King Olin's return, Ludis Drakava, Lord an innocent man - a king! - kidnapped while he was Protector of Hierosol, will accept Briony te Meriel te trying to do just what you claim to want, which is Krisanthe M'Connord Eddon of Southmarch in organize a league against the Autarch." marriage." The envoy spread his big, graceful hands. "In less high -flown terms, that would be your Princess Dawet gave a sinuous shrug. "Words can separate us Briony." or bring us together, so I will not quibble with you. There are more important issues, and I am here to Suddenly, she was the one who was tumbling into present you with the Lord Protectors new and nightmare. Faces turned toward her like a field of generous offer." meadowsweet following the sun, pale faces, startled faces, calculating faces. She heard Barrick gasp Kendrick nodded. "Continue." The prince regent's face beside her, felt his good hand clutch at her arm, but was as empty as Shaso's, who was still watching from she was already pulling away. Her ears were roaring, the far end of the throne room. the whispers of the assembled court now as loud as "The Lord Protector will reduce the ransom to twenty thunder. thousand gold dolphins - a fifth of what was asked and "No!" she shouted. "Never!" She turned to Kendrick, what you agreed to. In return, he asks only something suddenly understanding his chilled, miserable mask. "I that will cost you little, and will be of benefit to you as will never do it!" well as to us." "It is not your turn to speak, Briony," he rasped. The courtiers were murmuring now, trying to make Something moved behind his eyes - despair? Anger? sense of what was going on. Some of the nobles, Surrender? "And this is not the place to discuss this especially those whose peasantry had grown restive matter." under the taxes for the king's ransom, even had hope 115 116 "She can't!" Barrick shouted. The courtiers were talking loudly now, surprised and titillated. Some echoed Briony's own refusal, but not many. "I won't let 5 you!" "You are not the prince regent," Kendrick declared. Songs of the Moon and Stars "Father is gone. Until he comes back, I am your father. Both of you." He meant to do it. Briony was certain. He was going to THE LOUD VOICE: sell her to the bandit prince, the cruel mercenary Ludis, to reduce the ransom and keep the nobles In a snail shell house happy. The ceiling of the great throne room and its tiled pictures of the gods seemed to swirl and drop Beneath a root, where the sapphire lies down upon her in a cloud of dizzying colors. She The clouds lean close, listening turned and staggered through the murmuring, leering - from The Bonefall Oracles crowd, ignoring Barrick's worried cries and Kendrick's shouts, then slapped away Shaso's restraining hand and shoved her way out the great doors, already Young Flint didn't seem very taken with the turnip weeping so hard that the sky and the castle stones porridge, even though it was sweetened with honey. ran together and blurred. Well, Chert thought, perhaps it's a mistake to expect one of the big folk to feel the same way about root vegetables as we do. Since Opal had gone off to the vent of warm subterranean air behind Old Quarry Square to dry the clothes she had washed, he took pity on the lad and removed the bowl. "You don't need to finish," he said. "We're going out, you and I." The boy looked at him, neither interested nor disinterested. "Where?" "The castle - the inner keep." A strange expression flitted across the child's face but he only rose easily from the low stool and trotted out 117 118 the door before Chert had gathered up his own things. astonished that anyone knew the boy's new name, but Although he had only come down Wedge Road for the then realized Opal had been talking with the other first time the night before, the boy turned women. News traveled fast in the close confines of unhesitatingly to the left. Chert was impressed with his Funderling Town. memory. "You'd be right if we were going up, lad, but "Most times we'd turn here," he said, gesturing at the we're not. We're taking Funderling roads." The boy place near the Gravelers Meeting Hall where the looked at him questioningly. "Going through the ordered ring of roads began to become a little less tunnels. It's faster for the way we're going. Besides, ordered and Ore Street forked into two thoroughfares, last night I wanted to show you a bit of what was one level, one slanting downward, "but the way we're above ground - now you get to see a bit more of going all the tunnels aren't finished yet, so we're what's down here." making a stop at the Salt Pool first. When we get They strolled down to the bottom of Wedge Road, there you have to be quiet and you can't cut up." then along Beetle Way to Ore Street, which was wide The boy was busy looking at the chiseled facades of and busy, full of carts and teams of diggers and the houses, each one portraying a complicated web of cutters on their way to various tasks, many leaving on family history (not all of the histories strictly true) and long journeys to distant cities that would keep them did not ask what the Salt Pool might be. They walked away for half a year or more, since the work of the for a quarter of an hour down Lower Ore Street until Funderlings of Southmarch was held in high regard they reached the rough, largely undecorated rock that nearly everywhere in Eion. There was much to watch marked the edge of town. Chert led the boy past men in the orderly spoked wheel of streets at the center of and a few women idling by the roadside - most waiting Funderling Town, peddlers bringing produce down by the entrances to the Pool in hopes of catching a from the markets in the city above, honers and day's work somewhere - and through a surprisingly polishers crying their trades, and tribes of children on modest door set in a wall of raw stone, into the their way to guild schools, and Flint was wide -eyed. glowing cavern. The day -lanterns were lit everywhere, and in a few The Pool itself was a sort of lake beneath the ground; places raw autumn sunlight streamed down through it filled the greater part of the immense natural cave. It holes in the great roof, turning the streets golden, was salt water, an arm of the ocean that reached all although all in all the day outside looked mostly dark. the way into the stone on which the castle stood, and Chert saw many folk he knew, and most called out was the reason that even in the dimmest recesses of greetings. A few saluted young Flint as well, even by their hidden town the Funderlings always knew when name, although others looked at the boy with the tides were high or low. The run of the lake was suspicion or barely -masked dislike. At first, Chert was rough, the stones sharp and spiky, and the dozens of 119 120 other Funderlings who were already there moved size. "And this is Flint. He's staying with us." He carefully. It would have been the work of a few weeks shrugged. "That was Opal's idea." at the most to make the cavern and its rocky shore as The little fellow peered up at the boy and laughed. "I orderly as the middle of town, but even the most suppose there's a tale there. Are you in too much of a improvement-mad of Chert's people had never hurry to tell it to me today?" seriously considered it. The Salt Pool was one of the "Afraid so, but I'll owe it to you." centers of earliest Funderling legend - one of their "Two, then?" oldes t stories told how the god the big folk called Kernios, who the Funderlings in their own secret "Yes, thank you." He took a copper chip out of his language named "Lord of the Hot Wet Stone," created pocket and gave it to the tiny man, who put it in the their race right there on the Salt Pool's shores in the pouch of his wet breeches. Days of Cooling. "Back in three drips," said Boulder, then scampered Chert did not explain any of this to the boy. He was back down the rocky beach toward the water, almost not certain how long the child would stay with them as nimble as the boy despite his bent legs and his and the Funderlings were cautious with outsiders; it many years. was far too early even to consider teaching him any of Chert saw Flint staring after him."That's the first thing the Mysteries. you have to learn about our folk, boy. We're not The boy scrambled across the uneven, rocky floor like dwarfs. We are meant to be this size. There are big a spider, and he was already waiting, watchful folk who are small - not children like you, but just features turned yellow-green by the light from the small - and those are dwarfs. And there are pool, when Chert reached the shore. Chert had only Funderlings who are small compared to their fellows, just taken off his pack and set it down by the boy's too, and Boulder is one of those." feet when a tiny, crooked-legged figure appeared from "Boulder . . . ?" a jumble of large stones, wiping its beard as it "His parents named him that, hoping it would make swallowed the last bite of something. him grow. Some tweak him about it, but seldom more "Is that you, Chert? My eyes are tired today." The little than once. He is a good man but he has a sharp man who stood before them only reached Chert's tongue." waist. The boy stared down at the newcomer with "Where did he go?" unhidden surprise. "He is diving. There's a kind of stone that grows in the "It is me, indeed, Boulder." Now the boy looked at Salt Pool, astone that is made by a little animal, like a Chert, as surprised by the name as by the stranger's snail makes a shell for itself, called coral. The coral 121 122 that grows in the Salt Pool makes its own light . . Although the road had been braced and paved, it was so far out along the network of tunnels that it had no Before he could finish explaining, Boulder was name yet. The boy, only named himself the night standing before them, holding a chunk of the glowing before, did not seem to mind. stuff in each hand; even though it was starting to darken after having been taken from the water, the "Where are we?" light was still so bright that Chert could see the veins "Now? Even with the gate to Funderling Town, more in the little man's fingers. "These have just kindled," or less, but it's a good way back over there. We're he said with satisfaction. "They should last you all day, passing away from it and along the line of the inner maybe even longer." keep wall. I think the last new road we crossed, "We won't need them such a time, but my thanks." Greenstone or whatever they're calling it now, climbs Chert took out two pieces of hollow horn from his back up and lets out quite close to the gate." pack, both polished to glassy thinness, and dropped a "Then we're going past . . . past . . ." The boy thought piece of coral into each, then rilled them with a bit of for a moment. "Past the bottom of the tower with the salt water from Boulder's bucket to wake the light and golden feather on top of it." keep the little animals inside the coral alive. Chert stopped, surprised. The boy had not only Submerged in the water, the stony clumps began to remembered a small detail on the tower's roof from glow again. the previous afternoon's walk, but had calculated the "Don't you want reflecting bowls?" asked Boulder. distances and directions, too. "How can you know Chert shook his head. "We won't be working, only that?" traveling. I just want us to be able to see each other." Little Flint shrugged, the keen intelligence suddenly He capped both hollow horns with bone plugs, then hidden behind the gray eyes again like a deer moving took a fitted leather hood out of his bag, tied it onto from a patch of sunlight into shadow. Flint's head, and put one of the glowing cups of Chert shook his head. "You're right, though, we're seawater and coral into the little harness on the front passing underneath the Tower of Spring - although of the hood above the boy's eyes. He did the same for not right under it. Once we come up out of the himself, then they bade Boulder farewell and made deepest parts of Funderling Town, we don't go directly their way back across the cavern of the Salt Pool. The under the inner keep. None of the high Funderling boy moved in erratic circles, watching the light from roads do. It's . . . forbidden." his brow cast odd shadows as he scrambled from The boy sucked on his lip, thinking again. "By the stone to stone. king?" 123 124 Chert was certainly not going to delve straight into the the main roads of Funderling Town. deep end of the Mysteries, but something in him did Still, could he really risk the secret route with this not want to lie to the child. "Yes, certainly, the king is child, of whom he knew so little? part of it. They do not want us to tunnel under the He stared at the boy laboring along beside him in the heart of the castle in case the outer keep, and sickly coral-light, putting one foot in front of the other Funderling Town, should be overrun in a siege." without a word of complaint. Despite the child's weird "But there's another reason " It was not a question but origins Chert could sense nothing bad in him, and it a disconcertingly calm assertion. was hard to believe anyone could choose one so Chert could only shrug. "There is seldom only one young as a spy, not to mention plan with such skill reason for anything in this world." that the one person who knew these tunnels would wind up taking the child into his home. It was all too He led the boy upward through a series of farfetched. Besides, he reminded himself, if he increasingly haphazard diggings Their ultimate changed his mind now, he would not only have destination was inside the inner keep, and the fact wasted much of the day, he would have to present that they could actually reach it from the tunnels of himself at the Raven's Gate and try to talk his way Funderling Town was a secret that only Chert of all his past the guards and into the inner keep that way. He people knew - or at least he believed that was the didn't think they were likely to let him in, even if he told case. His own knowledge was the result of a favor them who he was going to see. And if he told them the done long ago, and although it was conceivable substance of his errand, it would be all over the castle someone could use this route as a way of going under by nightfall, causing fear and wild stories No, he would the wall of the inner keep and attacking the castle have to go forward and trust his own good sense, his itself, he couldn't imagine anyone not of Funderling luck. blood and upbringing finding their way through the maze of half-finished tunnels and raw scrapes. It was only as they turned down the last passage and into the final tunnel that he remembered that "Chert's But what about the boy? he thought sudd enly. He's luck" - at least within his own Blue Quartz family - was already shown he has a fine memory. But surely even another way of saying "no luck at all." those clever, hooded eyes could not remember every twist and turn, the dozens of switchbacks, the crossings honeycombed with dozens of false trails The boy stared at the door. It was a rather surprising that would lead anyone but Chert down endless empty thing to find at the end of half a league of tunnels that passages and, if they were lucky enough not to be lost were little more than hasty burrows, the kind of crude in the maze forever, eventually funnel them back into excavations that Funderling children got up to before 125 126 they were old enough to be apprenticed to one of the had to send away the lad who works for me before I guilds. But this door was a beautiful thing, if such came. I do not share the secret of these tunnels could be said of a mere door, hewn of dark lightly." Chaven smiled, but Chert wondered if what hardwoods that gleamed in the light of the coral the physician was politely not saying was, Even if stones, its hinges of heavy iron overlaid with filigree some others do. patterns in bronze. All that trouble, and for whom? He led them down a series of empty corridors, damp Chert knew of no one else beside himself who ever and windowless because they were below the ground- used it, and this was only his third time in ten years. floor chambers, passages set directly into the rocky It didn't even have a latch or a handle, at least on the hill beneath the observatory. outside Chert reached up and pulled at a braided cord "I told you the truth," Chert whispered to the boy. that hung through a hole in the door. It was a heavy "About not digging under the inner keep, that is. You pull, and whatever bell it rang was much too far away see, we've just crossed under its walls, but not until to hear, so Chert pulled it again just to make certain we were inside this man's house, as it were. Our end They had what seemed a long wait - Chert was just of the tunnel stops outside the keep." about to tug the cord a third time - before the door The boy looked at him as though the Funderling had swung inward. claimed he could juggle fish while whistling, and even "Ah, is it Master Blue Quartz?" The round man's Chert was not sure why he felt compelled to point out eyebrows rose. "And a friend, I see." this distinction. What loyalty could the boy have to the "Sorry to trouble you, sir." Chert was suddenly royal family? Or to Chert himself, for that matter, uncomfortable - why had he thought it would be a except for the kindness of a bed and a few meals? good idea to bring the boy with him? Surely he could Chaven led them up several flights of stairs until they simply have described him. "This boy is . . . well, he's reached a small, carpeted room. Jars and wooden staying with us. And he's . . . he's part of what I chests were stacked along the walls and on shelves, wanted to talk to you about. Something important." He as though the room was as much a pantry as a was uncomfortable now, not because Chaven's retiring room. The small windows were covered with expression was unkind, but because he had forgotten tapestries whose night-sky colors were livened by how sharp the physician's eyes were - like the boy's winking gems in the shapes of constellations. but with nothing hidden, a fierce, fierce cleverness The physician was more fit than he appeared: of the that was always watching. three of them, Chert alone was winded by the climb. "Well, then we must step inside where we can talk "Can I offer you something to eat or drink?" asked comfortably. I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but I Chaven. "It might take me a moment to fetch. I've sent 127 128 Toby off on an errand and I'd just as soon not tell any centuries - but now it is moving again. I have to think of the servants there's a guest here who didn't come that it will keep moving unless something stops it, and in through any of the doors - at least any of the doors what would that be?" He rose, rubbing his hands they know about . . ." together. Chert waved away the offer. "I would love to drink with "Keep moving . . .?" you in a civilized way, sir, but I think I had better get "Yes, I fear that now it has started the Shadowline will right to the seam, as it were. Is the boy all right, keep moving until it has swept across Southmarch - looking around?" perhaps all of Eion. Until the land is plunged back into Flint was moving slowly around the room, observing shadow and Old Night." The physician frowned at his but not handling the various articles standing against hands, then turned back to Flint. His voice was the wall, mostly lidded vessels of glass and polished matter -of-fact but his eyes belied it. "Now I suppose I brass. had better have a look at the boy." "I think so," Chaven said, "but perhaps I should withold my judgment until you tell me what exactly · brings you here - and him with you." Chert described what he had seen the day before in Moina and Rose and her other ladies, despite all their the hills north of the castle. The physician listened, kind words and questions, could not stop Briony's asking few questions, and when the little man had furious weeping. She was angry with herself for acting finished, he didn't speak for a long time. Flint was so wildly, so childishly, but she felt lost beyond help or done examining the room and now sat on the floor, even hope. It was as though she had fallen down a looking up at the tapestries and their twining patterns deep hole and was now beyond the reach of anyone. of stars. Barrick pounded at the chamber door, demanding that "I am not surprised," Chaven said at last. "I had . . . she speak to him. heard things. Seen things. But it is still fearful news." He sounded angry and frightened, but although it felt "What does it mean?" as if she were casting offa part of her own body, she The physician shook his head. "I can't say. But the let Rose send him away. He was a man - what did he Shad owline is something whose art seems far beyond know of how she felt? No one would dream of selling ours, and whose mystery we have never solved. him to the highest bidder like a market pig. Scarcely anyone who passes it returns, and those Eighty thousand dolphins discounted for my sake, she who have done so are no longer in their right minds. thought bitterly. A great deal of gold - most of a king's Our only solace has been that it has not moved in 129 130 ransom, in fact. I should be proud to command such a Her great-aunt had gone, and Briony's ladies-in- high price. She threw a pillow against the wall and waiting kept their distanc e, as though their mistress knocked over an oil lamp. The ladies squealed as they had some illness which might spread - and indeed she rushed to stamp out the flames, but Briony did not did, Briony thought, because unhappiness was care if the entire castle burned to the ground. ambitious. "What goes on here?" A messenger had just arrived at the door, the third in an hour. She had returned no message to her older Treacherous Rose had opened the door, but it was brother, and hadn't been able to think of anything not Barrick who had come in, only Briony s great-aunt, sufficiently cutting to send back to Gailon, Duke of the Dowager Duchess Merolanna, sniffing. Her eyes Summerfield. widened as she saw Moina smothering the last of the flames and she turned on Briony. "What are you "This one comes from Sister Utta, my lady," Moina doing, child, trying to kill us all?" said. "She sends to ask why you have not visited her today, and if you are well." Briony wanted to say yes, she was, but another fit of weeping overcame her. As the other ladies tried to fan "She must be the only one in the castle who doesn't the smoke out the open door, Merolanna came to the know," said Rose, almost laughing that anyone could bed and sat her substantial but carefully groomed self be so remote from the day's events. A look at Briony's down on it, then put her arms around the princess. tearstamed face and the lord constable's niece quickly sobered. "We'll tell her you can't come . . ." "I have heard," she said, patting Briony's back. "Do not be so afraid - your brother may refuse. And even Briony sat up. She had forgotten her tutor entirely, but if he doesn't, it isn't the worst thing in the world. When suddenly wanted nothing more than to see the Vuttish I first came here to wed your father's uncle, years and woman's calm face, hear her measured voice. "No. I years and years ago, I was as frightened as you are." will go to her." "But Ludis is a m - monster!" Briony struggled to stop "But, Princess . . ." sobbing. "A murderer! The bandit who kidnapped our "I will go!" As she struggled into a wrap, the ladies-in- father! I would rather marry . . . marry anyone - even waiting hurried to pull on their own shoes and cloaks. old Puzzle - before allowing someone like that . . ." It "Stay here. I am going by myself." The feared was no use. She was weeping again. darkness having enfolded her now, she felt no need to "Now, child," Merolanna said, but clearly could think of waste her strength on niceties. "I have guards. Don't nothing else to say. you think that's enough to keep me from running away?" Rose and Moina stared at her in hurt surprise, but 131 132 Briony was already striding out the door. husband or a master." Sister Utta smiled sadly. "I do not think you would wish to give up all I have given up to become so, Utta was one of the Sisters of Zoria, priestesses of the Princess. And how can you say I have no master? virgin goddess of learning. Zona once had been the Should your father - or now your brother - decide to most powerful of goddesses, some said, mistress of a send me away or even kill me, I would be trudging thousand temples and an equal of even her divine down Market Road within an hour or hanging from father Perin, but now her followers had been reduced one of the mileposts." to advising the Trigon on petty domestic policy and teaching highborn girl-children how to read, write, and "It's not fair! And I won't do it." - although it was not deemed strictly necessary in Utta nodded again, as if she was truly considering most noble families - to think. what Briony said. "When it comes to it, no woman can Utta herself was almost as old as Duchess be turned against her own soul unless she wills it. But Merolanna, but where Briony s great -aunt was a royal perhaps it is too early for you to be worrying. You do barge, elaborately painted and decorated, the Vuttish not know yet what your brother will say." woman was spare as a fast sailing ship, tall and thin, "Oh, but I do." The words tasted bitter in her mouth. with gray hair cropped almost to her scalp. She was "The council - in fact, almost all the nobles - have sewing when Briony arrived, and her pale blue eyes been complaining for months about the price of opened wide when the girl immediately burst into Father's ransom, and they have also been telling tears, but although her questions were sympathetic Kendrick that I should be married off to some rich and she listened carefully to the answers, the southern princeling to help pay for it. Then when he priestess of Zona was not the type to put her arms resists them, they whisper behind their hands that he around even her most important pupil. is not old enough yet to rule the March Kingdoms. When Briony had finished the story, Utta nodded her Here is a chance for him to stop their moaning in an head slowly. "As you say, our lot is hard. In this life we instant. I'd do it, if I were him." women are handed from one man to another, and can "But you are not Kendrick, and you have not yet heard only hope that the one we come to at last will be a his decision." Now Utta did an unusual thing, leaned kind steward of our liberties." over and for a moment took Briony's hand. "However, "But no man owns you." Briony had recovered herself I will not say your worries are baseless. What I hear of a little. Something strong about Utta, the unassuming Ludis Drakava is not encouraging." strength of an old tree on a windy mountainside, "I won't do it! I won't. It is all so unfair - the clothes always calmed her. "You do what you want, without a they always want me to wear, the things they want me 133 134 to say and do . . and now this! I hate being a woman. now she thought she could feel the shadowy wings It's a curse." Briony looked up suddenly. "I could still beating above her, as if there was some threat as become a priestess, like you! If I became a Sister of yet undiscovered. Zoria, my maidenhood would be sacred, wouldn't it?" "Teach me something, then," she said heavily. "What "And permanent." Utta could not quite muster a smile else do I have left?" this time. "I am not certain you could join the "You have learning, yes," Utta told her. "But you also sisterhood against your brother's wishes, anyway. But have prayers. You must not forget your prayers, child. is it not too early to be thinking of such things?" And you have Zoria's protection, if you deserve it. Briony had a sudden recollection of the envoy Dawet There are worse things to cling to." dan-Faar, of eyes proud and leopard-fierce. He did not seem the type to stand around for weeks waiting · for a defeated enemy to agree to the terms of surrender. "I don't think I have much time - until tomorrow, perhaps. Oh, Sister, what will I do?" Finished examining the boy, Chaven reached into his pockets and produced a disk of glass pent in a brass "Talk to your brother, the prince regent. Tell him how handle. Flint took it from him and looked through it, you feel. I believe he is a good man, like your father. If first staring up at the flickering lamp, then moving it there seems no other way . . . well, perhaps there is close to the wall so he could examine the grain of advice I might give you then, even assistance." For a stone in the spaces between the tapestries. moment, Utta's long, strong face looked troubled. "But not yet." She sat up straight. Maybe he'll make a Funderling yet, thought Chert. "We have an hour left before the evening meal, The boy turned to him, smiling, one eye goggling Princess. Shall we spend it usefully? Learning may hugely behind the glass Chert laughed despite perhaps keep your mind off your sorrows, at least for himself. At the moment, Flint seemed to be no more a little while." than he appeared, a child of five or six summers. "I suppose." Briony had cried so much she felt Chaven thought so, too. "I find nothing unusual about boneless. The room was quite dark, with only one him," the physician said quietly as they watched the candle lit. Most of the light in the spare apartment boy playing with the enlarging-glass "No extra fingers, came from the window, a descending beam that toes, or mysterious marks. His breath is sweet - for a ended in a bright oblong climbing steadily higher on child who seems to have eaten spiced turnips today, the wall as the sun dropped toward its evening harbor. that is - and his eyes are clear. Everything about him Earlier she had felt sure the worst had happened, but seems ordinary. This all proves nothing, but unless 135 136 some other mysterious trait shows itself, I must for the spent much of my life studying them but I still know moment assume he is what your wife guessed him to little more than when I began. They can be be, some mortal child who wandered beyond the unexpectedly kind to mortals, even generous, but do Shadowline and, instead of wandering back again as not doubt that if the Shadowline sweeps across us, it some do, met the riders you saw and was carried out will bring with it a dark, dark evil." instead. "Chaven frowned. "You say he has little Chert shuddered. "I have spent too much time on its memory of who he is. If that is all he has lost, he is a borders to doubt that for a moment." He watched the lucky one. As I said before, those who have wandered boy for a moment. "Will you tell the prince regent and across and returned before now have had the whole his family that the line has moved?" of their wits clouded if not ruined." "I expect I will have to. But first I must think on all this, "Lucky. Yes, it seems that way." Chert should have so that I can go to them with some proposal. been relieved, especially since the child would be Otherwise, decisions will be made in fear and sharing their house for at least the present, but he ignorance, and those seldom lead to happy result." could not rid himself of a nagging feeling that there Chaven rose from his stool and patted his bunched was something more to be discovered. "But why, if the robe until it hung straight again. "Now I must get back Shadowline is moving, would the the Quiet Folk oh- to my work, not least of which will be thinking about so-kindly carry a mortal child across the line? It seems the news you've brought me." more likely they would slit his throat like a rabbit and As Chert led Flint to the door, the boy turned back. leave him in the foggy forest somewhere." "Where is the owl?" he asked Chaven. Chaven shrugged. "I have no answer, my friend. Even The physician stiffened for a moment, then smiled. when they were slaughtering mortals long ago at "What do you mean, lad? There is no owl here, nor Coldgray Moor, the Twilight People did things that no ever has been one, as far as I know." one could understand. In the last months of the war, "There was," Flint said stubbornly. "A.white one." one company of soldiers from Fael moving camp by midnight stumbled onto a fairy-feast, but instead of Chaven shook his head kindly as he held the door, but slaughtering them - they were far outnumbered - the Chert thought he looked a little discomposed. Qar only fed them and led them into drunken revels. Some of the soldiers even claimed they mated with · fairy women that night." "The . . . Qar?" After checking to make sure none of his servants were "Their old name." Chaven waved his hand. "I have in sight, the physician let Chert and the boy out 137 138 through the observatory-tower's front door. For down the tall steps, could barely make out what he reasons he did not quite know himself, Chert had said. "There's the Honeycomb and the Waterfall . . . decided to go back aboveground, out through the but I can't remember the rest." He stopped and Raven's Gate. The guard would have changed at turned. His face beneath the shock of almost white mi dday and there should be no reason for those on hair was full of sad confusion, so that he looked like a duty now to doubt that their predecessors questioned little old man. "I can't remember." Chert closely before letting him and his young charge Chert caught up to him, out of breath and troubled. into the inner keep. "I've never heard those names before. The "What did you mean about the owl?" Chert asked as Honeycomb? Where did you learn that, boy?" they made their way down the steps. Flint was walking again. "I used to know a song about "What owl?" the stars. I know one about the moon, too." He hummed a snatch of melody that Chert could barely "You asked that man where the owl was, the owl that make out, but whose mournful sweetness made the had been in his room." hairs lift on the back of his neck. "I can't remember the Flint shrugged. His legs were longer than Chert's and words," Flint said. "But they tell about how the moon he did not need to look down at the steps, so he was came down to find the arrows he had shot at the stars watching the afternoon sky. "I don't know." He . . ." frowned, staring at something above him. The "But the moon's a woman - isn't that what all you big morning's clouds had passed. Chert could see nothing folk believe?" A moment of sour amusement at his but a faint sliver of moon, -white as a seashell, own words - the boy was but Chert's own height, even hanging in the blue sky. "He had stars on his walls." a little shorter - did not puncture his confusion. Chert recalled the tapestries covered with jeweled "Mesiya, the moon-goddess?" constellations. "He did, yes." Flint laughed with a child's pure enjoyment at the "The Leaf, the Singers, the White Root - I know a foolishness of adults. "No, he's the sun's little brother. song about them." He pondered, his frown deepening. Everyone knows that." "No, I can't remember it." He skipped ahead, enjoying the excitement of a street "The Leaf . . . ?" Chert was puzzled. "The White Root? full of people and interesting sights, so that Chert had What are you talking about?" to hurry to catch up with him again, certain that "The stars - don't you know their names?" Flint had something had just happened - something important - reached the cobblestones at the base of the steps and but he could not for the life of him imagine what it was walking faster, so that Chert, still moving carefully might have been. 139 140 6 Blood Ties A HIDDEN PLACE: Walls of straw, walls of hair Each room can hold three breaths Each breath an hour - from The Bonefall Oracles She did not make her dwelling in the ancient, labyrinthine city of Qul-na-Qar, although she had long claim to a place of honor there, by her blood and by her deeds - and by deeds of blood as well. Instead, she made her home on a high ridgetop in the mountains called Reheq-s'Lai, which meant Wanderwind, or something close to it. Her house, although large enough to cover most of the ridge, was a plain thing from most angles, as was the lady herself Only when the sunlight was in the right quarter, and a watcher's face turned just so, could crystal and sky - stone be seen gleaming among the dark wall stones. In one way at least her house was like great Qul-na- Qar: it extended deep into the rocky ridge, with many rooms below the light of day and a profusion of tunnels extending beyond them like the roots of an 141 142 old, old tree. Above the ground the windows were It was also said that she would laugh for the third time always shuttered, or seemed that way. Her servants only when the last mortal died, or when she herself were silent and she seldom had visitors. took her final breath. Some of the younger Qar, who had heard of her None of the stories said anything about the sound of madness for privacy, but of course had never seen her laughter, except that it was terrible. her, called her Lady Porcupine. Others who knew her better could not help shuddering at the accidental Yasammez stood in her garden of low, dark plants truth of the name - they had seen how in moments of and tall gray rocks shaped like the shadows of terrified fury a nimbus of prickly shadow bloomed about her, a dreamers, and looked out over her steep lands. The shroud of phantom thorns. wind was as fierce as ever, wrapping her cloak tightly Her granted name was Yasammez, but few knew it. around her, blowing her hair loose from the bone pins Her true name was known to only two or three living that held it, but was still not strong enough to disperse beings. the mist lurking in the ravines that gouged the hillside The lady's high house was called Shehen, which below like claw-scratches. Still, it blew loudly enough meant "Weeping." Because it was a s'a-Qar word, it that even if any of her pale servants had been meant other things, too - it carried the intimation of an standing beside her they would not have been able to unexpected ending, and a suggestion of the scent of hear the melody Lady Yasammez was singing to the plant that in the sunlight lands was called myrtle - herself, nor would they even have believed their but more than anything else, it meant "Weeping." mistress might do such a thing. They certainly would not have known the song, which had been old before It was said that Yasammez had only laughed twice in the mountain on which she stood had risen from the all her long life, the first time when, as a child, she first earth. saw a battlefield and smelled the blood and the smoke from the fires. The second time had been when she A voice began to speak in her ear and the ancient had first been exiled, sent away from Qul-na-Qar for music stopped. She did not turn because she knew crimes or deeds of arrogance long since forgotten by the voice came from no one in the stark garden or most of the living. "You cannot hide me, or hide from high house. Secretive, angry, and solitary as she was, me," she is said to have told her accusers, "because Yasammez still knew this voice almost better than she you cannot find me. I was lost when I first drew breath knew her own. It w the only voice that ever called as " Yasammez was made for war and death, all agreed, her by her true name. as a sword is made, a thing whose true beauty can It called that name again now. only be seen when it brings destruction. "I hear, O my heart," said Lady Porcupine, speaking 143 144 without words. The longer, heavier sword skimmed off Barrick's falchion and crashed down against the small buckler "I must know." on his left arm. A lightning flash of pain leaped "It has already begun," the mistress of the ridgetop through his sh oulder. He cried out, sagged to one house replied, but it stabbed her to hear such disquiet knee, and only just managed to throw his blade up in in the thoughts of her beloved, her great ruler, the time to deflect the second blow. He climbed to his feet single star in her dark, cold sky. After all, this was the and stood, gasping for breath. The air was full of time for wills to become stony, for hearts to grow sawdust. He could barely hold even his own slender thorns. "All has been put into motion. As you wished. sword upright. As you commanded." "Stop." He stepped back, letting the falchion sag, but "There is no turning back, then." instead of lowering his own longer sword, Shaso It almost seemed a question, but Yasammez knew it suddenly lunged forward, the point of his blade could not be. "No turning back," she agreed. jabbing down at Barrick's ankles. Caught by surprise, the prince hesitated for an instant before jumping to "So, then. In the full raveling of time we will see what avoid the thrust. It was a mistake. As the prince new pages will be written in the Book." landed awkwardly, the old man had already turned his "We shall." She yearned to say more, to ask why this sword around so he clutched the blade in his sudden concern that almost seemed like weakness in gauntlets. He thumped Barrick hard in the chest with the one who was not just her ruler but her teacher as the sword's pommel, forcing out the rest of the boy's well, but the words did not come; she could not form air. Gasping, Barrick took one step backward and the question even in the silence of shared thought. collapsed. For a moment black clouds closed in. Words had never been friends to Yasammez; in this, When he could see again, Shaso was standing over they were like almost everything else beneath the him. moon or sun. "Curse you!" Barrick wheezed. He kicked out at "Farewell, then. We will speak again soon, when your Shaso's leg, but the old man stepped neatly away. great task reaches fulfillment. You have my gratitude." "Didn't you hear? I said stop!" Then Lady Porcupine was alone again with the wind "Because your arm was tired? Because you did not and her thoughts, her strange, bitter thoughts, in the sleep well last night? Is that what you will do in battle? garden of the house called Weeping. Cry mercy because you fight only with one hand and it has weaned?" Shaso made a noise of disgust and · turned his back on the young prince. It was all Barrick could do not to scramble to his feet at this display of 145 146 contempt and skull the old Tuani with the padded They had been out of balance all day. Even as a way falchion. to spend the tedious, stretching hours until his brother convened the council, this had been a mistake. Briony But it was not just his remaining shreds of civility and might have made it something civil, even enjoyable, honor that stopped him, nor his exhaustion, even in but Briony was not there. his rage, Barrick doubted he would actually land the blow. Barrick lowered himself to the ground and began removing his leg pads. He stared at Shaso's back, He got up slowly instead and pulled off the buckler irritated by the old man's graceful, unhurried and gauntlets so he could rub his arm. Although his movements. Who was he, to be so calm when left hand was curled into something like a bird's claw everything was falling apart? Barrick wanted to sting and his forearm was thin as a child's, after countless the master of arms somehow. painful hours lifting the iron-headed weights called poises. Barrick had strengthened the sinews of his "Why did he call you `teacher'?" upper arm and shoulder enough that he could use the Shaso's fingers slowed, but he did not turn. "What?" buckler effectively. But - and he hated to admit it, and "You know. The envoy from Hierosol - that man certainly would not do so aloud - Shaso was right he Dawet. Why did he call you `teacher?'And he called still was not strong enough, not even in the good arm you something else - 'Mor-ja.'What does that mean?" which had to wield his only blade, since even a Shaso shrugged off the vest His linen undershirt was dagger was too much for his crippled fingers. soaked with sweat, so that every muscle on his broad, As he pulled on the loose deerskin glove he wore to brown back was apparent. Barrick had seen this so hide his twisted hand, Barrick was still furious. "Does it many times, and even in the midst of anger, he felt make you feel strong, beating a man who can only something like love for the old Tuani - a love for the fight one -armed?" known and familiar, however unsatisfying. The armorers, who today had the comparatively quiet What if Briony really leaves? he thought suddenly. task of cutting new leather straps at the huge bench What if Kendrick really sends her to Hierosol to marry along the room's south wall, looked up, but only for a Ludis? I will never see her again. His outrage that a moment - they were used to such things. Barrick had bandit should demand his sister in marriage, and that no doubt they all thought him a spoiled child. He his brother should even consider it, suddenly chilled flushed and slammed down his gauntlets. into a simpler and far more devastating thought - Shaso, who was unstitching his padded practice-vest, Southmarch Castle empty of Briony. curled his lip. "By the hundred tits of the Great Mother, "I have been asked to answer that for the council," boy, I am not beating you. I am teaching you." Shaso said slowly. "You wi ll hear what I say there, 147 148 Prince Barrick. I do not want to speak of it twice." He Chert shook his head. It was not paying for the boy's dropped the vest to the floor and walked away from it. new shirt that concerned him. Barrick could not help staring. Shaso was usually not The bell for the front door rang, a couple of short tugs only meticulous in the care of his weapons and on the cord. Opal handed the boy her measuring equipment, but sharp-tongued to any who were not - string and went to answer it Chert heard her say, "Oh, Barrick most definitely included. The master of arms my - come in, please." set the long sword in the rack without oiling it or even Her eyebrows were up when she returned trailed by taking off the padding, took his shirt from a hook, and Cinnabar, a handsome, big-bon ed Funderling, the walked out of the armory without another word. leader of the important Quicksilver family. Barrick sat, as short of breath as if Shaso had struck Chert rose. "Magister, you do me an honor. Will you him again in the stomach. He had long felt that among sit down?" all the heedless folk in Southmarch, he was the only Cinnabar nodded, grunting as he seated himself. one who understood how truly bad things had Although he was younger than Chert by some dozen become, who saw the deceptions and cruelties others years, his muscled bulk was alrea dy turning to fat. His missed or deliberately ignored, who sensed the mind was still lean, though; Chert respected the man's growing danger to his family and their kingdom Now wits. that proof was blossoming before him, he wished he could make it all go away - that he could turn and run "Can we offer you something, Magister?" Opal asked. headlong back into his own childhood. "Beer? Some blueroot tea?" She was both excited and worried, trying to catch her husband's eye, but he would not be distracted. · "Tea will do me well, Mistress, thank you." Flint had gone stock-still on the floor beside Opal's After supper Chert's belly was full, but his head was stool, watching the newcomer like a cat spying an still unsettled. Opal was fussing happily over Flint, unfamiliar dog Chert knew he should wait until the tea measuring the boy with a knotted string while he was served, but his curiosity was strong. "Your family squirmed. She had used the few copper chips she is well?" had put aside for a new cooking pot to buy some Cinnabar snorted. "Greedy as blindshrews, but that's cloth, since she planned to make a shirt for the child. nothing new. It strikes me you've had an addition "Don't look at me that way," she told her husband. "I yourself." wasn't the one who took him out and let him rip and "His name is Flint." Chert felt sure this was the point of dirty this one so badly." 149 150 the visit. "He's one of the big folk." wrinkles, like a hammerblow on slate. "Ah, I am tormenting you, but do not mean to. There's nothing ill "Yes, I can see that. And of course I've heard much in this visit, that's a promise. I need your help, Chert." about him already - it's all over town." "You do?" "Is there a problem that he stays with us? He has no memory of his real name or parents." "Aye. You know we're cutting in the bedrock of the inner keep? Tricky work. The king's family wants to Opal bustled into the room with a tray, the best teapot, expand the burial vaults and stitch together various of and three cups. Her smile was a little too bright as she their buildings with tunnels." poured for the magister first. Chert could see that she was frightened. "I've heard, of course. That's old Hornblende in charge, isn't it? He's a good man." Fissure and fracture, is she so attached to the boy already? "Was in charge. He's quit. Says it's because of his back, but I have my doubts, though he is of an age." Cinnabar blew on the cup nestled in his big hands. Cinnabar nodded slowly. "That's why I need your help, "As long as he breaks none of the laws of Funderling Chert." Town, you could guest a badger for all it matters to me." He turned his keen eyes on Opal. "But people do He shook his head, confused. "What . . .?" talk, and they are slow to welcome change. Still, I "I want you to chief the job. It's a careful matter, as suppose it is too late to reveal this secret more you know - digging under the castle. I don't need to delicately." say more, do I? I hear the men are skittish, which may "It is no secret!" said Opal, a little sharply. have something to do with Hornblende's wanting nothing more of it." "Obviously." Cinnabar sighed. "It is your affair. That's not why I'm here tonight." Chert was stunned. At least a dozen other Funderlings had the experience to take Hornblende's Now Chert was puzzled. He watched Cinnabar snuffle place, all more senior or more important than he was, at his tea. The man was not only head of his own including one of his own brothers. "Why me?" family, but was one of the most powerful men in the Guild of Stonecutters Chert could only be patient. "Because you have sense. Because I need someone I can trust as chief over this task. You've worked with "That is good, Mistress," Cinnabar said at last. "My the big folk before and made out well." He flicked a own lady, she will boil the same roots over and over glance at Opal, who had finished her tea and was until it is like drinking rainwater." He looked from her again measuring the child, although Chert knew she expectant, worried face to Chert's and smiled. It was listening to every word. "We can speak more of it cracked his broad, heavy -jawed face into little 151 152 later, if you tell me you will do it." through the big folk's castle in those miserable old things." How could he say no? "Of course, Magister. It's an honor." "Let's not spend silver we haven't seen yet," he said, but mildly. He might have been a little uncertain about "Good. Very good." Cinnabar rose, not without a small this surprising good fortune, but it was good to see noise of effort. "Here, give me your hand on it. Come Opal so happy. to me tomorrow and I'll give you the plans and your list of men. Oh, and thanking you for your hospitality, "And you would have left the boy there," she said, Mistress Opal." almost giddy. "Left our luck sitting in the grass!" Her smile was genuine now. "Our pleasure, Magister." "Luck's a strange thing," Chert reminded her, "and as they say, there is much digging before the entire vein He did not leave, but took a step forward and stood is uncovered." He sat down to finish his tea. over Flint. "What do you say, boy?" he asked, mock- stern. "Do you like stone?" The child regarded him carefully. "Which kind?" · Cinnabar laughed. "Well questioned! Ah, Master Chert, perhaps he has the making of a Fundering at Kendrick had convened the council in the castle's that, if he grows not too big for the tunnels." He was Chapel of Erivor, dedicated to the sea god who had still chuckling as Chert let him out. always been the Eddon family's special protector. The "Such wonderful news!" Opal's eyes were shining. main chamber was dominated by the statue of the god "Your family will regret their snubs now." in green soapstone trimmed with bright metal, with golden kelp coiling in Erivor s hair and beard and his "Perhaps." Chert was glad, of course, but he knew old great golden spear held high to calm the waters so Hornblende for a levelheaded fellow. Was there a Anglin's ancestors could cross the sea from Connord. reason he had given up such a prestigious post? Generations of Eddons had been named and married Could there be something of a poisoned offering at the low stone altar beneath the statue, and many about it? Chert was not used to kindnesses from the had lain in state there, too, after they had died the town leaders, although he had no reason to mistrust echoes that drifted back from the chapel's high, tiled Cinnabar, who was reputed for fair-dealing. ceiling sometimes seemed to be voices from other "Little Flint has brought us good luck," Opal purred. times. "He will have a shirt, and I -will have that winter shawl Barrick had enough difficulty with unwanted voices as and . . and you, my husband, you must have a it was he didn't like the chapel much. handsome new pair of boots. You cannot go walking 153 154 Today a ring of chairs had been set up on the floor over their own candidate, but neither Syan nor just beneath the steps that led to the low stone altar. theTrigon itself wielded as much power in the north as "It is the only chamber m this castle where we can they once had. close the door and find any privacy," Kendrick Range d around the table were many of the other explained to the nobles. "Anything important said in leading nobles of the realm, Blueshore's Tyne, Lord the throne room or the Oak Chamber will be spread Nynor the castellan, the bearlike lord constable, Avin across Southmarch before the speaker has finished." Brone, and Barrick's dandified cousin Rorick Bamck moved uncomfortably in the hard, high-backed Longarren, who was Earl of Daler's Troth (strangely chair. He had been chewing willow bark since supper matched with those dour, plainspoken folk, Barrick but his crippled arm still ached miserably from always felt) as well as a half dozen more nobles, Shaso's blows. He darted a sour look at the master of some clearly sleepy after the midday meal, others arms. Shaso's face was a mask, his eyes fixed on the indifferently hiding their irritation at giving up a day of frescoes that, with so many lamps lit, gleamed hunting or hawking. That sort would not even have daytime -bright, as though the birth and triumph of been present were it not for their interest in seeing Erivor was the most interesting thing he had ever some relief from the royal levy, Barrick felt sure. The seen. Barrick had not attended many of these councils fact that his sister was the bargaining chip bothered he and Briony had only been invited since their them not at all. father's departure, and this was his first without her, He would gladly have seen them all skewered on which added to his discomfort. He could not shake off Erivor's golden fish spear. the feeling that a pa rt of him was gone, as though he Shaso alone seemed suitably grave. He had taken a had woken up to find he had only one leg. place at the table's far end, with a space between Gailon of Summerfield was talking quietly into the himself and the nearest nobles on either side. Barrick prince regent's left ear Sisel, Hierarch of Southmarch, thought he looked a bit like a prisoner brought to had been given the position of honor on Kendrick's judgment. other hand. The hierarch, a slender, active man of "Your argument should be made to all," Kendrick sixty winters or so, was the leading priest of the loudly told Gailon, who was still whispering to him. At rnarchlands, and although in some things he was this signal, the other nobles turned their attention to forced to act as the hand of the Trigonarch in distant the head of the table. Syan, he was also the first northerner to hold the Duke Gailon paused. A bit of a flush crept up his neck position, and thus unusually loyal to the Eddons. The and onto his handsome face. Other than Barrick and Trigonarchy had been unhappy that Barrick's father the prince regent, he was the youngest man at the Olin had chosen to elevate one of the local priests 155 156 gathering. "I simply said that I think we would be protection until the king was released and safe." making a mistake to so easily give the princess to Barrick squirmed, almost breathless with fury - he Ludis Drakava," he began. "We all want nothing more would never have believed that Kendrick could talk so than to have our King Olin back, but even if Ludis carelessly about giving his own sister to a bandit - but honors the bargain and delivers him without treachery, the prince regent had spoken with another purpose. what then? Olin, may the gods long preserve him, will "In fact," Kendrick continued, "we know little about grow old one day and die. Much can happen before Ludis, except by reputation, and less of his envoy that day, and only the unsleeping Fates know all, but Shaso, perhaps you can make us wiser about this one thing is certain - when our liege is gone, Ludis man Dawet dan-Faar, since you seem to know him." and his heirs will have a perpetual claim on the throne His question settled on the master of arms as softly as of the March Kings." a silken noose. Shaso stirred. "Yes," he said heavily. And his claim will be a better one than yours, Barrick "I know him. We are . . . related." thought, which is your real objection. Still, he was This set the table muttering. "Then you should not be heartened to discover he had an ally, even one he seated in this council, sir," said Earl Rorick loudly. The cared for as little as he did Gailon Tolly. He supposed royal cousin was dressed in the very latest fashion, he should be grateful Gailon was the oldest of the the slashes in his deep purple doublet a blazing Tolly sons. He might be an ambitious prig, but he yellow. He turned to the prince regent, bright and self- looked noble as Silas when set beside his brothers, assured as a courting bird. "This is shameful. How shiftless Caradon and mad Hendon. many councils have we held, speaking, though we "Easy enough for you to say, Summerfield," growled knew it not, for the benefit not only of the marchlands Tyne Aldritch, "with all your share of the ransom but Hierosol as well?" gathered already. What of the rest of us? We would At last, Shaso seemed to pay attention. Like an old be fools not to take up Ludis' bargain." lion woken from sleep, he blinked and leaned forward. "Fools?" Barrick straightened. "We are fools if we One hand had fallen to his side, close to the hilt of his don't sell my sister?" dagger. "Stay. Are you calling me a traitor, my lord?" "Enough," said Kendrick heavily. "We will come back Rorick's return look was haughty, but the earl's to this question later. First there are more pressing cheeks had gone pale. "You never told us you were matters Can Ludis and his envoy even be trusted? this man's relative." Obviously, if we were to agree to this offering . . . and "Why should I?" Shaso stared at him for a moment, I speak only of possibilities, Barrick, so please keep then sagged back, his energy spent. "He was of no still . . . we could not allow my sister to leave our importance to any of you before he arrived here. I 157 158 myself did not know he had taken service with Ludis "A complicated story," said Hierarch Sisel. "Your until the day he arrived. Last I had heard of him, he pardon, but you ask us to take much on faith, Lord led his own free company, robbing and burning across Shaso. How is it that you heard of his doings after Krace and the south." your exile here?" "What else do you kn ow of him?" Kendrick asked, not Shaso looked at him but said nothing. particularly kindly. "He called you a name - 'Mordiya'." "See," Rorick proclaimed. "He hides something." "It means `uncle,' or sometimes `father-in-law.' He was "These are foul times," Kendrick said, "that we should mocking me." Shaso closed his eyes for a moment all be so mistrustful. But the hierarch's question is a "Dawet is the fourth son of the old king of Tuan. When fair one. How do you come to know of what happened he was young I taught him and his brothers, just as I to him after you left Tuan?" have taught the children of this family. He was in Shaso's expression became even more lifeless. "Ten many ways the best of them, but in more ways the years ago, I had a letter from my wife, the gods rest worst - swift and strong and clever, but with the heart her. It was the last she sent me before she died." of a desert jackal, looking only for what would "And she used this letter to tell you about one of what advantage himself. When I was captured by your must have been many students?" father in the battle for Hierosol, I thought that I would never see him or any of the rest of my family again." The master of arms placed his dark hands flat on his knees, then looked down at them carefully, as though "So how does this Dawet come to be serving Ludis he had never seen such unusual things as hands Drakava?" before. "The girl he ruined was my youngest daughter. "I do not know, as I said, Ke . . . Highness. I heard that Afterward, in her grief, she went to the temple and Dawet had been exiled from Tuan because of . . . became a priestess of the Great Mother. When she because of a crime he had committed." Shaso's face sickened and died two years later, my wife wrote to had gone hard and blank. "His bad ways had tell me. My wife thought it was a shattered heart that continued and worsened, and at last he despoiled a had taken Hanede - that our daughter had died from young woman of good family and even his father shame, not just fever. She also told me something of would no longer protect him. Exiled, he crossed the Dawet, full of despair that such a man sh ould live and ocean from Xand to Eion, then joined a mercenary prosper when our daughter was dead." company and rose to lead it. He did not fight for his Silence reigned for long moments in the small chapel. father or Tuan when our country was conquered by the Autarch. Nor did I, for that matter, since I had "I . . . I am grieved to hear it, Shaso," Kendrick said at already been brought here." last. "And doubly grieved that I have forced you to 159 160 think of it again." give her to him?" "I have thought of nothing else since I first heard the "Do you agree with the hierarch, Shaso?" Kendrick name of Hierosol's envoy," the old man said. Barrick looked at the master of arms keenly. He had never felt had seen Shaso do this before - go away to Briony s loyalty to the old Tuani, but he did not share somewhere deep inside himself, like the master of a Barrick's grudges either. "Is the offer to be trusted?" besieged castle. "I think it genuine, yes," Shaso said at last. "But the "Were Dawet dan -Faar not under the March King's Earl of Blueshore has reminded us of the true seal, one of the two of us would already be dead." question here." Kendrick had clearly been caught by surprise, and just "And w hat do you think?" Kendrick prodded him. as clearly had not enjoyed it. "This ... this speaks "It is not for me to say." The old man's eyes were badly of the envoy, of course. Does it also mean his hooded. "She is not my sister. The king is not my offer is not to be trusted?" father." Hierarch Sisel cleared his throat. "I, for one, think the "The final decision will be mine, of course. But I wish offer is honest, although the messenger be not. Like to hear counsel first, and you were always one of my many bandit-lords, Ludis Drakava is desperate to father's most trusted councillors." make himself a true monarch - already he has Barrick could not help but notice that Kendrick had petitioned the Trigon to recognize him as Hierosol's called Shaso his father's trusted councillor, not his king. It would be to his advantage to link himself to own. The master of arms grew even more stony at one of the existing noble houses as well. Syan and this slight, but he spoke carefully. "I think it a bad Jellon will not do it - even with the mountains idea." between, Hierosol is too close to them, and they deem "Again, one who does not suffer has an easy choice," Ludis too ambitious. Thus, I suspect, his mind has said Tyne Aldritch. "You have no ransom to raise, no turned to Southmarch." He frowned, considering. "It tithe of crops to deliver. What does it matter to you could even be he planned this all along, and is the whether the rest of us are crippled by this?" reason he took King Olin." Shaso would not answer the Earl of Blueshore, but "He wanted the ransom to begin to pinch before he Gailon Tolly did. "Can none of you see any farther offered us this other bargain?" asked a baron from than the boundaries of your own smallholdings?" he Marnnswalk, shaking his head. "Very crafty." demanded. "Do you think you alone suffer hardship? If "All this talk of why and what happened does not we do not give the princess to Ludis, as I think we change the facts," snapped Earl Tyne. "He has the should not, we all must still share the burden of the king. We do not. He wants the king's daughter. Do we 161 162 greatest hardship - the king's absence!" treason, but Barrick knew that his brother was right. Although everyone had tried to pretend otherwise, the "What did our father say?" Barrick asked suddenly. king's absence had been a kind of living death for the The whole gathering had been like a bad dream, a March Kingdoms, as unnatural as a year without confusion of voices and faces. He still could not sunshine. And now, for the first time, Barrick could believe his brother was giving the Lord Protector's suit see the strain beneath what he sometimes thought of any consideration at all. "You read his letter, Kendrick as his brother's guileless features, the immense worry - he must have said something about this." and exhaustion. Barrick could only wonder what other His brother nodded but did not meet his younger things Kendrick had been hiding from him. brother's eye. "Yes, but in few words, as though he The other nobles took up the argument. It quickly did not take it seriously. He called it a foolish offer." became apparent that Shaso and Gailon were in the Kendrick blinked, suddenly weary. "Does this help us minority, that Ty ne and Rorick and even Lord to decide, Barrick? You know that Father would never Constable Avin Brone thought that since one day allow himself to be bartered for anyone, even the Briony would be married off for political gain anyway, lowest pig farmer. He has always put his ideals above her maidenhead might as well be bartered now for all else." There was a note of bitterness, now. "And something as valuable as restoring King Olin. you know he dotes on Briony, and has since she was However, few beside Tyne were honest enough to in swaddling clothes. You've complained of it often admit that part of the plan's appeal was that it would enough, Barrick." spare them many golden dolphins as well. "But he's right! She is our sister!" Tempers frayed and the discussion became loud. At "And we Eddons are the rulers of Southmarch. Even one point, Avin Brone threatened to knock in Ivar of Father has always put those responsibilities above his Silverside's head, although both were ar guing in favor own desires. Who do you think is more important to of the same position. At last Kendrick demanded our people, our father or sister?" quiet. "The people love Briony!" "It is late and I have not made up my mind yet," the "Yes, they do. Her absence would sadden them, but it prince regent said. "I must think and then sleep on it would not make them fearful, as they have been since tonight. My brother Barrick is right in one thing, the king has been gone. A kingdom without its especially - this is my sister, and I'll do nothing lightly monarch is like a man without a heart. Better Father that will so greatly affect her. Tomorrow I will were dead, the gods preserve him and us, than simply announce my decision." gone!" He stood; the others rose and bade him good night, A shocked silence fell over the table at this near- 163 164 although ill will was still in the air. Barrick was ago, thinking back on the whole terrible day, she lay dissatisfied with many things, but he did not for a sleepless in the dark - although, judging by the moment envy his older brother, who like a cattle sounds, her ladies were not having the same problem: herder's dog had to nip at the heels of these vexatious as always, pretty little Rose was snoring like an old bulls to keep them moving together. dog Briony had managed to drowse for a short while, but a terrible dream had awoken her, in which Ludis "I want to talk to you," he told Kendrick as his brother Drakava - who in truth she had never seen; all she left the chapel. The prince regent's guards had knew about him was that he was near her father's age already formed a silent wall behind him. - had been an ancient thing of cobwebs, dust, and "Not tonight, Barrick. I know what you think I still have bones, pursuing her through a trackless gray forest. much to do before I sleep." She had not been able to sleep since. She wondered "But . but, Kendrick, she's our sister! She is terrified - I if it was dreams of that sort which robbed Barrick of went to her chambers and heard her sobbing . !" his sleep and health. "Enough!" the prince regent almost shouted. "By What hour is it? she wondered. She had not heard the Perin's hammer, can't you leave me alone? Unless temple's midnight bell yet, but surely it could not be far you have some magical solution to this problem, all I away. I must be the only one in the castle still awake. want from you tonight is silence." Despite his fury, In other times such a thought would have been more Kendrick seemed on the verge of weeping himself. He exciting than troubling, but now it was only testament waved his hand. "No more." to the terrible fate hanging over her like a headsman's Stunned, Barrick could only stand and watch his older ax. brother walk back toward his chambers. When Has Kendrick decided? Kendrick stumbled, one of the guards kindly reached He had given away nothing of his thoughts when she out a hand to steady him. had visited him in his chambers during the evening. She had wept, which made her angry with herself · now. She had also begged him not to marry her to Ludis, then had apologized for her selfishness. But he must know I want Father back as much as anyone "That's enough, Briony. I cannot tell you more - not does! yet. I still must think and talk on this entire matter You Kendrick had been distant the whole time she was in are my sister and I love you, but I must be the ruler his chamber, but had taken her hand when they here while our father is gone. Go to bed." parted and kissed her cheek, something he rarely did. Remembering Kendrick s words of only a few hours 165 166 In fact, the memory of that kiss now chilled her more Helmingsea girl harshly, trying to convince herself as than his preoccupation. She felt certain that he had well. "Go and take off the bolt." been kissing her good-bye. "No, Princess! They'll ravish us!" Pain was wearying. Perpetual fear became Briony pulled her dagger from beneath her mattress, numbness. For a little while Briony's mind wandered then wrapped the blanket around her and stumbled to and she imagined all the things, good and bad, that the door, heart fluttering as she called out to learn could happen. Somehow her father could escape and who was on the other side. The voice was not one of Ludis would have no claim on the Eddons. Or she the guards', but even more familiar as the door could find that the Lord Protector was a slandered opened, Briony's great-aunt Merolanna flapped into man, that truly he was handsome and kind. Or that he the room, her nightdress askew, her long gray hair was worse than the tales, in which case she would down on her shoulders, crying, "Gods preserve us! have no choice but to kill him in his sleep, then kill Gods preserve us!" herself. She lived so many lives in that hour, both grim "Why is everyone shouting?" Briony asked, fighting and fanciful, that at last she slipped into a true dream against growing dread. "Is it a fire?" without knowing it - a kinder one this time, the twins Merolanna stumbled to a halt, panting and peering playing at hide-and -seek with Kendrick, children short-sightedly. Her cheeks were wet with te ars. together once more - and slept through the midnight "Briony, is that you? Is it? Oh, praise the gods, I bell. But she did not sleep through the shriek that thought they had taken you all." came just a short while later. The old woman's words ran through her like icy water. Briony sat upright in bed, half certain she had "All ? What are you talking about?" imagined it. Nearby young Rose squirmed in her sleep, lost in some nightmare of her own. "Your brother - your poor brother. "The black man . . ." the girl moaned. The chill threatened to stop her heart. She cried, "Barrick?" and shoved past Merolanna. Briony heard it again - a terrified wail, growing louder Moina was awake now, too. Something banged hard There were no guards outside, but the passage was on the chamber door and Briony almost fell out of her full of disembodied sounds, wails and distant bed in fright. shouting, and as she emerged into the high-ceihnged Tribute Hall, she found it full of people drifting "The Autarch!" Moina squealed, plucking at the charm confusedly in the near-darkness, calling questions or she wore about her neck. "Come to kill us all in our babbling religious oaths, a few carrying candles or beds ..." lamps, and all in their nightclothes. The vast hall, "It is only one of the guards," Briony told the 167 168 strange even in bright daylight with its weird statues from the door of Kendrick's chambers. She suddenly and other objects brought back from foreign lands, like realized her misunderstanding. the stuffed head of the great-toothed ohphant that "Merciful Zoria," she whispered. hung above the fireplace and was as ugly as any Now she could see in the light of the torches that demon in the Book of the Trigon, now also seemed Barrick s face was not empty, but slack with horror, filled with pale ghosts Steffans Nynor, wearing a his lips trembling. He took her hand and pulled her ridiculous sleeping cap and with his beard tied up in a through the crowd, which shrank back from them as strange little bag, stood in the center of the room though the twins might carry some plague. Several of shouting orders, but no one was listening to him. The the women were weeping, faces grotesque as festival scene was all the more dreamlike because no one masks. stopped Briony or even spoke to her as she ran past The guards kneeling around the body glanced up at them. Everyone seemed to be going in the wrong the twins' approach but for a moment did not seem to direction. recognize them Then FerrasVansen, the captain of She reached the hall outside Barrick's chamber but the royal guard, stood, his face full of dreadful pity, found it deserted, her brother's door closed. She had and yanked one of the crouching soldiers out of the only a moment to wonder at this before something way. The prince regent's room was full of terrible grabbed her arm. She let out a small, choked shriek, smells, slaughterhouse smells. They had turned but when she saw whose wide-eyed face was beside Kendrick onto his back His face gleamed red in the her she grabbed at him and pulled him close. "Oh, oh, torchlight. I thought you Merolanna said . . ." There was so much blood that for a fleeting instant Barrick's red hair was disheveled from bed, wild as a she could tell herself it was someone else, that this gale -blown haystack. "I saw you go past." He seemed horror had been visited on some stranger, but like one dragged from sleep yet still dreaming, his Barrick's groan destroyed the flimsy hope. eyes wide but curiously empty. "Come. No, perhaps Her dagger fell from her hand and clinked onto the you shouldn't. flags Her knees sagged and she half fell, then crawled "What? Her relief vanished as swiftly as it came. toward her older brother like a blind animal, tangling "Barrick, what in the name of all the gods is going herself for a moment with one of the guards as he on?" mumbled a prayer. Kendrick's face twitched. One He led her around the corner into the main hall of the blood-slicked hand opened and closed. residence. The corridor was full, and guards armed "He's alive!" Briony screamed. "Where is Chaven? with halberds were pushing servants and others back Has someone sent for him?" She tried to lift Kendrick, 169 170 but he was too wet, too heavy. Barrick pulled her back down, so full of fury she could barely think. and she struck at her twin. "Let me go! He's alive!" "How did this happen?" she shrieked, her thoughts as "He can't be." Barrick, too, was in some other world, red and slippery as her hands. "Where were you? his voice confused and distant. "Just look at him." Where were his guards?You are all traitors, murderers!" Kendrick's mouth worked again and Briony almost climbed on top of him, so desperate was she to hear For a moment Vansen held her at arm's length, then him speak, to know that he was still her brother, that his face convulsed with grief and he released his grip. life was in him. She searched for his wounds so she Briony scrambled to her feet, struck hard at his could stop them up, but the whole front of him was shoulders and face. Ferras Vansen did nothing more soaking wet, his shirt in tatters and the skin beneath it to defend himself than lower his head until Barrick just as ragged. pulled her off. "Don't," she said in his ear. "Hold on to me!" Her "Look!" her brother said, pointing. "Look there, Briony!" brother's eyes rolled; he was trying to find her. His Her eyes blurred with tears, she did not at first mouth opened. understand what she was seeing - two stained lumps ". . . Isss . . ." A sibilant whisper that only Briony could of shadow on the floor beside the prince regent's bed hear. Then she saw the Eddon wolf on the slashed tunic of one of the figures and the pool of blood a shiny "Don't leave us, oh, dear dear Kendrick, don't." She blackness beneath them both, and understood that kissed his bloody cheek. He let out a whimper of pain, Kendrick's guards, too, were dead. then curled as slowly as a leaf on hot coals until he was lying on his side, bent double. He kicked, whimpered again, then the life was out of him. Barrick still pulled at her, but he was weeping, too - Everyone is crying, Briony thought, the whole world is crying. Dimly, as though it were happening in another country, she could hear people shouting down the corridor. "The prince is dead! The prince has been murdered!" Guard Captain Vansen was trying to lift her away from Kendrick. She turned and slapped at him, then grabbed at the man's heavy tunic and tried to pull him 171 172 Xis, every moment of this day would still be alive inside her a day that had begun like many others, with her friend Duny poking her out of bed in the darkness 7 before sunrise. Duny had been so aflutter with excitement that Sisters of the Hive morning she could barely keep her voice in a proper whisper. "Oh, get up, Qin-ya, get up! It's today! He's coming! To the Hive!" DAYS: The events of that day would lift Qinnitan up to heavenly heights, to honors not just undreamed -of, Each light between sunrise but so impossible as to be ludicrous even to imagine Still, if she had known all of what was to come, she And sunset Is worth dying for at least once would have done anything to escape, as a jackal in a - from The Bonefall Oracles trap will gnaw through its own leg in its desperation for freedom. The smoky scent of the jasmine candles and the perpetual sleepy buzz of the Hive temple, the half- They hurried down the corridor, two lines of girls with frightened, half-exalted breathing of the other girls, all hair still damp from the water they had splashed on the sounds and odors that surrounded her at the their faces and heads in the ritual cleansing, their moment the world changed beyond all recognition robes sticking to their bodies, making a lively chill that would never again completely leave her mind. But would not last long in the rising heat of the day how could it be otherwise? It would have been Qmnitan's own black hair hung in lank, loose ringlets, overwhelming enough just to meet the Living God on the odd reddish streak hardly visible when it was wet. Earth, the Autarch Sulepis Bishakh am-Xis III, Elect of When she was a baby, the old women of Cat's Eye Nushash, the Golden One, Master of the Great Tent Street had called it a witch streak and made the pass- and the Falcon Throne, Lord of All Places and evil sign, but no sign of witchery or anything out of the Happenings, a thousand, thousand praises to His ordinary at all had followed. Some of the other name, but what happened to Qinnitan at this moment children had called her "Striped Cat," but other than was beyond belief- - and always would be. that, by the time she was old enough to range the Even a year later, when she would have to abandon a streets and alleys in the neighborhood of her parents' life of splendid leisure in the Palace of Seclusion and house, no one paid any more attention to it than they run in terror of death through the dark streets of Great 173 174 did to a mole on the nose or crossed eyes. one of the more obscure corners of Nushash's sprawling, ancient fire temple. "But why is He coming here?" Qinnitan asked, still not quite awake. "Do you think He'll be handsome?" Duny asked in a strangled whisper, clearly shocked and thrilled by her "To find out what the bees think," Duny said. own daring Sulepis had spent most of his first months "Of course." on the throne chastising some of the outer provinces "Think about what?" The priestesses and the Hive who had thought, falsely and to their subsequent Mistress often spoke about autarchs coming to seek regret, that the new, young autarch might prove timid. the wisdom of the sacred bees, tiny oracles of the all- Thus, he had not found time for the sort of powerful fire god Nushash, but the names they cited processions or public events that made the common were of the impossibly distant past - Xarpedon, people feel as though they knew their ruler Qinnitan Lepthis, rulers whom Qinnitan had only ever heard could only shrug and shake her head. She couldn't mentioned during the boasting of the Great Hive's think of the autarch in that way and it hurt her head caretakers. But now the real, living autarch, the god- even to try. It was like a worm trying to decide whether on-earth himself, was coming to consult with the fire a mountain was the right color. She wasn't angry, god's bees. It was hard to believe. Her father had though she knew her friend was frightened, and who been a priest in the temple of Nushash all his life but wouldn't be? They were going to meet the living god, had never been favored with a visit from an actual a being as far above them as the stars, someone who autarch. Qinnitan had been a sworn acolyte priestess could snuff all their lives more easily than Qinnitan for scarcely more than a year. It almost didn't seem could kill a fly. fair. For a brief moment - it was always too brief- - the This autarch, Sulepis, was a fairly young god-on-earth acolytes passed out of the narrow passageway into still. He had only been on the Falcon Throne for a the high -windowed gallery that crossed from the living short time - Qinnitan could remember his father, the quarters to the temple complex Twelve to fifteen steps old autarch Parnad, dying (followed more violently by at most, depending on how quickly the leading girl several of his other sons, who had been the current was marching, but it was the only chance Qinnitan autarch's rivals) when she had first gone to serve the had to see below her the magnificent city of Great Xis, bees, the funereal hush that had lain so deeply on the a city in which she had once, if not exactly run free, at Hive temple that she had been surprised later to least lived at street level, among people that spoke in discover things were not always that way. Perhaps t eh normal tones of voice In the Hive scarcely anyone autarch's youthtulness explained why he was doing ever spoke above a whisper - although sometimes the astounding things like visiting a smoke-filled apiary in whispers could be as intrusive as shouts. 175 176 "Do you think He'll speak? What do you think He'll Hive, although she herself had prayed - blasphemy, sound like?" but there it was - that it would not happen. "Far richer families than ours would shed blood for such an "Quiet, Duny!" honor. You will be serving in the autarch's own Qinnitan had just a few moments each day to savor temple!" the world outside the temple, even if she only saw it at The temple, of course, had proved to be a sprawl of a distance, and she missed it very much. As always, connected buildings that seemed only slightly smaller she opened her eyes wide as they crossed the than Great Xis itself, and Qinnitan one of so many windowed gallery, trying to drink in every bit sh e could hundreds of Hive Sister acolytes that it was doubtful absorb, the blue sky bleached mostly gray with the even the priestess in charge of her living quarters smoke of a million fires, the pearl-white rooftops knew more than a few of their names. stretching far beyond sight like an endless beach covered with squared stones, interrupted here and "I don't know what I'll do if He looks at me. If I faint, there where the towers of the greatest families thrust will He have me put to death?" up into the air. The towers' colorful stripes and gold "Please, Duny. No, I'm sure people faint all the time. ornaments made them look like the sleeves of He's a god, after all." splendid garments, as though each tower were a "You say that so strangely, Qin. Are you feeling ill?" man's fist raised toward the heavens. But of course Her momentary glimpse of freedom ended: the mighty the rich men of the tower families had no complaints city disappeared as they stepped out of the gallery against the heavens instead of clenched in a fist, their and into the next corridor. One of Qinnitan's aunts had tower-hands should be spread wide, in case the gods told her that Xis was so big that a bird could live its should decide to throw down even more good fortune entire life while flying from one side of the city to the on people already choked with it. other, perching along the way to sleep, eat, and Qinnitan often wondered what would have happened perhaps even start a family. Qinnitan was not certain if her own family had been one of the ruling elite that was true - her father had poured scorn on the instead of only a middling merchant family, her father notion - but it was certainly true that there was a world a landholder instead of a mere functionary in the outside so much bigger than her own constrained administration of one of Nushash's larger temples. circumstances, so much more vast than her march She supposed it could have been worse - he could from living quarters to temple each morning and back have bee n a lackey of one of the other gods, fast again each evening, that she ached to be a bird, losing power to the great fire god. "We are so lucky to flaunting herself above a city that never ended. have this for you," her parents had told her when she Even fretful, chattering Duny at last fell silent as they had been admitted as an acolyte of the Sisters of the 177 178 passed into the great hypostyle hall, awed as they all were, every day, by the size of the stone pillars It is from You, O Great One, that all things good arise, shaped like cedars that stretched up a dozen times Mighty Nushash, the girls' height or more before disappearing into the O bright -eyed, the foundation of heaven's hearth. inky shadows beneath the ceiling. When she had first come to the temple, Qinnitan had thought it strange We ourselves arise from You and, like smoke, we live that Nushash should live in such a dark place, but in the air for a short time. after a while she had come to see how right it was. only, proceeding from Yo ur warmth, Fire was never brighter than when it bloomed out of But we survive forever in the depth of the flame which blackness, never more important than when it was the isYour immortal heart . . . only light in a sunless place. At the end of the great hall the eyes of Nushash were Beyond the massive and ornately decorated archway opening even now as the temple's oldest priest lit the lay the maze and inner sanctuary of Nushash himself, great lanterns, moving more slowly than it seemed chief god of the world, the lord of fire whose wagon any human being could manage and yet still be alive, was the sun - a wagon bigger even than the autarch's extending his long lighting-pole with the creeping pace earthly palace, Qinnitan's father had bragged, its of an insect that thinks it might be observed by a wheels higher than the tallest tower. (Her father hungry bird. This priest was one of the only men Cheshret was nothing if not proud of his employer.) Qinnitan and her fellow acolytes saw during the Mighty Nushash crossed the sky each day in this conduct of their daily duties. Despite the fact that he great cart and then, despite all the snares that Argal was Favored, and thus a reason far more compelling the Dark One laid for him, despite the monsters that than mere age ensured he was no threat to a large thronged his path, continued on through the night congregation of virgins, Qinnitan thought the Hive beyond the dark mountains, so he could bring the light Sisters must have picked him because he was old of fire back to the sky each morning, thus allowing the enough to be doubly safe. They certainly had not earth and all who dwelled in it to live. picked him for his skill and dispatch. He must have already been at his maddeningly slow work for hours Somewhere beyond that archway glowered the great this morning, she decided more than half the lanterns golden statue of Nushash himself, as well as all the had been kindled. Their flicker exposed the looping endless corridors and chambers of his great temple, lines of the sacred writing on the wall behind them, the the chapels and the priests' living quarters and the gold characters of the Hymn to the Fire God glinting storage rooms so filled with offerings that a vast part red with reflected flame. of his army of priests had no other task except to 179 180 receive and catalog them. Beyond that archway lay thanks as you work. You will praise Nushash and our the seat of the fire god's power on earth, and it formed great autarch for this honor. You will consider the - along with the autarch's palace - the axis of the monumental importance to all our lives of this visit. entire spinning world. But of course, girls like Qinnitan And most importantly, as you work, you will reflect on were not allowed into that part of the temple, nor were the sacred bees and their own ceaseless, any other women, not even the autarch's paramount uncomplaining toil." wife or his venerated mother. The procession of acolyte priestesses turned left "They are so beautiful," said the chief acolyte. down the smaller hallway, hurrying on softly pattering Qinnitan paused for a moment in her work to look at feet toward the Temple of the Hive of the Fire God's the great hives behind their clouds of smoky silk Sacred Bees, to give it its full name. If the youngest netting, vast cylinders of fired clay decorated with Hive Sisters had not been waiting weeks for this day, bands of copper and gold and warmed in winter by it was at this moment that they would have first pots of boiling water set beneath the bulky ceremonial realized today was not to be like the others the high stands - one of the least enjoyable of the acolytes'jobs priestess herself was waiting for them, along with her Qinnitan had more than a few burns on her hands and chief acolyte. Although she was not as venerated as wrists where a spill had scalded her. The fire god's the Oracle Mudry, High Priestess Rugan was the bees lived in houses far more splendid than any but mistress of the Hive temple and thus one of the most the most exalted and fortunate of men. As if they powerful women in Xis. That being the case, she was knew it, the bees were singing quietly, contentedly, a a remarkably ordinary and even kindly woman, hum deep enough to make ears tickle and hair lift on although she did not suffer foolish behavior well. the back of the neck. "Yes, Mistress Chryssa," said High Priestess Rugan clapped her hands and the girls Qinnitan, meaning it. It was perhaps the thing she all fell silent, gathered in a semicircle ar ound her. "You liked best about the Hive temple - the hives all know what day this is," she said in her deep voice, themselves, the bees, busy and serene. "They truly "and who is coming." She touched her own are." ceremonial robe and hood, as if to be sure she had "It is a wonderful day for us." The chief acolyte was remembered to put them on. "I do not need to tell you herself still a young woman, pretty in a thin-faced way the temple must be spotless." when one learned to look past the scar that ran from Qinnitan suppressed a groan. They had been cleaning her eye to her cheek. The scar made her the subject all week - how could it get any cleaner? of much giggling speculation in the acolytes' quarters. Rugan s face was appropriately stern. "You will give Qinnitan had never summoned the nerve to ask her 181 182 how she had received it. "An entirely wonderful day. of sudden fear and excitement that made both the But for some reason, child, you do not seem entirely chief acolyte and her young charges straighten and happy." turn to the door where the High Priestess had suddenly appeared, her arms held up, her hands open Qinnitan took a breath, suddenly shocked and in the air like flowers. frightened that her strange mood should show on her face. "Oh, no, Mistress I am the luckiest girl in the "Praises to the highest," breathed Chryssa, "He is world to be here, to be a Hive Sister." here!" The chief acolyte didn't look like she entirely believed Qinnitan got down on her knees beside the chief her, but she nodded approvingly. "It's true, there are acolyte. A murmur of footsteps became louder, probably more girls who would happily take your place swishing and booming on the polished stone floors, as here than there are grains of sand on the beach, and soldiers began to file in, each with a great curved you have had the even greater good fortune of having sword on his belt and bearing on his shoulder a long, caught the eye of Eminence Rugan herself. Otherwise bell-mouthed tube of brightly polished figured steel - a girl of your . . . otherwise you might not have been the Autarch's Leopards, they had to be, no one e lse selected out of so many other worthy candidates." was allowed to wear that black-and-gold armor. It was Chryssa reached out and patted Qinnitan on the arm. astonishing she had never thought to see any men "It was your clever tongue, you know, although you here in the Hive's great portico, let alone a hundred of still need to learn when not to use it. I think Her them with muskets. This rarity was followed by several Eminence has hopes you might be a chief acolyte dozen robed priests of Nushash, then an even larger yourself one day, which would be an even greater troop of soldiers, these carrying more conventional but honor." She nodded a little, acknowledging her own still frightening weapons, long spears and swords. At hard work and good fortune. "Still, it is a high, lonely last the shuffling of feet stopped. Qinnitan sneaked a calling, and sometimes it can be difficult to leave look over at Mistress Chryssa, whose face was behind your family and friends. I know it was for me, radiant with excitement and something even stronger - when I was young." a sort of joy. Before Qinnitan could seize this chance to ask the A vast litter appeared in the doorway, a thing of gold- revered and mysterious Mistress Chryssa some painted wood and heavy curtains embroidered with questions about her childhood before the temple, the the wide-winged falcon of the royal family. The brawny nets in front of the hives billowed a little in a sudden soldiers who held it set the litter down just to the side draft, although the weight of hundreds of bees clinging of the doorway and one of them leaped forward to pull to them kept them from moving too much. The breeze back the curtains. Although none of the women in the carried something through the great room, a whisper temple chamber said a word, Qinni-tan thought she 183 184 could feel them, dozens of them, all drawing breath at youth - smooth brown flesh stretched tight across the the same time. A face appeared from the shadows in skull. He wore a small trimmed black beard and his the depths of the litter, picked out by the lanterns. eyes seemed unnaturally large and bright as he stared around the room. A few of the Nushash priests Qinnitan swallowed, although for a moment it seemed stepped forward and began chanting and swinging impossible to do so. The autarch was a monster. their censers, filling the air around the tall young man No, not quite a monster she saw at her second with smoke. glance, but the youth in the litter was bent and gnarled "Who is that?" Qinnitan whispered under cover of the as though by extreme age and his head was far too priests' noise. large for his spindly body. He blinked and looked absently from side to side like a sleepy man realizing Chryssa was clearly shocked that she should dare to he has opened the wrong door, then withdrew into the whisper, even when it was more or less safe to do so darkness of his curtained bower once more. under the cover of the priests' voices. "The autarch, you fool girl!" Even as Qinnitan gaped, the Leopard guards all lifted their guns off their shoulders, held them high, then It certainly made more sense that the tall one was slammed their feet against the floor with a deafening their ruler - he had an undeniable power to him. "But report - boom, boom! For a moment she thought the then who is that . . . who is the man in the litter?" guns had all gone off, and some of the Hive Sisters let "The scotarch, of course - his heir. Now be silent." out shrieks of fear and dismay. As the echoes died, a Qinnitan felt stupid. Her father had once told her that half dozen more men in black-and-gold armor the scotarch, the autarch's ceremonial heir, was appeared in the doorway and then a figure almost as sickly, but she had entirely forgotten, and had strange as the one in the litter followed them into the certainly never guessed him to be so obviously temple room. afflicted. Still, considering that the autarch's own life He was tall, half a head above the biggest of the and rule hinged on the health and continued well- Leopards, but not as freakishly so as he first appeared being of the scotarch, by ancient Xixian tradition, it was the length of his neck and the narrowness of his Qinnitan couldn't help wondering at the autarch's face that made him seem so unusual, and the spidery choice of such a frail reed. stretch of his fingers as he raised his hand. Beneath It didn't matter, she reminded herself. These folk were the high, dome-shaped crown his face, too, seemed as much above her - all the doings of the high house like an ordinary face that had been pulled a bit beyond were as far above her - as the stars in the sky. its appropriate shape - a long jaw and a curved, bony "Where is the mistress of this temple?" The autarch's nose like a hawk's beak that matched oddly with his voice was high -pitched but strong; it rang in the great 185 186 room like a silvery bell. arms. The curtain of the scotarch's litter twitched as though the sick young man was peering out. "Yes, he Eminence Rugan came forward, head bowed, her did," the autarch said. "And I am. Come, Panhyssir, usual brisk walk transformed almost into the slinking where are you?" of a frightened beast. That, more than the soldiers or priests or anything else, made Qinnitan understand A bulky shape in dark robes with a long, narrow beard that she was in the presence of matchless, terrifying like a gray waterfall trundled out from behind the power: Rugan bowed to no one else that Qinnitan had Leopard guards - Panhyssir, the high priest of ever seen. "Your glory reflects on us all, O Master of Nushash, Qinnitan guessed, and thus another of the the Great Tent," Rugan said, voice quavering a little. most powerful people in the entire continent of Xand. "The Hive welcomes you and the bees are gladsome He looked as fat and unconcerned with trivial human in your presence. Mother Mudry is coming to offer you things as one of the drones in the sacred hives. "Yes, any wisdom the Sacred Bees of Nushash can grant. Golden One?" She begs your generous indulgence, Golden One. "You said that this was the place I would find the bride She is too old to wait here in the drafty outer temple I sought." without great discomfort." Panhyssir didn't look anywhere near as worried as the The look that crossed the autarch's corvine features Hive priestesses; he had already overseen the was almost a smirk. "She does me too much honor, collection of hundreds of brides for the autarch, so does old Mudry. You see, I haven't come to consult perhaps this seemed a bit routine. "She is definitely the oracle. I want nothing from the bees." here, Golden One. We know that." Even cowed by the presence of a hundred armed "Ah, is she, now? Then I will find her myself." The soldiers, many Sisters of the Hive couldn't restrain a autarch took a few steps, his eyes sweeping along the gasp of surprise - some of the noises even sounded rows of kneeling, terrified Hive Sisters. Qinnitan had suspiciously like disapproval. Come to the temple and no better an idea of what was going on than any of not consult the sacred bees? her comrades, but she saw the autarch and his "I'm . . . I'm afraid I don't understand, O Golden One." Leopards moving across the temple toward them and Clearly confused, Eminence Rugan took a step back, so she turned her face toward the floor and tried to then sank to one knee. "The high priest's messenger stay as still as the paving stones. said you wished to come to the Hive because you "This is the one," said the autarch from somewhere were searching for something . . ." nearby. The autarch actually laughed. It had a strange edge to "Yes, that is the bride, Golden One," said Panhyssir. it, something that made Qinnitan's flesh prickle on her "The Master of the Great Tent cannot be fooled." 187 188 "Good. She will be brought to me this evening, along with her parents." 8 It was only when the guards' rough hands closed on her arms and lifted her to her feet that Qinnitan realized that this astounding, unbelievable thing had The Hiding Place happened to no one but her. MEADOW AND SKY: Dew rises, rainfalls Between them is mist Between them lies all that is - from The Bonefall Oracles It had been the longest hour of his life. The young woman he admired beyond any other, without a hope of his affection ever being returned, had just spat on him and blamed him for her brother's murder, and he was not at all certain she was wrong. Bleeding runnels showed where she had gouged his cheeks with her nails; the wounds burned, stinging with tears and sweat, both his own. But worst of all, his failure, the failure of every man sworn to protect the royal family, pressed on him like the walls of a lead coffin. King Olin had been gone for months, held prisoner in a far country. Now his son and heir was dead, butchered in his own bedchamber in the middle of Southmarch Castle. If the world was indeed ending, thought Ferras Vansen, captain of the royal guard, then he hoped the 189 190 end would come quickly. At least it would mean an could even think of trying to move the princess from end to this most horrible of nights. her dead brother's side. "There are things to do, my lady," he rumbled. "It is not meet that he should lie Hierarch Sisel, shocked wide-eyed and murmuring to here untended. Come away and let the physician and himself, had hurried from his guest chambers in the the death-maids do their work." Tower of Summer, and was now struggling to remember the words to the death rite - he had not "I'm not leaving him." She would not even glance at been an ordinary priest for a long time - as he leaned Brone. over Prince Kendrick's bloodied corpse. The dead "Talk sense to her," the lord constable growled at her prince had been lifted onto the bed and unfolded from pale twin brother. Barrick looked half his years, a his death spasm; he lay now with eyes closed and frightened child, his hair still tousled from bed. "Help arms at his sides in a semblance of peaceful rest. A me, Highness," Brone asked him more gently. "We will cloth stitched with gold had been draped over his never find what happened here, never discover the wounded body so that only the naked shoulders and cruel hand that did this if we cannot . . . if we must face were showing, but scarlet flowers of blood were work with a mourning family watching us." already beginning to bloom through the covering. "The dark man . . . !" Briony lifted her head, a sudden Chaven the physician, as pale -faced and disturbed as feverish light in her eyes. "My maid woke dreaming of Vansen had ever seen him, waited to examine the a dark man. Where is that villain Dawet? Did he do murdered prince before the royal body was taken by this? Did he kill . . . my . . . my . . . ?" Her mouth the Maids of Kernios to be prepared for the funeral. curled, lost shape, then she was weeping again, a Wordless as survivors of a terrible battle, the twins raw, heartbreaking sound. She pressed her head had not left their dead brother's side. Blood had dried against Kendrick's side. on their nightclothes - Briony in particular was so red- "My lady, you must come," Brone told her, tugging his painted that a newcomer would be forgiven in beard in anxious frustration. "You will have a chance mistaking her for the prince's killer. She kneeled for a proper farewell to the prince, I promise you." weeping on the floor by the bed, her head resting on "He's not a prince - he's my brother!" Kendrick's arm. The prince must be uncomfortable, Vansen thought absently, then remembered as if in a "He was both, Highness." dream that the prince was now beyond all bodily "It's time to get up, Briony," Barrick said weakly, as if discomfort. telling a he he did not think anyone would believe. Lord Constable Avin Brone, huge and deep -voiced Avin Brone looked to the guard captain for help and as much a part of the Eddon family as anyone not Vansen moved forward, hating what his duty made of the blood could be, was perhaps the only one who 191 192 him do Brone already had one of the girl's arms in his .?" broad hands Vansen took the other, but Briony "We will go to the chapel." Briony Eddon's face was a resisted, glaring at him with such complete hatred that mask now, hard and pale as fired white clay. "We will he let her pull away. pray for Kendrick there. We will light candles. And if "Princess!" Brone hissed. "Your older brother is dead the lord constable and this supposed captain of the and you cannot change that. Look around you. Look guard manage to find the one who killed our brother there." under their very noses, we will be composed to pass fitting sentence on him." "Leave me alone." Taking her brother's arm, she stepped around Ferras "No, gods curse this night, look out the door!" Vansen without a look, as though he were a cow or Outside the prince regent's chamber dozens of pale sheep, something too stupid to clear the way of its faces hovered silently in the corridors, phantoms of own volition. As she passed, he could see that her lantern light, the castle's residents were crowded eyes were brimming over again but that she held her there, watching in disbelief and horror. head straight. The servants and others in the hall "You and your brother are the heads of the Eddon shrank back against the walls to let them pass Some family now," Brone told her in a harsh whisper. "The called out fearful questions, but Briony and her brother people need to see you be strong. Your grief should walked through them as though they were no more wait until you are private. Can you not stand and be than trees, their voices only the rush of the wind. strong for your people?" "Eminence, will you go with them?" Avin Brone asked At first she seemed more likely to spit at him than Hierarch Sisel when the twins had passed from speak, but after a long moment Briony shook her earshot. "We need them out of the way so we may do head, then wiped her cheeks and eyes with the back our work, but my heart sinks for them and for the of her hand. kingdom. Will you go and lead them in prayers, help them to find strength?" "You are right, Lord Constable," she said. "But I will not forgive you for it." Sisel nodded and followed the prince and princess. Vansen could not help being impressed at the way his "I am not in my post to be either loved or forgiven, master had dispatched the hierarch - a man of the Mistress Come, you are in mourning, but you are still a princess. Let us all get on with what we have to do gods who answered only to the Trigonarch himself in distant Syan - as though he were a lowly groom. here." He offered her his wide arm. When they were all gone, Brone scowled and spat. "No, thank you," she said. "Barrick?" Such disrespect in the prince's death chamber Her twin took an unsteady step toward her. "Are we . . 193 194 shocked Vansen, but the lord constable seemed in death as well. "There would have been two more caught up with other things. "At least the Raven's here, but I thought I would rather keep an eye on the Gate is closed for the night," he growled. "But, end of the keep where the foreigners are lodged." He tomorrow, word of this will move from house to house swallowed an abrupt surge of bile. "There should have through the city like a fire, and will be carried to all the been two more to guard the prince . . ." lands around, whether we like it or not. We cannot "And have you spoken to those guards yet? By the shut out questions or seal in the truth. The young gods, man, what if they are all dead and the prince and princess will need to show themselves foreigners are now ranging the keep with bloody soon or we will have great fear in the people." swords?" There is a hole in the kingdom now, Ferras Vansen "I have long since sent a messenger and had one realized. A terrible hole. This might be the time when back One of my best men leads them - Dyer, you a strong man could step in and fill it. What if Avin know him - and he swears the Hierosoline envoy and Brone thought of himself as that sort of man? his company have not left their rooms." He certainly looked the type. The lord constable was "Ah." Brone nudged one of the guards' bodies with his as tall as Vansen, who was not a small fellow, but boot toe. "Slashed. A bit fine for swordplay, looks like. Brone was almost twice as wide, with a huge bushy But how could a troop of men attack and murder the beard and shoulders as broad as his substantial belly. prince without anyone knowing? And how could In his black cloak - which Ferras suspected he had something smaller than a troop do such grim work?" simply thrown over his night things, then stuffed his "I do not know how it could be a troop and go feet into boots - the older man looked like a rock on unnoticed, my lord. The corridors were not empty." which a ship might founder . . . or on which a great Ferras stared at Gwatkin's wide-eyed face, the jaw house might be built. And there were others in the hanging open as though death had been more a kingdom who might also think themselves a good size surprise than anything else. "But the servants did hear to wear a crown. something earlier in the evening - arguing, some As the physician Chaven busied himself with the shouting, but muffled. Th ey could make out no words prince's body, Avin Brone moved to stand over the and did not recognize the voices, but all agreed it did two slain guardsmen. "This one is Gwatkin, yes? I do not sound like men fighting for their lives." not recognize the other." "Where are the prince's bodyservants? Where are his "Caddick - a new fellow." Ferras frowned Just days pages?" earlier the men had been mocking Caddick Longlegs "Sent away." Ferras could not help but smart a little for never having kissed a girl. Now the youth was new under Brone s questioning. Did the lord constable 195 196 think that because Guard Captain Vansen's father a sword either." Startled by his own words, Brone was a farmer, the son had no wit? That he hadn't made a pass-evil. "Was not. Did he have a chance to thought to see to these things himself? "The prince arm himself?" himself sent them away. They thought it was because "We have seen no sign of any weapon yet except the he wanted to be alone, either to think or perhaps to guards.' " He thought for a moment. "Perhaps discuss his sister's fate privately with someone." somehow the prince was attacked first. Perhaps he "Someone?" sent these guards out on some errand as he did his other servants, and they returned to find the murderer "They do not know, Lord. He was alone when he sent had already struck." them away. They ended by sleeping in the kitchen with the potboys. It was one of the pages, returning for Brone turned to Chaven, who had removed the golden a religious trinket of some sort, who found the dying cloth and was probing at the body. The prince regent prince and raised the alarm." already looked like a tomb-statue, Ferras thought, cold and white as marble. "Can you guess what killed "I will speak to that one, then." Brone carefully lowered him?" the lord constable asked. his heavy frame into a squat beside the murdered guardsmen. He pulled at the nearest man's jerkin. "He The royal physician looked up, his round face is wearing armor." troubled. "Oh, yes. No, better to say, I can show you why he died. Come look." "Most of the blood on him comes from a slashed throat. That is what killed him." Ferras and the lord constable moved to the bedside. Now it was Ferras who helplessly made the pass-evil - "The other, too?" a fist around his thumb to keep Kernios the death god "His throat was slashed and bleeding, but that wasn't from noticing him. He had seen many score of violent what did for him, my lord. Look at his face." deaths since his childhood, but he had not made the Brone squinted at the second body. "What happened gesture for as long as he could remember. to his eye?" The prince's bloodless pallor and yellow hair made "Something sharp went through it, my lord. And deep him appear disquietingly like his younger sister - into his skull, too, from what I can see." Ferras suddenly felt troubled to be looking on his helpless nakedness, although he had often seen Avin Brone whistled in surprise and levered himself upright like a bear stumbling out of its cave in spring. Kendrick bathing in the river after a long, dusty hunt. The corpse's arms were covered with shallow slashes "If we cannot find a troop of assassins, then have we now cleaned of blood - wounds of defense. The blood but one killer? Our murderer must be a fine fighter, to kill two armored men. And Kendrick is not clumsy with had been wiped from his chest and stomach as well, 197 198 but there was no way to prettify these larger wounds, progress. At the end of the corridor the twins turned half a dozen straight gashes livid along their edges toward the Erivor Chapel, but then at the next turmng and deeply, upsettingly red in their depths. Briony walked swiftly in the wrong direction. "Not a sword," said the lord constable after a moment. "No, this way," Barrick said dully. His poor sister, lost He was breathing a little harshly, as if the sight in her own house. disturbed him more than he let show. "A knife?" She shook her head and continued down the corridor, "Perhaps." Chaven frowned. "Perhaps a curved one - then turned again. see how the cuts are wider on one end . . . ?" "Where are we going?" "A curved knife?" Brone's bushy eyebrows slid up. He "Not to the chapel." Her voice sounded strangely light, looked to Ferras, who felt his heart speed with as though nothing unusual had happened, but when surprise and fear. she turned toward him a blasted emptiness was in her "I know who has a knife like that," he said. eyes, a look so unfamiliar that it terrified him. "They'll only find us there." "We all do," said the lord constable. "What? What do you mean?" His sister took his arm and pulled him down another · corridor. Only when they reached the old pantry door did he understand. "We haven't been here for ... for Barrick's head felt hollow. The rustle of the blanket years." Briony wore wrapped around her nightdress, the slap She pulled a stub of candle from the shelf just inside, of his own feet, the murmur of the people in the then turned back to light it from one of the wall corridor, all rolled around his skull like the roar of the sconces. When they pulled the door closed behind ocean in a seashell. He was finding it difficult to them the light on the shelves cast all the familiar believe that what had just happened was real. shadows that Barrick had once known as well as the "Prince Barrick," someone called - one of the pages, shape of his own knuckles. "Is he really dead, Is our lord Kendrick really dead?" "Why didn't we go to the temple?" he asked. He was Barrick did not dare speak. Only holding his teeth half afraid to hear the answer. He had never seen his clenched together kept him from bursting into tears or sister quite like this. worse. "Because they'll find us. Gailon, the hierarch, all that Briony waved the onlookers back and they turned to lot. And then they'll make us do things." Her face was beseech Hierarch Sisel f or news instead, slowing his pale but intent. "Don't you understand?" 199 200 "Understand what? Kendrick Briony, they killed when he couldn't find us. And it worked so many Kendrick! Someone killed Kendrick." He wagged his times!" head, trying to make sense. "But who?" "Even after Aunt Merolanna told him, he'd always His sister's eyes were bright with tears. "It doesn't forget." She looked up with a crooked smile. "Up and matter! I mean, it does, but don't you see? Don't you down the halls. `Bar rick! Briony! I'll tell Father!' He see what's going to happen? They're going to make would get so angry!" you prince regent, and they're going to send me to For a long moment they fell silent, listening for a Hierosol to marry. Ludis Drakava. They'll be even phantom echo. more certain to do it now. They'll be terrified - they'll "What are we going to do, then? I don't want to be the do anything to get Father back." cursed prince regent." Barrick considered. "We can "They're not the only ones." Barrick could not keep up run away If we're gone, they can't make me the prince with Briony, who was thinking so quickly it seemed regent and they can't give you to Ludis." she had dived into a rushing river and left him on the "But who will rule Southmarch?" Briony asked. bank, stuck in mud. Barrick couldn't think at all. It "Let Avin Brone do it. Or that prig Gailon. The gods seemed the nightmares that plagued his sleep had know he wants to." stormed and conquered his waking life as well. Someone had to make things right again. He was "All the more reason he shouldn't. Sister Utta says astonished to hear himself say it, but at this moment it that people who want power are the first who should was true: "I want Father back, too. I want him back." be mistrusted with it." Briony started to say something, but her lip was "But they're the only ones who want it." He crouched quivering. She sat down on the dusty floor of the beside her. "I pantry and wrapped her arms around her knees. don't want to be prince regent. Besides, why shouldn't "Poor . . . K-Kendrick!" She fought back the tears. "He it be you, anyway? was so cold, Barrick. Even before he . . . before the You're older." end. He was shivering." She made a snuffling noise, Even in the very pit of misery, his sister could not help pressed her face against her arms. smiling. "You are such a wretched monster, Barrick. Barrick looked up at the pantry ceiling, which That's the first time you have ever admitted that. And undulated like water in the flickering candlelight. He it was only a matter of moments, anyway." wished he and Briony were on a river together, Barrick slumped down. He had no smile to give back. floating away. "We used to hide from him here when A poisonous weariness poured through his limbs, we were little, remember? He used to get so angry heart, and head like a gray smoke, fogging his 201 202 thoughts. "I want to die, that's what I want. Go with Merolanna reached down and stroked her back, Kendrick. Much easier than running away." although she was struggling to keep her balance against the girl's weight on her legs. "I know, dear . . "Don't you dare say that!" Briony grabbed his arm and .Yes, our poor, sweet little Kendrick . . ." leaned forward until her face was only a handspan from his. "Don't you dare think about leaving me And then the horrible fact of it climbed up Barrick's alone." backbone and into his head again, a ghastly, overwhelming thing that choked out all light and For a moment he almost told her - gave up the secret sense, and he clambered over to Merolanna and he had hidden so long, all those nights of fear and wrapped his arms around her waist, forcing her off misery . . . But the habit of years could not be so balance again. She had no choice but to claw at the easily broken, even now. "You're the one who will be shelves and let herself fold to the floor of the pantry in leaving me," he said instead. a great slipping and bunching of cloth. She held them In the middle of the long, dark silence that followed, both with their heads together in her lap, their hair someone rapped lightly on the pantry door. The twins, mingling like the waters of two rivers, red and gold, startled, looked at each other, eyes wide in the both of them weeping like small children. candlelight. The door scraped open. Merolanna was crying again, too. "Oh, my poor Their great-aunt, Duchess Merolanna, stepped in."I ducks," she said, looking at nothing as tears ran down knew you'd be here. You two. Of course you would her wrinkled cheek. "Oh, my poor little chickens, yes. be." My poor, dear ones . . ." "They sent you after us," Briony said accusingly. "They did - oh, they did. The whole castle is in terror, · looking for you. How could you be such wicked children?" But Me rolanna was not as angry as she sounded. In fact, she seemed like another Briony had dried her eyes before they reached. Avin sleepwalker. Her pale, wide face, devoid of paint, Brone and the others, and had even let Merolanna looked like something dragged out of its burrow and fuss her hai r back into some kind of order, but she still into the sunlight. "Don't you know the worst thing you felt like a prisoner dragged from a cell to face a high could do is to vanish like this, after . after . . ." justice. A great choking gasp came out of Briony, who But although Hierarch Sisel (who Merolanna had told crawled to Merolanna and buried her face in the old them had walked halfway around the castle looking for woman's voluminous nightdress. "Oh, Auntie `Lanna, them) looked annoyed beneath his appropriately they k-k-killed him! He's . . . he's gone!" serious and mournful expression, Lord Brone did not 203 204 tax Barrick and Briony for their waywardness. Highnesses." "We have been waiting for you," he said as the twins It took a moment for Briony to make out what he was approached, staying close to Merolanna for whatever saying, then the mocking, handsome face of the protection she might afford them. "We have grim envoy came rushing into her mind. "That man Dawat . business still to do tonight, and you are the head of . . !" She would see him skinned. Burned alive. the Eddon family now." "No," said Brone. "He did not leave his chambers all "Which of us?" asked Barrick a little nastily. "You can't night. Nor did any of his entourage We had guards have two heads." watching them." "Either of you," said Brone, surprised for a moment, as "Then . . . then what?" said Briony, but a moment later though he had not thought of this particular she began to understand. conundrum. "Both of you. But you must see what we "Shaso?" Barrick's voice was strange, tight, full of both do, that justice is done." fear and a kind of weird exhilaration. "Are you saying "What are you talking about?" demanded Briony. The that Shaso killed our brother?" man Vansen, the captain of the guards, was standing "We do not know for certain," the lord constable said. behind the lord constable. He had bloody scratches "We must go and confront him. But he is a promoted on his face, and for a moment she felt a twinge of peer of Southmarch, an honored friend of your father's shame, thinking of how she had attacked him. But he We need you two to be there." is the one who is ahve, and my brother is murdered, As Brone led them down the hall toward the armory, she thought, and the feeling evaporated. He did not the troop of guards fell in behind them, faces hard, meet her eye, which made it easier to ignore him. eyes shadowed beneath their helmets. The hierarch "I am talking about the knife that made the wounds on and Merolanna did not accompany them, heading for your brother and his guards, Princess." Brone turned the family chapel to pray instead. at a clattering noise. A troop of guards entered the What is going on? Briony wondered Has everything in corridor and stopped at the end, waiting. "Tell them the world turned upside down at once? Shaso? It about it, Captain Vansen." could not be true - someone must have stolen the old The man still could not look her in the face. "It was man's dagger In fact, why must it have even been curved," he said quietly. "The physician Chaven saw Shaso's dagger? She found it hard to disbelieve that when he looked at. . . at the wounds. A curved Chaven, but surely there were other explanations - dagger." there must be dozens of Tuam weapons available in Brone waited for him to say more, then grunted with the waterside markets. But when she whispered this impatience and turned to the twins. "A Tuani dagger, to Barrick, he only shook his head. As if he had cried 205 206 out all his brotherly feeling with his tears, he barely Briony could not make herself believe it. "Don't hurt looked at her. him! Alive! He must be taken alive!" Merciful Zorta, will he turn into another Ken drick now? The guards moved forward, jabbing with the pike ends Will he send me to Ludis because it's best for the of their halberds, forcing the dark-skinned man out of whole kingdom? Her skin was needled by a sudden the doorway and back into his chamber. Briony could chill. see that the room was in disarray behind him, the bedclothes torn to pieces and scattered across the Three guards waited in the armory outside the door of floor, the shrine in the corner knocked to flinders. He Shaso's chamber. "He has not left," said one of them, is mad, then, or sick. "Don't hurt him!" she shouted looking at empty air as he talked, clearly confused as again. to whether to speak directly to the lord constable or his captain, Vansen. "But we have heard strange "Will you condemn some of these guardsmen to noises. And the door is bolted." death?" Avin Brone growled. "That old man is still one of the fiercest fighters alive!" "Break it down," said Brone, then turned to the twins. "Stand back, if you please, Highnesses." Briony shook her head. She could only watch with Barrick as the guards tried to subdue Shaso. Barrick A half dozen kicks from booted feet and the bolt was right, the man was reeling, clearly drunk or splintered away from the inside. The door swung in. damaged in some way, but even without a weapon he The guards stepped through with halberds extended, was a formidable quarry. then quickly stepped back again. A dark shape appeared in the opening like a monstrous spirit Shaso did not remain weaponless for long. He summoned from the netherworld. snatched a halberd away from one of the guards and stunned the man with the butt, then crashed it against "Kill me then," it growled, but the voice was strangely the helm of another who tried to take advantage of the liquid. For a moment Briony thought that Shaso had opening. Already two of the guards were down. The indeed been invested by some kind of demon, one room was too small for proper pike work. Shaso put which had not learned to use its usurped body his back against the far wall and stood there, chest properly, for the master of arms was swaying in the heaving. Blood was smeared all over his arms and doorway, unable to stand upright. "I suppose I am . . . some on his face as well - old blood, dried until it was a traito.r So kill me. If you can." scarcely visible against his skin. "He's drunk," Barrick said slowly, as though this was "Captain," Brone said, "bring me archers." the biggest surprise the night had produced. "No!" Briony tried to rush forward, but the lord "Take him," Avin Brone called. "But `ware - he is constable seized her arm and held her despite all her dangerous." 207 208 struggles. halberd came up again quickly. "You would do that to me, boy? Remind me of that!" "Forgive me, my lady," he said through clenched teeth. "But I will not lose another Eddon tonight." "I would. Father saved your hfe.You swore that you would obey him and all his heirs. We are his heirs. Put Suddenly someone else slipped past him - Barrick. up your weapon and do the honorable thing, if you Even as Avin Brone cursed, Briony's brother stopped have not become a stranger to honor altogether. Be a just inside the doorway. man." "Shaso!" he shouted. "Put that down!" The master of arms looked at him, then at Briony. He The old man lifted his head and shook it. "Is that you, barked a laugh that ended in a ragged tatter of breath. boy?" "You are cruder than your father ever was - than your "What have you done?" The prince's voice trembled. brother, even." He threw the halberd clattering to the "Gods curse you, what have you done?" floor. A moment later he swayed again and this time Shaso tipped his head quizzically for a moment, then crumpled and fell.The guards rushed forward and swarmed on him until it was clear he was not feigning, smiled a bitter, horrible smile. "What I had to - what that he had fallen senseless from drink or exhaustion was right. Will you kill me for it? For the honor of the family? Now there is irony for you." or something else. The guards heaved him up from the floor, one on "Give yourself up," Barrick said. each leg and arm. It was not easy - Shaso was a large "Let the guards take me, if they can." Even slurred man. "To the stronghold with him," Brone commanded with drink, his laugh was dreadful. "I do not care much them. "Chain him well. When he wakes we will if I live or not." question him closely, but I cannot doubt we have For a moment no one spoke. Briony was numb with found our murderer." despair. The dark wings of her ominous mood had not As he was carried past Briony, Shaso's eyes flicked been black at all, it seemed, but blood -red; now they open. He saw her and tried to say something but had spread over the whole of the house of Eddon. could only groan, then his eyes slid shut again. His "You owe your life to our father." Barrick's voice was breath smelled of drink. tight with misery or fear or something else that Briony "It can't be," she said. "I don't believe it." could not recognize. "You speak of honor - will you give away even that last vestige of it? Kill some of Ferras Vansen, the captain of the guard, had found something on the floor beside Shaso's spare bed. He these innocent men instead of surrendering?" picked it up with a polishing cloth and brought it to the Shaso goggled at him. For a moment he lost his twins and the lord constable, bearing it gingerly, like a balance where he leaned on the wall, but then the 209 210 servant carrying a royal crown. It was a curved Tuani dagger nearly as as long as a 9 man's forearm - a dagger that all of them had seen before, scabbarded on Shaso's belt.The hilt was wrapped in figured leather. The sharp blade, always A Gleam of Pale Wings kept glittermgly polished, was smeared up and down with blood. MOUNTAIN SPIRITS BELT: He is cloaked in mistletoe and the musk of bees Lightning makes the trees grow And makes the earth cry out - from The Bonefall Oracles "Toby!" the physician bellowed as he staggered through the door. He did not know whether to weep or scream or beat his head against the wall - he had been restraining his feelings too long. "Curse you, where are you hiding?" The other two servants, his old manservant and his housekeeper (who had just barely managed to beat Chaven home, hurrying back from a gathering of worried citizens in the torchlit square between the West Green and the Raven's Gate) scuttled away down the corridors of Observatory House, grateful that their masters unhappmess had settled on someone other than themselves. The young man appeared, wiping his hands on his smock. "Yes, Master?" 211 212 Chaven made a face at the black smears on Toby's his head down like a stubborn goat that would not be clothing, but was surprised to find the young fellow at forced through a gate. "You are telling the truth, his tasks so early in the morning; it was usually hard Master? You are certain?" to get him to work even when the sun was high in the "I'm certain of nothing," Chaven said. "Nothing. Now sky. "Bring me something to drink. Wine - thatTorvian go fetch me the wine and perhaps a bit of cheese and muck is already open on my bedside table. By the bread and dried fish, too, then let me think." gods, the world is falling apart." The young man hesitated. Chaven could see fear He let the hanging fall back across the window. It was behind the usual sul -lenness. "Is . . . w there . . will ill still dark outside, although he could smell dawn on the there be war?" breeze, which should have been reassuring but was Chaven shook his head. "War? What do you mean?" not. The wine had done nothing to relieve the "Mistress Jennikin and Harry, they say the older pressure in his skull, the fear that he was watching the prince is dead, sir Murdered My da' told me once that first moments of a collapse that might soon begin to when Olin's brother died there was almost a war." spread so quickly there would be no stopping it. He had been in the middle of such a frenzy before, The physician fought down the urge to berate this although not in Southmarch he never wanted to poor blunt tool. Everyone in the castle was terrified - experience it again. And of all the people who had he himself had not felt so desperate in all the years been in the castle tonight dealing with the horror of the since fleeing Ulos Why should the boy feel any prince regent's death, Chaven alone knew of the differently? "Yes, Toby, the older prince is dead. But movement of the Shadowlme. when Olin's brother Lorick died, the country was rich and unthreatened, and it was worth the time of any He had questions he wanted to ask before he slept - number of ambitious nobles to try to put themselves or needed to ask Unusual questions. some useful puppet on the Southmarch throne instead The idea had been preying on him since the first of a child heir. Now I suppose it will be young Barrick dreadful moment looking down on Kendrick's earns the regency, and no one will want the blame for murdered body and had kept tugging at him since, far what is about to happen here, so they will gratefully let more powerful than the urge for wine he had just him have the honor of keeping his father's chair satisfied. He had tried to fight it down because there warm." was more than a little shame in his hunger and he had "So there won't be a war?" Toby ignored Chaven's promised himself not to indulge again so soon, but he bleak sarcasm as though it were a foreign language. reassured himself that it was clearly an exceptional He could not meet his master's eye directly, and had night, a night for suspending his own rules. And (he 213 214 also told himself) the things he might learn could save Chaven put down his candleholder and picked up a his life, perhaps even save the kingdom. covered object too lar ge to rest beside the others, which had been leaning propped against the wall "Kloe?" he called quietly. He snapped his fingers and Kloe, after a brief sniff around the room, leaped up looked around. "Where are you, my mistress?" onto one of the upper shelves and curled into a ball, She did not appear immediately, upset perhaps that her eyes bright and watchful. after a rude and hurried excursion from their shared He took off the velvet cover very carefully, then bed earlier he had been back in his house for an hour, unfolded the wooden wings so that the mirror could but this was the first time he seemed to have thought stand by itself. It was one of his largest: with the base of her. on the floor, the top reached almost to the physician's "Kloe, I apologize. I have been discourteous." waist. Mollified, she appeared from behind a curtain and Chaven lowered himself into a sitting position on the stretched. She was spotted like a pard, but all in flags in front of the mirror and for a long time said shadow-tones of black and gray, with only a little white nothing, staring deep into the glass.The candlelight around her eyes. Chaven could not have said exactly made strange angles of things and cast long, swaying why he found her beautiful but he did. He snapped his shadows: if something had actually been moving in fingers again and she came to hi m, exactly slow the nnrror s depths, it would have taken an observer a enough to demonstrate whose need was greater. But little while to be sure. when he scratched under her chin she forgot herself Chaven remained silent for a long, long time. At last, enough to purr. without turning from the glass, he said, "Kloe? Come "Come," he said, and gave the cat the last bit of dried here, now, Mistress. Come." fish before lifting her. "We have work to do." The cat stretched, then jumped down from the shelf and stepped delicately across the floor toward him It was a room that no living person in Southmarch When she stopped, he reached out and tapped on the Castle except Chaven had ever seen, a small dark mirror. compartment deep beneath the observatory, with a "Do you see that? Look there, Kloe! A mouse!" door that opened off the corridor where he had let in She brought her blunt gray -and-black face close to the the Funderling Chert and his strange ward. On one glass, staring. Her ears twitched. Indeed, there was wall a row of shelves began near the flagstone floor something moving in the dark corner of the room, but and stretched to the low ceiling, and every shelf only in the room as it was reflected. Kloe hunched contained a row of objects covered with dark cloths. lower, tail kinking and unkinking as she watched the With the door safely closed and bolted behind him, 215 216 scurrying shadow in the depths of the mirror Chaven foot, then bent to take the offering in its sharp beak. stared at it, too, fixedly, as though he dared not close For a moment the tail hung like a thread, then the his eyes or even breathe Oddly, the mirror seemed shadow-mouse was swallowed down and a huge not to reflect either the cat or physician, but only the white owl stared out of the glass with eyes like molten empty room behind them. copper. Without warning, Kloe lunged forward. For a moment it actually seemed that her paw passed through the · reflecting surface, but she hissed in frustration as though she had struck only cold glass Chaven "I don't understand," said the boy Flint, scowling. "I abruptly picked her up, stroked her, and then unbolted like the tunnels. Why do we have to walk up here?" the door and put her outside in the corridor. Chert looked back to make sure the Funderling work "Wait for me." crew were in an orderly line behind him. Dawn was Balked, but by what it was hard to say, Kloe let out a just beginning to lighten the sky and turn the shadows warble of irritation. silvery: if they had been big folk and unused to "You would not be happy in here," he told the cat as darkness, they would have been carrying torches. he closed the door. "And you would never have tasted Chert's guildsmen were straggling a little, a few that mouse anyway, I fear." whispering avidly among themselves, but that was Now he sat before the mirror again.The candle was within the bounds of suitable respect. He turned back apparently burning low because the room swiftly grew to the boy. "Because when we go to work in the keep, darker. All that showed in the mirror were the reflected we always come in at the gate. Remember, there are walls, except that the mirror-chamber contained a tiny no tunnels that lead into the inner keep from below." bundle of darkness lying on the mirror-floor near the He gave the boy a significant look, praying silently to front of the glass. the Earth Elders that the child would not start prattling about the underground doorway into Chaven's Chaven sang a little in a very old language, was quiet observatory within the hearing of the other for some time, then sang a little more. He sat and Funderlings. stared at the small dark shape. He waited. Flint shook his head. "We could have gone a lot of the When it came, it was like a sudden flame, an way underground. I like the tunnels!" explosion of pale light. Despite his strong, schooled nerves, Chaven let out a quiet grunt of surprise. "I'm glad to hear it, because if you stay with us, you'll Feathers rippled and gleamed in the depths of the be spending a lot of your days in them. Now, hush - mirror as it clutched the dead mouse with a taloned we're coming to the gate." 217 218 A young Trigon priest awaited them at the guard tower expecting . . ." He broke off and dabbed at his nose of the Raven's Gate. He was thick in the waist and with a sleeve. This man was genuinely mourning, looked as though he didn't deny himself much, but he Chert could see. Well, he knew the prince, no doubt - did not treat C hert as though he were half -witted as perhaps spoke to him often. Chert himself was feeling well as half-heighted, which made everything much quite unsettled, and he had never seen the prince more pleasant. regent closer than a hundred yards. "We are happy to serve," he told Andros. "I am Andros, Lord Castellan Nynor's proxy," announced the priest. "And you are . . ." he consulted The priest smiled sadly. "Yes. Well, I have your a leatherbound book,". . . Hornblende?" instructions here, directly from Lord Nynor. The work must be swift, but remember this is the burial place for "No, he took ill. I'm Chert and I'll be chief of this job." an Eddon prince. We will not have time to paint the He produced the Stonecutter's Guild's astion, a circle new tomb properly, but we can at least make sure it is of crystal polished very thin (but starthngly durable) clean and well-measured." that he wore around his neck on a cord. "Here is my token." "It will be the best work we can do." "That is well, sir." The priest frowned in distraction. "I am here not to contest your authority, but to tell you The interior of the tomb cast a shadow on Chert's that your orders have changed. Are you aware of what heart. He looked at little Flint, wide-eyed but happened here only one night ago?" unbothered by the heavy carvings, the stylized masks "Of course. All of Funderling Town is in mourning of wolves snarling out of deep shadows, the images of already." Which was not entirely the truth, but certainly sleeping warriors and queens on top of the ancient the news had shot from house to house over the last stone caskets. The tomb walls were honeycombed grim day like an echo, and most of the inhabitants of with niches, and every niche held a sarcophagus. the underground city were shocked and frightened. "Does this frighten you?" "We wondered whether it was appropriate to come The boy looked at him as though the question made this morning as had been originally ordered, but since no sense. He shook his head briskly. we had not heard otherwise . . ." I only wish I could say the same, thought Chert. "Quite right. But instead of the work that was planned, Behind him the work gang was also quiet as they we have a sadder and more pressing task for you. made their way through the mazy tomb. It was not the The family vault where we will lay Prince Kendrick has idea of mortal spirits that disturbed him, of ghosts - no more room. We knew of this, of course, b did not ut although in this dark, quiet place he was not quick to think we should need to enlarge it so soon, never dismiss the thought - but of the ultimate futility of 219 220 things. Do what you will, you will come to this. were restless with Pumice s prating or in agreement Whether you sit lonely in your house and store up with him. "We have work to do." money, or sing loud in the guildhall, buying tankards "Ah, yes. The poor, sad, dead prince. Did he ever step of mossbrew for all your friends and relations, in the into Funderling Town, ever in his life?" end you will find this - or it will find you. "You are speaking nonsense, Pumice. What has got He paused beside one niche. On the coffin lid was into you?" He glanced at Flint, who was watching the carved a man in full armor, his helmet in the crook of exchange without expression. his elbow, his sword hilt clasped upon his chest His "You ask me that? Just because I have never loved beard was wound with ribbons, each wrought in the big folk? If someone needs to explain, I think it's careful, almost loving detail. you, Chert. None of the rest of us have adopted one "Here lies the king's father," he told Flint. "The old of them into our own household." king, Ustin, He was a fierce man, but a scourge to the "Go out," Chert told the boy. "Go and play - there is a country's enemies and a fair-dealer to our people." garden up above." A cemetery, in truth, but garden "He was a hard-hearted bastard," said one of the work enough. gang quietly. "But . . . !" "Who said that?" Chert glared. "You, Pumice?" "Do not argue with me, boy. I need to talk to these "What if I did?" The young Funderling, not three years men and you will only find it boring. Go out. But stay a guild member, returned his stare. "What did Ustin or close to the entrance." any of his kind ever do for us? We build their castles Flint clearly felt he would find the conversation and forge their weapons so they can slaughter each anything but boring, but masked his feelings in that other - and us, every few generations - and what do way he had and walked across the tomb and up the we get in return?" stairs. When he was gone, Chert turned back to "We have our own city . . ." Pumice and the rest of the work gang. Pumice laughed. He was sharp-eyed, dark, and thin. "Have any of you a complaint with my leadership? Chert thought the youth had somehow got himself Because I will not lead men who grumble and whine, born into the wrong family. He should have been a nor will I chief a job where I do not trust my workers. Blackglass, that one. "Cows have their own fields. Do Pumice, you have had much to say. You do not like they get to keep their milk?" my feelings about our masters. That is your privilege, I "That's enough." Some of the others on the work gang suppose - you are free and a guildsman. Do you have were stirring, but Chert could not tell whether they aught else to say about me?" 221 222 The younger man seemed about to start again, but it you mean?" she whispered. Her voice seemed a was an older man, one of the Gypsum cousins, who sharp hiss like a snake; she could feel the councillors, spoke instead. "He doesn't talk for the rest of us, all men, looking at her with disapproval. "Shaso has Chert. In fact, we've spent a bit too much time not confessed, Barrick. It is not a certain thing that he listening to him lately, truth be told." A few of the other has killed Kendrick. After all these years, you owe the men grunted agreement. man something!" "Cowards, the lot of you," Pumice sneered. "Slaving Barrick waved his hand - dismissively, it seemed, and away like you were in the Autarch's mines, working for a moment Briony felt a stab of anger sharp as any yourselves almost to death, then down on your knees Tuani knife. Then she saw that Barrick's eyes were to thank the big folks for the privilege." closed, his face even more pale than usual. "No. I do not. . . feel well," he said. A sour smile twisted Chert's mouth. "The day I see you working yourself almost to death, Pumice, will be So terrible had this morning been, so topsy-turvy, that a day when all the world has finally gone wheels-over- despite the clutch at her heart to see his waxy face - ore-cart." The rest of the men laughed and the so frighteningly like Kendrick's bloodless, lifeless moment of danger passed. A few rocks had tumbled mask - she still felt a squeezing suspicion. Did Barrick free, but there had been no slide. Still, Chert was not want nothing to do with what was coming next, for happy that there had been such ill-feeling already on some reason? Had Lor d Constable Brone and the the first day. others been talking to him already? Maybe old Hornblende just didn't want to work with Her brother staggered a little as he got up One of the Pumice. Reason enough to have a bad back, perhaps guards stepped forward to take his elbow. "Go on," . . . Less than an hour past dawn and already his head Barrick told her. "Must he down." hurt. "Right, you lot. Whatever some of you may think, Another and even more horrifying thought: What if he these are sad times and this is an important chore. So is not just ill - what if he has been poisoned? What if let's get to work." someone had set on a track of killing all the Eddons? Horrified and frightened, she murmured a quick prayer to Zoria, then dutifully asked the Trigon's help as well · Who would do such a thing? Who could even conceive of such moon -madness? "I cannot sit through this," Barrick abruptly declared. Someone who wanted the throne . . . She looked at Briony felt ambushed that he should turn on her in Gailon of Summerfield, but the duke looked quite front of Avin Brone and the other nobles. "What do normally concerned to see Barrick so sweaty and 223 224 weak. "Get him straight to bed, and send for Chaven," had to take an order from any woman, even a she directed the man holding his arm. "No, let one of princess. the pages fetch Chaven now, so that he can meet my I cannot afford to care what they thi nk, and I cannot brother in his chambers." even be as forbearing with them as Father. In him, When Barrick had been helped from the room, Briony they think it an odd humor. In me, they will be certain noted with some approval that her own mask was still to mark it as weakness . . . in place - the public mask of impertur bability that her The door opened and the dark man was led in by the father had taught her to make of her features. She royal guard. Guard Captain Ferras Vansen was again had despised Avin Brone for a heartless bully on the pointedly not looking at her - another man, she felt night of Kendrick's murder, but she was grateful to certain, who held her as worthless. Briony had not him for reminding her of her duty. She had a decided yet what she wanted to do with Vansen, but responsibility to the Eddon family as well as to her surely some example would have to be made. Could people: she would not give away the truth of her the reigning prince of the March Kingdoms be feelings so easily again. But, oh, it was hard to be stiff murdered in his bed and no more come of it than if an and stern when she was so frightened! apple were stolen off a peddler's cart? "My brother, Prince Barrick, will not be coming back," At her nod the guards stopped and allowed the man she said. "So there is no sense in making our guest they had escorted to continue by himself to the foot of wait longer. Send him in." the dais and the twins' two chairs, which for the "But, Highness . . . !" began Duke Gailon. moment stood side by side in front of King Olin's throne. "What, Summerfield, do you think I have no wit at all? That I am a marionette who can only speak when one "My deepest condolences," said Dawet dan-Faar, of my brothers or my father is present to work my bowing. He had exchanged his finery of a few days strings? I said bring him in." She turned away. Zona before for restrained black. On him, it somehow give me strength, she prayed. If you have ever loved looked exotically handsome. "Of course there is me, love me now. Help me. nothing I can say t ease your loss, my lady, but it is o painful to see your family so bereft. I am certain that The intensity with which the councillors whispered my lord Ludis would wish me to send his deep among themselves would in ordinary circumstances sympathies as well." have made Briony very uneasy, but circumstances were not ordinary and they might never be so again. Briony scanned his face for some trace of mockery, Gailon Tolly and Earl Tyne of Blueshore did not even the faintest gleam of dark amusement in his eye. For try to hide their anger at her. These men had seldom the first time she could see that he was not a young 225 226 man, that he was perhaps only a decade younger much as I enjoy bandying words with you - and I do, than her own father, though his brown skin was my lady - there are more sad and serious matters unlined, his jaw firm as a youth's. Beyond that, she before us. So rather than indulge myself with a great saw nothing untoward. If he was dissembling, he did it sham of indignation, Highness, let me instead ask you splendidly. a question. What benefit would it be to me to kill your poor brother?" Still, that is his skill - it must be. Were he not a veteran dissembler and flatterer he would not be an envoy for She had to bite down hard on her lip to keep the ambitious Ludis. And there was also the story of sudden noise of misery from escaping. Only a very Shaso's daughter, which Barrick had told her - short time ago Kendrick had been alive. If only there another reason to despise this man. But there was no were some way to reach back into the day before denying he was good to look upon. yesterday, like reaching into a house through a window instead of walking all the way around to the "You are not entirely beyond suspicion yourself, Lord door - some way to change those horrible events or Dawet, but my guards say you and your party did not prevent them entirely. "What benefit?" she asked, stray from your chambers . . ." rallying her thoughts. "I don't know." Her voice was "It is gracious of them to speak what is only the honest less firm than she would have liked. Avin Brone and truth." The attractive and completely untrustworthy the others were watching closely - mistrustfully, it smile that she remembered made its first appearance seemed to her. As if because the man was comely of the day, but only for an instant, then the and well-spoken, she would be any the less careful seriousness of the matter chased it away again. "We and doubting! Her cheeks grew hot with resentment. slept, my lady." "Let us speak honestly, my lady. This is a terrible time "Perhaps. But murder must not always be committed and honesty may be the best friend to us all. My by the hand of its principal." She was finding it easier master, Ludis Drakava, holds your father hostage, and easier to keep her face hard, her gaze stern and whatever name we put on it. We await either a vast unblinking. "Murder can be bought, just as easily as a ransom in gold or a ransom worth even more - pie in a pie shop." because you, lovely princess, will be part of it." His Now his smile returned. He seemed genuinely smile was gently mocking again. But was he making amused. "And what would you know of buying things sport of her or something else? Perhaps even in pie shops, Princess?" himself? "From Hierosol's vantage, all that your elder brothers death will do is muddy the waters and slow "Not much," she admitted. "Sadly, I know a bit more of murder, these days." down the paying of that ransom. We have the king and have not harmed him - why should we murder the He nodded. "True. And a useful reminder that as 227 228 prince now? In fact, the only reason you even ask me me, Princess? Or what do you think you know of me?" is because I am a stranger in the castle . . . and not "More than I care to remember. Shaso told us of what precisely a friend. But I regret the last. I do sincerely." happened to his daughter." She could not let herself be distracted. He was too And now something passed across the high-boned smooth, too quick - it must be how a mouse felt in face that surprised her - not shame, or irritation at front of a snake. But this mouse would not be so being caught out, but a real and indignant anger like easily confused. "Because you are a stranger and no the god Perin when he awoke on Mount Xandos to friend, yes. And because, as you may know, my find his hammer stolen. "Ah, did he?" brother seems to have been killed with a Tuani knife. "Yes. And that your cruelty drove her into a temple, Like the one on your belt." and that she died there." Dawet looked down. "I would take it out to let you see Now Dawet's anger turned into something even that there is no blood upon it, Princess, but your guard stranger - a sudden banking of the flame, not unlike captain tied it tightly in its sheath before I was brought the way Shaso often retreated behind his own stony to you." features. Not surprising, perhaps - they were related, Briony looked up to see that Ferras Vansen, who had after all. "She died, yes. And he said that I am the one ignored her earlier, was now staring at her fixedly. But who drove her there?" upon catching her eye he colored and turned his gaze "Is it not true, sir?" to the floor. Is the man mad? He let his long-lashed eyes close for a moment. When "He would have preferred to take it away entirely," the lids sprang up again, his eyes fixed on hers. Dawet continued, "but among my people we do not "There are many kinds of truth, my lady. One is that I take off our knives once we have reached the age of ruined a girl of a noble house in my own land. Another manhood. Unless we are in bed." might be that I loved her, and that the wound done to Now she was the one to flush. "You speak many her reputation by the gossiping of witless women in words, my lord Dawet, but few to any point. Knives the palace was greater than any harm I ever did her. can be washed. Reputations are not so easily made And that when her father drove her out of their house, clean and new." I would have taken her in, would have made her my His eyes widened. "Are we crossing blades again, own, but that she could not bear to have her father Highness, testing each other's style of battle? No, I and mother cast her out of their lives forever. She think I will not engage, for I see rather that you are hoped - foolishly, I thought - that someday they would one of those who trades blows only for a little while, take her back. So, instead, she went to the temple. then aims straight for the heart. What do you know of Did she die there? Yes Of a broken heart? Yes, 229 230 perhaps. But who broke it?" He shook his head and will tell you of Shaso's famous hatred of me." He for the first time looked around at the Southmarch frowned. "But if it is not proved that he did it - then, no. nobles. With his gaze no longer on her, Briony I would not think him a murderer." realized she had been leaning forward in her chair. "What?" Briony's voice was much louder than she "Who broke it?" he said again, quietly, but with a force would wish Gailon of Summerfield looked at her that suggested he was truly addressing the entire disapprovingly. She felt a momentary urge to have the room. "That is a question that even the wisest folk young duke clapped in leg irons or something - might dispute." queens used to be able to do such things, so why not She sat back, a bit uncertain.The nobles, especially the princess regent? Despite his other faults, Dawet the council members, watched her suspiciously. Nor dan-Faar at least did not frown at her like an old could she entirely blame them this time- it seemed to servant just because she had raised her voice. "Do her, and must have been very clear to them, that for you jest?" she demanded. "You hate the man. It is some time there had been no one in the room but clear in your every word and glance?" herself and the dark stranger. The emissary shook his head. "I do not love him, and "So . . . so you blame Shaso for his own daughter's just as h thinks I have done him harm, I think he has e death?" done me as much or more. But my disregard does not make him a murderer. I cannot believe he would He gave a kind of shrug. "Wise folk may toy with any treacherously kill someone, especially not someone of contention, my lady, and truth seems sometimes your family." entirely mutable. That is the age in which w live." e "What do you mean?" "Which is to say you will not answer that question outright, since you have so prettily painted the picture "All know that he owed your father a debt of honor. of it already without having to show yourself mean- When my father fought against the last Autarch, spirited. But if you feel that way, I must suppose you Parnad the Unsleeping, Shaso did not return to help would also believe he could be th e murderer of my because he could not break his oath to your father. brother." When his wife was ill, he also did not return, because he could not break that oath, nor did he return for her Dawet looked a little surprised. "Has he not confessed funeral. And so now I am asked whether I think he it? Someone told me that he had. I thought you would kill Olin's son? Drunkenly and treacherously? prodded me about my innocence in your brother's There may be stiffer spines and more stubborn hearts death only to see whether because I was his that have come out of Xand than Shaso dan-Heza's - countryman I was also his confederate. But I assure but I have not seen one." you, my lady, find any Tuani beyond infancy and he 231 232 What he said made her feel even more uncertain of things, and not just about Shaso's guilt. Was this man "It will not be easy," Chert told Opal as he finished his Dawet a clever monster, or was he misunderstood? soup. "We don't have enough men to do a proper job, People often thought Barrick unpleasant, even cruel, and the guild may not be able to get me more in time - because they did not see the whole of him. the funeral is to be in five days. So for now we're just Barrick. A sudden twinge of alarm. He is lying ill in throwing rubble down into the very pits where we were bed. I should go to him In truth, the conversation had going to be working before the prince died. It'll all made her feel quite disturbed: she would not be have to be cleared out again afterward." unhappy to stop it. "I will consider your words, Lord "Who could do such a terrible thing?" she said. Dawet. Now you may go." For a moment, with his mind full of the task, he could He bowed once more. "Again, my condolences, Lady." not understand what she meant. "Ah. Do you mean As he left, the councillors still watched her, but their killing the prince?" faces were more shuttered than before. She suddenly "Of course, you old fool. What else?" Her cross realized that she had known most of them her entire expression, mostly for effect, softened. "That family is life, these neighbors and family friends and even under a curse. That's what people were saying in relatives, but did not trust a single one. Quarry Square today. The king captured, the younger "Make yourself vulnerable to no one but your family," prince a cripple, now this. And I suppose the her father had once said. "Because that makes a children's mother dying, too, though that was years small enough company that you can watch them all ago . . ." She frowned. "But what about the new carefully." She had thought at the time he was joking. queen? If something happens to those poor twins, will her baby inherit the throne? Think of that . . . before it But I have little family left, anyway, she thought. is even born." Mother and Kendrick are dead. Father is gone and may never come back. All I have is Barrick. "Fissure and fracture, woman, the twins are still alive - do you wish to bring something down on them? Never The room seemed full of hateful strangers. Suddenly, give the idle gods anything to think about." The idea of all she wanted was to see her twin. She stood up and something happening to the girl Briony, who had walked out of the throne room without another word, spoken to him just as freely and kindly as though he so quickly that the guards had to scramble to catch up were a friend or family member, made him fearful m a to her. way that a whole day in the royal tomb had not accomplished. "Where is Flint?" · "In his bed. He was tired." 233 234 Chert got up and walked into the sleeping room where the boy and stroked his pale hair and Chert suddenly Flint's straw pallet now lay at the foot of their own bed. understood that she didn't necessarily want to find out The boy hurriedly shoved something under the rolled the boy's true name, his parent's names . . . shirt which he used to cushion his head. "Well," he began, looking at the sack, but now his "What's that? What have you got, lad?" An ordinary attention was caught by the stone. What he had at child would probably have denied everything, Chert first thought was only a sedimentary lump polished by thought as he bent down, but Flint only watched with a rain or sea, or perhaps even just a weathered piece of certain hooded intent as he reached under the shirt pottery, was something much stranger. It was a stone, and his hand closed around a confusing combination that seemed clear, but as he stared at it, he realized it of shapes. was of a kind he had never seen before, nor could he even recognize where it fit in the Family of Stones and Lifted out and held in th e light of the lamp, he saw that Metals. A Funderling not recognizing a stone's family they were two separate objects, a small black sack on was som ething like a dairy farmer stumbling across a cord, which looked a bit familiar, and a lump of not just a new breed of cow, but one that could fly. translucent, grayish-white stone. "Look at this," he said to Opal. "Can you make "What is this?" he asked, holding up the sack anything of it?" Whatever it held so snugly was hard and almost as heavy as stone. The top of the bag was sewed shut, "Cloudchip?" she suggested, naming an obscure kind but the threadwork on the rest of it was intricate and of crystal. "Earth -ice?" beautiful. "Where did you find this, boy?" He shook his head. "No, it's neither of those. Flint, "He didn't," said Opal in the doorway. "He was where did you find this stone, boy?" wearing it when we found him. It's his, Chert." "In the garden place. Outside where you were "What's in it?" digging." The boy stuck out his hand. "Give them back." "I don't know. It isn't ours to open, and he hasn't wanted to." Chert glanced from the boy to the bag on a cord, the mysterious, sewn-shut bag. He handed it back to Flint "But this could have I don't know, perhaps something but hung onto the murky crystal. He and Opal would in it telling of his real parents. A piece of jewelry with need to talk about this mysterious legacy, but there his family name on it, perhaps." Or a costly heirloom was no sense worrying about everything at once. "I'm that might help pay for his room and board, Chert going to take this stone," he told the child. "Not to could not help thinking. keep, but because I've never seen anything like it and "It is his," said Opal again, quietly. She knelt beside I want to see if someone can tell me what it is." He 235 236 looked at the boy, who stared back expectantly. It took What was it that Chaven had said? "Do not doubt that Chert a moment to understand why. "If I may, that is," if the Shadowline sweeps across us, it will bring with it he said. "You found it, after all." a dark, dark evil." The boy nodded, satisfied. As Chert and Opal went Let Opal at least have this night, he decided Let her out, Flint rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling as be happy this one ni ght. he squeezed the little leather bag between his fingers. "You're quiet, Chert. Are you feeling poorly?" Opal returned to her clearing up, but Chert only sat, "All is well, my old darling," he said. "Never fear." turning the crystal over and over in his hand. It seemed to have an artificial shape, that was the strange thing, a regularity - it appeared to have been chipped out of some larger piece, but there were no fracture-markings, in fact, the edges were quite rounded. And it was definitely, incontrovertibly, something he had not seen before. A dark spot seemed to move in its depths. It troubled him, and the more he thought about it the more troubled he grew. It seemed like something that could only have come from behind the Shadowline, but if so, what was it doing deep inside Southmarch Castle? And was it coincidence that the boy found it in the cemetery, only a few hundred steps from the chambers where the prince regent was murdered? Or that the boy from beyond the Shadowline had been the one who found it' He looked at Opal, who was contentedly darning a hole in the knee of Flint's breeches. He desperately wanted to ask her opinion, but knew he was going to spend a mostly sleepless night himself and was reluctant to rob her of what might be her last contented slumber for some time. Because a fear was growing inside him. 237 238 after him, noises of both threat and promise. They followed him, many still joined to their brethren in a near-solid mass, and fire came behind them, catching 10 in the tapestries and licking upward toward the ancient ceiling as the faceless men followed his hopeless Halls of Fire attempt at flight from room to room, through corridor after corridor. They killed Kendrick! His heart seemed lopsided in his INVOCATION: chest; his lungs burned. Room after room was wreathed in flame, but still the dark men swarmed after him. Here is the kingdom, here are its tears They want to kill me, too - kill us all! The air was so Two sticks hot it scorched his nostrils and crackled in his throat, Nothing is known about any day that is past as though the entire palace had become an oven. - from The Bonefall Oracles These phantoms of soot, shadow, and blood had killed his brother and now they would kill him, too, chase him like a wounded deer and hound him to his death through endless halls of flame. . . . It was always bad in the lands of sleep, but this was worse than the other nights, far worse. The long halls of Southmarch were again full of the shadow-men, the · insubstantial but relentless figures who dripped and flowed like black blood, who oozed from the cracks "Make him well!" between the stones and then took shape, faceless Chaven stood slowly. At his feet, the page who and whispering. But this night, everywhere they went, crouched beside Barrick's bed dabbed at the prince's flames followed them, blazing up in the wake of their brow with a wet cloth. "It is not so easy, Princess . . ." pursuit, until it seemed as though the very air would catch fire. "I don't care! My brother is burning up with fever!" Briony felt a balance inside her tipping Everywhere he went more of them appeared, oozing dangerously."He is in pain!" up from beneath the flagstones, clotting as they slid or shuffled after him, solidifying into vague man -shapes. Chaven shook his head. "With all respect, I think not Eyeless, still they stared, and they called mouthlessly so much, Highness. It is one of the boons of fever - it 239 240 clouds much of the hurt of the illness and lets the The use of her name caught her for a moment, made mind float free of the body." her look at the court physician. She couldn't quite read the expression on his round face, but it was clear he "Float free?" She struggled to control herself but her was trying to tell her something. I am making a fool of finger was trembling as she pointed at her writhing, myself that is what. She looked around at the servants moaning twin. "Look at him! Do you think he is free of and guards in Barrick's room and knew there were anything?" more castle folk outside, no doubt with their ears The other physician, Brother Okros, cleared his throat. pressed to the door. She blinked against what felt like "Actually, my lady, we have seen others afflicted this the beginning of tears. I am frightening everyone. way, but in a few days many have been well again." "It is not a plague, Highness," Okros said carefully. She turned on this small, diffident man who had come "Not yet. We have fever seasons like this almost every from Eastmarch Academy in the mainland town to year. This is simply more severe than most." consult with Chaven. Okros took a step back as "Just tell me what will happen to my brother." though she might hit him, and for a moment she felt a hysterical sense of pleasure at his fear, at the power "His elements are out of balance," Chaven explained. of her own anger. "Yes? Many? What does that "He is full of fire, at least in a sense. I do not want to mean? And how long have you all known about this insult you with what may seem like old superstitions, fever-plague?" but it is hard to explain illness without also explaining how the elements within us correspond to the "Since the ending of the last festival month, elements without - in our earth and in our firmament." Highness." There was a slight squeak in his voice. He rubbed his head wearily. "So I will only say that his Okros was a priest, but mostly in name only, a teacher blood is too heated because the elements are out of of the sciences who had probably seldom set foot in a balance. Normally the elements of earth and water Trigon temple since his ordainment. "Your brother - already inside him would serve to keep that balance, your other brother - was informed by the academy just as stones ring a blaze and water extinguishes it when the first groups of sufferers began to come to when necessary. But he is all fire and air at the us. But he . . ." moment, gusting and burning." "Was killed? Yes." She took a deep breath, but it did Gusting and burning. She looked down in horror at not calm her. "Yes, that might explain why he hasn't Barrick's dear face, so contorted now and so given his time to this issue. Did you plan to wait until oblivious. Oh, merciful Zoria, please don't take him everyone else in my family was dead from one thing from me. Don't leave me alone in this haunted place. or another before mentioning this plague to me?" Please. "Please, Princess," said Chaven. "Briony Please." 241 242 "Many have already survived this fever, Princess," "There are also herbs that might help." As Chaven said little Brother Okros. "We have had news of it from rubbed at his forehead again, considering, Briony southern travelers in prior days. It has already been in noticed for the first time that the court physician Syan and Jellon for months." looked dreadful. His features were pale and sagging, and he carried circles dark as bruises beneath his "Perhaps it came in with the ship from Hierosol," eyes. "Willow bark. And tea made from elder flowers Chaven suggested. He had tugged the page boy might also help bring down the fever. away and was examining Barrick again, smelling his breath. Briony's twin was a little quieter, but he still "We should bleed him as well," added Okros, glad to murmured worriedly in his sleep, his face sparkling be talking about something meaningful. "A bit less with sweat. blood will ease his suffering." "It doesn't matter," she said. It was the bleak and Briony nudged Chaven to one side, none too gently, ruthless will of the gods, the dark wings she had felt and with an immense rustling of skirts sank down spreading above them all. It was her every dire beside her brother. These clothes keep me trussed premonition coming true. "It doesn't matter where it like a troublesome horse, she thought as she came from. Just tell me this - how many die from it struggled to find a comfortable position. Or a captured and how many live?" thief. It hurts even to bend. "We hate to make pronouncements of that type, my Her brother's eyes were mere slits, but his pupils lady," began the academy physician. darted about between the lids. Chaven frowned at him. "At least half have survived. "Barrick? It's me, Briony. Oh, please, can't you hear Unless they were babies or old folk." me?" She touched his cheek then took his hand, despite its warmth, it was damp as something found in "Half?" She was on the verge of shrieking again. She a rock pool. "I won't leave you." closed her eyes and felt the world spinning around her. All had gone mad. All had gone completely mad. "You must leave him, my lady," said a new voice "And what is the treatment?" Briony looked up to see Avin Brone standing in the doorway, filling it with his bulk. "I beg your pardon, but "Open windows," Okros said promptly ."Dirt from the the truth must be told. There is much to do. Tomorrow temple of Kernios beneath the head and foot of his we bury the prince regent. Tomorrow someone must bed. And wrap him in wet cloths - water from Envor's take up the scepter so that the people can see an temple basins would be particularly good, and we Eddon still sits the throne. If Prince Barrick is too ill, must make prayers to Erivor, of course, since he is then it must be you. And I have other news for you as your family's special patron. All this will serve to well." soothe the influence of fire and air." 243 244 She felt a weird little thrill So the only person I can and leave another standing just beside him absolutely trust not to send me to Ludis, she realized, unharmed." will be on that throne. For a moment she had an "Like murder," she said. image of all the things she might do, all the petty Briony was almost the only one in the room who did wrongs she could reverse. not make the sign to ward away evil after she had Then she looked down at Bar rick again and the idea spoken. Even Barrick groaned in his fevered sleep. of what she might accomplish seemed pointless. "How many are sick with this?" she asked Chaven. · "How many have the fever now?" He looked at the physician from the academy. "A few hundred in the He had run until he was beyond the immediate reach town, perhaps. Is that right, Okros? A a dozen or so nd of the faceless shapes, the whisperers, but he knew in the castle. Three of the kitchen servants, I think. they were still somewhere behind him, flowing through Your stepmother's maid and two of Barrick's own the honeycombed rooms, sniffing for him like dogs. pages." He patted the head of the little boy who held He was in a wing of the castle he didn't know, the wet cloth. "Those are the ones I knew about when chamber after chamber of dusty, unfamiliar objects your brother began to sicken." flung around without order or care. A broken orrery "Anissa's maid? But how is Anissa herself?" stood on a table, metal arms bent so that they "Your stepmother is well and so is the baby she protruded in all directions like the quills of some spiky carries." creature Carpets and tapestries were draped across "And none of those who came with that man Dawet each other, bunched and crumpled at the edges, even have the fever?" spread onto the timbered celling so that it was somehow difficult to tell which way was up, and they Chaven shook his head. were beginning to curl with the rising heat. "Strange it should be brought on their ship and yet He stopped. Someone - or something - was calling his none of them should sicken." name. "Yes, but fever is a strange thing," said this pale, "Barrick! Where are you?" battered-looking Chaven - a man who almost seemed a stranger to her. She found herself wondering for He realized with a spasm of terror that it was not only perhaps the first time ever in her life what he did when the shadow-men who were looking for him, the men of he was by himself, "what life and thoughts he kept smoke and blood, but something else as well. secret from others, as everyone did. "It can touch one Something dark an d tall and singular. Something that 245 246 had been hunting him a long, long time. you." His swift walk became a run. Moments later it became a wild, headlong dash. Still his own name floated to · him like a lonely echo from one benighted mountaintop to another, or like the cry of some lost For all her discontent with her clothing, Briony was soul stranded upon the moon. glad for once that Moina and Rose had laced her so "Bamck? Come back!" tightly, glad that her embroidered stomacher was stiff He was in a long corridor open on one side, he as armor. It seemed to be all that held her upright on realized, sprinting through a gallery that dropped away her battered wooden chair - the chair that at least for next to him, a dizzying plunge to the stone flags just a this mad moment had become the throne of all the misstep away. All the castle must be afire now - here March Kingdoms. the tapestries were burning at the bottom edges, Did anyone else feel the same as she did? Did flames beginning to lick their way up the stylized everyone? Were all these castle folk in their ornate hunting scenes and representations of adventuring finery no more than confused souls hiding inside gods and ancient kings seated in glory. costumes, as the hard shells of snails protected the "Barrick?" helpless, naked things that lived within them? He pulled up, heart speeding. The flames were "He says what?" She was frightened again, even if climbing higher, the gallery filling with black smoke. she forced herself not to show it. She fought hard to He could feel a baking heat all down his right side that keep her eyes on the lord constable, not to let her hurt his skin. He wanted to run, but something was glance dart into the shadows in anxious search for the moving in the smoke ahead of him, something stained assassins and traitors who had seemed all around her red and orange by leaping firelight. in the terrible hour of Kendrick's death, but whose "I am angry. Very angry." phantom presences had been mostly absent since Shaso's capture. "But we found the bloody knife - Barrick's heart felt as though it might crack his surely you have told him that. What does he claim?" breastbone. The shape trudged out of the murk, smoke dripping down its length like water, fire curling "He will not tell us anything else."Avin Brone looked in the dark beard. almost as tired as Chaven had, his great body sagging. He would clearly have liked to sit down, but "You shouldn't run from me, boy " His father's stare Briony did not call for a stool. "He simply says he did was dull and empty, cloudy as the eyes of a dead fish not kill your brother or his guards." in a bucket. "Shouldn't run. It makes me angry with 247 248 "Pay no attention to this nonsense, Briony." Gailon have hidden, then escaped after the murder in the Tolly's anger seemed genuine, and for once it was not alarm and confusion." aimed at her. "Would an innocent man not tell "Vansen." She snorted, but then anger overcame her. everything he knew? Shaso is taken by shame, that is "There are not ten hundred in the whole world who all. Though I am surprised it could happen with such a would want to kill my brother! But there are some, and villain." I suspect I know many of them." The courtiers stirred "But what if he is telling the truth, Duke Gailon?" nervously and their whispers became even quieter. Briony turned back to Brone. "Or what if he is n the ot Many fewer were in the throne room than usual: only murderer? It still seems strange he should kill all dozens were keeping to their rooms or houses in fear, three by himself." both of assassins and the fever. "Ten hundred, Lord Brone - that is wordplay! Are you telling me that the "Not so strange, Highness," suggested the lord simpleton boy who brings the turnips from the constable. "He is a deadly fighter, and they would not Marnnswalk wagons might be one of Kendricks have been prepared - he would have caught them all murderers? No, it is someone with something to gain." unsuspecting. He likely stabbed the first guard and set on the second in a mere moment. Once the second Brone frowned and clear ed his throat. "You do me . . . guard was killed, he then attacked your unarmed and yourself . . . a disservice, Highness. Of course, brother." what you say is true. However, though we must suspect almost everyone, we must insult no one Briony felt queasy. She couldn't bear to think too needlessly. Would you have me mew up every noble deeply about it - about Kendrick alone, helpless, who might be thought to benefit from the prince holding up his arms, perhaps defending himself regent's death? Is that your command?" He looked against a man he had known and trusted all his life. around the room and a sudden silence fell. The "And you still say there is no one else in the castle courtiers looked startled as geese caught in the open who could have done it, or even aided Shaso in the by a thunderstorm. murder?" A part of her would indeed have liked to see all these "I have not said that, my lady. I've said that we cannot idle, overdressed, and overpainted folk made to find any such person, despite our hardest labors, but it answer for themselves, but Briony knew that was just is not certain we ever could. Even at night, hundreds rage and despair One or two of them might well be are quartered inside this keep. Captain Vansen and guilty, might be part of a conspiracy with Shaso, but his guards have spoken to almost everyone, searched the rest would then be blameless and would rightly nearly every room, but there are ten hundred more resent ill-treatment. The landowning nobility were not that enter here during the hours of day who might famous for their patience and humility. And if the 249 250 Eddons did not have the support of the nobility, then toward the regions of fire. His father came after, boots the Eddons were nothing. echoing on the flags, a fuming Kernios with beard ablaze and voice booming. We've lost Father and Kendrick. I won't lose our throne as well. "Come here, child! You are making me very angry!" "Of course I don't want that," she said, measuring her The do wnward course of the stairs twisted in a great words. "Rough times make for rough jokes, Lord Avin, arc like the limbs of a wind-tortured tree, as blurry in so I forgive you, but please do not instruct me. I may the smoke as something seen beneath deep water, be green in years, but in my father's absence and my but it was his only escape and he did not hesitate. For brother Barrick's illness, I am the throne of a moment his feet were solid beneath him, but then a Southmarch." hand clawed at his back, snagged in his garments, tried to grapple him. Something flickered in Brone's eyes, but he bowed his head. "I stand fairly chastised, Highness." "Stop . . . !" Briony's strength was failing. She badly needed to he And then his feet were out from under him and he was down and sleep - she had not had more than a few tumbling down the steps beside the abyss, sliding, unbroken hours of it for several nights. She wanted to flung like a pebble, thumped and rattled down against see her twin well, and her other brother alive again. hard stone until his breath was out of his body and his Most of all, she wanted her father back, someone who brains were out of his head. As he fell the voices of would hold her and protect her. She took a slow, deep the whispering shadow-men became a shout, a roar, breath. It did not matter what she wanted, of course: and all he could think was, Not again' there would be no rest any time soon. Oh, gods, not again . . . "No, Lord Brone, we all are chastised," she said. "The He woke, shivering and weeping. He di d not know gods humble us all." where he was or even who he was. A round man with a somber, kindly face bent over · him, but for an instant it was that other face that he saw again, that familiar face twisted into a hateful mask and bearded in flame, and he shrieked and The face was twisted into something almost struck out. In his weakness his hand barely twitched, unrecognizable, but there was no question who it was. the shriek was a stifled moan. Barrick turned and ran. Smoke and flames swirled "Rest," the man said Chaven. His name was Chaven. around him as though he had tumbled down one of "You have a fever, but there are people caring for the rooftop chimneys, or down a gash in the earth 251 252 you." Fever? he thought. It is no fever. The castle was on Young Raemon Beck was finding it hard to think of fire and they were under attack. Evil flowed inside the anything but Helmingsea. They were still two days walls like poisoned blood in a dying man. Briony! He west of Southmarch and his home lay another two remembered her suddenly, and as if in imitation of days ride beyond that, but he had been away for a their collateral birth, with her name his own came back month and a half and it was hard not to think of his as well. She has to know - she must be told. He wife and his two small boys, hard to keep his strained ag ain to make a noise, this time to speak ". . . eagnerness under control. Briony . . ." Easier when we were in Settland and still weeks away "She is well, Highness. Drink this. "A beautiful from home, he thought. Easier when we had things to coolness was poured into his throat, but he could not occupy us, bargaining, buying, selling. Now there is immediately remember how to swallow. When he had nothing left to do but ride and think. finished sputtering and coughing, and had taken a He looked ahead along the line of their small caravan, little more, Chaven's cool hand touched his forehead. almost a score of high-laden mules and half that many "Now sleep, Highnness." horses pulling wagons, all under the hand of his Barrick tried to shake his head. How could they not cousin Dannet Beck, who in turn ruled this mercantile understand? He felt the darkness reach out to drag venture on behalf of his father, Raemon's uncle him down. He had to tell them about the shadow-men Dannet had made a few mistakes over the past who swarmed the castle, about the fires. They had weeks, Raemon thought - like many untried men, he been hiding here for years, but now they had come was quick to take resistance to his authority as a out in full force. Perhaps the family's enemies were personal slight - but overall he had not done badly, only a few chambers away by now! And he also had and the mules and wagons were loaded down with to tell Briony about Father - what if he came to her? miles of the finest dyed wool thread from Settland What if she did not know, did not understand, and let ready for the factories of the March Kingdoms. And him in? Raemon himself would benefit from this venture, not merely by his own share, which, though tiny, would The darkness was pulling, sucking at him, making him still bring him more money than he had ever had in his liquid. "Tell Briony . . ." he managed, then slid beneath twenty -five years - enough to leave his parents' the surface of light once more, down into the burning house, perhaps and build his own - but through depths. greater responsibilities in the future, and someday perhaps a good-sized share in the family venture. · 253 254 His improving fortunes aside, though, he mostly felt a He waved back, but in truth he did not much like these breathless impatience to see Derla again and hold her forested hills. He remembered them from the close, to see his children and his own father and outbound trip, how they seemed to loom and lower in mother and to eat bread at his own table. Only a few the rain, and how they still did even under sunlit skies. days, but the wait seemed longer now than it did when Even on a fairly warm day such as this they bore their the journey had only just begun. own thick mists along the summit and in the valleys between the slopes. In fact, a tongue of fog seemed to We would go faster if we had not combined w that ith be stretching its way down along the hillside ahead of Settish prince's daughter and her party. The girl, them even now, crawling through the trees and across scarcely fourteen, with eyes like a frightened fawn, the dark green grass toward the road. was being sent to marry Rorick Longarren, Earl of Daler's Troth and a cousin of the Eddon family. From Still, it is faster than going by sea, he thought. All that what Beck knew of Rorick, it seemed surprising that way south, down through the straits and up the he would marry at all, let alone a girl of the remote eastern coast just to get there - I would have been and mountainous eastern lands, but royalty was parted from Derla and the boys for half a year. . . ! royalty, it seemed, and any prince s daughter no Someone shouted up ahead. Raemon Beck was mean prize. startled to see that the tongue of fog had already Beck had nothing against the girl, and it was a covered the road at the front of the caravan. Beyond a reassurance even in these fairly peaceful times to score of paces he no w could see little except dark tree have her dozen armored guards riding with the shadows and the vague outline of men and of beasts caravan, but she had been frequently ill; at least three of burden. He looked up. The sky had swiftly gone times the groups had been forced to stop early for the dark, as though the mist crept above the trees as well day because of it, something that had driven as below. homesick Raemon Beck almost to despair. A storm . . . ? He looked back at the Settlanders, then ahead at the The shouting was quite loud now, with a strange edge uneven procession of pack mules. One of the drovers to it - he heard not just confusion or irritation in the saw him looking and waved, then pointed at the men's voices, but real fear. The hairs rose on his neck chinks between the trees and the cloudless autumn and arms. sky as if to say, "Look how lucky we are!" The first An attack? Bandits, taking advantage of the sudden days of their return journey had been bitter with cold fog? He looked for the armored men who escorted the rain off the eastern mountains, so this was indeed a prince's daughter, saw two of them thunder out of the kindly change. mist and hurtle past him, and realized to his dismay 255 256 that the fog was behind him now as well. They were and bolted in shrilling panic. Branches lashed all adrift in it like a boat on the ocean. Raemon Beck's face, but then a heavier limb snatched him completely out of the saddle and flung Even as he squinted into the mist, a shape leaped out him to the ground, knocking out his breath and his and his horse reared in terror. Raemon Beck had only wits in one blow. a moment to glimpse what had frightened his mount, but that moment was enough to make his heart stumble and almost stop with fright; it was a thing of He woke feeling like a sack of broken eggs. For a tatters and cobwebs that flailed at him - pale, long- heart-clutching moment he saw a face peering down armed, and eyeless - with a mouth as ragged as a at him from the fog that still swirled all around - a torn sack. strangely beautiful face, but cold and lifeless as one of His horse reared again and then stumbled as its feet the godly statues on a Trigon temple. He held his touched the earth. Beck had to cling for his life. Men breath as though he might that way escape the were screaming all around him now - horses, too, demon's attention, but it only stared at him. Its skin dreadful shrieks unlike anything he had ever heard. was pale, its eyes shiny as candleflame behind the thick glass of a temple window. He thought it was Shapes staggered in and out of the mist, men and male, but truly it was hard to think of it as anything so other things, grappling, struggling. Some of the voices simple and human. Then it was gone, simply he had first thought were his companions he now vanished, and the fog swirled down around him and could hear were calling or even singing in some turned the world gray. unfamiliar language More of the tattered things came twi tching up out of the brush, but they made up only a Raemon Beck squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for small share of the bizarre shapes that danced and breath, waiting to die. When he had stayed unmoving gibbered through the mist. Some of the attackers long enough to become aware of his achmg back and seemed only a little more substantial than the fog ribs, of the pounding of his head and the countless itself. Men and horses still screamed, but now the cuts and scratches on his skin, he opened his eyes terrible sounds began to grow more faint, as though once more. The fog was gone. He was in the shade of the mist were thickening into something heavy as a deep dell, but he could s bits of blue sky above ee stone, or as though Raemon himself had fallen into a him through the leaves. hole that was now being filled in atop him. He sat up and looked around. The dell was empty. A group of tiny, red-eyed shapes like malevolent Beck dragged himself to his feet, wincing but doing his bearded children leaped out of the grass and clawed best to remain silent, then crept back along the path of at his stirrups. His horse kicked its way through them broken branches left by his horse's flight f rom the 257 258 road. There was no sign of the horse. There was no for it. noise from any animals or men. Beck braced himself He kicked his heels against his new mount's ribs and for the terrible scene he knew he would find. started east, huddled low against the horse s neck He reached the road. A horse - not his own, but one of and weeping. the caravan's - stood there as if waiting for him. Its sides were heaving but it was otherwise unharmed, · cropping grass by the roadside. As he walked toward it the horse startled a bit, then allowed itself to be stroked. After a moment it quieted and returned to It was early in the morning and she couldn't sleep - grazing. had not slept all night, despite immense weariness. Briony lay in her bed staring into the darkness, Other than this one animal, the road was empty. Of listening to the slumber sounds of Rose and Moina the dozens of men and horses and mules, the wool and three other young noblewomen who were staying wagons, the armored soldiers, and the prince's in the castle on this night before Kendrick's funeral. daughter, not to mention whatever army of nightmares How could any of them sleep, she wondered. Did they had attacked them, no sign remained. Even the fog not know that everything was in danger - that the had vanished. entire kingdom tottered? Terror and disbelief squeezed him like a brutal hand. If Shaso was the murderer and had acted alone, there Raemon Beck felt his stomach convulse, then he could be no comprehensible reason for it, and so how brought up the remains of his morning meal. He wiped could she trust anyone ever again? If somehow he his mouth and clambered hurriedly into the horse's had been suborned, or if someone else performed this saddle, grunting at the pain in his ribs and back. His terrible murder and painted him with the blame, then companions had disappeared so completely there the Eddons had been purposefully struck to the heart was nowhere he could think of to begin a search, and by a terrible enemy, and struck as they slept in their in any case he did not want to search, did not want to own house. How could anyone ever sleep again? spend another instant in this haunted spot. He only wanted to ride and ride until he reached a place where Her heart had begun beating swiftly even before she people lived. realized what the new sound was: a quiet knock at the door of her chamber. There were guards outside, she He knew he could never come into these hills again. If knew. Even that careless fool Ferras Vansen would that meant he must give up his place in the family not leave her unguarded at a time like this. She pulled venture and his wife and children must join him a cloak over her nightdress - the room and the stone begging for coppers in the street, there was no help floors were cold - and started toward the door. 259 260 But Kendrick had guards, she remembered, and her instead swayed and began to collapse. Chaven and skin took a deeper chill. He would have thought he one of the guards caught at her arms. was safe, too. "We will survive," she whispered. "Princess?" The voice was quiet, but she recognized "Yes, Princess," he said, "but tonight you will go back it. Now she was frightened for a completely different to bed." reason. She hurried forward, hesitated again for a "But, Barrick . . . !"The room still spun around her. moment. "I will tell him that you will come with the first light. He "Chaven? It is you? Truly you?" is probably asleep now, anyway." "It is." "Tell him I love him, Chaven." "We are here, too, Highness." It was one of the "I will." guards. She recognized the gruff voice, although she She allowed herself to be helped onto her own bed - couldn't remember the man's name. "You can open for a moment she could not avoid thinking of poor the door." Kendrick in the hands of the death-maids of Kernios at Still, such had been the terror of the last days that she this very moment. But even this horror, or the walls had to force herself not to flinch when the door at last that seemed slowly to revolve, could not keep swung open. Chaven and the guards stood waiting in exhaustion at bay. the pool of torchlight outside. The physician's face "Tell Barrick . . . " she said,". . . tell Barrick . . ." but was serious and haggard with exhaustion, but the that was all she could manage before weariness terrible look she expected to see was not there. finally breached the stronghold and conquered her. "Is it my brother?" "It is, my lady, but do not fear. I come to say that I think his fever has broken. He will not quickly be himself again, but I strongly believe he will live and recover. He was asking for you." "Merciful Zoria! Thank all the gods!" Briony fell to her knees and lowered her head in prayer. She should have been delirious with joy, but instead she was suddenly dizzy. This one terrible fear allayed, it was as though the rigor with which she had held herself up now ended in a moment. She tried to stand, but 261 262 the Leopards, and the Leopards were surrounded in turn by an almost equally famous troop of Penkalese mercenaries, the White Hounds. These Hounds were 11 all second or third generation now, their forefathers originally captured by the current autarch's Bride of the God grandfather in a famous sea battle. Few of them could still speak the language of Penkal, but the master of much of the continent of Xand had more than enough THE BERRIES: pale -skinned women at his disposal to keep the present generation of Hounds as white as their forebears. They were strange-looking men, these White as bones, red as blood. northerners, even to Qinnitan's frightened, confused Red as coals, white as clay. gaze, built more like the bears she had seen in Are none of them sweet? pictures than like hounds, hairy and wide-bearded, broad of back and shoulder. - from The Bonefall Oracles . From behind the Perikalese mercenaries, one of the Leopard soldiers was staring at her - an important If Qinnitan had thought the autarch's throne room soldier, judging by the long black tail on his helmet. would be a more intimate setting than the cavernous He had a frown like a gash, and his elaborate armor Temple of the Hive, she would have been very wrong only emphasized his own broad shoulders. Terrified the majesty of the Golden One's entourage was even she had already done something wrong, Qinnitan more overwhelming here, the white -and-black-tiled dropped her eyes. hall packed with hundreds of soldiers and servants When she looked up again, the knot of courtiers was and the representatives of dozens of noble families moving away from the Falcon Throne, shuffling and of trade and bureaucratic interests, all joined backward with many bows and flutterings of hands, together under the eyes of the watchful, wide -eyed and she could see the autarch once more. The young gods painted on the ceiling. The autarch himself sat at god-on-earth leaned back and gazed up at the the center of it all on the great Falcon Throne, an stretching beak above his head as if the room was immense bird's head covered in topaz feathers, the empty but for himself, and briefly scratched his long eyes red jasper, Sulepis Bishakh am-Xis III himself nose. His gold finger -stalls glittered, tiny guardians of was seated beneath the awning made by the upper the safety of all creation: it was a truth as powerful as part of the giant raptor's gaping golden beak. The the blueness of the sky that the autarch must not autarch was surrounded by his legendary musketeers, 263 264 accidentally touch something impure. She did not - did not - want to be given to such a man, to go to his bed, to undress for him and be touched Qinnitan's mother was weeping again. Qinnitan was and entered by him, even if he truly was a god upon frightened, too, but she still couldn't understand such the earth. The very idea made her shudder as if she behavior. She bumped her mother's side with an had a fever. elbow, a piece of impertinence that would have been unthinkable in most families. "Hush!" she whispered, Not that she had any other choice. To refuse would be which would have been thought even more to die, and to see her father and mother and sisters inexplicable. and brothers die before her - and none of the deaths, she felt sure, would be swift. "We are so lucky!" her mother said, sniffling. "Where are the bee-girl's parents?" the autarch asked We? Even through the terror at being singled out, the suddenly. The room fell silent at his voice. Someone overwhelming strangeness of it all, and even an let out a little nervous cough. unavoidable tingle of pride at having somehow caught the eye of the most powerful man in the world, "They stand there, Golden One," said an older man Qinnitan knew one thing: she didn't want to marry the wearing what looked like ceremonial armor made out autarch. There was something about him that of silver cloth, pointing a finger toward the place frightened her very much, and it was not simply his where Qinnitan's mother and father huddled facedown matchless power or the things she had heard about on the stone floor. Qinnitan suddenly realized she had his cruel whims. There was something in his eyes, not abased herself, and put her head down. She something she had never seen in another person, but imagined the man in silver cloth must be Pin-lmmon might have seen once in the eyes of a horse that had Vash, the paramount minister. bounced its rider off his saddle and then, when the "Bring them up," commanded the autarch in his man's foot caught in the stirrup, dragged him to his strong, high voice. Someone coughed again. It death through the crowded marketplace, smashing sounded loud in the silence that followed the autarch's the rider's head against the cobbles for a hundred words and she was terribly glad it wasn't either of her paces before a soldier brought the beast down with an parents. arrow. As the horse lay gasping out its last bubbling "Do you give her up to be the bride of the god?" the red breaths, she had seen its eye rolling in the socket, minister asked her mother and father, who still the eye of something that was not seeing what was cowered, unable to look up at the autarch. Even really there. through her own misery, Qinnitan was ashamed of her The autarch, although calm and apparently amused father. Cheshret was a priest, able to stand before the by what he observed around him, had such an eye. altar of Nushash himself, so why should he be unable 265 266 to face the autarch' probably was, since he had drawn the angry attention of the god-on-earth. "Of course," her father said. "We are honored . . . so . . . we are . . ." "Do you hate me so much, that you must interrupt me with your braying?" the autarch demanded. The young "Yes, you are." The autarch flicked his glittering finger man, who had fallen onto his knees when the Leopard at a wooden casket. "Give the money to them Jeddin, soldiers let go of him, could only shake his head, send some of your men to help them carry it home." weeping with terror. He was so terrified his face had The Leopard soldier who had been staring at her turned the color of saffron. "Who are you?" earlier murmured a few words and two of the autarch's riflemen stepped forward and lifted the The youth was clearly too frightened to answer. At last chest. It was clearly heavy. the paramount minister cleared his throat. "He is an accounting scribe from my ministry of the Treasury. "Ten horses worth of silver," the autarch said. He is good with sums." "Generous payment for the honor of bringing your daughter into my house, is it not?" "So are a thousand merchants in Bird Snare Market. Can you tell me any reason I should not have him The men with the money chest had already started killed, Vash? He has wasted too much of my time back across the throne room. Qinnitan's parents already." scrambled awkwardly after it, trying to keep it in sight but not daring to turn their backs even slightly on the "Of course he has, Golden One," said the paramount autarch. minister with a gesture of infinite regret. "All I can offer in his favor is that I am told he is a hard worker and "You are too kind, Master of the Great Tent," her very well liked among the other scribes." father called, bowing and bowing. "You bring too much honor on our house." Qinnitan's mother was "Is that so?" The autarch stared up at the famous tiled crying again. A moment later, they were gone. ceiling for a moment, scratched his long nose with a long finger. He already seemed bored with the "Now," said the autarch, then somebody coughed subject. "Very well, here is my sentence. Leopards, again. The autarch's lean face writhed in annoyance. take him away. Beat him and break his bones with the "Who is that? Bring him up here." iron bar. Then, if he is to survive, these so-called Three more Leopards sprang down from the dais and friends of his in the Treasury may take care of him, out into the room, their polished, decorated guns held feed him, so on. We shall see how far their friendship high. The crowd shrank back from them. A moment truly extends." later they returned to the dais, dragging a frail young The large crowd murmured approvingly at the wisdom man. The crowd drew even farther back, as though he of the autarch's sentence, even as Qinnitan might be carrying a fatal illness, which in fact he 267 268 suppressed a shriek of horrified fury. The young man become of her. She wondered if she could hit her was taken away, his feet dragging on the floor, leaving head against the tiles hard enough to kill herself a wet track like a snail. He had fainted, but not before before someone stopped her. She didn't want to emptying his bladder. A trio of servitors scurried to marry the lord of the world. Just looking at his long wipe the flagstones clean again. face and strange, birdlike eyes made her heart feel as though it would stop beating. This close, she almost "As for you, girl," the autarch said, still angry, and thought she could sense the heat of his body coming Qinnitan s heart suddenly began to beat even more off him, as though he were a metal statue that had sat swiftly Had he tired of her already? Was he going to all day in the sun. The idea of those thin-fingered have her killed? He had just bought her like a market hands touching her, the gold stalls scraping her skin chicken from her parents and no one would raise a as that face came down onto her own . . . finger to save her. "Stand before me." "Stand up." It was the autarch himself. She got to her Somehow she made her legs work just well enough to feet, so wobbly that the paramount minister had to put carry her up the steps and onto the dais. She was his dry old hand under her elbow. The living god's grateful to reach the spot before the Falcon Throne, pale, pale eyes moved over her body, up to her face, grateful to be able to slump down onto her knees and back down over her body. There was no lechery in it, not have to feel them quivering. She put her forehead nothing really human: it felt as though she hung on a against the cool stone and wished that time would butcher's hook. stop, that she would never have to leave this spot and find out what else was in store for her. A powerful, "She's thin but not ugly," said the autarch. "She must sweet scent filled her nostrils, threatening to make her go to the Seclusion, of course. Give her to old Cusy sneeze. She peered from half -opened lids. A group of and tell her that this one must have special and very priests had surrounded her like ants on a crumb of careful treatment. Panhyssir will tell her what is cake, blowing incense on her out of bronze bowls, expected." perfuming her for the presence of the autarch. To her astonishment, Qinnitan found herself raising "You are very lucky, little daughter," said Pimmmon her eyes to meet the autarch's, heard herself say, Vash. "You are favored above almost all women on "Lord, Master, I don't know why you've chosen me, the earth. Do you know that?" but I will do my best to serve you." "Yes, Lord. Of course, Lord." She pushed her "You will serve me well," he said with an odd, childlike forehead harder against the stone, felt the area of cold laugh. spread on her skin. Her parents had sold her to the "May I ask one favor, Great Master?" autarch without even a question as to what might "You will address the Autarch Sulepis as `Living God 269 270 on Earth' or as `Golden One,' " the paramount minister one says about an arranged marriage. But I bring said sternly, even as the assembled throng murmured nothing. My parents - nobodies! Why on earth should at her forwardness. he choose me, even as one new wife among hundreds . . ? "Golden One, may I ask a favor?" The Leopard band's captain, the muscular, serious- "You may ask." faced soldier called Jeddin, was watching her again. "May I say good-bye to my sisters in the Hive, my He seemed as if he had been doing it for more than a friends? They were very kind to me." moment, but she had only just noticed. "Mistress, I He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "Jeddin, apologize," he said, "but I cannot give you long for send some of your Leopards to take her back for her your farewells. We are expected at the Seclusion in a farewells and to bring with her anything she needs short time." from her old life.Then she will enter the Seclusion." She nodded. He had fierce eyes, but his glint seemed His pallid eyes narrowed a little. "You do not seem decidedly more human than the animating force happy with the honor I have given you, girl?" behind the autarch's bottomless stare. "I am . . overwhelmed, Golden One." Fear had gripped When they came to the Hive, all the girls seemed her now. She could barely make her voice loud somehow to have known Qinnitan was coming. enough for him to hear a few paces away; she knew Perhaps the oracle predicted it, she thought, sour and that to the rest of those assembled in the vast room miserable. She was about to pass beyond the reach she would be unheard, not even a murmur. "Please of even the golden bees and the thought frightened believe that I do not have the words to describe my her. From the feminine deeps of the Hive to the happiness." female prison of the Seclusion. It did not seem like a good trade, however astonishing the honor of being chosen. · High Priestess Rugan bade her farewell with pride but little sentiment. The contingent of Leopards marched her through the "You have brought great honor to us," she said, and long passages of the Orchard Palace, a labyrinth that kissed Qinnitan on each cheek before returning to her she had only heard about but which, it seemed, would now be her home for the rest of her life. Thoughts chambers and her accounts. Chief Acolyte. swirled in her head like choking incense. Chryssa, on the other hand, seemed genuinely sorry to see her go, although there was a powerful pride in Why does he want me? He had scarcely even looked at me before today. "Not ugly," he said. That is what her face as well. "No one has ever gone from the Hive 271 272 into the Seclusion," she said, eyes glowing with the happen again, to one of them. They're going to think same light of religiosity that filled her when the bees it's a wonderful, romantic tale, like Dasmet and the spoke. Qinnitan could believe that Chryssa might be Girl With No Shadow. dreaming of how wonderful it would have been if she "Don't forget about me," she said suddenly. instead of Qinnitan had been chosen. Duny stared at her in amazment. "Forget about you? Qinnitan was doing the same. Qin-ya, how could we ever . . . ?" "Do you really have to go?" Duny was crying, but she "No, I mean don't forget about the real Qinnitan. Don't seemed almost as excited and pleased as Chryssa. make up silly stories about me." She stared at her "Why can't you live here until it happens?" friend, who for once was shocked into silence. "I'm "Don't be foolish, Dunyaza," the chief acolyte told her. scared, Duny." "Someone who is to be the autarch's wife cannot live "Getting married isn't so bad," her friend said. "My in the Hive. What if someone . . . what if she . . . ?" older sister told me . . ." She broke off, eyes wide. "I Chryssa frowned. "It just would not be right. He is the wonder if gods do it the same way people do . . . ?" Living God on Earth!" Qinnitan shook her head. Duny would never When the chief acolyte had gone, Qinnitan had begun understand. "Do you think you could come vi sit me?" putting her few personal articles into a bag - the "What? You mean . . . in the Seclusion?" carved bone comb her mother had given her when "Of course. It's only men who aren't allowed in. Please she had first been called to the sacred bees, a say you will." necklace of polished stones from her brothers, a tiny metal mi rror from her sisters, the festival dress she "Qin, I'll . . . yes! Yes, I'll come, as soon as the Sisters had never worn since becoming a Hive Sister. As she will let me." packed these things up, trying to answer Duny's She threw her arms around Duny. Mistress Chryssa excited questions as best she could - after all, how was standing in the doorway of the acolytes' hall, much could she tell when she had no idea what was letting her know that the soldiers were growing to happen to her, why she had been chosen, or how impatient outside the temple. "Don't forget about me," she had been noticed? - she realized that from now Qinnitan whispered in her friend's ear. "Don't make on she was not going to be a person any more, at me into some . . . princess." least for her Hive Sisters, but a Story. Duny could only shake her head in confusion as I'm going to be Qinnitan, the girl the autarch noticed Qinnitan took the sack with her pitiful array of and plucked out of their midst. They're going to talk possessions and followed the chief acolyte. about me at night. They'll wonder if it ever might "One more thing," Chryssa said. "Mother Mudry 273 274 wishes a word with you before you go." never sent one to the Seclusion before, but Rugan tells me she thought you . . . unusual." She shook her "The . . . oracle? With me?" Mudry could hardly know head. "Did you know that it was all ours, once, girl? Qinnitan at all. They had never been any nearer to Surigali was the Mistress of the Hive, and Nushash each other than a dozen paces since Qinnitan had her cowering consort." come to the Hive. Did even that august old woman desire to curry a little favor with the autarch? Qinnitan Qinnitan had no idea what this meant, and it had been supposed she must. But the nicest thing he said about a long and confusing day. She stood silent as Mudry me w as that I wasn't ugly. Doesn't give me much squeezed her fingers. The old woman paused as if power to get favors done, now does it? listening, face lifted to the ceiling, much as earlier that day the autarch had stared at nothing while deciding They walked through the darkest part of the Hive. The to have a man's bones shattered because he had sleepy murmuring of the bees washed in through the coughed. The old woman's hands seemed to grow air shafts high in the walls - there was nowhere in the warmer, almost hot, and Qinnitan had to force herself Hive their song could not be heard. If the bees noticed not to pull away. The oracle's lined face seemed to the departure of one of the younger acolytes, it didn't grow slack, then the toothless mouth fell open in a seem to bother them. gape of dismay. The oracle's room smelled of lavender water and "It is as I feared," Mother Mudry said, letting go of sandalwood incense. Oracle Mudry sat in her high- Qmnitan's hands. "It is bad. Very bad." backed chair, her face lifted expectantly toward the door, blind eyes moving behind the lids. She reached "What? What do you mean?" Did the oracle have out her hands. Qinnitan hesitated: they looked like some knowledge of her fate? Was she to be slain by claws. her husband -to-be, as so many others had been slain? "Is that the child? The girl?" "A bird will fly before the storm." Mudry spoke so Qinnitan looked around but Chryssa had left her at the quietly Qinnitan could barely hear her. "Yet it is hurt, doorway to the inner chamber. "It's me, Mother and can scarcely keep wing. Still, that is all the hope Mudry," she said. that remains when the sleeper awakens. Still, the old "Take my hands." blood is strong Not much hope at all . . ." She swayed "It's very kind of you . . ." for a moment, then stopped, her face turned straight toward Qinnitan s. If she had been sighted, she might "Hush!" She said it harshly, but without anger, a have stared. "I am tired, forgive me. There is little we warning to a child not to touch a naked flame. Her cold hands closed on Qinnitan's ringers. "We have can do and it is of no use to frighten you. You must 275 276 remember who you are, girl, that is all." Qinnitan had no idea if this was how the old woman 12 usually behaved, but she knew the oracle was indeed frightening her, whether she wanted to or not. "What do you mean, remember? That I'm a Hive Sister?" Sleeping in Stone "Remember who you are. And when the cage is opened, you must fly. It will not be opened twice." "But I don't understand . . . !" ON THE LONG AFTERNOON: Chryssa put her head in the door. "Is everything all right? Mother Mudry?" What are these that have fallen? The old woman nodded. She gave Qinnitan's hand They sparkle beside the trail like jewels, like tears one last leathery squeeze, then let go. "Remember Are they stars? Remember." - from The Bonefall Oracles It was all Qinnitan could do not to cry as the Chief Acolyte handed her back over to the soldiers and their captain, silently glowering Jeddin, so they could Chert watched Mica and Talc dressing the stone on conduct the new bride-to -be away to the hidden the wall above the tomb. The Schists could be fastness of the Seclusion. clannish, and since they were Hornblende's nephews, he had thought they might give trouble to their uncles replacement, but instead they had been nothing but helpful. In fact, his whole crew had been exemplary - even Pumice was doing his work with a minimum of complaining: whatever they might not have liked about the original job, they had swallowed it for the sake of getting the prince regent's tomb ready. And a good thing, too. The only light where Chert stood were the torches in the stone wall sconces - four of the sconces new-carved - but he felt certain the morning sun must already be creeping above the eastern battlements, which meant only a few hours remained until the funeral. 277 278 It had not been easy, any of it, and Chert could only come from limestone dust. "Sad job, though. You'd thank his Blue Quartz ancestors that it had bee n a have thought this was to be my son's to do, or even comparatively small task, the construction of one new my grandson's, not mine. He went too young, the poor room, and that they were working mostly with prince. And who'd have believed that southerner limestone. Even so, in some cases they had been fellow would have done it? After all these years, he forced to cut corners - or not cut corners, to be more seemed almost civilized." accurate, the new chamber was oddly shaped and still Chert turned and called to the others to hurry with un finished on the far end where a low tunnel opened pulling down the scaffolding Mica and Talc were on into farther caverns, and they had dressed only the the ground now and nearly done, but the work gang wall into which the prince regent's tomb had been cut still had to plaster the holes where the scaffold be ams Lumps of hard flint still floated like islands in all the had been driven into the walls, and it needed to be finished walls, and most of the car vings would have to done soon. Nynor the castellan had a dozen men and be completed later as well. There had barely been women waiting to fill the Eddon family crypt with time for Little Carbon to decorate the tomb itself and flowers and candles. the wall just around it, but the craftsman had done a Little Carbon squinted at a stone bloom, gave it a fine job despite the haste, turning a raw hole in the couple of last pokes with his chisel, then began bones of the Mount into a sort of forest bower. The working it with a pohshing-stick. "Speaking of sons, stone plinth on which the prince regent's coffin would where's that one of yours?" he seemed a bed of long, living grasses, the tree Chert felt an odd mixture of pride and irritation to hear trunks and hanging leafy branches carved into the the boy referred to as his son. "Flint! I sent him out walls of the crypt had been crafted with such delicacy before you got here - he'll be playing upground. All his that they seemed to fall away into the distance, row messing about was going to send me mad." Which upon row Chert almost felt he could walk into the was only part of the truth. The child had been acting carving toward the heart of a living forest. so strangely that it had frightened him a little. In fact, "It is splendid," he told Little Carbon, who was doing a Flint had been acting up so much that for a few last bit of finework on a group of flowers in the plinth. moments Chert had feared it might be bad air leaking "No one wi ll be able to say that the Funderlings have in through the cavern end of the tomb - breath of the not done their part and more." black deep his people called it, and it had killed many Little Carbon wiped dust from his sweaty face. He a Funderling over the years - but none of the others looked older than his true age - he was only a few had been affected. It had quickly become clear that years married, but already had the wizened features the boy's behavior was odder than even a pocket of of a grandfather and white in his beard that did not bad air could explain he seemed both drawn to and 279 280 afraid of the dark opening at the end of the tomb, last suggestions to the men tugging apart the grunting to himself as he peered into it like a much scaffolding, patted Little Carbon on the shoulder, then younger child - or even like an animal, Chert had stumped off to see what the child was up to. thought fearfully - and singing snatches of A few of Nynor's big folk were working in the outer unrecognizable songs. But when he had pulled the chambers of the tomb, cleaning and preparing it for boy away, Flint had answered questions with no less the burial procession, scrubbing soot off the walls reticence than usual, saying that the sound of the where torches had burned, strewing rushes and cavern beyond frightened him, whatever that meant, never fade blossoms on the floor. All these growing that he could hear voices and smell things. things filled the rock halls with a smell that reminded "Things I don't understand," was all he would or could Chert of the days when he was courting Opal and took offer by way of explanation, "that I don't want to her upground to walk along the sea-meadows at understand," but when Chert had grabbed a chunk of Landsend. She had later told him that for a girl who glowing coral and got down on his knees to poke his had almost never been out of Funderling Town, it had head into the raw, unworked limestone cavern been both exciting and frightening to stand looking beyond, he had found nothing unusual. down at the sea and that immensity of open sky. He remembered feeling an expensive pride - as though With a pressing job and the memory of what Cinnabar he had made it all for her. had said about the men's restiveness fresh in his thoughts, Chert had made up his mind quickly. He But the scent of flowers and a few happy memories of didn't want the boy kicking up a fuss and putting the his younger days could not change the nature of the men off their work, so he had taken Flint up the stairs place In niche after niche lay the mortal remains of the and told him to stay inside the boundaries of the Eddons who had ruled Southmarch, of lives that might cemetery, but under no circumstances to go out of once have been grand or insignificant, but were all the sight of the top steps of the tomb. With Chert's men same now. Still, when they were alive, someone cared carrying limestone chips out of the mound in wheeled for them, he thought. Their bodies were brought to this barrows all day, he had thought the boy could not get place by weeping mourners just as others would bring into too much trouble without being noticed. the murdered prince this day, then they had been left to sleep in stone until the machineries of time wore Thinking about it now, as Little Carbon used a wet rag them away to dry dust and knobs of bone. dipped in fine sand to scrape away a few last imperfections, Chert realized that he hadn't heard or It did not make Chert fearful, although the Funderlings seen anything of the boy in some time, although he themselves did not bury their dead, but neither could would have expected him to have come back down by he ignore the presence of so many finished lives. now looking for his midmorning meal. He called a few Some of the grander caskets, made in stone or metal 281 282 to outlast the ages, had an effigy not of the occupant had a withered arm like Barrick's, they would fear my as he or she looked in life, although there were many anger. But because of the accident of my birth, of my of those, but of the occupant in death, withering and sex, I am suspect. decaying, a style of funerary art from three centuries The room was chill and she was trembling. Oh, earlier. During those years after the plague, it seemed Father, how could you leave us? She closed her eyes that many of the dying wished to remind the living just and for a moment she became a child again, shivering how transitory their good luck would be. while the nurses bustled around her, drying her small Why all the mystery? Chert wondered. These bodies body with flannels, the great house full of familiar of ours come out of the earth, come out of all we eat sounds. Where does time go when it is used up? she and drink and breathe, and they go back to earth in wondered. Is it like the sound of voices that echo and the end, whatever the gods may do with the spark that echo in a long hallway, growing smaller and smaller is inside us. But he could not be as blithe as he until they're too faint to hear? Is there an echo wished, and even though there were big folk busily at somewhere of that time when we were all together - work in the catacombs around him, still he hurried Kendrick alive, Father here, Barrick well? Lately - even before the prince regent's death - all But even if there were, it would only be a dying echo, around him had begun to seem tinged with the chill populated by ghosts. breath of mortality, a hint of the endings of things. She raised her arms. "Dress me," she told Moina and For once a child of stone was glad to see the raw Rose. daylight, but the lift in his spirits did not last long Flint The thought of her father, the sudden urge to see him, was nowhere to be seen, and although Chert walked or at least to hear his voice, had reminded her of through all the graveyard and even into the gardens something: where was his letter, the one Dawet dan- beyond, calling and calling, he could not find him. Faar had brought from Hierosol? Perhaps it was with some of Kendrick's other effects - she had not had a · chance to look through them all yet. But her father's letter was not like other papers: she not only needed to see it, she wanted to, desperately. She would look Briony stood, naked and cold from the bath, looking for it after the funeral. Kendrick's funeral. down at her own pale limbs and hating the weakness The horror of what lay ahead made her knees weak, of her womanhood. but she straightened, held herself firm. She would not If I were a man, she thought, then Summerfield and show her ladies how fearful she was, how helpless Lord Brone and the others would not seize at my and hopeless. every word. They would not think me weak. Even if I 283 284 Rose and Moina were strangely quiet. Briony me. It had not been Barrick either, or even the lord wondered if they were as overwhelmed as she was, or constable. No, it had been Briony's great-aunt merely respecting her mood and the dread weight of Merolanna, stern and set as the Mount itself, who had the day. And what did it matter? Death made its own ordered life and made a little sense of death. respect, one way or another. Rose and Moina were busy as bees around a dark They slipped on her chemise, working a little to pull it flower, unbending and spreading the ruffled cuffs of into place over her damp skin. The petticoat tied at the Briony s dress, trimming a loose thread from the hem back with points, she was still barefoot and it pooled and then slipping on her shoes, one of them bracing around her feet. Rose pulled the laces too tight as she her so she could lift her foot while the other guided the tied the corset and Briony grunted but did not ask her black slipper into place. For a moment she was filled to loosen it. She had learned that these formal clothes with love for these girls. They, too, were being brave, served a purpose: like a soldier's armor, they gave an she decided. Men's wars happened far away and they outward semblance of strength even when the body proved their courage in front of armies of other men. inside was weak. Women's wars were more subtle things and were witnessed mostly by others of their sex. Her ladies-in- But I don't want to be weak! I want to be strong, like a waiting and all the other women in the castle were man, for the family and for our people. But what did waging a battle against chaos, struggling to lend that mean? There were many kinds of strength, the sense to a world that seemed to have lost it. bearlike power of someone like Avin Brone or the more subtle force Kendrick had possessed: her older She did not like what the world had forced upon her, brother had once thrown one of the bigger guards so but today, Briony decided, she was still proud to be hard in a wrestling match that the man had to be what she was. carried away. Thinking of him made her breath hitch. When they had finished with her shoes, the ladies-in- He was so alive - he can't be gone. How can a single waiting draped her in a cloak of heavy black velvet night change the world? that her father had given her but which she had never But there were other kinds of strength, too, she worn. She sat on a high stool, or rather leaned, half thought as Moina and Rose helped her into the black standing, so that Rose could bring out her jewelry and silk dress stiff with black brocade and delicate silver- Moina and one of the younger maids could begin to and-gold filigree. Father almost neper raises his voice, arrange her hair. and I have never seen him strike a blow in anger, but "Don't bother with all that," she told Moina, but gently. only fools ever called him weak. And why are only Her lady -in-waitmg stopped, the curling iron already in men thought strong? Who has held this family her hands. "I will wear a headdress - the one with together in the past days? Not me, may Zoria forgive 285 286 silver stitching." already seen her cry. Today they had to see her strong and dry-eyed, her face a mask of composure. With as much ceremony as a mantis producing a And it was a distraction for Rose and Moina, as well, shrine's sacred object, Rose set the jewel casket on a this unusual liberty, they were laughing again as they cushion and opened the lid. She pulled out the largest brushed rouge onto her cheeks, despite their still- necklace, a heavy chain of gold with pendant ruby, a damp eyes. gift from Briony's father to the mother she had scarcely known. When they had finished, they lowered the gabled headdress onto her head and fastened it with pins, "Not that," Briony said. "Not today. There - the hart then spread its black velvet fall onto her shoulders and nothing else." and down her back. Briony felt solid and unbending. Rose lifted the slender silver necklace, confusion "The guards will have to come an d carry me - I swear showing on her face. The leaping-deer pendant was a I cannot move an inch. Bring me a glass." small and insignificant piece and seemed out of Moina blew her nose while Rose hurried to find the keeping with the heavy majesty of her other garments. looking glass. The other maids formed into a "Kendrick gave it to me. A birthday gift." respectful half circle around her, whispering, Rose' s eyes filled as she draped it around her impressed. Briony regarded herself, all in black from mistress' neck. Briony tried to wipe the girl's tears head to foot with only a glint of silver at her brow and away, but the sleeves of her gown were too stiff, her breast. cloak too massive. "Curse it, don't you dare start that. "I look like Siveda the moon-maiden Like the Goddess You'll have me going, too." of Night." "Cry if you want to, my lady," Moina said, sniffling. "You look splendid, Your Highness," said Rose, "We haven't begun your face yet." suddenly all formality. Briony laughed a little despite herself. The wretched "I look like a ship under full sail. Big as the world." sleeves would not let her wipe her own eyes either, so Briony sighed and her breath caught. "Oh, gods, come she could only sit helplessly until Rose brought a and help me get up. I have to bury my brother." kerchief to blot her dry agai n. Her hair pulled back and knotted at the back of her · head, she sat as patiently as she could while the two ladies -in-waiting begin to daub things on her cheeks and eyelids. She hated face paint, but today was not A boy was clinging high on the wall on the outside of an ordinary day. The people - her people - had the chapel building, but even in this time of fear, when 287 288 murderous enemies might still be at large, no one in Flint pulled himself up onto one of the protruding Southmarch Castle seemed to have noticed him. At carvings that decorated the outside wall of the chapel, the moment he was crouching in the corner of a vast then moved sideways like a spider to another before window frame, the colored glass surrounding him like climbing up to a higher one Withm a matter of the background of a painting. Although the chapel was moments, e ven as a gate on the far side of the full of people, if anyone inside had taken note of the graveyard closed behind the basket-carrying servants shadow at the bottom of the great window they had and their voices fell away, he was onto the roof. decided it was only grime or a drift of leaves. The chapel rooftop was a great angled field of slate A group of servants hurried up the path from the with spiral chimneys protruding every few yards like graveyard toward the doorway that led to the inner trees Moss and even living tufts of long grass poked keep, still carrying the baskets they had brought down up between the slate, and the autumn wind had piled an hour before but with only a few petals now great drifts of leaves against the chimneys like red- remaining in the bottoms, the rest had been scattered and-brown snow Many other rooftops were visible inside the tomb and along the winding path through from this spot, plateaus almost touching each other in the cemetery. The boy did not look down at them, and jostling profusion, but most of the towered inner keep they were all far too intent on their just-finished tasks still stretched far above his head on all sides, the and their whispered conversations to look up. forest of chimneys rendered in giant size. Something above the boy's head caught his attention. Flint seemed to care about none of these things. At A butterfly, a big one, all yellow and black, lit on the first he only lay on his belly and stared at the place edge of the roof and sat there with its wings beating where the butterfly sat near the roof's summit, fanning as slowly as a tranquil heart. It was late in the season its wings indolently. Then the boy began to crawl for butterflies. upward, digging his feet into the eruptions of moss and lifted slate, until he was within arm's reach of the He found the edge of the window with his stubby, dirty creature. His hand stretched and the butterfly fingers and pulled himself up until he was standing suddenly sensed him, tumbled over the edge, and beside one edge of the leaded glass window. Anyone was gone, but the boy did not stop. His fingers closed watching from the inside would now have seen the on something quite different and he plucked it out of drift of leaves suddenly become a vertical column, but the grass and brought it close to his face. no sound came to him from behind the glass except the continuing low hum of a chorus singing the "Lay of It was an arrow, small as a darning needle. He Kernios," longest and most expansive of the funeral squinted. It was fletched with tiny crests of the same songs. A moment later the column was gone and the yellow and black as the butterfly's wings. window was unshadowed again. 289 290 For long moments the boy lay silently, motionlessly, of wonder, as though it had become something totally staring at the arrow. Someone watching might have different since he touched it last. Flint stared at him, thought he had fallen asleep with his eyes open, so unsmiling, brow furrowed. complete was his stillness, but the watcher would The little man gulped air. "Hurt me not, master, I beg have been wrong. He abruptly rolled and scrambled `ee," he fluted, something like hope in his eyes where across the rooftop to the nearest chimney, fast as a before there had been only terror. "Tha hast me fair, striking snake, and thrust with his hand first at one skin to sky. Grant thy wish, I will. All know a Roof- spot, then another, grabbing after something that fled topper will keep un's word." through the little forest of grass around the base of the Flint frowned, then set the little man down on the bricks. slate. The prisoner got to his feet, hesitated, took a His hand closed and suddenly he was still again. He few steps, then stopped again. Flint didn't move. His pulled back his fist, holding it close to his body as he little face screwed up in confusion, the tiny ma n at last sat down with the chimney against his back. When he turned away and began scrambling up the moss paths opened his hand, the thing huddling there did not between the slates, heading for the roofcrest with his move until he poked it gently with his finger. bow dangling in his hand. Every few steps he looked The little man who now rolled over and crouched in back over his shoulder, as though expecting his Flint's palm was not much taller than that finger. The apparent freedom to prove only a cruel game, but by man's skin seemed sooty-dark, although it was hard the time he reached the top, the boy still had not to say how much of that was truly skin and how much moved. was dirt His eyes were wide, httle pinpricks of white in "Oh, th'art good, young master," the tiny man cried, the shadow of the boy's hand. He tried to leap free, his voice almost inaudible from a yard and a half but Flint curled his fingers into a cage and the little away. "Beetledown and un's aftercomers will man crouched again, defeated. He was clothed in remember thee. That be promised!" He vanished over rags and bits of gray pelt. He wore soft boots and had the roofcrest. a coil of coarse thread looped over his shoulder, a Flint sat against the chimney until the sun was high quiver of arrows on his back. above him, until the dim moan of the chorus below Flint bent and picked something out of the grass. It had ended, then began his climb back down. was a bow, strung so fine that the cord could barely be seen. Flint looked at it for a moment, then set it on · his palm beside the little man. The captive looked from the bow toward his captor, then picked it up. He passed the bow slowly from hand to hand with a kind 291 292 She was grateful for Rose standing beside her with monarch might surround himself with soldiers. Briony the kerchief, and furious wi th herself for needing it. It had never entirely warmed to her stepmother, but for was hard to believe how terrible a varnished wooden the first time she was truly beginning to dislike her. box could be. The funeral songs droned on and on, Your husband is imprisoned, woman, and one of his but she was grateful for that, too it gave her a chance children is murdered. Even with a baby in your belly, to compose herself. surely you have more duties now than just to hide in that nest of yours like a she-crow brooding on her It seemed shameful to carry Kendrick to the tomb in a eggs. borrowed coffin, but there had been no time to prepare a proper one. In fact, Nynor had assured her The chorus finished at last and Hierarch Sisel, in his the Funderling craftsmen had done well simply to finest red -and-silver robes, stood and took his place in prepare the tomb. The true coffin with its carved effigy front of the coffin to begin the funeral oration. It was should not be hurried, he said - would she want an the sort of thing Sisel did best, showing why King Olm imperfect likeness of her brother to gaze out at had chosen him to fill such an important post despite eternity, as if he were forced to hide behind a crude the objections of Sisel's own superiors back in Syan mask? Kendrick could be moved into the stone coffin (who had thought him too lukewarm in his support of when it was finished. the policies of the current trigonarch) and he spoke the familiar words with apparent compassion and Still, it seemed shameful. sincerity. As the soothing Hiero-sohne litany filled the Despite the presence of members of the household Erivor Chapel, Briony could almost let herself believe like Rose and Moina, a dry-eyed but somber Chaven, she had found one of those echoes of the past, a and even old Puzzle, hatless and dressed in black- remnant of the days she would whisper with her and-gray motley, his hair smoothed across his head in brothers during services, annoying Merolanna and thin strands, the royal family's bench at the front of the frustrating the old mantis Father Timoid, who knew chapel was only half full. Briony's stepmother Anissa that the children's father would never let them be sat a short distance away beside Merolanna, arms scolded for a crime Olin himself deemed so folded protectively across her belly Her face was insignificant. hidden by a black veil, but she sobbed and snuffled But I'm not a child now. There is nowh ere for me to loudly. A least we found something that could get her t hide from this moment. out of bed, was Briony's bitter thought. She had not seen much of the queen lately. It was as though As Sisel began to speak the words of the epitaph, the Anissa had turned the Tower of Spring into a sort of nobles dutifully repeating the significant phrases, fortress, covering all the windows with heavy cloths Briony was distracted by a fuss at her elbow. Moina and surrounding herself with women as a besieged was talking sharply but quietly with a young page. 293 294 "What does the fellow want?" Briony whispered. She turned and her heart thumped painfully in her breast. With his long black cloak only imperfectly "I come from your brother, Highness," the child told covering the white nightdress and his face even paler her. than usual, Barrick might have been Kendrick himself Held tightly around the middle by her confining in his winding-sheet. Her twin stood in the aisle of the garments, Briony did her best to bend toward the boy; chapel with a royal guardsman at each elbow helping it made her breathless. "Barrick?" But of course it had him to stand upright Just getting here had clearly been to be Barrick. If her other brother had sent her a an effort; his face was damp with sweat and his eyes message, it would not be carried by a young boy with did not quite meet hers. a dripping nose. "Is he well?" Briony levered he rself upright and pushed past Moina, "He is better. He sends to say that you should not go grateful that she was in the front of the chapel and not to the cr . . . the cr . . ." The boy was nervous and wedged between two rows of benches like a caravel couldn't remember the word. in a too-tight berth. She threw her arms around This little fellow is facing the Goddess of the Night, Barrick as well as she could manage with her heavy after all, she thought. Are you happy now, Lord clothes and confining corset, then realized everyone Brone? I am not a weeping girl anymore - I have in the chapel must be looking at them. She leaned become a thing to scare children. "The crypt?" back a little and kissed his cheek, which was still warm from fever or effort. "Yes, Highness." The boy nodded rapidly but still couldn't meet her eye. "He says you should not go "But, you wonderful fool," she said quietly, "what are down to the crypt until you see what he is sending to you doing here? You should be in bed!" you." He had been stiff in her embrace; now he stepped "What he is sending?" Briony looked to Rose, staring back, shaking off the two guardsmen who were trying in damp misery at the coffin on the altar. It was draped to help him. "What am I doing here?" he asked loudly. in a banner blazoned with the Eddon wolf and stars, "I am a prince of the House of Eddon. Did you think but it was no less dreadful for its proud covering. you would bury our brother without me?" Behind her, Briony could hear the courtiers whispering Briony put her hand to her mouth, surprised by his loudly and she felt herself growing angry at their tone but even more shocked by the look of cold anger disrespect. "Why are these fools talking? Rose, did on his face Something in her own features seemed to you hear what the boy said? What could Barrick be touch him in a way her embrace and kiss had not: his sending?" expression softened and he sagged. One of the "Myself." guardsmen took his elbow. "Oh, Briony, I am sorry. I 295 296 have been so ill. It was so hard to get here, I had to and shall be a star in Heaven. . . ." stop and catch my breath every few steps, but I had to . . . for Kendrick. Pay no attention. My mind has been As he finished, the hierarch sprinkled a handful of full of so many foolish things. . . ." earth on the coffin, then a few drops of water from a "Of course - oh, Barrick, of course. Sit down." She ceremonial jar; lastly, he set a single white feather helped him down onto the bench beside her. Even atop them. As the gathered nobles spoke the seated, he did not let go of her hand, holding her fast response to Sisel's words, four guardsman stepped in his damp, hot grip. forward and slid two long poles through the coffin's Hierarch Sisel, after waiting while the courtiers handles, rucking the embroidered head of the Eddon reseated themselves, and with only the smallest and wolf on the covering cloth so that its snarl seemed to most tasteful look of puzzlement, resumed the eulogy turn to a look of confusion, then lifted the coffin and carried it to the door of the chapel. " `Whether we are born in time of joy or time of woe, and whether we make of our lives a wonder to all eyes Briony, going slowly so Barrick would not fall behind, or a shame before Heaven, still the gods grant us only moved to her place behind the coffin. She reached out our allotted time,' so said the oracle Iaris in the days a hand and lifted the family banner so she could touch of the splendor of Hierosol, and he spoke truth. To no the polished wood. She wanted to say something, but man is given anything certain but death, be he ever so could not make herself believe that the Kendrick she exalted. But be he ever so low, still can his spirit be knew was in that box. seated with the immortals in Heaven. It would be too cruel if he was - putting him down "To Kernios of the black, fruitful earth, we commend under all that stone. He loved to ride, to run . . . this our beloved Kendrick Eddon's mortal raiment. To She was weeping again as the coffin was carried out Erivor of the waters, we give back the blood that ran in of the chapel behind a ceremonial guard, with all the his veins. But to Perin of the skies, we offer up his noble mourners falling into line behind the twins. spirit, that it may be carried to Heaven and the halls of The other residents of the palace had been waiting the gods as a bird is carried on the winds until it beside the flower-strewn path, the servants and lesser reaches the safety of its own nest once more. nobility who were now getting their only chance to see "May the blessings of the Three be upon him, this our the casket that held the prince's remains. Many were brother. May the blessings of the Three be also upon crying and moaning as though Kendrick's death had those who must remain behind. The world will be a just happened, and Briony found herself both moved darker place for the light that was his and is now and yet somehow angered by the noise - quite out gone, but it will shine brightly in the halls of the gods of control for a moment, so that she had to fight 297 298 herself not to turn around and run back into the and Barrick, Anissa, Merolanna, and a few others chapel. She turned to Barrick instead and saw that he followed the guardsmen and their burden down into hardly seemed to notice the crowd. He was staring at the ground, leaving the rest of the nobles to stand on the ground with clench-jawed ferocity, using all his the grass at the door of the tomb, deserted and strength just to stay moving behind the coffin. It was awkward. too painful for Briony to watch him, almost frightening: he looked like he was still locked in a fever -dream, as · though only his body had come back to join the living. She turned away from her twin and, as her eyes The graveyard was full of big folk, all of them in swept the crowd, she glimpsed a small face watching mourning dress. Chert felt like he was lost in a thicket intently from a spot on the wall, a fair-haired boy who of black trees. There was no sign of the boy had apparently climbed up to get a better vantage anywhere. point. For a moment she was fearful for the child - he was treetop-high - but he seemed as unconcerned as All he could do was wait. The funeral had almost a squirrel. ended. In a few moments the royal family would come back out and the crowd would disperse. Maybe then Barrick had caught up again, and now he whispered in he could find some trace of where the child had gone. her ear. "They are all around, you know." Opal will never forgive me, he thought What could For a moment she thought he was talking about small have happened to him? boys like the one clinging to the wall. "Who are?" With all these people here, could he have stumbled He put his finger to his lips. "Softly, softly. They do not upon his real family? Chert thought even Opal could think I know, but I do. And when I have taken up my live with that, if they only knew it for certain. birthright, I will make them pay for what they have done." He fell back a pace and let his gaze drop to the But it's not just Opal, he admitted to himself. I'll miss ground once more, his mouth set in a tight, pained the boy, too, mourn the loss of him. Fissure and smile. fracture, listen to me! Talking like it was Flint being put away in the dark instead of the prince. He's just run off Please let this end soon, she prayed. Merciful somewhere, is all. . Zoria,just let us put our brother into the ground and let this day end. A hand touched his back. He turned to find the boy standing beside him. When they reached the graveyard, the procession wound among the slanting shadows of ancient stones "You! Where have you been?" Heart racing with until it reached the mouth of the family crypt. Briony unexpected joy and relief, Chert surprised himself by 299 300 grabbing the boy and pulling him close. It was like the crypt. They both looked shaken, the prince in hugging an unwilling cat Chert released him and particular so pale and hollow-eyed that he might have looked him over. The child seemed quiet and full of been one of the tomb's denizens escaped for a something - secrets, perhaps, but that was nothing moment back into the outside air. new. "Where have you been?" Chert asked again. Poor Eddon family, Chert thought as the twins floated "I met one of the old people." past, surrounded by courtiers and servants but somehow terribly alone, as though they were only "Who is that? What do you mean?" partly in the world the rest of the castle folk shared. It But Flint did not answer Instead he stared past Chert was hard to believe they were the same pair he had at the place where the royal family had descended seen riding in the hills only a few days earlier. into the tomb Chert turned to see that some of them The weight of the world, that's what they're carrying had come out again: the funeral was over. now, he thought. For the first time, he could truly feel "You still haven't told me where you went, boy . . ." the meaning of the old phrase, the grim solidity of dirt "Why is that woman looking at me?" and cold stone. It made him shiver. Chert swiveled until he saw the stout old woman in black-and-gold brocade, part of the funeral party. He almost recognized her, wondered if she might be the murdered prince's great-aunt, Merolanna. She was indeed staring at the boy, but as Chert watched, she swayed a little as though she might faint Flint quickly moved behind Chert, but he did not look fearful, only cautious. Chert turned back to see the old woman's maids steadying her, leading her back toward the inner keep, but even as she walked, the woman kept looking around as if for the boy, her face set in an odd mixture of terror and need, until the milling crowd hid her from Chert's view. Before he could make any sense out of what he had seen, a ripple passed through the crowd, a quiet murmuring. He caught at the boy's sleeve to make sure he didn't vanish again.The young prince and princess were being helped up the stairs and out of 301 302 PART TWO 13 MOONLIGHT Vansen's Charge This king, Klaon, beloved grandchild of the Father of HALL OF PURSUIT: Waters, was troubled by what the beggar had told him, and so A strong man who does not sing he swore that. A singing man who does not turn all the children who bore the sign of infamy should be Even when the door closes found and then destroyed. . . . - from The Bonefall Oracles - from A Compendium of Things That Are Known. "I don't want to hear any more." He was tired and his The Book of the Trigon head hurt. He still felt deathly ill - felt as though he would never agai n be truly well. He wanted only to go back to what he had been doing, bouncing the hard leather ball against the floor that had already been pitted with age in his great-grandfather's day, thinking about nothing. "Please, Barrick, I beg of you." Gailon Tolly, Duke of Summerfield, was doing his best to keep impatience from his voice. It amused Barrick, but it angered him too. "Prince Barrick. I am prince regent, now. I am not your little cousin any longer and you cannot treat me that way." 303 304 Gailon bobbed his head. "Of course, Highness. Gailon?" Forgive my disrespect." "No . . . !" Barrick smiled. "Better. Well, then, tell it to me again." "It seems to me that you are trying to drive a wedge "I have . . ." The duke regained his look of patience. "It between my sister and myself." Barrick flung the is simply this. Your sister has seen the envoy from leather ball down against the floor. It hit on the edge of Ludis again this morning. The black man, Dawet." a flagstone and went bouncing across the room. Two young pages dove out of the way as one of the larger "By herself? Behind closed doors?" dogs scrambled after it, then chased it into a corner Gailon colored. "No, Highness. In the garden, with behind a chest and growled in excited frustration. "But others present." my sister and myself are almost the same thing, Duke "Ah." Barrick bounced the ball again. It did trouble Gailon. That is what you must know." him, but he wouldn't show it and give Gailon the "You wrong me, Highness." Gailon turned to Brone, satisfaction. "So my sister, the princess regent, was but the big man was watching the dog rooting behind talking in the garden to an envoy of the man who's the chest, making it clear that he wanted no holding our father prisoner." responsibility for the duke's little embassy. "We are in "Yes, but . . ." Gailon scowled and turned to Avin a terrible time. We need to be strong - all the houses Brone. "Prince Barrick does not want to understand of Southmarch must stand together, Eddons, Tollys, me, Brone. You explain." all of us. I know that. But neither should the common The mountainous lord constable shrugged, a motion people begin to whisper of. . . dalliances between your sister and your father's kidnappers." that looked as if it might start an avalanche. "She appears to enjoy the man's company. She listens very "You go too far." Barrick was angry, but it was a closely to what he has to say." distant fury like lightning over far hills. "Leave this room now and I will forgive your clumsy tongue, "While you were ill, he had a long audience with her, Gailon, but be careful. If you say such things in front Highness," said Gailon. "She ignored everyone else who was present." of my sister, you may find yourself fighting for honor, and she will not ask for a champion. She will fight you Ignored, thought Barrick. Through all the disturbing herself." images that had not entirely left his head, through weariness and the strands of fever that still draped "By the gods, is this whole family mad?" the duke cried, but Brone already had Gailon Tolly's shoulders him like cobwebs, it was a word whose meaning he and was steering him toward the door, whispering understood immediately. "She is paying more attention to him than to you, is that what you mean, words of calm in his ear. The lord constable gave 305 306 Barrick an odd look as he urged Gailon out, not trust any of the Southmarch nobles, not Brone, not something that could equally have been surprised Tyne Aldritch of Blueshore, not even the old castellan, approval or disdain imperfectly masked. Nynor, no matter how valuable a servant any of them had been to his father. He trusted nobody but his Barrick did not feel strong enough to try to make sister, and now Gailon's words had begun to eat away sense of it all. In the three days he had been out of at that bond, too. Barrick stood up, so full of rage and bed, through the ghastly funeral and the equally unhappiness that even the dog shied away. His two drawn -out and exhausting ceremony in the castle's pages waited, solemn-faced, watching him as small huge, incense -choked Trigonate temple that had anima ls watch a larger one who might be hungry. He conferred the regency on both Briony and himself, he had shouted at them more than a few times since had never felt entirely well. That terrible fever had dragging himself out of his fever-bed, and had struck swept through him like a wildfire through a forest both of them at least once. glade. Fundamental things were gone, roots and branches, and they would take time to grow back. At "I must dress now," he said, trying to keep his voice the same time, the fever itself seemed to have left level. behind unfamiliar spores, seeds of new ideas which The council was meeting in an hour. Perhaps he he could feel quickening inside him, waiting to hatch. should ask Briony straight out what her business was What will I become? he wondered, staring at his bent with the dark man, the envoy. The memory of Dawet's left hand. I was already a monster. Already a target for lean brown face and superior smile sent a little scorn, haunted by those terrible dreams, by . . . by shudder of unease up Barrick's spine. It was so much Father's legacy. Am I a target for treachery now as like something from the fever dreams, those shadowy, well? These new thoughts would not go away, heartless creatures that pursued him. But waking life feelings of distrust that scratched away at him at all had also been nightmarish since then. It was all he hours, sleeping and waking, like rats in the walls. He could do to remind himself that he was awake, that had prayed and prayed, but the gods did not seem to the walls were solid, that eyes did not watch him from care enough to relieve his misery. every corner . Should I be listening to Gailon more carefully about I almost told Briony about Father, he realized. That this? But Barrick did not trust his cousin at all. was one thing he must never do. It could be the end of Everyone knew that Gailon was ambitious, although any happiness either of them would ever have he was by no means the worst of his family: his together. "I am waiting, curse it!" brothers, sly Caradon and the dangerously reckless The pages had been lifting his dark, fur-trimmed gown Hendon, made the Duke of Sum-merfield seem out of the chest; now they hurried toward him, almost maiden -shy by comparison. In fact, Barrick did 307 308 awkward beneath the weight, bearing the heavy thing sometimes even . . well, it felt like strength, the kind like the body of a dead foe. that she had been asked to hide over and over again. All of these competing forces yanked at her limbs and What did Briony want with that envoy? And more thoughts as though she were on puppet strings. "You importantly, why hadn't she told him, her brother? He think I am asking for trouble. You want me not to do couldn't help remembering that she had seemed quite it." prepared to take the regency without him, to leave him alone in his bed of pain. . . . "You are the princess regent now," said Utta. "You will do as you see fit. But this is a disturbed time - the No. He forced the thoughts away but they did not go waters are roiled and muddy. Is it really the time for far: like starving beggars rebuffed, they moved only the mistress of the nation to wear what everyone will out of immediate reach. No, not Briony. If there is think of as a man's garments?" anyone I can trust, it is Briony. "Is it the time?" Briony clapped her hands together in His knees were shaking as the two young pages frustration. "If not now, when? Everything is changing. stood on their toes to drape the gown across his Only a week ago, Kendrick was about to send me to shoulders. He did not need to see these boys' faces. marry the Bandit of Hierosol. Now I rule in He knew they were looking at each other. He knew Southmarch." they thought something was wrong with him. "With your brother." Am I still fevered? he wondered. Or is this the thing that Father spoke of? Is this the true beginning of it? "With my brother, yes. My twin. We can do whatever we want to do, whatever we think is right." For a moment he was back in the shadowed passages of his illness, looking down a great distance "First," said Utta, "remember that Barrick is your twin, into red -shot darkness. He could see no way out. but he is not you." "Are you saying he will be angry with me? For dressing as I want to, wearing sensible, sturdy clothes · instead of the frills of an empty-headed creature who is meant only to be pleasing to the eye?" Sister Utta's long face showed amusement, but "I am saying nothing except that your brother, too, has concern as well, and she spoke carefully. "I think it is seen the world he knows turned upside down. And so a very bold idea, Highness." have all the people of the country. It has not been just "But not a good one, is that what you're saying?" a few days of change, Princess Briony. A year ago at Briony fidgeted. So many things were moving inside the autumn harvest your father was on the throne and her these days, a torrent of feeling and need and the gods seemed happy. Now all has changed. 309 310 Remember that! There is a dark, cold wi nter coming - Moina Hartsbrook cleared her throat. "That man . . . there is already snow in the high hills. People will says he would be honored if he could find you in the huddle around their fires and listen to the wind garden again tomorrow." whistling in the thatch and wonder what is coming Briony couldn't help but smile at the girl's disapproving next. Their king is imprisoned. The king's heir is dead tone. "By `that man' you mean Lord Dawet?" - murdered, and no one can say why. Do you think "Yes, Highness." They all walked on in silence for a during those dark, cold nights they will be saying, while, but Briony could sense Moina trying to work up `Thanks to the gods that we have two children on the the courage to speak again. "Princess," she said at throne now who are not afraid to turn all the old ways last, "forgive me, but why do you see him? He is an upside down!'." enemy of the kingdom." Briony stared at the Zorian Sister's beautiful, austere "And so are many foreign envoys. Count Evander of face What I would not give to look like her, Briony Syan and the old wheezing fellow from Sessio who thought Wise, so wise and calm - no one would doubt smells like horse dung - you don't think those are our me then! Instead I look like a milkmaid most of the friends, do you? Surely you remember that fat pig time, red -faced and sweaty. "I came to you for advice, Angelos, the envoy from Jellon, who smiled at me didn't I?" she said. every day and fawned over Kendrick, until we woke Utta made a graceful little shrug. "You came for your up one morning and found that his master King lesson." Hesper had sold Father to Hierosol. I would have "Thank you, Sister. I will think about what you've said." killed Angelos myself if he hadn't already made the excuse of a hunting trip and slipped away back to They had scarcely gone back to reading Clemon's. Jellon. But until we catch them doing something The History of Eion and Its Nations when someone wrong, we put up with them.That's called statecraft." knocked quietly at the door. "But . . . but is that really why you talk to him?" Moina "Princess Briony?" called Rose Trelling from the was being stubborn; she ignored Rose's elbow corridor. "Highness? It is nearly time for you to see bumping her ribs. "Just for . . . statecraft?" your council." "Are you asking if I spend time with him because I find Briony got up and gave Utta a kiss on her cool cheek him handsome?" before going out to her waiting maids. There wasn't room for them to walk three abreast in the narrow Moina blushed and looked down. Briony's other passageway so Rose and Moina dropped behind her, attendant was also having trouble meeting her eyes. "I Briony could hear the sides of their skirts brushing the don't like him either," Rose confessed. walls. "I'm not planning to marry him, if that's what you're 311 312 wondering." second thought, she reminded herself. That is the kind of man he is. If Kendrick had announced it a day "Highness!" Her ladies-in-waiting were shocked. "Of earlier, I would be halfway to Hierosol by now, on my course not!" way to meet my new husband, the Lord Protector. "Yes, he is handsome. But he is almost my father's It suddenly occurred to her that since she felt certain age, don't forget I'm interested in what he has to say Kendrick had in the end decided to give her to Ludis about the many places he has seen, the southern for the greater good of Southmarch, the prince continent where he was born and its deserts, or old regent's death had occurred at the last possible Hierosol with all its ruins. I have not had much chance moment to prevent that from happening. The idea was to see other places, you know." Her maids looked at so obvious and so surprising that she stopped in the her with the expressions of young women who middle of the hallway and her two ladies bumped into associated journeying in foreign lands wi th little beside her from behind. It took a moment before they were all hardship and possible ravishment. She knew they sorted out and moving again, but now Briony wished would never understand her longing to learn of things she did not have to go to the council chamber. This beyond this damp, dark old castle. "But I am even strange new thought made everything look different, more interested in what Dawet has to say about as a cloud passing in front of the sun turned a br ight Shaso, of course. Who, you may remember, is in day into sudden twilight. chains because he seems to have killed my brother. Is it acceptable to the two of you, that I should try to But who would be so anxious to stop Kendrick understand the reasons why Prince Kendrick was sending me away? And where would Shaso fit into murdered?" such a conspiracy? Or had it been arranged not to keep Briony herself in Southmarch, but by someone Rose and Moina were both caught up in sputtering who wished to take the throne? But even if it was apologies, but Briony knew she had not been entirely someone in the family with a blood-claim, someone honest: there was more to her feelings about Dawet like Gailon Tolly or Rorick, there are still two better than simply admiration for his wide experience, claims ahead of any of them - Barrick's and mine. although she was not exactly sure what those feelings They would have to kill us, too. were. She was no mere girl, she told herself, to fawn over a lovesome face, but something about the man No, there are more than two claims ahead of both truly had caught her attention and she considered him Gailon and Rorick, Briony remembered. There are more than she should, wondered what he thought three. There is also the child in Anissa's belly. both of her and her court. And, of course, that infant would be the heir to the He would have earned me off to Ludis without a throne if he or she was born brotherless and sisterless 313 314 into the world. strokes would have been unmistakable. Anissa? Briony suddenly did not want to think about Ferras Vansen waited in his dress cloak just inside the such things anymore. She had never much cared for doorway to the council chamber between two of his her stepmother, but surely no woman would murder guardsmen Two more guards waited out in the hall an entire innocent family for the sake of an unborn with the man they would present to the councillors. child - a child who might not even live? Surely not. The council room, known as the Oak Chamber for the But it was disturbingly hard to clear away such massive wooden table at its center, was an old room suspicions once they had begun to take root. Wasn't that had once been the castle treasury in the Anissa's family in Devonis related in some way to dangerous days of the marauding Gray Companies, a King Hesper of Jellon, the one who sold Briony s large but windowless space with only two doors, father to Hierosol in the first place? nested in the maze of corridors behind the throne hall. The captain of the royal guard had never much liked Gailon, Rorick Longarren, her father's wife - she could the stark, stony room: it was the kind of place built for not think of any of them now without suspicion This is last stands, for the dreadful heroics of defeat and what murder does, she realized. She had reached the disaster. door of the council chamber and now waited to be announced. Barrick was slouched in one of the two The guard captain had been furious at first that Lord tall chairs at the head of the table, arms folded tightly Brone should treat their news so offhandedly, ordering across his chest as though he were cold, the face it held until the end of a long council session full of far framed in the collar of black fur even more pale than more trivial matters, but as first one hour passed, then usual. It does not make one phantom only - it makes another, Vansen had come to believe he understood hundreds. Brone's thinking. Many days had passed since Prince Kendrick's death - a killing still unexplained as far as Once these halls were full of people I knew, even most of the people of Southmarch were concerned, though I might not have liked them all. Now the house even if the murderer himself had been captured. The is crowded with demons and ghosts. business of the land had been almost uniformly ignored sinc e then, and many things had already · waited in pressing need of answer before the prince regent died. If Vansen had been allowed to present his own news first, it was possible that none of this Wait and I will call for you, the message from Avin other business would have had its audience. Brone commanded. Even without the Eddon wolf and stars and Brone's own sigil both stamped in wax at So he waited - but it was not easy. the bottom, the lord constable's thick, black pen 315 316 He let his eye rove across the dozen noblemen who safety in his hands, especially at so troubled a time. made up today's council, playing a game of She seemed almost as distracted as her brother. anticipating an attack on the royal twins first by this Ferras Vansen thought that Barrick did not seem to one, then by that, and trying to decide how he would like her answer much, but the prince made no spoken counter it. The nobles looked bored,Vansen thought. objection and Nynor was left to go grumbling off to They didn't seem to realize that after the recent rearrange the household finances. events boredom was a privilege, perhaps even a The princess and her brother dispatched several luxury no one could afford. dozen such questions over the course of two hours. Ferras also thought young Prince Barrick still The gathered nobles of the council offered appeared very ill, although perhaps the boy was just suggestions, and on some occasions dissenting careworn. Whatever the cause, Barrick was certainly opinions as well, but mostly they seemed to be not paying the closest attention to the business of the watching the twins at their new task - watching them kingdom. As case after case came up before them - and judging them. Gailon of Summerfield made none the rents on royal lands in need of attention, official of his usual objections, and in fact seemed to be as embassies of grief and support fromTalleno, Ses-sio, absorbed by his own thoughts as the prince and and Perikal to be heard, important property disputes princess were by theirs. When the subject of the that had come up from the assize courts or the temple envoy Dawet came up, it seemed Gailon might say courts needing a final decision - the young prince something, but the moment passed and the barely seemed to attend the speakers. In most cases handsome duke resumed picking at the leg of the he simply waited for Briony to speak, then nodded his council table with a small ceremonial dagger, barely head in agreement, all the while rubbing the crippled hiding what was obviously some great frustration, arm that he held in his lap like a pet dog. Only a although Ferras Vansen had no idea what its cause question from Lord Nynor the castellan seemed to might be. For the first time Vansen could see awaken the boy from his lethargy at last and kindle a Summerfield's duke for what he really was, despite all light in his eye: Nynor wanted to know how much his power and wealth a man younger than Vansen longer the Hierosoline envoy Dawet dan-Faar would himself, and one with less training in silence and be with them, since the household purse had made patience as well. allotment for only a fortnight's stay. But although he It must have been hard for him with that drunken was clearly interested, Barrick became, if anything, blowhard of a father. Nobody outside Summerfield even more silent and unmoving as Briony answered Court missed old Duke Lindon very much, and the question. The princess said that they could not of Vansen couldn't help guessing that there probably course hurry a reply to the man who held her father's weren't many people in his duchy who missed him 317 318 either. was about to fetch the witness when Brone surprised him by turning his back on him and summoning in two The afternoon wore on, bringing nothing more people Vansen had never even seen, a round-eyed interesting than reports of a sharp increase in the man and a young girl. The man was bald as a turtle, number of strange creatures that seemed to be although otherwise he seemed of healthy middle coming from across the Shadowline. Something with years, and even the girl was odd to look upon she spines and teeth had badly injured some children near seemed to have plucked out her eyebrows entirely, as Redtree, and a man had been killed by a goat with in the style of a hundred years before, and her hairline black horns and no eyes, which the locals had began far up her forehead. She wore a skirt and shawl promptly captured, killed, and burned, but most of the that mostly hid her form, but the man certainly had the reports were of creatures that seemed harmless bulging chest and long, muscled arms typical of his despite their strangeness, many of them crippled or kind. dying, as though they had not been prepared for the world on this side of the unseen barrier. Skimmers! Hundreds of the water-loving folk lived within the castle walls, and even though they At last even the novelty of these tales began to fade. generally stuck to their own kind and places, Vansen Some of the council members began to ignore the had encountered them often. But seeing them in the proceedings and talk openly among themselves highest council chamber did surprise him, especially despite sharp looks from Brone. Vansen was intrigued because he had thought that his own news would be to see that the lord constable seemed also to have asked for next. taken up the role of first minister, a position unfilled since the old Duke of Summerfield's death a year "Highnesses," Avin Brone declared, "this is the earlier. He wondered if this was part of the reason for fisherman Turley Longfingers and his daughter. They the young duke's disgruntlement. have something they wish to tell you." So many things are out of joint since the king went Barrick stirred. "What is this, the entertainment? Have away, he thought. we put old Puzzle out to graze at last and found some new talents?" "And now, if it pleases you, Highnesses," Avin Brone announced after a long dispute over the construction Briony gave her brother a look of irritation. "The prince of a new Trigonate temple had left most of the table is tired, but he's right about one thing - this is unusual, yawning, "there is some important business we have Lord Brone. It feels like a bit of mummery, saved till saved until last." last." Several of the nobles, slumped and weary, actually "Not last, I am afraid," responded the lord constable. straightened up, their attention finally caught Vansen "There will be more. But forgive the surprise. I did not 319 320 know whether they would come forth and tell this story "My daughter Ena's tale it is, truly, but she was until just before the council came to the table. I have frightened to speak before them as high as been chasing down the rumor for days." yourselves, so came I with her." The man stretched out his long arm and his daughter moved against him. "Very well." Briony turned to the fisherman, who was In her odd way, with her small stature and huge, squeezing an already shapeless hood or hat in the watchful eyes, Vansen thought the girl almost pretty, clawlike hands that must have given him his name. but he could not ignore that oddity entirely: the "He said your name is Turley?" Skimmers carried their strangeness around with them The man swallowed. Vansen wondered what could like a cloak. He had never yet talked to one without make one of the normally imperturbable Skimmers, being reminded several times by his eyes and ears folk who routinely swam with sharks and killed them and even his nose that it was a Skimmer he was with knives when it was needful, look so harrowed. speaking to and not an ordinary person. "Turley, yes," he said in a thick voice. "It is that, my "Very well, then," said Briony. "We are listening." queen." "On the night . . .What happened, it was on the night "I'm not a queen and my brother isn't a king. The real before the night of the killing," said Turley. king is our father, and he still lives, thank all the gods " She looked at him closely. "I have heard that among Briony sat a little straighter. It was so quiet in the room yourselves you Skimmers don't use Connoric names." Vansen could hear her skirts rustling. "The killing?" Turley's eyes widened. They had very little white "Of the prince. The one that just was buried." around the edges. "We do have our own talk, Majesty, Barrick was not slouching anymore either. "Go on." that's true." "My daughter here, she was . . . she was . . ." The "Well, if you would prefer to use a name like that, you hairless man looked flustered again, as though he had may." been pulled out of a shadowy, safe place and into He looked for a moment as though he might actually bright light."Out when she should not be.With a young bolt the room, but at last shook his gleaming head. man, one of the Hull-Scrapes-the -Sand folk, who "Prefer not, Majesty. Close-held, our names and talk. should know better." But no harm done to tell you of our clan. Back-on- "And where is this young man?" asked Briony. Sunset -Tide, we are called." "Nursing some bruises." Turley Longfingers spoke She smiled a little, but her brother beside her just with a certain dark satisfaction. "He'll not be taking looked aggrieved. "A very fine name. Now why has young girls midnight paddling in our lagoon for a bit." Lord Brone brought you before the council?" "Go on, then. Or perhaps now that your daughter has 321 322 seen us and heard us, she will be able to tell the story inside him. He would do anything for Briony Eddon, he herself. Ena?" realized, anything to protect her, no matter what she thought of him. The girl jumped at the sound of her name, although she had been listening to every word. She blushed, A jest, Vansen? He needed no enemies to do it - he and Vansen thought the dark mottling on neck and could mock himself. Do anything? You already had cheeks robbed her of the momentary beauty she had the protecting of her elder brother and now he's dead. showed before. "Yes, Majesty," the girl said. "A boat I "The one in the boat," the Skimmer girl said, "gave saw, Majesty." something to the one on the dock. We couldn't see "A boat?" what it was or who they were. Then the boat went away again, out toward the front seawall." "With no lights. It slid past the place where I was swimming with . . . with my friend, it did. All cut- "And even after the prince was murdered the next paddled." night, you did not come forward?" Briony asked, her face gone hard. "Even after the ruling lord of "Cut-paddled?" Southmarch was killed? Are you so used to seeing "Dipping paddle blade sideways-like." Turley things like this on the lagoon?" demonstrated. "That's what we call the stroke when "Dark boats paddling silent, yes, sometimes," the girl someone tries to be quiet." told her, gaining courage as she went. "Our folk and "This was in the South Lagoon?" Barrick asked. the fishermen have feuds and people get into trouble, "Where?" and . . . and other things happen. But I still thought it "Near the shore at Hangskin Row," the girl replied. meant no good, that shuttered light. I feared saying "Someone was waiting for it on the Old Tannery Dock. anything, though, because . . . because of my Rafe." That's how we name it. The one closest to the tower "Your Rafe!" snorted her father. "He'll be no one's what has all the banners on it. They had a light - him Rafe if I see him near our dockhouse again. Hands on the dock, I mean - but it was hooded. Up the boat soft as skateskin, and he's a Hullscraper!" went to it, still cut-paddled, and then they gave them "He's kind," said the girl quietly. something." "I think that's enough." Avin Brone came forward. "They?" Briony leaned forward. The princess looked "Unless Your Highnesses have other questions . . . ?" unusually calm, but Ferras Vansen thought he could see something else behind her pale features, a fear "They can go," Briony said. Both she and Barrick she was struggling to hide, and for a moment all the looked troubled. Meanwhile Ferras Vansen was helpless affection he had for her came surging up working it through in his head and realizing that the 323 324 tower the girl mentioned must be the Tower of Spring you sent out are hurrying to find someone to tell about - and that the prince and princess must know that, too. this." Queen Anissa's residence, he thought. But there are "Because that is what we want people talking about, other things on that side of the castle as well - the Highness," said Brone. "It is true about the boat, but at observatory, more than a few taverns, and at least this point it's also meaningless. It will not frighten one of our own guardhouses, not to mention the people, just intrigue them. Best of all, it will mean that homes of hundreds of Skimmers and ordinary folk. It no one will be in a hurry to find out what we are saying tells us nothing truly useful. Still, there was something here, now." about the idea that tugged at him, so that for a "They already know what we're going to be saying, moment he nearly forgot his own pressing errand though, don't they?" asked Briony. "We are going to here. discuss what that Skimmer girl saw and whether it As Lord Brone's man-at-arms showed out the two means anything." Skimmer folk, the court physician Chaven slipped in "Perhaps," said Brone. "But perhaps not. Forgive me past them to stand just inside the council chamber for playing a deep game, my lord and lady, but I have doorway, an unsettled look on his round face. another bit of news for you, one that would make for "Now we have one last piece of business," said Brone. much more fearful rumors. Captain Vansen?" "A minor thing only, so I think that after such a long The moment came upon him so suddenly, and with piece of talking and listening we might send the extra his head still so full of questions about the Skimmers guards and servants away and let them get on with and of thoughts about the princess herself that for a preparing for the midday meal. Will you indulge me in painfully extended moment. Ferras Vansen just stood, this, Prince Barrick, Princess Briony?" not quite hearing. Then he suddenly realized the lord The twins gave their assent and within a few moments constable was staring at him, waiting, as was the chamber was empty of everyone except the everyone else in the council. He leaped toward the councillors themselves, Vansen and his guards, and door, certain he could hear the prince and princess Chaven, who still lingered beside the far door like a snickering behind him, and stepped out into the schoolboy waiting for punishment. passage to call for the other guards to bring in the young man. "So?" Barrick sounded tired and childishly irritated; it was hard to believe he and Briony were the same "So you stand before us again, Vansen," Briony said age. "Obviously you want to thwart rumors, Lord when he returned to the chamber. "I hope you are not Brone, so why wait until after the news of this mystery looking for an advancement of your position?" boat has been delivered? Right now half the people He waited a few moments to make sure he had 325 326 control of his voice, would not misspeak. If she hated Barrick's cheeks as though his fever had returned. He him, he could not but believe he had earned it. "Your seemed almost as frightened as Raemon Beck. "That Highnesses, Lords, this man beside me is named the world has gone mad?" Raemon Beck. He has only reached Southmarch this "I do not know what the message is, " said Chaven. morning. He has a tale you should hear." "But I think I know who is sending it. I have been told by one I know, one I trust . . . that the Shadowline has begun moving." When it was finished and the first rush of amazed questions had gusted itself out, silence fell over the "Moving?" Avin Brone, who had already heard the chill, windowless room. young merchant's story, now for the first time looked truly startled. "How so?" "What does it mean?" the princess asked at last. "Monsters? Elves? Ghosts? It seems an unbelievable Chaven explained how a Funderling man searching tale." She stared at Raemon Beck, who was shivering for rare stones in the hills had found the line moved as though he had just come in out of a snowstorm some yards closer to the castle - the first such instead of a day bright with autumn sunshine. "What movement in anyone's memory. "I had planned to tell are we to do with such news?" you of this, Your Highnesses, but the tragic events that you know of kept me busy, and then I did not wish "It is foolishness," growled Tyne of Blueshore. Several to burden you when you still had your brother to bury." of the other council members nodded vigorous agreement. "Bandits, yes - the roads to the west are "That was days and days ago," Briony said angrily. not safe even in these days. But this man has been "Why have you kept silent since then?" struck on the head and dreamed the rest. That or he Gailon Tolly saved the physician from having to seeks to make a name for himself." answer immediately. "What is all this about?" the "No!" cried Beck. Tears welled in his eyes. He hid his Duke of Summerfield demanded loudly. "Scholar, you head in his hands, muffling his voice. "It happened - it and this Helmingsea lackwit spout nurse's tales as is all true!" though you spoke of true places like Fael or Hierosol. The Shadowline? There is nothing beyond it but mist "And bandits or boggarts, why did you alone survive?" and wet lands too cold to farm and . . . and old demanded one of the barons. stories." Chaven stepped forward. "Your pardon, my lords, but "You are young, my lord," said Chaven gently. "But I suspect that this man was merely the one chosen to your father knew. And his father. And your grandfather bear the message." several times over was one of the men who regained "What message?" Small spots blazed on Prince Southmarch and this castle from the hands of the 327 328 Twilight People." The small man shrugged, but there "Across the Shadowline?" Avin Brone appeared was something terrible in the gesture, an entire surprised by the idea. "You would send men across language of resignation that did not hide the fear. "It the Shadowline?" could be that after all these years the Quiet Folk seek "Not you," she said scornfully. "Have no fear." to have it back." The lord constable stood. "There is no need to insult The councillors all seemed to begin shouting at once, me, Princess." no one listening to any other. Briony stood up and They were the only two standing. Their eyes met over extended a trembling hand. "Silence! Chaven, you will the heads of the others. attend my brother and me at once in the chapel, or "Again, you have showed me hasty, Lord Brone," somewhere else we can have privacy. You will tell us Briony said after a moment's silence, each word crisp everything you know. But that is not enough. Dozens as the sound of a small bell being struck. "Despite the of our countrymen have been robbed and perhaps trickery you have used today to put on this little show, murdered on the Settland Road. We must find out you do not deserve as much anger as I have shown. I everything we can, immediately, before all trace of the apologize." attackers is gone." She looked at her twin, who nodded, but his face showed his unhappiness. "We He made a stiff little bow. "Accepted, of course, must go to the place where this occurred, with force. Highness. With thanks, although you do me too much We must find the track of these creatures and follow it. honor." If they can take men away from the road, they will "I will go," said Gailon suddenly. He rose, too, his face have left some mark of their passage." She turned on flushed as though with drink. "I will lead a troop to the Raemon Beck, who had sunk to a crouch as though spot. I will find these bandits - and I wager my good his legs could no longer support him. "Do you swear name that they will prove to be no more than that. But you have told us the truth, man? Because if I find . . . whatever they are, I will bring back them or their if we find that you have made up this story, you will corpses to answer for the crime." spend the rest of a short and unhappy life in chains." Vansen saw Briony exchange a look with her brother The merchant could only shake his head. "It is all that the captain of the royal guard could not interpret. true!" "No," said Barrick. "Then we will send a troop of soldiers at once," she "What?" The duke turned on the prince in anger. said. "To follow the trail wherever it leads. That at Gailon Tolly seemed to have lost his usual least we can do while we consider what this may composure. Vansen's muscles tensed as he watched. mean, what . . . message we have been sent." "You cannot go yourself, Barrick! You are sick, 329 330 crippled! And your sister may think she is a man, but Gods! Ferras took a stumbling step forward. Too late, the gods know she is not! I demand the honor of still too late, I have failed again! But Summerfield only leading this troop!" turned and stalked away from the great table toward the far door of the council chamber. When he turned "But that is just the issue, Cousin," said Briony, in the doorway, the young duke's face was composed speaking with cold care. "It is not an honor. And again, almost frightemngly so. whoever goes must go with an open heart, not with an intent to prove himself right." "I see I am not needed here, either in this council or in this castle. With your permission, Prince Barrick, "But . . . !" Princess Briony, I will return to my own lands where She turned her back on him and her gaze swept down there may be something of use I can do." Gailon Tolly the row of nobles at the table, Tyne and Rorick and had asked their leave, but he did not wait to receive it many others, before it lit on Ferras Vansen where he before departing the chamber. His bootheels banged stood behind the crumpled, sobbing form of the away down the corridor. merchant Raemon Beck. For a moment her gaze met Briony turned toVansen again, as though Gailon had his and Vansen thought he saw a little smile flicker never been in the room. "You will take as many men across her lips. It was not a kind smile. "You, Captain. as you and the lord constable think fit to assemble, You have failed to prevent my brother's murder and Captain.You will take this man, too . . ." she gestured you have failed to find a reason that explains why at Beck, "and go to the place his caravan was Lord Shaso, one of our family's most loyal retainers, attacked. From there, send back messengers to tell us should have performed that murder. Perhaps you will what you find, and if you can pursue the robbers, be able to fulfill this new charge more successfully." pursue them." He couldn't look at her any longer. Staring at his Raemon Beck realized what was being said. "Don't boots, he said, "Yes, Highness. I will accept the send me back, Highness!" he shrieked, scrabbling charge." across the floor toward the prince and princess. "The "No!" Gailon was out of his seat again, so angry that gods' mercy, not there! Put me in irons, as you for a worrying moment Ferras thought the duke promised, rather than send me to that place." actually meant to attack the prince and Barrick pulled his foot back -when the man would princess.Vansen was not the only one - the nobles on have grabbed it. either side of Gailon Tolly snatched at his arms but failed to hold him. Brone's hand dropped to the hilt of "How else will we know that the spot is the correct his sword, but the lord constable was almost as far one?" Princess Briony asked gently. "If every trace is away as the guard captain and much slower. gone, as you have said? Your fellows may be alive. 331 332 Would you steal away even the slim chance of rescuing them?" She turned to the table full of slack- mouthed councillors, a row of bewildered masks like 14 the chorus of some antique mummer's play. "The rest of you may go, but you are sworn to secrecy about Whitefire this attack. He who speaks a word about it joins Shaso in the stronghold. Chaven, you and Lord Brone come with my brother and myself to the chapel. Rorick STORM MUSIC: andTyne, come to us in an hour, please. Captain Vansen, you will leave tomorrow at dawn." After she was gone and the chamber was all but This tale is told on the headlands empty, Vansen and two of his guardsmen helped the The great one comes up from the deeps weeping Raemon Beck up from the floor. His eye is a shrouded pearl, his voice the ocean "The princess does not take well to begging," Ferras wind Vansen told the young merchant as they led him - from The Bonefall Oracles. toward the door. The guard captain's own thoughts were slow and numbed as fish at the bottom of a frozen stream. "Her older brother was killed - did you Barrick's first thought was that the man looked like a know that? But we will do our best to take care of you. chained beast, both frightening and pitiable, like the For now, let us find you some wine and a bed. That's bear brought to the castle during the last Pennsday the best any of us will get tonight . . . or for some time feast and made to dance in the throne room. All the to come, I think." courtiers had laughed - he had even laughed himself to see its clumsy antics and hear its snort of irritation, so like a man's, when its trainer flicked its bandy legs with a whip. Only Briony had been angry. But she always worries more about animals than people. If I had been one of the dogs, she would never have left my side while I was ill. His father had not laughed either, he suddenly remembered. For on that Pennsday they had all still been together, Olin here in Southmarch, Kendrick 333 334 alive, everything as it should be. Now all had The prisoner stared. His dark face seemed lightened, changed, and since the fever even his own thoughts as though a layer of fine dust had sifted down onto had become strange and untrustworthy. him from the surrounding stones, or as if his time in the sunless depths had leached out some of his color. He forced himself to concentrate, staring at Shaso "I did not kill your brother, Prince Barrick." with what he hoped was the proper expression of a ruling prince to a traitorous vassal. Despite the ankle- "Then what happened?" Briony took a step forward, chain half hidden by the straw on the floor of the stopping before Brone was compelled to grab at her stronghold, its far end socketed into the stone wall, arm. "I would like to believe you. What happened?" the T uani man looked less like a bear than a captured "I have told Brone already. When I left Kendrick, he lion. was alive." You could never make a lion dance on its chain. "But your dagger was bloodied, Shaso. We found it in "There should be guards," said Avin Brone. "It is not your room." safe . . ." The old Tuani warrior shrugged." It was not the "You are here with us," Briony replied sweetly. "You prince's blood." are a famous fighter, Lord Constable." "Whose was it?" Briony took another step closer, "So is Lord Shaso, with all respect." which made even Barrick uncomfortable - she was within the compass of the old man's chain now, and "But he is chained and you are not. And he is not all three of his visitors knew his cat-quickness. "Just armed." tell me that." Shaso stirred. Barrick had always found it hard to Shaso looked at her for a moment, then his mouth think of him as anything but ageless, but now the curved in what might be called a smile, except that man's years showed in his slack skin and gray- there was no jot of mirth in it, nothing of happiness at whiskered cheeks. He had been given clean clothes, all. "My own. The blood is my own." but they were poor and threadbare. Except for the muscles that still rippled in his forearms and the back Barrick's rage flared up again. "He's telling a shadow- that had not yet learned to bend, this old man might tale, Briony - I know you want to believe him, but don't have been a street beggar in Hierosol or one of the let yourself be fooled! He was with Kendrick. Our other southern cities. "I will not hurt you," he growled. brother and two other men were killed, and the "I am not fallen so low." wounds were curved like his dagger, which we found covered in blood. He cannot even tell a good lie." Barrick fought down a gust of anger. "Is that what you told our brother before you killed him?" Briony was silent for a moment. "Barrick's right," she 335 336 said at last. "You ask us to believe much that seems us I was the worse traitor, that does not mean I have unbelievable." forgiven him." "I ask nothing. It does not matter to me." But even "He admits he is a traitor!" Barrick moved forward to Shaso's own hands betrayed him, Barrick thought - tug at Briony's arm, but she resisted him. "Come! He they sat in his lap like harmless things, but the dark admits he hates our family. We have heard enough." fingers were working, clenching and unclenching. He didn't want to be in the shadowy stronghold any longer, separated from the sun and air by yards of "It does not matter to you that my brother is dead?" stone, caught in this place that stank of misery. He Now Briony could not keep her own voice calm. "That suddenly feared that Shaso held secrets more terrible Kendrick has been murdered? He was good to you, than any blade, more devastating even than murder. Shaso.We have all been good to you." He wanted the old man to stop talking. "Oh, yes, you have been good to me, you Eddons." Briony waited a moment before she spoke. "I don't He moved a little and the chain clinked. Avin Brone understand everything you say, but I do know that if stepped up beside Briony. "Your father defeated me you feel any loyalty to our family at all, even a tainted on the battlefield and spared my life. He is a good loyalty, then you must tell us the truth. If it is your man. And then he brought me home like a dog he had blood, how did it get there?" found in the road and made me into his servant. A very good man." Shaso slowly lifted his arms. The crisscross slashes had mostly healed. "I cut myself." "You are worse than a dog, you ungrateful creature!" shouted Barrick. This was a different Shaso, sullen "Why?" and self-pitying, but still his tormentor, still the one He only shook his head. who so many times had made him feel less than "More likely he was wounded by the guards or whole. "You have never been treated like a servant! Kendrick," Barrick pointed out. "While they defended He made you a lord! He gave you land, a house, a their lives." position of honor!" "Was there blood on their weapons?" his sister asked. "And in that way he was cruelest of all." The "I cannot remember." All this talk of blood had made frighteningly empty smile returned, a pale gash in the Briony go quite pale. The Barrick of half a year ago, dark face. "As my old life slid away from me like a he knew, would have said something to distract her, to boat drifting from the bank, he gave me a new life, rich make it easier to discuss these dreadful things, but in wealth and honor. I could not even hate him. And now he was hollowed, his insides burned black. later on, it is true, I myself played the slave master - I "Your brother had no weapon," answered Avin Brone, sold my own freedom. But just because of the two of 337 338 "which makes his killing even more cowardly. The "That was not to harm you, Prince Barrick." The old guards were covered all over with blood from their man's words had a sharp, cold edge. "That was an own wounds, so it was impossible to tell if their blades attempt to make you a man." had been bloodied before they died." Now Barrick was the one who stepped toward the "You still have explained nothing," Briony told the old master of arms, hand upraised Shaso did not move, man. "If you want us to believe that, tell us why you but even before Avin Brone reached him, Barrick had cut yourself. What did you and Kendrick speak of, that stopped. He had remembered the courtiers who led to such a strange thing?" pelted the dancing bear with cherry-stones and crusts of bread, and how he had laughed to see the chained The master of arms shook his head. "That is between creature snapping at the missiles in annoyance. me and him. It will die with me." "If you are the murderer of our brother," he said, "as I "Those may not be idle words, Lord Shaso," said Avin think you are, then you will receive your punishment Brone. "As you know, we have not kept the headsman soon enough. Lord Brone is right - Southmarch still as well employed in King Olin's day as in his father's, has a headsman." but his blade is still sharp." Shaso flapped his hand dismissively, His chin sank to The master of arms turned his red-rimmed eyes first his chest as though he was too weary to keep his on Barrick, then Briony. "If you want my head, then head up any longer. take it. I am tired of living." "That is your last word?" Briony asked. "That you did "The gods damn your stubbornness!" Briony cried. not harm Kendrick, that the blood on your knife was "Would you rather die than tell us what happened? your own, but you won't tell us how it happened?" What obscure point of honor have you caught on, Shaso ? If there is something that will save your life, The old man did not look up. "That is my last word." then for the sake of all the gods, tell me!" As he followed Briony out the door, Barrick wondered "I have told you the truth - I did not murder your if such a mad story could possibly be true. But if it brother I would not have harmed him even if he had was, then truth itself was not trustworthy, for there put his own blade to my throat, because I swore to was no other explanation for Kendrick's death, no one protect your father and his household." else suspected but Shaso. Take that away and all was shadow, as treacherous and inconstant as the worst "Wouldn't have harmed him?" Barrick was feeling tired of his own fever -dreams. and sick again - even his anger had become only a distant storm. "Strange words - you have knocked me He must be the murderer, Barrick told himself If not, down and beaten me often enough. My bruises reason itself tottered. haven't healed from the last time." 339 340 things hard for the others, even on horseback. He would keep the youth nearby, with himself and old · hand Collum Dyer watching over him, that would be the young man's best armor. Ferras Vansen studied the line of men as though they "Don't look so grim," he told Beck. "Your caravan was were suddenly discovered family - as, in a way, they caught unaware, and only the gods know the quality were. They would be living together for weeks or of the fighting men who were with you. Now you're months, travehng into the wild places, and even family with half a pentecount of hardy Southmarch Guard, did not breed any greater closeness than a company many of them blooded in Krace and against the last of of soldiers - or in some cases, any greater contempt. the Gray Companies. They won't run from shadows." They were only half a pentecount all together - any "Then they are fools." Beck was pale and his mouth greater number would have excited too much trembled a little when he spoke, but he had gained attention - and their little troop was dwarfed not only composure since his audience with the prince and by Wolfstooth Spire looming just above them, but by princess. "They have not seen these shadows. They the empty expanses of the barracks' reviewing yard. have not seen the devils that live in them." Vansen had chosen to take seven mounted men including himself, and a dozen-and-a-half foot Vansen shrugged. He was not himself entirely happy soldiers, a pair of them new recruits who were little about their mission; he had spoken largely to cheer more than farmboys, to watch after the donkey -cart. In the young merchant. FerrasVansen was a child of order to make things easier for his lieutenant Jem Daler's Troth, and had grown up only a short distance Tallow, who would command the castle guard in his from the haunted ruins of old Westmarch - on days absence and needed able, levelheaded men,Vansen the south wind blew back the mists, the broken shell had deliberately chosen his troop so that more than of its keep could sometimes be seen from the highest half were young and inexperienced. There were fewer hilltops. He and his people knew better than to speak than ten of these men that Vansen really trusted in a contemptuously, as the Duke of Summerfield had, fight he hoped it would be enough. about the Shadowlme and what lay beyond that cloudy border. But like the rest of his people, a fierce Raemon Beck had been given a horse and a sword, and generally standoffish community of hillside both of which he handled like what he was, a farmers and herders, he was also keenly aware that merchant's nephew Vansen had considered armoring his family's land was a holding that had been only a the young man as well, but his own experiences in the few generations in the hands of mortals. The dale folk bandit campaign of three years earlier had taught him had long had a sense that there were forces waiting that one unused to heavy gear would eventually make beyond the Shadowline to take back those lands, as 341 342 well as an equally fierce and stubborn determination look she turned upon him, he could not imagine not to let that happen. another face that would make him feel as he so helplessly did. A messenger from Lord Brone trotted into the reviewing yard. Vansen called the tr oop to order. The Perhaps it really is as the ancients say, he thought horses stamped restlessly, waiting, and the donkey Perhaps a heart was indeed like a piece of dry cropped dry grass from between the cobbles. The birchwood, and could only take fire and burn brightly morning was already far advanced, but there was once - that any fire that came after would be only an nothing to do but wait. Already the long shadow cast ember, smaller and cooler Just my treacherous luck I by Wolfstooth Spire was beginning to shrink back into should bum for her, for one I can never have, itself. honorably or dishonorably, and who hates me in any case. She came at last, a slender shape in mourning black accompanied by two female attendants and the great "Captain Vansen," she said in a dry, firm voice, "my bulk of the lord constable who, if he was not becoming brother is resting, but he sends his wish that the gods the king, did seem to be changing into something like speed your mission " Vansen was a little surprised to the father of the pr ince and princess, assuming a kind see that there was an expression other than contempt of ceremonial precedence over all the business of the on her face, the first time since Kendrick Eddon's Eddon family despite the comparative lowliness of his death that anything else had lit her features when title. He was rich, though, with vast holdings of lands, looking at him. The problem was that he could not and able enough that he had risen higher in the royal read the look, which might only have been weariness family's favor than any of their closer kinsmen Vansen and disinterest. "I see you have your men ready." wondered if it could be this rather than anything else "Yes, Highness Your pardon, but are you certain you that had sent young Gailon of Summerfield home to wish us to ride out so plainly in the middle of the day? his family's dukedom - the knowledge that Lord Brone Everyone will whisper of it." had sealed off the avenues of approach to the royal "Everyone is already whispering. How many people twins, leaving Gailon with a superior claim by right of did that man there, Beck, speak to before he was blood, but inferior access. brought to the castle? Do you think there is anyone in Ferras Vansen couldn't keep his mind for long on Wharfside or the Three Gods who hasn't heard his such bloodless matters as the princess approached. story by now? You and your men will ride out down The past weeks had not been kind to her - she had Market Road, across the causeway, and straight not painted her face since the funeral and he could through Southmarch Town. Everybody will know that see by the blue shadows beneath her eyes that she the Eddons are not so crippled by grief and fear that had not slept well Still, despite this, despite the cold 343 344 they ignore plundered caravans and kidnapped "Get up, Vansen." Her voice sounded strange. When noblewomen." She looked to Brone, who nodded his he was on his feet again, he saw that the anger was approval. "And this is not only for show, Vansen. We back in her eyes, along with a glitter that might have are not taking it lightly, my brother and I. So I trust you been tears. "I have had enough death, enough oaths, will take advantage of any trustworthy travelers on the enough men's talk about honor and debts - I have road to send word back to us of your progress." swallowed them all until I am ready to scream. "Yes, Your Highness. The monks of the university "You may think I blame you for my brother's death. I have a post service that travels back and forth on the do in part, and not only you, but I am not so foolish as Settland Road every fortnight, and it is a long time yet to think some other guard captain would have saved before the winter will stop them. I will keep you and him. You may thi nk I have given you this charge Lord Brone informed, but I honestly hope I will not be because I want to punish you. There may be a little gone so long." truth to that, but I also know you for a man who has done other things well, and who has the trust of his "You will return only when you have answers to give soldiers. I am told that you are levelheaded, too." She us," she declared; sudden fury was like a whipcrack in took a step forward until only the broad sweep of her her voice. skirts separated them. Vansen couldn't help holding "Of course,Your Highness." He was stung, but in that his breath. "If you die without solving this mystery, you moment he saw not just her anger, but something accomplish nothing. If you live, even if you have failed deeper and stranger in her expression, as though a your charge, you still may do some good for t is land h frightened prisoner looked out from behind her face. at another time." She is afraid! It filled him with ridiculous thoughts, with She paused, and for a teetering moment it seemed to the wild urge to kiss her hand, to declare his painful Vansen that she might say absolutely anything at all. love for her. Thwarted in its natural direction and forced to find other escape, like steam hissing from "But if the safety of any of my family is ever again on beneath a pot hd, the sudden flicker of madness your shoulders," she finally suggested, with a smile dropped him to his knees. that would be cruel were it not so weary, "then you do indeed have my permission to die trying, Captain "I will not fail you again, Princess Briony," he declared. Vansen." "I will do what you have sent me to do or I will die trying." She turned to his men and called to them,"May all the gods protect you. May Perin himself make your road Even with his head down, he could sense the stir of smooth and straight." A moment later she was walking surprise going through the other guardsmen, could back across the courtyard with Brone and the two hear Avin Brone's sucked-in breath. 345 346 ladies -ln-waiting hurrying to catch up. suffered the least at the hands of the mortal enemy. The cold ones would not serve Lady Porcupine: she "Not quite a court favorite, Captain, are we?" asked would have to muster her armies from Qul-na-Qar and Collum Dyer, and laughed. the lands that lay south of it, all the way down to the "Mount up." FerrasVansen did not understand what thrice-blessed fence that the mortals called had just happened, but there were many miles ahead Shadowline, and that the Qar themselves called of them, days of riding, and he would have plenty of A'sish-Yarrit Sa, which meant "Storm of Silence," or, time to think about it. with a slightly different intonation of voice or gesture of the hand, "White Thoughts." · The northerners might not care about the mortal thieves, but those who lived below their icy lands did. As Yasammez rode, they came up from the cavern The one known as. The Scourge of the Shivering towns of Qirush-a-Ghat, "Firstdeeps," and out from the Plain rode down out of Shehen on her great black forest villages in the great dark woods to see her horse, letting the animal pick its way along the narrow pilgrimage. The starlight dancers paused and grew hill paths with scarcely a tug on the rein, although in silent on the hilltops as she passed. Those who did places the drop was so great that it was hard even to not know her - for it had been long since Yasammez see the birds flying below her. Yasammez had no had last left her house at Shehen - knew only that one need for haste. Her thoughts were traveling before of the great powers was passing, terrible and beautiful her, winged messengers faster than any bird, swifter as a comet, and although they feared and respected even than the wind. such might, they did not cheer her, but watched in She descended from the heights and turned toward troubled silence. Those of the Qar who did recognize the oldest lands and the greatest city of all, which her of old were fiercely divided, because they all knew stood on the shores of the black ocean just outside that where Lady Porcupine went, she was blown on the great northern circle of frost and ice. There were winds of war and blood. Some returned to their Qar folk that lived even in the northernmost lands families or villages to tell them that bad weather was beyond Qul-na-Qar, strange ones who walked in that coming, that it was time to put away stores of what permanent darkness and made songs with their was needful and strengthen the walls and gates. fingers and their chill skin, but they had lived apart for Others followed her in a quiet but growing crowd, their so long that most of them had little to do with the rest numbers swelling behind her like a bride's train. All of of their race anymore. They scarcely even thought these knew that the bridegroom to whom she went about the lost southern lands, for they had never lived was Death, and that her husband and master would there, and thus of all the Twilight People they had 347 348 not be careful of whom he took, but they followed her upward glance, Yasammez was surrounded not only anyway. Centuries of anger and fear pushed them by her own minions but by all the dark city's together, clenched them like a fist. excitement-seekers as well - those bright -eyed ones who dabbled in the showier magicks, others who Yasammez was the blade which that fist had raised in passed their time refining the arts of war and the arts the past. Now it would be raised again. of courtship until they were scarcely distinguishable from each other, all the planners of secret campaigns Her arrival threw Qul-na-Qar into confusion. By the and delvers of forgotten mysteries. She was time she rode through the great leaning gates at the surrounded by believers, too, those who had yearned head of a silent flock of Qar, the ancient citadel had for a voice to echo forcefully their own talk of already broken into camps of fanatical supporters and catastrophe, to satisfy their yearnings for an all- equally fanatical opponents, and a party larger than smothering doom. All came singing and calling out those two put together whose only shared philosophy questions, some in languages that even Yasammez was resistance to both extremes, a willingness to wait herself did not speak. She paid none of them any and see the shape that time took. But none of this was attention, and passed instead from the Hall of the obvious, and to the casual eye - if there had been Gate to the Hall of Black Trees, then on through many such a thing in this place - the great capital would more, the Hall of Silver Bones, the Hall of Weeping have seemed to move in its usual deceptively calm Children, the Hall of Gems and Dust. She stopped way, its immemorial ordered disorder. outside the Mirror Hall but did not go in, even though the blind king and silent queen waited behind the The servitors of Yasammez who waited for her within doors, aware of her coming since before she even left Qul-na-Qar, almost all of whom had been born into that service since the last time she had visited the city, her high house. had scurried to air out her chambers on the sprawling Instead she told the servitor who guarded the castle's eastern side, heaving up the shutters for the entrance - a Child of the Emerald Fire who showed first time in decades and opening the windows. The the faint glow of its kind even through its robe and chill marine winds and the ocean's ceaseless noise, mask - "Outside the gate there are thousands of our like the breathing of a vast animal, filled the rooms as race who have follo wed me here from the countryside. they rushed to make things ready for their mistress. See that they are well -treated. Soon I will speak to This was a day that all knew would someday form a them." chapter of its own in the Book of Regret. The masked figure did not reply, but bowed. But as she made her way through the Hall of the Yasammez turned away from the Mirror Hall - it was Gate, passing beneath its living sculptures without an not yet time to seal the Pact of the Glass, although 349 350 that time woul d come before she left Qul-na-Qar again first to suffer as well. Not all are fighters, but those - and made her way to her old chambers overlooking who are not shall be ears and eyes for the rest, swift the sea and the dark twilight sky. The crowd that had fliers, silent crawlers." gathered inside the great castle and followed her "Many? What number is that?" through the halls like ants through a rotting tree were A growl. "Many. More than I can count." left to stand, to wait, to stare at each other in glee or "And Greenjay? What of the Tricksters?" shame or madness, and eventually to disperse. "Cautious but willing to listen, as you would expect. It did not matter. There would be a time for all of them, Our tribe always likes to determine which side will win, Yasammez knew. and then join that side at an opportune time - not too late, but most definitely not too early." She had donned her plate armor, forged in "Your honesty is commendable." Greatdeeps in the days before the Book, cured for "Can a frog be taught to fly? I tell you only what is centuries in an ice mountain without a name. The true." black spikes covered it like the quills of her namesake, a dark bristling that was obscured but not hidden by "There will be no winner in this fight, even if we her cloak, which seemed almost as insubstantial as a triumph. This is only a moment in the great defeat. But thundercloud. Her head was bare she had set her the mortals will suffer, and our own suffering will featureless helmet on the table beside her, as though, become less. What the stone apes inherit when we like a favored pet, she wished it to watch the are gone will no longer taste sweet to them - will never proceedings. taste sweet again. Make no mistake, the time has come for your Tricksters - and all the others, too - to Seven other figures sat at the round table in Lady decide the manner of their passing - not as Porcupine's chamber. It was dark in the room, only a individuals, but as families of the People." single candle burning, its flame a-tremble before the open windows, but Yasammez and her allies did not "But why, Lady? Why must we allow defeat? Still we need to see each other. are strong, and the old ways are strong. It is only our resolve that has been weak." Some of what they said was spoken, some passed only in shared thought. "I have not yet come to you, Stone of the Unwilling. Soon I will ask you what the Guard of Elementals "Eats-the-Moon, what of the Changing tribe?" thinks . . ." "Many are with us I smell anger. I smell readiness. "Ask me now." Ours were often the first of the People to meet the stone apes, back in the world before defeat, and the A pause. "Speak." 351 352 "They think as I think. That we can retreat no farther, "Then I have one more thing to show you." Yasammez and that we can no longer live with exile and defeat. reached beneath her great cloak. Buckles clicked. A We must push them from our lands. We must put fire moment later she lifted her scabbard and dropped it to all their houses and sickness in all their beds. We on the table, then wrapped her hand around the hilt of must shake down their temples and bury their cruel the sword and pulled it out. From point to pommel it iron in the ground where it can become something was as white as packed snow, as licked bone. The clean again. We must bring on the Old Night." candle flame, taxed by one too many chill breezes, shuddered and died. The only light in the room now "I have heard you. But no matter what they wish, will was the subtle bhndworm glow of the sword itself. your tribe follow where I lead, whatever path I may choose? Because only one can lead in this thing." "I have taken Whitefire from it's sheath." The voice of Yasammez, the People's Fire of Vengeance, was "Can you lead, my lady? What of the Pact?" matter -of-fact, whether aloud or in winged thought. "The Pact of the Glass will come to naught, an empty Her words had weight because of who she was and promise. But the old rules cannot be ignored, so I what she said. "It will not be sheathed once more until have agreed. It has been signed. Only an hour ago, I I am dead or until what was taken from us is ours and put my blood on it." the queen lives again." "You signed the Pact? Then have they given you the Seal of War?" · For answer she lifted her helmet from the table. In the dark room the thing that had been hidden beneath it gleamed like molten stone. She lifted the red gem on Briony found him outside, to her surprise and its heavy black chain and put it on, let the stone fall annoyance, wandering in the quiet and somewhat with a dull clank onto her breast. "Here it is." gloomy west garden of the residence. Except he was not wandering he was staring up at the roofline where For a moment only the sound of the ocean was heard, the chimneys clustered like mushrooms that had the waves pounding against the rocks. sprouted after rain. "The Guard of Elemental will follow you, "I . . . Did you see that?" Barrick rubbed his eyes. LadyYassamez." "See what?" The others spoke, one by one, telling her of their tribes, of their readiness or unreadiness, but all "I thought I saw . . ." He shook his head. "I thought I agreed - there were enough to muster. There were saw a boy on the roof. Is it the fever? I saw many enough to cross the line and make war. things when I had the fever . . ." 353 354 She squinted, shook her head. "Nobody would be up foolish? Pardon Shaso, perhaps?" so high, certainly not a child. Why aren't you in bed? I Her heart felt like a lump of lead. How could her twin, came to see you and they told me you had refused to her beloved other half, think such things? Had the stay in your chamber." fever really changed him so much? "No! No, Barrick, I "Why? Because I wanted to see the sun. But it's would never do such a thing without your approval." almost gone. I feel like a corpse, lying in that dark He was staring at her almost as if she were a room." His face had closed again, the moment's stranger. "Please, now is not the time for you and I to vulnerability replaced by something harsher. "It's not argue. We're all that's left of the family!" like you need me, in any case." "There's still Merolanna. And the Loud Mouse." Briony was shocked. "What do you mean? Merciful Briony grimaced. "That's a strange thing, now you Zoria, Barrick, not need you? You're all I have left! mention it. I have never seen Aunt Merolanna so Gailon has just left the castle - left Southmarch distracted - perhaps over Kendrick, but it seems odd. entirely. He will be back in Summerfield in days, full of She was strong as stone before the funeral, but has discontent, telling anyone who will listen about it - and been grieving like a madwoman since, hardly leaving many people will listen to the Duke of Summerfield." her chambers. I've been to see her twice and she's Her brother shrugged. "So what can we do? Unless barely spoken to me, as though she can't wait for me Gailon's talking treason, we can't stop him saying to leave. In fact, it seems that all the family we have what he wants. In fact, it wouldn't be easy to do even left is at loose ends. Oh, and here's another surprise - if he were talking treason. Summerfield Court has since you mentioned her, I should tell you that our walls almost as thick as Southmarch and the Tollys stepmother has asked us to dine with her tomorrow keep a small army there." night." "It's too early to worry about things like that, and if the "What's that about?" gods are kind or Gailon has a shred of honor, we may "I don't know. But let's be openhearted and believe not have to. But we have problems enough, Barrick, she wishes to be closer to her stepchildren now that so no more of this nonsense, please. I need you to be Kendrick is gone." well. Better a few days bored and restless in bed now Barrick's snort made his feelings clear. than you being ill all through the winter months. Let "Another thing. Have you seen the letter Father Chaven tend you." wrote? The one Kendrick received from Hierosol the "No more of what nonsense?" He shot her another of day before . . . before . . ." his suspicious glances. "Are you certain you don't just Barrick shook his head. He looked annoyed - no, it want me out of the way so you can do something 355 356 was something more. He almost looked frightened. chill in her, even as the first evening breezes swirled Why? "No. What does it say?" through the garden and made the leaves of the hedges and ornamental trees scrape and rustle. "That's just it - I don't know where it's gone. I can't find it." "I dream that darkness is coming down just like a storm," he said, almost whispering. "Oh, Briony, in my "I don't have it!" h said sharply, then waved his hand e dreams I see the end of the world." in weak apology. "I'm sorry - I suppose I really am tired. I don't know anything about it." "But it's important we find it!" She looked at him, saw that it was no good pressing; he was exhausted. "Whatever the case, never forget, you are needed, Barrick. I need you. Desperately. Now go to bed. Rest, and let me do what needs to be done tomorrow, then I'll tell you about it when we go to dine with Anissa." He looked at her, then looked around the garden. The sun had sunk behind the residence's western wing and the roofs were rapidly becoming dark silhouettes; an entire army of fever-children could have been hiding there now. "Very well I will stay in my bed for tomorrow," he said. "But no longer." "Good. Now, I'll walk back with you." "You see, I don't like sleeping," he told her as they made their way down the path. Almost without her noticing it, he had taken her hand, as he had done when they were both children."I don't like sleeping at all. I have such very bad dreams - all of our family being cursed, haunted . . ." "But that's all they are, Barrick, dear Barrick. Just dreams. Fever dreams." But his words had started a 357 358 None were men in the conventional sense, but there were certainly many hundreds of people within the Seclusion's great high walls who had been born with 15 at least the basic elements of masculinity, but who simply had not, for one reason or another, managed The Seclusion to hang onto all of them. The Seclusion took up a sizable section of the autarch's gigantic Orchard Palace, just as the palace THE BROTHER'S MAIDEN DAUGHTER: itself took up a large portion of Great Xis, Mother of Cities In truth, the Seclusion's share was proportionately larger than other sections of the She vanishes when we are all upright ancient and monstrous sprawl of buildings formally Appears when we lay ourselves down known as Palace of the Flowering Spring Orchard, Look! Her crown is of gold and heather-blossom because those who lived and worked in other parts of - from The Bonefall Oracles the great palace could share gardens and dining halls and kitchens, but the Seclusion must be kept separate and protected, and so each function had to be The Seclusion, Qinnitan quickly discovered, was not a carefully reproduced within its walls and staffed only building, or even a group of buildings, but something with women or Favored. vastly larger, a walled city within the autarch's If the Seclusion was a small city, the Favored were its immense palace, sandstone brick buildings set in priests and governors. Because of the famous carefully husbanded grounds, most with shrines and sacrifice of Habbili, son of Nushash, Xis had always scented gardens at their centers, all connected by been a kingdom in which the castrated were held in hundreds of covered walkways that provided much- some esteem - it was almost as established a route needed shade, so that one of the Seclusions residents to the corridors of power as the priesthood In fact, the could travel from one side to the other, a journey that Favored ruled not just the Seclusion, but many of the might take the best part of an hour, without ever bureaucracies of the Orchard Palace, so that the more feeling the direct touch of the harsh Xandian sun on daring soldiers of the autarch's army sometimes her skin. It truly was a city all by itself, home not just to sourly joked - in private, of course - that real men the autarch's hundreds of wives, but to the army of weren't wanted in most of the palace, and would only people necessary to care for them, thousands of be welcomed in the one place they were absolutely maids, cooks, gardeners, and petty bureaucrats, and barred, the Seclusion. The actual truth was that many not a single one of them a man. 359 360 ordinary men who still wore their stones held positions lowest of the low among the Hive Sisters. All the of influence throughout the autarch's court, like autarch's wives and wives-to-be - and it was hard to Pimmmon Vash, the paramount minister. The Favored tell sometimes what the difference in status meant, as a group were some of the autarch's mightiest since he so seldom visited any of them - were of subordinates, but they were by no means all-powerful. infinitely greater importance than any of the They had to str uggle, as did everyone else in the Seclusion's servants, and yet the hundredth wife, let Orchard Palace, for every fleck of attention from the alone new-minted Qinnitan who was something closer God -King Sulepis, from whom all power and glory to the thousandth, had to wait weeks for even the radiated like the sun's light. But in the metaphorical briefest appointment to see Cusy, the immensely fat darkness of the Seclusion, that country of women in chief of the Seclusion's Favored - the Eunuch Queen, which women held no nominal power - although the as she was sometimes laughingly called in the more important of the autarch's wives were powers Orchard Palace. But nobody in the Seclusion would unto themselves - the Favored ruled virtually without ever have laughed at old Cusy to her face Of all the rivals. denizens of that place, only Arimone, the autarch's paramount wife - a flinty, beautiful young woman The Favored of the Seclusion, perhaps in deference known as the Evening Star, who was the autarch's to a tradition no one could now remember (or perhaps cousin and had been the wife of the last older brother for other, less exalted reasons) considered Sulepis had murdered to clear his path to the throne - themselves women, not tremendously different from would have stood up to Cusy without a great deal of those over whom they watched, and made the consideration. Since Arimone lived almost as removed traditional attributes of womanhood their own, from the Seclusion as the autarch himself (she had although exaggerated into parody they were almost all her own little palace and grounds nesded at one end extremely excitable, romantic, vengeful, fickle. And of of the vast compound like the inmost chamber of a course the wives and their born-female servants had nautilus, and no one, not even the other high -ranking their own complicated webs of influence and intrigue wives, came there without an invitation) there was as well. Altogether, walking into the Seclusion was like nobody to challenge the Eunuch Queen's authority. entering a magical cave out of a story, a place strung with invisible strands and snares, full of beautiful Qinnitan had the fantastic luck - or so it seemed at the things guarded by deadly traps. time - to be taken under the wing of Luian, one of Cusy's deputies, a motherly Favored (at least in size Qinnitan's own role in the place was confusing from and demeanor, since she was not particularly old) the first, and within days of entering she had begun to who took an unexpected interest in the new wife and long for the certainty of her old life, for her within days of Qinnitan's arrival invited her to come to uncomplicated role as one of the youngest and thus 361 362 her chambers and drink tea. "Just Luian, dear, please. But of course I was different then. Big and clumsy, studying to be a priest. You Qinnitan was treated to the promised tea, along with see, that's what I thought I would be until I was powdered Sania figs and several kinds of sweet Favored, and then I lost my taste for it. I even went to breads, in a tented, cushion-strewn room in Luian's your father once for advice. I used to walk up and chambers. The meal was accompanied by a gale of down the alleys between Cat's Eye and Feather Cape gossip and other useful information about the Row, reciting the four hundred Nushash prayers, or Seclusion, but it was only at the end of the meal that trying to . . ." Luian explained why her eye had lit on Qinnitan. Qinnitan let go of Luian's hand and stood up. "Oh! "You don't recognize me, do you?" she said as Dudon! You're Dudon! I remember you!" Qinnitan bent to kiss her hand in farewell. Qinnitan had been caught by the fact of Luian's large hands, The Favored waved her fingers languidly. "Sssshh, one of the few things now that betrayed her that name! That was years ago. I hate that name beginnings as a man, and so she did not for a these days - ungainly, unhappy creature. I am much moment understand the question. more beautiful now, am I not?" She smiled as if to mock herself, but there was something other than self- "Recognize you?" Qinnitan said when the import mockery involved in the question. Qinnitan looked at finally sank in. the person before her - it was a little harder to think of "Yes, darling girl You don't think I lavish my time on Luian as female now, after the recollection of her every little queen that comes through the door of the former self - - discreetly examined the broad features, Seclusion, do you?" Luian patted her chest as if the the thick makeup, the large hands covered in rings, idea gave her breathing problems; her jewelry rattled. and said, "You are very beautiful now, of course." "My goodness, we have had two already this month "Of course." Luian laughed, pleased."Yes, and you from Krace, which is practically the moon. I was have learned your first lesson. Everyone in the shocked to hear they even spoke a human language. Seclusion is beautiful, wives and Favored. Even if one No, my sweetness, I asked for you because we grew of us should hold a knife to your throat and demand to up in the same neighborhood." be told she is looking poorly that day, just a little "Behind Cat's Eye Street?" peaked around the eyes, perhaps, skin just a little less "Yes, my darling! I remember you when you could rosy than it should be, you will say only that you have barely walk, but I see you don't remember me." never seen her more beautiful." For a moment Luian's kohl-rimmed eyes grew hard and shrewd. "Do you Qinnitan shook her head. "I . . . I must admit I don't, Favored Luian." understand?" 363 364 "But I meant it sincerely." "And you did not recognize him either, I see. Not surprising, I suppose. He has changed almost as "And that is the second lesson - say everything much as I have. Would you remember if I called him sincerely. Goodness, you are a clever girl. It is too bad Jin instead of Jeddin? Little Jin?" that I will have so little to do with your training." Qinnitan put her hand to her mouth. "Jin? I remember "Why is that, Luian?" him - a bit older than me. He used to chase after my "Because for some reason the Golden One has brother and his friends. But he was so small!" ordered that you must be schooled by Panhyssir's Luian chuckled deep in her throat. "He grew. Oh, my, priests. But I will keep a close eye on you and you will he certainly did." come to take tea with me often, if you would like." "And he recognized me?" "Oh, yes, Luian." Qinnitan wasn't quite certain what she'd done to rate such attention, but she wasn't "He thought he did, but he was not certain until he going to turn her back on it. Having a link to one of the saw your parents. By the way, please write and tell Favored, especially an important one like Luian, could your mother that she will be invited to visit you when make a world of difference in one's accommodations, the time is right, and to stop pestering us with in the skill and tact of one's assigned servants, in any pleading messages." number of things up to and including the continuing Qinnitan was embarrassed. "I wi ll, Favored Lu . . . I favor of the autarch himself. "Yes, I would like that mean I will, Luian. I promise." She was still stunned by very much." She paused in the doorway. "But how did the idea that the slab-muscled Leopard captain could you know who I was? I mean, I would have been not possibly be Little Jin, a perpetually wet-nosed boy much more than a baby when you left our old whom her brothers had more than once smacked in neighborhood - how could you recognize me?" the face and sent home crying. Jin - Jeddin-^-looked Luian smiled, settling back in her cushions. "I didn't. now as though he could break any of Qinnitan's My cousin did." brothers in half with one hand. "I've kept you too long, Luun," she said out loud. "Thank you so much for your "Cousin?" kindness." "The chief of the Leopards. The very, very handsome "You are quite welcome, my darling. We Cat's Eye Jeddin." Favored Luian sighed in a way that girls must stick together, after all." suggested she had complicated feelings about this handsome cousin. "He recognized you." Suddenly Qinnitan, too, remembered the solemn- "The gardens are beautiful!" said Duny. "And the faced warrior. "He . . . recognized me?" flowers smell so lovely. Oh, Qinnitan, you live in such 365 366 a beautiful place!" some of them are like me. Nobody knows why we've been chosen." Qmnitan drew her friend away from the climbing roses and toward a bench at the middle of the courtyard. "We know why! Because he fell in love with you." Queen Sodan's Garden was the largest in the Qinnitan snorted. "I thought I asked you not to make Seclusion and its hedges were low, which was why up stories about me, Duny. Fell in love with me? He she'd chosen it. scarcely noticed me, even when he was making the "I live in a very dangerous place," she told Duny arrangements with my parents, such as they were." quietly when they sat down on the bench. "I've been She made a sour face. "Not that they could have said here two months and this is the first conversation I've no, I suppose, but they sold me." had where I won't have to worry whether the person "To the autarch! That is not being sold, that is a great I'm talking to might decide to have me poisoned if I honor!" Duny's face suddenly froze. "Won't you be in say the wrong thing." trouble for saying such things?" she whispered. Duny's mouth fell open. "No!" "Now you know why I brought you out here, where Qinnitan laughed in spite of herself. "Yes, oh, yes. My there are no walls or high hedges for spies to hide dearest Dunyaza, you just don't know. The meanness behind." Qinnitan felt as though she had aged ten of the older Sisters back at the Hive, the way they'd years since leaving the Hive, felt very much the older get after the younger ones or the pretty ones - that sister now. "Do you see that gardener over there, over was nothing. Here if you're too pretty, they don't just by that pavilion?" push you down in the hallways or put dirt in your soup. "Him in the baggy clothes?" If someone is jealous of you and you don't have a "Yes, but not a him, and the gods save you if you ever powerful protector, you'll end up dead. Five people said that in front of her. That's Tanyssa, one of the have died since I've been here. They always say they Favored. Most of them go by women's names here. fell ill, but everyone knows better." Anyway, it's her job to watch me, although I don't Duny looked at her sternly. "You're teasing me, Qin- know who's given the job to her. Everywhere I go, ya. I can't believe all that. These women have been there she is - for a gardener, she seems to travel from chosen by the autarch himself! He wouldn't allow one part of the Seclusion to another very freely. She anything to happen to them, praise to his name." was in the baths yesterday morning, pretending to "He scarcely ever comes, and there are hundreds of have some errand with the young Favored boy who us, anyway. I doubt he remembers more than a few. heats the water." Qinnitan looked at the well -muscled Most of the brides are chosen for political alliances - gardener with distaste as Tanyssa pretended to you know, important families in other countries - but examine the leaves of a monkeyfruit tree. "They say 367 368 she killed that young Akarisian princess who died last Qinnitan could not resist rolling her eyes - after all, it month. Threw her out of a window, but of course they was a self-indulgence she could not allow herself say she fell." most of the time. "Duny! Don't you listen? I already told you the autarch almost never comes here. When "But, Qin, that's terrible!" he wants to see one of his wives, he has her brought She shrugged. "It's how things are here. I have some to his palace. Well, I suppose this is all his palace, but friends, too - not friends like you and I are friends, of you know what I mean. He has never spoken to me course, although I may make some of those too since he bought me from my parents, let alone made someday. The kind of friends you have to have if you love to me! So, yes, since you are wondering, I am want to stay alive, if you don't want to fall over dead still a virgin. As you may remember from listening to after drinking your tea some evening." the older girls, in most cases a deflowerment requires Duny looked at her without saying anything for a long the man and the woman to be in the same room." time - a long time for Duny, anyway. "You seem "Qin-ya, you shouldn't talk like that!" Duny said, but different, Qinnitan. You seem hard, like one of those whether because she was embarrassed or because traveler girls that dance in Sun's Progress Square." she did not want to suffer further damage to her Qinnitan s laugh was a little harsh, but something flowery illusions wasn't clear. After a moment, she about Duny's innocence made her angry. It was the asked, "But if he didn't fall in love with you, and you're fact that Duny could still afford to be innocent, more not a princess of somewhere - you're not, are you? - than anything else. "Well, I probably am. Everyone then . . . then why did he marry you?" talks nicely here - oh, they do talk nicely. And other "First off, he hasn't married me yet," Qinnitan told her. than the occasional hissing catfight, everything is "At least I don't think so. I've had some religious quite peaceful and comfortable. Do you like my instruction from the priests - some very strange rituals dress?" She lifted her arm and let the pleated sleeve - so maybe that's why, to prepare me for the marriage fall, graceful and translucent as a dragonfly s wing. ceremony. Some of the women here went through "It's lovely." ceremonies, but some others were . . .well, just taken. But as to why he chose me . . . well, Duny, I don't "Yes, it is. As I said, everything is quite peaceful and know. And nobody else in this poisonous place seems comfortable . . . on the surface. But underneath, it is a pit full of scorpions." to know quite why either." "Don't talk like that, Qin.You're scaring me." Duny took her hand. "You are a queen! That must be wonderful, "I have such a nice treat for you, darling," Luian even if the people here are tiresome. What is the announced when Qinnitan arrived, a little breathless, autarch like? Have you . . . did you . . . ?" She colored. 369 370 in the Favored's chambers. "We must primp and Qinnitan could not help wondering if it was truly all as prepare, both of us. We don't have much time." She obvious and ordinary as Luian made it out to be. snapped her fingers and her pair of silent Tuani slave When they were both ready, Favored Luian, rigged women came into the room like shadows. like a festival ship in a fringed-and-beaded robe, and "But . . . but, Luian. Thank you. What are we . . ." Qinnitan in a less ostentatious and properly virginal white robe with a hood, different only in quality from "We are going to the palace, my sweet. Out of the something she might have worn in a Hive procession, Seclusion, yes! Someone very special wants to see they set out. Despite her misgivings, Qinnitan could you." not help being excited: it was the first time in three For a moment Qmnitan found it hard to breathe. "The . months she had been outside of the Seclusion's walls, . . the autarch?" even if it was only to another part of the great Orchard "Oh, no!" Luian threw up her hands and laughed. The Palace. Other than Duny, and Qinnitan's mother, (who Tuani girl with the curling iron, who had come within had spent most of her visit weeping over their family's an eyelash of burning her mistress on the arm, paled good fortune) this would be her first chance to see a little. "Oh, no, if it was the autarch himself they'd be anyone from outside. And, needless to say, Jeddin preparing you for days. No, we are going to see my would be the first natural man she had seen since he cousin." and his soldiers had brought her here, to this invincible prison of beautiful blossoms, splashing It took a moment for Qinnitan to understand. "Jeddin? Of the Leopards?" fountains, and cool stone arcades. The Favored who guarded the Seclusion's outer gate "Yes, my dearest, we are invited to see handsome did not dress a bit like women. They were the largest Jeddin. He wishes to speak with you, to hear stories of the old neighborhood. I am going along as people Qinnitan had ever seen, a half dozen hulking creatures with ceremonial swords whose flat, curved chaperone, lucky girl that I am. I do so admire that blades were almost wide enough to use as tea trays. young man." They engaged in a long whispered discussion among "But . . . am I allowed to meet with any men at all?" themselves before Luian, Qinnitan, and the two silent A look of annoyance creased Luian s powdered Tuani servants were at last allowed to pass out of the forehead. "He is not any man, he is chief of the Seclusion and into the greater palace, but only with Leopards, chosen by our autarch himself, praise to his one of the guards bringing up the rear of the small name. Besides, I will be with you, child, I told you. If procession like an enormous dog guiding a herd of that is not respectable, what is?" But the Favored's sheep. The little company continued on for a good eyes darted briefly to the Tuani slave beside her, and portion of an hour, through lush but empty gardens 371 372 and unused corridors and courtyards so opulent that had once seen in a cage in the Sun's Progress they seemed to have been prepared for some royal marketplace, the most fearsome animal she had ever princeling who had not yet moved into them. encountered. For all its strength, though, despite its dreadful teeth and claws, that leopard had seemed At last they reached a small but prettily decorated sad to her and not altogether present, as though it courtyard that rang with the sounds of a fountain. At saw not the crowds of people around it but the one edge of court, where the tiles gave way to a shadow-splashed woodlands where it had once pocket garden with paths of pale sand, a muscular, roamed - saw those places, but knew it could not sun-browned young man sat on mounds of cushions reach them. beneath a striped awning big enough for a dozen guests. As if he were the groom to Qinnitan s bride, Oddly, she thought she saw something of this in he, too, wore a robe of flowing white. He stood as they Jeddin s eyes as well, but knew she must simply be approached, hesitated a moment between Qinnitan romanticizing, muddling this handsome young man and Luian, between nominal rank and actual power, with the trapped beast. "Yes Yes, Captain, I do and then lowered himself to one knee before the girl. remember you. You knew my brothers." "Mistress. So kind of you to come." He rose and "I did." Like an eminent man asked to recall the pivotal turned to Luian. "Respected cousin, you do me moments of his career, Jeddin began to reminisce at honor." length about the days in Cat's Eye Street, describing the adventures of a group of young scapegraces - of Luian produced a fan from her sleeve and snapped it whom, he felt compelled to admit, he had not been the open with a clack like an eagle taking wing. "Always a least mischievous. To hear him speak, he had been pleasure, Captain." one among equals, and none of the miseries she Jeddin beckoned his visitors to join him beneath the recalled on his behalf had ever truly happened. It was awning, then sent his servant to fetch refreshments. strange, as though he had lived his childhood on the After an appropriate time of small talk with Luian other side of an ornamental screen from the rest of about her health and the health of various important them, making up his own mind what things meant, residents of the Seclusion, he turned to Qinnitan. seeing only what he wished to see Several times "Luian says you remember me now." Qinnitan had to bite her tongue when the urge to She blushed, since many of her chief memories were correct him became strong. There was something about Jeddin, the way he talked, that made her feel as of him being humiliated by older boys. It was even though telling him now that even a small part of his harder to reconcile that with the present now that she saw him again. The Leopard captain's muscles moved memory was faulty would be no different than the way her brothers had sometimes pushed him from behind under his dark skin like those of a real leopard she 373 374 as he ran, making him go so much faster than his legs "And he is blessed by." He paused and to her could carry him that he stumbled and fell. amazement appeared to blush. The refreshments came, and as the servants poured "And he, our autarch, is blessed by all the heavens, tea and piled sweetmeats on plates, Qinnitan watched and especially by his heavenly father Nushash," said Luian watching Jeddin, which the Favored did with the Luian abruptly and loudly. sort of avidity she usually reserved for things like the "Yes, of course. All praise to the Golden One," said rosewa-ter jelly being spooned into her bowl. It Jeddin. Qinnitan echoed the blessing, but could not seemed unusual, not that Luian should find Jeddin help feeling something important had just happened attractive - he was more than that, his body as hard and she had missed it. and wonderfully defined as a statue, his face "We should go now, Cousin." Luian waved for the befittingly serious and noble of cast, with nose straight Tuam girls to help her to her feet, which they did, and strong and eyes a surprisingly bright green under fighting the Favored's great weight like nomads trying the heavy brows - but that someone like Luian, who in to put up a tent in a high wind. "Thank you for the all other ways seemed to have settled into a kind of refres hments and the courtesy of your company." premature, matronly old age, and who, after all, had There was a new tone in Luian's voice, faintly cold. given up her original organs years ago, should still Jeddin scrambled to his feet. "Of course, respected have such feelings at all. cousin. You grace us with your presence." He bowed "Well," Luian said abruptly, ending a silence. "To think to her, then to his other guest. He did it with some that after so many years we of the old neighborhood grace, but that didn't surprise Qinnitan, she imagined should have a reunion here!" that even for a soldier, bowing well must be almost as The captain's emerald eyes now turned to Qinnitan. important in the autarch's court as handling a sword or "You must be very happy, Mistress Of all of us, well as a gun. "I wish you could stay longer." we have done, you have risen highest. A wife of the "Propriety forbids it," said Luian shortly, setting sad for Golden One himself? He dropped his gaze. "An the door with her servants and Qinnitan fluttering in unmatched honor." her wake like gulls. The huge Favored guard fell in "Yes, of course." Although I might as well be married behind them in the corridor, mute and sleepy -eyed. to a hassock or a sandal for all that comes of it, she "Did I do something wrong, Luian?" Qinnitan asked almost said, but didn't Jeddin had the look of a after they had walked for some distance in silence and religious man, and obviously he must be devout at were nearing the gate to the Seclusion Luian only least where the autarch himself was concerned. "I am waved her hand, whether because of discretion or blessed by his notice." irritation was hard to say. 375 376 When they had left the immense guard behind and were back within the walls, Luian leaned toward her and said, in a harsh whisper that might or might not 16 have been too quiet for the Tuani servants to hear, "You must be careful. And Jeddin must not be a fool." The Grand, and Worthy Nose "What do you mean? Why are you angry with me?" Luian frowned. The paint on her lips had begun to smear a little into her face powder, and for the first FLOATING ON THE POOL: time she appeared grotesque to Qinnitan and even a little frightening. "I'm not angry with you, although I will The rope, the knot, the tail, the road remind you that you are no longer a low-caste girl in the alleys behind Feather Cape Row. You have been Here is the place between the mountains give n great honors, but you hve in a dangerous Where the sky freezes world." - from The Bonefall Oracles "I don't understand." "Oh? You couldn't see what I could see as clearly as Collum Dyer had been cheerful all through the day's my own hand at the end of my arm? That man is in ride, full of mocking remarks and droll assessments of love with you." life in Southmarch, and had managed to coax a few Even in her astonishment, Qinnitan could not help weak smiles out of the merchant Raemon Beck, but thinking that the anguish on Luian's face seemed less even Collum was grimly silent as they reached the like that of a guardian unheeded than a lover scorned. crossroad. Dyer came from near the Brennish borderlands in the east and had never seen the old Northmarch Road. Ferras Vansen had passed this crossroad many times, but still found it a disturbing place. "Gods," said Collum. "It's huge - you could drive three team-wagons abreast on it." "It is not that much wider than the Settland Road," said Ferras, feeling a need to defend the more mundane thoroughfare that had so entranced him in 377 378 his youth, which had led him to Southmarch and his had haunted the fringes of the village like a current life. scavenging dog until the winter killed him. As a child, Ferras had seen that man's constant expression of "But look, Captain," said one of the foot soldiers, astonished horror - a look that suggested whatever pointing along the last clear stretch of the huge and had happened to him across the Shadowline was disturbingly empty Northmarch Road before it happening to him still and wo uld continue happening vanished into the mist. "The ground drops away there every moment of every day. Although no one had said on either side, but the road stays high." anything but what was correct and pious, everyone in "They built it that way," Vansen told them. "Because the village had been relieved when the mad old man north of here it gets even wetter in the wintertime had died. months. They built the roadbed up with stones and Collum's question yanked him back to the here and logs to keep it above the muck. They did things right now. "How far does the road lead?" back then. In the old days wagons and ride rs were going back and forth between Northmarch and Ferras shook his head. "Northmarch Castle was about Southmarch every day, and also the Westmarch Road four or five days' ride from here, I think. So the old joined it just on the other side of those hills." He gaffers in my village said, although it was at least a pointed, but the hills could only be seen m his century before their time when anyone could still go memory; the mists were so thick today that someone there. And its lands and towns extended a good way mi ght have draped a huge white quilt across the farther north, I think." forested lands. It was strange to think of so much life Collum Dyer clicked his tongue against his teeth. here once, merchants, princes with their retinues, "Mesiya's teats! And just think - now it's all empty." travelers of all sorts in what was now such a desolate Vansen stared at the wide road cutting across the place. hummocky land to where the fogs swallowed it. "So A thought flitted across his mind, quick and startling you think. So we hope. But I don't want to consider it as a bat. Perin's Hammer, what if we have to ride into just now, to speak the plain truth. I don't like this the mist? What if we must pursue the caravan across place." the Shadowline into that. . . nothingness? In his life he Collum turned and nodded toward Raemon Beck, had heard half a dozen people claim to have come sitting on his horse at the far side of the troop of back from the far side of th at boundary, but he had not guards, staring resolutely southward wi th a face pale believed any of them. The one man of his village that as a fish's belly. "Neither does he." everyone knew for certain had crossed the FerrasVansen felt a tug of yearning as they rode Shadowline and returned had never claimed anything. along the Settland Road past the towns and villages In fact, he had never spoken at all after his return, but 379 380 of Daler's Troth - Little Stell, Candlerstown, and Dale merchant's side. House, the seat of Earl Rorick Longarren, who would "You have a wife and some young ones at home, I have wed the young woman stolen from Raemon think you said." Beck's caravan. Vansen had not returned to his hilly Beck nodded. His face was grim, but it was the home since he was still a raw young soldier, and it grimness of a child who was one harsh word away was hard not to think about how some of the men in from tears. Creedy's Inn at Greater Stell would sit up to see him "What are their names?" at the head of an entire troop, undertaking a mission at the direct order of the princess regent. The young merchant looked at him with suspicion. Not all of Collum Dyer's rough jokes had been kind, and Yes, a mission that's httle better than a banishment, clearly he wondered whether Vansen was going to he reminded himself. make sport of him, too. "Derla. My wife's name is But he was not much moved by the idea of preening Derla. And I have two boys." He took a deep breath, in any case. His mother's death a year before had left let it out in an unsteady hiss. "Little Raemon, he's the httle to tie him to this land of his childhood His sisters eldest. And Finton, he's still . . . still in swaddling . . ." and their husbands had followed him to Southmarch Beck turned away. Town. The folk here that he remembered would "I envy you." scarcely remember him, and in any case, what was the enjoyment of trying to make them feel worse about "Envy? I have not seen them in almost two months! their hardscrabble lives? It was only the children of the And now . . ." really wealthy farmers, the ones who had mocked him "And now you must wait -weeks longer. I know. But for his shabbiness, for hisVuttish father's strange way we have sent them word that you are well, that you of speaking, that he would have wished to humiliate, are doing the crown's business . . ." and if they had inherited their fathers' holdings they Beck's laugh had a rag ged edge. "Weeks . . . ? You're were undoubtedly richer than any mere guard captain, a fool, Captain.You didn't see what I saw. They're even the guard captain to the royal family. going to take you all, and me with you. I will never see There truly is nothing here for me now, he realized, my family again." with some surprise. Only my parents' graves, and "Perhaps. Perhaps the gods mean our end. They those are a half day's ride off the road. have their own plans, their own ways." Ferras A light rain had begun to fall; it took him a moment to shrugged. "I would fear it more if I had more to lose, pick Raemon Beck from the crowd of hooded riders. perhaps I honestly hope you come safe to your family Vansen guided his horse over to the young again, Beck. I will do my best to see that it happens." 381 382 The young merchant stared at his horse's neck. Beck as though she did not entirely hate him after all. A had a good face, Vansen thought, with strong nose year now I have felt it, this terrible, hopeless ache. and clear eyes, but not much of a chin. He wondered There is nothing higher that I could aspi re to, or more what the man's wife looked like. Depends on Beck's foolish How could I marry someone else, except for prospects with the family venture, he decided: a man companionship? But how could I settle for any woman could become surprisingly taller and handsomer when I would think only of her? merely by the addition of wealthy relatives. Well, he thought, perhaps her wish will come true. "Do you . . . are you married?" Beck asked him Perhaps this journey will provide me with a chance to suddenly. die honorably and everyone will be satisfied. "To the royal guard!" shouted Collum Dyer from a few No, not everyone would be satisified, he realized. yards away. "And it is a warm coupling - the guard What Ferras Vansen really wanted was to live gives us all a swiving every payday!" honorably, even happily. And to marry a princess, although that would not happen in this world or any Ferras grunted, amused. "No, not married," he said. other he could imagine. "Nor likely to be. One thing Dyer says is true - I am married to the guard." There had been a few over the years he had almost thought possible, especially a · merchant's daughter he had met in the marketplace.They had liked each other, and had met He was meeting her near Merolanna's chambers, in and spoken several times, but she had already been the back hallway of the main residence, known as the pledged and so was duly married to a Marnnswalk Wolf Hall for the faded tapestry of the family crest that furrier's son with lucrative Brennish connections. took up a large portion of its south wall. It had too Other than that, his dalliances had reached too low or many stars and a mysterious crescent moon hung too high, the taverner's daughter at an inn called the above the wolf's snarling head, showing it to be a Quiller's Mint, friendly but twice widowed and five remnant of some earlier generation of Eddons. How years his senior, and when he had first joined the long it had hung there no one could remember or guard, a woman of the minor nobility whose husband even guess. ignored her. Like Briony, he had promised Merolanna he would Too high . . . ? he thought. No, that was not too high - come alone - no guards, no pages. She had been not compared to the madness that is in my heart forced to speak sharply to Rose and Moina to get these days. The image of Princess Briony's face as them to let her be, of course. Clearly her ladies feared she sent him away came to him, the strangeness of it, she had an assignation with Dawet, but their 383 384 resistance upset her just enough that she did not "And it came on an hour before we were to dine with bother to tell them otherwise. her? Perhaps that is all it is Perhaps." She watched her brother saunter up the corridor "You are jumping at shadows ." through the slanting colums of autumn light that He turned to look at her, and again she wondered if filtered down from the windows, uneven light that the fever had truly left him. Why otherwise this eye made the passage seem as though it were under bright as a bird's, this strange air, as though at any water and which turned the bucket and mop left moment he might fly into pieces? "Shadows? A inexplicably in the middle of the floor and the small strange word to use." He paused and seemed to find offering -shrine to Zoria on the broad table into dully himself a little. "All I'm saying is, why won't our glimmering things that might have spilled from the stepmother talk to us?" belly of a sunken ship. For a moment, as Briony noted "We will give her a few more days. Then we will make by the way her twin held his arm close to his body that it a command." it was hurting him, they might have been children Barrick arched an eyebrow. "Can we do that?" again, escaped from their tutors for a morning to play scapegrace around the great castle. "We'll find out." She reached out and knocked on Merolanna's door. Ellis, the duchess' little serving But something was different, she saw. He seemed maid, opened it and stood for a long moment stock- better - he no longer moved like a dying man, still and blinking like a mouse caught on a tabletop. At draggled and slow - but instead of becoming again the last she made a courtesy, found her voice. "She's disdainful, unhappy Barrick Eddon she knew nearly as lying down, Highnesses. She wants me to bring you to well as herself, he had a bounce in his step that her." seemed equally foreign, and his eyes as he neared her seemed to burn with a mischievous vigor. Inside, several older women and a few young ones sat doing needlework. They rose and made their own "So someone in our family finally agrees to speak to courtesies to the prince and princess Briony said a us." Barrick did not stop to give her a kiss, did not stop few words to each. Barrick nodded his head, but at all, but swept past, still talking swiftly, leading her smiled only at those who were young and pretty. He toward Merolanna's door as though he had been was bouncingly impatient, as though he already waiting for Briony, not the other way around. "After our wished he had not come. stepmother, I begin to think they fear taking the plague from me." Merolanna sat up in bed as the serving maid drew the curtain. "Ellis? Bid the other ladies go, please. You, "Anissa said she did not feel well herself. She is too. I want to be alone with Barrick and Briony." Their pregnant, after all." great-aunt did not look ill, Briony thought with some 385 386 relief, but she did look old and tired. These days "I'll say it again, Auntie." Briony reached out and took Briony was not used to seeing Merolanna without face her hand. "We have been worried about you. Are you paint, so it was hard to know for certain whether the ill?" changes were real or just the ordinary punishments of A sad smile. "Not in the sense you mean, dear. No, time left unhidden, but there was no mistaking the not like our poor Barrick has been." swollen eyes. The duchess had been crying. "I'm well now, Auntie." "There," the old woman said when the room was "I can see that." But she looked at him as though she clear. "I cannot abide being listened to." There was an did not entirely believe it. "No, I have just . . had a unusual violence in her voice. She fanned herself. turn, I suppose. A bad moment. But it frightened me, "Some things are not for others to know." and made me think I've not done right. I've spent time, "How are you, Auntie? We've been worried about a great deal of time lately, talking to the Hierarch Sisel you." about it, you know. He's a very kind man, really. A She manufactured a smile for Briony. "As well as can good listener." be expected, dear one. It's kind of you to ask." She "But not to Father Timoid?" It seemed odd - usually turned to Barrick. "And you, boy? How are you Merolanna and the Eddon family priest were a feeling?" conspiracy of two. Barrick's smile was almost a smirk. "The grip of old "He's a terrible gossip." Kernios is a bit more slippery than everyone thinks, it "That's never bothered you before." seems." Merolanna gave her a flat look, almost as though she Merolanna went quite pale. She brought her hand to spoke to a stranger. "I've never had to worry about it her breast as though to keep her heart inside it. "Don't before." say such things! Merciful Zoria, Barrick, don't tempt Barrick laughed suddenly, harshly. "What, Auntie? the gods. Not now, when they have done us so much Have you begun a love affair with someone? Or are mischief already." you plotting to take the crown yourself?" Briony was irritated with her brother, not least "Barrick!" Briony almost slapped him. "What a terrible because it did seem foolish to make such a boast, but thing to say!" she was also puzzled by Merolanna's reaction, her frightened eyes and trembling hands. All through the Merolanna looked at him and shook her head, but to time before Kendrick's funeral their great-aunt had Briony's eyes the old woman still seemed oddly been the strongest pillar of the family and the detached. "A few weeks ago, I would have been after household. Was it just that her strength had run out? you with a stick, boy. How can you talk like that to me, 387 388 who raised you almost like a mother?" strangeness, but what is he to us? Is he a son? Will someone, his true parents, come and take him away "It was a jest!" He folded his arms and leaned against from us? He looked at Opal, who was sniffing at a row the bedpost, his face a resentful mask. "A jest." of pots she had set up on the far side of the table. My "What is it, then?" Briony asked. "Something is old woman will be stabbed in the heart if the boy happening here, Auntie. What is it?" leaves us. Merolanna fanned herself. "I'm going mad, that's all." As will I, he realized suddenly. The child had brought "What are you talking about? You're not going mad." life to the house, a life that Chert had never realized But Briony saw Barrick lean forward, his sullenness was missing until now. gone. "Auntie?" she asked. "I don't think this bilberry jam is much good," Opal "Fetch me a cup of wine. That pitcher, there. And not said, "although it cost me three chips. Here, try it." too much water." When she had the cup in her hand, Chert scowled. "What am I, a dog? `Here, this has Merolanna sipped it, then sat up straighter. "Come, sit gone off, you try it'?" on the bed, both of you. I cannot bear to have you Opal scowled back. She was better at it than he was. standing there, looking down on me." She patted the "Old fool - I didn't say it had gone off, I said I don't bed, almost begging. "Please. There. Now listen. And think it's much good. I'm asking your opinion.You're please don't ask me any questions, not until I finish. certainly quick enough to give it most other times." Because if you do, I will start crying and then I'll never stop." "Very well, pass it here." He reached out and took the pot, dipped a piece of bread into it, lifted it to his nose. It smelled like nothing more or less than bilberry jam, · but it raised a strange thought: if the old stories were true, and there were Funderlings before ever there wer e big folk, then who grew the vegetables up in the It was finally Godsday, with Lastday to follow; Chert sunlight? Who grew the fruits? Did the Lord of the Hot welcomed the days of rest. His bones ached and he had a hot throb in his back that would not go away. He Wet Stone create us to eat moles and cave crickets with never a bit of fruit, let alone bilberry jam? But if was glad to bid the tennight good-bye for other not, where would such things have come fr om? Did reasons, too. The prince's funeral that began it, with its weight of hard work and terrible sadness, had the Funderlings of old have farms under the sun? It seemed strange to think of such a thing, but stranger taken much out of him, and the boy's disappearance still to think of a world with no . . . that day had frightened him badly. What is he? Chert wondered. Not just his "Jam, old man. What do you think of the jam?" 389 390 Chert shook his head. "What?" other Shadowline stones right here in the house, after all - those which no one had wanted to buy, but which "I take it back - you don't have the wits to be a fool, Chert had found too interesting to discard - and had old man.You don't pay enough heed.The jam!" not given any of them a second thought. But this. "Oh. It tastes like jam, no more, no less." He looked I could take it to the Guild, he thought. But he felt around. "Where is the boy?" strangely certain they would not recognize it either - "Playing out in front, not that you'd notice if he'd gone maybe old High Feldspar would have, a man who had off to drown in the Salt Pool." known more stonework and stone-lore than the rest of "Don't be cross, Opal. I'm tired. It was an Funderling Town put together, but Feldspar's ashes uncomfortable piece of work, that tomb." had been returned to the earth three years ago and Chert did not think there were many in the Guild now She took the pot of jam. "I'm sorry, old fellow. You do who knew more than he did himself. Certainly not work hard." about Shadowline stones. "Give us a kiss, then, and let's not quarrel." "When are you going to the talking and singing place?" a voice said behind him, making Chert jump Opal had gone off to visit her friend Agate, wife of one and slosh his mug. Flint stood in the doorway, hands of Chert's cousins, and after checking to make sure so dirty it looked like he was wearing dark gloves. As the boy Flint was still erecting his complicated if he had been caught doing something wrong, Chert miniature fortifications of damp earth and bits of stone dumped the weird stone back into his purse and outside the front door, Chert poured himself a mug of pulled the string. mossbrew and pulled out the mysterious stone Flint "Talking and singing place?" He remembered the had found. A week or so had not made it any more boy's reaction his first day in the tomb. "Oh I'm not familiar the cloudy, unusually rounded crystal still going to work today, lad, but if you don't like going matched nothing he had seen or even heard of there other days, you can stay home with Opal Chaven was traveling for a few days, visiting the instead. She'd love to . . ." outlying towns with a colleague to check the spread of "I want you to go there. G now." o the disease that had almost killed Prince Barrick, and now Chert was wishing he had spoken with the Chert shook his head. "This is a day of rest, lad. physician about it before he left. The stone troubled Everyone gets their days of rest each tennight, and him, although except for the fact that it seemed like this is one of mine." something that might have come from behind the "But I have to go there." The child was not angry or Shadowline he couldn't say why. He had half a dozen upset, merely fixed as a hard-driven wedge. "I want to 391 392 go to where you work." rose and followed the boy into the street. Flint could not or would not explain his sudden "We won't go through the Funderling roads," the boy interest, but neither would he be talked out of it Chert said matter-of-factly. "I don't want to go near the suddenly wondered if it had something to do with the talking, singing place." stone - after all, the boy had claimed he found it out in "If you're talking about the Eddon family vault, there the temple-yard, near the tomb. "But I can't work aren't any tunnels from here that go there, or even today," Chert explained. "It's Godsday - none of the close to it." other men will come. And in any case, clattering away Flint gave him a look that seemed almost pitying. "It with picks and cold chisels would be offensive to the doesn't matter. We'll go up on top of the ground." others having their rest." Both above and below ground, he could not help thinking. He had become a bit leery of working in the tomb, although he still "Boy, don't you understand that my back aches and thought of himself as unmoved by big-folk my feet ache and I just want to sit down?" Chert had superstition. Still, he would not be sad when the job barely kept up with the child, who seemed able to was finished and he could move on to other tasks in walk only for a moment or two before breaking into a other places. sprint, then circling back like a dog anxious to be after the quarry. Chert's only chance to catch his breath "Then will you just come with me?" Flint said. "Will you had been at the Raven's Gate. The guards there were take me there?" now used to the Funderling man with the adopted big- Chert could not help being astonished. The child was folk son, but they still found the situation amusing. ordinarily well-behaved, if a bit strange, but this was This one time, Chert was grateful that they made him the most he had talked in days, and the only time and the boy wait to pass through while they thought of Chert could remember that he had ever asked for clever things to say. anything, let alone asking this way, with the Finally, as the two of them walked through the winding doggedness of an army laying siege. ways of the inner keep, heading toward the temple- "You want me to take you to the tomb?" yard and the family vaults, he grabbed at the boy's The boy shook his head. "To the temple-yard. That's shirt to hold him back - he had already had one what it's called, isn't it? Well, near there." He frowned, experience of how fast the child could disappear. trying to think of something. "Just come." He held out "Where are we going?" his hand. "Up there." Flint pointed to the roof of one of the Feeling as though he had entered his own front door residences. "They're waiting for me." and found himself in someone else's house, Chert 393 394 "Waiting for you? Who?" It took a moment to sink in. since he had been a scaffold man, and there was in "Hold a bit - up there? On the roof? I'm not climbing any case something different about looking down at that thing, boy, and neither are you. We have no the distant ground when the rock ceiling of Funderling business up there." Town curved soothingly above your head. Climbing the outside of a building beneath the naked sky, even "They're waiting for me." Flint was entirely reasonable this wall with its relatively easy handholds, was and very firm. altogether different and quite dizzying. "Who?" Shuddering, he lifted his gaze and looked around, "The Old People." certain that at this very moment a guard had noticed "No, no, and definitely no. I don't know why you think . the intruder climbing the residence wall and was . ." Chert did not get a chance to finish his sentence. nocking an arrow, preparing to spit him like a squirrel. He had made the mistake of letting go of Flint's collar He had seen no one, but how long could that last? and the boy now bolted off across the temple -yard. "Come back!" Chert cried. It was one of the more "I've never taken the strap to a child, but this time . . ." useless things he had ever said. When he reached the top at last, it was all he could do "I've never taken the strap to a child . . ." Chert to pull himself onto the tiled roof, gasping for air, arms growled, then had to close his mouth as stone-dust and legs trembling. When he could at last drag himself and mortar and bits of dried moss pattered down on up into a crouch and look around, he saw Flint only a him from his own handhold. You've never had a child short distance away, seated just below the crest of the to take a strap to, he told himself sourly. His backache roof with his back against one of the large chimney was worse than ever, and now his arms and legs felt pots, waiting calmly and expectantly - but not for his as though he'd spent the entire morning wielding one adopted father, it appeared, since he was not even of the heavy picks, something he hadn't done since looking at him. Chert wiped the sweat from his face his youth. And you'll never take a strap to anyone if and began to clamber cautiously up the mossy slope you fall and break all your bones, so give attention to toward the boy, cursing with every breath. Heights. He what you're doing Still, he was furious and more than did not like heights. He didn't really think he liked a little startled. He had not known a child could look children either. So what in the name of the Earth you in the face like that, then disobey you. Flint had Elders was he doing on the roof of Southmarch been a child with his own mind and his own secret Castle, chasing this mad boy? thoughts since he had come to stay with them, but he had never been troublesome like this. His legs were shaking so badly by the time he reached the chimney that he had to cling to the bricks Chert looked down and wished he hadn't. It was years 395 396 while he stretched and worked out the cramps. Flint "That's Chert." Flint explained to the tiny man. "He looked at him with the same s ober stare he employed came with me I live in his house." in all other places and situations. The minuscule fellow began to descend again, faster "I am angry, boy," Chert growled. He looked around to now, almost swinging from one handhold to another, see if anyone could see them from an upper window, until he reached Flint. He stood by the boy and peered but the boy had picked a spot where the low roof was past him at Chert with - as far as Chert could read in a blocked by taller parts of the residenc e, window-less face the size of a button - a measure of suspicion. walls that turned this section into a kind of tiled "And tha say un be good, so will I believe `ee." The canyon, protected from the view of any of the near tiny fellow's voice was high as the fluting of a towers. In fact, even the top of mighty Wolfs-tooth songbird, but Chert could make out every word. Spire was barely visible above them, blocked by the "A Rooftopper." Chert breathed. It was amazingly overhang of a nearby roof. But Chert still had a strong strange to see an old story standing in front of you, urge to whisper. "Did you hear me? I said I'm angry . . living and breathing and no bigger than a cricket. He . !" had thought the Rooftoppers, if not entirely invented Flint turned to him and laid his finger across his lips. by generations of Funderling mothers and grannies, to "Sssshhh." be at least so distantly lost in history as to be the Just before Chert lost his mind entirely, he was same thing. "Fissure and fracture, boy! Where did you distracted by a flicker of movement along the crest of find him?" the roof. As he stared in utter astonishment, a figure "Find me?" The little creature stepped toward him, appeared there. For the first moments he thought the fists cocked on his hips. "What, Beetledown the tiny man-shape must be someone standing on the Bowman but a child's toy, found and dropped again. uppermost point of some distant tower, a tower which "Bested me in fair fight, un did." itself was blocked from his view by the roof on which Chert shook his head in confusion, but Beetledown he and the boy were sitting - what else could explain didn't seem to care Instead, he turned and produced a such a sight? But as the figure began clambering tiny silver object from the inside of his jerkin and put it down the roof toward them, moving with surprising to his lips. If it made a noise, it was too quiet or high- grace and speed along the moss-furred spaces reaching for Chert's old ears, but a moment later an between tiles, Chert could no longer pretend the entire crowd of diminutive shapes appeared over the newc omer was anything but a finger-high man. He crest of the roof, movi ng so quickly and silently that for sucked in air with a strangled wheeze and the little a moment it seemed a small carpet was sliding down fellow stopped. the tiles toward them. 397 398 There were at least two or three dozen Rooftoppers in direct the bird's track down the tiles, but it seemed to the gathering or delegation or whatever it was. Those make little difference: the bird went only where it in the front were mounted on gray mice and carried wanted to go. long spears. Their plate armor looked to be made I'll try to remember that if someone offers me a ride on from nutshells and they wore the painted skulls of a thrush someday, Chert thought, and was less birds as helmets, as they pulled up their velvet -furred amused by his own joke than he was impressed he mounts, they regarded Chert balefully through the could even conceive of one under the circumstances. eyeholes above the long beaks. The whole thing was li ke a dream. The rest of the group followed on foot, but in their own When the thrush had finally lurched to a halt behind way they were just as impressive. Although their the mice, its rider was dangling halfway out of the clothes were almost uniformly of dark colors, and saddle, but waved away two of the mouse-riders when made of fabric too heavy and stiff to drape like the they started forward to help him. He righted himself, clothes of Funderling and big folk, they had clearly then clambered down out of the covered seat with spent much time on these garments - the outfits were surprising mmbleness for his bulk. His climb was intricate in design, and both the men and the women hampered a little by his clothes - he wore a fur- moved with the gravity of people wearing their finest collared robe and a shiny chain on his breast. When raiment. he reached the tiles, he accepted deep bows from the All this, he thought, still sunk in the haze of other Rooftoppers as though they were his due, then astonishment, to meet Flint? stared squintingly at Chert and Flint as he stepped closer to them - but not so close as to advance more But even as the tiny men and women stopped in a than a pace or two beyond the protective line of respectful semicircle behind the mouse-riders, it mouse-riders. became clear that the day's surprises were not over. The fellow who called himself Beetledown again "Is he the king?" Chert asked, but Flint did not reply. raised his silver pipe and blew. A moment later an The Rooftoppers themselves were watching the tiny even more bizarre spectacle appeared on the roofline fat man with wide-eyed attention as he leaned his - a fat little man just slightly bigger than Chert's thumb, entire head forward and . . . sniffed. riding on the back of a hopping thrush. As the bird He straightened up, frowning, and then sniffed again, made its awkward way down the roof toward the rest a great intake of air so powerful that Chert could hear of the gathering, Chert saw that the creature's wings it as a thin whistle. The fat man's frown became a were held fast against its body by the straps of the tall, scowl, and he said something in a quick high-pitched boxlike covered saddle on its back. The fat man below voice that Chert couldn't understand at all, but the the awning pulled aggressively on the reins, trying to 399 400 other Rooftoppers all gasped and shrank back a few to a country where I scarcely spoke the language, steps, looking up in fear at Chert and Flint as though married to a man almost twice my age, I was very sad they had suddenly sprouted fangs and claws. and frightened and lonely. Then Daman went to war." "What did he say?" asked Chert, caught up in the Barrick was finding himself hard-pressed to sit still. He drama. was full of ideas, full of vigor today. He wanted to do things, to make up for the time lost during his illness, Beetledown stepped forward, his face pale but not sit here all day listening to his great-aunt's stories. resolute. He bowed. "Sorry, I be, but the Grand and Merolanna's earlier talk of madness had caught his Worthy Nose speaks the tongue of giants not so well attention - almost it had seemed that she was about to as we men of the Gutter -Scouts." He shook his head confess the same night-visitations that had plagued gravely. "Even more sorry, I be, but he says tha canst him, but instead she seemed to be wandering into a not meet the queen today, because one of tha twain story of events so ancient as to have taken place in an smells very, very wicked indeed." entirely different world. He wanted to get up off the bed, perhaps even to leave, but he saw Briony stiffen · from the corner of his eye and decided to stay quiet. Everything had been so difficult of late he couldn' t bear the idea of having to fight with his stubborn "It was long ago - so long ago," Merolanna told them. sister. "When I first came here from Fael to wed your great- uncle Daman. You do not remember him, of course - "It was a small thing, just short of war, actually," Merolanna was explaining. "One of the sea barons of he died long before you two were born." Perikal - a dreadful man, I cannot remember his name "His picture is in the long hall," said Briony. "He looks . now - was harrying the shipping on th western coast, e . . very serious." and Ustin sent his brother to the assistance of the "I told you, dear, you may not interrupt. This is difficult King of Settland Daman went away and I was even enough. But, yes, that is how he looked. He was a more lonely than I had been, day after day by myself serious man, an honorable man, but not . . . not a kind in this unfamiliar, cloudy place, all these dark stones, man. At least, not kind as your father is, or as under all these frowning old pictures. Daman's brother the old king was when he was in his "There is no excuse, as I said to Hierarch Sisel, but . . cups or otherwise in good cheer." She sighed. "Don't . but after some months I found myself keeping take what I say wrongly, children. Your great-uncle company with one of the young men of the court. He was not cruel, and in my way, I came to love him. But was the only one who bothered to visit me, the only that first year, taken from my own family and brought one who treated me as anything other than an 401 402 outsider too clumsy with her new language to speak head. "And in any case, by the time Daman came wittily, too removed from the center of court life to back from the fighting in the west, it was all over. have any interesting gossip to share. He alone Except my shame. And the child." seemed to admire me for who I was. I fell in love with "The child . . . ?" him." The old woman sat up a little straighter, but her "Yes. You do not think I would be so lucky, do you? eyes were fixed on the ceiling. She had stopped To have my one transgression end so easily, so . . moving the fan. "More than that. I gave myself to him. harmlessly?" Merolanna laughed a little, dabbed at I betrayed my husband." her eyes. "No, there was a child, and although when I It took Barrick a moment to understand what she was found out I thought I might pass it off as my husband's saying, then he was astonished and disgusted. It was since he was expected home soon, he was delayed one thing to understand that older people at one time by storms and squabbling among the victorious must have felt the lusts of the body, another to be told captains and did not return for almost a year. The about it and then be forced to imagine it. But before Sisters of Zoria helped me, bless them. They saved he could say anything, Briony s hand tightened hard me - took me into their temple at Helmingsea for the on his arm. final months while all in the castle thought I had "You were alone in a strange place, Auntie," his sister returned to my family in Fael to wait for my husband's said gently. "And it was a long time ago." But Briony return. Yes, well you may look, dear. Deception upon looked shocked, too, Barrick thought. deception. Did you ever think your great-aunt was such a wicked woman?" She laughed again. Barrick "No, that is just the thing," Merolanna said. "It would thought it sounded like something broken and rasping. seem that way to you - that to someone my age it "And then . . . then my baby came." must be so far back that it can scarcely be remembered. But one day you will see, dear, you will Merolanna took a moment to regain her breath and see. It seems like it was yesterday." She looked at her composure. "I could not keep him, of course. The Barrick, then Briony, and there was something in her Zorian sisters found a woman who would have him to face that overcame Barrick's dislike of what she was raise, and in return I brought the woman back to saying, something lost and sad and defiant. "More Southmarch with me, to live on a farm in the hills than that. It seems like today." outside the city. She is dead now, too, but for years I quietly sold some of my husband's gifts every year to "I don't understand," Briony said. "What was the man's pay for her living there. Even after the child was name, Auntie? Your . . . lover." taken." "It doesn't matter. He is even longer dead than "Taken?" Barrick became interested again. "Taken by Daman. All gone, all of them." Merolanna shook her 403 404 who?" them these days." "I've never known." The old lady dabbed at her eyes. "Do you mean you saw your child grown? Maybe you "I used to visit him, sometimes, the little boy. Oh, he did, Auntie. No one ever told you he was dead . . ." was bonny, fair as fair could be! But I could not go "No, Briony, I saw him as a child. But not even the there often - too many would notice, and some would child he was when I saw him last. He had grown. But have become curious. My husband was the king's only a little. Only . . . a few years . . ." And she was brother, after all So when the woman told me he had weeping again. been stolen, I didn't really believe her at first - I Barrick grunted and looked to his sister again for help thought her somewhat simpleminded greed had at last making sense of this, but she had clambered across turned into something worse, that she had hidden the the bed to put her arms around the old woman. child and was going to threaten to tell my husband if I "But, Auntie," Briony began. did not pay her more, but I saw quickly that she was truly heartbroken. She was a poor woman, and of "No." Merolanna was fighting to keep the tears from course she blamed it on the Twilight People - `The overwhelming her. "No, I may be old - I may even be fairies took him!'that's what she said. Just a little less mad - but I am not foolish. What I saw, ghost or than two years old, he was." The duchess stopped to figment or waking nightmare, it was my own child. It blow her nose. "Gods, look at me! Fifty years ago and was my boy - my child.The child I gave away!" it could have been yesterday!" "Oh, Auntie." Suddenly, to Barrick's immense "But after all those years, why does it pain you so discomfort, Briony was crying too. He could think of much now, Auntie?" asked Briony. "It is terrible and nothing to do except to get up and pour Merolanna sad, but why have you taken to your bed like this?" another cup of wine and then stand beside the bed holding it, waiting for the storm of tears to pass. "Such pain never really goes away, dear. But there is a reason my heart is so sore. Merciful Zoria, it is because I saw him. At Kendrick's funeral. I saw my child." For a moment Barrick could only look at Briony. He felt queasy and strange Nothing made sense anymore, and the duchess' confession was just another crumbling of what was ordinary and safe. "A shadow," he said, and wondered again what Merolanna's dreams were like. "The castle is full of 405 406 "A moment, masters, I beg `ee," Beetledown said suddenly, then skittered across the sloping roof with surprising quickness to the Grand and Worthy Nose 17 and said something to that plump dignitary in their own tongue, a thin, rapid piping. The Nose replied. Black Flowers Beetledown spoke again. The assembly of courtiers all listened raptly, making little noises of wonder like the cheeping of baby sparrows. THE SKULL: Beetledown and the Nose trilled back and forth at each other until Chert began to wonder again if he had lost his mind, if this entire spectacle might be Whistling, this one is whistling happening only in his own head. He reached out to A song of wind and growing things the roof tiles and stroked the fired clay between his A poem of warm stones in the ashes fingers, poked at the damp moss between them. All - from The Bonefall Oracles real enough. He wondered what Opal would make of these creatures. Would she put them all in a basket, bring them tenderly home to hand -feed them with The Grand And Worthy Nose, larger and fatter than crumbs of bread? Or would she chase them off with a his fellow Rooftoppers but still no taller than Chert's broom? finger, had spoken these strangers smelled of Ah, my good old woman - what madness have we wickedness. There was to be no meeting with the gotten ourselves into with this stray boy? queen. Chert didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed - in fact, he didn't know much of At last, Beetledown turned and trotted down the roof anything. When he had risen this morning, the idea toward them. "I beg grace of `ee once more, masters. that he might end up on the roof of the castle with a The Grand and Worthy Nose says tha can meet our crowd of people smaller than field mice had not even queen, but only if we can put bowmen on shoulders of occurred to him. each of tha twain. `Twas my idea, and I be sorrowed for its ungraciousness." He did indeed look ashamed, Most of the Rooftoppers had backed away in fear from crushing his little cap in his hands as he spoke. their two large visitors after the Nose's pronouncement. The boy Flint looked on, his thoughts "What?" Chert looked to Flint, then back to and feelings well hidden as always. Only the tiny man Beetledown. "Are you actually saying you want to put named Beetledown seemed to be actively thinking, his little men with bows and arrows on our shoulders? little forehead pinched into wrinkles. 407 408 What, so they can shoot us in the eyes if we do boy was expressionless but Chert couldn't help feeling something they do not like?" rebuked, as though he had pushed himself in where he was not wanted and was now spoiling it for " `Tis all that the Grand and Worthy Nose will agree," everyone. said Beetledown. "My word did be bond enough for the young one, but you, sir, be a stranger to even me." Well, perhaps I wasn't wanted. But should I have simply let the boy climb the roof without a word, "But you heard him. You heard him say that he lives without trying to follow him? What sort of guardian with me - that I am his . . . stepfather, I suppose." would I be? Still, it seemed it was up to him to make Despite his anger, Chert couldn't help being a bit things right. amused to find himself arguing with this absurd manikin as though with any ordinary man. Then he "Very well," he said at last. "Your archers may perch had a sudden, grim thought: was this how the big folk on me like squirrels on a branch, for all I care. I will felt about him - that even treating him like a real move slowly, and so will the boy - do you hear me, person was an act of kindness on their part? He was Flint? Slowly. But tell your men that if one of them ashamed. A Funderling, of all folk, ought to know pinks me or the child without reason, then they will better than to judge another person by his size. "Is meet an angry giant for certain." Despite his irritation that all they wish to do? Ride our shoulders and and fear, he was startled to realize that to these folk prevent us from doing wrong?" He realized he was as he was just that - a huge and fearsome gian.t Chert much worried for Flint as himself. Fissure and the Giant. Chert the Ogre. fracture, I am truly becoming a father, will it or not. I could scoop them up by the handful and eat them if I "What if one of us coughs? Stumbles? I am not wished, just like Bram-binag Stoneboots out of the old anxious to get an arrow in my eye, even a small one, stones. He did not, of course, share these thoughts over a misstep or a sudden chill on my chest." with the Rooftoppers, but sat as still as he could while The fat Rooftopper offered something else in his shrill two of the mice, each bearing a rider, begin to climb voice. his sleeves. The scratchy little claws tickled and he was tempted simply to lift the bowmen and their "The Grand and Worthy Nose says we could bind `ee, mounts into place, but he could imagine such a hands and feet," explained Beetledown To his credit, gesture being taken wrongly. The faces of the little he sounded a little dubious " `Twould take some time, men were frightened but determined within their bird- but then no one would fear wrongdoing." skull helmets, and he had no doubt their tiny arrows "Not likely," said Chert angrily. "Let someone tie my and pikes were sharp. hands and feet, up here on a high, slippery roof? No, "What is this in aid of, by the way?" he asked when not likely." He saw that Flint was watching him, the 409 410 the guards were in place on his shoulders. "Lad, you the needle-fine point of one of the soldiers' pikes have not told me why you are here, how you met resting against his neck - perhaps as a precaution. these folk, anything. What does this all mean?" Even the Grand and Worthy Nose had prostrated himself. The boy shrugged, "They want me to meet the queen." Beetledown was the first to raise his head. "Her Exquisite and Un forgotten Majesty, Queen "You? Why you?" Upsteeplebat," he announced. Flint shrugged again. From what Chert could make out, the queen was not It is like trying to chip granite with apiece of soggy so much pretty as handsome, with a fine, strong- bread, Chert thought. The boy, as usual, was as boned face and eyes that looked up to him without talkative as a root. any discernible fear. Chert found himself bowing his He was distracted by a murmur in the crowd of tiny head. "Your Majesty," he said, and for a moment there people, the courtiers all so carefully dressed in their was no incongruity. "I am Chert of the Blue Quartz rude homespun, ornamented with what looked like family. This is my . . . my ward, Flint." bits of butterfly wing and flecks of crystal and metal "The child we know of already." She spoke slowly, but and feathers so small they might have come from the her Marchlands speech, although a bit musty in its breasts of hummingbirds. They were all turning toward sound, was far clearer than Beetledown's. "We give the roofcrest in anticipation. Even Chert found himself you both welcome." holding his breath. The Nose laboriously lifted himself from his Like the Grand and Worthy Nose, she came riding a abasement and came forward, chattering something. bird, but this one was either more successfully trained "Our adviser says there is a wicked scent about you," or the restraints were hidden: the snow-white dove the queen reported. "I smell it not, but h has always e had no band around its wings. The tiny shape atop it been a trusted help to our person. He is the sixth did not teeter in a boxy covered saddle like the Nose, generation of those who are First to the Cheese - his but rode directly between the dove's wings with her nostrils are of true breeding. But we also can see no legs curled beneath her and the reins little more than wickedness in you or the boy, although we think there a sparkling cobweb in her hands. Her gown was are other stories in the child, stories untold. Are we brown and gray, rich with ornament, and her hair was right, Chert of Blue Quartz? Is wickedness absent in dark red. truth?" The dove stopped. All the courtiers and guards had "As far as I know, Your Majesty. I did not even know gone down on their knees, including those on the your people still existed until an hour ago. I certainly shoulders of Flint and Chert, although Chert could feel 411 412 bear you no ill will." Chert was realizing that the size of fled long ago now reaches out again . . but it is not a queen meant little. This one impressed him and he only the Sm `sni `snik-soonah who must fear it." The wanted to please her. Wouldn't that make Opal spit if rapid click seemed a sound that only a squirrel or a she knew! mockingbird should be able to make. "Fairly spoken." Queen Upsteeplebat waved; two of "Not only who?" her soldiers sprang forward to help her down from the "My people. Rooftoppers, in your tongue." The queen dove's back. She looked up briefly a the windowless t nodded her head. "So you must help us decide what stone walls all around. "This is a place well-chosen for is to be done. The boy finding Beetledown - we think a meeting - although it is long since we or our we sense the Hand of the Sky in it. Certainly it has predecessors have used it for a gathering of this sort. been a stretchingly long time since any of the giants You will forgive us, Chert of Blue Quartz, but we are has seen us against our will. We cannot help thinking unused to the manner of speaking with giants, that perhaps it truly is time for us to make common although we have practiced the old ways to be ready cause with your kind. Perhaps you will not listen to us for just such a day, unlikely as we thought its arrival." and we must flee again, although fleeing will do us "You speak our tongue very well, Majesty." Chert little good, I fear, but perhaps you will listen. That snatched a look at Flint. The boy was watching, but he alone will not save us, but it would be a start." seemed to think this no more interesting than any Chert shook his head. "I don't understand any of this, other conversation between adults. Why had they I'm afraid. But I'm trying. Because the boy caught one invited Flint in the first place? What did they hope to of your people, you Rooftoppers want to make get from him? common cause with the big folk? Why?" The queen smiled and nodded. "Though our folk live "Because although we have lived hidden in your in your shadows, and make our lives often beneath shadows for long years, Old Night is a shadow that your ta bles and in your cupboards, generations have will cove r all, and none of us will find our way out passed since we have spoken, one to the other. But again." The royal mask seemed to slip a little; for the times now demand it, we believe." first time, Chert could see the fear she had hidden. "It "I'm a bit confused, Majesty. Times demand what?" is coming, Chert of Blue Quartz. We would have guessed in any case, but the truth has been directly "That your folk and ours should speak again. Because spoken to us by the Lord of the Peak..." Watching her we of the high places are frightened, and not just for speak so gravely, so carefully, Chert did not doubt ourselves. That which we had thought asleep - we that she was an able ruler Despite her size, he could had in our royal keeping too much knowledge to think not help finding her very admirable. "The storm that it dead - is now awakening. That which we so happily 413 414 we have feared since before my grandmother's understanding what he sensed. The little wooden grandmother's day is coming," said Queen house was a familiar place - Ferras had been there Upsteeplebat. "It will be here soon." several times with his sisters, bringing the old woman a baked festival sweet or some flowers from his mother. The old woman had never had much to say, · but she always seemed happy to see the children and would always press some gift on them in return, although what she had to spare was seldom anything "May the gods protect us," murmured Raemon Beck, more than a shiny wooden bead from a necklace that but the young man didn't sound as though he believed that they would Ferras Vansen stared in silence at the had lost its string or a bit of dried fruit from one of the stubby trees in her dooryard. But now some new valley spread before them. It disturbed him, too, but it element was present and young Ferras felt the hairs took a moment for him to understand why it seemed so particularly frightening. Then he remembered the on his arms and neck rise and tingle. old woman's house and what he had found there. He The wind was in the other direction or he would have had been only eight or nine years old that day, already smelled the body a long time before he reached the nearing a man's height but thin as a bowstave. He threshold. It was high summer, and as he pushed had thought himself very brave, of course. open the ill-fitting door the stench leaped out and clawed at his nose and eyes, sending him stumbling back, gagging and wiping away tears. Still holding the Ferras' mother was concerned about the widow who jug, generations of crofter thrift preventing him from lived on the next farm, perhaps because with her own spilling a drop of milk no matter the circumstances, husband so short of breath these days and barely Ferras paused a few steps from the house, uncertain able to get out of bed she had been anticipating her what to do. He had smelled death before he knew well own upcoming widowhood. She at least had children, enough now why they had not seen the old woman though, the old neighbor had none. Now they had not lately. Still, with the first shock lessened, he felt a seen her for several days and her goats were powerful tug, a wondering, a needing to know. wandering across the green but summer -dry hills. He pinched his nose and stepped into the doorway. A Fearing the old woman might have become too ill to take care of herself his mother sent Ferras, her eldest, little daylight spilled past him through the door, but the hut had only one window and it was shuttered, so it across the dale to look in on her with a jug of milk and took him a moment to see anything but darkness. a small loaf. He recognized something in the silence of the place She was dead, but she was alive. while he was still yards away, but without quite 415 416 No, not alive, not truly, but the thing that lay in the been recently occupied. Ferras Vansen had stood in center of the rush -strewn dirt floor - facedown, he the midst of those empty houses holding a carved realized after staring for long moments, as though she wooden toy he had found, a charmingly well-made had tried to crawl toward the doorway - was rippling horse that no child would willingly leave behind, with movement. Flies, beetles, and countless other growing increasingly certain that something disturbing crawling things he could not identify covered her was at work all across this quiet land. Now, as he entirely, a person -shaped mass of glinting, wriggling stared out at the scene before them, there was no life, other than a few wisps of white hair, there was longer any doubt in his mind that the village and the scarcely anything to see of the old woman's body. It unseasonal flowers were something more than was horrifying, and yet in a way weirdly exciting as happenstance. well, although he was ever after ashamed of the Unlike the village, the valley before them was very feeling, the memory would stay with him forever. All much alive, but in a way more like the dead widow that life feeding off one death. woman than Vansen would have liked. Its colors were In the dim light, the old woman seemed to be dressed . . . wrong. It was hard to say why at first - the trees in glittering black armor, something like the "caparison had brown trunks and green leaves, the grass was of light" he had heard the priest speak of on festival yellowed but not beyond what seemed natural for this day, the raiment in which dead heroes would be time of the year, before the heavy rains came - but dressed when they went to meet the gods. there was definitely something amiss, some mischief of light that at first glance he had thought a freak of the low clouds. It was a cold, gray day, but he felt sure "What is it, Captain? Are you ill? What's happened?" that alone could not make the valley's colors seem so Vansen shook his head, unable to answer Collum bruised, so ... oily. Dyer's question. It had been a strange day already, As the company tramped down into the valley itself, full of weird discoveries. The patches of bright- Vansen could see that although the trees and blooming meadow flowers they had found along the meadowed hillsides did indeed seem to ha ve taken on roadside had been strange enough, months out of an unnatural hue, much of the strangeness was season, bending nearly sideways in brisk autumn because of a single kind of plant, a brambly creeper winds they were never meant to suffer. Then there that seemed to be choking out the other vegetation, had been the deserted village a few miles back where which had made its way almost everywhere along the Vansen and the others had left the road to water the valley, even down to the edge of the broad Settland horses - a very small village, admittedly, the kind that Road. Its leaves were so dark as to be almost black, sometimes emptied when a plague struck the but the color was nowhere near that simple: on close livestock or the only well ran dry, but it had clearly 417 418 inspection he saw shades of purple and deep blue cause we could see, so who would stay around and and even deeper slate gray, colors that almost wait for this mucky stuff to crawl over them? No point seemed to move; the leaves gleamed like grape-skin looking - they're gone." after a rain and the coiling vines seemed quietly That had been his thought, too. Ferras Vansen was fearsome, like sleeping snakes. A chill breeze ruffled secretly relieved. He had not been anxious to wade the plants, but he almost fancied they were moving toward a deserted house through these vines that more than the soft wind should warrant, that they had sighed and rippled in the wind. a tremor of independent life like the horrid carpet of "You're right," he told his lieutenant. "We ride on, then, insects in the crofter -wo man's house. since we will not make camp here, I think." The vines also had thorns, nasty spikes half the length Dyer nodded. He, too, was happy to keep traveling. of his finger, but the strangest thing of all were the Raemon Beck had his eyes closed and seemed to be flowers, big velvety cabbage-shaped blossoms as praying. They passed through the valley without night-dark as the robe of a priest of Kernios.The valley speaking, looking to all sides as though riding through seemed to be choking in black roses. wild, foreign lands instead of following the familiar "What is all this?" Dyer asked again from a tight road to Settland.The hills leaned close and the huge throat. "Never seen anything like." flowers bounced gently beneath the wind's unseeable "Nor have I. Beck, do you recognize this?" fingers, leaves rubbing, so that it almost seemed like Vansen and his men were surrounded by whispering The face of the merchant s nephew was quite pale, watchers. but also oddly resigned, as though he were seeing something in the waking world that had long come to him in evil dreams. Still, he shook his head. "No. To the relief of Ferras Vansen and the rest of the When we . . . where they came . . . there was nothing company, the tangle of black vines did not extend out of the ordinary. Only the mist I told you of, the long beyond the valley, although the woods beside the hilly reach of mist." road remained unusually quiet. "There's a house up there in the hill," Vansen said. "A What could happen to scare even the birds away? cottage. Should we go look to see if someone's Vansen wondered. The same things that took the there?" caravan? Or am I only making worries? Perhaps "Those vines are all over it." Collum Dyer had not whatever plague emptied that village has scattered made many jokes today; he sounded like it might be a the animals and birds, too. Wild things know much we while until he made any more. "There's no one left have forgotten. inside. That other village had emptied without any The lowering skies and his own mood had made an 419 420 ordinary hill-road look almost otherworldly. He couldn't help wondering what this land had been like before Two of Vansen's men found her while they were out settlers. The Twilight People - if the stories are true, picking up deadfall for the evening's camp fire. It was a they were here for long, long centuries before our tribute to the mood they were all in that although she ancestors arrived. What did they do here? What did was young and might even have been passing pretty they think when they first saw us, the rude tribes that under the dirt, there were few rough jests. They held would have come across the water or up from the her arms as they brought her to him, although she did south? Did they fear us? not seem interested in escaping. No fear showed in Of course, he realized, the shadow folk would have her dark-eyed face, only blankness alternating with been right to fear the new creatures. Because those moments of confusion and what almost seemed like creatures would soon take their land from them. flashes of secretive amusement. All this place belonged to them once. It was a thought "Wandering," one of her captors told Vansen. "Just that had first come to him in childhood, on a day when looking up at the sky and the trees." through inattention he found himself a long way from "She's talking nonsense," the other man said. "Do you home as the light began to fail in the fastness of the think she's taken an injury? Or is it the fever?" He hills. There had been a stillness to the dales both suddenly looked nervous, let go of the girl and stared frightening and magical, a change in the light, as at his hands as though some sign of plague might be though the sky itself had taken a breath and was seen there like a stain. There had been rumors about holding it for a short while before blowing out the the sickness that had made its way into Southmarch, candle of the sun, and the dark world of a hundred the fever that attacked Prince Barrick, though it fireside stories had risen up in his mind like smoke. All spared his life, but which also killed several old people this was theirs - the other people. Tlte Old Ones. and more than one small child in the town. And what if now they want it back? he thought. The "Leave her with me." Vansen led the girl in the ragged court physician had said the Shadowline was moving. peasant smock a little way back from the fire, but not What if this was more than the matter of a single so far that the men wouldn't be able to see him. He plundered caravan? What if the Twilight People, like wasn't so much worried about what they might think of an eldest son returned from the wars to find his young his motives as he was concerned with what they were brothers spoiling his inheritance, had decided to take all feeling, the sensation of being lost in a strange all these lands back? place instead of camping beside a familiar road in the And, if so, what of us? Pushed out . . . or simply March Kingdoms on the northern edge of Silverside. destroyed? The girl looked like she had been living out-of-doors 421 422 for some time. Her matted hair and the grime on her soup with his horn cup, and brought it back. She held face and hands made it hard to tell how old she was: it carefully and seemed to enjoy the warmth, but did she could have been anything from a child just not appear to understand what to do with it. Vansen reaching womanhood to someone almost his own took it from her hands and held it to her mouth, giving age. her little sips until she at last took it herself. "What is your name?" It was good to be able to do a small kindness, he realized as he watched her swallowing. She held out She gave him a calculating look from behind the the cup for more and he smiled and went to get some. tangle of her hair, like a merchant who had been It was good to be able to take care of someone. For offered a ridiculously low price but suspected that the first time in a disturbing day, and although all the bargaining might produce something better. "Puffkin," mysteries were growing deeper rather than otherwise, she said at last. he was almost content. "Pufflun!" He let out a startled laugh. "What kind of name is that?" · "A good name for a cat, sir," she told him. "And she was always good, until the we ather changed, my Pufflan." She had the local accent, not that different The clouds had passed, moving east. Another armada from what Vansen grew up with. "Best mouser in the of them waited above the ocean, ready to sweep in, kingdom, till the weather changed. Sweet as soup." but for the moment much of Southmarch Castle s Vansen shook his head. "But what is your name?" inner keep was in thin, bright sunlight. Barrick found a spot where there was no shade at all. Soaking up The girl's hands were in her lap, tugging at loose warmth, he felt like a lizard who had just crawled out threads in her wool smock. "I used to be frightened of of a dark, damp crevice.The sunlight was glorious, the thunder," she murmured. "When I was a little one . and for the first time in days a stranger would have . ." realized that the keep's great towers, newly washed "Are you hungry?" by rain, were all different color s, from the old soot- She was shaking now, suddenly, as though beset by colored stones of Wolfstooth Spire to the green- fever. "But why are their eyes so bright?" She moaned copper roof of the Tower of Spring, Autumn s white- a little. "They sing of friendship but they have eyes like and-red tiles, Summer's hammered-gold fire!" ornamentation, Winter's gray stone and black wrought iron. They might have been part of some titanic It was no use talking to her. He wrapped his cloak around her shoulders, then went to the fire, dipped up bouquet. 423 424 Briony was still indoors, finishing up her day's lessons than denied," was her defense of this foolishness. with Sister Utta. Barrick could not quite understand He wondered if half a year ago he would have been what more there was to learn when you were already the same - not with law, of course, which he had a regent of the land - it was not as though, like a always found boring in the extreme, but in ferreting chandler's apprentice or a squi re, you could aspire to out the truth behind the attack on the caravan, or even bettering yourself, could you? Except for continued trying to make certain of Shaso's guilt In the early training in combat and tactics of war, he had finished days of Kendrick's regency Barrick had entertained his own formal education and couldn't imagine why he ideas about what he would do if he were in his might need more. He could read and write (if not quite brother's place, all the things he would do better Now as fluently as Briony.) He could ride and hawk and he was in his brother's place, but most days, after hunt as well as his mangled arm allowed, and identify another night of haunted sleep, he could scarcely find the heraldic emblems of at least a hundred different the resolve to walk out into the courtyard and sit in the families - which, as old Steffans Nynor, the castellan, sun. had once told him, was very important in a war so that It was the dreams, of course, and the weight of his one could decide who would be the best opponent to awful secrets, that held him back - not to mention the capture for ransom. He knew a great deal about his fever that had nearly killed him. Surely anyone could own family, starting with Anglin the Great, a understand that? He had almost died, but sometimes reasonable amount of the history of the March it seemed that no one would have minded much if he Kingdoms, a few things about the rest of the nations had. Even Briony. of Eion, and enough of the tales of the Trigon and the No, he told himself. That's a wicked voice. That's not other gods that he could make sense of the things true. And that was another problem: somehow the Father Timoid said, when he bothered to pay fever had not entirely gone. He had walked in his attention. sleep and suffered with bad dreams as long as he He didn't know everything, of course watching Briony could remember, even before the night that had preside over the law courts, full of opinions and changed everything for the worse. Once or twice in his concerns about things that seemed to him to matter childhood he had even been found outside the very little, made him feel almost an outsider. His sister residence in the morning, shivering and confused. But sometimes stopped the day's proceedings for as now almost every single night his ragged sleep was much as an hour to argue with the various clerks over alive with creeping things, with shadowy hands and a fine point of fairness that she deemed important, bright eyes, and even when he was awake, they didn't leaving dozens of petitioners pushed back to the next entirely leave him. And the dreams seemed to get into day's docket and grumbling. "Better justice delayed his head and speak to him as well, telling him things 425 426 that he usually did not believe, and certainly did not "Hello, Selia." His stepmother's maid was an awkward want to believe - that everyone around him was false, distance away, several yards: too far for an ordinary that they were whispering behind his back, that the conversation. He wished she would come toward him. castle was full of enemies in disguise who had slowly Perhaps she was afraid to approach, to intrude on his usurped those he knew and were only waiting until private thoughts. "Please, come join me for a moment. their numbers were so great as to be undefeatable The sun is lovely today, isn't it?" There, he thought before . . . before . . . with some satisfaction. Surely the famous bard Gregor of Syan himself could not have spoken more Before doing what? He sat up, suddenly quivering in delicately to a lady. every muscle. Perhaps it's all real! Despite the unbroken sunlight, the stone warming beneath his "If Your Highness is certain . . ." She approached thighs so that he could feel its pleasant heat through slowly, like a deer ready to leap at any noise. The new his woolen hose, he had to fold his arms across his thinness of her face made her eyes seem even larger, chest until the trembling passed. It was the residue of and he could see that under the powder they were his illness, of course, nothing more, and so were the shadowed. For the first time, Barrick remembered strange thoughts, the voices that plagued him. Briony what Chaven said about her. was still Briony, his beloved, inseparable other half, "You have been ill. You had what I had." and the people and things around him were She looked at him. "I had fever, yes? But certain that unchanged. It was only the fever. He was certain of Your Highness was more ill than me." that. Nearly certain. He waved his hand in the manner of true nobility Distracted by such thoughts, he nevertheless compar isons were unworthy. He was pleased with this recognized the young woman by her walk before gesture, too, and the girl also seemed impressed. anything else. Although her figure, displayed in a sea- "How are you feeling now??" green dress, was still desperately alluring, she She glanced down at her hands. "Still a little strange, I seemed to have lost weight. Her face was thinner than think Like the world is not quite being as it should he remembered, but the swaying of her hips was Yes? Do you understan d me?" unchanged. "I do?" Although the nearness of her had narrowed his He stood as she reached the center of the courtyard attention very strongly - he felt that he could see every where she noticed him for the first time, blinked, tiny hair against her neck where they spilled free from stopped for a moment. "Prince Barrick?" She put her the headdress, that he could count each shining dark hand to her mouth when she realized she had not strand in an instant without even trying - he also felt a made a courtesy and quickly remedied the omission. little strange, as though he had been too long in the 427 428 sun. He looked up, suddenly certain that someone take them off. This gave Barrick a picture to think was watching from one of the rooftops, as improbable about that promised to make concentration even more as that seemed, but he saw nothing out of the difficult. "Your stepmother, she scolds with me very ordinary. much for badly sleeping." She looked down and her wide eyes grew wider. "Prince Barrick, you are holding "Oh? Are you knowing you are well again, Prince my hand." Barrick?" He let go, guiltily sure that she had put up with it only He nodded, took a deep breath. "Yes, I suppose so. because of his high station. He had always loathed Sometimes I feel like that, too. Like the world is not men who use their power to compel women's quite what it should be." surrender, had watched with disapproval as Gailon Her face was solemn. "It is frightening to have this Tolly and other nobles, and even his own brother, took feeling, yes? For me, anyway. Your stepmother thinks advantage of serving girls. He remembered now with I am not listening to her, but it is only that sometimes I some pain that only a few months earlier he had am . . . made confused." started a shouting argument with Kendrick about the "You will feel better," he said, on absolutely no treatment of one such, a pretty little lady's maid authority but the wish to say something reassuring to named Grenna who Barrick had admired in silence for a pretty young woman. "How old are you, Selia?" months. Kendrick had honestly not been able to understand his younger brother's anger, had pointed "Seventeen years, I have." out that unlike some men, he never compelled any Barrick frowned a little. He wished he were older - woman to do anything by force or threat, that the girl surely a girl who might be as much as two years his herself had been a willing partner and had accepted senior was only interested in him because he was the several expensive gifts before the dalliance played prince. On the other hand, she did seem content at itself out. Kendrick had also suggested that his the moment anyone might come to the prince regent's younger brother was becoming a prig before his time command, but she did not seem in a hurry to leave. and that he would do better to concentrate on his own Experimentally, he took her hand. She didn't resist. affairs rather than comment on those of his elders. The skin was surprisingly cool. "Are you sure you are But you must treat them like birds, had been Barrick s well enough to be out of bed?" he asked. "You have a chill." only confused thought, then and now You must let them fly or they are not truly yours. B no one had ut "Oh, yes, but sometimes I am warm, very warm," she ever been his, so what right did he have to think he said with a little laugh. "Sometimes I cannot even knew? keep the blankets on me even when the night is cold, Meanwhile, even though he had let go of her hand, and my clothes are too hot when I sleep and I must 429 430 Selia had still not taken the opportunity to escape. speak with you." "I did not say that holding me was a bad thing." A "I should leave," said Selia quickly. She cast a shy smile curled her lips, but she was interrupted by the glance toward Barrick. "I have already left my lady's appearance of someone else at the edge of the errand too long and she will be wondering where I courtyard. am." "Barrick? Are you out here?" Barrick wanted to say something but the rout had already been effected; he had been forced into He had never been less happy to see his sister surrender without a blow struck. Selia made another Briony, however, was already walking along the courtesy. "Thank you for your kindly conversation, cobbled path toward the place where he and Selia Prince Barrick I am happy to see that you are more were sitting, shading her eyes with her hand well now, too." She moved off, perhaps still not her Something was odd about her garb, but he was so former self, but with that fine and life-enhancing sway frustrated with the mere fact of her arrival that he did to her walk that Barrick could only watch with not at first understand what it was. immense regret. She hesitated as she neared them. "Oh, I'm sorry, She wasn't angry I held her hand, he thought. Or just Barrick I didn't know you were speaking to someone putting up with it. At least I don't think so . . . Selia, isn't it? Anissa s maid?" "If you can drag your eyes away from her backside for Selia stood and made a courtesy. "Yes, Highness." a moment," Briony said, "you and I have things to talk "And how is our stepmother? We were disappointed about." not to be able to dine with her." "Like what?" he almost shouted. "She had disappointment, too, my lady. But she was "Temper, lad." Her grin flickered a little, then her face not feeling well because of the baby that is coming." grew more serious. "Oh, Barrick, I'm sorry. I didn't "Well, give her our best and say we look forward to interrupt on purpose." another invitation, that we miss her." "I find that hard to believe." Barrick had finally realized what was odd: Briony was "See here, I may not approve of a little baggage like wearing a riding skirt, split down the middle and far that, but I've said my piece once already. I love you, too informal for court functions. "Why are you dressed you're my dear, dearest brother and friend, but I'm not like that?" he asked her. "Are you going out for a going to follow you around trying to make certain you ride?" He devoutly hoped it was true and that she was only do what I want." going right this moment. He snorted. "Strange, because that's how it worked "No, but it's too difficult to explain now. I need to 431 432 out." For a moment he felt real anger. "And she's not a She didn't rise to the unpleasant tone. "Yes, that little baggage! She's not.You don't even know her." letter. Where is it?" Briony's eyes widened. "Fair enough. But I know you "What do you mean?" and I know what a turtle you are." "Where is it, Barrick? I haven't read it - have you? I "Turtle?" didn't think so. Nor has Brone, or Nynor, or anyone else as far as I've heard. The only person who "Yes, with your hard shell on the outside. But the actually saw it was Kendrick. And now it's gone." reason a turtle has a shell is because he is defenseless on the inside. I fear that someone will get "It must be among some of the other things he had in inside your shell - someone I don't trust to do right by his chamber. Or in his secretary, that one with the you. That's all." Envor carvings on it. Or Nynor has it in with the accounts and doesn't know it." His mood darkened. He was oddly touched by her concern but also "That, or someone is lying to us." infuriated. His twin sister thought he was helpless, that he had no defenses. It was as good as calling him "It's not among Kendrick's things. I've been looking. simple - or worse, weak. "Just you keep out of my There are a lot of other matters we've got to deal with shell, too, Briony. It's mine, after all." It came out a bit that are waiting there, but no letter from Father." more harshly than he intended, but he was angry "But what else could have happened to it?" enough to leave it that way. Briony shook her head fiercely; for a moment he saw She stared. It seemed she might say more about this, the warrior queen she could someday be and was sad perhaps apologize again, but the moment passed. "In to think he might not be around to see it; love, pride, any case," she said briskly, "we have other things to and anger mixed in him, swirled like the clouds talk about. And I've come to you about one of them. blowing in overhead. "Stolen - by his murderer, Father's letter." perhaps," she said. "Maybe there was something "We have another letter?" As always, it filled him with written there that someon e didn't want us to see. In both happiness and fear. What will I be like when he fact, I'm certain of it." returns? A chill passed through him. And what if he Barrick felt a wave of dread. Suddenly the darkening doesn't return? What then? All alone . . courtyard seemed an exposed place, a dangerous "No, not another letter - the last one." place, and he knew why lizards were so quick to slither back into the cracks at any sound - but he It took him a moment to understand. "You mean the realized an instant later that his father's secret, his one that came with that envoy from Hierosol, the own secret, would not be the kind of thing that King Tuani fellow. Your . . . friend." Olin would commit to a letter, even a letter to his 433 434 eldest son. Still,just the brief thought had been terribly would crumble like walls made of sand. "You are disturbing. safe," he told her. "Don't fear You are safe. We are soldiers of the king." "So what do we do?" he asked. The day had gone sour. "We find that letter. We must." "Father?" Her voice was hoarse and confused. "I am not your father. My name is Ferras Vansen. We found you wandering in the forest - do you · remember?" There were tears on her cheeks; he could feel them She came to him in the middle of the night, climbed as she rubbed her face against his neck. "Where is under the heavy cloak and pressed herself against he? Where is my father? And where is Collum?" him. For a moment he took it as part of his dream and For a moment he thought she was talking about pulled her close, calling her by a name he knew he Collum Dyer, but it was a common enough name in should not utter even half-asleep, but then he felt her the March Kingdoms - he supposed it might be a trembling and smelled the smoke and damp in her brother or sweetheart. "I don't know. What is your clothes and he was awake. name? Do you remember how you came to be "What are you doing?" Vansen tried to sit up, but she walking in the forest?" clung. "Girl, what do you think you're doing?" "Quiet! They will hear you. At night, when the moon is She pushed her head against his chest. "Cold," she high, you can only whisper." moaned. "Hold me." "Who? Who will hear me?" The fire was nothing but embers now. A few of the "Willow, the sheep are gone. That's what he said. I horses moved restlessly on their tethers, but none of ran out and the moonlight was so bright, so bright! the other men were stirring. The girl slid her hard, thin Like eyes." little body against him, desperate for comfort, and for a moment his loneliness and fear made the temptation "Willow? Is that your name?" great. But Vansen remembered the frightened-child She burrowed in against his chest, struggling beneath look, the terror that he had seen peering out of her the confining cloak to get as close to him as possible eyes like a wounded animal driven into a thicket. He Her neediness was so startling and pitiable that his pulled free and sat up, then wrapped the cloak around few lingering thoughts of lovemaking drained away. her and tugged her close, using the heavy wool to She was like a puppy or kitten standing beside its help pinion her arms. After all, he could only take so dead mother, nosing at a body gone cold. much of her blind, needy rubbing before his resolve What happened to her father, then? And this Collum? 435 436 "How did you come to be in the forest, Willow? That is your name, isn't it? How did you come to be in the forest?" 18 Her blind groping slowed, but more from the exhaustion of fighting against the folds of the heavy One Guest Less cloak, he thought, than from diminishing fear. "But I didn't," she said slowly, and lifted her face In the moonlight the darks of her eyes seemed shrunken, RABBITS MASK: mere pinpoints with white all around. "Don't you know? The forest came to me. It . . . swallowed me." Day is over, shadows in the nest FerrasVansen had seen such a look before and it stabbed at him like a knife. The old madman back in Where have the children gone? the village where he had grown up so long ago had All are running, scattering worn a stare like that - the old man who had crossed - from The Bonefall Oracles the Shadowline and returned. But we are still miles and miles from where the The mad muddle of life, Chert thought, was enough to caravan was taken, he realized. The nodding black make a person want to lie down on the ground, close flowers, the deserted village. By the gods, it is his eyes, and become a blindworm Surely blindworms spreading fast. didn't have to put up with nonsense like this? "Mica? Fissure and fracture, have you nothing better to do with your time and mine than argue?" Hornblende's nephew looked around for his brother. Both of them could be difficult by themselves, but they were much less willing to put up a fight when they were on their own. "It's not right, Chert, putting tunnels here. It's too deep, too close to the Mysteries. If it collapses through to the next level, they'll be right on top of where they shouldn't be!" "It is not your place to decide. The king's people want this tunnel system made bigger and that's what we're 437 438 going to do. Cinnabar and the other chiefs of the Guild Chert remembered but did not say - because the big have approved the plans." folk were frightened in those years and there had not been much work even for skilled Funderling Mica scowled. "They haven't been here. Most of them craftsmen. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, had left haven't worked raw stone in years, and it's been even their ancestral home under Southmarch in search of longer since any of them have been here." He labor and had ne ver returned, settling in spots all over brightened as his brother approached. "Tell him." the middle and south of Eion where the big folk had "Tell me what?" Chert took a deep breath. It had been previously had to do their own stonework. But during a strange last few days since the bizarre miniature Chert's own lifetime things had changed: even small pageant on the castle roof; his head was so full of cities now built great temples and underground baths, confusing thoughts and questions he could scarcely not to mention countless funeral vaults for rich keep his mind on his work. That was the problem, of merchants and clerics, and most of the Southmarch course - Hornblende's nephews and the rest of the Funderlings found themselves in demand right here at men needed his full supervision. Funderlings always home in the March Kingdoms. had a difficult time working so close to the royal Talc shook his head. He was stubborn, but he was family's residence and graves - superstition and also smart - the worst kind of shirker, Chert thought. resentment were never far away - but this growing Or was he a shirker at all? Chert suddenly felt empty proximity to the Funderlings' own sacred places was and tired, like a rock face with the seam of valuable even more of a problem. He couldn't afford to be stone chiseled out of it. Maybe they feel some of the attending to his work with only half his usual attention. same things I do. What did the tiny queen say? "That we want to go before the Guild Council," said "Because we of the high places are frightened, and Mica's brother Talc. He was the older and more not just for ourselves. " I am frightened myself, but it is levelheaded of the two. "We want to be heard." because of things I have seen, felt . . . "Heard, that's what you young people always want - to He did his best to clear his head of all the jibber- be heard! And what is it you want to be heard about? jabber. "Very well. I shall ask the Guild to grant you a That you're feeling mistreated. That you have to work hearing, if you w get on and finish this day's work. ill too hard. That what you're given to do isn't fair or kind There is shoring and bracing to do in the new tunnels, or . . . or something." Chert took another long breath. if you are not too frightened to work alongside your "Do you think your uncle or I ever got to ask so many fellows there." questions? We took the work we were given to do and Hornblende's nephews were still grumbling as they were grateful for it." Because his own apprenticeship walked away, but there was a jauntiness to their step had been in the last days of the Gray Companies, that suggested they secretly felt they had won a 439 440 victory. It made Chert feel tired all over again. part realized that such a duty could become very lonely. Thank the Old Ones that Chaven has come back. I will go see him when the men stop to eat Tins time, It was not the young man Toby who opened the door though, I will go in by the front door. at the Observatory House but the physician's old, long -whiskered manservant, Harry. He seemed flustered, even nervous, and for a moment Chert As he made his way through the twisting byways of feared that Harry's master might be ill. the inner keep, ignoring the people who felt that it was "I'll tell him you're here," the old man said, leaving acceptable to stare at a Funderling simply because he Chert to wait in the front hall. A shrine to Zona with lit was a Funderling, Chert was grateful that the boy Flint candles was set there, which struck Chert as odd - was spending the day with Opal at the market. She surely if the court physician were going to have a had accepted Chert's astonishing report of meeting shrine to the gods of the big people, shouldn't it be a the Rooftoppers with a complacency that was almost Tngonate altar? Or perhaps to Kupilas, the god of more dumbfounding than the Rooftoppers healing? Then again, he had never been able to make themselves. much sense out of the big folk and their baskets full of "Of course there are more things under the stones gods. and stars than we will ever know," she had told her Harry came back, his expression still unsettled, and husband. "The boy is a burning spark - you can just beckoned Chert down the corridor toward the see it! He'll do wonderful things in this world. And I chambers in which Chaven conducted his always believed there truly were Rooftoppers, experiments. Perhaps that explained the anyway." manservant's behavior; his master was doing He wondered now if it had been some kind of something that he thought was dangerous. intentional ignorance His wife was a clever woman - To his surprise, Chert found when he stepped into the surely she couldn't think this was the ordinary way of dark room with its long, high table piled with books life Was she afraid of what these many new things and unfamiliar equipment - measuring devices, portended - Flint himself, the Shadowline, this news lenses, things for grinding and mixing substances, of fabled creatures hiding in the roofs who talked of bottles and jars, and candles on seemingly every one coming disaster - and so she covered it all in a blanket of the very few empty surfaces - that Chaven was not of the familiar' alone. Chert realized he had shared very little of his own fear I have seen this young fellow before . . . he thought for with Opal. A part of him wanted to continue that way, a puzzled moment. protecting her, which felt like his rightful duty. Another 441 442 The red-haired youth looked up as the door closed those with more power. There was also an opposing behind Chert. "It's a Funderling!" impulse that was nearly as strong, the desire to pass any strange situation on to someone else. I am more Chaven turned, and smiled at Chert. "You say that as the type who wishes to know what I am doing first, though it were a surprise, Highness. Yet I imagine you Chert decided. And certainly I am not going to blurt have noticed that everyone in this room is aware that out this mishmash of fears and suspicions and old- my friend Chert is a Funderling." tales -come-to-life in front of one of the royal family. The boy frowned. He was dressed from head to foot in "I wished only to hear of your journeying," he said out black - shoes, hose, doublet, even his soft hat. Chert loud, then reallzed he did not want to wait days more knew who he was now, and tried to keep the before sharing his concerns with the physician. "And astonishment off his face as the boy complained, "You perhaps talk a little more of that matter we discussed are mocking me, Chaven." last time . . ." "A little, Highness." He turned to Chert. "This is one of Prince Barrick rose from the stool on which he had our regents, Prince Barrick. Prince Barrick, this is my been perched off -balance and almost tipping over, friend Chert of the Blue Quartz family, a very good Chert realized, like any ordinary young man. "I will not man. He has recently done your family the helpful keep you, then," he told the physician. The prince deed in a sad time of hurrying the construction of your spoke lightly, but Chert thought he heard brother's tomb." disappointment and something else in the boy's words Barrick flinched a little, but to his credit, smiled at the - anger? Worry? "But I would speak to you again. new arrival. "That was kindly done." Tomorrow, perhaps?" Chert did not quite know what to do. He made a bow "Of course, Highness, I am at your service always. In as best he could. "It was the least we could offer, the meantime, perhaps a glass of fortified wine before Highness. Your brother was well-loved among my bed would help a bit. And please remember what I people." Most of my people, he amended silently Well, said. Things always look different when night is on the a decent proportion. world. Let me escort you to the door." "And what brings you to see me today, good Chert?" Barrick rolled his eyes. "My guards are in the kitchen asked Chaven. He seemed in an expansive mood - bothering your housekeeper and her daughter. Since strangely so for someone who had been out viewing Kendrick was killed, I cannot go anywhere without the sick and the dying. bumping elbows with men in armor. It was all I could How can I talk about the things I have seen in front of do to convince them I did not want them in the room the prince regent? Chert wondered. He could not help with me here." He waved his good hand. "I will find my contemplating the urge to hide anything unusual from 443 444 own way out. Perhaps I can sneak past the kitchen "For once, the talk is right," said Chaven, and quickly and have an hour to myself before they know I'm told his guest the merchant Raemon Beck's story. gone." "Even now the prince and princess have sent a company of soldiers to the place it happened." "Don't do that, Highness!" Chaven's voice was hearty, even cheerful, but there was an edge to it. "People are Chert shook his head. "I cannot believe it - I am more frightened. If you disappear, even for a short time, than ever certain that the old tales are coming to hfe. some of those guardsmen will suffer." It is a curse to live in such times." Barrick scowled, then laughed a little. "I suppose "Perhaps. But out of great fear and danger, heroism you're right. I'll go and give them some warning before and beauty can come, too." I run for it." He nodded in a distracted way toward "I am not your man for heroes," said Chert. "Give me a Chert as he left. soft seam and a hot meal at the end of the day." Chaven smiled. "I am not so fond of heroism myself," "The Rooftoppers, eh?" Chaven took off the he said, "but there is a part of me - my curiosity, I spectacles perched on his nose and wiped them on suppose - that dislikes too much comfort. It is, I think, the cuff of his robe - a robe surprisingly stained the despoiler of learning, or at least of true considering he had worn it while receiving royalty - understanding." then put them back on and gave Chert a shrewd look. Chert suppressed a shudder. "Whatever sort of "It is very unusual news, this, but I confess that there lessons the Rooftoppers spoke of - Old Night! That are many you could tell it to who would be more has a terrible sound. And the Lord of the Peak who surprised than me." warned them, some Rooftopper god, no doubt In any "You already knew?" case, those are the sort of lessons I would rather avoid." "No - or at least I have never seen them, let alone met their queen in such an unusual audience. But I have "The Lord of the Peak?" Chaven's demeanor seemed encountered . . . signs over the years that suggested to grow a little cool. "Is that what they said?" to me that the Rooftoppers might be more than fable." "Y - yes - didn't I tell you? I must have forgot. They "But what does it mean? All this talk of shadows and said the truth of all this was spoken to them by the the coming storm? Is it because the Shadowline is Lord of the Peak." moving? There is talk back home in Quarry Square Chaven stared at him for a moment as from a that something came across the Shadowline in the distance, and Chert feared he had offended somehow hills to the west and took an entire caravan." against their old but constrained friendship. "Well, I 445 446 expect you are right," the physician said at last. "It is now, good morning. We will talk longer when I am not some god of theirs." He moved suddenly, rubbed his just come back from the countryside." hands together. "It is good of you to bring this all to Chert hesitated again. Chaven had never before me.Your pardon, but you have given me much that is made him feel unwelcome. He wanted to probe the new to think on, and I have more than the royal unfamiliar situation like a sore tooth. "And your family's physical bodies in my care." journey went well?" "It . . . it was strange to see Prince Barrick. He is so "As well as could be hoped. The fever that struck the young!" prince has come to many houses, but I do not think it "He and his sister are both growing older quickly. was what I once feared - something that comes from These are harsh times. Now I hope you will pardon beyond the Shadowline." He stood patiently by the me, good Chert - I have much to do." door. With the distinct feeling that he was being hurried out, "Thank you for your time," the Funderling told him. Chert had almost reached the door when he "Farewell, and I hope I will see you again soon." remembered. "Oh! And I have something else for "I shall look forward to it," Chaven said as he closed you." He fumbled in the pocket of his jerkin, withdrew the door firmly behind him. the unusual stone. "The child Flint, the one you met - he found this near the Eddon family graveyard. I have · lived with and worked with stone as man and boy, but I have never seen anything like it. I thought perhaps you could tell me what it is." A sudden thought: "It did The sky was high and clear today, but cold air not occur to me, but it was with me when I met the stabbed down from the north and Briony was glad of Rooftoppers. Their little Nose -man said he could smell her warm boots. Not everyone seemed to approve of evil. I thought perhaps it was the scent of the her manlike choice of clothing: woolen hose and a shadowlands still on Flint . . . but perhaps it was this." tunic that had once been Barrick's; Avin Brone took Chaven took it, gave it a quick glance. He did not one look at her and snorted, but then hurried into the seem impressed. "Perhaps," he said. "Or perhaps it day's business as if he did not trust himself to was all part of the incomprehensible politick of the comment on her apparel. Instead, he complained Rooftoppers - they are an old race about which we about the fact that her brother apparently could not be know little in these days. In any case, I will examine it bothered to attend. carefully, good Chert." He gave it another look, then "The prince's time and reasons are his own," Briony slipped it into one of the sleeves of his robe. "And said, but secretly she was not displeased. She had 447 448 reasons to hurry, and although she did her best to He was waiting in the spice garden. Because of the attend to the matters to be settled, the taxes to be argument with her two ladies, he had waited longer assessed, the countless stories whose only desired than she would have liked. She couldn't help audience was her royal self, she was distracted and wondering whether chill weather like this felt more paid only intermittent attention. cruel to someone brought up in hot southern lands, but if Dawet dan-Faar was suffering, he was too Finished, she stopped and went to a meal of cold subtle to show it. chicken and bread in her own chambers. She would rather have had something warmer on such a day, but "I had planned we would walk here," she said, "but it is she had an assignation to keep . . . so fearfully cold Let us go across the way into Queen Lily's Cabinet instead." What a way to think of it! She was amused and a little ashamed. It is business - the crown's business, and The envoy smiled and bowed. Perhaps he was indeed overdue. But she couldn't completely convince even glad to go somewhere warmer. "But you seem to have herself. dressed for the weather," he commented, looking her up and down. Rose and Moina were in a frenzy of disapproval of her behavior today, both her immodest, masculine garb Briony was disgusted to find herself blushing. and her choice of meetings. Although they were The cabinet room was modest in size, just a place neither of them forward enough to say much, it quickly where Anglin's granddaughter had liked to sit and sew became clear that the young noblewomen had been and enjoy the smells of the spice garden. At first all of intriguing between themselves and would not be sent Briony's guards seemed determined to join her in the away without a fuss. After Briony's heated words were cozy little paneled room, but this was too much, she met with fierce resistance - but couched in the terms sent all but two out again. This pair took up positions of purest obedience to their mistress' commands, of near the door where they could watch Rose and course - she gave up and allowed them to accompany Moina doing needlework, then all four of them settled her. It is just as well, she told herself. It is perfectly down to keep a close if covert eye on their mistress. innocent, after all, and now there will be no whispering "I trust I find you well, Lord Dawet?" she asked when gossip. But she couldn't help being just the smallest they had both been served with mulled wine. bit resentful Mistress of all the northern lands - well, "As well as can be expected, Highness." He sipped. "I alongside her brother - and she could not have a confess that days like this, when the wind bites, I miss meeting without being surrounded by watchful eyes, Hierosol." as though she were a child in danger of hurting herself. "As well you might. It is very unwanted, this cold weather, but the season finally seems to have 449 450 changed. We had been having unusually warm days dress this way?" for Dekamene, after all." "If you were my sister or any other woman whose He seemed about to say something, then pursed his honor was given into my keeping, yes, I would mouth. "And is it truly the weather that causes you to certainly forbid you." His dark gaze suddenly touched be dressed this way, Highness?" He indicated the hers, angry and somehow demanding. It was startling, thick hose and the long tunic - one of Barrick's that he as though she had been playing with what she never wore - that she had so carefully altered to fit her thought was a harmless pet that had suddenly shown own slimmer waist and wider hips. it could bite. "I sense you do not approve, Lord Dawet." "Well, in point of fact, Lord Dawet, that is why I asked you to attend me." "With respect, Highness, I do not. It seems to be a sin against natur e to dress a woman, especially one as "So it is not `we' and `us,' Highness?" young and fair as yourself, in this coarse manner." She felt her cheeks warming again. "We. `Us.' You "Coarse? This is a prince's tunic, a prince's doublet - overreach yourself, Lord Dawet." here, see the gold fretwork! Surely it is not coarse." He bowed his head, but she glimpsed the tiniest hint He frowned. It was a much greater pleasure than she of a smile - the old one, the self-satisfied one. "I have would have guessed to see him discomfited - like been unclear, Highness. I apologize. I simply meant watching a supercilious cat take a clumsy fall. "They that you did not say `we,' so I wondered if this was not are men's clothes, Princess Briony, however rich the then an audience with you and your royal brother, as I fabric and workmanship. They make coarse what is had been given to understand. I take it that instead naturally fine." you wish to speak more . . . informally?" "So the mere fact of what I wear can make me less "No." Damn the man! "No, that is not what I meant, than fine, less than noble? I fear that leaves me very although of course I act today as co-regent and with little room in which to maneuver, Lord Dawet, if I am my brother's approval. You make me regret speaking already so close to coarseness that a mere doublet to you in a friendly way, Lord Dawet." can carry me to it." "May the Three Highest bring rum on my house if I He smiled, but it was a surprisingly angry expression. intended any such thing, Princess - if I intended "You seek to make sport of me, Highness. And you anything other than respect and affection. I simply may. But you seemed to ask whether I approved, and wished to know what sort of meeting we are having." I would be honest with you I do not." She sipped at her wine, taking a moment to recover "If I were your sister, then, would you forbid me to her confidence. "As I said, your remark about me 451 452 being a woman in your care was to the point. Only a "It is." few weeks gone, I might have been just such a forlorn He nodded his head slowly. "And do I take this to creature, sent with you to marry your lord, like . . . like mean that I am no longer a prisoner? That my escort a bit of tribute. Do not forget, Lord Dawet, you come and I are free to go back to Hierosol?" here as the ambassador of our enemy." "Do you doubt my wor d?" "You have greater enemies than my master Ludis, "No, Highness. But sometimes things happen beyond Highness. And I fear you also have friends who are the echo of a prince's voice." even less trustworthy than me. But forgive me - I have "Avin Brone, the lord constable, knows my wishes . . . interrupted you. Again, I am unforgivably rude." our wishes. He will return your men's arms. Your ship He had flustered her again, but the anger gave her is prepared already, I think." something to grip, a certain leverage. "It is finally time "Your castellan was kind enough to arrange that no for the crown of Southmarch and the March Kingdoms harm should come to it, and that I could keep on it a to return an answer to your master, the Protector of small crew to see that things stayed in order." Dawet Hierosol, and his offer of marriage. While my older grinned. "I confess that although I will in many ways brother was regent, there might have been a different regret leaving, it is good to know I will have my answer, but now, as you may guess, the answer is no. freedom again, even though you will be one guest the We will ransom my father with money, not my less." maidenhood. If Ludis wishes to beggar the northern kingdoms, then he will find that when the Autarch "Guest, indeed. Whatever you believe, Lord Dawet, I comes to his front door, Hierosol will get no do not think you can say we treated you much like a assistance from the north. Rather, though we hate the prisoner." Autarch and would not ordinarily wish to see him gain "Oh, a valued prisoner, at the worst," he said. "But that even a handful of Eion's soil, we will rejoice at the is small solace to one who has spent years of his life defeat of Ludis Drakava." She paused, slowing her living on horseback, never sleeping in the same place breath, making her voice firm. "But if he sees another twice." He stirred. "Do I have leave to go and begin way - if King Olin might be released for something the preparations?" less than this exorbitant amount of gold, for instance - "Of course. You will want to sail before the weather then Ludis might discover he has allies here that will turns for good." She was oddly disappointed, but knew stand him well in days ahead." this was happening as it must. He and his Hierosoline Dawet raised an eyebrow. "Is that the message you company were a distraction in the castle; they wish me to give him, Princess Briony?" attracted rumor and hostility as honey drew flies.Yes, 453 454 he was a very distracting presence, this Dawet dan- Brenland and . . . and Fael." She had been only a Faar. Now that Brone had convinced her and Barrick child of five when her father took her to visit beyond doubt that there was no way the envoy or his Merolanna's relatives - she remembered little except a company could have been materially involved in her great black horse given to her father by Fael's lord as brother's murder, it made no sense to keep them and a present, and of standing on a balcony above the sea feed them through the long winter. watching otters at play in the water below. He bowed, took a few steps backward, then stopped. Dawet smirked - there was nothing else to call it. "May I speak frankly, Highness? Princess Briony?" "Forgive me if I do not count Settland and Brenland among the gods' greatest triumphs, my lady." Abruptly "Of course." the smile dropped away. "And my wish for you to see He glanced at the guards and her ladies-in-waiting, more of the world is in part an idle and selfish wish . . . then came back and sat on the bench beside her. This because I wish I could be the one to show these close, he smelled of leather and some sweet hair oil. things to you." He lifted a long, brown hand. "Please, Briony saw Rose and Moina exchange a look. "I will say nothing. You told me I could speak honestly. And take you at your word, Mistress, and hope you have there is more I would tell you. " His voice dropped all played me fairly," he said quietly. "Listen carefully to the way to a whisper. "You are in danger, my lady, me, please. and it is closer to you than you think. I cannot believe "I am glad you did not accept the suit of my lord Ludis. that Shaso is the one who killed your brother, but I I think you would not have found life at his court very cannot prove he did not either. However I can tell you, enjoyable - mostly, I suspect my master's interests and tell you from knowledge, that one who is much and amusements would not have been to your taste. closer to you than me means you ill. Murderously ill." But I hope someday you can see the southlands, He held her gaze for a long moment; Briony felt lost, Princess, and perhaps even Xand . . . or at least those as though she were in an evil falling dream. "Trust no parts of it not choking under the Autarch's control. one." There are beauties you cannot imagine, green seas "Why would you say such a thing?" she whispered and high mountains red as a maiden's blush, and harshly when she had found her voice again. "Why broad jungles full of animals you can scarcely should I believe that you, the servant of Ludis imagine. And the deserts - you will remember I told Drakava, are not merely trying to stir unhappiness you something of the silent, stark deserts. You may between me and those I trust?" become a great queen someday, but you have seen The smile returned one last time, with an odd twist to little of the world, and that seems to me a shame." it. "Ah, the life I have led means I deserve that many Briony was stung. "I have been to Settland and times over. Still, I do not ask you to act on my words, 455 456 Princess Briony, only to consider them - to remember "She is so little, but she is the most stubborn of the lot. them. It could be that the day will come when we can She will push the other goats away from the food - sit together once more and you can tell me whether I even the biggest of her brothers!" wished you ill this day . . . or well." He stood, donning Collum Dyer listened to her babble with a sour his guise of easiness again like a cloak. "I hope you expression on his face. "Better you than me, Captain." will be more suitably dressed, of course." He took her Ferras shrugged. "I am happy she is talking. Perhaps hand in a most ostentatious manner, brushed his lips after a while she will say something that we will thank upon it. Everyone else in the room was staring openly. Perin Cloudwalker we learned." "I thank you and your brother for your generous "Perhaps. But, as I said, better you than me." hospitality, Princess, and I grieve for your loss. I will give your message to my master in Hierosol." In truth, Ferras Vansen was almost glad of the distraction. The land through which they passed was He bowed and left the cabinet. less obviously strange than the previous two days' "I am quite sick of watching the two of you murmur," stretch of road, deserted and a bit gloomy but Briony growled at her ladies-in-waiting. She didn't otherwise about what he would have expected as they quite know what she was feeling, but it was not neared the halfway point of the journey, and thus not pleasant. "Go away. I want to be by myself for a while particularly interesting With the largest cities of I want to think." Settland and the March Kingdoms several days' ride away in either direction, these lands had emptied in · the years since the second war with the Twhght People, leaving only crofters and woodsmen of various sorts and the occasional farmer. The few By day the dark-haired girl Willow came back to small cities like Candlerstown and Faneshill had herself a little, although in some ways she seemed so grown up south of the Settland Road, well away from childish that Ferras Vansen wondered if her problems the Shadowlme (These towns were also too far out of were solely caused by having crossed the Shadowline the way to be worth visiting this trip, a fact much - perhaps, he thought, she had already been a bit mourned by Dyer and the rest of Vansen's men ) simpleminded Whatever the case, under the small bit Winters were also milder closer to the water to the of sun that leaked through the clouds she became the east or west few felt the need to live out here in such most cheerful of the generally silent company, riding dramatic solitude. The Settland Road passed through in front of Vansen and chattering about her family and low hills and scrub that were even more neighbors like a small child being taken to the market undistinguished than the lands where Ferras had fair. 457 458 spent his childhood. activity Vansen knew only too well. They could see the line again now, just a few miles It would not have taken much calling by the moon or away to the north, or at least they could see the anything else to make me run away, Vansen thought. breakfront of mist that marked it. It was wearying to But somehow I do not think this girl's brother has gone ride hour after hour with it hovering so close, hard not to the city to make his fortune. to think of it as a malevolent thing watching them and waiting for an opportunity to do harm, but Ferras was Late afternoon, with the su n falling fast, Vansen much happier knowing where it was, able to see that decided to make camp. The road had led them there was still a crisp delineation between his side and through the low, sparsely covered hills all day, but the other. they were about to pass through a patch of forested Willow had moved from goats to the topic of her father ground. The stand of trees before them was not a and swine, and was explaining what her sire had to place he wanted to wander in the gr owing dark. say about letting the hogs scavenge for mast - for the "Look!" shouted one of the men. "A deer - a buck!" "oak corns" as she called them. Vansen, who had "We'll have fresh meat," another cried. spent most of the last ten years of his life trying to forget ab out raising hogs and sheep, leaned over and Ferras Vansen looked up to see the creature standing asked her, "And what of Collum? Your brother?" just inside the shadows at the edge of the trees, half a hundred steps away. It was large and healthy, with an Either his guess was correct or she was madder than impressive spread of antler, but seemed otherwise he supposed. "He would rather pick rushes than follow quite ordinary Still, something about the way it looked the pigs. He is a quiet one, our Collum. Only ten at them, even as a few of the men were nocking winters Such dreams he has!" arrows, made him uneasy. "And where is he now?" He was trying to discover if "Don't shoot," he said One of the soldiers raised his there was any sense or meaning behind some of the bow and aimed. "Don't!" At Vansen's shout, even things she had said. though it had been looking straight at them, the stag Her look turned sad, even frightened, and he was for the first time seemed to understand its peril It almost sorry he'd asked. "In the middle of the night, he turned and with two long leaps vanished into the cover went. The moon called him, he said I tried to go, too - of the trees. he is just a little one! - but our father, he grabbed me "I could have had him," snarled the bowman, the old and would not let me through the door." As if the campaigner Southstead whose grumbling ways had subject caused her pain, she began talking again been the reason Vansen brought him instead of about cutting the rushes for rush candles, another 459 460 leaving him home to gossip and spread dissatisfaction Vansen frowned. "Raemon Beck, come here." among the rest of the guardsmen. The young merchant, who had spent most of the "We do not know what is natural here and what is journey like a man caught in a nightmare from which not." Ferras was careful to keep anger out of his he couldn't awaken, slowly made his way toward voice. "You saw the flowers. You have seen the empty Vansen and Dyer. houses. We have enough to eat in our packs and "Are you an honorable man, Beck?" saddlebags to keep us alive. Kill nothing that does not He looked at Ferras Vansen in surprise. "Why, yes, I threaten you - do you all hear me?" am." "What," demanded Southstead, "do you think it might "Yes, Captain," grunted Dyer. be another girl, magicked into a deer?" He turned to Vansen raised his hand it didn't matter. "Good. Then I the other guards with a loud, angry laugh. "He's want you to be the girl's companion. She will ride with already got one - that's just greedy, that is." you. Trying to get sense from her is like sifting a Vansen realized that the man was frightened by this thousandweight of chaff for every grain of wheat, journey through lands grown strange. As are we all, anyway, and you may recognize better than I can if he told himself, but that makes such talk all the more she says something useful." dangerous. "If you think you know better than me how "Me?" to lead this company, Mickael Southstead, then say so to me, not to them." "Because you are the only one here who has been through something like what I believe she has seen Southstead's smile faltered. He licked his lips. "I and heard and felt." Ferras looked over to where the meant only a jest, sir." men were gathering more deadfall for the fire. "Also, "Well, then Let us leave it at that and make camp. to be frank, it is better if the men are angry with you Jests will be more welcome over a fire." than angry with me." When the flames were rising and the girl Willow was Beck did not look too pleased at this, but Collum Dyer warming her hands, Collum Dyer made his way to was standing right beside him, cleaning his dirty Vansen s side. "You'll have to keep an eye on our fingernails with a very long dagger, so he only Micka, Captain," he said quietly. "Too many years of scowled and said, "But I am a married man!" too much wine has curdled his heart and brains, but I "Then treat her as you would want your wife treated if had not thought him so far gone as to mock his she were found wandering ill and confused beside the captain. He never would have dared it in Murray's road. And if she says anything that you think might be day." useful, anything at all, tell me at once." "He'll still do well enough if there's something to do." 461 462 "Useful how?" when you were riding through them, how long did it take you? On the way out toward Settland, I mean." Vansen sighed. "In keeping us alive, for one thing." He tried a kind smile. "I doubt you were paying much He and Dyer watched as a chastened Beck walked notice to such things on your ride back." back to the fire and sat himself down beside the near- Beck's look was almost amused, but it didn't hide his child Willow. misery. "We went through no forest like this on the "Do you think we're in such danger, Captain?" asked way out." Dyer. "What do you mean? You traveled on the Settland "Truly." Road, did you not?" "Because of a few flowers and a daft girl?" The merchant's nephew looked pale, weary. "Don't "Perhaps not. But I'd rather come home with everyone you understand, Captain? Everything has changed. safe and be laughed at for being too cautious - Everything. I remember scarcely half these places wouldn't you?" from my journey." "What nonsense is that? It was only a week or two ago. You must have passed through this wood. A road The night passed without incident, and by midmorning the road had led them so deep into the trees that they is not a river - it doesn't flood its banks and find a new channel." could no longer see the dreary hills or the looming Shadowline. At first that seemed a blessing, but as the Beck only shrugged. "Then I must have forgotten this day wore on and the sun, glimpsed only for brief wood, Captain Vansen." moments through chinks in the canopy, passed the The afternoon wore on. The cleared space where the peak of the sky and began to slide into the west, road passed through the trees was quiet and gloomy, Vansen found himself wondering whether they would but there were signs of life - a few deer, squirrels, a have to spend the night surrounded by forest, which pair of silvery foxes that passed through a clearing was not a comfortable thought. As they took their beside them like midday moonlight before vanishing midday meal of roadbread and cheese, he called into a thicket, and a raven that for a while seemed to Raemon Beck to his side again. keep pace with them, fluttering from branch to branch, "There is nothing to tell," Beck said sullenly. "I have cocking its head to examine them with bright yellow never heard so much prattling about pigs and goats in eyes. Then, one of the men on foot who could no my entire life. If we were to come upon her father's longer stand the raven's persistence and silence farm now, I think I might put a torch to it myself." chased it away with a stone Vansen did not have the "That is not what I wished to ask you. These woods - heart to scold him. 463 464 At last, as the sharp shadows of leaves and branches of them. Although the shape was bent,Vansen thought on the road began to blur into a more general that if he was an old man, he must be a very spry old murkines s, he decided that they could not go on any man. longer in the hope of outlasting the forest. It would be They left the young foot soldier and spurred ahead, dark within an hour. He bade the company stop and thinking to catch up to th e cloaked shape in a matter set camp at the edge of the trees, beside the road. of moments, but it was growing dark quickly and He was kneeling in front of the first gathering of somehow even though the road curved again only a ki ndling, trying to strike a light from his recalcitrant little, they could not find him. flint, when one of the youngest guardsmen came "He's heard us coming and stepped into the trees," racing toward them along the edge of the forest. said Collum Dyer. "Captain! Captain!" he shouted. "There is someone on They rode a little farther, until they could see a clear the road ahead." stretch of road before them. Even in the poor light it Vansen stood. "Armed? Could you tell? How many?" was quite clear no one was hurrying ahead of them. They turned and made their way back, riding slowly, The young soldier shook his head, wide-eyed. "Just peering into the thicket on either side of the road to one - an old man, I think. And he was walking away see if their qu arry was hiding there. from us. I saw him! He had a staff and wore a cloak with the hood up." "A trick," Dyer said. "Do you think he was an enemy? A spy?" Vansen was struck by the young man's almost feverish excitement. "A local woodsman, no doubt." "Perhaps, but . . ." Vansen suddenly pulled up in the middle of the road. His horse was restive, pawing at "He . . . he seemed strange to me." the ground impatiently. A little evening mist had begun Ferras Vansen looked around. Work setting up camp to rise from the ground. "We've come back two bends had stopped and all were now watching him. He could of the road," he said. "Collum, where is the camp?" feel their curiosity and discomfort. "Well, then, we'll Dyer looked startled, then scowled. "You'll frighten us have a look.You come with me. Dyer? You, too. both, Captain. A little farther ahead - we've just Perhaps we can all shelter somewhere a bit more mistaken how far in this failing light." comfortable tonight, if this old fellow lives nearby." Vansen allowe d himself to be led, but after they had The pair climbed onto their horses and followed the been riding for a while longer, Dyer suddenly reined young guard along the road, past the point where it up and began to call. turned and took them out of sight of th e camp. There was indeed a small, dark figure hurrying along ahead "Hallooo! Hallooo! Where are you all? It's Dyer - 465 466 halloooo!" No one answered. 19 "But we are still on the same road!" Collum Dyer said in panic and fury. "It's not even full dark!" Ferras Vansen found he was trembling a little, The God-King although the evening was not particularly cold. Mist twined lazily between the trees. He made the sign of the Trigon and realized he had been silently DEEP HOLE: murmuring prayers to the gods for some time. "No," he said slowly, "but somewhere, somehow, without The sound of a distant horn even knowing it . . . we have crossed the Shadowline." The salt smell of a weeping child The air is hard to breathe - from The Bonefall Oracles As usual, the high priest did not enter the dark room until Qinnitan had already been led through an exhausting series of prayers and the steaming golden cup had been set before her. High Priest Panhyssir was another Favored, and was at least as large and imposing as Luian, but seemed to have studied the ways of real men as carefully as Luian had studied those of natural women. He also seemed to have kept his stones until after he had reached manhood - his beard was wispy but long, and he had a surprisingly deep voice, which he used to great effect. "Has she completed the day's obeisances?" he demanded When the acolyte nodded, the high priest crossed his arms on his chest. "Good. And the mirror- prayers - has she said them all?" 467 468 Qinnitan swallowed her irritation. She didn't like being slowly, and not to worry about the noises she made as talked about as if she were only a child who couldn't she forced the dreadful stuff down. The elixir, the understand, and considering that the hours-long Sun's Blood as they called it, did taste a little bit like prayer rituals in this small, mirror -lined chamber in the actual blood, salty and with a smoky hint of musk, temple never changed, and that she had never been which was one of the reasons Qinnitan had to force allowed to skip even one of the dozens of intricate herself not to gag on it. There were other flavors as chants (those many-named invocations of the different well, none of them particularly nice, and although it characters of Nushash spoken into the largest of the wasn't spicy, it made her entire mouth tingle as sacred mirrors, praising the god in his incarnations as though she had eaten too many of the little yellow the Red Horse, the Glowing Orb of Dawn, the Slayer Marash peppers. of Night's Demons, the Golden River, the Protector of "Now close your eyes, child," Panhyssir told her in his Sleep, the Juggler of the Stars, and all the others) deep, important voice as she finished draining the Qinnitan thought it was a bit much for the priest to act cup. "Let the god find you and touch you. It is a great, as if during his absence she might have been doing great honor." something else instead. The honor came more quickly than usual, and it was "Yes, Great One, O treasured of Nushash." The no mere brush this time, no dreamy caress as in past subordinate priest, also one of the Favored, had the days, but more like being grabbed and shaken by voice and smooth skin of a young boy, although he something huge. It started as a feeling of heat at the was clearly full grown. He was vain, too. he liked to back of her stomach and then spread swiftly up and observe himself in the sacred mirrors when he didn't down her spine, both directions at the same moment think Qinnitan was looking. "She is prepared." like a crackle of fire through dry grass, flaring at last Qinnitan accepted the cup - a splendid thing of gems behind her eyes and between her legs so that she and hammered gold in the shape of the winged bull would have fallen off the chair if the younger priest that drew Nushash's great wagon across the sky, had not grabbed her. She felt his hands as though worth more than the entire neighborhood in which she they were far, far away, as though they touched a had grown up - and did her best to look solemn and statue of her rather than the real Qinnitan. The rush of grateful. High Priest Pan-hyssir, after all, was one of noise and darkness into her head was so powerful the most powerful men in the world and probably held that for long moments she was certain she would die, her life in his hands. Still, she could not help wrinkling that her skull would burst like a pine knot in a cook up her face a little as she took the first swallow. fire. It was lucky that the young priest always said his "Help me!" she screamed - or tried to, but the words invocation so loudly - it made it easier for her to drink only existed in her own thoughts. What came out of 469 470 her mouth instead were animal grunts. out thoughts as deliberate as mountains rising, how it felt to live not just flitting moments but millennia, each "Lay her down," Panhyssir commanded. His voice dream an aeon long. seemed to come from another room. "It has well and truly taken her this time." And then she could feel something outside herself, but close - frighteningly close, as though she were a fly "Is there anything. . . ?" Qinnitan could not see the walking all unknowing on the belly of a sleeping man. young priest - she was in a night-dark fog - but he sounded frightened. "Will she . . . ?" Sleeping? Perhaps not. For now she could sense the true size of the thoughts that surrounded and "She is feeling the touch of the god. She is being penetrated her, thoughts that she had for a moment prepared. Lay her back on the cushions so she does imagined were her own, although she realized now not harm herself. The great god is speaking to her . . that she could no more make sense of these vast ." ideas than she could speak the language of an earth But he's not, Qinnitan thought as Panhyssir's voice tremor's rumble. grew fainter and fainter, leaving her alone at last in Nushash? Could it be the great god himself? blackness. No one's speaking to me. I'm all alone. I'm all alone! Qinnitan did not want to be locked in this diamond- hard, resonant darkness anymore. The horrid shudder It grew thick around her, then - although she didn't of the god's slow pondering was too much for her frail know, couldn't even guess, what "it" was. She was thoughts, so far from her and so, so much greater having enough difficulty just holding what she was and than she or any mere man or woman could ever be, who she was in her heart: the darkness threatened to big as a mountain - no, big as Xand itself, bigger, suck it all away, all of what made her Qinnitan, just as something that could he across the whole night sky winter nights of her childhood had yanked the warmth and fill it like a grave. from her face when she ran outside in a sweat after jumping and playing with her cousins. And then whatever it was finally noticed her. Now the darkness began to change. She still could Qinnitan came up thrashing, her heart battering at her not see anything, but the emptiness around her began ribs as though trying to leap from her breast. As she to harden like crystal, and every new thought that woke to the burning brightness of the lanterns in the passed through her mind seemed to make it ring, a small temple room, she was weeping so hard she deep, slow tolling like a monstrous bell of ice. She thought her bones would break, with a taste in the was heavy, heavier and older than any mere living back of her mouth like corpse flesh. The younger thing. Qinnitan could unde rstand what it was to be a Favored priest held her head as she vomited. stone, to lie in the earth without moving, measuring At last, an hour later, when the female servants had 471 472 cleaned up after her and bathed her and robed her, was maneuvered somewhat awkwardly out into the she was taken back to Panhyssir. The paramount passage. The crippled Scotarch Prusas pulled a priest held her face in his hard hand and stared into curtain aside with his cramped fingers to watch the her eyes, not in sympathy, but like a jewel merchant proceedings, then he caught sight of Qinnitan and his evaluating facets. head twisted toward her, mouth hanging open as though in shock, although she thought that was more "Good," he said. "The Golden One will be pleased. the slackness of his jaw than any real surprise at You are progressing well." seeing a minor bride-to -be waiting for an audience She tried to speak but couldn't, as weary and sore as with the autarch. He looked her up and down, his if she had been beaten. head trembling on his thin neck, and if the look he "Autarch Sulepis has called for you, girl. Tonight you gave her was not contempt or even hatred, she was will be prepared. Tomorrow you will be taken to him." certain it was something close, a chilly examination With that he left her. made more disturbing still by his twitches and little gasps of breath. Why would the most powerful man in the world pick · such a frail, mad creature as this for his scotarch? Qinnitan could not even guess. The scotarchy was an The preparations were so exhausting and kept her up old tradition of the Falcon Throne, meant to make sure so late that even as she was being hustled down the an heir was always in place until an autarch's own son hallways of the Orchard Palace to her morning was old enough to take power; it was designed to meeting with the autarch, and having got out of bed forestall crippling warfare that had often broken out only an hour before, Qinnitan was stumbling with between factions when the autarch died without an fatigue. She was also still suffering the effects of the heir ready. The strongest and oldest part of the potion the high priest had given her the previous day, ritualistic tradition, however, was that if the scotarch feeling it much more strongly than she ever had died it meant that the autarch had lost favor with before. Even in these shadowed halls the light heaven and thus he had to give up his throne as well. seemed too painfully bright, the echoes too persistent This had been meant to stave off treachery from sons - it made her want to run back to bed and pull and relatives not likely to be named as heir, and something over her face. because of this ancient Xixian constraint on even their god-kings, scotarchs were chosen not so much for At the golden doors of the autarch's reclining their actual worthiness to rule but for health and likely chamber, she and her small retinue had to step back endurance, prized like racehorses for brightness of and wait as the great litter she had seen once before 473 474 eye and strength of heart Until a few generations strange to be the object of so many male stares after back, they had always been chosen during ceremonial so long in the Seclusion, but even with Jeddin one of games in which all contestants but the winner might those watching her, the Leopard captain's eyes rapt die. This had been deemed fitting, since the path to but his thoughts hidden as though behind a curtain, the Falcon Throne for aspiring autarchs also tended to Qinnitan's gaze was drawn to the man on the white work the same way, except that the deaths were not stone bench as though by a lodestone. It was not just generally so public. the autarch's obvious power that seized her attention, the way the others in the room stayed as close to him As Qmnitan watched the trembling figure of Prusas as they could while still obviously fearing him, like withdraw into the cushioned depths of his litter with a freezing peasants around a huge bonfire, or even the stammering cry that his bearers should hurry on, she fierce madness of his eyes, pitiless as a hunting could only wonder how anyone, especially someone bird's, whose force she could feel even from a dozen like Sulepis with no suitable male heirs even born, let paces away. This time, there was another reason for alone ready to rule, could have chosen such a her fascination except for the golden circlet in his hair pathetic creature as Prusas for his scotarch, a cripple and the golden stalls on his fingertips, the autarch was who looked to be tottering on the lip of the grave completely naked. (Qinnitan was not alone, of course: nobody in the Seclusion seemed to know the answer to that Qinnitan realized that her cheeks were growing hot, question, although it was much guessed-at throughout as though the god-king really did burn with some kind the entire Orchard Palace. Some brave ones of flame. She didn't quite know where to look. whispered that it proved that Autarch Sulepis was Nakedness itself did not bother her, even that of a either the maddest of his unstable family or, putting a grown man - she had often seen her father and more pleasant face on it, touched by the gods.) brothers bathe themselves, and the people of Great Xis did not wear much even when they were walking The tall doors had barely swung shut behind the in the crowded, sun-blasted streets - and the autarch's scotarch's litter before they swung op en again for golden -brown limbs although long and thin were by no Qinnitan and her pair of attendant maids and means ugly. Still, there was a disturbing heedlessness complementary pair of Favored guards. to Sulepis that made his unclothed form seem The Reclining Chamber with its slender purple -and- somehow more like that of an animal that did not gold columns was only slightly smaller than the great know it was naked than a man who knew and reveled throne room, although there were many fewer people in it. There was a shiny film of sweat on all his skin. in it, only a dozen soldiers mostly ranged at the back His member lay against his thighs, limp and long as of the dais and another two dozen servants and the snout of some blind thing. priests In any other circumstances it would have felt 475 476 "Ah," the autarch sai d in a bored tone that didn't never seen such eyes, she knew now, she could not match the expression in his eyes, "here she is, the imagine such bright, mad depths attached to anything young bride-t o-be. Am I not right, Panhyssir? Is this that walked on two legs. Beneath the attar of roses not her?" and other perfumes lurked something base and disturbing, a salty tang like blood or even hot metal - "You are right, as always, Golden One." The priest the autarch's breath. stepped out from behind the slaves with the fans and waited behind the couch. "Her parentage shows, I think." The mightiest man on earth reached up his hand to touch her. She flinched, "And her name was . . . was. then held steady as his fingertip in its little basket of "Qinnitan, Golden One - daughter of Cheshret of the warm gold mesh drew a line down her cheek that in Third Temple." her imagination rasped her skin and left behind a "Such an unusual name you have, child." The autarch bloody path. She closed her eyes, feeling as though at lifted his hand, crooked a long, shining finger at her. any moment some terrible joke would be revealed and "Come closer." someone would step forward, throw her down, and hack off her head. It almost seemed it might come as Never in her life had she wanted more fervently to turn and run away as fast as she could, a beast-panic that a relief. struck her as shockingly as if a jar of cold water had "Open your eyes, girl. Am I so frightening? The been dashed against her skin. For a moment she Seclusion is full of women who have felt my touch with could teel again the endless depths that had suddenly joy, and many others still praying I will come to them opened before her after drinking the Sun's Blood elixir soon." it seemed that if she did not do something, she would She looked at him. It was very difficult. There seemed fall into blackness and never stop falling. Qinnitan nothing else in the great room - no columns, no stood, desperate to escape although she couldn't guards, nothing but herself and those eyes the color quite say why, but in any case unable to do so and of old linen. fighting for breath. "Do not fear," he said quietly. "Rather, rejoice. You will "Step forward," Panhyssir said harshly. "The Golden be the mother of m immortality, little bride -to-be. An y One has spoken to you, girl." honor like no other." His eyes held hers now and she found herself taking She could not speak, could not even nod until she one small step forward, then another. The gold-tipped swallowed down the lump in her throat. finger curled and she moved still closer, until she "Good. Do what the old priest bids you and you will stood beside the couch with the god-king's long face have a wedding night that lifts you in glory above all only a handsbreadth or two below her own. She had 477 478 others." He let his hand slide from her face to her breast and she felt her nipples harden as if with fever- chill beneath the thin robe. "Remember, all this 20 belongs to your god." His hand slipped down over her belly, the finger-stalls hard and cruel as a vulture's Lost in the Moon's Land talons as he carelessly cupped her groin. She could not suppress a little grunt of shock. "Prepare and rejoice." MIDDLE OF THE FOREST: He let her go and turned away, lifted his hand. A cupbearer sprang forward to give him something to drink. Name the guardian trees - The autarch was clearly finished with her. Panhyssir White Heart, Stone Arm, Hidden Eye, Seed of clapped and the guards led her toward the door. Stars Qinnitan was trembling so badly as she left the Now bow and they bow also, laughing Reclining Chamber that she almost fell and had to be - from The Bonefall Oracles steadied. Beneath her robe she thought she could still feel every instant of his touch, as though his fingers had left a burning stain. Barrick was furious, to be summoned across the huge residence to Avin Brone's chamber in the middle of the night as though he were a mere courtier. He growled at the small boy who opened the lord constable's door when the child did not get out of the way fast enough, but he was disturbed as well by the urgent words of Brone's messenger. "The lord constable begs you to come to his rooms, Highness," the page had told him. "He respectfully asks that you come quickly." Barrick s sleep had been plagued again, as so often, by evil dreams; as the door opened a sickly fearful part of him wondered if the big man planned some treachery. Barrick almost flinched when the lord 479 480 constable came across the small sitting room toward "Thank you, Highness." Brone rose again and made a him, dressed in a monstrous nightgown, his buckled bow before leading Briony to the other chair. He shoes pulled directly onto his bare feet. When Brone winced a little as he moved. Barrick was at first merely did nothing more suspicious than to bow slightly and interested - the lord constable had always seemed, hold the door open, another fear occurred to Barrick. like Shaso, a man made of something sterner than mere flesh - but a moment later he felt a pang of "Where is my sister? Is she well?" worry. What if Brone died? He was not a young man, "To the best of my knowledge. I imagine she will arrive after all. With their father and the master of arms both any moment." prisoners, and Kendrick dead, there were few people Brone gestured to a chair, one of two placed side by left that the Eddons could trust who knew all the side. "Please, Highness, sit down. I will explain all." political business of Southmarch. Barrick suddenly felt His beard, uncombed and unribboned, strayed all over more than ever like a child sent out to do a grown his face and chest like a wild shrub: apparently man's chore. whatever had caused this unlikely summons had The lord constable must have seen something of this come after the Lord of Landsend was in bed. thought in Barrick's face. His smile was grim. "These When Barrick had seated himself, Brone lowered his cold nights are a trial to my old joints, Highness, but own large frame onto a stool, leaving the other chair nothing I cannot weather. Still, I am glad that you have empty. "I have sent the boy for some wine. Forgive many, many years ahead of you before you must the meagerness of my hospitality." worry about such things." Barrick shrugged. "I will take some mulled." Briony seemed more interested in her brother than in the lord constable's infirmities. "Have you not been to "Good choice. There is an ugly chill in the corridors." bed, Barrick?" "There certainly is,"Briony announced from the He didn't like being asked in front of Avin Brone, as doorway. "I'm sure you have good reason for getting though she were his older sister, or even his mother, me out of my warm bed, Lord Brone." instead of his twin. "I was reading. Does that meet Briony's huge, hooded velvet mantle did not entirely with your approval, Your Highness?" disguise the fact that she, too, was in her nightdress. She flushed a little. "I only wondered . . ." Of the three, only Barrick wore day -clothes. He did not like preparing himself for bed, these days, and "I have been meaning to ask you, Princess," the lord preferred falling asleep in a chair while still dressed. constable asked, "whether my niece Rose Trelling Somehow it seemed as though that might make it was giving you good service." He did not meet her harder for the bad dreams to find him. eye. Brone's look was distracted, almost confused, as 481 482 though they had woken him up rather than the other and doubt all the time? Who would want such a thing? way around. "We were very grateful for your kindness He had a sudden horror - he prayed it was only a to her. She is a good girl, if a little silly sometimes." horror and not some kind of premonition - of Briony lost or dead and himself left alone to rule. "What is so "I am very happy with Rose." Briony stared at him. urgent?" he almost shouted. "What cannot wait for "But I cannot believe you woke us after the midnight morning and needs to be held secret?" bell to ask whether my ladies-in-waiting are serving me well." "Two things, two pieces of information, both of which reached me this evening," said Brone. "One of them "Forgive me, Highness, but I am waiting our true will require you to get up, so I will begin with the other business until . . ." The lord constable fell silent, while you finish your wine." He took a long swallow nodding significantly as the page returned with three from his own flagon. "Thank Erilo for the blessed flagons of wine. The boy knelt by the fire and heated grape," he said fervently. "If I could not have a cup or them one by one with a poker, then served Briony two of warm wine at night so I can bend my old legs, I first. It was clear Avin Brone wouldn't speak until the would have to sleep standing up like a horse." boy had left, so they all sat and watched the seemingly endless process, the room silent but for the "Talk," said Barrick through clenched teeth. quiet rumble and crackle of the fire. "Your pardon, Highness." Brone tugged at his gray- When the boy was gone, Brone leaned forward. shot beard. "Here are the first tidings, whatever they "Again, I apologize for calling you both here, out of may mean. Gailon Tolly seems to have disappeared." your beds. The fact is, it is easier for me to empty my "What?" Barrick and Briony spoke at the same time. rooms of listening ears and less conspicuous to do so. "The Duke of Summerfield"" he asked, unbelieving." If I had come to you and asked for all your pages and That Gailon Tolly?" maids and guards to be sent away, it would be the talk Avin Brone nodded. "Yes, my prince. He never of the castle tomorrow." reached Summerfield Court." "And you do not think anybody will know or discuss "But he left here with a dozen armed men," Briony the fact that Barrick and I came across the castle to said. "Surely, so many knights can't simply vanish. your rooms ?" And we would have heard something from his mother, "It will not occasion as much speculation. And there is wouldn't we?" another reason to meet here, which you will see." "That's right," said Barrick. "If anything had happened "But why this alarm?" Barrick couldn't lose the twist of to Gailon that old cow would be at our gate by now, fear in his guts. Was this what being a king was screaming murder." always like? Fearful midnight summonses? Distrust 483 484 The lord constable raised his broad hands in a barrier and roaming the lands of men. He hadn't had gesture of helplessness. "They have only just begun even a single good night since the news of the to realize at Summerfield Court that he is missing. He caravan. "We are much closer than they are." sent word by a fast courier when he left here, and they "Nothing is impossible," admitted Avin Brone. "I want expected him back a week ago, but no one was you also to consider the possibility of something surprised he hadn't arrived - I imagine they thought closer to home. Gailon Tolly left Southmarch a very he had stopped for some hunting, or to visit one of his angry man - a very powerful man, too, especially now . . his cousins." He looked at Briony, then quickly that your brother Kendrick is dead. I do not have to tell away. "It was only the day before yesterday that you that there are many people of influence in the people began to grow alarmed. A horse that belonged land who think you two are too young to rule. Some to his friend, Evon Kinnay, son of the Baron of even say that you are my puppets." Longhowe - you remember young Kinnay, of course . "Perhaps you should consider that the next time you . ?" make us walk across the castle to your chamber in the "A weasel," snapped Barrick. "Always going on about middle of the night, Brone." Anger helped Barrick feel how he wanted to become a priest, and touching up a little better - it was like dipping the hot poker into the the servant girls." wine, sharing the heat. ". . Kinnay's horse, still with saddle and saddle "What does it matter what people think?" his sister blanket, was found wandering a few miles from the demanded. "We did nothing to Gailon! I was glad to grounds of Summerfield Court. Gailon had mentioned see the back of him." in his letter to his mother that Kinnay was one of the "But think on this," said the lord constable. "Imagine men coming back with him. The Tollys have now that Gailon appears again some days from now. searched the area all around the forest. No trace." Imagine that the Tollys cry that you sent soldiers after Briony put down her wine cup. She looked now like him to kill him, that you feared his claim on the throne Barrick had felt since he first received Brone's . . ." summons. "May the gods preserve us from evil. Do "What nonsense! Claim? Gailon has a claim only if our you think it is something like what happened with that father and all of his family are dead!" Barrick's anger merchant caravan? Could it be . . . the Twilight returned, so strong that he had to get up and pace. People?" "That means Briony and I would have to be dead, too. "But Summerfield Court is miles and miles south of And our stepmother's child as well. the Shadowline," Barrick hurriedly pointed out. He Brone held up a hand, requesting quiet. Barrick didn't like the thought of dark things slipping past that stopped talking but could not make himself sit down 485 486 again. "I only ask you to imagine a possibility, up an oil lamp and the room's shadows writhed. "But Highnesses. Imagine if Gailon were to reappear in a now we come to the next part of my concern. Will you few weeks and say you tried to murder him - perhaps come with me?" claim that the two of you were going to avoid paying They followed him out of the sitting room and down a your father's ransom so you could continue to rule and narrow, unornamented hallway Brone paused outside that he had objected, or something like that." a door. "This is why I am not in my own bed tonight, "That would be treachery - revolution!" Barrick Highnesses." He pushed the door open. slumped down in his chair again, feeling suddenly The room was lit by many lamps and candles - far weak and miserable. "But how could we prove it more than would seem normal in a bedchamber. At wasn't so?" first, even with all this light, Barrick had trouble making "That is the problem with rumors," said Avin Brone. "It sense of the knot of shapes at the center of the bed: is very hard to prove that things are not true - much only after a few moments had passed could he see more difficult than proving they are." that it was one man kneeling atop the bed next to another, the kneeling one with his head pressed "But why do you propose such an unlikely possibility?" against the other's chest in a pose almost like a asked Briony. "I don't much like Gailon, but, surely, lover's embrace. The one on top held a finger against even if the Tollys had designs on the throne, he would his lips, asking for silence. His lined face was familiar wait until there is some problem - a bad crop, or a to Barrick, something he thought he had seen in one plague of fevers much worse than the one that Barrick of the nightmares, and he had to suppress a gasp of and others have had - wait until people are truly fear. frightened before trying to turn them against us? They hardly know my brother and me. We have reigned "I think you two must both know Brother Okros of the only scarcely a season." Eastmarch Academy of scholars," Brone said. "He came to help you when you were ill, Barrick. Now he "Which is exactly why they might believe lies spread is caring for . . . for one of my servants." about you," said Brone. There was blood on the bed, on the sheets; Brother Briony frowned. "But even so, aren't you stretching for Okros' hands were wet with it. The monk gave them a an answer? If Gailon is truly lost and not just hunting, quick, distracted smile. "You will forgive me, as people thought, there are a dozen explanations Highnesses. This man is not yet beyond danger and I more likely than him preparing to accuse us of trying am very occupied." to harm him." The man on the red-smeared sheets had a dark, "Perhaps." The big man stood slowly, putting his hand untammed beard, and his skin, hair, his clothes were on the seat of the stool to steady himself. He picked 487 488 all very dirty, but even groomed and clean he would alone to bind his wounds and give him whatever other not have made anyone look twice. His eyes were physick he needs." open, staring at the ceiling, his teeth clenched as if to Together Brone and the little priest got the bearded hold in his straining, rasping breath. His shirt had man onto his back again. Okros held pieces of cloth been pulled open and Brother Okros had his fingers tightly against the wounds on both sides. deep in a ghastly hole in the man's chest just below "Rule," said the lord constable. "It's me, Brone. Do you the shoulder. recognize me?" "Just a moment," said the physician-priest, and finally The ma n's eyes flickered across him. "Yes, Master," Barrick recalled the voice if not the face, remembered he grunted. hearing it float through one of his fever dreams, "Tell me again what you saw at Summerfield Court, talking about correct alignments and improved Rule. Tell me what sent you riding back here in such a balances. "There is a broken arrowhead still lodged hurry, and probably earned you an arrow in the back." here. I . . ah! There it is." Brother Okros sat up, a pair Brone looked at the twins. "This man should have died of bloodied tongs clutched in his fingertips with a small on the road. Clearly someone thought he would." piece of what looked like metal between the tines. "There. At least this will not now make its way to his Rule groaned again. "Autarch's men," he said at last. lungs or his heart." He rolled his patient over, gently "In Summerfield." He fought to moisten his lips, but firmly - a deep groan came up from the wounded swallowed hard. "The cursed Xixy bastards were . . . man, only partially muffled in the bed linens - and honored guests of the old duchess." began to wipe at another bloody hole above the man's "The Autarch's men . . . ? With the Tollys?" Barrick shoulder blade. "This is where it went in - do you see? couldn't help looking around as though at any moment I will need to pack the wound with comfrey and a the shroud-faced men of his nightmares might appear willow bark poultice . . ." from the shadows. Briony's face was pale, as Barrick felt sure his own "Aye." Brone was grim. "Now come and I will tell you was, but his sister swallowed and spoke calmly. "Why the rest of the tale." is this man lying bloodied in your rooms, Lord Brone? And why is Brother . . . Brother Okros . . . tending Paying the cold night its due, Brone had wrapped a him? Why not our castle doctor? Chaven has been blanket around his massive shoulders. Half his beard back several days." was covered. He looked like a giant from an old story, "I will explain everything in a moment, but I wanted Barrick thought, like something that gnawed bones you to hear this from the man's own lips. Turn him and toppled stone walls with his hands. back over, Okros, I beg of you. Then we will leave you 489 490 How much do we really know about him? Barrick was "The man Rule is, as you've guessed, a spy. He is a struggling to keep his mind straight. He felt light- rough fellow, not the sort I would prefer to use in a headed, as though fever were plucking at him again place like Summerfield Court, but I have had to make with fingers both hot and cold. Our father trusted him, shift. Do you remember that musician fellow, Robben but is that enough? Someone has killed Kendrick. Hulligan? Red hair?" Now Brone tells us that Gailon Tolly has disappeared, "Yes," said Briony. "He was a friend of old Puzzle's. and also that Gailon's family makes alliance with the He died, didn't he? Killed by robbers on the South Autarch What if the criminal is our lord constable Road last year." himself? I might not like Tolly - in fact, I never liked "By robbers . . . perhaps. He died on his way back him or his bloody father, with his red nose and his from Summerfield, within a few weeks after we heard shouting voice - but is it enough just to take Brone's that your father was a prisoner, although even I did word or the word of his spy that he's some kind of not think much of it at the time, except the traitor? inconvenience to me. It may or may not surprise you As if she shared his thoughts, his sister said, "We are to learn that much of what I knew about the Tollys and certainly grateful for your efforts on behalf of the Summerfield came from Hulligan. He was close with crown, Count Avin, but this is a bit much to swallow in many in the court there and the old duchess loved one mouthful. Who is that man on the bed? Why didn't him. He was allowed to roam where he pleased, like a you summon the royal physician?" pet dog." "More to the point, where's Gailon?" Barrick asked. "You think . . . you think he was killed? Because he "It's convenient that he's not around to defend himself was your spy?" and his family." Brone grimaced. "I do not want to jump at every What Barrick felt sure was an angry light glinted for a shadow. The only certain thing is that since Robben's moment in the lord constable's eye. Brone paused to death I have known little about what happens in drink more wine; when he spoke, his voice was even. Summerfield, and it has bothered me enough that I "I cannot blame you for being surprised, Highnesses, sent Rule. He has many skills and usually has little or for being mistrustful. And for the last question I trouble finding work in a great house - tinkering, have no answers. I wish I did." He scowled. "This has fletching, acting the groom." gone cold - the wine, I mean." He stumped to the "These spies," Barrick said slowly. "Do you have them fireplace and began heating the poker. "As to the in all the great houses of the March Kingdoms?" other matters, I will tell you and then you must make "Of course. And to save you a question, Highness - up your own minds." He grunted, flashed a sour smile. yes, I have spies in this household as well. I hope you "As you always do. 491 492 do not think I could do without them. We have already The old man slid the poker into his flagon, then blew lost one member of the royal family." the steam away so he could watch the wine bubble. "No. I am saying no such thing, Prince Barrick. But I "Which your spies did nothing to prevent!" am saying that I trust almost no one, and until we Brone looked at him coolly. "No, Highness, they did know who did kill your brother, everyone who could not, and I have lost many nights' sleep thinking about come near to him is suspect." just that, wondering what I might have done more "Including me?" Barrick almost laughed, but he was carefully. But that does not change what is before us. furious again. "Including my sister?" Rule is a careful man. If he says there are agents of the Autarch at Summerfield Court, I believe him, and I "If I had not had you watched, yes." Avin Brone's suggest very strongly you do not dismiss what he has smile was a grim twitch deep in his beard. "The next in to say." succession are always the likeliest murderers. Take no offense, my lord and lady. It is my duty." "Before we go on," Briony said, "I still wish to know why that priest was seeing to him, not Chaven." Barrick sat back, overwhelmed. "So we can trust no one except you?" Brone nodded. "Fair enough. Here is the answer. Brother Okros was not in the castle when your brother "Me least of all, Highness - I have been here too long, was killed. Chaven was." know too many secrets. And I have killed men in my day." He looked hard at them both, almost challenging "What?" Briony sat up straight. "Do you suspect them. "If you have no other sources of information Chaven of my brother's murder? A brutal stabbing? than me, Prince Barrick, Princess Briony, then you are He is the family physician! Surely if he wanted not being careful enoug h " He stumped back to his Kendrick dead, he could poison him, make it appear stool. "But whatever else you may learn tonight, this an illness . . ." She broke off, looking suddenly at her news of the Autarch's men in Summerfield is very twin. It took him a moment to understand her grave, and of that there is no question. I cannot but thoughts. fear that Gailon Tolly's disappearance may have "But I'm alive," Barrick said. "If someone tried to kill something to do with it. And certainly someone took me, they failed." All the same, he did not feel well. enough of a dislike to Rule to put an arrow in his back Barrick shook his head, wishing he had never come to as he rode up the Three Brothers Road, heading back the lord constable's rooms, that he had stayed in bed, here. If he were not a tough old soldier and made struggling against nightmares that were at least mostly of sticks and leather, we would not have this arguably imaginary. "Brone, are you saying that information." Chaven might have murdered Kendrick, or been in Briony drank her wine. She was pale, miserable. "This league with whoever did?" 493 494 is too much What are we to think?" would be - almost anyone can advise on how to lose battles." "Think whatever you like, as long as you do think." Brone grunted in discomfort as he tried to find a more "That is not fair," Briony responded. "No one has comfortable position. "Please understand, I have no beaten Xis - not yet. So no one can give any better serious reason to doubt Chaven's loyalty, but it is an advice, can they?" unfortunate fact that he is one of the very few people "True enough. And that is why we are speaking in the castle who knows much about the Autarch. Did now,just you two and I. I fear the threat from the south you know his brother was in the Autarch's service?" more than I do any fairies on our doorstep." Brone Barrick leaned forward. "Chaven's brother? Is this reached into his pocket and pulled out a pile of true?" creased papers. "You should read this. It is your fathers letter to your brother. He mentions the "Chaven is Ulosian - you knew that, I'm sure. But you Autar ch's growing power." did not know that his family was one of the first to welcome the Autarch into Ulos, the first conquest of Briony stared at him. "You have the letter!" Xis in our lands of Eion.The story is that Chaven fell "I have only just discovered it." Brone handed her the out with his brother and father over just that matter papers. "There is a page missing. What is gone and fled to Hierosol, and that is why your father King seems of little import - talk about maintaining the Olin brought him here - because he knows many castle and its defenses - but I cannot be sure. things more than just how to physick the ill, not least Perhaps you will notice something I did not." the gossip that his own family brought back from the "You had no right to read that!" Barrick cried. "No Xixian court. He has never shown himself to be right! That was a private letter from our father!" anything other than loyal, but as I said, from my point The lord constable shrugged. "These days, we cannot of view it is unfortunate that he is one of the few who afford privacy. I needed to see if there was anything in knows much of the Autarch. One of the few others it that might speak of immediate danger - it has been with any direct knowledge is locked in the stronghold missing for some time, after all." even as we speak." "No right," Barrick said bitterly. Was it his imagination, "Shaso," said Briony heavily. or was Brone looking at him oddly? Had there been "The same. He fought the Autarch and lost - well, in something in it that had made the Count of Landsend truth he fought against this Autarch's father. Then, suspect Barrick's secret? later, he fought your own father and lost. Even if Briony looked up from the letter. "You said you found Shaso were not in all likelihood your brother's it. Where? And how do you know there is a page murderer, I do not know how much use his advice 495 496 missing?" fight. "The letter was in a pile of documents Nynor left for Barrick, his worst alarm past, was also beginning to me in my workroom, but he says he knew nothing of it feel lethargic. What good all this posturing and and I think I believe him. I believe someone crept in imagining? What difference in what their imprisoned and slipped it among the other papers on my table, father might have written, or what it might have perhaps because they wanted to make it look as meant? Whoever killed Kendrick had ended the prince though Nynor or myself had taken it in the first place - regent's life in the midst of all the power of perhaps even implicate us in . . ." He frowned. "I also Southmarch, such as it was. If it was the Autarch, who read it because I wondered if it had something to do has already conquered an entire continent and now with your brother's death, of course." begins to gulp at this one as well, bite by bite, how can a tiny kingdom like ours hope to save itself? Only "The missing page . . . ?" distance had protected them so far, and that would He leaned over and shuffled through the pages with not be a bulwark forever. "So one way or other, there his thick forefinger. "There." is a traitor in our midst," said Barrick. "This page ends with Father talking about the "The person who had the letter may have no fortifications of the inner keep . . ." Briony squinted, connection to Prince Kendrick's death, Highness." turning between the two pages of the letter. "And the "There is another question," Briony said. "Why return it next page he is finishing up, asking us to have all at all? With a page missing, it is as much as those things done. You are right, there is something proclaiming that someone else has read a letter from missing. `Tell Brone to remember the drains.' What the king to the prince regent. Why make that known?" does that mean?" Avin Brone nodded. "Just so, my lady. Now, if you will "Waterways. Some of the gates on the lagoons are pardon me, I will ask you to take the letter with you. old. He was worried that they might be vulnerable in a You may think of some suitable punishment for my siege." reading it as well, if you choose. I am old and tired "He was worrying about a siege?" Briony said. "Why?" and I still must find someplace to sleep tonight - I "Your father is a man who always wishes to be doubt Brother Okros will let me move Rule out of my prepared. For anything." bed. If you wish to talk to me about what it says, send "For some reason, I don't believe you, Lord Brone. for me in the morning and I will come at once." Brone swayed a little; with his great size, he looked like a About that, anyway." mountain about to topple and Barrick could not help "You wrong me, Highness, I assure you." The lord taking a step backward. "We are come on grave constable seemed almost uninterested, too tired to 497 498 times, Highnesses. I am not the only one relying on sprinkling of stars in a deep velvety darkness. There you two, for all your youth. Please remember that, was no sign of the moon. Prince Barrick and Princess Briony, and be careful of "What time of the clock is it, do you think?" Dyer what you say and to whom." asked as he sat up. The fire was burning by itself now, Courtesy was the victim of exhaustion. He let them but it remained small and sickly, shot through with odd find their own way out. colors, greens and blues. "We have been here for hours and it is still evening." "No, it's a bit darker." Vansen raised his hands before · the fire, it gave off only a little heat. "I can't wait for bloody daylight." Dyer chewed on a It was not proving easy to make a fire. The forest was piece of dried meat. "I can't wait." damp and there was little deadfall. Ferras Vansen "You may not get it." Vansen sighed and sat back. A eyed the small pile of gathered wood in the center of wind he couldn't feel made the tops of the trees wave their ring of stones and could not help a longing look overhead. The campfire, weak as it was, seemed a at the great branches stretching overhead. They had kind of a wound in the misty, twilit clearing. He no ax, but surely an hour's sweaty work with their couldn't help feeling the forest wished to heal that swords and he and Collum Dyer might have all the breach, to grow back over it, swallowing the flames wood they wanted. But the trees seemed almost to be and the two men, scabbing the injury over with moss watching, waiting tor some such desecration he could and damp and quiet darkness. "I do not think it is ever hear whispers that seemed more than the wind We full daylight here." will make do, he decided, with deadfall. "The sky is above us," said Dyer firmly, but there was Collum was working hard at the pyramid of sticks with a brittle sound to his voice. "That means the sun will his flint. The noise of the steel striking echoed out be there when day comes, even if we can't see it. Not through the clearing like the sound of hammers deep all the mists in the world can change that." in the earth. Vansen couldn't help but think of all the stories of his youth, of the Others who lurked in the Vansen said nothing to this Collum Dyer, veteran of shadowy woods and in caves and burrowed in the many campaigns, dealer and risker of death, was as cold ground. frightened as a child. Vansen, an elder brother in his own family, knew you did not argue with a frightened "Done it." Dyer leaned forward to blow on the child about small matters until the danger had passed. smoldering curls of red, puffing until pale flames grew. The mists had cleared a little around them, revealing Small matters Like never seeing the sun again. sky beyond the distant crowns of the trees, a 499 500 "I will take first watch tonight," he said aloud. the moon, which had at last appeared in the sky above the trees, round and pale as the top of a "We must keep calling for the others. " Dyer rose and polished skull - but it was definitely the dog-end of walked to the edge of the clearing, cupping his hands night. He should have woken Dyer hours ago. He had "Halloooo! Adcock! Southstead! Halloooo!" fallen asleep, a dangerous thing to do in such a Ferras Vansen couldn't help flinching at the noise, strange place, leaving the camp unguarded. Or was which was quickly swallowed by the trees. His every he asleep still? It seemed so, because even the wind instinct told him to stay quiet, to move slowly, not to seemed to be quietly singing, a wordless chant, rising attract attention. Like a mouse on a tabletop, he and falling. thought, and was bitterly amused. Don't want to wake Something was moving in the trees along the edge of anyone. "I think by now the others must have made the clearing. camp," he said. "And if shouting were enough, they would have found us hours ago." His breath caught. Vansen fumbled for his sword, reached out with his other hand to wake Collum Dyer, Dyer came back and sat by the fire. "They will find us. but his companion was gone from the spot where he They are looking for us. Even Southstead, although had lain sleeping only a short while earlier. Vansen you might doubt it, Captain. The royal guard won't had only a few heartbeats to absorb the terror of that walk away while two of their number are lost." discovery, then the movement at the clearing's rim Vansen nodded, but he was thinking something quite became a white-shrouded, hooded figure, as different. He suspected that somewhere the rest of the strangely translucent as a distillation of mists. It guards and poor Raemon Beck and the mad girl were seemed to be a woman, or at least it had a woman's just as lost and frightened as he and Dyer. He hoped shape, and for a moment he was filled with the they had the sense to stay put and not to wander. He unlikely hope that the girl Willow had gone sleep- was beginmng to understand a little of what happened wandering from the guards' camp, t at the rest of the h to the girl, and even to the madman in his own company were somewhere nearby after all and Dyer childhood village who had come back from beyond the had been right. But the hairs rising on the back of his Shadowline. neck proved it was a lie even before he saw that the "Try to sleep, Collum. I'll take first watch." figure's feet did not touch the earth below her faintly At first he thought it merely a continuation of the shimmering gown. strange dreams that had seeped into his increasingly "Mort al man." The voice was in his head, behind his desperate attempts to stay awake. It was not full eyes, not in his ears. He could not say whether it was night-dark - he sensed it would never be fully dark old or young or even male or female. "You do not because the mists were shot through with the glow of belong here." He tried to speak but couldn't. He could 501 502 see little more of her face than pallid light and faint would never completely recover. He was gripped as shadows, as though it were hidden behind many veils though by death itself but death was fair, so very fair. of glimmering fabric. All that was truly visible were her Ferras Vansen's soul leaped toward the dark eyes, eyes, huge and black and not at all human. "The old toward the stars of her gaze, like a salmon climbing a laws are ended," the specter told him. The world mountain rill, not caring whether death was at the end seemed to have collapsed into a single dark tunnel of it. with the luminous, vague face at the other end. "There "Do not look for the sun, mortal." He thought there are no riddles left to solve. There are no tasks by was something like pity in the words and he was which favors can be won. All is moving toward an dashed. He didn't want pity - he wanted to be loved. ending. The shadow-voices that once cried against it He wanted only to die being loved by this creature of have gone silent in the House of the People." vapor and moonlight. "The sun will not come to you The figure moved nearer. Vansen could feel his heart here. Neither can the shadows be trusted to tell you thundering in his breast, beating so hard that it anything but lies. Look instead to the moss on the seemed it must shake him to pieces, but yet he could trees. The roots of the trees are in the earth, and they not by choice move a single muscle. A gauzy hand know where the sun is, always, even in this land reached out, touched his hair, almost seemed to pass where his brother is the only lord." through him, cool and yet prickly along his cheek like And then she was gone and the clearing was empty sparks from a campfire settling on damp skin. except for the quiet hiss of wind in the leaves. Vansen "I knew one like you once." Some tone was in the sat up gasping, heart still stuttering. Had it been a voice that he almost recognized, but in the end the dream? If so, part of it had proved true, anyway - emotion was too strange to grasp. "Long he stayed there was no sign of Dyer. Vansen looked around, with me until his own sun had worn away. In the end dazed at first, but with increasing fear. The fire was all he could not remain." As the face loomed closer it but out, little glowing worms of red writhing in the seemed charged with moonlight. Vansen wanted to blackness inside the stone circle. close his eyes but could not. For a brief instant he Something crackled behind him and he leaped up, thought he could see her clearly, although what or fumbling at the hilt of his sword. A figure staggered who he was seeing he couldn't entirely understand - a into the clearing. beauty like the edge of a knife, black eyes that were "Dyer!" Vansen lowered his blade. somehow full of light like the night sky full of stars, an Collum Dyer shook his head. "Gone." The soldier's infinitely sad smile - yet during that moment it also felt voice was mournful. "I could not catch up to . . ." Now as though a chilly han d had tightened on his heart, he seemed to see Vansen truly for the first time and squeezing it into an awkward shape from which it 503 504 his face twisted into a mask of secrecy. For an instant "No. By time we make one, we will be tired again, and Ferras Vansen thought he could read the other man's then we will sleep. We will never get away. We will clear thoughts, see him decide not to share his own stay here while this forest swirls around us like an vision. ocean and drowns us." He did not know exactly what he meant, but he felt it unquestionably to be true. "We "Are you well?" Vansen demanded. "Where were must ride while we can, before the place sucks away you?" all our resolve." Dyer made his way slowly back to the fire. He would Dyer looked at him strangely. "You sound as though not meet his captain's eye. "Well enough. Had . . . a you know a great deal about this country." dream, I suppose. Woke up wandering." He eased himself down and covered himself with his cloak and "As much as I need to." He didn't like the accusing wouldn't talk anymore. tone in the man's voice, but didn't want to be pulled into an argument. "Enough to know I do not wish to Vansen lay down, too. One of them should keep end up like that girl-child Willow, wandering mad in the watch, he knew, but he felt as though he had been woods." touched by something wild and strong, and was somehow certain that touch would keep other things "And how will we find our way out again? We of this place at bay . . . for this night anyway. searched for hours We're lost." He was as tired as if he had run for miles. He fell "I was raised on the edge of these woods, or at least asleep quickly beneath the trees and the strange something like them." He suddenly wondered whether stars. they were even in the world he knew, or wandering in a place more d istant than the land of the gods. It was Ferras Vansen woke to the same dim gray light - a a harrowing thought. What had the phantom said? little more milky, perhaps, but nothing like morning. "Even in this land where his brother is the only lord." The wind was still talking wordlessly. Collum Dyer had Whose brother? The sun's? But the moon was a slept like a dead man, but he awakened like a sick goddess, surely - white-breasted Mesiya, great Perin's child, full of moans and sullen looks. sister. The words of the midnight visitant, whether ghost or It was too much to think about Vansen forced himself dream, were still in Vansen's head. He allowed Dyer back to what was before them now, the hope of time only to empty his bladder, waiting impatiently in escape. It was hard to think, though - the voice of the the saddle while the soldier did up the strings of his wind was ever -present and insinuating, urging sleep breeches. and surrender. "The moss will grow thickest on the "Can't we even light a fire?" Dyer asked. "Just to warm southern side of the trees," he said. "If we continue my hands. It's so bloody cold." 505 506 south long enough, surely we will find our way back There is something in the air here, Vansen thought into wholesome lands again." desperately. Something in the shadows of these trees. This place is eating us. It was a terrible idea, but once "Leaving this place behind," Dyer said quietly, it lodged in his mind, he could not shift it. He had a thoughtfully. It was strange, but to Vansen he dreamlike vision of himself and Dyer lying beside the sounded almost unwilling, a notion that sent a pulse of lost road, dead and decaying like the woman he had fear chasing up the guard captain's backbone. once found in her cottage, yet it was not insects that The morning, or at least the stretch of hours after would devour them but the forest itself - tendrils of waking, slid by quickly. There was moss everywhere, green growing into their mouths and noses and ears, on almost every tree, deep woolly green patches. If it seeds sprouting out damp, dark vegetation from their grew more thickly on o side than another, it was a ne bellies and skulls, filling the vaults of their rib cages. minute difference, after a while, Vansen began to Maybe it is a true vision, he thought suddenly. doubt his own ability to distinguish. Still, he had no Perhaps we are already dead, or nearly so. Perhaps other plan and he was growing increasingly our bodies are already disappearing under the moss frightened. They had lost the road in a thicket of black- and we only dream we are riding on through this dark leaved trees too thick to pass and they had not found land beneath the endless, gods-cursed trees . . . it again. He had not seen a single thing that looked familiar. It was hard not to feel that the forest was "I feel the fires," Dyer said abruptly. continuing to grow around him, that its borders were "What fires?" The horses had stopped; they stood stretching outward faster than he and Dyer could ride, weirdly still and silent. A forested valley leaned close and that not only wouldn't they find their way out above the two guardsmen on either side, as though again, the shadow-forest would soon cover everything they were in the mouth of some huge thing that in a he had ever known, like wine from an upended jug moment would close its jaws and shut them away spreading across a tabletop. from the light forever. Dyer's mood also worryed him. The bearded "The forge fires," the bearded guardsman replied in a guardsman had grown increasingly more distant, even distant voice. "The ones that burn under Silent Hill. as their horses strode shoulder to shoulder; he hardly They make weapons of war, Bright Fingers, Chant- spoke to his captain, but talked much to himself and Arrows, Wasps, Cruel Stones. The People are awake. sang snatches of old songs that Vansen felt he should They are awake." recognize but didn't. Also, the man kept looking at him As he struggled to make sense of Dyer's bizarre oddly, as though Dyer were harboring doubts of his statement, Vansen felt a sharp but noiseless wind own - as if he no longer quite recognized someone come hurrying down the canyon. The mists swirled who had been his daily companion for years. 507 508 upward, rising and parting, and for a brief instant he around them, the deepening of the twilight gloom. He thought he could see an entire city at the top of the could hear the triumph in the wordless wind-voices, valley, a city that was also part of the forest, a mass of although he still couldn't hear the voices themselves dark trees and darker walls, the two almost except where they echoed deep in the cavern of his indistinguishable, with lights burning in a thousand skull. windows. His horse reared and turned away from the His horse abruptly reared, whinnying. Caught by vision, dashing back down the path they had followed. surprise, Vansen tumbled out of the saddle and He heard Dyer's hor se's hoofbeats close behind him, crashed to the ground. The horse vanished into the and another sound, too. forest, kicking and bounding through the undergrowth, His companion was singing quietly but exuberantly in grunting in terror. For a moment Vansen was too a language Vansen had never heard. stunned to rise, but a hand clutched him and dragged him to his feet. It was Collum Dyer, his horse gone now, too. The guardsman's face was alight with something that might have been joy, but also looked a · little like the terror that Vansen himself was feeling, a pall of dread that made him want to throw himself back down on the ground and bury his head in the Dyer was still behind him, but silent now: he wouldn't spongy grass. answer any of his captain's questions, and Vansen had given up asking, simply grateful not to be alone. "Now," Dyer said. "Now." The twilight had grown thicker. The guard captain And suddenly Ferras Vansen could see the road could no longer distinguish any difference in the again, the road they had sought for hours without thickness of the moss on the trees - could barely tell success. It was only a short distance away, winding the trees from the darkness. The voices in the wind through the trees - but he barely noticed it. The road had crawled deep inside his head now, cajoling, was full of rolling mist, and in that mist he could see whispering, weaving fragments of melody through his shapes. Some of the figures, unless the mist distorted thoughts that tangled his ideas just as the thickening them, were treetop-tall, and others impossibly wide, brambles tugged at their horses' hooves, making them squat, and powerful. There were shadow-shapes that walk slower and slower. corresponded to no sane reality, and things less "They are coming," Dyer abruptly announced in the frightening but still astonishing, like human riders voice of a frightened dreamer. "They are marching." dimly seen but achingly beautiful, sitting high and Ferras Vansen did not need to ask him what he straight on horses that stamped and blew and made the air steam. Many of the riders bore lances that meant: he could feel it, too, the tightening of the air 509 510 glittered like ice. Pennants of silver and marshy green- gold waved at their tips. 21 An army was passing, hundreds and perhaps thousands of shapes riding, walking - some even flying, or so it seemed: teeming shadows fluttered and The Potboy's Dolphin soared above the great host, catching the moonglow on their wings like a handful of fish scales flung glittering into the air. But although Vansen could feel THE PATH OF THE BLUE PIG: the tread of all those hooves and feet and paws and claws in his very bones, the host made no sound as it marched. Only the voices on the wind rose in acclaim Down, down, feathers to scales as the great troop passed. Scales to stone, stone to mist How long was a sleep? How long was death? Vansen Rain is the handmaiden of the nameless. did not know how much time passed as he stood in - from The Bonefall Oracles. amazement, too moonstruck even to hide, and watched the host pass. When it had gone, the road lay all but naked, clothed only in a few tatters of mist. There was a tower in Qul-na-Qar whose name meant something like "Spirits of the Clouds" or "The Spirits in "We must . . . follow them," Vansen said at last. It was the Clouds," or perhaps even "What the Clouds Think" hard, painfully hard, to find words and speak them. - it was never easy to make mortal words do the "They are going south. To the lands of men. We will dance of Qar thought - and it was there the blind follow them to the sun." kingYnnir went when he sought true quiet. It was a tall "The lands of men will vanish." tower, although not the tallest in Qul-na-Qar: one Vansen turned to see that Collum Dyer's eyes were other loomed above all the great castle like an upheld tightly closed, as though he had some memory locked spear, a slender spike that was simply called "The behind his eyelids that he wished to save forever. The High Place," but its history was dark since the soldier was trembling in every limb and looked like a Screaming Years and even the Qar did not visit it man cast down from the mountain of the gods, much, or even look up at it through the fogs that shattered but exultant. usually surrounded their greatest house. "The sun will not return," Dyer whispered. "The Ynnir din'at sen-Qin, Lord of Winds and Thought, sat shadow is marching." in a simple chair before the window of one of Cloud- Spirit Tower's two highest rooms. His tattered 511 512 garments fluttered a little in the winds but he was but was tall for his kind: whenYnnir rose and Harsar otherwise motionless. It was a clear day, at least by stepped forward to help him, his head reached almost the standards of Qul -na-Qar: although as always there to the king's shoulder. "I have good news, Lord." was no sun visible in the gray sky, the afternoon's "Tell me." sharp winds had chased away the mists: the slender "Yasammez and her host have crossed the frontier." figure who waited patiently in the chamber's doorway "So quickly?" for Ynnir to speak could see all the rooftops of the vast castle spread out below in a muted rainbow of "She is very strong, that one. She has been waiting different shades of black and deep gray, glittering long years for this, preparing." darkly from the morning's rains. "Yes, she has."The king nodded slowly. "And the The one who waited was patient indeed: nearly an mantle?" hour passed before the blind king at last stirred and "She carries it with her, at least for now, but the turned his head. "Harsar? You should have spoken, scholars in the Deep Library think it will not sustain old friend." itself if stretched too far. But everywhere she has "It is peaceful to look out the window." raided the mantle has spread, reclaiming that which is ours, and even when it will spread no farther, she will "It is."Ynnir made a gesture, a complex movement of go on with fire and talon and blade." Even patient fingers that signified gratitude for small things. "All Harsar could not keep his voice altogether even; a morning I listened to the anger of the Gathering, all hint of exultation writhed in his words. "And that arguing about the Pact of the Glass, and thought everywhere she goes, the sunlanders will wail behind about the time when I would come here, away from it her, searching for their dead." all, and feel the breeze from M'aarenol on my face." He lifted his fingers and touched them to his eyes "Yes."Ynnir stood silent for a long time. "Yes. I thank once, twice, then a third time, all with the precision of you for these tidings, Harsar-so." ritual. "I still see what was outside it on the day I lost "You do not seem as pleased as I would have my sight." thought, Lord." The councillor was startled by his own "It has not changed, Lord." words and lowered his head. "Ah, ah. Please forgive my discourtesy, Son of the First Stone. I am a fool." "Everything has changed. But, come, you have waited for me patiently, Harsar -so. I do not believe the view The king lifted a long -fingered hand, made a gesture alone has brought you here." that signaled "acceptable confusion." Harsar inclined his hairless head ever so slightly. He "You have nothing to apologize for, friend. I simply was of the Stone Circle People, a small, nimble folk, have much to consider. Yasammez is a mighty 513 514 weapon. Now that she has been loosed, all the world stairway of Cloud-Spirit Tower surrendered no noise will change." He turned his head toward the window except that of a visitor's tread. Ynnir listened to his once more. "Do me the favor of excusing me, Harsar- councillor's velvet-soft footfalls grow fainter and fainter so. It was good of you to come so far to gi ve me this until he could no longer hear them above th e skirling news." His long face was grave and still; a hovering wind. mote of light like a pale lavender firefly had begun to Ynnir din'at sen-Qin moved through a door in the wall flicker above his head. "I must think I must . . . sleep." that separated this highest place in the tower into two "Forgive me for imposing myself, great Ynnir. Will you rooms. That other chamber, that twinned space, had permit one more unforgivable imposition? May I offer its own window, facing not across the expanse of the my company on your journey down to your chambers? castle and its countless rooftops glinting wet as beach The stairs are still damp." stones but away into the misty south - toward the Shadowline and the great host of Lady Yasammez A tiny smile came to the blind king's face. "You are and the lands of mortals. Like the other room, it was kind, but I will sleep here." sparsely furnished. That room had a chair: this one "Here?" There was only one couch in the Cloud-Spirit had a low bed. The king lay down on it, lavender light Tower and it was a place of power, of shaped and glittering above his brow, then folded his arms across directed dreams. A moment later, the man of the his breast and began to dream. Stone Circle People brought his hand to his mouth. "Forgive me, Lord! I do not mean to question you again. I am a fool today, a fool." · This time Ynnir's response was a degree or two closer to frost. "Do not distress yourself, Councillor. I will be Chert had barely slept at all. The long watches of the well." night had passed like guests who sensed they were Harsar bowed and bowed again, backing out of the unwelcome and were all the slower to leave because room so quickly that an observer might have feared of it. the councillor himself was in greater clanger of We're caught up in bad things. It was in his every tumbling down the long, steep stairwell than the blind thought. For the first time he understood what the big king, but he spun neatly on his heel at the edge of the folk must mean when they asked him how he could steps before starting his descent. Many of the towers stand to live in a cave under the ground. But it was not of Qul-na-Qar had stairs that yielded quiet music, and the stone of Fu nderling Town that oppressed him any of course the infamous steps of the High Place more than a fish was oppressed by water; it was the moaned softly, like children in troubled sleep, but the feeling that he and his small family were surrounded 515 516 and enwebbed by a faceless, invisible something, and and slid his feet under the heavy quilt. "It wasn't it was precisely because he did not know what it was simply an accident that child appeared, Opal. That he that he felt so miserable, so helpless. We're caught up was brought out of that place and dumped here on the in bad things and they're getting worse. very same day I find that the Shadowline has moved for the first time in years." "What in the name of the Mysteries are you up to?" Opal's voice was muzzy with sleep. "You've been "It's not the boy's fault!" she said, her voice rising twitching all night." despite her own injunction to quiet. "He's done nothing wrong. Next you're going to say he's some kind of . . . He was tempted to tell her it was nothing, but despite spy, or demon, or . . . or a wizard in disguise!" their occasional squabbling, Chert was not one of those fellows who felt more comfortable in the "I don't know what he is. But I know that I'm not going company of other men than with his own wife. They to go another night wondering what's in that bag had come far together and he knew he needed not around his neck." only her comfort, but her good wits, too. "I can't sleep, "Chert, you can't. We have no right . . . !" Opal. I'm worried." "That's nonsense, woman, and you know it. This is "What about?" She sat up and pushed at the strands our house. What if he brought home a poisonous of hair escaping from her nightcap. "And don't talk so snake - a fireworm or somesuch? Would we have to loud - you'll wake the boy." let him keep it?" "The boy is part of what worries me." He got up, "That's just silly . . ." padded to the table, and picked up the jar of wine. "Well, it's at least as silly when there are dangers all Funderlings seldom used lamps in their own homes, around, when the Twilight People may walk right out making do with the dim, dim glow spilling in from the of the old stories and come knocking at our very street lanterns, and found it amusing that the big folk doors, to pretend as though this was an ordinary time couldn't seem to blunder around aboveground without and ordinary circumstances. We found him, Opal, we a blaze of light. He took a cup from t e mantel shelf. h didn't birth him. We don't know anything about who he "Do you want some wine?" he asked his wife. is - or even what he is - except that he came from "Why would I want wine at this hour?" But her voice behind the Shadowline.You didn't see the way those was definitely as worried as his, now. "Chert, what's Rooftoppers treated him - like he was an old friend, an wrong?" honored ally . . ." "I'm not sure. Everything, really. The boy, those "He helped one of them. You said so!" Rooftoppers, what Chaven said about the "And he's carrying something we haven't looked at Shadowline." He brought his cup of wine back to bed 517 518 that might tell us about his past." seems wrong." "You don't know that." "We are parents now," Chert said. "I suspect we must get used to feeling terrible about some things we must "No, and you don't know that it doesn't. Why are you do. I suspect it is the tunnel-toll for having a child." fighting me, Opal? Are you so afraid we might lose him?" "That's just like you," she whispered, half angry, half not. "Anything you take up, you decide you know all There were tears in her eyes - he needed no light to about it. Just like with those racing moles." know that: he could hear it in her voice. "Yes! Yes, I'm afraid we might lose him. And mostly because you The sleeping boy, who as usual had kicked his wouldn't care if we did!" blanket off, was lying belly-down, face turned to the side like a swimmer taking a breath, pale hair white as "What?" frost. Chert stared with a mixture of fondness and "You heard me You treat him well enough because fear. He knew he had just signed a treaty of sorts, that you're a kind man, but you don't . . . you don't. . you in return for getting a look at the contents of the sack don't love him " She was fighting to be able to speak he had as good as promised that whatever they might now. "Not like I do." be, he would abide by Opal's judgment. And he knew For a moment anger and astonishment ran together in in his heart that unless they found evidence that the him. She turned onto her side. Her sobs shook the child had actually committed murder - and not just any mattress and something in the brokenhearted sound old murder, but something important and recent - she of it pushed everything else away. This was his Opal, would not consider it grounds to send the boy away. weeping, terrified. He curled his arms around her. How did that hap pen so quickly? Chert wondered. Are "I'm sorry, my old darling. I'm sorry." He hea rd himself all women like that - ready to love a child, any child, saying it, regretted it even as the words left his mouth. just as a hand is ready to grasp or an eye ready to "Don't worry, I . . . I won't let anyone take him from see? Why don't I feel the same way? Because you." although he knew he truly did care for the child, there was nothing in him like the fierce possessiveness that his wife felt, the almost helpless need. Does she burn too hot? Or is my heart too cold? · Still, watching as the boy moaned a little and shifted, looking at the helpless, smoothly vulnerable neck, the "Isn't there any other way?" she asked. They had lit open mouth, he found himself hoping that they one of the smallest lamps; her face was red and her discovered nothing damning. eyes swollen. "It seems a terrible thing to do - it 519 520 Someone is using this child. Chert suddenly felt complex, in many colors of thread, but the design was certain of this, but did not know why he thought so or a pattern, not a picture, and told him very little. "Have what it meant. For good or for ill, there is another will you ever seen work like that?" behind him. But what is he? A weapon? A Opal shook her head. "Some eyestitch from Connord I messenger? An observer? saw in the market once, but that was much simpler." Confused by these thoughts, Chert got down on his Chert took it gently in his hands, prodded at it with his knees and carefully slid one hand under the shirt the finger. It gave beneath his touch with a faint, springy boy used as a cushion. His fingers touched something crunch, but there was something hard at the middle of solid, but Flint's head rested firmly on top of it; he it, hard like bone. "Where' s my knife?" would rouse the boy if he tried to pull it free. He put a "That clumsy thing?" Opal was already walking across hand under the child's shoulder and gently pushed. the room toward her sewing box. "If you're going to "You'll wake him up . . . !" Opal whispered. steal the boy's possessions and cut them open, you Would that be so bad? Chert wondered. There was no don't have to do it like some butcher's prentice." She reason they needed to hide what they were doing, returned and lifted out a tiny blade with a handle of surely. In fac t, he would have gladly waited until polished maker's-pearl. "Use this. No, I've changed morning, except that he knew he would not sleep if he my mind. Give it back. I'll be the one who has to sew did Still, as the boy yawned and rolled onto his side, the thing up again after you've finished poking around allowing Chert to pull the sack and its cord out from in it." under the rolled shirt, he did feel more than a little like Assuming it's something that can be put back in a a thief. sack as though nothing has happened, Chert thought At least he hasn't hidden it, Chert thought. Tliat's a but didn't say. The boy himself certainly hadn't been good sign, isn't it? If he knew it was something bad, like that, so why should this be different? he would hide it, wouldn't he . . . ? Opal carefully sliced away a few of the threads down Chert carried it out of their bedchamber to the table, one side, where the ornamental stitchery was minimal. Opal as close behind him as if it were not simply a Chert had to admit that he wouldn't have thought of possession of Flint's but an actual piece of the boy. that, that he would have opened the top and spoiled Chert had been distracted last time by the discovery much more of the embroidery. of the strange stone, the one that he had passed to "What if. . . what if the stitchery itself is some kind of Chaven. Now he examined the bag all over again. It shadow-magic?" he said suddenly. "What if we've was the size of a hen's egg but almost flat, only as spoiled it by cutting it, and whatever's inside won't be thick as a finger. The needlework was exquisite and held in there anymore?" He didn't know exactly what 521 522 he was he trying to say but in these deep hours of the aggressively animated - which had been carved in a night it was hard not to feel they were trespassing on decorative manner that, like the embroidery, was not unfamiliar and perhaps hostile ground. meant to represent anything obvious. For a moment he could only stare at it in surprise - why would Opal gave him a sour look. "That's just like you to anyone spend so much care carving and polishing a think of that after I've started." But she paused, and simple round of ivory or bone like this? - but Opal took suddenly her face was worried. "Do you think there's it for a moment, nodded, then put it back on his palm, something alive in here? Something that . . . that this time with the other side facing up. bites?" "It's a mirror, you old fool." There was relief in her "Give it to me, then," Chert said, trying to make a joke voice. "A hand mirror like a highborn lady might have. of it. "If someone has to lose a finger, it shouldn't be I daresay your Princess Briony owns a few of these." the one who's going to sew the thing up again." "My Princess Briony?" He fell into their old rhythms He squeezed it a little to force the snipped seam because it was the easiest thing to do; he, too, was open, held it up to the light. All he could see was relieved, although not as completely as his wife. something that looked like bits of dried flowers and "She'll be very entertained to hear that, I'm sure." He leaves. He leaned forward and sniffed it cautiously. stared at the mirror, lifted it up, turned it until it caught The scent was exotic and unrecognizable, a mix of the reflection of the lamp. It did seem quite ordinary. spicy odors. He probed inside with his finger, trying to "But why does the boy have a mirror?" be gentle, but he was crushing the dried plant material and the smell was getting stronger. At last he touched "Oh, can't you see?" Opal shook her head at his something hard and flat. He tried to pull it out, but it obtuseness. "It is as clear as skyglass.This must have was almost the same size as the sack. belonged to his . . . his true mother." She did not like saying the words, but she continued bravely. "She "You'll have to cut more threads," he said, handing it likely gave it to him as . . . a sort of reminder. Perhaps back to Opal. she was in danger and they had only a few moments She sniffed the open side. "Moly and bleeding-heart. before she had to send him away. She wanted But that's not all. I don't recognize the rest." When she whoever found him to know that he came of a good had widened the gap all the way down to the bottom family, that his mother had loved him." and even a little beyond, Chert took it back. "It seems strange," Chert said, unable to hide his He pulled, gently. Dried petals fell to the table. He disbelief completely, "that a woman would keep her pulled again and at last the object slid out. It was an mirror sewed up so tightly in a bag." oval of polished whi te - a quick glance told him it was "She wouldn't! She sewed it up so that he wouldn't made not of stone but something more recently and 523 524 lose it." something still nagged at him. Yes, Chaven, if he'll see me. He didn't seem very pleased with my "So you're saying that a noblewoman with only company the last time. But there is no one else to ask. moments left to spend with her little son - perhaps Yes, Chaven is versed in such things. Perhaps he can with her castle under siege and on fire, like in one of tell me what it might signify - whether a mirror could those big-folk ballads that you like to listen to when we be anything more than simply a mirror. go to the market upground - took the time to sew this bag shut with these careful little stitches?" "You're just trying to make trouble about it." Opal sounded amused, not irritated. She could afford to be · magnanimous, since she had obviously won the day. It was only a mirror, not a ring with a family crest or a Briony had been carrying it for hours, looking at the letter detailing Flint's heritage or confessing a dreadful familiar handwriting again and again, as though it crime Just to make sure, Chert pulled the rest of the were her father's actual face and not merely words he dried leaves and flowers out onto the tabletop while had written. She had not realized how much she Opal made little tutting sounds, but there was nothing missed him until she had read it, and in reading it she else in the sack. had heard his dear voice speaking to her as though "If you are quite finished making a mess, give all that he were in the room with her instead of hundreds of to me." The glow of triumph was unmistakable now. "I miles away and half a year gone. Could such a have a lot of work to do to make that right again homely, intimate thing have possibly been the cause before the boy wakes up. You might as well go back of Kendrick's murder? to bed, old man." But for an object so freighted with family sorrow, its And he did. But he still did not sleep, although it was meaning was somewhat opaque. It did speak of the not the quiet sounds Opal made as she plied her Autarch, as Brone had said, and of King Olin's needle that kept Chert awake. What was in the sack concerns about the southern conqueror. had not turned out to be something terrible. Nothing would change, at least not for the moment. But that "Here we come to the meat of your father's concern, was part of the problem. Kendrick, my son," I will tell Chaven about it when next I get the chance. He was tired, so tired, and desperate for sleep. He was even more desperate to believe that Opal was she read for the sixth or seventh time, right, that there was nothing to worry about, but 525 526 "which is that all the talk of the Autarch's spreading has made conquests in Eion, they are all small states empire that has come north to us is not exaggerated. with poor harbors or no harbor at all. He knows that All the continent of Xand above the great White none of them will provide him a suitable base for an Desert has fallen under the sway of Xis, and while his invasion, and that without a secure foothold his father and grandfather were content merely to conscripted army, no matter how large, will not defeat conquer and exact tribute, this newest Autarch is not a determined men fighting for their own lands, gentle ruler to these subjects. It is said that he especially if Syan and Jellon and the March Kingdoms considers himself not just king but god, and that all stand together . . ." these subject lands must worship him as the true child of the sun itself - yes, the sun that shines in the sky! He has not yet pressed such harsh demands on our · cities and states of Eion that have fallen to his influence, but I cannot doubt he will want the same from them when his grip has become adequately tight. Briony put the letter down, as angry as the first time she read it. Jellon - that swamp of treachery! How like "Do not think, however, that because he is mad he is her father, to continue to believe even as he also foolish. This Autarch was forged of hot metal languished in prison because of Jellon's greed, that indeed. He was born Sulepis, third youngest of he could convince that pig King Hesper to do the right twenty-six brothers in the royal family of Xis - a nest of thing, to make common cause against a greater vipers that became legendary even in troubled Xis, enemy. which has never had any shortage of savagery and murder among its ruling clans. The stories say that And he probably will convince him, gi ven enough time, only one of his brothers, the youngest of the family, Briony thought. Then what will I do? What if we do was still alive when Sulepis finally ascended to the make common cause and they send that oily Count throne a year after their father's death. After this Angelos back here, and I must treat him as an ally younger brother set the crown on Sulepis'head at the instead of sticking my sword in his heart as I would coronation, the poor wretch was taken away and rather? She promised herself she would go to the dipped into molten bronze. After the tortured figure armory this afternoon and practice with the blade for a cooled, the Autarch had it set in front of the royal while. If Barrick still felt too ill to trade blows, she could palace. A traveler told me that the Autarch likes to tell always spend an hour pretending that the sawdust- horrified visitors this ornament is meant to represent. stuffed dummy was Angelos or his master Hesper. It The Importance of Family. would be good to hit something. "His grip on Xand is nearly complete, but although he As for the letter's missing section, she couldn't guess 527 528 what might have drawn someone to steal it. From away before Rose or Moina returned. what she could make of the beginning and the end, it seemed only to have been a general and workaday · conversation about maintaining the castle walls and gates. Could some spy of the Autarch's, or some nearer enemy, have taken it because they thought Despite his useless arm, Barrick's greater strength Olin might mention some weakness in Southmarch's ordina rily made him more than her equal at defenses? How could they think her father would be swordplay, but her brother was still feeling the effects foolish enough to trust information that might of his illness: his face quickly grew flushed, and before endanger his family and home to the hands of Ludis very long he was breathing harshly. Slower than Drakava's envoy? They didn't know him. As Brone usual, he took several blows to the body from Briony's had said, Olin Eddon was a man who took nothing for padded sword and managed to touch her only once in granted. return. After a much shorter span than Briony would have liked, he stepped away and threw his falchion She skipped down to the bottom of the letter, although down with a muffled clatter. she knew it would make her cry again to read his farewell. "It's not fair," he said. "You know I'm not well enough yet." "All the mor e reason to build up your strength again. "And give my best love to Briony, too, tell her that I am Come on, gloomy, let's try just once more. You can sorry I am detained and cannot be there for the use a shield this time if you want." birthday she and Barrick share. There is a cat here in this rather drafty old castle who has taken to sleeping "No. You're as bad as Shaso. Now that he's not here at the foot of my bed, and by the way she has grown to plague me, do you think I'm going to let you take stout, I suspect soon she will become a mother. Tell his place?" Briony that not only will I come back to my family There was something more than ordinary anger in his presently, I will bring with me a small surprise, and tone, and Briony fought down her own resentment. that she may spoil it all she likes, because unlike dogs She was resdess, full of fury and unhap-piness like or most children, a cat cannot be ruined by too much storm clouds. All she wanted after days of sitting and affection." listening to people talk at her was to move her limbs, to swing the sword, to be something other than a princess, but she knew trying to force Barrick to do She was pleased with herself. She didn't cry. Or at anything was useless. "Very well. Perhaps we should least, only a few drops, and they were easily wiped 529 530 talk instead. I read Father's letter again." she allows no one to visit her except women from the countryside. Selia says that she has heard several of "I don't want to talk. Perin's Hammer, Briony, I've them have the name of witches in the city . . ." done en ough talking lately! Plots and intrigues. It makes me weary. I'm going to go have a nap." "Selia? I didn't know you had seen her again." "But we've hardly spoken about all the things Brone His high color, which had begun to subside, suddenly told us - about Gailon Tolly, and the letter, and the came flooding back. "What if I have? It is any Autarch . . ." business of yours?" He waved his hand dismissively. "Brone is a "No, Barrick, it isn't. But aren't there other girls more troublemaker. If there is no intrigue, no mysterious worthy of your interest? We know nothing about her." plots to protect us from, he has no influence." Barrick He snorted. "You sound just like Auntie Merolanna." scarcely untied his chest padding before yanking it off, "Rose and Moina both admire you." peevish as a child sent away from the supper table. "That's a lie. Rose calls me Prince Never -Happy, says "Are you saying we have nothing to worry about? that I always complain.You told me." He scowled. When our brother was murdered under our own roof. . She kept her face sober, although for the first time . ?" since the conversation began she was tempted to "No, that's not what I'm saying! Don't twist my words! I smile. "That was a year ago, silly. She doesn't say it said that I don't trust Avin Brone to tell us any truth anymore. In fact, she was very worried about you that doesn't do himself benefit. Don't forget, he's the when you were ill. And Moina . . . well, I think she one who convinced our father to marry Anissa. Nynor fancies you." and Aunt Merolanna argued against it, but Brone For a moment something like honest wonder came would not let go until he convinced Father to do it." over his face, coupled with a look of yearning so She frowned. "We were so young - I scarcely powerful Briony was almost shocked. But an instant remember it." later it was gone, and he had put on the mask she "I do. I remember it all. It's his fault we're saddled with knew far too well. that madwoman." "Oh, no, it's not enough for you that you're the "Madwoman?" Briony didn't like the look on her twin's princess regent. You act like you wish you were the face - an edge of savagery she was not used to queen - like I wasn't even around to interfere with seeing. "Barrick, I don't like her either, but that is a things. Now you want to tell me who I can and can't cruel thing to say and it's not true." talk to, and maybe even set one of your ladies on me "Really? Selia says she is acting very strangely. That to pretend she likes me so that she can keep an eye 531 532 on me. But you can't, Briony." He turned, dropping the Shaso rose, the darkness moving upon itself as rest of his practice gear, and walked out of the though the shadows had by magic taken human form. armory. Two of the guards who had been standing He walked forward slowly, dragging behind him the discreetly along the back wall followed him out. chain that bound his ankles, and stopped a little way from the door. There was no light in his stronghold "That's not true!" she called. "Oh, Barrick, that's not cell: only the torch that burned on the wall behind her true . . . !" But he was already gone. illumined his face, but it was enough for her to see how thin he had become, the shoulders still wide but She didn't really know why she had come. She felt as the long neck almost fragile now. When he twisted his though she were walking through a high wind and head so that he could better see her - she must be trying to hold together some fantastically complex and only a silhouette in front of the torch, she realized - delicate thing, like one of Chaven's scientific she could make out the shape of his skull beneath the instruments but a hundred times larger and more skm. "Merciful Zoria," she murmured. fragile. There were moments when it seemed to her "What do you want?" that the entire fami ly was under a curse. "Why won't you tell me what happened?" She fought The heavyset guard would not open the door to the to keep her voice even. It was bad enough to weep in cell. She argued, but even though she was the the privacy of her chamber. She would not cry in front princess regent and could do what she liked, it was of this stern old man or the guard who stood only a clear that if she insisted on her sovereignty the guard few yards away, pretending not to listen. "That night? I would go straight to Avin Brone and she didn't want want to believe you." the lord constable to know she had come. She didn't "You must find it lonely." really understand this herself, and couldn't imagine trying to explain to the dour and practical Brone. "I am not the only one. Dawet does not believe you would kill Kendrick." In the end she stood at the cell door's barred window and called him. At first there was no reply. She called For long moments he did not answer. "You spoke to again and heard a stirring, a dull clink of iron chains. him? About me?" "Briony?" His voice had only a shadow of its old Briony couldn't tell if he was stunned or enraged. "He strength. She leaned forward, trying to see him in the was the envoy of our father's kidnapper. He was also shadows of the far wall. "What do you want?" someone who might have been the murderer. We spoke many times." "To talk." The stink of the place was terrible. "To . . . ask you a question." "You say `was.' " 533 534 "He's gone. Back to Hierosol, back to his master, dozen arrows in his body. Drakava. But he told me that he thought you were too "I can tell you nothing about that night except that I did honorable to have broken your oath to the Eddon not kill Kendrick," Shaso said at last. His voice was family, no matter what the appearance." weirdly ragged, as though he fought back tears, but "He is a liar and a murderer, of course ." The words Briony knew there was nothing in the world more came cold and heavy. "You can trust nothing he unlikely. "So I must die. If you truly do wish me any says." kindness, Princess - Briony - then you will not come to see me again. It is too painful." She was righting a losing battle to keep anger out of her own voice. "Even when he proclaims a belief in "Shaso, what . . . ?" your innocence?" "Please. If you indeed ar e the single lonely creature in "If my innocence hinges on that man's word, then I this land who thinks I have not betrayed my oath, then deserve to go to the headsman." I will tell you three more things. Do not trust Avin Brone - he is a meddler and there is no cause as dear She struck the door so hard with the flat of her hand to him as his own. And do not trust Chaven, the court that the guard jumped in surprise and took a few physician. He has many secrets and not all of them hurried steps toward her. She angrily waved him are harmless." away. "Curse you, Shaso dan-Heza, and curse your stiff neck! Do you enjoy this? Do you sit here in the "Chaven . . . ? But why him - what has he . . . ?" dark and rejoice that now we have finally shown how "Please." Shaso lifted his head. His eyes were fierce. little we truly appreciated you, gloat over how poorly "Just listen. I can give you no proof of any of these we have repaid all your services over the years?" She things, but . . . but I would not see you harmed, leaned forward, almost hissed the words through the Briony. Nor your brother, for all he has tried my barred window. "I still find it hard to believe that you patience. And I would not see your father's kingdom would kill my brother, but I begin to think that you stolen from him." would allow yourself to be killed - that you would She was more than a little stunned. "You said . . . murder yourself, as it were - out of pure spite." three things." Again Shaso fell silent, his great head sagging to his "Do not trust your cousin, Gailon Tolly." He groaned. It chest. He did not speak for so long that Briony began was a sudden, weird, and terrible sound. "No. That is to wonder if, worn down by the rigors of confinement, all I can say." he had somehow fallen asleep standing up, or had "Gailon." She hesitated - almost she wanted to tell him even died on his feet as the p oems claimed the great the news of Gailon's disappearance, and more knight Silas of Perikal did, refusing to fall even with a 535 536 important, of Brone's assertion that the Tollys had drunkards and poets (a useful coupling since one was hosted agents of the Autarch, but she was suddenly so often the other) - and fell back on the bed, confused. Shaso said that neither Brone nor Gailon groaning. were to be trusted, so then which one was the "Brigid!" he shouted."Damned woman, come here! My betrayer, the Duke of Summerfield or the lord pate is broken!" But of course she had gone. His only constable? Or was it both? solace was that she must be back in the inn tonight, Tell him? Am I going mad? The thought was like a since she was employed downstairs, and he could tax splash of icy water, sudden and shocking. This man her then with her cruelty for deserting him. Perhaps it may have killed my brother, whatever I wish to would result in a row or a show of sympathy. Either believe. He could be the arch-traitor himself, or in the was acceptable. Poets needed excitement, the rush of employ of someone even more dangerous like the feeling. Autarch of Xis. It's bad enough I have come down It was increasingly clear that no one was going to here by myself, without Barrick - should I treat him as bring him anything. Tinwright sat up, rubbing his head though he were still a trusted family counselor? and making self -pitying sounds. He emptied his "Briony?" Shaso's voice was faint, but he sounded bladder into the chamber pot, then staggered to the concerned. window. "I must go." She turned and walked away, tried to nod If it had been earlier or later in the day, he woul d have to the guard as though nothing out of the ordinary had dispensed with the pot as an unnecessary happe ned, but by the time she reached the steps up intermediate stage, but Fitters Row was crowded. It out of the stronghold she was practically running, was caution rather than courtesy that led him to empty wanting only to get out of that deep, dark place. the pot carefully in a place where no one was walking: only last month a burly sailor had objected to being pissed on from a high window and Tinwright had · barely escaped with his life. He made his way down what seemed like an endless Matty Tinwright woke in his little room beneath the succession of stairs to the common room. The bench roof of the Quiller's Mint with a head that felt as where Finn Teodoros and Hewney had kept him up though it were full of filthy bilgewater. Notwithstanding past midnight with their cruel drinking game was his two years' residence above the tavern (and thus empty now, although there were silent men sitting on his presumed familiarity with the room's confines) he a half dozen of the other benches, laborers from Tin managed to strike his head on a beam as he stood - Street drinking an early lunch. Matty Tinwright couldn't lightly, only lightly, praise to Zosim, godling of both 537 538 understand how the poet-clerk and the playwright tankard to his room before the potboy realized what could both be twenty years his senior and yet hold so he had done, and was heartbroken to hear Gil say, much drink, forcing him to match them to preserve "You are a poet . . . ?" honor and thus giving him this head like a broken pot It was too far to the stairs to pretend he had not heard. in a bag. It was dreadful the way they carried on, and He turned, an excuse ready on his lips. terrible the way they led a young man like Tinwright "I mean, you can write, can't you?" the thin-faced man into bad habits. asked him. "You have a good hand?" There was no sign of Conary, the proprietor. The Tinwright scowled. "Like an angel using his own quill potboy, Gil - boy in name only, since he looked to be to dip ink. A great lady once told me that my ode to at least a decade older than Tinwright - sat on a stool her would be just as beautiful and useful -were the behind the plank, guarding the barrels. He had an words to be assembled in a completely different odd, distracted look on his face at the moment, but he order." was no bright spark at the best of times. He had "I wish you to help me write a letter. Will you do that?" already been at the Quiller's Mint when Tinwright had Gil saw Tinwright's hesitation. "I will pay you money. first arrived, and in all that time had never said Would this be enough?" He extended his hand. anything remotely interesting. Nestled in the palm like a droplet of raw sunshine was "Ale," the poet demanded. "I must have ale quickly. a gold dolphin. Tinwright gaped and almost dropped My stomach is like a storm at sea - only the sunshine his tankard. He had always imagined Gil to be a little that is pent in the brewer's hop can quiet this simpleminded, with his staring and his silences, but tempest." He leaned on the counter, belched sourly. this was idiocy like a gift from the gods. Zosim had "Do you hear? Thunder!" heard a simple poet's prayers, it seemed, and they Gil did not smile, although he was usually polite had reached the god on a generous morning. enough about Tinwright s jokes in his quiet way. After "Of course," he said briskly. "I would be happy to help a little more fumbling than usual, he slid a tankard you. I will take that . . ." he plucked the coin out of the across the plank. The potboy was blinking like an owl potboy's hand, "and you will come up to my room in daylight and seemed even more befuddled than when Conary has come back." He drained the tankard usual; Tinwright was delighted to notice that he did not in a long, greedy swallow an d handed it to Gil. "Here - demand payment. Conary no longer gave his lodger I will save you having to carry it down later." even a sniff without coin in hand, and was threatening Gil nodded, his face still as expressionless as a fish to evict him from the tiny closet-room at one edge of lying in a dockside stall. Tinwright hurried up the the top floor as well. Unwilling to risk losing this stairs, half certain that when he reached his room windfall, Tinwright was preparing to retreat with the 539 540 beneath the sloping ceiling the dolphin would be gone, You write them." vanished like a fairy-gift, but when he opened his fist it "Splendid. And who is the letter for?" was still there. For the first time a suspicion flared "Prince Barrick and Princess Briony." within him and he bit at the coin, but it had the soft Tinwright dropped his quill. "What? The prince and solidity of the true stuff. Not that Tinwright had found princess?" many chances to bite on gold during his twenty years of life. "Yes." Gil looked at him with his head tilted to one side, more the expression of a dog or a bird than a person. "Can you not write this?" Gil stood just inside the door with his arms at his "Of course," Matty Tinwright said hurriedly. "Without sides. doubt. As long as it is nothing treasonous." But he He truly is more strange than usual, Tinwright thought, was worried. Perhaps he had been too quick to give but it's brought me nothing but good. He couldn't help thanks to Zosim, who after all was a very capricious wondering if Gil had any other little tasks that might sort of godling. need Matty Tinwright's help - -mending his shirt, "Good.You are kind,Tinwright. I write to tell them perhaps, or helping him off with his boots. If he has important matters. Write this, the things I will say." He more dolphins, I'll be proud to call him employer, be took a breath. His eyes were almost closed, as though he ever so stupid. A thought came to him for the first he were remembering rather than inventing. "Tell the time. But where would a potboy come by gold like prince and princess of Southmarch that I must speak this? Killed someone? Well, let us just hope it was to them. That I can tell them important things that are somebody who won't be missed. . . . true." At last, Gil spoke. "I want to send a letter. Write the Tinwright breathed a sigh of relief as he began an words I say. Make them proper if they need elabor ate greeting, since it was clear the letter would changing." be nothing but the self-important ram-blings of an "Of course, my good fellow." Tinwright took up his unlettered peasant that the royal twins would writing board, one of the few things left he had not doubtless never even see - "To the noble and most been forced to pawn, and sharpened the quill with an honorable Barrick and Briony," he wrote, "Prince and old knife stolen from Conary's kitchen. With this gold, Princess Regent of Southmarch, from their humble he realized, I will be able to get my bone-handled servant . . ." But what is your name? Your full name?" penknife back. Hah! I will be able to buy one with an "Gil." ivory handle! "Have you no other name? As mine is not just "I do not know greetings such as would go on a letter. 541 542 Matthias, but Matthias Tinwright?" The potboy looked at the poet with such 22 incomprehension that Tinwright could only shrug. ". . . From their humble servant, Gil," he wrote. "Potboy at the inn known as . . ." A Royal Appointment "Tell them that the threats they face are worse than they know. That war threatens. And to show them I know the things I speak of, I will tell them what WITHOUT NAMES: happened to the Prince of Settland's daughter and her blue dower-stone, and why the merchant's nephew Hard as stone beneath the ground was spared. You must use just the words I will tell you." Buzzing like wasps Tinwright nodded, writing happily as Gil stuttered out Twining like roots, like serpents his message. He had earned a magnificent wage for - from The Bonefall Oracles the simplest of tasks. No one would take this dream- born nonsense seriously, least of all the royal family. At least, Matty Tinwright reflected, they hadn't put him When he had finished he gave the potboy the letter in chains, but nothing else about the experience had and bade him goodbye - Gil was going to take it been very pleasant at all. He had almost pissed himself to the great keep and give it to the prince and himself when the guards arrived at the Mint to arrest princess, he said, although Tinwright knew the poor him. Then, seeing the castle's stronghold for the first fool would get no farther than an amused or irritated time, smelling the dank, ancient stones and the guardsman at the Raven's Gate. As the potboy's various scents of miserable, confined humanity, he descending footfalls sounded on the stairs, Tinwright had nearly done it again. It was one thing to write lay back on his bed to think of a the ways he would ll couplets about the sufferings of Penkal's Silas in the spend his money. His head no longer ached. Life had fortress of the cruel Yellow Knight, but the actuality of suddenly become very good. a dungeon was far more unsettling than he had Gil did not return to the Quiller's Mint that afternoon. imagi ned. Tinwright was arrested by the royal guard an hour He let out a sigh, then worried that it might sound like before sunset, with ink stains on his fingers and his a complaint. He didn't want these very large guards gold still unspent. with their big, callused hands and scowling faces to be angry with him. Two of them were sitting on a low 543 544 bench talking while a third stood only a few yards thighs like a conqueror's flag, Tinwright was away on his other side, pike in hand. This was the one momentarily bewildered, thinking that he had been who was making him most uncomfortable, he kept accused of stealing the footwear of some guard-troop looking at Tinwright as though he was hoping the mascot. "Did you hear me, little man?" prisoner would make an attempt to escape so he Suddenly, his wits began to work again. The man was could spit him like broiled hare on a sharpened stick. talking about a tavern by the Basilisk Gate that But the poet wasn't going to move. His mind was fixed Tinwright had visited a few times, usually in the on passivity like a compass needle pointing north. If bibulous company of the playwright Nevin Hewney. the bloody castle suddenly fell down, I'd still sit right "No, sir, you mistake me," he said with all the honesty here on the floor. That evil-eyed whoreson's getting he could feign. "I have never passed the door I am a no excuse from Matty Tinwright. partisan of the Quiller's Mint in Squeakstep Alley. A fellow like yourself would not know the Mint, of course From where he sat he could see the potboy Gil - it is a low; low place." slouching on the floor on the far side of the guards' table. Tinwright hoped it was a good sign that there The guard smirked. He was young, but already with a were three guards between Gil and the door and only sizable belly on him and a doughy, unpleasant face. one for him, that it meant they thought Gil was the true "You took my woman away from me. Told her she miscreant. Not that the potboy looked any more likely would enjoy being with a clever fox like you more than than the poet to attempt escape. His thin face was the pig who was squiring her." blank and he stared at an empty spot on the opposite "I'm sure you're wrong, good sir." wall as though he were someone's befuddled "You said she had breasts like fine white cake and an grandfather left at the market by accident. arse like a pomegranate." The guard who had been giving Tinwright unpleasant "No, a peach, surely," said Tinwright, remembering looks took a few steps toward him, mail clinking, until how drunk he had been that night and horrified to he stood just over him. The man carefully - but not too think he might have employed a simile as clumsily carefully - lodged the point of his pike in the cracks of unlovely as "pomegranate." A moment later he the stone floor only inches from Tinwright's groin If clapped a hand over his mouth in horror, but it was this had been an important occasion, or at least the too late. His unruly tongue had betrayed him again. nicer sort of important occasion, it would The guard favored him with a gap -toothed grin that unquestionably have been crimping Matty's codpiece. the poet felt sure did not have much to do with "I saw you in the Badger's Boots," the guard said. concern for his well-being or appreciation for an adept Painfully conscious of the pike planted between his bit of flirtation. The guard leaned close and reached 545 546 out with his thick fingers, then took Tinwright's nose turn the beating the man intended to give him into and twisted it, hanging on until the poet let out a something more likely to prove fatal. "I . . . I have a terrified squeak of pain. The guard bent until his catarrh, sire. It strikes me like this, sometime. This cheese-stinking maw was only a finger's breadth damp air . . ." He waved his hand to indicate the away, which meant there was one small benefit of surroundings, but then had another moment of panic. Tinwright's nose being at this moment so agonizingly "Not that I have any complaint against the place, sire. crimped shut. "If the lord constable doesn't want your I have been excellently well treated." He was babbling head off - - and if he does, I'll be first in line for the now. Tinwright had never seen Brone from closer than chore - then I'll be over to see you at Quiller's Mint, a stone's throw: the fellow looked as though he could and soon. I'll cut some bits off you," - he gave the crush a poet's skull with one meaty hand. "The walls nose another twist for emphasis," - and then we'll see are very sturdy, my lord, the floor well-made." how the ladies like you." "I suspect someone struck you," said the lord The door to the stronghold rattled open. The guard let constable. "If you don't shut your mouth now, I will go of Tinwright's snout and straightened up, but not probably do it again myself." He turned to one of the before giving it a last cruel tweak. Tinwright was left royal guards who had risen from the bench. "I'm with tears welling in his eyes and a feeling like taking both prisoners." He waved to one of the pair of someone had set fire to the center of his face. soldiers whom he had left waiting by the stronghold door; both wore the livery of Landsend, Brone's own "Perin's smallclothes, is the swindler crying?" a voice fiefdom. "Fetch this pair along," he told his man. "Beat boomed from just above him. "Are there no true men them if you have to." left in this kingdom who are not soldiers? Are all the rest just pimps and coney-catchers and womanish The stronghold guard looked a little surprised. "Do . . . weepers like this one?" The vast shape of Lord are the prince and princess . . . ?" Constable Avin Brone loomed over him, his beard a "Of course they know," Brone growled. "Who do you gray -black thundercloud. "Are you grizzling because think has bid me bring them out?" of your crimes against the crown, man? That may help "Ah. Yes. Very good, my lord." you with the Trigonate priests, but not with me." Tinwright scrambled to his feet. He was determined to Tinwright blinked away the tears. "No, my lord, sire, I go without trouble. He did not want to be hurt am guilty of nothing." anymore, and he certainly did not want the huge and "Then why are you blubbing?" frightening lord constable to get any angrier. Somehow Tinwright did not think it would be a good idea to mention what the guard had done. That might Despite his terror,Tinwright couldn't help but be 547 548 surprised when Brone and the two soldiers took them what was going on around him. Curse you and your a long, winding way through the back of the great hall gold! Matty Tinwright wanted to scream at him. You and at last into a small but beautifully appointed are like some poison-elf out of a story, bringing bad chapel. One look at the paintings on the wall told him luck to everyone. that it must be the Erivor Chapel itself, dedicated to Figuring the best way to keep himself out of trouble the Eddons' patron sea god, one of the most famous would be to squeeze shut his eyes and mouth and rooms in all of Southmarch. The decor seemed pray to the god of poets and drunkards (even though appropriate in a way, because Gil the potboy had the answer to his last prayer seemed to have led him walked all the way there as slowly and distractedly as to the doorstep of a traitor's cell), he was not aware if he were in water over his head. Tinwright was for a moment that newcomers had entered the room. puzzled to be in such a place, but felt a little better: It was the girl's voice that startled his eyes open. surely they would not just kill him outright, if for no "These two?" other reason than fear of getting blood on the "Yes, Highness." Brone pointed at Gil. "This is the one celebrated wall frescoes. who made the claims. The other says he only wrote it Unless they strangle me. Didn't they used to strangle for him, although I have my doubts - you can see traitors? His heart raced. Traitors! But this is mad - I which one looks more likely to have put the other up am no traitor! I only wrote the letter because that to mischief." criminal Gil blinded me, a poor poet, with his ill-gotten Tinwright had a strong desire to shriek out his gold! innocence, but he was slowly learning how to behave By the time Avin Brone was seated on a long bench in a situation where he had no power. A half dozen that had been set near the altar, Tinwright was almost new people had entered the chapel. Four of them crying again. were royal guards, who had established themselves "Quiet," Brone said. near the door and were exchanging mildly "My lord, I . . . I . . ." contemptuous glances with the lord constable's red- and-gold-clad Land-senders; the other two, he was "Shut your mouth, fool. Do not think that because I astonished to recognize, were King Olin's surviving have sat down I will not get up and hit you. The children, Princess Briony and Prince Barrick. pleasure will be worth the exertion." "Why here?" the fair-haired princess asked.Tinwright Tinwright subsided immediately. The fists sucking out had to look twice to make sure she was the one of the man's lace cuffs were the size of festival loaves. speaking. She was pretty enough in a tall, bony sort of The poet stole a look at Gil, who not only did not seem way - Matty Tinwright liked his women soft, pale, and frightened, but actually seemed mostly unaware of 549 550 round -edged as a summer cloud - but her hair was if either or both of them actually do know something, I loose and she was dressed very strangely in a riding thought it would be better we found out here instead skirt and hose and a long bluejacket like a man's. Her of in front of the entire court." wan, red -ringleted brother was all in black. Tinwright Briony, who had been looking at Tinwright in a way had heard of the prince's perpetual mourning attire, that did not seem entirely unkind - although it did not but it was quite astounding to see Barrick Eddon so appear particularly sympathetic either - suddenly close, as though he were just another drinker in the turned to lantern-jawed Gil. "You. They say you are a Mint - to see both of the young regents here in front potboy at an alehouse in the outer keep. How could of him, as close and as real as could be, as though you know anything other than tavern gossip about Tinwright himself were a court favorite they had come what happened to that Settland caravan?" to visit. A fantasy about it warmed him for a flickering Gil stirred, but he seemed to have trouble fixing his instant. Ah, what bliss that would be, to have royal eyes on her. "I . . . I do not know. I only know that I patrons . . . ! had dreams, and that those dreams showed me "We are here because it is private," Brone said. things." "But you said they were only trying to trick us into "Say, `Your Highness,' scum," Brone snarled. giving them money for false information." Briony waved her hand. "He is I don't know, Tinwright suddenly lost interest in patronage and how simpleminded, I think. Why are we troubling with him the prince and princess were dressed. In fact, he was at all? With either of these two lackwits?" having great difficulty swallowing: it felt as though a Tinwright wished he had the courage to bristle, to hedgehog had crawled into his throat If they decided protest. It was disappointing that the princess seemed that he was guilty of trying to defraud the royal family, to be unaware of his small but growing reputation, but they might very well have his head, at the least, he surely it must be obvious from looking at him that he would be banished to one of the smaller islands or was not of the same mettle as poor Gil. sent to work the fields until he was old, until even a "She's right," said Prince Barrick. He spoke more tinker's skinny wife would not slip him a copper for his slowly and haltingly than reports of his mercurial charming speech (and more physical attentions.) nature would have suggested. "That merchant fellow Trying to swindle the royal family! He pressed his legs probably told everyone in Southmarch what happened tightly together so as not to piss himself in front of the to him. And spread it over half the countryside before Eddon twins. he even got here, as well." "I said that's what I susp ected," Brone replied, "If you look at the letter these two sent us," Brone told patiently ignoring the prince's quarrelsome tone. "But them patiently, "it says, `I can tell you of the Prince of 551 552 Settland's daughter and why she was taken, with her "The ones in black. The walls aflame. And the man guards and her blue dower-stone.' That's why we're with the beard, running, calling you. I know you saw it bothering with these lackwits." . . ." "I don't understand," said the princess. He did not finish because Barrick leaped forward and wrapped his hands around the potboy's neck. "Because the merchant Beck didn't know about the Although Gil was a grown man, he offered no great sapphire the girl was bringing to Earl Rorick as resistance. Barrick shoved the scrawny figure down to part of her dowry. Nobody in the caravan knew, not the floor and climbed onto his chest, shouting, "What even the guards, because her father was afraid of does that mean? How could you know about my theft I only know myself because I received a letter out dreams?" of Settland a few days ago, carried to me by a monk. The prince wrote to ask after his daughter and her "Barrick!" Briony rushed forward and grabbed at his safety, since he had heard disturbing rumors, and he arms. The potboy was not struggling, but his face was specifically mentioned the sapphire she was carrying - turning a terrible, hectic red. "Let go - you'll kill him!" in fact, it seemed almost as important to him as his "How could you know? Who sent you? How could you child, so it is either a very expensive stone or he is a know?" less than doting father. In any case, how . . .?" As Tinwright watched in astonishment, the lord "How can a mere potboy know about the stone?" constable - moving with surprising swiftness for all his Briony finished for him. She turned to Gil. "And you bulk - yanked the boy off the gasping, but still claim this came to you in dreams? What else can you unresisting Gil. "I beg your your pardon, Highness, but tell us?" have you lost your wits?" he demanded. He shook his head slowly. "I have forgotten some of The prince squirmed free of the big man's clutch. what I meant to say, some of the things I heard and Barrick was breathing harshly, as though he had been saw when I was sleeping. I was going to have the one strangled instead of the other way around. Tinwright put it all down in writings for me, but the "Don't say that! Don't you dare say that!" he shouted guards came and took me away from the Quiller's at Brone. "Nobody can speak to me like that!" He Mint." seemed about to cry or to scream again, but instead "So eve n if he did somehow know something," said his face suddenly went stony as a statue. He turned Barrick, his words ripe with disgust, "he doesn't know and walked out the chapel door, although it was a it now." walk that was only one headlong step away from becoming a run. Two of the guards exchanged a "I know you saw the ones in black," Gil told the prince. weary look, then peeled off and followed him. "What?" 553 554 The potboy was sitting up now, wheezing quietly. was relieved when the princess shook her head. "Too bad," Brone told her, "because there is little need for "How could you know about my brother's dreams?" his shiftless sort, and Southmarch already has armies Briony Eddon demanded. of them." Gil took a moment to answer. "I only tell what I saw. "I don't care what you do with the one who wrote the What I hear d." letter." Briony was staring fixedly at Gil; Tinwright had She turned to Brone. "Merciful Zoria preserve me, I an inexplicable twinge of jealousy. "I doubt he has think sometimes I'm going mad - I must be, because anything to do with this matter - the potboy cannot otherwise I can make no sense of the things that write and needed someone to do it. Send the poet happen in this place. Do you understand any of this?" back home and tell him we'll cut his head off if he The lord constable did not answer immediately. "I . . . whispers a word. I need to think." for the most part, I am as puzzled as you, my lady. I Tinwright had suffered a series of glum realizations. If have a few ideas, but I think it unwise to share them in he went back to the Quiller's Mint, he would soon be front of these two." He jabbed his bearded chin toward getting that promised visit from the guard whose Tinwright and the potboy. woman he apparently stole; not only would he be "Well, we must do something about them, that's sure." brutally beaten, but it would be for something he Briony frowned. Tinwright still did not find her couldn't even remember - drinking with Hewney nearly particularly fetching, but something about the princess always ended in oblivion. He could only hope the definitely drew his attention, and it was not just her wench had been pretty although, looking at the guard, fame and power. She was very . . . forceful. Like one he rather doubted it. But since the lord constable had of the warrior goddesses, he thought. confiscated his gold dolphin, he couldn't afford to "Cle arly we must at least keep the potboy until we find move elsewhere. There was no well-heeled lady in his life at the moment to take him in, only Brigid who lived the secret of his knowledge," Brone said, giving the at the Mint. And the cold weather had come. It would poet a spark of hope. Perhaps they would let him go! "Not to mention discovering how he got his hands on be a bad time to live in the streets. that gold dolphin he gave to this so-called po et. I Tinwright was now feeling extremely sorry for himself. suppose I can find a place for the potboy in the guard For a moment he considered concocting a story of his room - he'll be under many eyes there. But I am not own to make himself more useful and important, sure we want this other one gossiping in the taverns pretending that he shared some of the potboy's about what he's seen." Brone frowned. "I imagine you strange knowledge, but one look at the massive Brone won't simply let me kill him." Suddenly breathless, convinced him of the folly of that. For some reason, Tinwright could only hope it was meant as a joke. He Gil actually did know things he shouldn't, but Tinwright 555 556 could summon no such weaponry, even in bluff. He smiled again, although it still had a nasty little curl to it. contemplated the distracted princess and an idea "In fact, as I sit here, fortunate enough finally to be struck him so abruptly that he couldn't help wondering within the radiant glow of your presence instead of if Zosim was trying to make up for the fickle cruelty of worshiping you like the distant moon, I see that my his other gift. He dropped to his knees on the floor. central conceit was even more accurate than I had hoped - that you are indeed . . . indeed. "My lady," he said in his most sincere voice, the one that had kept him in food and drink since he first ran She got tired of waiting. "I am indeed what?" away from home, "Highness, may I beg a favor? It is "The very embodiment of Zoria, warrior goddess and far too much and I am far too lowly, but I beg you at mistress of wisdom." There. He could only hope that least to hear me. he had guessed correctly, that her odd way of She looked at him. That was a first step, at least. dressing and her solicitation of the goddess' mercy "What?" were not chance occurrences. "When I was young, I often dreamed of Perin's courageous daughter, but in "I am a poet, Princess - a humble one, one whose my dreams I was blinded by her glow - I could never gifts have not always been rewarded, but those who truly imagine the heavenly countenanc e. Now I know know me will tell you of my quality." She was losing the true face of the goddess. Now I see her born interest so he hurried ahead. "I came here in fear and again in Southmarch's virgin princess." He suddenly trepidation. My attempt to do a kindness for my simple worried he had gone a bit too far: she didn't look as friend the potboy has caused you and your brother flattered as he had hoped she would, although she pain. I am de vastated." didn't look angry either. He held his breath. She smiled sourly. "If you tell anyone about this, you "Shall I have him beaten before I take him back to that certainly will be devastated." brothel?" Brone asked her. "Please, only hear me, Highness. Only hear your "To tell the truth," Briony said, "he . . . amuses me. I humble servant. Your attention to the cares of the land have not laughed in days, and just now I almost did. have doubtless prevented you from knowing of the That is a rare gift in these times." She looked panegy ric I am writing about you." That, and the fact Tinwright up and down. "You wish to be my poet, do that he had been writing no such thing before this you? To tell the world of my virtues?" moment. He was not sure what was happening, but this was "Panegyric?" not a moment to be wasted on truth of any sort. "Yes, "A tribute to your astonishing beauty." He saw her my lady, my princess, it has always been my greatest expression and quickly added, "And most importantly, dream. Indeed, Highness, your patronage would make to your wisdom and kindness. Your mercy." She 557 558 me the happiest man on earth, the luckiest poet upon appointed poet to the royal court. Eion." "Patronage?" She raised an eyebrow. "Meaning what? · Money?" "Oh, never, my lady!" In due time, he thought. "No, it At first, it seemed that Collum Dyer would be able to would be a boon beyond price if you simply allowed follow the fairy host like a blind man tracking the sun me to observe you - at a distance, of course! - so that despite the confusion of the fogbound forest and the I could better construct my poem. It has already been serpentine inconstancy of the road, the guard set off years in the making, Highness, the chief labor of my in a way that Vansen would have called confident, life, but it has been difficult, composed around a few except that the rest of the man's demeanor spoke of brief glimpses of you at public festivals. If you favor nothing so humble and human as confidence. In fact, me with the chance to witness you even from across a Dyer might have been a sleepwalker, stumbling and crowded room as you bring your wise rule to the murmuring to himself like one of the crazed penitents fortunate people of Southmarch, that would be a that had followed the effigies of the god Kermos from kindness that proves you are truly Zoria reborn." town to town during the days of the Great Death. "In other words, you want a place to stay." For the first Quickly, though, it became clear that if Dyer was a time there was something like genuine amusement in blind man following the sun, that sun was setting. her smile. "Brone, see if Puzzle can find a place for Within what seemed no more than an hour they were him. They can share a room - keep each other staggering in circles. So maddening was the forest- company." maze that Vansen would not even have known that for "Princess Briony . . . !" Brone was annoyed. certain except that Dyer stepped on his own sword "Now I must talk to my brother. You and I will meet belt, which he had lost far back in the day's march. again before sunset, Lord Constable." She started Exhausted, devastated,Vansen sank to the ground toward the door, then stopped, looked Tinwnght up and crouched with his face in his hands, half and down. "Farewell, poet. I'll be expecting to hear expecting that Dyer would go on without him and that ode very soon. I'm looking forward to it." mostly not caring Instead, to his surprise, he felt a As he watched her go, Matty Tinwnght was not quite hand on his shoulder. sure whether this had been the best day of his life or "Where are they, Ferras? They were so beautiful." the worst. He thought it must be the best, but there Despite the dark beard, Collum Dyer looked like was a small, sick feeling m his stomach that surely nothing so much as a child, his eyes wide, his mouth should not be part of the day he had become an quivering. 559 560 "Gone on," Vansen said. "Gone on to kill our friends "Come," said the guardsman, pulling at his arm. "They and families." are going away from us." "No." But what he had said troubled Dyer. "No, they "We can't catch them. We're lost again." Vansen bring something, but not death. Didn't you hear them? pushed down his anger. Whatever the reason that They only take back what was already theirs. That is Collum Dyer's wits were clouded and his own were all they want." not, or at least not as badly, it was not Dyer's fault. "We do have to get out of here, but not to follow the "But there are people living on what was already Twilight People off to war." A few tattered scraps of theirs. People like us." Vansen only wanted to lie duty seemed to be all that held him together. He down, to sleep. He felt as though he had been clutched them tight. "We have to tell the princess endlessly, endlessly swimming in this ocean of trees about this . . . and the prince. We have to tell Avin with no glimpse of shore. "Do you think the farmers Brone." and smallholders will simply get up and move so your Twilight People can have their old lands back? "Yes." Collum nodded. "They will be happy." Perhaps we can pull down Southmarch Castle as well, Vansen groaned quietly and set about looking for build it again in Jellon or Perikal where it won't enough damp sticks to try to make a fire. "Somehow I interfere with them." don't think so." "Oh, no," said Dyer very seriously. "They want the castle back. That's theirs, too. Didn't you hear them?" After a succession of terrible dreams in which he was Vansen closed his eyes but it only made him dizzy. pursued by faceless men through endless mist- He was lost behind the Shadowline with a madman. "I cloaked gardens and unlit halls, FerrasVansen gave heard nothing." up on sleep. He warmed his ha nds beside the fire and "They were singing! Their voices were so fair . . . ?" fretted over their dismal circumstances, but he was Now it was Dyer who squeezed his eyes shut. "They exhausted and without useful ideas: all he could do sang . . . they sang . . ." The child -face sagged again was stare out at the endless trees and try to keep as though he might burst into tears. "I can't remember! from screaming in despair. A child of the countryside, I can't remember what they sang." he had never imagined he could grow to hate something as familiar as a forest, as common as mere That was the first good thing Vansen had heard in trees, but of course nothing here was mere anything. hours. Perhaps Dyer's wits were returning. But why Outwardly familiar - he had seen oak and beech, am I not mad, too? he wondered. rowan and birch and alder, and in the high places Then again, how do I know I'm not? many kinds of evergreen - the dripping trees of this 561 562 damp shadow-forest seemed to have a brooding life hadn't had the luxury of being mad for two days, and to them, a silence both purposeful and powerful. If he had suffered this endless, defeating landscape the half-closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was whole time Collum Dyer had been babbling abo ut the surrounded by ancient priests and priestesses robed glories of the Twilight folk - it began to seem that not in gray and green, tall and stately and not very kindly only would they have to sleep in the forest again, they disposed toward his intrusion into their sacred might never find their way out. They were hopelessly precincts. lost and almost out of food and drink. Vansen did not trust the water in this land's quiet streams, but it When Collum Dyer finally woke, he also seemed to seemed they soon must drink it or die. have awakened from the evil fancy that had gripped his mind. He looked around him, blinking slowly, and Somewhere in the timeless and arbitrary middle of then moaned. "By Perin's Hammer, when will day their day, Vansen spotted a group of figures traveling come in this cursed place?" away from them, struggling along a ridgetop at what looked like half a mile's distance. He and Dyer were "This is as much day as you'll see until we are in our down in a small canyon, hidden by trees, and at first own lands again," Vansen told him. "You should know his strong impulse was to hide until these creatures that by now." were gone. But something about the stockiest of the "How long have we been here?" Dyer looked down at climbing shapes snagged his attention; after a his hands as though they should belong to someone moment, attention turned to incredulous delight. else. "I feel ill. Where are the others?" "By all the gods, I swear that must be Mickael "Don't you remember?" He told the guardsman all that Southstead! I would know his walk anywhere, like he had happened, what they had seen. Dyer looked at had a barrel between his legs." him mistrustfully. Dyer squinted. "You're right. Bless him - who would "I remember none of that. Why would I say such ever have thought I'd be happy to see that old things?" whoreson!" "I don't know. Because this place sends people mad. Energies renewed by hope, they ran until they no Come - if you're feeling like yourself again, let's get longer had the breath for it, then continued the climb moving." up the steep hillside at a slower pace. Dyer wanted to They walked, but even the small idea that Vansen had shout - he was terrified that they would lose their of which direction might lead them back across the comrades again - but Vansen did not want to make Shadowline toward mortal lands quickly failed. As the any more noise than was necessary it already day wore away, with Dyer cursing fate and Vansen seemed as though the very land was disapprovingly biting back his own anger at his companion - he 563 564 aware of them. Dyer had caught them and embraced Mikael Southstead though he had never liked him much. As They reached the top of the ridge at last, staggering Dyer threw his arms around the other two soldiers - up onto the crest and stopping to gasp for breath. Balk and Dawley, it appeared - Southstead turned to When they straightened up, they could see the others Ferras Vansen with a self -satisfied grin. "There you just a few hundred yards ahead along the ridgetop, are, Captain We knew we'd find you." still laboring forward, unaware of Vansen and Dyer. This joyful sight was undercut slightly by the view from Vansen was vastly relieved to see even this small the crest. The forest stretched as far as they could portion of his men alive, b was not quite certain he ut see on all sides with no landmark more recognizable agreed with Southstead's idea of who had found than a few hilltops like the one on which they stood, whom. "I am pleased to see you well," he told jutting up at irregular intervals from the mists that Southstead, then clapped the man on the shoulder. It blanketed the shadow-country like islands in the was a little awkward, but he wanted no embraces. Vuttish archipelago surrounded by the cold northern "Father?" the girl said to him. She looked more ragged sea. than the others, her dress torn and muddy, and her Vansen was still winded, but Dyer sprinted ahead. face had lost the cheer it had possessed even in Now that they were so close, Vansen could see that madness. He had a terrible notion of what might have there were only four other survivors, and that one of happened in his absence, but also knew that there them was the girl Willow. His heart lifted - the idea that was nothing he could do about it, nothing. He he had brought the poor, tortured creature back to the beckoned her toward him. place that had affected her so badly the first time had "I am not your father, Willow," he told her gently. "But I been troubling him in his more lucid moments - but am happy to see you. I am Ferras Vansen, the captain only a little. Far more troubling was the rest of his of these men." missing guardsmen. Until now he had been able to "They wouldn't let me go home, Father," she said. "I convince himself that the rest of the troop was wanted to, but they wouldn't let me." together and looking for them. Now he had to admit Vansen couldn't help shuddering, but when he turned the problem was not simply that Vansen and Dyer had back to the others all he said was, "We will make got themselves lost, but rather that Ferras Vansen, a camp, but not here. Let us move down into the valley captain of the royal guard, had lost most of his men. where we're not so easy to see." The princess was right, he thought bitterly as he started after Dyer. I am not to be trusted with the safety of her family. And I should not have been Between them, Vansen and the remains of his troop trusted with the lives of these men, either. scraped together enough biscuit and dried meat for a 565 566 meager meal, but that was the last of their provisions guardsmen had been completely lost, wandering gone and their waterskms were also nearly empty hopelessly, although Southstead claimed he would Soon they would have to drink from the shadow- have found his way out of the woods, "given a proper streams and perhaps eat shadow-food as well. He chance." The fact that these three guardsmen, none had already had difficulty restraining Dyer from eating of whom Vansen thought of as very clever, had not berries and fruit while they traveled, some of which been driven mad by the magic of the shadow -forest looked quite familiar and wholesome, so how much made him a little more uncertain about his own more difficult would it be now that he had five of them resistance. There seemed to be no reason for who to watch? was completely overcome and who was only buffeted by the strangeness of the place. More disturbing, It quickly became apparent that Southstead and the resistance did not seem to give them the ability to find others had experienced some of the same things as their way out again, but Dyer in his former madness Vansen and Dyer, but not all, the Shadowline had had seemed certain he knew which way to go. crept over them while they slept, and the rest of the men and the merchant Beck apparently went mad As the men argued about who would stand watch, much as Dyer had done, disappearing with the horses Vansen suddenly had an idea: although he still feared and lea ving Southstead, Dawley, Balk, and the girl his men had mistreated the girl Willow, perhaps even Willow stranded on foot. But Southstead and his raped her, he realized he might in his anger have company had not seen the host of the Twilight People misunderstood something she was trying to tell him. on the march, and with the return of his wits Collum She was sitting close to him, not speaking, but clearly Dyer did not truly remember it either, leaving Vansen more comfortable near the man she sometimes as the lone witness. He fancied that the others looked imagined was her father. "You said they would not let at him strangely when he spoke of it, as though he you go home," he said to her quietly. "What do you might have invented it all. mean?" "What would they be doing, Captain?" young Dawley She shook her head, wide -eyed. "Oh, I can see the asked. "I mean, going to war? With whom?" road! I tried to tell them, but they wouldn't listen. The "With us," Vansen said, trying to keep his temper. one who looks like our old bull pup said he knew "With our kind. Which is why we must hope we can where to go and that I should keep my mouth shut." get back to Southmarch with the news before that She slid closer to him. "But you will let me go home. I army of unnatural things gets there." know you will." It also quickly became clear that despite his claim of Vansen almost laughed at the girl's description - the finding Vansen, Southstead and the other two jowly Southstead did indeed look more than a little like 567 568 a bulldog - but what she had said was important. She Vansen, who was closest to him. He took his bow off found her way out of shadow once, he thought, before his shoulder and pulled out one of the two arrows he we found her. He patted her on the head, carefully had saved from the collapse of their mission and the disengaged his hand from hers - she had a good, tight disappearance of the horses and packs. "If it's a deer, grip on it - and stood up. "I'll take first watch," he Captain, I'm going to shoot it. I don't care if it's the announced. "The rest of you play drop-stones or King of Elfland in disguise, I'll eat it anyway." whatever you wish to settle your turns. Tomorrow you Vansen laid a hand on the young soldier's arm as he follow a new leader." nocked the arrow, squeezed the arm hard. "But what if Southstead did not look happy, but he grinned it's Adcock or one of the other guards wandering lost, anyway. "As you wish, Captain, o' course. But you maybe wounded?" Dawley slowly lowered the bow. and Dyer did no better than us." "Good. Take Dyer and Balk and see if you can move in quietly." "I'm not going to be leadi ng," he said. "She will." While Vansen and Southstead and the young woman watched in silence, the men closed in on the thicket. Despite the grumbling of the men, after the little troop Dawley abruptly dove into the deepest part of the had been up and following Willow through the gray undergrowth and Balk clambered in after him. The forest for a few hours Vansen actually saw the moon leaves were rattling, and both Dawley and Balk were for the first time since they had fallen into shadow. It shouting to each other. was only a glimpse when some unfelt wind in the "There! It's running there!" heights scattered the mists for a moment, and he was a little disturbed to think it might be the middle of the "It's a cat!" night when his body had been telling him it was day, "No, it's a bloody ape! But it's fast!" but he still regarded it as a good sign. The girl seemed Dyer waded in last and the three converged. The certain of where she was going, walking on ahead of branches thrashed furiously, then Dyer straightened them in her tattered white dress like a ghost leading up with something the size of a small child struggling travelers to the place of its murder. in his arms.Vansen and the others hurried forward. Perhaps it was hunger - the younger the man, Vansen "Perin's Balls!" swore Vansen. "Don't get scratched, had learned during his time as a guard captain, the Collum.What is it?" more they thought about food - but somewhere during The whining, scratchy cries of the thing as it fought what everyone except Mesiya's pale orb believed was helplessly against the much larger Dyer were the afternoon, Dawley suddenly stopped in his tracks. disturbing enough, but hearing it suddenly speak the "There's something in that thicket," he whispered to 569 570 Common Tongue was terrifying. "Let go me!" it them - it's certainly their subject. It can tell us things." shrilled. He looked around, trying to think of what they could use to bind the creature, which was struggling again in Startled, Dyer almost did let it go, but then he Dyer's grasp. squeezed until it subsided. The guardsman was breathing hard, his eyes wide with fear, but he was "Never," the thing said, the words raw and strangely- holding the thing tightly now. Vansen could shaped. "Never help sunlanders!" A moment later it understand why the others mistook it for an ape or a squirmed abruptly and violently, contorting itself m cat. It was vaguely man-shaped, but long of arm and such a way that it seemed to have no backbone, and short of leg, and was furred all over in shades of gray sank its teeth into Collum Dyer's arm. He screamed in and brown and black. The face was like a demon- pain and surprise and dropped the thing to the mask th at children wore on holidays, although this ground. It scrambled away from them, but one of its demon seemed to be as frightened as they were. legs was clearly lame and dragged behind it. Before Vansen could even open his mouth to shout, young "What are you?" Vansen asked. Dawley took two steps and caught up to it, then "Something cursed," said Southstead, his voice smashed it to the ground with his bow. A moment later cracking. Dyer was there as well, holding his bloody arm The thing stared at the guardsman with what looked against his body as he began to kick the writhing like contempt, then turned its gaze onVansen.The shape. Southstead caught up to them with his sword bright yellow eyes had no white and only. thin black out and his mouth full of angry curses. The other two sideways slits for pupils, like a goat's. "Goblin, am I," it stepped back as he began hacking and hacking. All rasped. "Under-Three-Waters tribe.You dead men, three men were making sounds like dogs baying, all." howls of terror and rage. "Dead men?"Vansen repressed a superstitious shiver. By the time Vansen reached them the goblin was long dead, a bloody tangle of meat and fur on the mossy "She bring white fire. She burn all you houses until only black stones." It made a strange hissing, spitting forest floor, its lantern eyes already going dull. sound. "Wasted, my leg, old and bent. Fell behind. Never I see the beauty of her when she ends you." · "Kill it!" Southstead demanded through clenched teeth. Barrick still refused to see her, but Briony was Vanse n held out a hand to still him. "It was following determined. Her brothers outbursts and anger had the army of the Twilght People. Perhaps it is one of been bad enough before, but now he was truly 571 572 frightening her. He had always been prickly and although there were other times when she would private, but this strangeness about the potboy was stand for hours looking at the handsome, dark-haired something else again. woman who had held the realm together in one of its bleakest hours, wondering what it would be like to She leaned down close to the wide-eyed page, who make such a mark on the world. But today, although had his back against the prince's chamber door as the familiar sight of her other clansmen and though he meant to defend it with his ten-year -old life. clanswomen had not moved her, the pictur e of "Tell my brother that I will be back to speak with him Sanasu, Kellick Eddon's queen, caught her eye. after the evening meal. Tell him we unll speak." It was unusual for Briony to give the portrait more than As she walked away, she heard the page hurriedly a glance. What little she knew of Queen Sanasu was open the door and then almost slam it closed behind dreary, of her painfully long years of mourning after him, as though he had just escaped from the cage of the great King Kellick died, an obsessively silent, a lioness. solitary widowhood that had made her a phantom to Are there people here who fear me as much as they her own court. So detached had Sanasu become in fear Brone? As they fear Barrick's moods? It was an the last half of her life, family stories related, that the odd thought. She had never conceived of herself as business of the kingdom had fallen entirely to her son frightening, although she knew she was not always years before he became king in fact, something that patient with what she deemed foolishness or dithering. made the responsible Briony loathe the woman Zoria, virgin warrior, Zona of the cunning hands, give without knowing anything more about her. But today, me the strength to be gentle. The prayer reminded her even as absorbed in worries as she was, Briony could of that fool of a poet, and her sudden whim. Why had not help staring at something in the likeness she had she decided to keep such a creature around? Just to never really noticed before. Sanasu looked very much annoy Barrick and the lord constable? Or because like Barrick - or rather Barrick, her many-times-great she truly did enjoy even such ridiculous flattery' grandson, looked much like Sanasu, which was Her mind muddled with these thoughts, she walked accentuated by the black mourning garb they both favored. And these days, with his pallor and striking, down the long hall beneath the portraits of her haunted eyes accentuated by his bout with the fever, ancestors living and dead, her father and her grandfather Ustm and her great-grandfather, the third Barrick looked more like the long-dead queen than ever. Anglin, without really seeing them. Even the picture of Queen Lily, scourge of the Gray Companies and the Briony stood on her toes for a better look, wishing the most famous woman in the history of the March light in the ancient hall were better. The artist who had Kingdoms, could not hold her attention today, made the portrait had no doubt prettified his queen, 573 574 but even so, the Sanasu in the picture had the almost had slowed again, "what are you doing?You startled transparent look of someone very ill, which only made me out of my wits, creeping up like that." her red hair even more shocking, like a bloody wound. "I am sorry, Princess, very sorry I just I was waiting for She also seemed astonishingly young for someone you " He seemed to be considering whether he should who had lost her husband in middle age Her face was get down onto one extremely creaky knee. odd in other ways, too, although it was hard to say Briony reminded herself of her own prayer for Zonan exactly why. patience. "Don't apologize, I will live What is it, I can see Father's eyes in her, too, and his coloring. Puzzle?" Briony suddenly wished she knew more about great "I . . . it is just . . ." He looked as anxious as Barricks Kellick's widow. The portrait made Sanasu look page. "I am told that someone will share my room." mysterious and foreign. Briony couldn't recall being She took a breath. Patience Kindness. "Is that too told anything about where the melancholy queen had much trouble? It was a sudden thought. I'm sure we come from before marrying Kelhck, but whatever can find somewhere else to put this newcomer. I distant land might have spawned her, it had now been thought he might be company for you." part of the family heritage for centuries. Briony was suddenly struck by how the blood of the Eddons, her "A poet?" Puzzle couldn't seem to grasp the own blood, was like a great river, with things connection. "Well, we will see, Highness. It is possible appearing and disappearing and then appearing we will get on. Certainly I do not speak to many again. And not just looks, but moods and habits and people since . . . since your father has gone. And ruling passions, too, she thought Queen Sanasu had since my friend Robben died. It might be nice to have famously stopped talking to those around her and . . ." He blinked his rheumy eyes. It was possible that exi led herself to Wolfstooth Spire, so that she was her father Olin was the only person on the continent of seen by only a few servants and became all but Eion who had ever found Puzzle amusing, or at least invisible for the two or three decades before her death amusing in the way the jester tried to be. What must it Was that what was in store for her moody, beloved be like, she wondered, to be supremely unfitted for Barrick? your life's work? Even if she was impatient with him now, Briony couldn't help regretting the way she and That ghastly thought, and the continuing fascination of Barrick had teased the bony old fellow all these years. Sanasu's white, otherworldly face, had grasped Briony's interest so firmly that she nearly screamed "If it turns out not to your liking, tell Nynor and he will when the ancient jester Puzzle stepped out of the find the poet some other place. Thinwight, or whatever shadows nearby. his name is, is young and should be agreeable. Bad poets need to be agreeable." She nodded. "Now I "By the gods, fellow," she demanded when her heart 575 576 have much to do . . ." was bareheaded, but the gesture was so familiar she could almost hear the tinkle of his belled cap. "That is "My lady," the old man said, still having trouble not what I wanted to tell you, Highness. When Lord meeting her eyes, "it was not that which I wished to Brone asked me abo ut that night, I told him what I speak about - well, not as much." remembered, but I forgot something. I think it is "What else?" because I was so disturbed by what Prince Kendrick "I have a very great worry, my lady. Something that I had said - a hard blow for someone who has devoted have remembered, and that I fear I should have told his life to the pleasure of the Eddons, you must admit . earlier." He stopped to swallow. It did not look easy for . ." him. "I think you know I visited your brother on the "Whatever the reason, what did you forget?" Gods night of his death. That he called for me after supper defend me! He certainly does test a person's and I came to his chamber to entertain him." patience. "Brone told me, yes." She was alert now. "As I left the residence, I saw Duke Gailon walking "And that I left before Lord Shaso came." toward me. I was in the main hall, so it did not occur to me he might be going to see your older brother and I "Yes? So? By the gods, Puzzle, don't make me work it out of you word by word!" did not mention it to the lord constable after . . . that terrible event. But I have been thinking and thinking - He winced. "It is just . . . your brother, may the gods sometimes I lay awake at night, worrying - and I think grant his soul peace, sent me away that night. He was now that he was walking the wrong direction to be . . not kind. He said that I was not diverting, that I going to his own chambers. I think he might have never was - that my tricks and jests only made him been going to see Prince Kendrick." He bowed his feel . . . made him feel even more that life was head. "I have been a fool." wretched." Briony didn't bother to reassure him. "Let me Kendrick had only told the truth, but she knew he must understand this. You are saying that you saw Gailon have been distressed indeed to be rude to old Puzzle Tolly heading toward the residence as you were Her older brother had always been the most mannerly leaving. And you saw nothing of Shaso?" of the family. "He was unhappy," she told him. "It was "Not that night, but I went straight to my bed from an unhappy night. I am sure those were not his true thoughts. He was worried about me, remember, about there. Are you very angry, Highness? I am an old man, and sometimes I fear I am becoming a witling . . the ransom for the king and whether he should send ." me away." The jester shook his head in confusion and defeat. He "Enough. I will have to think about this. Have you told 577 578 anyone else?" "Only you. I . . . I believed you would ." He shook his 23 head again, unable to say what he believed. "Shall I go to tell the lord constable?" "No." She had said it too forcefully. "No, I think for now The Summer Tower you should tell no one else. This will be our secret." "You will not put me in the stronghold?" SLEEPERS: "I suspect that sharing a room with that poet fellow will be punishment enough. You may go, Puzzle." Long after the old man had tottered away she Feet of stone, legs of stone remained, standing beneath the pictures of her Heart of aromatic cedar, head of ice forebears, thinking. Face turned away - from The Bonefall Oracles He practically had to fight his way through the women to get to her. The physician could feel their resentment, as though . he were some long-absent lover who had put this baby in her and then left her shamed and alone. But the king is the father here, not me, and Olin is not absent by choice. Queen Anissa had grown so round in the belly that it made the rest of her slight frame seem even smaller. Seeing her in the center of the bed, surrounded by gauzy curtains like trailing cobwebs, he had a momentary image of her as a she-spider, gravid and still. It was unfair, of course, but it set him thinking. "Is that Chaven?" To make room for him, she pushed away one of her small dogs, which had been sleeping against the curving side of her stomach like a rat 579 580 dreaming of stealing a hippogriff's egg. The dog sure. Didn't I, Selia? Where has she gone? Has she blinked, growled, then stumbled down to join its gone for seeing why I have no breakfast yet? Aah! companion who snored near her feet. "Come here, Must you poke me so, Chaven?" quickly. I think I will give birth at any moment." "Just wishing to be certain that you are well, that the From the look of her, she might have been right. He baby is well." He let his hands move across the drum- was surprised by the dark circles under her eyes. In taut arc of her stomach. The old midwife was still this room of draped windows, the only light an staring at him in a way that was a little less than unsteady glow from the candle-studded altar, she friendly. "What do you think, Mistress Hisolda? The looked as though she had been beaten. queen seems well enough to me, but you have more experience with such things." "You need more air in this bedchamber." He took her hand and gave it a quick, formal kiss.The skin was dry The old woman showed a crooked smile, perhaps and warm - a little too much of both. "And you look like recognizing his gambit. "She is stronger than she you aren't getting enough sleep, my queen." looks, though the baby is a big one." "Sleep? Who could sleep in such a time? Poor Anissa sat up. "That is just what I am feared of! He is Kendrick murdered in our own house by a trusted big, I can tell-how he kicks! On e of my sisters died servant, and then plague all through the town? Do you birthing such a child - they saved the baby, but my wonder I keep the windows covered to keep out bad sister died all . . . washed in blood!" She made a airs?" southern sign against evil happenstance. She was afraid, of course, Chaven could see that, but there Calling Shaso a trusted servant seemed an interesting was also a hint of falsity to h words, as though she er way of characterizing him, and the fact that she had played up her fear in hopes of sympathy. But why not counted her husband's absence in her list of shouldn't she? It was a frightening business, worries might also have been thought strange, but childbirth, especially the first time. Anissa was already Chaven did not respond to her words. Instead, he well past twenty winters, he reminded himself, not yet busied himself examining the queen's heartbeat and in the time of danger for first mothers but certainly the color of her eyes and gums, then leaned in to past her prime according to all the learned men who smell her breath, which at the moment was a little had written about it. sour. "The plague is all but spent, Highness, and I imagine you were in far greater danger from your own This was also the first time Chaven had heard her maid when she had it than from it floating in from the refer to the baby as "he." The royal physician did not town." doubt that the midwife and her coven of helpers had been at work, perhaps dangling a pendulum over "And I sent her away until she was better, you can be 581 582 Anissa's stomach or reading splatters of candle wax. "You look nothing of the sort, Highness." "If I order you a medicinal draught, will you promise to "My husband's children think I am. A monster." drink it every night?" He turned to Hisolda. "You will Chaven was surprised. "That is not true, my queen. have no trouble finding the constituents, I'm sure." Why would you say such a thing?" The old woman raised her eyebrow. "If you say so, "Because they do not come to see me. Days go by, Doctor." weeks, and I do not see them. " When she was "But what is it, Chaven? Is it another one of your excited her accent grew thicker. "I do not think they binding potions that will turn my bowels to stone?" will love me like a mother, but they treat me like a "No, just something to help you sleep. The baby will serving maid." be strong and hearty, I am sure, and so will you be if "I don't believe Princess Briony and Prince Barrick feel you do not sit up nights frightening yourself! He that way at all, but they are much occupied," he said stepped over to the midwife and listed the ingredients gently. "They are regents now, and many things are and their proportions - mostly wild lettuce and happening. chamomile, nothing too strong. "Every night at "Like that handsome young Summerfield. I heard. sundown," he told the old wo man. He was beginning Something bad has happened to him. Didn't I say that, to doubt that flattery worked on her, so he tried Hisolda? When I heard he left the castle, I said another tack, the truth. "I am a little frightened to see `Something is not right there,' didn't I?" her so restless," he whispered. "Yes, Queen Anissa." "What are you saying?" Anissa moved herself heavily Chaven patted her hand. "I know nothing for certain of toward the edge of the bed, disturbing the dogs and Gailon Tolly except that there are many rumors. But setting them growling. "Is something wrong with the rumors are not to be trusted, are they? Not in a child?" household already so upset by death and your "No, no." He came back to her side, took her hand. husband's absence." "As I said, Highness, you are frightening yourself She grabbed his hand again. "Tell them," she said. without need. You are well and the child is well. The "Tell them to come to me." plague seems to have passed us by, praise to Kupilas, Madi Surazem, and all the gods and "You mean the prince and princess?" goddesses who watch over us." She nodded. "Tell them that I cannot sleep because She let go of his hand, touched her face. "I have not they shun me - that I do not know what I have done so been out of this place so long - I must look a dreadful they are angry with me?" monster." Chaven resolved to pass the message along in a 583 584 slightly less heated form. It might be useful to think I'm beginning to feel too sorry for him I thought it convince the twins to come and visit their stepmother would do the two of us good to have someone new to before the child arrived, for any number of reasons. make fun of. Which reminds me, Puzzle came to me when I was leaving your room earlier today. Told me He removed his hand, disguising the escape as that on the night Kendrick was killed, he saw Gailon in another kiss across her knuckles, then bowed and the hallway." bade her farewell. He suddenly found that he wanted to be alone to think. Barrick frowned. He seemed not just sleepy but a little dazed. "Kendrick saw Gailon . . . ?" "No, Puzzle saw Gailon." She quickly repeated what The little page had been roused from his pallet on the the old jester had told her. floor and sent to make his bed anew in the outer chamber. They were finally alone. "He has heard that Gailon has disappeared," Barrick said dismissively. "That is all. He wishes to be "What's troubling you so?" Briony sat down on the remembered as denouncing him if it turns out that edge of the bed. "Talk to me." Gailon is a traitor." Her brother pulled the fur lap robe up across his chest "I don't know. Puzzle never bothered with politicking and huddled deeper into the blankets. It was not a before." warm night, not with true winter on the doorstep and Orphan's Day less than a month away, but Briony did "Because Father was here to protect him." Barrick's not find the room particularly cold. Is he still suffering expression suddenly changed into something vague, with that fever? It had been at least a tennight but she distant. "Do you like him?" knew some fevers did not loose their grip for a long "Who?" time, or came back again and again. "The poet. He is handsome. He speaks well." "Why did you say that idiot poet could stay in the "Handsome? I suppose, in a prettified sort of way. He household?" has an absurd beard. But that is certainly not why I "He amused me." Was she going to have to discuss it said he could . . ." She realized she had been led with everyone? "In truth, I thought he might amuse astray again. "Barrick, I don't want to waste any more you, too. He tried to convince me he was writing an breath on that callow fool. If you dislike the poet so epic poem about me - a `pangegync,' whatever that is. much, give him some money and send him away, I Comparing me to Zona hersele. The gods alone know don't care. I'm convinced he's nothing to do with the what he'll compare you to Perin, probably . . . no, greater matter. Which is what we're going to talk Erivor in his seahorse chariot." She tried to smile. about." "After all, Puzzle isn't as diverting as he used to be - I 585 586 "I don't want to." He spoke with all the dolefulness that interesting in it about me?" he had made his art. Briony wondered if other siblings She stopped, confused. "Anything . . . no. No. He sent felt this way, sometimes loving and hating at the exact you his love. He said to tell you his health had been same moment. Or was it only twins, so close that it good." often seemed she had to wait for Barrick to breathe He shook his head. His face was grim, as though he before she could get air into her own lungs? were stepping out onto some narrow prominence, "You will talk. You almost killed that potboy Why, trying not to look down at a great distance opening Barrick?" When he didn't reply, she leaned across the before him. "You don't understand." bed and clutched his arm. "Zoria preserve us, this is "How can I? Talk to me! Tell me what has you so me! Me! Briony! Kendrick is dead, Father is gone - we upset.You tried to kill an innocent man . . . !" only have each other." "Innocent? That potboy's no man, he's a demon. He He looked at her from beneath his lashes like a saw into my dreams, Briony. He spoke about them in frightened child. "You don't really want to know. You front of you and Brone and that mongrel quill-carver!" just want me to behave well. You just hate it that I Despite the chill, Barrick had a thin sheen of sweat on embarrassed you in front of Brone and . . . and that his forehead. "He is probably talking about them still to poet." anyone who'll listen. He knows. He knows!" He turned She blew out breath in exasperation. "That's not true. and rammed his face against the cushion. His You are my brother. You're . . you're nearly the other shoulders heaved. half of me." She found his eye and held it, but it was "Knows what?" She grabbed at his arm with both like trying to keep a skittish animal from bolting. "Look hands and shook him. "Barrick, what have you done?" at me, Barrick. You know that's not what happened. He turned, eyes damp, red-rimmed. "Done? Nothing. The potboy said something about . . . about dreams. Not yet." About your dreams. Then you tried to throttle him." "I can't make any sense of this at all." She combed a "He had no right to talk about me that way." tangle of damp red hair back offhis brow with her " What way, Barrick?" fingers. "Just talk.Whatever is -wrong, you're still my He pulled the blankets even tighter, still deciding. "You brother. I'll still love you." said you read the letter from Father again," he said at He let out a snort of disbelief but the storm had last. "Did you notice anything interesting?" passed. He let his head fall back on the cushion and "About the Autarch? I already told you . . ." stared up at the timbered ceiling. "I'll tell you what "No, not about the Autarch. Did you notice anything Father's letter said. `Tell Barrick that he should be 587 588 glad for me. Although I am a captive, my health has "Of course " Locked out, the guards had only been actually been much better this last half year. I almost able to rouse the king by banging on the door until he think it has done me good to get away from the damp came to open it, blinking like an owl and wiping at northern airs.' That's what he wrote." sleepy eyes. "I . . . I think he cried. He didn't want anyone to see him weeping. Over our mother." Briony shook her head. "What, do you think he means that he is happier being away from us - from you? He Barrick showed a strange, tight-lipped smile. is jesting, Barrick. Trying to make light of a terrible "Weeping? Maybe. But not over our mother." situation . . ." "What . . . what do you mean?" "No. No, he's not. Because you don't know what he's He glanced up at the ceiling and took a few deep talking about and I do." The fire in him had died down. breaths, as though he were not merely standing on He closed his eyes. "Do you remember the nights some high, lonely place but preparing to jump. "I . . . I when Father couldn't sleep? When he would go to the went there one night. I had a nightmare. I think I must Tower of Summer and sit up all night with his books?" even have been walking in my sleep - it might have She nodded. The first few times Olin's ability to slip been the first time - because I woke up outside his away had been the cause of much alarm around the chamber and I was very frightened and I wanted him residence, until his family and the guards had learned to . to tell me things would be all right I went in and he to look for him in his library in the tower. The king had wasn't there, even though his servants were all there, returned each time from these midnight excursions sleeping I knew he must be in his library So I went out with an embarrassed air, as if he had been found in of the residence by that back chapel door so the drunken sleep on the throne-room floor. Briony had guards wouldn't stop me. It was near Midsummer, I always believed that it was thoughts of his dead wife think - I only remember it was warm and it felt so that tormented him so badly on those nights that he strange being out in the courtyard in my nightshirt and could not sleep: he always spoke of their mother bare feet. I felt like I could go anywhere - -just walk Meriel as though he had loved her very much, even where I wanted to, even walk to another country, as though the marriage had originally been arranged by though the moon would stay up and bright as long as his father, King Ustin, when Olin and Meriel, the the journey would take, and that when I woke up daughter of a powerful Brennish duke, wer e both very there, I would be a different person." He shook his young. Everyone in the household knew that her head. "It was a full moon, very big I remember that, death had been a hard, hard blow for him. too." "And you remember that he would always bar the "How long ago was this?" door?" "The year that part of the roof fell off Wolfstooth. And 589 590 the cook with the skinny arms died and we weren't his shoulders heaved and he took in a ragged gasp of allowed to go in the kitchen all spring." air. He was sobbing. "Ten years ago. You mean the year . . . the year you "Barrick, what is it? What happened?" She climbed up hurt your arm." onto the bed and wrapped her arms around him. His muscles were as tight as the cording on a knife hilt He nodded slowly. She could sense that he was and he trembled as though in the full grip of fever balancing something, trying to decide. She tried to sit again. "Are you ill?" quietly, but her heart was beating fast and she was unexpectedly frightened. "Don't . . . ! Don't talk. I want . . ." He sucked in another rough breath. "He opened the door. Father "The downstairs door was locked, but the key was still opened the door. He . . . he didn't recognize me. I in the other side and he hadn't turned the lock all the don't think he did, anyway. His eyes . . . ! Briony, his way. It popped open when I wiggled the latch, then I eyes were wild, wild like an animal's eyes! And his went up the steps all the way to the library. There shirt was off and he had scratches on his belly - were no guards at the tower, no one there at all. I bleeding. He was bleeding. He took one look at me didn't think it was strange while it was happening - the and then grabbed me, pulled me into the library. He whole night seemed like a dream, not just that - but I was talking nonsense - I couldn't understand a word - should have wondered why he'd sent them away, or and he was pulling at me, growling at me. Like an slipped away from them, just to be by himself. But I animal! I thought he was going to kill me. I still think wouldn't have wondered long. When I reached the it." door, I could . . . hear him." "Merciful Zoria!" She didn't know what to believe. The "Was he crying?" world was upside down. She felt like she had been Barrick took a moment to answer. "Crying, yes. thrown from Snow's saddle and all the air had been Making all kinds of noises, although I could barely knocked out of her chest. "Are you . . . could you have hear them through the door. Laughing, it almost dreamed it . . . ?" sounded like. Talking. At first I thought he was having His face was twisted with pain and rage. "Dreamed it? an argument with someone, then I thought perhaps he That was the night my arm was crippled. Do you think was asleep and having a nightmare, just like the one I dreamed that?" that had woken me up. So I knocked on the door. Quietly at first, but the noises on the other side just "What do you mean? Oh, by all the gods, that was went on. So I banged on it with my fists and shouted, when it happened?" `Father, wake up!'Then he opened the door." For a "I broke away from him. He chased me. I was trying to moment it seemed Barrick would continue, but instead get to the door but I kept tripping over books, knocking 591 592 over piles of them. He had every book in the library on to slide out of her arms, but she held on. "No, Briony. the floor, stacked up like towers, with candlesticks on He was not drunk. You haven't heard the rest, top of each one. I must have knocked over half a although I'm sure you won't want to believe me." dozen trying to get away - I still don't know why that She didn't want to hear any more, but she was afraid wretched tower didn't burn down that night. I wish it to let Barrick go, afraid that if she did he would had. I wi sh it had!" He was breathing hard now, like somehow fly away like that half-tamed pigeonhawk someone near the end of a race. "I got to the door at she had lost when its creance snapped and it had last. He kept chasing me, growling and cursing and gone spiral -mg out from her, never to return. She talking nonsense. He grabbed me at the top of the tightened her grip so that for a moment they were stairs and tried to pull me back to the library again. I . . almost wrestling, rucking the covers around Barrick's . I bit him on the hand and he let go. I fell down the legs until he gave up trying to escape her. "I have stairs. always had nightmares," he said at last, quietly. "When I woke up, it was the next day and Chaven was "Dreamed that there were men watching me, men setting the bones of my arm - or trying to. I could made of smoke and blood, following me all through barely think from the pain, and from the way my skull the castle, waiting to catch me alone so they could had been rattled when I fell. C haven said that Father steal me away, or somehow make me one of them. At had found me at the foot of the steps in the Tower of least, I always believed they were dreams. Now, I'm Summer, which was probably true, that he had carried not so certain. But after that night, I began to have me to Chaven himself, crying over my injuries, one that's worse than the others. Always him - his begging him to heal me. That was probably true, too. face, but it isn't h face. It's a stranger's face. When is But Chaven says that Father brought me to him at he came after me, he looked . . . like a beast." dawn, which means that I had been left lying there the "Oh, my poor Barrick . . ." rest of the night. The story told was that I had come "You may want to be more careful with your looking for him and had fallen down the stairs in the sympathies." His voice was partially muffled by the dark." cushion. He seemed to have grown smaller in her Briony could barely think. Like Barrick on that night, arms, curled into himself. "You remember I was in bed she was in a waking nightmare. "But . . . Father? Why for weeks. Kendrick came to bring me things, you would he do such a thing to you? Had he . . . was he came and played with me every day, or tried to . . ." drunk?" It was hard to imagine her abstemious father "You were so quiet and pale. It frightened me." drinking himself into that kind of roaring, black mood, "It frightened me, too. And Father came, but he never but nothing else made sense. stayed more than a few moments. Do you know, I Barrick was still shaking, but only a little now. He tried 593 594 might even have believed it had all been a nightmare - "Be quiet and listen!" he said fiercely. "It is a madness that I really had just been sleepwalking and then fell that Father has. It came on him when he was a young down the steps - except for the way he could not be man - first as terrible dreams, later as a restless, around me without fidgeting and avoiding my eyes. monstrously angry spirit that, on the nights when it Then, one day, when I was finally up and limping takes him, grows so strong it cannot be resisted. He around the household instead of confined to that has it and one of his uncles had it. It is a family curse. cursed bed, he called me into his chambers. `You He told me that it had grown so strong in him that remember, don't you?' was the first thing he said. I although months might go by and it remained absent, nodded. I was almost as frightened then as the night it on the nights he felt it coming back he could only lock happened. I thought I was the one who had done himself away to rage by himself. That was how I had something terribly wrong, although I wasn't sure what found him." it was. I half thought he might try to murder me again "A family curse . . . ?" or have me thrown in the stronghold to rot in a cell. He showed her a bitter smile. "Fear not. You don't Instead he burst into tears - I swear it's true. He have it and neither did Kendrick.You are the lucky wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him ones - the yellow-haired ones. Father told me that he and kissed my head, all the time crying so hard that had studied the Eddon family histories, and that he he got my hair wet. He was hurting my arm badly, had never found any trace of the curse in any of the which was tied up in a sling. Once I stopped being fair-haired children. Only the gods know why. You are frightened, I hated him. If I could have killed him at the golden ones, in more ways than one." that moment, I would have." "But you have . . ." She suddenly understood. Again, it "Barrick!" was like being struck a hard blow. "Oh, Barrick, you "You wanted the truth, Briony. This is what it looks are afraid you might have this, too?" like." He finally wriggled himself free of her. "He told "Might have it? No, Sister, I already do. The dreams me that he had done a terrible thing and begged my started even earlier for me than they did for Father." forgiveness. I took him to mean that chasing me so "You had a fever . . . !" that I fell down the stairs and shattered my arm, crippling myself so that I could never play or ride or "Long before the fever." He let out a shaky breath. draw a bow like the other boys was the terrible thing, "Although, since then, they have been worse. I wake but as he clutched me and talked I began to up in the night cold with sweat, thinking only of killing, understand that the terrible thing he had done was to of blood. And since the fevers, I . . . I see things, too. sire me in the first place." Waking, sleeping, it almost makes no difference. I am watched. The house is full of shadows." "What?" 595 596 She was stunned, helpless. She had never felt so distant from him, and for Briony that was a shocking, The mists had grown so thick that they all had to raw feeling, as though a part of her own body had travel like blind pilgrims, each one clinging to the one been torn away. "I hardly know what to say - this is all before him and being clung to in turn. Only the girl so strange! But . . . but even if Father has some . . . Willow who led them was not hung between two madness, he still has managed to be a good man, a fellows front and back. She walked more slowly now loving father. Perhaps you are worrying too . . ." in the smothering whiteness, but still with purpose, Again he interrupted her. "A loving father who threw always forward. me down the stairs. A loving father who told me he Dab Dawley had hold of Vansen's cloak. Sound was should never have sired me." His face was stony. confused in the mist and it was sometimes hard to "You have not been listening very carefully. It started hear even words spoken in a loud voice by a man a early in me. My madness won't be mild, like Father's - few yards away, butVansen thought the young a few days a year when he must shut himself away guardsman might be whimpering. from the rest of mankind. That is what he meant in the They had slept two times and walked for most of the letter, do you see now? That he has not suffered waking hours between those sleeps, yet still had badly from the madness since he has been captive. It found no end to the terrible forest. Ferras Vansen did is nothing to do with making jokes, he was talking to not have the sense they were walking in circles in the me about something ugly we both share - our tainted aimless way he and Collum Dyer did before, but he blood. But his will seem mild next to mine. Mine will was still disheartened that two days' march had not grow and grow until you have no choice but to lock me taken them back to the fields of men. away in a cage like a beast - or to kill me." I could be that even if we're not going in circles, we've "Barrick!" turned the wrong direction. Perhaps I've trusted in the "Go away, Briony." He was weeping again, but without girl too much. The moon, after an initial appearance much movement this time and with his eyes half shut: when they were setting out, had been as scarce as the tears came out of some deep, hard place, like the sun. But perhaps we are going in the right water through a cracked stone. "You know what you direction, only the Shadowline has continued to came to learn. I don't want to talk anymore." spread. It was a hard, chill thought. Perhaps all the "But I . . . I want to help you." lands everywhere are now truly under shadow. "Then leave me alone." "Are you sure you know where home is?" he whispered to the girl when they were all standing together on a shelf of rock above what sounded like · 597 598 either a quiet stream just beneath them or a very yanking Vansen's thoughts back to the damp, mist- noisy one far below. Whatever the distance stretching shrouded hillside where the company was resting. beneath them, they were taking no chances; they "I heard nothing. What was it?" leaned back against the cliff face side by side as they "A tapping sound - there it is again! It sounds like . . . rested. like claws clicking on stone." She smiled at him. Her thin, dirty face was weary, but A thought that would make no one any happier, some of the early expression of almost religious Vansen knew. He himself could not hear it, but ecstasy had worn away, along with some of the fear Dawley had by far the sharpest ears of any of them. and confusion."! will find it. They have just dragged it "Let's move on, then," Vansen said, doing his best to far away." keep his voice calm. "Willow? We need you to lead us "Dragged what?" again, girl." Willow shook her head. "Trust in the gods. They see "Lead us where, I'm asking?" said Southstead. "Right through all the darkness.They see your good works." into the nest of some great cave bear or something And my bad ones, Vansen couldn't help thinking. The like." two days or however long it had been, struggling step "None of that," Dyer told him sharply. They had found by slow step through the murk, had left him much time something a little like military discipline again, but it to brood on his failures of command. Now that the was fragile. worst shock of losing most of his company had worn They moved carefully along the narrow trail. Vansen down to a persistent, painful ache, he felt almost as held onto the girl's tattered shift only lightly, wanting to wretched about losing the merchant's nephew, be able to move his arms quickly if he stumbled and Raemon Beck. He couldn't help seeing Beck's lost his balance. The unknown distance to the side of miserable face in his mind's eye Hie poor fellow was them began to feel even more frightening as they certain something like this would happen - that we hurried along. In his imagination, Vansen could almost would drag him back into shadow, that he would meet feel the invisible bottom of the ravine grow deeper, his doom here. And it seems he was right. But dropping away from them like water running out of a perhaps Raemo n Beck and the other guardsmen were leaky bucket. alive, merely lost as he and Dyer had been lost. "There's something there!" shouted Balk, the last in Perhaps he might even discover them before leaving line; his voice seemed to come to them down a long the shadowlands. It was something to cling to, a hope tunnel. "Up there! Behind us!" to make the bleak hours a little less haunting. Vansen tightened his grip on the girl's smock and "What's that?" Dawley said in a sharp whisper, 599 600 turned to look back. For a moment he could see it young guardsman grunt something he could not quite coming along the top of the cliff face behind them, a make out. "Try to get a shot if you can see it well grotesque, drawn -out shape like a scarecrow going on enough." four legs, but more tattered and less comprehensible, Vansen scrambled up the path behind the girl, doing then it reared up to an unbelievable height, stiltlike his best to lean in toward the hillface despite every legs pawing, before the mist folded around it again. screaming sense telling him to lean back, away from Terror set his heart rattling in his chest. "Perin save the reaching arms of the thing that stalked just up the us! Faster, girl!" slope. Behind him the men had become a disorganized rout, but he did not know what else to She did her best, but the trail was narrow and do; to make them try to continue walking while holding untrustworthy. The men behind him were cursing and onto each other and their weapons would be to invite even sobbing. Gravel slid from beneath Vansen's feet. disaster. They needed to find their way to some open Now he could hear the thing just above them, clicking space where Dawley's bow and their swords might and scratching like the armored claws of a crab save them. dragging across the we t rock between tide-pools. The He staggered and put his foot down on loose soil, mists had grown thicker. He could barely see the girl then windmilled his arms to keep from tipping out into moving before him as she climbed a short rise, even the misty invisibility behind him. As he regained his though he was still clinging to her hem. A shower of footing, another scrabbling noise came from behind stones fell between them and he looked up to see a him, then a strange wooden creaking and a sudden dark and indistinct shape loom out of the curtaining screech from one of the men - a sound of such naked fogs only half a dozen yards above. If that was the animal terror that he could not even tell who was thing's head, it was misshapen as the stump of a making it. He turned, blade held high, to see the huge twisted tree. For a moment he could hear it breathe, a thing had lunged downward out of the fogs like a deep, scratchy wheeze, as a scrabbling leg probed spider gliding down a web.The men around it were down the roc k face. Vansen let go of Willow's garment screaming and hacking away. In the instant it was so he could draw his sword, but the ragged limb among them, it still had no semblance or shape of stopped short. The thing was still too far above them. anything he could understand - spindly arms long as It drew back into the mists. tree branches, hanging rags of skin or fur almost like "Go - quick as you can to open ground!" he told the singed parchment. It was a madness, an obscenity. girl, then turned to shout back to the others. "Let go For an instant only he saw in the chaos what seemed and draw your swords, but don't get separated! to be a sagging hole of a mouth and a single empty Dawley, do you have arrows still?" He heard the black eye, then the huge thing went scuttling 601 602 backward up the cliff face with a kicking, shrieking "Hit it?" bundle clutched in its folding limbs. Beside him, "You shot at it. I want to know what happened, in case Dawley curse d and wept as he loosed a single arrow it comes back. Did you hit it?" at the shape, then it disappeared into the mists again. "I wasn't trying to hit it, Captain." Dawley wiped at his It had taken Collum Dyer. face with the back of his hand. "I wa s . . . was trying to kill Collum . before it took him away. But I couldn't see They staggered now in silence, Vansen choked with if . . . if I . . ." despair. The thing had caught what it wanted and they Vansen closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back did not see it again, but it was as though it had tears of his own. He put his hand on the young reached down and plucked their hearts away with guardsman's quivering shoulder. "The gods grant you their comrade. Vansen had known Collum Dyer since made a good shot, Dab." he first came to Southmarch. He found his thoughts turning helplessly again and again to that moment, to · Dyer's screams. Once he had to stop and be sick, but there was little in his stomach to vomit out. When they finally reached the edge of the cliff path So bleak and quiet was the company, so defeated, they stopped, gasping for breath as though they had that when Vansen saw the moon again he didn't been running at uttermost speed, although they had speak of it, not wanting to raise hopes that had been spent most of the hour since the attack barely at so often dashed. But after an hour more trudging walking pace. Mickael Southstead and Balk were gray silently behind the girl he could not ignore the fact that with fear; they knelt on the ground, praying, although the mists were clearing. The moon was not alone - to what gods Vansen couldn't guess. The girl Willow there were stars, too, speckled across the sky as cold was clearly frightened, too, but sat on a stone as and bright as ice crystals. patiently as a child being punished. They walked on through the high grass of wet hillside Young Dawley stood with his bow still in his hand and meadows and through thinning stands of trees, still his last arrow on the string, tears in his eyes. alert to any sound, but after a while Vansen was certain that something truly had changed. The moon "What was it?" he asked his captain at last. was far down in the sky now, a sky that had always Ferras Vansen could only shake his head. "Did you hit before been blurry with fog and cloud. it?" They were all staggeringly tired, and for a few It took Dawley a moment to reply, as thoug h he had to moments he considered stopping to build a fire so wait for Vansen's voice to blow down a long canyon. 603 604 they could dry out wet clothes and snatch a little into the sky, but it was the real sun and the real sky, sleep, but he was afraid that if he closed his eyes he beyond doubt. No one wanted to stop now. would open them again to find everything submerged Most astonishingly of all, before the sun was halfway in silvery nothingness again. Also, the girl was striding up the morning sky, they struck the Settland Road. determinedly forward despite her weariness, like a "Praise all the gods!" shouted Balk. He ran forward, horse on the path back to the barn at the end of a long did a clumsy dance on the rutted dirt that covered the day, and he didn't want to disturb her. Now that the ancient stones and timbers. "Praise them each and mists had thinned, he let go of her ragged smock and every one!" dropped back to walk for a little while with each of the As the other men tumbled down into the grass by the men in turn, Southstead, Dawley, Balk, saying nothing roadside, laughing and clapping each other on the unless they spoke to him, trying to turn his savaged back in joy,Vansen looked up and down the road, not company back into something whole again, or at least completely ready to trust. It was the same road, but into something human. He couldn't pretend that he what arrested him was what part of the road it was. was not overseeing a disaster, but he could make the best out of what he had. "Perin Cloudwalker!" he murmured, half to himself. "She's brought us back to the place where we met They trooped on through shadowy glens and over her. That's miles from where we crossed over. And moonlit hills.The sky began to change color, warming miles closer to Southmarch, thank the gods!" He from black to a purple-tinted gray, and for the first time staggered on aching legs to where the girl stood, in days Vansen began to believe they might actually smiling a little, staring around her in calm confusion. find their way out again. He grabbed her and kissed her cheek, lifted her up But where? Into the middle of that fairy army? Or will and put her down again. He had a sudden thought we find that we have been wandering for a hundred then and hurried eastward down the road with the years, like one of the old tales, and that all the world men shouting questions after him. Sure enough, at the and the folk we knew are gone? next long straight stretch he found a height where he Still, even with these heavy thoughts in his head, he could climb up and see that mists had enveloped the couldn't help smiling when he saw the first gleam of road not a mile away to the east. She's brought us sunrise on the horizon. His eyes welled up, so that for back to our side of the Shadowline, but also we're a moment the patch of bright sky smeared. There now between the shadow-army and the city, bless would be some kind of day after all. There would be her! But how could that be? He tried to understand east and west and north and south again. what had happened but could only guess that the The sun didn't burn through the mist until it was high substance of the lands behind the Shadowline was 605 606 different than that of other lands, and not just because of mists and monsters. Somehow the girl had managed to find her way across a fold of shadow and 24 bring them back to the place wher e she herself first crossed over, long before they even found her. Leopards and Gazelles He hurried back to the others. "We will rest for a short while," he said, "but then we have to find horses and ride as fast as we can. Southmarch is ahead of us and GROWING JOY: the enemy is behind us, but who knows how long until they catch up? The girl has given us a precious gift - we must not waste it, or waste the lives of our The hives are full comrades either." He turned to Willow. "I may wind up The leaves fall and drift slowly in chains for my part in all this, but if Southmarch Death is agreeable now survives, I'll see you dressed in silks and laden with - from The Bonefall Oracles gold first.You may have saved us all!" Qinnitan groaned. "Why do I feel so ill?" "Get up, you!" Favored Luian slapped at one of her Tuam servants, who ducked with a practiced shrug so that the blow only grazed the girl's black-haired head. "What are you doing, you lazy lizard?" Luian shrieked. "That cloth is dry as dust." She reached out and gave the girl's arm a cruel pinch. "Go and get Mistress Qinnitan some more water!" The slave got up and refilled the bowl from the fountain splashing quietly in the corner of the room, then returned with it and resumed cooling Qinnitan's forehead. "I don't know, my darling," Luian said as if the outburst had not happened. "A touch of fever, perhaps. Nothing dreadful, I'm sure. You must say your prayers 607 608 and drink dishflower tea." She seemed distracted by let us take a walk in the Scented Garden. That would something more than Qinnitan's miseries, her eyes do you more good than anything. Just the thing to flicking from side to side as though she expected to be brush away those cobwebs." interrupted at any moment. Qinnitan had been living in the Seclusion too long not "It's that potion they give me every day, I'm sure." to see that something was troubling Luian, and it was Qinnitan tried to sit straight, groaned, and gave up. It strange for her to suggest the Scented Garden, which was not worth the expenditure of strength. was on the opposite side of the Seclusion, when it would have been much easier to stroll in the Garden "Oh, Luian, I hate it. It makes me feel so wretched. Do of Queen Sodan. "I suppose I can bear a walk, yes. you think they're poisoning me?" Are you certain? You must have things to do . . ." "Poisoning you?" For a moment Luian actually looked "I can think of nothing more important than helping at her. Her laugh was harsh and a bit shrill. "My small you feel better, my little dear one. Come." sweet one, if the Golden One wished you dead, it would not be poi son that killed you, it would be The Scented Garden was warmer than the halls of the something much . . ." She paled a little, caught Seclusion, but the canopies atop its high walls kept it herself. "What a thing to say! As if our beloved cool enough to be bearable and its airs were very autarch, praises to his name, would want you dead, in sweet and pleasant, suffused with myrtle and forest any case. You have done nothing to displease him. roses and snakeleaf after a short while Qinnitan You have been a very good girl." began to feel a little stronger. As they walked, Luian spouted a litany of petty complaints and irritations in a Qinnitan sighed and tried to tell herself Luian must be breathless voice that made her seem far younger than right. It didn't quite feel like being poisoned, anyway, she was. She was more sharp-tongued with her or at least not how she imagined such a thing would servants than usual, too, so savage in her scolding of feel. Nothing hurt, and she wasn't exactly ill - in fact, one of the Tuanis when the girl bumped her elbow generally her appetite was extremely good and she that several other people in the garden, wives and slept well, too, if a little too long and deeply servants, looked up, and the usually expressionless sometimes - but something definitely felt strange. slave girl curled her lip above her teeth, as though she "You're right, of course You're always right, Luian." were about to snarl or even bite. She yawned. "In fact, I think I feel a little better now. I should go back to my room and have a nap instead of "Oh, I've just remembered," Luian said suddenly. "I left lolling around here and being in your way." my nicest shawl in that little retiring room here yesterday - there, in the corner." She pointed to a "Oh, no, no!" Luian looked startled at the suggestion. shadowed doorway far back between two rows of "No, you . . . you should come for a walk with me Yes, 609 610 boxwood hedges. "But I'm so hot, I think I'll just sit "Quiet! I believe you are looking for this," he said, down on this bench. Will you be a dear and get it for holding out a shawl woven of fine silk. "Do not forget it me, Qinnitan? It's rose -colored.You can't miss it." when you go out again." Qinnitan hesitated. There was something strange "Jeddin!" She threw her hand over her mouth. "What about Luian's face. She suddenly felt frightened. "Your are you doing here?" A whole man in the Seclusion - shawl . . . ?" what would happen to him if they were caught? What would happen to her? "Yes. Go get it, please. In there." She pointed again. The Leopard captain quickly and easily moved "You left it . . . ?" Luian almost never came to this between her and the door, cutting off her escape. She garden, and it was famously warm. Why bring a shawl looked frantically around the small, dark room. There here? was nothing much in it but a low table and some Luian leaned close and said, in a strangled whisper, cushions, and no other way out. "Just go and get it, you silly little bitch!" "I wished to see you. I wished to . . . speak with you." Qinnitan jumped up, startled and more fearful than Jeddin stepped up and caught her hand in his wide ever. "Of course." fingers, pulled her de eper into the room. Her heart As she approached the dark doorway, she could not was beating so quickly she could scarcely take a help slowing her footsteps, listening for the breath of a breath, but she could not entirely ignore the strength hidden assassin behind the hedges. But why would of his grip or the way it made her feel. If he wished, he Luian resort to something so crude? Unless it was the could throw her over one of his broad shoulders and autarch himself who had decided it had all been a carry her away and there would be nothing she could mistake, that Qinnitan was not the one he wanted. do. Perhaps the mute giant Mokor, his infamous chief Except scream, of course, but who could guess what strangler, was waiting for her inside the doorway. Or she would earn for herself if she did? perhaps she wasn't important enough and her death "Come, I will not keep you long," he said. "I have put would be effected instead by someone like the so- my life in your hands by coming here, Mistress. Surely called gardener, Tanyssa. Qinnitan looked back, but you will not begrudge me a few moments." Luian was looking in another direction entirely, talking rapidly and a little too loudly with her slaves. He was looking at her so searchingly, so intently, that she found she could not meet his eye. She felt hot Her nerves now stretched tight as lute strings, and feverish again. Could this all be some mad Qinnitan let out a muffled shriek when the man dream? Could the priest's elixir have driven her mad? stepped from the shadows. Still, Jed-din looked disturbingly solid, huge and 611 612 handsome as a temple carving. "What do you want that passed she felt more like the quarry of some with me?" ruthless hunting pack. "All that will happen is that we will both be killed. Whatever you think, Jeddin, you "What I cannot have, I know." He let go of her hand, scarcely know me." made his own into a fist. "I . . I cannot stop thinking of you, Qinnitan. My heart will not rest. You haunt my "Call me Jin, as you once did." dreams, even. I drop things, I forget things . . ." "No! We were just children.You followed my brothers. She shook her head, really frightened now. "No. No, They were cruel to you, perhaps, but I was no better. I that is . . ." She took a step toward him and then was a girl, a shy girl. I said nothing to any of my thought better of it - his arms had risen as if to pull her brother's friends to stop them." toward him, and she knew that more than his strength "You were kind. You liked me." would make it hard to break away again. "This is all She let out a murmured groan of frustration and madness, Jeddin . . Captain. Even if . . . if we forget anguish. "Jeddin! You must go away and never do this why I am here in the Seclusion, who has brought me again!" here . . ." She froze at a noise from outside, but it was "Do you love him?" just two of the younger wives shrieking with laughter as they played some game. "Even if we forget that, "Who? You mean the . . . ?" She moved closer, so you scarcely know me. You have seen me twice . close she could feel his breath on her face. She put a !" hand on his broad chest to keep him from trying to embrac e her. "Of course I don't," she said quietly. "I "No, Mistress, no I saw you every day that I was a am nothing to our master, less than nothing - a chair, child and you were a child. When we were children a rug, a bowl in which to clean his hands. But I would together. You were the only one who was kind to me." not steal a washing bowl from him, and neither would The look on his face was so serious that it would have you. If you try to steal me, we'll both be killed." She been comical if she had not been in terror for her life. took a breath. "I do care for you, Jeddin, at least a "I know it is wrong, but I cannot bear to think that you little." will . . . that you are for . . . for him." The anxious lines on his forehead disappeared. "Then She shook her head at this blasphemy, wanting only there is hope. There is reason to live." to be far away. There was something about the young Leopard chieftain that made her heart ache, made her "Quiet! You did not hear me out. I care for you, and in want to comfort him, and there was no question she another life perhaps it could b more, but I don't wish e felt something for him that went beyond that, but she to die for any man. Do you understand? Go away. could not push away her growing fright. Each moment Never even think of me again." She tried to pull away, 613 614 but he caught her now in a grip she could not have His eyes were suddenly shiny with tears. "Stop," he broken in a thousand years. "Let go!" she whispered, said. "Don't forget." He threw her the rose-colo red looking in panic toward the doorway. "They will be shawl. "I will come to you one night." wondering where I've gone." Qinnitan almost choked. "You will do no such thing!" "Luian will distract them a while longer." He leaned She turned and hurried out the door, back into the forward until she almost whimpered from the size and heavy air of the Scented Garden. closeness of him. "You do not love him." "Are you mad, too?" she whispered to Luian as she "Let me go!" handed her the shawl. A few of the other wives were watching her, but with what she prayed was no more "Ssshh. I am not long for this place. My enemies want than a bored interest in the comings and goings of a to throw me down." fellow prisoner. "We will all be executed! Tortured!" "Enemies?" Luian did not look at her, but her face was mottled "I am a peasant who became chieftain of the autarch's with red underneath the heavy face paint."You do not own guards. The paramount minister Vash hates me. I understand." amuse the Golden One - he calls me his rough "Understand? What is there to understand? You are . . watchdog and laughs when I use the wrong words - ." but Pinim-mon Vash and the others wish to see my head on a spike. I could kill any one of them with my "I am only one of the Favored. He is the chief of the bare hands, but in this palace it is the gazelles that autarch's Leopards. He could have me arrested and rule, not the leopards." killed on almost any pretext he chose - who would believe the word of a fat castrate in women's clothes "Then why are you giving them this chance to destroy over the master of the Golden One's muskets?" you? This is beyond foolishness - you'll murder us both." "Jeddin wouldn't do such a thing." "No. I will think of something. We will be together." His "He would indeed - he said so. He told me he would." eyes went distant and Qinnitan's speeding heart Qinnitan was shocked. "He thinks he is in love," she bumped and seemed to miss a beat. In that moment said at last. "People do mad things when they feel that he looked nearly as mad as the autarc.h."We will be way." together," he said again. "Yes." Luian faced her now, and there were tears in She took advantage of his distraction and yanked her the Favored's long -lashed eyes. One had made a wrist out of his grasp, then backed hurriedly toward track down the powder of her cheek. "Yes, you silly the doorway. "Go away,Jeddin! Don't be a fool!" little girl, they do." 615 616 25 Mirrors, Missing and Found THE WEEPING OF ANCIENT WOMEN: Gray as the egrets of the Hither Shore Lost as a wind from the old, dark land Frightened yet fierce - from The Bonefall Oracles Chert had already sat down on the bench to rest his tired legs when he realized Opal had not followed him in, but was still standing in the doorway, peering out into Wedge Road. "What is it, my dear?" "Flint. He's not with you?" He frowned. "Why -would he be with me? I left him home with you because he's such a distraction where we're working right now - won't stay with me because he doesn't like it there, but won't stay where I tell him aboveground either . . ." He felt a clutch in his chest. "You mean he's gone?" "I don't know! Yes! He went with me to Lower Ore Street.Then, when I came back, he was playing beside the road, piling up stones and making those walls and tunnels and whatnot he likes so much - the 617 618 dust that comes in on that boy!" Tears filled her eyes. have greatroots in!" he said loud enough for Opal to "Oh, and I don't know - I went out to call him in to eat, hear. "A bit of cooking and those would go down a hours ago, and he was gone. I've been up and down treat." She didn't answer. He picked through the other the roads, down to the guildhall - I even went to the roots and various tubers. Some were looking a bit Salt Pool and asked little Boulder if he'd been there. whiskery. "Perhaps I'll just have a bit of bread and Nobody's seen him at all!" some cheese." He got himself up despite his aching legs and hurried "There isn't any bread." The lump under the blanket to put his arms around her. "There, my old darling, shifted. It did not sound like a happy lump. "I was there. I'm sure he's just up to some pranks - he is a going to go back out and get the afternoon's baking, boy, after all, and a very independent lad at that, the but . . . but . . ." Earth Elders know. He'll be back before our evening "Ah, yes, of course," Chert said hurriedly. "Never fear. meal is over, you'll see." Still, it's a shame about the greatroots. A bit of "Evening meal!" she almost shrieked. "You old fool, do cooking . . ." you think I've had time to prepare an evening meal? "If you want them cooked, cook them yourself If you I've been hurrying all around town the length of the know how." afternoon with my heart aching, trying to find that boy. There is no evening meal!" Sobbing out loud now, she Chert was sadly chewing a piece of raw greatroot - he turned and stumbled back toward their bed and had not realized how much more bitter they tasted if wrapped herself in a blanket so all that could be seen they had not been boiled in beet sugar - and was a shuddering lump. beginning to admit to himself that the boy was not Chert was troubled, too, but he couldn't help feeling coming back for his evening meal. Not that a raw root that Opal was getting a bit ahead of things. Flint would and a piece of hard cheese was particularly worth not be the first boy in Funderling Town - or the last - to coming back for, but Chert couldn't deny that the pang wander off on some childish quest and lose track of of disquiet was growing inside him; although his mug time. It had only been a short while ago he had of ale had helped to wash down the fibrous root and disappeared during the prince regent's funeral. If he remove a little of the worst of the throbbing of his legs wasn't back by bedtime, they could start fretting in and back, it had not gone very far toward soothing his earnest. In the meantime, though, Chert had put in a mind. He had been out into Wedge Road several long day and his stomach felt shrunken and empty as times. The dimmer stonehghts were lit for evening and a dried leather sack. the streets were nearly empty as families finished their He halfheartedly examined the larder. "Ah, look, we suppers and prepared for the night. The children must 619 620 all be in bed now. The other children. Opal had not found anything - in fact, rather the reverse. "It's gone!" she said, pointing at the boy's He decided to take a lamp and go out looking. pallet, at the blanket and shirt lying across it in twisted Could the boy have gone into one of the unfinished coils like weary ghosts. "His bag. With that . . . that tunnels, he wondered, been caught by a slide in one little mirror in it. It's gone." Opal turned to him, eyes of the side corridors where the bracing was less t an h big with fear. "He never puts it on anymore, never adequate? But what would he be doing in such a wears it - it's always here! Why isn't it here now?" Her place? Chert let his mind run across other face suddenly grew slack, as though she had aged possibilities, some happier and others much more five years in a matter of moments. "He's gone away, frightening. Could he have gone home with another hasn't he? He's gone away for good and so he took it child? Flint was so unworldly in some ways that Chert with him." could easily imagine he would forget to send word of Chert could think of nothing to say - or, in any case, where he was, let alone ask permission, but he had nothing that would make either of them feel better. never really made friends with any of the Funderling children, even those in nearby houses who were of his own age. Where else? Down in the excavations where · Chert had been working, near the Eddon family tomb? Certainly there were treacherous spots there, but Flint `By the gods, Toby, are you falling asleep again? had made it clear he hated the place, and in any case You've jogged the glass!" The young man stood up how could Chert have missed him? quickly, raising his hands in the air to show that he The Rooftoppers - the little people. Perhaps the boy couldn't possibly have done such a thing, his look ot had gone to see them and either stayed or not been wounded honor suggested that he was always awake able to get back before dark. Unbidden, a horrid vision and at his best in the midnight hours and that Chaven came to him, of the boy fallen from a roof and lying was being needlessly cruel to suggest otherwise. "But, helpless in some shadowy, unvisited courtyard. He Master Chaven. put the greatroot down, sickened. "Never mind I expect you to be a man of science and I But where else could he be? suppose that is asking too much." "Chert!" Opal shouted from the bedchamber. "Chert, "But I want to be! I listen! I do everything you say?" come here!" The physician sighed. It was not really the lad's fault. He wished she did not sound frightened. Suddenly, he Chaven had put too much stock in the didn't want to walk through the door and see what she recommendation of his friend, Euan Dogsend, who had found. But he did. 621 622 was the most learned man in Blueshore but perhaps come from?" not its best judge of character. The young man "But, Master, that doesn't make sense," Toby said, worked hard for his age but he was distracted and yawning but a little more awake now. "If the gods touchy at the best of times, and worst of all, although made all the spheres, couldn't the gods just make a he was by no means stupid, he seemed to have an new star?" unquestioning pattern of mind. Chaven had to smile. "You are doing better. That is a It is like trying to make my dear mistress Kloe pursue proper question, but a more important question is, friendship with the mice and rats. why haven't they done it before now?" Still, the young man was standing right there with his For a moment, just a moment, he saw something face screwed up in a look of furious attention, so ignite in the young man's eyes. Then caution or Chaven tried again. "See, the perspective glass must weariness or simply the habit of a lifetime dulled the not move once we have found the spot we seek expression again. "It seems like a lot of thinking about Leotrodos down in Perikal says that the new star is in a star." Kossope Once we have set the eye of our glass on "Yes, it is. And one day that thinking may teach us Kossope, we must tighten the housing so that it does exactly how the gods have made our world. And on not move - thus, we can make measurements, not just that day, will we not be nearly gods ourselves?" tonight, but other nights. And we most certainly must Toby made the pass-evil. "What a thing to say! not lean on the perspective glass while we are making Sometimes you frighten me, Master Chaven." those measurements?" He shook his head. "Just help me get the perspective "But the sky is full of stars," said Toby "Why is it so glass fixed on Kos-sope again, then you can take important to measure this one?" yourself to bed." Chaven closed his eyes for a moment "Because Leotrodos says he has found a new star. A new star has not been seen in hundreds of years - perhaps It was just as well he was now alone, Chaven thought even thousands, since the methods of the ancients as he wrote down the last of the notations. Even Toby are sometimes obscure and thus open to question might have noticed the way his hands had begun More importantly, it raises many doubts about the shaking as the hour he was waiting for came nearer. It shape of the heavens " The boy's puzzled look told was powerfully strange, this feeling. He had always him all he needed to know "Because if the heavens coveted knowledge, but this was more like a hunger, are fixed, as the astrologers of the Trigonate so loudly and it did not seem to be a healthful one. Each time tell us, yet there is a new star in the sky, where did it he used the Great Mirror, he felt more reluctant to 623 624 cover it up again. Was it simply lust for the wisdom shame was devoured by the need that was roaring up that he gained or some glamour of the spirit which inside him. gave that wisdom to him? Or was it something else He sat before the mirror in a dark room that already entirely? Whatever might have caused the craving, he seemed to be growing darker still, and began to sing. could barely force himself to take the time to drap e his It was an old song in a language so dead that no one long box full of rare and costly lenses with its heavy living could be certain they were pronouncing it covering, and only the sharp chill of the night air correctly, but Chaven sang the words as his onetime persuaded him to add even more delay so that he master, Kaspar Dyelos, had taught them to him. could crank shut the door in the observatory roof, Dyelos, sometimes called the Warlock of Krace, had shutting out those intrusive, maddening stars. never owned a Great Mirror, although he had His need was especially sharp because it had been so possessed broken shards of more than one and had long - days and days! - since the mirror had gifted him been able to do wonderful things with those shards. with anything but shadows and silence. How But mirror -lore as a discipline was as much about frustrating it had been all of tonight, trying to remembering and passing that memory along for the concentrate on Kossope when it was the three red generations to come as it was about the practical stars called the Horns of Zmeos, also called the Old manipulation of the cosmos - Chaven often wondered Serpent, that had his deepest attention: when they how many wonderful, astounding things had been lost appeared behind the shoulder of Perin's great planet, in the plague years - and so Dyelos had taught all that as they would do tonight, he could consult the mirror he had learned to his apprentice, Chaven. Thus, on again. that day when Chaven had found this particular mirror, this astounding artifact, he had already known how to When the observatory room and the perspective glass use it, even if he had not precisely understood every were both secured, he went in search of Kloe. single step of the process. Tonight, if the gods smiled, her work and his offering would not lie ignored again. Now Chaven rubbed his head, troubled by an errant thought. His brow was starting to ache from staring Chaven's need had grown so strong that he didn't into the mirror -shadows and wondering if something notice how roughly he was handling Kloe until she else was looking at the shadow-mouse that lay on the gave him a swi ft but meaningful bite on the web of his shadow-floor, and whether that something would thumb and forefinger as he put her out. He dropped finally come. Was he doomed to failure again tonight? her, cursing and sucking at the wound as she He was distracted, that was the problem . . . but he scampered away down the passage, but although his could not help being puzzled by the fact that he anger was swiftly replaced by shame for his suddenly couldn't remember where he had acquired carelessness toward his faithful mistress, even that 625 626 the mirror that was before him now, leaning against endless drone that was nevertheless full of the wall of his secret storeroom. At least it seemed complicated voices and melodies - still filled his ears sudden, this emptiness in his memory. He could recall but was beginning to grow less. His nostrils also without trouble where and when he had obtained each seemed still to breathe that ineffable scent, as of the other draped glasses on the shelves, and their powerful and heady -sweet as attar of roses (although particular provenances as well, but for some reason such roses never grew on bushes rooted in ordinary he could not just at this moment remember how he earth, in soil steeped in death and corruption), but it had obtained the jewel in his collection, this Great was no longer the only thing he could think about. Mirror. It might have only been with him a moment, that The incongruity was beginning to feel like an itch that deepest bliss, or he might have been basking in those would not be scratched and it was growing worse. sensations for centuries, when the voice-that-was-no- Even the powerful hunger he felt began to weaken a voice spoke to him at last, a single thought that might little as the puzzle took hold of him. Where did it come have been "I am here," or simply, "I am." Male, from, this powerful thing? I have had it . . . how long? female, it was neither, it was both - the distinction was of no importance. He expressed his gratefulness that Just then something flared in the center of the looking his offering had been received again, at last. What glass, a great out-wash of white light as though a hole came back to him was a kind of knowing, the powerful had been torn through the night sky to release the calm of something that expected nothing less than to radiance of the gods that lay behind everything. be adored and feared. Chaven threw his hands up, dazzled; the light faded a little as the owl settled, folded its bright wings, and But even in the midst of his joy at being allowed within looked back at him with orange eyes, Kloe's sacrificial the circle of this great light again, something tugged mouse in its great talons. again at his thoughts, a small but troubling something, just as shadows in his room of mirrors sometimes All his other thoughts flew away, then, as though the seemed to take odd shapes at the corner of his eye wings had enfolded him as well, or perhaps as though but never at the center of his vision. he had become the tiny thing clutched in that snowy claw, in the grip of a power so much greater than his Questions, he remembered, and for an instant he was own that it could seem a kind of honor to give up his almost himself. I have questions to ask. The life to it. Rooftoppers, he announced, those small, old ones who live in hiding. They speak of someone they call the Lord of the Peaks who comes to them and gives He came up out of the long emptiness at last and into them wisdom. Is that you? the greater light. Music beyond explaining - a kind of 627 628 What came back to him was something almost like remember now, any more than he could remember amusement. There was also a sensation of dismissal, how the mirror, the portal to this painful bliss, had first of negation. come into his hands. So they do not speak of you? he persisted. It is not The radiant presence made it clear that it would you who visits them with dire warnings? forgive him for his unseemly questioning, but in return he must perform a task. It was an important task, it The shining thing - it looked nothing like an owl now, seemed to say, perhaps even a sacred one. and although at this moment its shape was perfectly plain to him, he knew he would not afterward be able For a moment, but only a moment, he hesitated. A to explain it in words, nor even quite remember it - little of himself still hung back, as though the mirror took a long time to answer. He felt the absence in that were a fine sieve and not all that had been Chaven silence almost as a death, so that when it did speak could pass through it into this singing fire. That tiny again, he was so grateful that he missed part of what remainder stood and watched, helpless as though in a it told him. nightmare, but it was not strong enough to change anything yet. Things had been awakened that would otherwise be sleeping, was all the sense that he could make of its What must I do? he asked. wordless, fragmented thought. The shining thing told It told him, or rather it put the knowledge into him, and him that its works were subtle, and not meant for him just as it had chided, now it praised, that kindness was to understand. like honey and silvery music and the endless, He sensed he was being chided now, there was more awesome light of the heavens. than a hint of discord in the all -surrounding music. He You are my good and faithful servant, it told him. A nd was devastated and begged forgiveness, reminded in the end, you will have your reward - the thing you the shining thing that he only wanted to serve it truly seek. faithfully, but in the one piece of his secret self which The white light began to fade, retreating like a wave remained to him, the small sour note had allowed him that had crested and now ran backward down the to think a little more clearly Was that truly his only sand to rejoin the sea Within moments he was alone wish - to serve this thing, this being, this force? When in a deep, secret room lit only by the guttering flame of he had first touched it, or it had touched him, had they a black candle. not almost seemed to have been equals, exchanging information? · But what did it want to learn from me? What could I possibly have given to this power? He couldn't 629 630 Pounding on the kitchen door brought Mistress a letter for you to take to Lord Nynor, the castellan. I Jennikin out in her nightdress and nightcap. She held hope to be gone only a day or two, but it might be the candle before her as though it were a magic more. If any of the royal family needs the services of a talisman. Her gray hair, unbound for the night and physician, I will tell Nynor how to find Brother Okros at thinning with age, hung in an untidy fringe over her the Academy - you may send anyone else who comes shoulders. in search of me and cannot wait to Okros as well." He rubbed his head, thinking. "I will also need my heavy "It is only me. I am sorry to rouse you at such an hour, travel cloak - the weather will be wet and there may but my need is great." even be snow." "Doctor . . . ? What is wrong? Is someone ill?" Her "But . . . but, Doctor, what about the queen and her eyes widened. "Oh, Zoria watch over us, there hasn't baby?" been another murder . . . !" "Curses, woman," he shouted, "do you think I do not "No, no. Rest easy. I must go on a journey, that is all, know my own calling?" She cowered back against the and I must leave immediately - before dawn." doorframe and Chaven was immediately sorry. "I She held the candle a little closer to his face - apologize, good Mistress Jennikin, but I have given scanning for signs of madness or fever, perhaps. "But thought to all these things already and will put what is Doctor, it's . . ." neede d in the letter to Nynor. Do not worry for the "Yes, the middle of the night. To be more precise, it is queen. She is fit, and there is a midwife with her day two hours before dawn by my chain-clock. I know that and night." He took a deep breath. "Oh, please, take as well as anyone and better than most. And I know at that candle back a little - you look like you intend least as well as anyone else what I must do, don't you setting me on fire." think?" "Sorry, sir." "Of course, sir! But what do you want . . . I mean . . ." "Now go and rouse Harry - he's slow as treacle in "Get me bread and a little meat so that I can eat winter and I must have that horse." She clearly without stopping. But before you do that, rouse Harry wanted to ask him something else but didn't dare. and tell him I need my horse readied for a journey. No Chaven sighed. "What is it?" one else, though. I do not want everyone in the "Will you be back for Orphan's Day? The butcher has household watching me leave." promised me a fine pig." "But . . . but where are you going, sir?" For a moment he almost shouted again, but this was "That is nothing you need to know, my good woman. I the matter of her world, after all. This was what was am going now to pack up what I need. I will also write important to her - and in ordinary times would have 631 632 been to Chaven as well, who dearly loved roast pork. manage going and then making his way back, and he So what if these were not ordinary times? Perhaps bitterly resented the idea of losing so much of the day. there would be no more Orphan's Day feasts after this Each hour last night spent in fruitless search for the one - a shame to ruin it. "I am as certain I will be back boy had been more galling than the last and was even before Orphan's Day - and in fact, before Wildsong more infuriating now, as though Flint were on some Night - as anyone can be who knows the gods kind of wagon or ship that sped further away with sometimes have ideas of their own. Do not fear for each passing moment. your pig, Mistress Jennikin. I am sure he will be The manservant, despite Chert's protests, was about splendid and I will enjoy him greatly." to shut the door in his face when an old woman stuck She looked a little less frightened as he turned - as her head under the tall old man's arm and peered out though despite the hour, life no longer seemed quite at the Funderling. He had seen her before, just as he so dangerously topsy-turvy. He was glad that was true had seen the old man, although mostly from a for one of them, anyway. distance as Chaven led him through the Observatory. He couldn't remember either of their names. "What do you want?" she asked, eyes narrowed. · "I want to see your master. I k now it is inconvenient - he may even have given orders not to be disturbed. The physician's manservant did his best to turn Chert But he knows me, and I'm . . . I'm in great need." She away. The old man seemed distracted, guilty, as was still looking at him with distrust. Like the old man, though he had been called away from the commission she had faint blue shadows under her eyes and a of some small but important crime and was in a hurry fidgety, distracted air. No one has had much sleep in to get back to it. this house either, Chert thought. After his own night Taking a nap, Chert guessed, although it seemed stumping up and down Funderling Town and even early in the morning for such things. A late lie-in, then. through Southmarch above -ground, he felt like an He would not be chased off so easily. "I don't care if itching skin stretched over a stale emptiness. Only he isn't seeing anyone. I have important business with fear for the lost boy was keeping him upright. him. Will you tell him that Chert of Funderling Town is "It can't be done," she said. "If you need physick, you here." If the physician was just busy and not at home must go to Brother Okros at the academy, or perhaps to visitors, Chert thought, perhaps he could go around one of the barbers down in the town." through the secret underground passage - surely "But . . ." He took a breath, pushed down the urge to Chaven would not dare to ignore a summons to that shout at this obstinate pair. "My . . . my son is missing. door - but it would take him a very long time to 633 634 Chaven knows him - gave me some advice about him. great deal to do, Mistress. I'll leave you. When he He is a . . . a special boy. I thought Chaven might comes back, could you tell him that Chert of have some idea . . ." Funderling Town wanted urgently to speak with him?" The woman's face softened. "Oh, the poor wee thing! "I will." Now she seemed to wish there was more she Missing, is he? And you, you poor man, you must be could do. "The gods send you good luck - I hope you heartsick." find your little lad. I'm sure you will." "I am, Mistress." "Thank you. You're very kind." The manservant rolled his eyes and vanished back down the hallway. The woman stepped out into the In his weariness he almost slipped twice going up the courtyard, drying her hands on her apron, then looked wall When he reached the top, he had to sit and gasp around as though to make sure they were safe from for some time until he had air enough to speak. prying eyes. "I shouldn't tell you, but my master's not "Halloo! It is Chert of Funderling Town!" He dared not here. He's had to go on a sudden journey. He left this shout too loud for fear of attracting attention below - it morning, before dawn." was the middle of the mo rning and even this less- A sudden suspicion, fueled only by coincidence, made traveled section of the castle near the graveyard was him ask, "Alone? Did he go alone?" not entirely empty. "Her Majesty Queen Upsteeplebat very kindly came to meet me and my boy, Flint," he She gave him a puzzled look, but it began to shade called. "Do you remember me? Halloo!" into resentment as she answered. "Yes, of course alone. We saw him off. You surely don't think . . ." There was no reply, no stir of movement, although he called again and again. At last, so tired he was "No, Mistress, or at least nothing ill. It's just that the beginning to be concerned about the climb down, he lad knows your master and likes him, I think. He might rose to a crouch Out of his pocket he took the small have tagged along with him, as boys sometimes do." bundle wrapped in moleskin. He opened it and lifted She shook her head. "There was no one about. He left the crystal up until it caught a flick of morning light and an hour before the sun was up, but I had a lamp and I sparkled like a tiny star. "This is a present for the would have seen. He was in a terrible hurry, too, the queen. It is an Edri's Egg - very fine, the best I have. I doctor, although I shouldn't speak of his business to am looking for the boy Flint and I would like your help. anyone. No offense to you." If you can hear me and will meet with me, I'll be back "None taken." But his heart was even heavier now. He here tomorrow at the same time." He tried to think of had hoped at the very least that Chaven's keen wit some suitable closing salutation but could summon might strike on some new idea. "I'm sure you have a nothing. He made a nest of the moleskin and set the 635 636 crystal in it. What a beautiful, shining monster might upset, but they were very poor mummers. Rose and hatch out of such a thing, he thought absently, but Moina in particular seemed to feel that Briony's boyish couldn't take even the smallest pleasure in the fancy. costumes were a personal affront, but on this morning the tender feelings of her ladies were of little interest He picked his way with aching caution back down the to her. Briony was tired of dressing for other people, wall, so heavy with despair that he was almost tired of the forced prettiness that she thought gave surprised that he did not sink deep into the ground others the unspoken right to ignore what she said. Not when his feet finally touched it. that anyone dared completely ignore the princess regent, but she knew that when they were in private, · the courtiers wished for Olin back, and not simply because he was the true king. She felt it in their glances: they did not trust her because she was a It was only a day like many others, but as she woman - worse, a mere girl. It made her almost mad awakened in the early hours to hear the bell in the with resentment. Erivor Chapel tolling as the mantis and his acolytes Is there a one of them, male or female, who did not began the morning's worship, Briony was almost as gloomy and disturbed as if it were the day of an issue from a woman in the first place? The gods have given our sex charge of the greatest gift of all, the one execution. most important to the survival of our kind, but because Rose and Moina and her maids came into the room, we cannot piddle high against a wall, we do not exaggeratedly quiet as though the princess regent deserve any other responsibility? were a bear that they feared waking, but still "I don't care if you're angry with me," she snapped at managing to make as much noise as a pentecount of soldiers in Market Square. She groaned and sat up, Rose, "but don't pull my hair like that." then allowed them to surround her and pull off her Rose dropped the brush and took a step backward, nightclothes. real upset on her face. "But, my lady, I didn't mean . . "Will you wear the blue dress today?" Moina asked ." with only the smallest hint of pleading in her voice. "I know. Forgive me, Rosie. I'm in a foul mood this morning." "The brown," suggested Rose. "With the slashed sleeves. You look so splendid in that . . ." While the women braided her hair, Briony took a little fruit and some sugared wine, which Chaven had told "What I wore yesterday," she said. "But clean. A tunic her was good for healthful digestion. When her ladies - the one with the gold braid. A riding skirt. Tights." had succeeded in piling her tresses into a tight but The maids and the two ladies did their best not to look 637 638 intricate arrangement on top of her head, she let them one tell me? Why didn't Father tell me? Is he like pin the hat into place, although she was already Barrick - does he think I'd hate him? anxious to be moving. Briony had always been the practical child, at least Underneath it all, threatening to pull her down like the compared to her twin - no brooding, no flickering sucking black undertow in Brenn's Bay that changes of mood - but this went beyond anything she sometimes formed beneath a deceptively placid had experienced In some ways it was worse than surface, lay the horror of what Barrick had told her. Kendrick's death, because it turned upside down all She was frightened for her brother, of course, and she that she had thought she knew. ached for him, too, he had taken to his rooms in the She was in mourning again, not for the death of a days since, making the excuse of a recurrence of his person this time, but for her peace of mind. fever, but she felt certain that what was really going on was that he was ashamed to face her. As if she I'm tired I'm so tired. It was only ten of the morning. could love him any the less! Still, it was a shadow She couldn't help being angry at Barrick. Whatever between them that made all their other differences dreadful thing he was suffering, he was letting all of seem small. the duties of ruling Southmarch fall onto her. But even worse, in a way, was what he had told her The throne room was josthngly full of people with about her father Briony had never been the kind of claims on her time, and some of those claims were foolish girl who thought her father could do no wrong - inarguable. Just now the Lord Chancellor Gallibert she had felt Olin's sharp tongue enough times not to Perkin and three gentlemen of his chambers were feel overly coddled, and he had always been a man of going into painful detail about the need either to find dark moods - but Barrick's story was astounding, more money for the government of Southmarch or to devastating To think that all through her childhood her use some of the ransom money collected for King Olin father had carried that burden, and had kept it secret. on expenses. The merchants were worried about the She didn't know which was the stronger feeling, her coming year, the bankers were being careful with their pain at his suffering or her fury that he had hidden it funds, and the crown had in any case already from those who loved him best. borrowed more than it should have, which made Whatever the case, it felt as though a hole had been dipping into the ransom an attractive alternative. It torn through the walls of a familiar room to reveal not was ultimately a problem without solution, although a the equally familiar room presumed to be on the o ther solution would have to be found - to spend the ransom side but a portal into some unimaginable place. would be to betray not only her father but the people How could it be? How could all this be? Why did no who had given, not always happily, to free him. But 639 640 the household of Southmarch ate money like some need doing tomorrow, when she was supposed to gold -devouring ogre out of a folktale. Briony had never have a lesson with Sister Utta. She had learned to be understood how much work there was in simply fierce in protecting her few moments of private time keeping an orderly house - especially when that so, instead of resting, she called for some cold meat house was the biggest in the north of Eion and the and bread and shifted back and forth in her seat to center of the lives of some fifty thousand souls - let ease her aching fundament. It was strange but true alone an entire orderly country. The crown would have that even two or three pillows could not make to come up with some other way of making money. As spending an entire day in a chair comfortable. always, Lord Chancellor Perkin recommended levying It was Lord Nynor the castellan who leaned in toward more taxes on the people who had already given her now, wrapping his beard around his finger in a hugely toward ransoming her father. distracted way, waiting for her attention to return. The parade continued. Two Trigonate mantises spoke "I'm sorry," she said. "What did you say? Something on behalf of Hierarch Sisel's ecclesiastical court, about Chaven?" which believed it had jurisdiction over the town court "He has sent me a rather odd letter," the old man in a particular case. This, too, was about money, since explained. Briony had been horrified and fascinated to the crime was a major one - a local landowner learn that overseeing this wretched parade of accused of the death of a tenant by negligence - and denianders and complainers was the sort of thing whichever court supplied the judge would keep any Nynor had been doing every day of his long career, or levies or fines. Briony had hoped that being the at least through the several decades since he had princess regent would mean she would get to solve become one of her grandfather Ustin's chief courtiers. problems, punish the guilty, reward the innocent. He didn't look mad, but who would choose such a life? Instead she had discovered that what she mostly did "The physician has had to leave on an unexpected was decide who else got to hear suits of law, the town journey," Nynor said. "He suggests I summon Okros magistrate, the hierarch's justices, or - and this very of Eastmarch to the castle in his absence, which he occasionally, usually just in cases of nobility accused - says may be a few days or perhaps even more." the throne of Southmarch. "He often goes to consult with other learned men," Midday came and went. The pageant of people and said Briony. "Surely that is not so surprising." their problems dragged on and on like some official "But without telling us where to find him? And with the celebration of boredom and pettiness. Briony wished queen so close to giving birth? In any case, the letter she could stop and have a rest but the line of itself struck me as strange." Nynor s eyes were red- supplicants seemed to stretch out to the ends of the rimmed and watery, so that even at the happiest of earth and whatever remained undone today would 641 642 times he looked as though he had been crying, but he like a trained bear, growling at those he deemed were was sharp-witted, and his long years of service to t e h wasting the monarchy's time. Eddon family had proved him worth listening to. The poet was amusing, but just now Briony wasn't in "He says nothing that is directly alarming? Then give it the mood. "Yes, well, go with Lord Nynor and he will to me and I will examine it later." She took the folded see you served, Tinwright." parchment from the castellan and slipped it into the "Do you not wish to hear my latest verse? Inspired this hartskin envelope in which she carried her seals and very day in this very room?" signet ring and other important odds and ends. "Is She tried to tell him no, that she did not wish to hear it, there anything else?" but Tinwright was not the type to wait long enough for "I need your permission to summon Brother Okros." rejection - a trick he had needed to learn early, "Given." judging by his verse. "And the poet fellow . . . ?" " `Dressed all in mannish black she stands, like the thunderheads of Oktamene's dour wrath in the "Tinlight? Tin . . . ?" summer sky Yet beneath those sable billows there is "Tinwright. Is it true you wish him added to the virgin snow, white and pure, that will make the land in household?" cool sweetness to he . .'." "Yes, but not in any grand way. Give him an She couldn't help sympathizing with the lord allowance of clothing, and of course he is to be fed . . constable's groans, but she wished Brone might be a ." little more discreet - the young man was doing his There was a murmur in the crowd as someone best, and it had been her idea to encourage him: she pushed his way forward, a drawing back as though an didn't want him humiliated. "Yes, very nice," she said. animal, harmless but of doubtful cleanliness, had "But at the moment I am in the middle of state been set loose in the room Matty Tinwright burst out business Perhaps you could write it down for me and of the front row of courtiers and cast himself down on send it so that I can . . appreciate its true worth the stones at the foot of the dais."Ah, fair princess, without distraction." you remembered your promise! Your kindness is even "My lady is too kind." Smiling at the other courtiers, greater than is spoken, and it is spoken of in the same having established himself as one of their number - or proverbial way as the warmth of the sun or the at least believing so - Tinwright rose, made a leg, and wetness of rain." melted into the crowd. There were a few titters. "Gah. Perin hammer us all dead," rumbled Avin "My lady is too kind by half," Brone said quietly. Brone, who had been lurking beside the throne all day 643 644 Steffans Nynor still lingered, a slightly nervous look on Tolly was as dangerous and unpredictable as fire on a his face. "Yes, my lord?" Briony asked him. windy day. Her sigh was the only voice she gave to a heartfelt wish to be out of this, to turn back the "May I come near the throne, Princess?" calendar to the days when there had been nothing She beckoned him forward. Brone also moved a bit harder to think on than how she and Barrick would closer, as though the scrawny, ancient Nynor might be avoid their lessons. some kind of threat - or perhaps simply to hear better. And curse Barrick for leaving this all to me! A moment "There is one other thing," the castellan said quietly. later she felt a pang of sorrow and even fear about her "What are we to do with the Tollys?" unkind thought: her brother needed no more curses. "The Tollys?" "Treat theTollys with respect," she said. "Give them "You have not heard? They arrived two hours ago - I Gailon's rooms." She remembered what Brone had am shamed that I did not inform you, but I felt sure said about the Summerfield folk and the agents of the someone else would." He gave Brone a squint -eyed Autarch. "No, do not, in case there has been some look. The two were political rivals and not the best of communication left behind in a secret place. Put them friends. "A company from Summerfield Court is here, in the Tower of Winter so they are not underfoot and led by Hendon Tolly. The young man seems much will find it harder to move around unmarked. Lord aggrieved - he was talking openly about the Brone, you will arrange to keep them watched, I disappearance of his brother, Duke Gailon." assume? Lord Brone?" "Merciful Zoria," she said heavily. "That is dire news She turned, irritated that he was not paying attention. Hendon Tolly? Here?" The guardsman who had spoken to him was gone, but Brone himself had not moved and there was a look on "The middle brother, Caradon, is doubtless too pleased to find himself next in li ne for the dukedom to his face Briony had never seen before - confusion and disbelief. "Lord Constable, what is wrong?" want to come stir up trouble himself," Brone said quietly. "But I doubt he tried very hard to stop his little He looked at her, then at Nynor. He leaned forward. brother - not that it would have done him much good. "You must send these people away. Now." Hendon is a wild one, Highness. He must be closely "But what have you heard?" watched." As the lord constable finished this little He shook his great, bearded head, still as slow- speech, one of the royal guard appeared at his moving and bewildered as a man in a dream. "Vansen shoulder and Brone turned to have words with him. has returned, Highness - Ferras Vansen, the captain "Wild" was not the word Briony would have chosen. of the guard." "Almost mad" would have been closer - the youngest "He has? And what has he discovered? Has he found 645 646 the caravan?" "He hasn't, and he has lost most of his company 26 beside - more than a dozen good men. But, stay, Lady - that is not what is most important! Call for him. If what I hear is true, we will need to speak to him The Considerations of Queens immediately." "If what you hear is . . . But what do you hear, Brone? Tell me." THE DISTANT MOUNTAINS: "That we are at war, Princess, or shortly will be." "But . . . war? With whom?" We see them "The armies of all fairyland, it seems." But we will never walk them Nevertheless, we see them - from The Bonefall Oracles. He arrived with surprisingly little ceremony, not mounted on a dove this time but on a fat white rat with a fine spread of whisker. She was accompanied only by a pair of guards on foot - their tiny faces pale and drawn because of this great responsibility - and by the scout Beetledown. Chert had been sitting longer than he would have liked and was glad he was not expected to rise; he was not certain his legs would bend that well without a little limbering first. But neither could he imagine greeting a royal personage without making some show of respect, especially when he hoped to beg a favor, so he bent his head. "Her Exquisite and Unforgotten Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat, extends her greetings to Chert of Blue Quartz," announced Beetledown in his small, high voice. 647 648 Chert looked up. She was watching him in an intent "Thank you, anyway, Your Majesty. I am grateful that but friendly way. "I thank you, Majesty." you came. It was very kind." "We heard your request and we are here," she said, She watched as he began to climb to his feet. "Hold a as birdlike in pitch as her herald. "Also, we enjoyed moment. Have you smelled for him?" your generous gift and it has joined the Great Golden "Have I what?" Piece and the Silver Thing in our collection of crown "Have you smelled for his track?" When she saw jewels We are sad to hear that the boy is missing. Chert's expression, she raised an eyebrow more What can we do?" slender than a strand of spiderweb. "Do your people "I don't know, to tell you the truth, Majesty. I was know nothing of this?" hoping you might be able to suggest something. I "Yes, we do, I suppose. There are animals used for have searched all the places that I know - all of hunting game and certain other things we eat. But I Funderling Town knows he is gone - but I have found would not know how to try to find the boy that way." no sign of him. He likes to climb and explore and I "Bide -with us here a while longer." She folded her tiny know little of the rooftops and other high places of the hands together. "It is a pity, but the Grand and Worthy castle and city. I thought you might have an idea of Nose is not well - a sort of ague. This often happens where he might have gone, or even have seen him." when the sun shines for the first time after the winter The queen turned. "Have any of our folk seen the boy, rams begin. Most pathetic he becomes, eyes red and faithful Beetledown?" his wonderful nose red, too. Otherwise I would send "Not hair nor hide, Majesty," the little man said him with you. Perhaps in a few days, when the solemnly. "Asked in many holes and away down all indisposition has passed . . ." the Hidden Hall last night, did I, without a sniff of un to Chert was not exactly heartened to think that his hope be found." of finding the boy might rest on the fat and fussy The queen spread her hands. "It seems that we can Nose, but it was something, at least, something. He tell you nothing," she told Chert sadly. "We, too, feel tried to look grateful. the loss, because we believe the Hand of the Sky is "Your Majesty, if a humble Gutter -Scout can speak . . on that boy and thus he is important to our people, the ." said Beetledown. Sm'sni'sntk-soonah, as well." The queen was amused. "Humble? I do not think that Chert sagged. He had not truly thought that the word describes you well, my good servant." Rooftoppers could solve the mystery, but it had been Chert imagined that the little man was blushing, but the only hope left to him. Now there was nothing he the face was too small and too distant to be certain. "I could do but wait, and the waiting would be terrible. 649 650 wish only to serve `ee, Majesty, and that's skin to sky. "Take me to something of the boy's," suggested the Sometimes, it is true, I find it hard to keep quiet when I little man. "Let me get my fill of un's scent." must listen to the boasting of tumblers and other "We've got his other shirt and his bed, so I suppose I pillocks who are not fit to serve you. And perhaps tha should take you home. Do you want to ride down on wilst deem me boastful again when I say that after the my shoulder?" Nose, some do reckon that Beetledown the Bowman Beetledown gave him an unfathomable look. "Seen has the finest nostrils in all Southmarch Above." `ee cli mb, I have. Beetledown will make un's own way "I have heard that said, yes," said the queen, smiling. and meet up at bottom." Beetledown seemed hard-pressed not to leap in the air and cheer for himself at her admission. "Does that Not surprisingly, the Gutter-Scout was already waiting mean you are ofFering your services to Chert of Blue on the ground by the time Chert set his feet on the Quartz?" cobbles once more. The morning sun was high behind "Fair is what it seems, Majesty. The boy bested me the clouds - perhaps an hour remained until noon. and then gave me quarter, fairly as tha might please. I Chert was tired and hungry and not very happy. "Do reckon that un has my debt, as `twere. Pe rhaps you want to walk?" he asked, trying to be considerate Beetledown can help bring him back safe in un's skin." of the Rooftopper's feelings. "Very well. You are so commissioned. Go with Chert "Oh, aye, if we had three days for wandering," of Blue Quartz and carry out your duties. Farewell, Beetledown replied a bit snappishly. "Said tha hast good Funderling." She tapped with her stick at the shoulder for riding. Ride, I will." white rat's ribs; the animal chittered, then turned and Chert put his hand down and let the little man climb began to move back up the roof. Her guards hurried into it. It was an oddly ticklish feeling. As he put after her. Beetledown on his shoulder, he imagined for the first "Thank you, Queen Upsteeplebat!" Chert called, time what a vast expanse even this small cobbled although he was not really sure how much help he courtyard must seem to a man of such small size. was going to get from a man the size of a peapod. Her "Have you been on the ground much?" hand went up as the rat disappeared over the "Proper bottom ground? Aye, oncet or twice or more," roofcrest, but even small queens did not wave good- Beetledown said. "Not one of your stay-at-homes am bye, so he imagined it must have been an I. Not afraid of rat or hawk or nowt but cats is acknowledgment of his gratitude. He turned to Beetledown the Bowman, if I have my good bow to Beetledown, with whom he was now alone on the hand." He brandished the small, slender curve of rooftop. "So . . . what should we do?" wood, but when he spoke again, he sounded a little 651 652 less confident. "Be there cats in your house?" "He is ill! Do you doubt me?" "Scarcely a one in all Funderling Town. The dragons The lord constable had learned that despite the eat them." differences in their size, age, and sex, he could not outstare her. He tangled his fingers in his beard and "Having sport, th'art," said the little man with dignity. muttered something. She was sensible enough not to Chert suddenly felt ashamed. The tiny fellow might be inquire what he had said. a bit boastful, he might not think much of Chert's climbing, but he was offering his help out of a sense of "Hendon Tolly is causing trouble already," said Tyne obligation, entering a world of monstrous giants. Chert Aldritch of Blueshore, one of the few nobles she had tried to imagine what that would feel like and decided asked to join her to hear the news from the west. that Beetledown was entitled to a little swagger. Aldritch was terse, especially with her, often to the point of near-rudeness, but she believed it was a "I apologize. There are cats in Funderling Town but symptom of basic honesty. Evidence over the years none m my house. My wife doesn't like them much." supported this conclusion, although she knew she "Walk on, then," said the Rooftopper. "It has been a might still be wrong - none of the people of the century or more since any Gutter-Scout has been to innermost circles around the throne were as guileless the deep places and today Beetledown the Bowman or straightforward as they seemed. Briony had learned will go where no other dares." that at a young age. Who could afford to be? Briony "No other Rooftopper, you mean," said Chert as he had ancestors in the Portrait Hall who had killed more started across the temple-yard toward the gate. "After of their own nobles than they had slain enemies on all, we Funderlings go there rather often." the battle field. "And what is my charming cousin Hendon up to?" She · nodded as another, only slightly more beloved relative joined the council, Rorick Longarren. The apparent invasion seemed to be on the borders of his Daler's "Where is your brother? Prince Barrick should be Troth fiefdom, one of the few things that could lure here." Avin Brone could not sound more disapproving him away from dicing and drinking. He took his place if Briony had informed him that she planned to hand at the table and yawned behind his hand. over governance of the March Kingdoms to an "Tolly showed up with his little court of complainers assembly of landless yokels. just as you left the throne room," Tyne Aldritch told "He is ill, Lord Brone. He would be here if he could." her, "and was talking loudly about how sometimes "But he is the co-regent. people try to avoid those they have wronged." 653 654 Briony took a deep breath. "I thank you, Earl Tyne I statue of unfeeling stone. "Can he read, too?" would be surprised if he was not talking against me - "I imagine so, Highness," Brone said. "But here he against us, I mean, Prince Barrick and myself. The comes. You may ask him yourself." Tollys are admirable allies in time of war b cursedly ut His hair was still wet and he had put on not a dress difficult in peacetime." tunic and armor but simple clothes that she suspected "But is this still peacetime?" the Earl of Blueshore by their fit were not even his own, but she was still asked with heavy significance. irritated. "Captain Vansen. Your news must be ter rible She sighed. "That is what we hope to find out Lord indeed that you would make the princess regent wait Brone, where is your guard captain?" for it." "He insisted on bathing before being brought to you." He looked surprised, even shocked. "I am sorry, Highness. I was told that you would be in the throne Briony snorted. "I had doubts about his competence, room until after midday and could not see me until but I didn't take him for a fop. Is a bath more important then. I gave my news to Lord Brone's man and then . . than news of an attack on Southmarch?" ." He seemed suddenly to realize he was perilously "To be fair, Highness," said Brone, "they rode almost close to arguing with his monarch; he dropped to one without stopping for three days to get here and he has knee. "I beg your pardon, Highness. Clearly the already written everything down while he waited for mistake is mine. Please do not let your anger at me me to come to him from the throne room." Brone lifted cloud your feelings toward my men, who have a handful of parchment. "He felt it would be suffered much and done so bravely to bring this news discourteous to appear before you in torn and dirty back to Southmarch." clothes." He is too honorable by half, she thought. He had a Briony stared at the parchment covered with neat good chin, she had to admit - a proud chin. Perhaps letters. "He can write?" he was one of those men like the famous King Brenn, "Yes, Highness." so in love with honor that it ate him up with pride. She "I was told he was born in the country - a crofters son didn't like the suggestion that she needed permission to be angry at someone, even permission given by the or something like. So where did he learn to write?" For someone in question. She decided she would teach some reason this did not fit the picture in her head of Vansen the guard captain, the man who had stood this crafty - and no doubt ambitious - young soldier a lesson by not being angry at all. close -mouthed and emotionless while her brother lay dead in his own blood a few yards away, the fellow Besides, she thought, if what Brone says is true, we who had let her strike at him as though he were a do have more important things to talk about. "We will 655 656 speak of this some other tune, Captain Vansen," she She turned her attention back to her cousin Rorick, said. "Tell us your news." who was not even trying to hide his fear. "Ride there?" he stammered. "Into the gods alone know what kind of terrors?" · "Longarren is right about one thing - he can do nothing alone," said Tyne of Blueshore. "We must By the time he had finished, Briony felt as if she had strike them quickly, though, whatever we do. We must stepped into one of the stories the maids used to tell throw them back. If the Twilight People are truly come when she was a child. across the Shadowline, we must remind them of why "You saw this. . . this fairy army?" they retreated there in the past - make them see they will pay with blood for every yard of trespass . . ." Vansen nodded. "Yes, Highness. Not very well, as I've "Still, these are your lands we are talking about, said. It was . . ." He hesitated. "It was strange there." Rorick," Bri ony pointed out, "and your people. They do "By the gods!" cried Rorick, who had just divined the not see much of you as it is. Will you not lead them?" reason for his own presence, "they are coming down "But lead them to what, Highness?" Surprisingly, it onto my land! They must be invading Daler's Troth even as we speak - someone must stop them!" was Brone who spoke up: as a general rule, he did not think much of her cousin Rorick. "We know Briony had not particularly wanted him present, but nothing so far. We have sent out a small party and since it was near his fiefdom, and his bride-to -be had only a few of them have come back - I think it would been kidnapped with the convoy, she could not think be a mistake for Lord Longarren or anyone else to of a reason to keep him out of the council. Still, she ride off to battle without due care. What if we make a found it telling that he had not mentioned the Settish stand against these invaders and the same thing prince's daughter once. "Yes, it sounds that way, happens - the madness, the confusion - but this time Cousin Rorick," she said. "You will, no doubt, want to to an entire army? Fear will run riot and the Twilight ride out as soon as you can to muster and lead your People will be here in these halls before spring. That people." She kept her tone equable, but to her conquest will not be anything like the Syannese surprise she saw a small reaction from Vansen, not a Empire either, I suspect. These creatures will want smile - the matters at hand were too serious - but a more than tribute. What did Vansen say that his little recognition by him that she didn't think Rorick was monstrosity told him? That she - whoever that might likely to follow this selfless course. be - will burn all our houses down to black stones." Ah, but Vansen is a dalesman, isn't he? And not as The enormity of it struck her now, her contemptuous dull as I supposed him, either. 657 658 prodding of Rorick suddenly seemed petty. Unless an army on foot without him. And Count Gallibert, the Vansen was completely mad, they were soon to be at chancellor, because we will need gold as well as steel war, and not with any human foe. As if the threat of to protect this place. But, Highness, we cannot put an the Autarch, Kendrick's death, and their father's army on foot at all without everyone learning of it. imprisonment had not been enough! Briony looked at "No, but we can do as much as we can before we the guard captain and, much as she might wish it, must make it general knowledge." She looked at could not believe he was telling anything other than Ferras Vansen, who seemed uncomfortable. "You the truth. What she had been taking for dullness or have a thought, Captain?" priggish honor might instead be a kind of unvarnished "If you will pardon me, Highness, my men have simplicity, something she had difficulty recognizing suffered a great deal and they will be unhappy to be because of where she sat. It could be that here was a confined to the keep." man who did not know how to scheme, who would "Are you questioning my decision?" suffocate in the daily intriguing of the castle s inner chambers like an oak trying to grow beneath the "No, Highn ess. But I would prefer to explain it to them strangling vines of the Xandian jungles. myself." I doubt he can even keep a secret. "Vansen," she said "Ah." She considered. "Not yet. I haven't finished with suddenly. "Where are those you brought back?" you." "The guardsmen are waiting to return to their families. He looked as though he might say more, but didn't. There is the girl, too. Briony was briefly grateful for the power of the regency, for the prestige of being an Eddon, she didn't "They are not to go home, any of them, or to mix with want to waste time explaining her every thought just others. Open talk of this must not be permitted or we now. In fact, she was feeling a certain pleasure, even will be struggling with our own fearful people long in the midst of her great distress at what was before we ever cross swords with this fairy army." She happening and what must happen in the days ahead, turned to the lord constable, who was already to know that she was the one who must make dispatching one of the guards to relay her order. "Who decisions, that the nobles must listen to her no matter else needs to know?" what they would prefer. Brone looked around the chapel. "The defense of the Pray Zoria I make the right decisions. "Bring Nynor castle and city is my task, and I thank Perin Skyfather and the chancellor and any other nobles that must that he put it in my head to do the repairs on the know. This evening, here. It will be a war council - but curtain wall and the water-gate last summer. We need do not call it so within the hearing of anyone who will Nynor, of course, and all his factors - we cannot put not be joining us." 659 660 "And those bloody -minded Tollys?" asked Tyne. "Before you go, good Aldritch," she said to Tyne, "Hendon will still be the brother of a powerful duke ignoring the lord constable. whether Gailon is alive or dead, and the Tollys cannot He turned toward her, not sure what was coming. be ignored in this." "Yes, Highness?" "No, of course not, but for the moment they will be." Briony examined the earl's familiar face, the squint of However, she knew she must not be foolish. "But suspicion, the scar beneath his eye. There was perhaps you could tell Hendon Tolly that I will see him another jagged white line on his forehead only partly later - that we will talk privately before the evening hidden beneath his graying hair - a fall while hunting. meal. That courtesy I can give him." He was a good man but a rigid one, a man who saw Rorick excused himself - to down a cup of wine as almost all change as trouble. She sensed she was quickly as possible, Briony guessed. As Avin Brone about to make the first of a long series of not entirely and Tyne Aldritch fell into a discussion of which of the happy choices. "With Shaso imprisoned, you and Lord other nobles must be present at so important a Brone have taken up most of his duties between you, council, Briony rose to stretch her legs. Vansen, my lord Aldritch." thinking she was leaving the room, went down on one "I have done my best, Highness," he said, a little knee. angry color coming to his cheeks. "But this attack from "No, Captain, I am not done with you yet, as I said." It behind the Shadowline, if it is true, could not have was a strange, almost giddy feeling, the power that been foreseen . ." was in her now. For a moment she thought of Barrick "I know. And I know . . that is, my brother and I know . and was stabbed by pity and sadness, but also . . that you have done what you could in a difficult impatience I must give him the chance to be present time. Now it seems the times will become more for this, she reminded herself. It is his due. But she difficult still." She was aware that she was changing, wondered at her own thoughts, because it was indeed that she had begun to speak less like Briony and more his due she was thinking of, not her own needs she like a queen, or at least a princess regent. Is this what was not certain she actually wanted him to be happens? Is true royalty like some wasting illness that involved, and she was disturbed by that realization. makes you grow farther and farther from everyone "You will wait outside until I have finished with the even while you remain in their midst others,Vansen." ·"I wish you to continue, and in fact to become the He bowed his head, then rose and walked out. Brone castle's master of arms." She looked quickly to Brone, looked at him, then at Briony, one eyebrow raised not for his approval, but to see how he reacted. He, in inquiringly. turn, was looking at Tyne, if he disagreed or agreed 661 662 with her decision he gave no sign. who have never swung anything sharper than a hoe." Earl Tyne's cheeks were still flushed, but he seemed "We must test their strength - and ours," Briony said relieved. "I thank you, Highness. I will do my best to firmly. "We know nothing of such an enemy. And if fulfill your trust." they draw a siege around us, we will have trouble getting any more help at all from the farther marches. "I'm sure you will. So here is your first duty. We must We will have to rely on ships to bring men as well as assume this danger is real. We have a few hundred supplies, which will make for an even longer wait for guards in the castle - not enough for anything except the landbound musters." She turned to Avin Brone. perhaps to resist a siege, and if it comes to that, it will "What do you think?" mean we have abandoned the outer city. How quickly can we muster a proper army?" He nodded, pulling gently and meditatively on his beard. "I agree we cannot simply wait until this enemy Aldritch frowned. "We can have my Blueshoremen arrives. But we do not know for certain that is what and Brone's Landsenders here in days, perhaps a they plan. Perhaps they will harry the outlying week. With fast riders on the Westmarch Road we marches first. Perhaps they seek only to expand a might be able to draw a few companies from Daler's distance across the Shadowline, then sit on what they Troth soon after, if we can get around this fairy army. have won." Any levies from Marrinswalk and Helrmngsea and the outliers like Silverside and Kertewall will take longer - "It doesn't seem anything to count on," said Briony. "If at the very least two tenmghts, more likely we won't they have brought an entire army across the see them for a month " His frown became a scowl - Shadowline, it seems unlikely they did it merely to Tyne had never been one to mask his thoughts. "A burn a few fields and barns." She almost couldn't cursed shame, this whole bloody business with Gailon believe she was talking about this so calmly. People Tolly and his brothers, because our largest and best- were going to die. The country had been largely at trained muster always comes from Summerfield." peace for her entire lifetime and the Twilight People had not stirred out of their shadows for generations. "I will treat with that," Briony said. "What seems How had this fallen to her? important to me is that we meet this shadow-army, if it is truly moving on Southmarch as the guard captain Brone sighed. "I agree that we must begin the muster fears, at least once outside the city walls." immediately, Highness. The rest we can discuss with the other nobles later today." "With unready troops?" Tyne protested. "Most of what we will turn up here under such haste will be local "Go, then,Tyne, and begin it," she said. "I may be musters, especially after all these years without war - asking an impossibility, but let your messengers go perhaps only one real fighting man for every dozen out with as much secrecy as they can and take their 663 664 messages straight to the local lords and mayors man was riding on his shoulder. He could not, of without stopping to discuss it in the taverns. Tell them course, avoid giving an explanation to everyone . . . that if anyone hears of their errand before the one to "Have you found him?" Opal demanded, then her whom they are sent, they will spend the next year reddened eyes opened wide as she saw Beetledown. chained in the stronghold next to Shaso." "Earth Elders! What . . . what is that?" "That will not keep everyone quiet,"Tyne argued. "He's a `who,' really," her husband told her. "As for "Some will risk shackles to warn their own families." Flint, no luck. Not yet." "No, but it will help. And we will not give the The little man stood up on Chert's shoulder and doffed messengers any information that they do not need." his ratskin hat before making a small bow. She summoned a young page from outside the chapel "Beetledown the Bowman, I hight, tallsome lady. Chief door. He came in as hesitantly as a cat walking on a one of the Gutter -Scouts, directed by Her Sinuous wet floor. "Call Nynor," she told him, and when he was Majesty, Queen Upsteeplebat, to help find your lost gone she said, "I will send out letters under my seal." boy." "Very good," said the Earl of Blueshore. "Then they "He's here to help." Chert was tired and didn't have will not be able to argue they did not understand the much hope left - in fact, the whole thing struck him as importance or that the messenger did not tell them a bit ridiculous. Opal, however, was seeing a straightly what was needed." Rooftopper for the first time and for a moment seemed "You two go and see to it, please, and the almost able to forget the terrible errand that had arrangements for this evening's council as well. Send brought this newcomer to their home. inVansen as you go." "Look at him! He's perfect!" She reached out a hand, Brone gave her the raised eyebrow once more. "Do as if he were a toy to be played with, but remembered not be too hard on him, Highness, please. He is a her manners. "Oh! My name is Opal and you are good man." welcome in our house. Would you like something to drink or eat? I'm afraid I don't know much about . . . "I will deal with him as he deserves," she promised. about Rooftoppers." "Nay, Mistress, not this moment, but I thank `ee." He · pulled at Chert's earlobe."It seems best tha put me down. Smell is a tricksy thing. Fades like stars at sunrise." Chert had managed by a certain stealthiness to make his way home through the back streets of Funderling "He's going to sniff Flint's shirt," Chert explained. It Town without having to explain why a finger-sized seemed to need some additional clarification, but he 665 666 couldn't summon any. Chert almost laughed. "There is no shame. He is not our blood-child. We found him and took him in." Opal, however, seemed to find it all perfectly straightforward. "Let me carry you. I haven't swept the Beetledown nodded wisely. "Found him in some floors today and I'm ashamed." She reached out a strange place, thinks I. True?" hand and Beetledown climbed onto it. "Did your queen "Yes," said Opal a little worriedly. "How did you really send you? What is she like? Is she old or know?" young? Is she beautiful?" "Un smells of Farther Rooftops." Beetledown turned to "Brave as a daw and fearful handsome," said Chert. "Is it tha who will carry me now?" Beetledown with real feeling. "Hair soft as the velvet "Carry . . . ?" pelt of a weanling mouse." He coughed to cover his "On the track. Too much of un's scent there is here. embarrassment. "We are her special legion, we Go where there is moving air, we must - even in these Gutter -Scouts. The queen's eyes and ears. A great danksome caves there must be such a place, honor it gives to us." methinks." "Then we're honored she wishes to help us," said Carefully, Chert lifted the little man back up onto his Opal as she carried the tiny man toward Flint's bed. shoulder. He was tired in heart and body, but certainly Chert was bemused to see how much better his wife it was better to be doing something than simply did this sort of thing than he did. "Do you need waiting. "Are you coming?" he asked his wife. anything?" "Then who would be here if he comes home?" said "Is yon great tent of faircloth un's garment? Put me Opal indignantly, as though the boy had merely gone down, please `ee, Mistress, and I will scent what I to race sowbugs with the neighbor children and would can." He scrambled across the folds, then dropped to be back any time. "You go, Chert Blue Quartz, and his hands and knees and pressed his face against the you let this fellow do all the sniffing he has to do. You sleeve. He worked his way up to the shoulder, sniffing find that boy." She turned to look at Beetledown and as he went like a dog. At last he climbed to his feet per formed a strange, stiff courtesy, holding her apron and closed his eyes, stood silent for a moment. "I up at the hem. She even smiled at him, although she think I have it," he said. "Easier it gives itself to me clearly didn't find it easy, which reminded Chert that because I have scented the boy upon the rooftop and he was not the only one who was bone -weary with un has un's own peculiar tang." He opened his eyes, sleeplessness and dread. "We thank you and your looked at Opal and Chert, then shuffled his feet a little queen," she said. on the sleeve. "No wish am I having to shame `ee, but to me un smells nothing like tha twain." He gave Opal a kiss before leaving, wondering how 667 668 many days it had been since he had remembered to "Whatever you think of me, Princess Briony, I ask you do that. He couldn't help glancing back as he opened again not to bear ill will toward the men who traveled the door, but he wished he hadn't. In the middle of the with me. They are good soldiers tested by things that room, his wife was rubbing her hands together and none of us have seen and felt before. Punish me as looking at the walls as though searching for you will, but not them, I beg of you." something. Now that there was no longer a guest in "You truly are a bit arrogant, aren't you, Captain the house, her face had gone slack with grief - it was Vansen?" a stranger's face, and an old stranger at that. For the His eyes widened. "Highness?" first time he could remember, Chert could no longer "You assume that you have done some great wrong quite make out the lovely young girl he had courted. for which you must be punished. You seem to think that, like Kupilas the Lifegiver, your crime is so great · that you must be staked on the hillside as an example, to be picked at by the ravens for eternity. Yet, as far as I can see, you have only proved to be a soldier Captain Ferras Vansen came back into the chapel like who has muddled a commission." a condemned prisoner walking bravely to the gallows. His expression, Briony thought, was a little like the "But your brother's death . . ." idealized face of Perin in the fresco above the door "It's true, I haven't forgiven you for your failures that which showed the mighty god giving to his brother night. But neither am I so foolish as to think someone Erivor the dominion over the rivers and seas On the else would have prevented it." She paused, gave him sky god the face was frozen in a mask of hard a hard stare. "Do you think I'm foolish, Captain masculine beauty; Vansen, although not an Vansen?" unhandsome man, simply looked frozen. "No, Highness . . .!" He kneeled before her, head down. His hair was now "Good. Then we have a starting point. I don't think I'm almost dry, curling at the ends. She felt something foolish either. Now let us move to more important almost like tenderness toward him, touched by the matters. Are you mad, Captain Vansen?" vulnerability of his bent neck. He looked up and she He was startled and she almost felt ashamed of felt caught in some indiscretion, had to fight down a herself, but these were times when she could not surge of warm anger. bend, could not be too kind and thus seem weak. "May I speak, Highness?" There could be no whispering among the castle's "You may." defenders that they would fail because a woman ruled 669 670 them. "Am I . . . ?" "No, Highness. One of my most trusted and sensible men, Collum Dyer, was swept away into a dream very "I asked if you are mad, Captain Vansen. Are your quickly, but a man who is for all purposes his opposite wits damaged? It seems a simple enough question." was not touched and, in fact, made it home with me." "No, Princess. No, Highness, I do not think so." "So we have no way to know who has the weakness "Then unless you are a liar or a traitor - fear not, I until it is revealed." She frowned, biting her lip. won't ask you to deny those possibilities as well, we Vansen watched her, clearly masking deeper feelings, don't have the time - what you have seen is real. Our but this time more effectively. She wondered briefly danger is real. So let us talk about why your arrogant what he was hiding from her. Irritation? Fear? wish to be important enough to be punished will not "Despite what you think of him, this fellow you be satisfied." mentioned who was not overcome by the fairy-magic "My lady . . . ?" must be given a role in preparing to fight this strange "Silence. I didn't ask you a question. Captain Vansen, enemy. He and all the others who were not poisoned by this strange dreaming. He and your other survivors from what you've told me, it seems that not everyone must all be made captains." is the same when it comes to this fairy-magic. You said that some of the men were bewildered, even "Mickael Southstead a captain?" Vansen was bewitched, and that others were not. You were one of chagrined. those who were not. True?" "Unless he is the lowest, vilest criminal ever born, his "Or at least very little, Highness, as far as I could tell." clear head will be worth more to us than if Anglin the He was looking at her with something like surprised Great himself were to come back from the heavens to respect. She liked the respect. She did not like the lead us, then fall into a bewildered nightmare. As we surprise. have agreed,Vansen, I am no fool, and I don't think you are one either. Can you not see this?" "Then I would be a fool to throw a soldier who seemed armored against such charms and snares into chains He bowed his head again briefly. "I can, Highness. at a time when we may need that talent far more than You are right." strong arms or even stout hearts . . . would I not?" "Very kind of you to say so, Captain. We do not know "I . . . I take your point, Highness." where we will be fighting. It could be we will meet "Here is another question. Did you see any reason, them in the hills of Daler's Troth in an attempt to keep them away from the cities. It could just as easily any differences in those affected, that might explain happen that we cannot stop them until they reach the why some of you were overwhelmed by the Shadowline magic and some were not?" walls of Southmarch itself You are the only ones who 671 672 have seen the enemy and returned to tell of it. You she did not know why. "No, Highness. Responsibility, must help us prepare for them in any way you can perhaps - she is like a child and she trusts me. But imagine. I am not happy about it, Vansen, but I need although she seemed just as lost in the Shadowline you just as much as I need Brone and Nynor and dream as Dyer and the others, she also found a way Tyne Aldritch. The matter of my brother's murder and out again for us. She seems to be in some middle your failure is not closed, but until better times I will ground between the two . . ." push it from my mind, and so will you. It could be that "We have no time or patience to try to make sense out if you serve me well if you serve Southmarch well then of some unfortunate young woman. If the magic took what is in the ledger of that night can be scraped her and confused he r, she is no use to us. Make her away, or at least inked over." comfortable. Bring me the others tomorrow at ten of "I will do all that you ask, Highness." This new the clock." expression was hard to unriddle, both elevated and Vansen bowed and went out, looking not exactly like miserable, so that for a moment he appeared to have one reprieved, but perhaps like one who had found stepped down from a different fresco altogether. out the gallows makers were all ill with a bad fever. You are a strange man, Ferras Vansen, she thought. She sat for a long time after he was gone, her Maybe I was wrong to think you are the sort that has thoughts an unsettled swirl. She had only an hour or no secrets. "Go, then. Gather those who came back so before she had to meet with the nobles and make a with you. See that they are fed and rested, but in no plan of war. She would have liked to go to Utta - she circumstance let them leave. I will speak to them missed the Zorian sister's wisdom and calm - but she myself tomorrow morning." knew there was a more important visit she had to "Yes, Highness." He rose, but hesitated. "Princess make. Whatever complicated feelings she might have Briony . . . ?" and whatever terrors might be punishing him, she did not wish to go to this evening's council without her "Speak." twin. "There is a young woman, too - I believe I told you." A cold irritation crept over her. "What about her? We · cannot let her go either, even if she is mad and suffering. I regret it. Make her comfortable." She narrowed her eyes. "Do you have some feelings for The Scourge of the Shivering Plain stood on a hillside her?" at the edge of the line of trees, looking down on the "No!" He flushed: she was certain she had touched a valley and the town that bestrode the river at its nerve.That made her grow even more chill, although bottom. The sun had vanished behind the top of the 673 674 hills and lamps were already being lit all along the something of the mettle of her sunlander enemies, dark valley, even though evening was still an hour Lady Porcupine might find it useful to let them see her away. army's fires burning on the hills and plains, let them count the blazes -with chilling blood - but not tonight. Yasammez turned and reached out with her thoughts, Tonight the People would come down on their foes feeling back toward the Shadowline. The mantle of like lightning from a cloudless sky. shadow, the web of careful, ancient enchantments that had trailed behind her for days like a cape of Her tent was a thing woven of s ilence and thickened mists, the vast, mortal-bewildering essence of the Qar shadow. Several of her captains awaited her inside its heartland that had hidden and protected her marching surprisingly large expanse, seated around the dim army, had now stretched to its limits and was amethyst glow of her empty helmet in a circle like the beginning to thin. She knew that it would reach no Whispering Mothers who nursed the Great Egg. farther into these fields, that where she went from now Yasammez wished she could send them all away - on she must do beneath the bright sun or the there was always that still moment before the noise unclouded stars. That was why she waited for night. and the blood and she preferred to spend it by herself The Seal of War glowed on her chest like a coal. Its - but first there were things she had to do and even a weight was both comforting and terrifying. For year few hated formalities she must observe. upon long year she had waited for this hour to come. Mormng-in-Eye of the Changing People was waiting, Whatever befell would have much to do with her her naked chest heaving. She had just run a long way. decisions in the days ahead, and she would have had "What do you bring me?" Yasammez asked her. it no other way. Still, many would die, and many of "They are no more than they seem, or else they have them would be her own kind. Like almost all warriors, grown a thousand times more skilled in trickery than no matter how fierce, it was not easy for her to see they once were. A small garrison lives inside the town her own killed, whatever the need. gates. There are other small forces of armed folk in She turned and walked back up the hillside. Although the larger houses, and an armory that suggests they her armor was covered in long spines and the trees can muster more when need be." grew close together here, she made no sound. "But the armory is full?" In the woods along the hilltop her army had gathered. Morning-in-Eye nodded her sleek head. "Pikes and With the mantle's weakening their bright eyes glittered helmets, bows, arrows - none have been given out. in the gathering dark like a sky full of stars as they They do not suspect." watched her pass. No fires had been lit. Later, when Yasammez showed nothing, but she was pleased. An she had a better idea of what she faced, had learned easy victory would bring its own problems, but it was 675 676 more important that her army's first blooding not be to death as they came out, screaming and weeping." too perilous. Even with all those she had mustered, "It is not mercy. You should know that I of all the the People were still vastly outnumbered by the People have no such failing when it comes to the mortals who now filled the lands that once had sunlanders. I wish the news of what happened here to belonged to her folk. She relied on surprise and terror spread - it will fill their land with terror. And the to increase the size of her host tenfold. females and young we allow to escape will not take up "Hammerfoot of Firstdeep?" arms as their males might, but in the cities we besiege they will need to be fed and watered, taking resources "Yes, Lady." from those w ho do stand against us." She slipped "It is long since we have come against mortal men or Whitefire from its sheath and laid it beside her helmet. their works. When the village is afire, take some of There was no fire in her pavilion of shadow; the your women and men and pull down the walls. See to sword's lunar glow gave all the light. "We have not the way of their building. It is only a town, but perhaps spilled the blood of mortals since we retreated behind we will see something of what we must defeat when the Shadowline. Now that is ended. Let the Book of we come against the Old Place." Regret remember this hour even beyond the world's "Yes, Lady." end. " She raised her hand. "Sing with me, for the sake of all the People. We must now praise the blind She turned to Gyir, the most trusted of her captains, king and the sleeping queen and swear our fealty to and for a moment their thoughts commingled. Compared to her or even many of the others present the Pact of the Glass - yes, we will all swear to it together, think what we might - then we will take flame he was merely a stripling, but his ferocity and cunning and fear to our enemies." were second only to hers. She tasted his cold resolve and was pleased, then spoke so that the others might hear. "When we are putting the town to fire and the people to slaughter, it is my wish that a large number be allowed to escape, or at least to believe that they are escaping. " She paused for a moment, considered unflinchingly the horror that would come. "Let them be mostly females and their young." Stone of the Unwilling stirred, flickered. "But why, Lady? Why show them mercy? They never showed us any - when they found my people's hive in the last great battles they burned it and clubbed our children 677 678 PART THREE 27 FIRE Candlerstown THE TALE OF YEARS: . . . And Perin went among them and heard their cries, and when they told him, not knowing who he was, of Each page turned is a page of fire the terrible beast that beset them, he smiled and The tortoise licks his burned feet patted his great hammer and instructed them not to be And stares into darkness afraid . . . - from The Bonefall Oracles - from A Compendium of Tilings That are Known. He knew he had to pay attention. Barrick knew that The Book of the Trigon. what was happening was terribly important, if hard to believe. He also knew that his sister was expecting him to shoulder some of the burden. He just didn't know whether he could do it or not. It was the dreams, his harrowing dreams, wearing him away just as the powerful ocean waves broke down the causeway between Southmarch's castle and town, so that men had to labor constantly to build it back up again. Sometimes he found it difficult to remember what it felt like simply to be Barrick. There were nights when he woke scratching like a beast at the inside of his chamber door, locked each night by his servants to prevent him from walking in his sleep. Other midnights he came gasping up from nightmares, half certain that he had changed into something else 679 680 entirely, and could only sit in the dark feeling at first make sense. his hands and arms and then, reluctantly, his face, "Prince Barrick, we know it is an effort for you to be terrified that he might find some dreadful here and we are all grateful for that. Shall I have transfiguration had taken place to match those someone bring you wine?" It was Avin Brone dreams of violence. In many of the dreams he was speaking, clumsily trying to let him know he was not surrounded by faceless shapes that wanted to paying attention. imprison him, perhaps even kill him, unless he "Are you ill again?" Briony asked quietly. destroyed them first. Always he woke sweating, "I am well enough. It is the fever, still I do not sleep breathless with fear that he was becoming some brute well." He took a breath to clear his head, struggling to beast like a shape-changer out of some old nurse's reme mber what the others had been saying. He tale, and worst of all, that this time the dream creature wanted to show that he was worthy to sit beside his whose neck had just snapped in his hands would turn sister. "But why should these fairy-beasts come here out to be a real pe rson he had attacked - someone he and attack us? Why now?" knew, perhaps even someone he loved. "We do not know anything for certain, Highness." That In fact, there seemed little separation now between was the quiet one, Vansen, the guard captain. Barrick the madness of nightmare and what had been the wasn't certain what he thought about the man. sanctuary of wakefulness In the dim hours of the Briony's anger with him had been reasonable - letting previous night he had awakened with a voice in his a reigning prince be killed in his own bedroom was ear, someone speaking as though they sat right next obviously a dereliction of duty, and under old King to him, although the room was silent but for the breath Ustin the captain's head would probably have been on of his slumbering page. a spike above the Basilisk Gate weeks ago - so he "We do not need the mantle any longer," it had said - was not quite certain why she now seemed to be a woman's voice, commanding, cold. It had not been treating the young soldier like an important adviser. like something heard in a dream, but had seemed to He dimly remembered Briony saying something about resound inside the very bones of his skull. He had it as they made their way to this council, but his head whimpered at the sound, the nearness of it. "We will had been pounding from the effort of getting up and sweep down on them like fire. They will fear us in light getting dressed. "All I can say is that the creature we as well as darkness." caught said something about someone leading an Prince Barrick?" said a gruff voice. army, coming to burn our houses," Vansen went on. Someone was trying to get his attention - a real voice, "Strangely, it was a she the goblin said was going to not a midnight dream. He shook his head, trying to do it. `She brings white fire,' that's what it told us. 681 682 `Burn all your houses to black stones.' But perhaps tongue; as the pain jumped into the back of his mouth the monster did not speak our tongue well enough . he heard Nynor say, ". . . after all. Perhaps they merely wish to test their strength - a raid or two, then Barrick felt a chill trace down his back Vansen's words back across the Shadowline." were much like his dream, the cold, female voice out of the empty night. He almost said something, but the "Wishful thinking," declared Tyne of Blueshore. stony, doubting faces all around made him hold his "Unless Vansen is utterly mistaken, that is no raiding tongue. The prince is imagining things, they would party They are bringing a large army, the kind that will whisper to each other. His wits are going. He should stay in the field until it has accomplished its task." never ha ve confessed his secrets to Briony. Thank the "But why me?" said Earl Rorick. "First they steal my gods he had not given up all caution and had kept the bride and her splendid dowry, now they will attack my strangest of them to himself. lands. I have done nothing to offend these creatures!" "Is there some reason this enemy couldn't be a "Opportunity, my lord - that seems most likely," said woman?" Briony demanded. Barrick could not help Vansen. He looked at Rorick with such a calm, noticing changes in his sister: it was as though she measured gaze that Barrick could almost see him had grown bigger, harder, while he grew smaller and weighing the man and finding him to be a short more helpless daily. "Didn't Anglin's granddaughter measure. But Vansen is a dalesman, isn't he? So Lily lead her people against the Gray Companies? If Rorick is his lord. The idea that a liege lord would not the Twilight People are somehow led by a woman, receive the unquestioning respect of all his liegemen does that mean we have no need to be wary of was a slightly new one to Barrick, who had spent his them?" childhood so taken with his own cynicism that it had "No, Highness, of course not." Vansen flushed easily. not occurred to him others might also find the ancient Barrick wondered if the man was trying to hide a great order of things to be less than perfect. anger. "Opportunity?" asked Briony. "But the princess raises an important question," said "When I was in . . . when I was behind the old Steffans Nynor with surprising matter -of-factness. Shadowline, Highness," the captain said, "it was like The castellan seemed to have put aside his fluttery falling into a fast river, even though I was less troubled servility in this time of need. Eyes of Heaven, Barrick than many of my men. But time and even . . . even the thought, have I been asleep for a hundred years? Is substance of things seemed different from place to everyone turning into something else? For a moment place there, in the way . . . in the way that someone the walls of the chapel seemed to drop away and he swept down a river might for a moment be pulled was turning, falling. He recovered himself by biting his down and then be lifted to the surface again, or be 683 684 caught for a moment in an eddy, then pushed cannot defeat them?" helplessly into the rocks." "No, my lord." Vansen's jaw was set. He would not "What are you talking about?" Avin Brone demanded. look at Rorick, but didn't seem cowed. "No, but I saw "You said `opportunity? . . ." them with these eyes - they have a great force. Had they come down on Southmarch in the night, this city Vansen suddenly realized they were all looking at him. would have been in terror and disarray." He colored again, lowered his head. "Forgive me, I am but a soldier . . ." "What exactly are you trying to tell us, Captain Vansen?" Briony asked. "Speak." There was something in his sister's voice that Barrick had never heard before; again he felt "That perhaps the Twilight Lands have their own ebb adrift, as though Vansen s river had whi rled him far and flow." He looked at her, almost imploring her to away from his own, familiar life. "You are here understand. "Perhaps they came through in the only precisely because you have seen things the rest of us place they could. It is hard to say what I mean - there haven't, Captain Vansen. Speak." are no words for it. "I meant only that . . . that I wonder why, if they have "Perhaps the captain is right," said Earl Gowan, gathered such an army, they should choose to enter whose fiefdom in Helmingsea included a small but the March Kingdoms at Daler's Troth. I was born excellent personal navy. Gowan usually had the air of there, so I know it well. There are a few large towns, someone who joined a discussion, no matter how Dale House and Candlerstown and Hawkshill, but serious, chiefly for amusement. "But perhaps they mostly it is hill crofts, a few larger farms, scattered have no interest in Southmarch. Perhaps the villages. If they mean to come against us, and I hobgoblins are only a raiding party after all and you believe they do, why should they start so far away? are mistaken, or perhaps their goal is farther south, in Even if they do not know that my men and I spied Sy an. Wasn't it King Karal of Syan who led the armies them and so they still believe they will surprise us, of Eion against them once upon a time? Perhaps they why should they take the chance that others will flee want revenge." east with news of their coming and allow us to Barrick could feel an easing of tension around the prepare? If they had come across the Shadowline in table. Some of the other nobles nodded their heads, the Eastmarch hills, they would have been upon us agreeing. "No," he said. He had been silent a long already and I fear we would not be having this council, time the others seemed surprised even to hear the unless it was to meet our conquerors." prince speak. "They want this place - Southmarch. "That is treason!" said Rorick. "Who is this lowborn They lived here once." soldier to tell us such things? Are you saying we "That is an old tale," Brone said slowly. "I am not 685 686 certain it is true, Highness . . ." seemed to remember her brother; she turned to Barrick with the tiniest flicker of the shamefaced smile But Barrick knew it was true, as certainly as if he had that he alone knew well enough to recognize. "If you wakened on a cold, damp day and knew it was going agree." to rain, he was not, however, able to explain why he was so sure. "Not just a tale," was all he could muster. "Of course." A thought had come to him - a simple "They lived here once." thing compared to all the dreadful visons that had been plaguing him, simple and satisfying. "We will Old Nynor cleared his throat. "It is true that that there fight." are stones beneath the castle and in the deep places that are part of some older stronghold." "Then we must finish our preparations," she said. "Lord Brone, Lord Aldritch, you will proceed as we "Men have lived here a long while, even before discussed earlier. We must put an army into the field Anglin's folk," said Tyne dismissively. "And the now - if nothing else, to see how strong they are." Funderlings were here when men arrived, everyone knows." Avin Brone and Tyne slowly nodded their heads, weighty men with weighty concerns. "This is all beside the point," said Briony. "Much as some of you might wish it, we cannot hope the "And I will lead it," Barrick announced. Twilight People are going to Syan to revenge "What?" Briony recoiled as though he had slapped themselves on Karal's heirs and leave it at that. They her. He was almost pleased to see her look so are in our lands. Every farm in Daler's Troth is a part startled. A small, resentful part of him knew that she of the March Kingdoms. Just as Rorick is their lord had grown accustomed to making decisions without and must protect those people and those lands, it is him. Now that would end. "But, Barrick, you have up to the crown of Southmarch to help him." been ill . . . !" Earl Rorick brushed a curl back from his forehead. He Avin Brone thumped his big hands down on the table, had made a concession to the fact of a war counc il - then crossed his arms, hiding those hands in his his outfit, though beautifully tailored, was considerably jacket as though he feared they would get into short of his usual extravagance, but he still looked no mischief. "You cannot take such a risk, Highness," he more ready for combat than would a peacock. "What . began, but B arrick did not let him finish. . . what do you plan, Highness?" He looked around at "I am not a fool, Lord Brone. I do not imagine I am the other nobles, unhappily awar e of how glad they all going to single-handedly drive off the Twilight People. were that his lands, not theirs, would bear the brunt of I know you think I'm only a crippled child, and a what was coming. headstrong one at that. But I will go and I will lead our "We will fight them, of course." Briony suddenly army, at least in name. The Silver Wolf of Anglin must 687 688 be on the field - anything else is unthinkable." The acknowledge himself, was that the lure of his idea glorious idea that had seemed so clear and so wasn't glory but resolution - that he would thrive in the obvious a moment ago now seemed a bit muddled, simplicity of the battlefield, that he would not need to but he pushed ahead. "Someone said earlier that fear his own anger or even the madness growing Rorick must go, to show that the nobles of these lands inside him, and that if he died it would be a relief from will fight for what is theirs. Everyone knows that the the dreams and the great fear. "I know what kind of people of Southmarch are frightened by the terrible place it will be, Blueshore," he told the new master of things that have happened - our father a captive, arms. "Or at least I can guess. And I certainly know Kendrick dead. If Vansen is right, even darker days my own failings. Would you rub my nose in them?" are coming to us - a war against things we hardly Tyne's mouth snapped shut but his eyes spoke for understand. The people must see that the Eddons will him. fight for them. There are two regents, after all, which "Prince Barrick and I must talk about this." Briony had is an uncommon luxury. One of us must go into the pushed down her own anger now, hidden it behind a field." mask of determined calm. She's turning into Father, His twin was so angry she could barely speak. It only Barrick thought, but not the way that I am. It wasn't a made Barrick feel more coldly comfortable with his happy realization. Sh e has inherited his grace I have decision. "And what if you're killed?" his curse. "I told you, Sister, I'm not a fool. When King Lander "We will talk all you wish," Barrick told his twin. "But I put on his father's crown at Coldgray Moor and fought am going."And he knew it was true. He was one of the the Twilight People, was he in the vanguard, trading reigning Eddons, after all, and at this moment there blows? But he was remembered for a great victory was a hard, cold thing inside him that none of them and his people treasure his name." He realized too could match. He would have his way. late he had said something foolish - they would misunderstand. · And they did. "This will be no place for a young man trying to make a name for himself," Tyne Aldritch declared angrily. "I beg Your Highness' pardon, but I "Hoy, Chert, have you found that boy?" shouted a will not stand silently and see men and land put at risk woman he only vaguely recognized. He thought she so you can earn a reputation." might be one of the Sandstones, the woman with whom she was gossiping on the front porch certainly Now Barrick was angry, too, but mostly at himself. seemed to have the huge Sedimentary Clan's telltale What he couldn't explain, what he could barely chin. 689 690 "Not yet," he called. wondered again why she spoke the language of the larger world better than her subjects did, but he didn't "Must tha boom like the wind in the chimneys?" waste much thought on it. complained Beetledown from his perch on Chert's shoulder. "Fair collapsed my headbones, that did." As they made a few more turns, Beetledown holding a lock of Chert's hair so he could stand up without "Sorry." Chert was glad that he was far eno ugh away tumbling as he sniffed the air, the odd pair began to from the women that they couldn't see the little fellow. move farther and farther from the center of Funderling Better to have them think he was talking to his own Town; in fact, it soon became clear that Beetledown's shoulder than to have every child in Funderling Town, nose was leading them toward the outermost reaches. and half the grown ones, chasing him down Gypsum If it was a true scent, the boy seemed to have gone by Way in hopes of seeing a live Rooftopper. "Are you a rather circuitous route, but the overall direction was sure you can't ride in the pocket of my tunic where no definitely outward and down. Thus, when they swung one can see you?" close enough to the Salt Pool, Chert turned and "And where I can't smell nothing, neither?" carried the little man into the great cavern. "Ah.True enough." "Going wrong way, th'art." Beetledown stirred and sniffed loud enough for even "We'll turn back, but we need something. We'll be Chert to hear. "Turn turn . . . Chi'm'ook?" He drummed beyond the streetlights soon and, whatever you may his tiny heels in frustration. "Where is the sun? Where have heard about us Funderlings, we can't see in is sunwise? How can I say the turning?" complete dark. Hoy, Boulder!" "Left and right will have to do, because I don't think The small Funderling came bounding toward them you know where the Stonecutter's Door or the Silk across the uneven stones, eyes widening at what was Door are You do know left and right, don't you?" no doubt the first adult person smaller than himself he " `Course. But we call uns, `leef and `reck' when we had ever seen. He grinned in surprise and delight. speak thy tongue. So go leef, left, what tha will. But "What is this, Chert?" there, turn." "It's not a this, it's a who - Beetledown s his name. Chert couldn't understand why the Rooftoppers would He's a Rooftopper. Yes, a real Rooftopper. You heard use different words than everyone else did in a about Flint? Well, this fellow's helping me look for him. language that wasn't even their own, but it had long I'll explain it next time I come, but I'd appreciate if been clear that Beetledown had his own odd way of you'd keep quiet about it for now. Meantime, I'm going talking; of all that small people, only the queen could down Silk Door way and I'll need light soon." speak to Chert in a clear, civilized fashion. He "Just brought up a basketful for the second shift," 691 692 Boulder said as he spilled out a selection of glowing attention, nodded solemnly. "Good. Tell her I said that coral. "Take your pick, and for free I'm sure the story I may be gone a while, searching, and not to hold will be worth it." supper for me. Not to worry if I'm not back by bedtime, even. Can you remember that? Say it back." "Many thanks. And you've just reminded me of something. Is Rocksalt here today with his basket?" His memory tested and approved, young Clay was dispatched and Chert gave the boy's father the copper "Just over there." Boulder pointed to a group of chip to hold in trust. "You've earned me a trip up to Funderling men and women and even a few children that fracturing big-folk market, you know," Jasper said. who were sitting at the edge of the cavern near the "He'll want to spend it up there." great door, waiting for the afternoon shift leader to come for them. As he walked toward them, Chert "Do you good to get some fresh air," Chert said as he finally convinced Beetledown to get into his pocket headed off across the uneven, rocky floor. and hide. "Are you mad?" Jasper called after him. "Too much of He fished out a few copper chips from his pocket and that wind will suck the life out of a person's innards!" bought bread and soft white cheese from Rocksalt, as This was not an uncommon feeling among the well as a waterskin, which cost him a few more chips inhabitants of Funderling Town and although it might even though he would be bringing it back to the not completely explain why Chert was the first peddler again afterward Chert didn't like the expense, Funderling in centuries to meet a Rooftopper, he but it was becoming clear to him that he would not be reflected, it did explain why there hadn't been many back for the evening meal This reminded him of other opportunities for such a thing to happen. something else. "Jasper, is your boy staying with you or going home?" They went out through the Silk Door, Funderling he asked a man he knew, one of the fellows waiting to Town's back gate, a huge arch carved into a start an afternoon shift. sandstone wall whose natural streaking of pink, ocher, "Home, of course. Earth Elders! He'd drive me mad in purple, and orange made it look like exquisitely dyed a hundred drips if he came along with me." fabric. Once through, they passed in a fairly short time from the careful delving and carving of the town into "Good." Chert turned to the boy. "Here . . little Clay, an area where no digging had been necessary isn't it? Pay attention. I'm giving your father this shiny because the underside of the mount was already chip, and if you take a message to my wife, he'll give hollowed out by the ocean and the drip of water from that chip to you when he gets back from the pit above into the limestone caverns, although the tonight. Do you know my wife, Opal Blue Quartz? On Funderlings had enlarged many of them and created a Wedge Road?" The boy, eyes very big at all the 693 694 network of tunnel-roads to connect them all. What was caverns. not remembered, at least by anyone of Chert's "Go leef," announced Beetledown. "No, loft, that is acquaintance, was whether the strangely regular what I mean." caverns below Funderling Town that spiraled deep "Left." down into the bedrock of the mount, down below the "Aye, that be un." bottom of the bay itself, had always existed, or had been created by even earlier hands. All that was They stepped out of the antechamber and beneath a known for certain by living Funderlings was that the low archway into the first of what Chert had known Mysteries were there, hundreds of feet below the since childhood as the Festival Halls, a massive set of heart of t e castle s inner keep, and that the less the h linked caverns full of columns and flowstone canopies big folk knew about those secret depths, the better. that had begun as natural formations but then been carved and decorated over the centuries until almost Chert stood now far on the outskirts of Funderling every piece had been extensively shaped. Only one Town, at the entrance to those very same Mysteries, extended section of grottoes had been left untouched. looking down at a long, creamy slope gated by two Its name was a consonantal grumble in the old rock walls. At the bottom was a scalloped fringe of Funderling language that roughly translated as "The pale -pink-and-amber stone that glowed like a Lord of the Hot Wet Stones Garden of Earth Shapes." translucent curtain in the light of the torches that The carvings in the rest of the Festival Halls were as burned before and behind it. "This way? Are you meticulous as anything in the wonderful roof of certain?" Chert asked the Rooftopper. Why would the Funderling Town, but where the town's famous roof boy have come so far into the earth, to a place he portrayed a riot of natural greenery, of leaves and made it very clear he didn't like? The Eddon family branches and fruit, and also birds and small treetop tombs were two levels up from here, but that was animals, to a people who hadn't lived among such really only a few yards overhead. things in time out of memory, the Festival Halls were "What my nose tells me be true," Beetledown said. something altogether different, a collection of "Stronger here than anywhere past thy home roofs mysterious, endlessly repetitive shapes that made a and rookeries." person's eyes blur if he or she looked at any one spot It took Chert a moment to realize that this very little too long. These had been done so long ago that man meant that he had not smelled Flint so strongly nobody remembered whether earlier Funderlings had since they had left Chert's own neighborhood back on carved them or why, and it was easy to see almost Wedge Road. "Well, lead on, then." He made his way anything in the odd shapes - animals, demons, down the stairs that crisscrossed the pale slope and portraits of the gods themselves. led ultimately into the first antechamber of the 695 696 "I do not understand this place," said Beetledown in a They crossed down through the Festival Halls and voice so quiet and nervous that Chert could barely toward the cavern called the Curtainfall, which was a hear him, despite the immense silence of the caverns. side doorway to the great honeycomb of caves known as the Temple. But when first seen, it didn't look like "We are approaching some of the most sacred spots the doorway to anything at one end of the small cave of the Funderling People," Chert said. "Very few a broad sheet of water drizzled from a lip of jutting others ever see them. It is one reason I wanted to rock, down into a pool. The waterfall shimmered hide you from others at the Salt Pool, to avoid blackly in the weak light of the cavern's single someone making a stink if they found out where we bracketed torch although, as Chert moved closer to were going." the curtain of water, he could also see the pale "Ah, yes." Beetledown's voice sounded a little reflection of his coral lamp move like a firefly across strained. "Laws against it, then? Forbidden, eh? Like its surface. us with the Great Gable or the Holy Wainscoting. "Who comes down here so far to light torches?" `Course with the Holy Wainscoting, none but the rats Beetledown asked, distractedly sniffing. be small enough to follow us in." "You'll see." Chert stepped out into the pool on a Chert couldn't help smiling. "I can see that would work bridge of submerged stones near the edge of the in your favor Hmm, I suppose most of the big folk cataract and headed straight for the falling water. would have trouble making their way through some of the tight places down here, too. But you won't." He "Tha'll drown us!" Beetledown chirped in alarm. began walking again. "And it's not really forbidden for "Don't fear There is space between the water and the you to be in these places, but it's certainly unusual." stone - and look!" There was more than space "Just don't leave me here," Beetledown begged him, between water and wall - there was a hole in the great and Chert suddenly rec ognized that the undertone he slab of stone, a hole that from most angles was had been hearing in the Rooftopper's voice was pure hidden behind the waterfall Chert stepped through, fear. For the first time he considered what it must feel taking more care than he normally would to avoid the like for his minuscule companion to come so far edge of the waterfall so that Beetledown would not beneath the ground, away from the open roofs and accidentally be washed off his shoulder. On the far sky. "Not even Beetledown the brave bowman can live side of the water they entered a single chamber the long by himself in such a place," the tiny man said," - size of an entire Funderling Town neighborhood, not with the air so tight and close and even un's whose walls were lined with bracketed torches and breathing's so unnatural loud." whose high ceiling was covered with the same kind of strange carvings that filled the Garden of Earth "I won't leave you here." 697 698 Shapes. At the far side of this massive chamber stood He hurried across the wide floor of the temple the pillared front of the Temple of the Metamorphic chamber. It was here that the people of Funderling Elders, cut directly into the living rock. Town made pilgrimage, gathering on the nights when the Mysteries themselves were celebrated and for "By the Peak!" the little man said in wonder. "Un goes other important holiday observances. Chert was on and on'. Have tha Funderling folk truly dug all the relieved to see a dark-robed acolyte standing just way down in the dark earth and out through the inside the doorway of the temple proper, so that he bottom'!" didn't have to break his word to stay within "Not quite," Chert told him, looking at the intricately Beetledown's sight. "Your pardon, Brother." worked stone facade - only the unevenness of some The acolyte came out into the full glow of the torches. of the shapes showed that it had been natural cavern The Metamorphic Brothers did not use stonelights, once. "But we have found many of the deep places of considering them to be dangerously modern, even the earth that water dug, then carved them even more though the glowing lamps had been used in the to make them our own." streets of Funderling Town for at least two centuries. Beetledown made a face, sniffed. "But for the first time "What do you seek, Child of the Elders?" he asked. I do not scent the boy strongly. Un's track runs weaker He was dressed in the temple's costume of archaic, here, behind the water-wall." loose -fitting clothes and was younger than Chert Chert sighed. "I will ask the temple brothers, anyway," would have expected. He looked like he might be from he said. "But I'm afraid you'll have to wait here." one of the Bismuth families. "Art coming back for me?" "I am Chert Blue Quartz. My foster son is lost." He took a breath. Here was where the trouble might really "I won't go out of your sight. Just sit here on this stone." He placed Beetledown atop a relatively flat bit begin. "He is one of the big folk. Has he come past here?" of carved wall, high off the cavern floor. He was glad he didn't have to go far: he felt a responsibility for the The acolyte raised an eyebrow but only shook his little man he had not expected. He remembered the head. "Do not go away just yet, though. One of the tiny fellow's worry about cats and the joke he had brothers came back from the market and said he saw made about it and was again struck by shame. It's a Gha'jaz child." Chert was not surprised to hear the true there aren't too many cats down here, he thought, man use the old Funderling word - he had spoken the but I don't think I remembered to tell him that many Common Tongue of big folk and Funderlings here keep snakes against rats and voles and other awkwardly, as though he didn't use it very often. The vermin. I doubt Beetledown likes snakes any better Temple had always disliked change. "I will bring him than cats. out." 699 700 Chert waited impatiently. When the other acolyte at "We had hoped that Grandfather Sulphur's dreams last emerged, he confirmed that he had seen a boy spoke of a time still to come," said the acolyte. "He is much like Flint hours earlier, fair-haired and small but the oldest among us, our master, and the Elders clearly not a Funderling, in one of the outer Festival speak to him. Lately he has dreamed that the hour is Halls, but heading away from the Temple rather than coming when Old Night will reach out and claim all the toward it. Just as Chert was absorbing the di-G'zeh-nah'nk," - he used an old word that meant implications, he heard a clamor from behind him. something like "left-behinds" - "and that our days of Three more acolytes, apparently returning from some freedom are over." errand, had stopped and clustered around the bit of The acolytes began to argue among themselves. wall where he'd left Beetledown. Chert had left Beetledown on the wall simply to avoid "Nickel!" one of them shouted to the first acolyte. having to explain him and acknowledge the breach of "Look, it is a real, living Gha'sun'nk!" tradition, but the Metamorphic Brothers' unhappy confusion was real and honest. Chert cursed under his breath. "Will they kill me?" Beetledown fluted in his ear. Several more of the Metamorphic Brothers spilled out of the temple, some bare-chested and sweaty as "No, no. They're just upset because the times are though they had just come from forges, kilns, or strange - like your queen and her Lord of the High ovens, within moments a dozen or so had surrounded Place or whatever it was, the one that she said the Roof-topper. They seemed even more curious warned you that some kind of storm was coming." than he would have expected. Chert waded through "The Lord of the Peak," said Beetledown. "And he is them and lifted the little man up onto his shoulder; real. The storm is real, too, mark tha - 'twill blow the Beetledown was looking a bit panicky. very tiles of our roofs out into. "Is he really Gha'sun'nk?" asked an acolyte, again darkness." using the old Funderling name for the Rooftoppers - Chert did not reply, but stood suddenly rigid in the the little, little people. midst of the tumult like a traveler lost without light on "Yes. He is helping me hunt for my foster son." one of the wild roads on the outskirts of Funderling As the other acolytes whispered to each other, Nickel Town. He had just realized where Flint must be going, approached, a strange gleam in his eyes. "Ah! This is and it was a fearful thought indeed. a terrible day," he said and laid both fists on his chest in a gesture of surrender to the Earth Elders. · "What do you mean?" Chert asked, startled. 701 702 The snores of Finneth's husband seem loud as the been almost normal again for a week Zoria the Queen roar of his forge fires. of Mercy, it seemed, had heard Finneth's prayers. The clanging all day, she thought, then lying sleepless She was floating toward sleep, thinking of the damp in the dark with him snorting like a bull all night. The straw on the floor that would have to be replaced with gods gwe us what they think fit, but what have I done dry now that wet weather had come, and of how she that this is my lot? Not that she had only complaints. must also press Onsin to plaster up the cracks around Her man, called Onsin Oak-arms, was not the worst the window of their little house, when she heard the husband a woman could have. He worked hard in his first faint sounds - someone shouting. When she little smithy and did not spend too much time at the realized it was not the watchman calling out the hour, tavern at the end of the drove road. He was not one of suddenly all her sleepiness was gone. the wasters lolling on the bench beneath the eaves, At first she thought it must be a fire. It was different shouting at the passersby. If he was not the most living in a town than the village where Finneth had affectionate of men, he was at least a responsible grown up. Here a fire could start so far away that you father to their son and daughter, teaching them to love had never even seen the people whose houses it took the gods and to honor their parents while hardly ever first, but still come rushing down your own narrow resorting to any punishment more painful than a cuff street like an army of angry demons, jumping from on the top of the head or the snap of his thick fingers roof to roof at horrifying speed. Was it a fire? against a child's backside. A good thing, too, Finneth Somewhere a bell was ringing, ringing, and more thought. He is strong enough to kill a grown man with people were shouting. Someone was running through those big hands. Thinking of his broad back and how the streets calling for the reeves. It had to be a fire. the dark curly hair grew tight on his thick neck, the She was already shaking Onsin awake when she way he held up a bar that would be an ox shoe to heard a voice louder than the others, perhaps at the show their son the color it should be when it was bottom of their own road, screaming, "We are ready for shaping, she felt a little tickle of desire for attacked! They are climbing the walls!" Finneth's heart him, snoring or no snoring. She rolled against his back lurched. Attacked? Climbing the walls? Who? She and pressed her cheek against him His sleep -rumble was heaving at Onsin's bulk now, but he was like a changed - there was a note almost of question in it - great tree, too much for her to move. At last he rolled but then subsided again. Their daughter Agnes stirred over and sat up, shaking his head. in her cot. To her mother's immense terror, both "War!" she said, tugging his beard until he knocked children had caught the fever that had lately passed her hands away. "The reeves are out - everyone's through Candlerstown and all the dales, but although crying war!" little Agnes had taken it the worse, her breathing had 703 704 "What?" He slapped and pinched at his face as shivering, wearing nothing but the blanket she had though it were not his own, then heaved himself up off wrapped around her. "Papa went out to help some their pallet. Agnes was awake and making questioning other men," she told the children, then began to pull sounds, crying a little. Finneth pulled the child's on her clothes. blanket around her and kissed her, but it didn't soothe her, and Finneth had to see to Fergil as well. The boy She couldn't believe that it could still be the same was waking but still half in a dream, twitching and night - that only just the other side of the midnight bell looking around as though he had never seen his own she had been lying in her bed thinking about Onsin's house before; for a moment the sight of her confused snoring, worrying about the sound Ag nes was making children brought tears to Finneth's eyes. when she breathed. It was as though Perin himself Onsin had pulled on his heavy breeches and, had lifted a hammer large as a mountain and brought strangely, his best boots, but had not bothered with a it down on all their lives, smashing everything into shirt. He had his hammer in one hand, the hammer powder. that no one else in the drove road could even lift, and Candlerstown was aflame, but fire was the least of her an ax he was straightening for Tully Joiner in the worries now. The streets were full of shrieking figures, other. Even in this wild moment Finneth thought her some bleeding, others only running aimlessly mad, husband looked like something out of an old story, a eyes staring wide and dark out of pale faces, mouths kindly giant, a bea rded demigod like Hiliometes. He open holes. It was as though the earth had vomited was listening to the shouting, which had moved down out all the unhappy dead. Finneth couldn't think, didn't to the end of the street. Now Finneth heard another want to thi nk - such terror was too large to fit into one sound, a rising wail like the wind, and she was filled head, one heart, especially when she had to cling to a with a helpless, sickening terror unlike any she had pair of frightened, weeping children and try to find a known. place where the flames were not burning, where "I will be back," Onsin said as he hurried out the door. people were not screaming. But there was no such He did not kiss his children or wait for her blessing, place anywhere. which only added to Finneth's growing despair. Worst of all were the glimpses of the invaders, Attacked? Who could it be? We have been at peace impossible nightmare shapes clambering over walls with Settland since befort Grandmother's time Bandit-- and dashing across rooftops - some in animal shapes, ? Why would bandits attack a town? others bent and twisted as no living thing that could "Mama Where did Papa go?" asked little Fergil, and wear armor and carry a weapon should be. As she as she squatted to comfort him, she realized she was dragged the children past a pubhc square she saw a 705 706 tall figure on a rearing horse in the midst of a crowd of She found herself in a crowd of people, although it Candlerstown men, and that figure looked so much was more river than crowd, a heedless wash of like a man that for an instant she was heartened - screams and waving arms that flooded down the here was some noble lord, perhaps eve n Earl Rorick Marsh Road, past the Trigonate temple. The outer himself, a person Finneth had never seen despite his walls and roof of the temple were crawling with importance in her life. Yes, Rorick must have come something that looked like moss but which glowed like down from his castle at Dale House to rally the sullen lightning. The priests had nearly all been frightened townfolk and lead them against these slaughtered, although some of them were still crawling monstrous invaders. But then she saw that this despite terrible, obviously mortal wounds In their shaggy -haired lord was taller than any man, that he haste to flee, the shrieking crowd was trampling the had too many fingers on his long white hands, and survivors, which might have been a mercy. Even that his eyes, like those of his rearing horse, were as Finneth stepped on a motionless human figure and flame-yellow as a cat's. As for the men around him, did not care - it was all she could do to keep upright. the ones she had thought he might be rallying, they She could not stop, could not turn, certainly could not were crawhng and moaning beneath his horse's waste pity on the dead and soon-dead. She was hooves as he pricked at them with his long spear, hemmed in on either side and all she could think of driving them like a flock of sheep to slavery or death. was holding Agnes and Fergil tight against her, so tightly that even the gods could not pull them from her. Agnes stumbled and fell and Fergil began to shriek. She caught them both up in her arms and li mped All who fell now were crushed underfoot. The crowd away from the square. She was in a part of the town moved like a single living thing, rushing to the open she hardly seemed to know at all, but everything had Eastside Gate and the darkness beyond, toward the become something else on this ghastly night it might blessed cold fields where no fires burned. be her own street for all she could be certain, her own Finneth ran until she couldn't run any farther, then house that she staggered past as barking, whistling shoved her way to the outskirts of the torrent of shapes came pouring out of the windows like beetles people, which was beginning to slow and scatter. from a split log. Overhead, the stars had vanished They were outside the walls, knee-deep in the stubble Fmneth couldn't understand that either. Why were of a harvested field, when she fell to the ground at there no stars, and why had the sky turned that dull, last, exhausted and helpless. She wondered if she, dark red? Was it blood - was the whole town bleeding too, might be dying, she was not wounded, but it up into the sky? Then she knew. It was the smoke of seemed impossible anyone could experience such a burning Candlerstown itself, hiding what was night and live. She clutched her son and daughter and happening even from Heaven. wept, every sob clawing painfully at her smoke- 707 708 scorched throat. Gone, all gone - Onsin, her house, her few 28 possessions. Only these two small, precious, panting creatures kept her from running back to throw herself into the flames of Candlerstown. Most dreadful of all, Evening Star as she lay with her shivering children on the cold ground just outside the murdered town, she could hear the destroyers of everything she had, and they WHITE SANDS: were singing. Their voices were painfully lovely. Darkness claimed her then, but only for a while. See the moon scatter diamonds His work is bone and light and dry dust In the garden where no one strays - from The Bonefall Oracles She had lost track of how many different Favored had taken her up as though she were an ill-wrapped package, walked her to the next way station, and then turned her over to another functionary, but at last she was led into the receiving room of the paramount wife Arimone looked up from her cushions and smiled indulgently as Qinnitan abased herself. "Oh, do get up, child," she said, although she looked not much more than a girl herself. "Are we not all sisters here?" If we were all sisters, Qinnitan could not help thinking, I wouldn't have gone down on my knees in the first place. The invitation had arrived that morning and Qinnitan had spent hours under the expert ministration of a half dozen slaves, a mix of Favored and born-females, until her appearance had been polished to a blinding brilliance like a gemstone, after 709 710 some consideration, she was then deconstructed and goddesses in Heaven rather than la nguishing among redressed in slightly less formal splendor. mere mortals in the Seclusion. Qinnitan, who was already frightened and felt a bit of an impostor in her "After all, we don't want the Evening Star to think we fine clothes, suddenly felt not like one of the all- aspire to become the Light of the Morning, do we?" a powerful autarch's chosen brides, but like the dirtiest Favored named Rusha had said with mocking street urchin imaginable. severity. "We shall be beautiful - but not too beautiful." "Come, come, sit with me," Arimone said in a voice so Luian, who had been a bit absent of late, as if light and musical it suggested years of exhausting ashamed of her part in bringing Qmnitan to meet practice. "Will you take some tea? I like to drink it cool Jeddin, had not been involved in the preparations for on days like this, with plenty of mint and sugar. It's the audience, but she had sent one of her Tuani very refreshing." women to help Qinnitan arrange her hair, which was now piled atop her head and held in place with Qinnitan did her best to seat herself without tripping jeweled pins. Qinnitan had been quite taken with her over any of the striped cushions mounded at the own image in the glass when it was done, but that center of the room. In one corner a young girl played seemed like pure foolishness now. Arimone, who was the lute with surprising skill. Several other servant perhaps ten years older than Qinnitan, was girls, when they were not waiting on the paramount unquestionably the most beautiful woman she had wife, sat talking quietly in the corners of the room. ever seen or even imagined, like a temple image of Two youths with the dewy, beardless faces of the Surigal herself, her hair jet black and so long that Favored stood behind the cushions waving fans of even in a braid it coiled like a sleeping snake all over peacock feathers. The decoration of the receiving the cushions on which she sat. Qinnitan could only room seemed designed to remind visitors of one thing wonder what such an amazing cascade of hair would and one thing only - a bedchamber, which was after look like untethered and brushed out, she also felt all the root of Arimone's power. She had not yet given certain everyone else who met Arimone, most the autarch an heir, but he had spent much of his first assuredly including any whole men, were meant to regnal year traveling through all his lands, so none of wonder about that as well. the other wives dared even whisper rumors of unhappiness in the royal bed. Should another year The autarch's paramount wife had an arresting figure, pass without sign of a male heir, of course, they would small-waisted and wide-hipped, both features do almost nothing else. accented by her clinging robe, and she also had a perfect, heart-shaped face, but it was her eyes - huge, "Forgive me for waiting so long before having you to thick-lashed, and almost as black as her hair - that visit," said the paramount wife. "You have been here, made her look as though she belonged with the other what, half a year?" 711 712 "More or less, Highness." Certainly he could not be as handsome as our lord the autarch, all praise to his name, could he?" "You must call me Anmone - as I said, we are all sisters here. I have heard much about you, and you Her hostess smiled as if at a well-played gambit. are just as charming as I imagined." She raised an Qinnitan thought she heard a few of the slave girls eyebrow that had been plucked into a line as delicate giggle behind her. "Oh, that is different, little sister as a spider's leg. "I hear you are great friends with Sulepis is a god on earth, and thus not to be judged Favored Luian. The two of you are cousins, are you as other men. Still, he is very taken by you, it seems." not?" The footing was again unsteady. "Taken by me? You "Oh, no, High . . . Arimone We are merely from the mean the autarch?" same neighborhood." "Of course, dear. Has he not had you given special The first wife frowned prettily. "Am I so foolish, then? instruction? I hear that you are with that wheezing Why did I think she and you . . .?" priest Panhyssir almost every day. That there are prayers and . . rituals of preparation. Arcane "Perhaps because Luian is a cousin of Jeddin, the practices." chief of the Leopards." Arimone was watching her closely, Qinnitan suddenly wished she had kept her Qinnitan was confused again. Hadn't this happened mouth shut. She was even more disturbed to realize with all the wives? "I did not know that was unusual, that she was still babbling about it. "Luian talks of him Mistress." much, of course. She is . . . she is very proud of him." "Arimone, remember! Ah, I suppose it is not surprising "Ah, yes, Jeddin. I know him. He's a handsome fellow, that the autarch has become interested in something isn't he?" The Evening Star was still looking at new. He knows more than the priests, has read more Qinnitan in a way that made her very, very of the ancient texts than they have themselves. He uncomfortable. "A fine, firm piece of manflesh. Don't knows everything, my oh -so-clever husband - what you think so?" the gods whisper to each. other in dreams and why they live forever, the old, forgotten places and cities, Qinnitan did not know what she was supposed to say. the secret history of all of Xand and beyond When he The women of the Secluded talked very frankly about speaks to me, I can scarcely understand him men, in a way that virginal Qinnitan often found sometimes. But his interests are so widespread that embarrassingly informative, but this seemed they do not last for long, of course. Like a great somehow different, as though she were being tested golden bee, he moves from flower to flower as his in some way. A chill ran over her. Had the paramount mighty heart leads him. I am sure whatever has taken wife heard rumors? "I have scarcely seen him, his interest this time will be . . . short-lived." Arimone, at least since we were all children together. 713 714 Qinnitan flinched, but she was puzzled and something that is a little naughty?" determined to find out why the other wives seemed to Qinnitan could only nod. think of her as different. "How . . . how were you "Good.That is how it should be between sisters. So prepared, Arimone? For marriage, I mean. If you will you will not be too shocked if I tell you that I have forgive an impertinent question. This is all very new to brought a man into my house today - a true man, not me." one of the Favored. You are not afraid to meet a true "I imagine it is You may not know, but of course I was man, are you? You have not been so long away from married before." My current husband murdered my the streets of your childhood that you view them all as only child, then killed my first husband, too, and made monsters and rapists, do you?" his death last for weeks, she did not say, nor did she Qinnitan shook her head, confused and frightened. have to - Qinnitan already knew it, as did everyone Did the first wife know about Jeddin? Why else all this else in the Seclusion. "So my circumstances were a taunting? bit different. I came to our lord and master's bed "Good, good. In truth, he is very harmless, this man. already a woman." She smiled again. "We are quite So old that I do not think he could mount a mouse." intrigued by you, many of us here in the Seclusion. She laughed between her teeth and her serving girls Did you know that?" echoed her. "He is a storyteller. Shall I summon him?" "You . . . you are?" The question was not meant to be answered: Arimone "Ah, yes, of course. A very young girl - a child, really - lifted her hands and clapped. A moment later a bent " Arimone's smile was a bit cold, "from, let us be frank, figure in colorful clothes stepped through one of the an undistinguished family. None of us can quite curtained doors and into the receiving room. imagine what it was that lifted you to the Golden "Hasuris," she said, "I apologize for keeping you One's eye." She spread her hands, which glittered waiting." with rings. The nails were half the length of her long, "I would rather wait for you in a dark alcove than be slender fingers. "Other than the beauty of your served honeyed figs by any other woman, Mistress." innocence, little sister, which is of course charming The old man bowed low to Arimone, then gave and formidable." Qinnitan a look so saucy and self-satisfied that he Never in her life, even standing before Autarch might as well have winked at her. "And this must be Sulepis, had Qinnitan felt less significant. the young wife you told me of. Greetings, little "Come, will you have a little more tea? I have Mistress." prepared a surprise for you. I hope it will be a pleasant "You are a shameless flirt, Hasuris," said Arimone, one. Will you promise not to tell on me if I do laughing. "None of your nonsense or the Golden 715 716 One's guards will come and you will join the Favored." no importance compared to the man who feeds us. That is someone whose opinion matters, and who will "My stones and I adventure together only in m emory, recognize my qual ity.' So she set out to gain the Great Queen," he said, "so it makes little difference. attention of the man who came every day to spread But I suppose their departure could be painful, so I will corn on the ground. stay silent and behave well." "Every time he arrived, she would push her way out "No, to behave well you must not stay silent at all. from the midst of the other hens and strut back and Instead you must tell us a story. Why else would I forth before the man, head held high, breast shoved have brought you here?" forward. When he looked away, she would call to him "To admire the turn of my calf?" - 'Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!' - until he looked her way again. "Wretched old fool. Tell us a tale. Perhaps . . ." But still he treated her no differently from any of the Pondering, or pretending to, the paramount wife put a others. The foolish hen became very angry and ringer to her red, red lips. Even Qinnitan could not resolved to do whatever it took to be noticed." help staring at her like a lovesick boy. "Perhaps the story of the Foolish Hen." Qinnitan was feeling a chill again. Was there a point to "Very well, Great Queen." The old man bowed Now this story? Was Arimone suggesting that the younger that he was closer, Qinnitan could see that his white wife had gone out of her way somehow to attract whiskers were stained yellow around his mouth. "Here attention? The autarch's? Or someone else's? It was is the tale, although it is a rather simple one, without all too difficult to understand, but the penalties would any good jokes but the last one: be no less mortal because the crimes weren't altogether clear. She suddenly wanted nothing more "Once there was a very foolish hen, who preened and than to be back in the Temple of the Hive, surrounded by the sweet hum of the preened herself, certain that she was the most beautiful of her kind in all creation," sacred bees. "The foolish hen could not sleep for trying to imagine a way to get the man's attention. Her lovely voice had he began. not moved him. Perhaps he needed to see that she valued him more than the others did, but how could "The other hens grew weary of her posturing and she do that? She resolved to eat more of the corn he began to talk behind her back, but the foolish hen paid dropped than anyone else, and so she followed him no attention at all. `Jealous, that is all they are,' she from the first moment he arrived until he went away told herself. `Who cares what they think? They are of 717 718 again, pecking at the other hens to drive them away didn't seem possible. "I . . . I don't feel very well," she and eating as much corn as she could,, manage. The said. She was dizzy and sick to her stomach. other hens despised her as she grew fatter and Arimone looked at her with wide eyes. "My poor little sleeker, but still the ` sister? Can I get you something?" ·man did not speak to her, did not single her out in "No, I . . . I think I had better go home I'm v - very s - s any way. She decided she would fly to him and show - sorry." She put her hand over her mouth - she had a him that she alone was worthy of his attention. It was sudden, powerful urge to vomit all over the first wife's not easy, because by now she was quite plump, but beautiful striped cushions. by practicing every day she at last managed to stay "Oh, no, must you really? Perhaps it would be better aloft long enough to flutter a good distance. for you to have a little more mint tea. Surely that "One day, after the man finished spreading the corn would settle your stomach." Arimone picked up and began to walk back to the house, the hen flew Qinnitan's cup and held it out to her, gaze doe- after him. It was harder than she thought it would be innocent. "Go ahead, little sister. Drink some more. It and she did not catch up to him until he had already is made to my special recipe and it cures nearly all gone through the door. She hurried after and flew ills." inside, but it was dark and she could not see, so she Filled with horror, Qinnitan shook her head and began to call out - 'Ga-gaw! Ga-gaw!' - to let him know stumbled out without even bowing. She heard the she had arrived. slaves laughing and whispering behind her. "The man came to her and picked her up. Her heart was full of joy. " `I have tried to ignore you, you fat thing,' he said, `because I was going to save you for the Feast of the Rising at the end of the rainy season, but here you are in my kitchen, shouting at the top of your lungs. Clearly it is the great god's will that I eat you now! And so speaking, he wrung her neck and set a fire in the oven . . ." Qinnitan stood suddenly and the old man Hasuris fell silent. He looked a little shamefaced, as if he had somehow guessed the story might upset her, which 719 720 time that Chert Blue Quartz could remember, he wished he were outside, under the sky, instead of beneath the unimaginable weight of stone that had 29 been the top of his world almost all his life, and had always held that place in his thoughts. "Where he's The Shining Man headed is a very strange place. A sacred place. Sometimes it can be a dangerous place." "Cats? Snakes?" The Rooftopper's eyes were wide. FIVE WHITE WALLS: Despite his growing fear, Chert almost smiled. "No, nothing like that. Well, there might be animals Here is the shape with its tail down there, but that's the least of my worries." In its mouth "Because th'art a giant." Here is the inside turned outside, the outside in Now Chert did smile: being called a giant was something that would probably never happen to him - from The Bonefall Oracles again. "Fair enough. But what I need to tell you is that I have a decision to make. It's not an easy one." "Listen carefully," Chert said when he had put some The little man looked at him now with keen interest, distance between himself and the temple of the just like Cinnabar or one of the other Guild leaders Metamoric Brothers. He raised his hand to his being presented with a tricky but possibly lucrative shoulder to let Beetledown climb onto his palm, then bargain. The Rooftoppers were not just like people, held him so that he could see the man's tiny face. "If they were people, Chert knew that now; they were just your nose is telling you the truth and this is the way as complicated and lively as the Funderlings or Flint went, I think I know where he's going." anyone else. So why were they so small? Where did "If my nose?" The Rooftopper's features screwed up they come from? Had they been punished by the in indignation. "Wasn't bred for it like the Grand and gods, or was there something even stranger in their Worthy, me, but leaving un out, there be not a better origins? sniffiter in all of the Southmarch heights. Thoughts of the gods and their fabled propensity for "I believe you." Chert took a deep, shaky breath. "It's vengeance were, at this moment, more compelling just that where he's headed." His knees felt weak and than usual. he had to sit down, which he did carefully the "Here is my problem," he told Beetledown. "I told you Rooftopper was still standing on his hand. For the first before that places like the temple . . . that some of my 721 722 people might frown on you being there. We are will." uncomfortable with outsiders seeing the things that Beetledown's frown returned. "Tha said `twas a sacred are most important to us." place - banned to outliers." "Unde rstood," said the little man. "That's why I said I had a difficult decision. But I've "Well, I think Flint has gone deeper still into . . . into decided I'd rather break the law and take you into the what we call the Mysteries. And I know that many of Mysteries than leave my boy alone down there any my people will be upset if I bring an outsider there. It longer than I have to - if you'll go. Besides, the boy was one reason I haven't even taken Flint anywhere himself is no Funderling, so the law's already fair near the place, even though he is my foundling son." cracked and riven, as we say." "Then time has come for me to go back to my own The little man sighed, a minuscule noise like the home." Beetledown sounded quite cheerful about it, squeak of a worried mouse. "My queen bade me give and Chert wasn't surprised: the little man had become `ee help with nose and otherwise. Can Beetledown the less comfortable the longer and deeper their journey Bowman do less than un's mistress bids un?" became. In fact, he seemed positively to glow with "The Earth Elders bring you and all your people good satisfaction at the thought that his travels below luck," said Chert, relieved. "You are as brave as you ground were about to end, which made Chert's keep saying you are." already wretched position even more so. "That be the solemn truth." "But I'm afraid to lose so much time - if the boy's down there, it's been hours already. It's a dangerous place, · Beetledown. Strange, too. I . . . I'm very frightened for him." "So?" The Rooftopper frowned in puzzlement, then Their paths intersected at the doorway of the armory. gradually his tiny brows unkinked, although the Vansen had his arms full of polishing cloths, which he understanding obviously brought him no happiness. was borrowing, since they had run out in the guards' "Tha wants to take me down with." hall, and he almost did not see her - in fact, almost knocked her over. Astonishingly, she seemed to be "I can't think of anything else to do, any other way to alone. She was dressed in a simple long shirt and track him - there are many paths, many ways. I'm breeches like a man's, and Ferras Vansen was so sorry. But I won't take you against your will." surprised to see the face that had been in his mind's "Th'art much the bigger of us twain." eye all day that for a long moment he simply couldn't "That doesn't matter. I won't take you against your believe it was true. 723 724 "M - My lady," he said at last. "Highness. Here - you over it, he thought, and in that painful, radiant instant must not do that. It is not fitting." he couldn't imagine knowing anything with more certainty, not his love of his family, not his duty to the Princess Briony had been picking up his dropped guards or to the all-seeing gods themselves. cloths, her face wearing a pleasantly distracted expression that was almost insulting - it was obvious Princess Briony suddenly seemed to realize she was that she did not recognize him outside of the formal smiling at his discomfiture; the transition of her setting of an audience or council chamber. Her features back to bland watchfulness was astonishingly features abruptly changed and tightened, eyebrows swift and more than a little saddening. Such a lively lifting in a formal gesture of polite surprise. "Captain face, he thought. But over the past weeks she had Vansen," she said coolly. He had a brief glimpse of been slowly, purposefully turning it into something her guards - two of his own men - hurrying toward else - the marble mask of a portrait bust, something them across the armory courtyard, as if their own that might stand for decades in one of the castle's captain might be a threat to the princess. dusty halls. "Do you need any help, Captain Vansen?" She nodded to her two hurrying protectors. "One of "Your pardon, please, Highness." He did his best to these guards could help you carry those things." get out of her way, a gesture made difficult not only by the fact that she was holding the handle of the door, She would lend him one of his own guardsmen to help but because he was full -laden and she was not. He him carry a few pieces of cloth. Was it real malice, or only managed it by clumsily dropping a few of the just girlish snippishness? "No, Highness, I can cloths again as he backed into the armory. He hid his manage. Thank you." He bent a knee and bowed a terrible embarrassment by bending to pick them up. little, careful not to drop his burden again. She took the hint and moved from the doorway so that he could Gods save me! Even when we meet alm ost as equals, escape, although he had to glare her two panting alone in the armory doorway, I immediately turn guards back out of the way first. He was so relieved to myself into a bumbling peasant. escape her overwhelming presence that it was all he A second, equally unpleasant thought suggested that could do, after a final turn and bow, to walk rather maybe this was just as well. After all, the sooner you than run away. get over this stupidity the better, a more sensible part "Captain Vansen?" of himself pointed out. If shame alone will do that, then shame is a good thing. He winced, then wheeled to face her again. "Yes, Highness?" He glanced up at her face, saw the mixture of amusement and annoyance moving there. He had "I do not approve of my brother appointing himself managed to block her way again. But I will never get head of this . . . expedition.You know that." 725 726 "It seemed clear, Highness." say considering that one prince regent had already died while he, Vansen, was the officer of record. "But he is my brother, and I love him. I have already . . ." Oddly, she smiled, but it was clear she was also I am truly an idiot, he thought. Blinded by my feelings I fighting tears. "I have already lost one brother. Barrick have spoken to the mistress of the kingdom as though is the only one I have left to me." she were a crofter's daughter from the next farm over. He swallowed. "Highness, your brother's death was . . To his surprise, though, there were tears in Briony's ." eyes again. "Thank you, Captain Vansen," was all she said. She raised her hand, at another time he might have thought she was being imperious. "Enough I do not say it to to blame you again. I just . . ." She turned · away for a moment so she could dab at her eyes with the long sleeve of her man's shirt as though the tears She had looked forward all m orning to stealing a little were little enemies that had to be swiftly and brutally time for practice, been desperate for the release of eradicated. "I am asking you, Captain Vansen, to swinging the heavy wooden sword, but now that the remember that Barrick Eddon is not just a prince, not time had finally come, it only made her feel clumsy just a member of the ruling family. He is my brother, and tired. my my twin I am terrified that something might happen to him." It is that man Vansen. He always unsettled her, made her angry and disturbed - -just seeing him reminded Ferras was mo ved. Even the guardsmen, a pair of her of Kendrick, of that terrible night. And now it young louts who Vansen knew well and did not think seemed he might be standing by to watch another of could muster the finer feelings of a shoat between her brothers die, for none of her arguments could them, were nervous now, unsettled by the openness make Barrick change his mind. But was it Vansen's of the fault, or was it only some terrible joke of the gods that princess regent's grief. "I will do my best, Highness," he should be attached to so much of her misery? he told her. "Please believe that . . . I will . . . I will treat him as though he were my own brother." Nothing made sense. She let the sword drop into the sawdust of the practice ring. One of the guards moved Immediately upon saying it he reahzed that he had forward to pick it up but she waved him off. Nothing been foolish again - had insinuated that under made sense. She was miserable. ordinary circumstances he would give more care to his own family than to his lord and master, the prince Sister Utta. She had scarcely had time for her tutor regent. This seemed a particularly dangerous thing to lately, and Briony suddenly realized how much she 727 728 missed the older woman's calming presence. She go with the army so you can write poems about the snatched up a cloth to wipe her hands, then stamped battlefield, Master Tinwright? You have my her feet to shake off the sawdust before setting out for permission. Now, if you will excuse me . . ." Utta's apartments, guards scuttling after her like He seemed to be swallowing something the size of a chickens behind a gram-scattering farmwife. She had shuttlecock. "Go with . . . ?" crossed the courtyard and was just walking into the "The army, yes. You may. Now if that was all . . ." long, narrow Lesser Hall when for the second time in "But I . . ." He seemed dazed, as though the possibility an hour she nearly knocked over a young man. It was that he might be directed to join the army of not Vansen this time, but the young poet - well, the Southmarch had never occurred to him. In truth, so-called poet, she could not help thinking - Matty Briony was mostly being spiteful - she did not actually Tinwright. He reacted with elaborately pleased wish to saddle any commander with both her brother surprise, but by the care he had put into his hair and and this idiot poetaster. "But I did not come to ask ." clothes, h swift breathing, and his position just inside is Tinwright swallowed again. It was not getting easier the doorway, she rather thought he had been for him. "In truth I came to you, Highness, because Gil watching her come across the courtyard from one of wishes an audience with you." the windows and then had hurried down the hall to manufacture this "accidental" meeting. "Gil?" "Highness, Princess Briony, lovely and serene and "The potboy, Mistress. Surely you have not forgotten wise, it is a pleasure beyond words to see you. And already, since it was his errand that first brought me to look, you are robed for battle, as is fitting for a warrior your attention." queen." He leaned in close for a conspiratorial She remembered now, the thin man with the strange, whisper. "I have heard that our land is threatened, calmly mad eyes. "The one who has dreams - he glorious princess - that the army is being mustered. wishes to speak to me?" Would that I were one who could meetly raise a sword Tinwright nodded eagerly. "Yes, Highness. I was as your champion, but my own war must be fought visiting him in the stronghold - the poor man scarcely with stirring songs and odes, inducers of brave deeds sees anyone, he is almost a prisoner - and he asked which I will construct for the good of crown and me specially to speak to you. He says that he has country!" something important to tell you of what he called `the He was not at all bad to look at - he was in fact quite upcoming struggle.' " For a moment Tinwright's handsome, which was likely one of the reasons forehead wrinkled. "I was surprised to hear him use Barrick disliked him - but she was far too impatient for such a term, to be honest, Mistresss, since he is not even this harmless nonsense today. "Do you want to at all educated." 729 730 Briony shook her head as if to clear it, a bit the army . . . !" overwhelmed by the poet's swift and highly inflected Her mind was t o full. She scarcely even heard him. o speech. He was a popinjay in more than just his cheapstreet finery. "Gil the potboy wants to talk to me · about the upcoming struggle? He must have heard about it from the guards in the stronghold." The stronghold held another prisoner, she could not help "We do not often go deeper than the temple," Chert remembering. A moment of dislocation washed over explained to his small passenger as they made their her, something approaching real panic. Shaso dan- way down the twisting slope known as the Cascade Heza was the one who should be commanding both Stair. The curve of the wide spiral, at its uppermost this war party and the defense of the castle that might reaches wider in circumference than Funderling Town come later. Had someone anticipated just that? Had itself, was beginning to tighten, and the air was he been made to look guilty of Kendrick's murder for noticeably warmer. A seam of white quartz in the just that reason? limestone directly above them seemed to undulate "Yes, Highness," Tinwright confirmed. "Doubtless that back and forth above their heads like a snake as was where he heard of it. In any case, that is the Chert descended. They had left the last of the message I was asked to give you. Now, about this Funderling wall lamps behind, Chert was glad he had riding off with the soldiers . . ." brought coral from the Salt Pool. "I think the acolytes come down this way to make offerings, especially on "I already gave you my permission," she said, then festival days, and of course all of us come here for the turned and headed off at a fast walk toward Sister ceremo nies when we reach manhood or Utta's room. Behind her she could hear her guards womanhood." Even with all his worries he couldn't snarling as they struggled to push past Matty help wondering how many young ones the acolytes Tinwright, who seemed to be following her. would take down into the depths this year. Chert "But, Highness . . .!" would know them all, of course - Funderling Town was She turned. "The potboy - he gave you a gold dolphin a small, clannish community and there were never to write that letter, did he not?" more than a couple of dozen who had reached the "Y-yes . . ." proper age on the night the Mysteries were formally celebrated. As he walked, he told Beetledown some "So where did a potboy get a thick, shiny gold piece?" memories from his own initiation into adulthood, so She saw that Tinwright obviously had no answer to many years ago now - the giddiness brought on by that and turned away again. fasting, the strange shadows and voices, and most "I don't know. But, Highness, about what you said . . . 731 732 frightening and exhilarating of all, that brief glimpse of making Chert's neck itch and tickle in the process. the Shining Man that the young Chert had not been "The stone crushes un?" entirely certain was real. In fact, much of the "Even that doesn't happen right away, never fear. But experience now seemed like a dr eam. when you make several tunnels beside each other, "Shining Man?" asked Beetledown. the dh'yok, the . . . arch in the stone is much bigger and stronger, and even when the weight of the stone Chert shook his head. "Forget I said it. The others will above starts to collapse it at last, it takes the outer already think it bad enough I bring you to these sacred tunnels first, giving us plenty of warning to shore up places." the inside tunnels and eventually to stop using them As they stepped down from the Cascade Stair and altogether." into a natural cavern full of tall, hourglass-shaped "You mean, someday mountain will just crush all columns, Chert walked forward until they stood in front down? All thy building? All thy digging?" He sounded of the one unnatural thing in the chamber. It was a almost more outraged on the Funderlings' behalf than wall even larger than the Silk Door, with five big fearful of the danger. arched doorways in it, each one a black hole into which the coral-light could not reach. Chert laughed a soft laugh. "Someday. But that's a long time - that's stone time, as we call it. Unless the "Fi ve?" said Beetledown. "Have thy people naught gods take it into their minds to send an earthshaking - better to do than dig tunnels side by side?" a far stronger one than we've ever had before - even Chert was still keeping his voice low, although the these outside tunnels will still be standing when the unlit lamps in these chambers suggested that if the grandchildren of the men and women joining the acolytes had been down today they had already left. Guilds today are brought down to see . . . brought "That is more to do with the weight of stone and less down for their coming-of-age." to do with the number of tunnels. If you cut one tunnel His explanation didn't seem to mollify Beetledown all it makes an arch in the fabric of the living stone above that much, although the little man was reassured it - I cannot think of the words to explain it, since we when Chert chose the middle tunnel, presumably the use an old Funderling word, dh'yok, to describe such safest, to continue their journey, and Chert didn't a thing.That one arch will be a small one, and share the less inspiring truth with him - that nobody eventually the stone above it will crush the tunnel ever used any of the other tunnels anyway, since they closed again." existed purely to support the passage through which "Wind from the Peak!" swore Beetledown, scrambling he and the Rooftopper were descending to the next in from the point of Chert's shoulder to the presumably level. greater protection next to the Funderling's head, 733 734 "But why build tunnels here at all?" Beetledown asked suddenly, perhaps to break the silence in the close- · quartered passage, whose abstract carvings seemed just as weirdly unsettling to Chert now as they had on The idea of needing to talk to the potboy had upset that long-ago night of his initiation, and which must her, but not because of the potboy himself. Even if the seem even more so to a stranger like the tiny man."All fellow was some kind of dream-scryer, even if he else down here in deeps be touched by no hand." could do to her what he did to Barrick, calling up and Again he was struck by the sharpness of the little naming the things that haunted her sleep, what Briony man's wits and his keen eye for details in an feared was no secret from anyone who had any wits unfamiliar place. "A good question, that." But Chert at all. She feared that she would lose her brother and was beginning to feel the power of the place, the father, what remained of her family. She feared that importance and the strangeness of it, and did not feel she would fail Southmarch and the March Kingdoms, much like talking. His people didn't enter the that in this time of growing danger, with Olin Mysteries lightly, and even though he would walk into imprisoned and her brother strange and often ill, she the smoking heart of J'ezh'kral Pit itself to find the boy would be the last of the Eddons to wield power. and save his Opal from feeling so miserable, he could No. I will not let that happen, she swore to herself as not be happy about his responsibility for this she strode along the Lesser Hall toward the comparative parade of outsiders, first Flint and now residence. I will be ruthless if it is needed. I will bum Beetledown, both of whom were in the ceremonied down all the forests that lie beyond the Shadowline, depths because of Chert Blue Quartz and no other. throw every Tolly into chains. And if Shaso truly is a "I don't want to tell the whole story now. Perhaps it will murderer, I will drag him to the headsman's block be enough to say that our ancestors came to realize myself to save our kingdom. that there was another set of caverns they could not This was what had upset her, of course, the thought of reach, and that they cut these tunnels to reach down her father's trusted adviser still locked up in the from the caverns we knew - those in which we have stronghold during such times. If she went to see the been traveling until now - into these deeper and more potboy Gil in his makeshift accommodations there, unfamiliar spaces." could she avoid speaking to Shaso? She didn't even It was not enough, of course - it barely explained want to see him: she was not certain of his guilt and anything, let alone the profound revelations at the never had been, despite all the signs, but much of the heart of the Mysteries, but there was only so much autumn had passed with no change in the that could be put into words. Or that should even be circumstances and she and Barrick couldn't avoid put into words at all. 735 736 passing judgment on him forever. If he had murdered day she did not need to think too much about Shaso the reigning prince, he must himself be put to death. dan-Heza. . . . Still, Briony knew she didn't really understand what She was startled by a pressure on either side as the had happened that fatal night, and the idea of two guards suddenly stepped in close to her like a pair executing one of her father's closest advisers - a man of dogs heading a straying sheep. She was about to who also, for all his sour temper and rigidity had been snap at them - Briony Eddon would not be anyone's almost another parent to her - was very disturbing. lamb - when she saw a man and a woman rise from a No, it was terrifying. bench in the late-autumn sun and walk toward her. It Her guards had caught up to her again as she took her a moment to recognize the first of the pair reached the high-walled Rose Garden, where the before they joined her in the shade of the walkway: Lesser Hall became a covered walkway that ran the she had not seen Hendon Tolly for almost a year. garden's length. It was sometimes called the Traitor's "Your Highness," he said, sketching a not very Gar den, because an angry noble had lain in wait there convincing bow. The youngest Tolly brother was still to murder one of Briony's royal ancestors, Kellick the thin as a racing dog, all length and tendon. His dark Second. The assassin had failed and his head had hair had been cut high above his ears in the current wound up on the Basilisk Gate, the tattered remains of Syan-nese style and he even wore a little tuft of beard his quartered body shared out over the entranc es of on his chin, with his short gown in golden satin and his the cardinal towers. Something of this legend had parti -colored hose and velvet trim he looked every stuck to the garden, and it was not her favorite place, inch a prince of one of the more fashion-conscious even in spring. Now the roses were long gone, their southern courts. Briony thought it was strange that he thorny branches so thick on the walls that it looked as could look both so much like his brother Gailon in the though they were holding up the ancient bricks rather face and so little like him in all else - dark for fair, slim than the other way around. for well-muscled, foppish for stolid, as though this Caught up in her thoughts, Briony barely noticed her were Gailon himself dressed up for some outrageous, guards until one of them sneezed and mumbled a impossible Midsummer Festival mummery. quiet prayer. She suddenly thought, What am I doing? "Ah, I see by your attire we have caught you at a bad Why should I go down to the stronghold? I am the time, Princess Briony," Hendon said with an edge of queen, al most - the princess regent. I will have the superiority in his voice that was meant to make her potboy brought to one of the council chambers and bristle, and did. "You have apparently been engaged speak to him there. There is no need for me to go in something . . . strenuous." down there at all. The relief that washed over her She barely resisted the temptation to look down at brought a little shame with it; this would be another 737 738 what she had worn to practice at the armory. For the "Tired from the journey," he said. "And with worry for first time in longer than she could remember she my missing brother, of course. Doubtless, fears for wished she were dressed properly, in the full panoply Duke Gailon have made things difficult for you, too, of her position. Highness." "Oh, but there are no bad times for relatives," was "It seems there is a conspiracy to make things difficult what she said, as sweetly as she could, "and family is, for me, Lord Tolly, and your brother's sudden absence of course permitted a certain informality of both dress is certainly one of them. You might also have heard and speech. But even among family, one can go too that my brother Kendrick died." far." She smiled, with teeth showing. "You will, of He raised an eyebrow at this broad stroke. "But of course, forgive me for meeting you while dressed t ish course, Highness, of course! I was devastated when I way, dear cousin." heard the news, but I was traveling in northern Syan "Oh, Highness, the fault is all ours. My sister -in-law at the time, and since Gailon was actually here to was so anxious to meet you that I took a chance we represent the family at the funeral. might find you out and about This is Elan M'Cory, the "Yes, certainly." She suddenly wondered what had sister of my brother Caradon's wife." really brought Hendon here now, of all times. The two- The girl made an elaborate courtesy. "Your Highness." or-three-day ride from Summerfield Court seemed a bit of a long distance to come simply to cause trouble. "We were introduced at your sisters wedding, I think." Briony couldn't forget Brone s spy and his warnings Briony was furious that she should be forced to stand that the Autarch had been in touch with theTollys, here in her sweaty clothes, but Hendon Tolly was although she couldn't quite make sense of it. She did playing a deliberate game and she would not let him not put treachery beyond them, but it seemed a large see her irritation. She concentrated instead on the step - and a large risk - for a family that was already young woman, who was roughly her own age and living a fat and comfortable life. Still, as her father had pretty in a translucent, long -boned way. Unlike her always said, the prospect of a throne could make brother -in-law, Elan kept her eyes cast down and people do some very strange things indeed. "Now, as offered little in the way of reply to Briony's equally I said, I have much to do I suspect that you will be perfunctory questions. busy as well. For one thing, you will want to send a "I really must go," Briony announced at last. "There is message home to your family as soon as you have much to do. Lord Tolly, you and I must speak on heard my news." important matters. Will this evening suit you? And of He was clearly caught by surprise "News? Have you course you will join us for supper, I hope. We missed heard something of Gailon?" your company last night." 739 740 "I fear not. But I have news, nonetheless." spaces. "You have the advantage of me, Highness What is Once through the tunnels bored by the Fu nderlings afoot? Will you make me wait until tonight to find out?" and into the caverns on the far side, they had passed down a bewildering variety of passages, all perfectly "I'm surprised you haven't heard already. We are at natural as far as Chert could tell, although it was war." strange to find natural passages so long and clear. For a moment Hendon Tolly actually blanched - Even though they were not difficult going - in most seeing that was worth the humiliation of standing for a places he didn't even have to bend his head - they quarter of an hour in sweaty clothes. "We . . . We . . ." were complex and confusing: if he had been forced to "Oh, no, not Southmarch and Summerfield Court, Lord rely on his memories of his own pilgrimage so many Hendon." She laughed and did not try to make it nice. years ago they would have gone far astray. Only "No, we are family, of course, your folk and mine. In Beetledown's near-silent communication of directions fact, you will no doubt be joining us - all the March - pokes and prods and the occasional whispered word Kingdoms will be going to war together." when his nose detected a stronger scent in one direction - gave Chert any hope of finding Flint and "But but against whom?" he asked. Even the girl was looking up now, staring. getting out again. They were decidedly odd places, these tunnels, and "Why, against the fairies, of course. Now you must not simply because it was difficult to know whether excuse me, there really is a great deal to be done. Our army rides out at dawn tomorrow." they were entirely natural. The air might be hot and thick, but there was also a strange sweetness to it that She had the immense satisfaction of leaving Hendon made everyone who breathed it light-headed, adding Tolly and his companion speechless, but the cut and immeasurably to the awe-someness of the thrust with him had driven whatever else she was ceremonies that took place in the depths. thinking about straight out of her head, and already a They were walking along a thin path now, scarcely dozen other matters were clamoring for attention. She hoped it had been nothing important. more than a ledge above a deep emptiness, and Chert was moving very carefully, not least because the light from the first piece of coral was dying. He · realized that by any sensible measure they should turn back soon. He hadn't guessed they would be descending so far, and in fact had thought himself Neither Chert nor Beetledown spoke much now. The quite clever to have brought a second chunk, but now food was long gone, the waterskin was less than half as he fitted the new lump into his headpiece of full, and it had become very warm in these very close 741 742 polished horn, and the touch of salt water brought it to trouble breathing, however, the Funderling reminded light, he realized he was one bad choice by little himself that the little man was used to the clean air of Boulder from being lost in darkness. Chert was a the rooftops In fact, even Chert was beginning to slip Funderling and did not panic in the dark or deep in and out of waking dreams about that cold, clean air, places, and his sense of touch and knowledge of the so much so that at one point he realized he had deeps were both well-developed, but he still might wandered only a step from the edge of the path. It wander for days before finding his way out - which was a long way down into blackness, although how might be entirely too late for young Flint. long he could only guess. "What does be down here?" rasped Beetledown The murmuring continued all around him. It might suddenly. The thick, perfumed air seemed to be have been air currents pushed through the tunnels affecting his voice. "Thy boy, why should un be here from the halls above by the tide changing - they were at all?" far below the sea now - but Chert thought he could hear snatches of words, sobbing, even distant shouts "I don't know." Chert didn't have much breath for that raised the hackles on his neck. The temple talking either. He wiped sweat from his forehead, then brothers came down here, he reminded himself, and had a moment of fright when he almost brushed his they survived it, but the thought did little to ease his strapped lantern off his head and down into the pit. fears. Who knew what preparations they made, what "It's . . . it's a powerful place. The boy has always secret sacrifices they gave to the lords of these deep been strange. I don't know." places? He considered the holy mystery of the Earth As they continued down the narrow path, Chert soon Elders and the Quiet Blind Voice and struggled began to wonder whether the fetid air was beginning against growing terror. to choke him or whether something stranger was What was indisputable was that light was growing all going on. There were times when he thought he heard around him. Chert could begin to see the shape of the voices - -just the faintest sighing words, as though one chamber through which they were passing. For the of the Guild work gangs were a few hundred steps first time in hours he felt something like hope. They away down a side passage. At other moments little were reaching an area he recognized, a part of the flashes of light moved through the greater darkness pilgrimage route. A few moments later, as he escaped around him, swift as the flecks that gleamed behind the treacherous ledge -path at last, following it through closed eyelids Such things could be a sign of poison an arch as it burrowed deep into the stone, the milky, air, and in any other place Chert would have turned blue -white light rose all around them. and retreated, but the air in the deepest part of the Mysteries, although never fresh, was also, as far as "Moonstone Hall," Chert announced with relief, if not he knew, never fatal Beetledown was having real much breath. The coolness of the glowing walls 743 744 studded with great fractured chunks of palely Chert fought a powerful dread. He was so close now! translucent gemstone was in strange contrast to the They were only a short distance from the end of the swampy air. "You see, these places down here make tunnels, at least the end of those parts he and the rest their own light. We are near to the center of the of the Funderlings knew, and thus only a short Mysteries." distance from Flint, but he didn't want to kill the tiny Rooftopper in the act of saving the boy. He forced Beetledown said nothing, only nodded, presumably himself to think as carefully as he could with head and overcome by the grandeur of the cavern, its walls limbs so weary, then untied the shirt he had tied glowing like smoky blue ice. around his waist when the air got too hot and made a Chert continued down through the Chamber of Cloud nest for the little man. He put Beetledown in it and set Crystal and into Emberstone Reach, the light like a him on a knob of stone high off the ground. Chert living thi ng all around him. His head swimming and knew that poison air, even the milder varieties, was eyes dazzled after so long in darkness, he could not heavy and tended to stay low. He also left the little help wondering how these great caves could each be man his coral lantern for company. so different: it was like no natural place he had seen "I'll be back soon," he said. "I promise. I'm just going anywhere else in Southmarch or in his journeys down a little farther." He gave the tiny bowman his around Eion in his younger days. kerchief moistened in water to fight thirst. But it isn't a natural place, he reminded himself. These "Cats . . . ?" asked Beetledown weakly. are the Mysteries. A shiver of superstitious dread climbed his spine. What was he doing here? Caught "No cats down here," Chert assured him. "I already up in the search for Flint, he hadn't performed even promised you that." the simplest rituals before descending, said none of "Just in case," the little man said, and sat up - it took the litanies, made not a single offering. The Earth much of his strength - then pulled his bow and quiver Elders would be furious. off and set them down within easy reach before It was in Emberstone Reach that he suddenly realized slumping back into the makeshift bed. there was a reason for Beetledown's long silence Chert hurried on. He had all the more reason for haste when the little man swayed and tumbled off his now - not just his worries about the boy and about shoulder. Chert caught him and crouched, holding him Opal and the dying light of the coral, but also about up to look at him in the light from the orange-gold whether he would repay the kindness of the ember crystals. The Gutter-Scout was alive but clearly Rooftopper queen and of brave Beetledown himself in great discomfort. with the emissary's death. "Too hot," he said weakly. "Can't . . . get air." Emberstone Reach ended and the Maze began. He 745 746 cursed the luck that had brought him into the There was no way down to the cavern floor, and no befuddling labyrinth without the Rooftopper and his sign of Flint on the great raw stone balcony. keen nose, but there was nothing to be done. Chert There was nowhere else the boy could be. remembered something he had been told as a child, Now Chert did weep a little, exhausted and at an age when whispering about the initiation was despondent. He got down on his knees and crawled more important than whispering about girls. Always close to the edge, half certain that he would see the turn left, his friends had said with the confidence of boy's mangled body on the jagged, rocky shore those who had not been tested. When you hit a dead beneath him, illuminated by the weird blue crystals of end, turn and backtrack, then do the same thing again the cavern's roof Instead, the reach of broken, piled with the next tunnel. At their intiation they had not stone was empty all the way to the silvery Sea in the needed to solve the Maze after all - they had been led Depths and the unreachable island at its center where in by the acolytes, abandoned for a while, and then the vast rocky form stood that figured in so many led out. Now he had no choice but to try the ancient Funderling nightmares and revelations. The man- advice, since this time there were no temple brothers shaped formation was shrouded in shadow, but the around to help him. roof-stones shed their light almost everywhere else. Here between the Reach and the Sea in the Depths There was no sign of Flint, either living or dead. there were also no natural lights, and Chert had to Chert was plunged back into the misery of uncertainty. make his way through the Maze in darkness, with only Had he and Beetledown walked right past Flint at the sound of his own ragged, weary breathing and the some other turning, not knowing that the boy lay thump of his heart for company. After what seemed senseless or even dead nearby? The Mysteries and like an hour tracing and retracing what to the touch the tunnels and caves above them were unimaginably were indistinguishable passages, he finally grew complex. How could he even guess where to start a certain he was lost, he was just about to sit down and new search if the Rooftopper's nose was not to be weep with despair when he felt moving air on his face. trusted' Heart pounding now for joy and relief, he followed the Then, as if it had sensed Chert's distant presence, the breeze a few more turnings until he stepped out of the huge and mysterious stone figure known as the Maze and into the blue -lit vastness of the Sea Hall, Shining Man began to flicker alight on its island at the but his happiness lasted only moments. He was on center of the Sea in the Depths, and Chert's heart the balcony on the outside of the Maze with a long sped until he thought it might burst. He had seen the fatal drop below him, a barrier so effective that even statue only one other time, at his initiation, in the the pilgrims who completed the Mysteries never saw company of other young Funderlings, under the more of the monsterous Sea Hall cavern than this. 747 748 guidance of the Metamorphic Brothers. This time, he was alone and full of an interloper's guilt. As the massive crystalline shape suddenly blazed with blue 30 and purple and golden light, it threw strange reflections on the sea itself, which was not water but Awakening an immense pool of something like quicksilver, so that all the cavern was full of leaping colors and the Shining Man almost appeared to move, as if RED LEAVES: awakening from a long slumber Chert flung himself down, his belly against the stone. He begged the Earth Elders' forgiveness and prayed to be spared. The child in its bed The gods did not see fit to strike him dead, and after a A bear on a hilltop few moments the light dimmed a little, enough that he Two pearls taken from the hand of an old one dared to raise his head, but when he did so, Chert's - from The Bonefall Oracles superstiti ous terror was suddenly made worse. In the new light he could see a small shape on the island - a moving figure that advanced, crawling slowly upward The ceiling of the main trigonate temple was so high from the edge of the shining metal sea toward the feet that even with the great doors closed it had its own of the glowing giant, the Shining Man. Even from this subtle winds - the thousands of candles on altars and distance, with the figure small as an insect, Chert in alcoves were all fluttering. At this hour of the knew who it was. morning it was also very cold. Barrick's arm ached. "Flint!" he shouted, and his voice echoed out across The prince regent was surrounded by the men who the quicksilver sea, but the small shadow did not stop would accompany him into the west, his unloved or even look back. cousin Rorick Longarren and more proven warriors like Tyne of Blueshore and Tyne's old friend, the extravagantly mustached Droy Nikomede of Eastlake, along with many others Barrick knew mostly by reputation. In fact, much of the flower of the March Kingdoms' nobility had gathered for this blessing - doughty Mayne Calough from far Kertewall, Sivney Fiddicks who some called the Piecemeal Knight because his armor and battle array were all prizes he 749 750 had won in various tilts, Earl Gowan M'Ardall of the importance of the occasion - and because, Barrick Helmingsea, and several dozen other high lords suspected, like so many others he wished to do dressed in white robes, plus five or six times that something to help, to feel himself a contributor Word number of humbler stature who yet possessed their had passed swiftly through castle and city there was own horses and armor and at least a cottage or field not one person in a hundred now who did not know somewhere so they could call themselves "landed." that war was coming, and that it was apparently going to be a strange and frightening sort of war as well. Like all the others, Barrick Eddon was down on one knee, facing the altar where Sisel told the blessing, How Barrick himself felt about it all was even stranger, the ancient Hierosolme phrases rolling from the he had to admit - like reaching for something on a hierarch's tongue like the meaningless babble of a high shelf that was just out of reach no matter how fast-running stream. Barrick knew he would soon be one jumped or strained. He simply couldn't make riding to war, perhaps even to death Not only that, the himself feel much of anything. enemy they all faced were the wild creatures from the shadowlands, the old terror, the stuff of nightmares - When the hierarch's part of the ceremony was over, yet he felt oddly flat, empty and unconcerned. Sisel took Barrick aside as the other nobles were He raised his eyes to the vast tripartite statue behind having their robes perfumed with sacred smoke by the the altar, the three gods of theTngon standing atop an blue -clad temple mantises. The hierarch had a half- artfully carved stone plinth that became clouds around humble, half-irritated expression that Barrick knew the sky god's feet, stones and waves respectively for very well it was a look his elders often wore when they the gods of earth and sea. The three towering deities wanted to scold him but couldn't help remembering stared outward, with Perin in the center in his rightful that one or two of Barrick's a ncestors had imprisoned place as the highest of the high, fish-scaled Erivor on people - or even killed them, if certain popular rumors his right, glowering Kernios on his left They were half were true - for giving unwelcome advice. brothers, all children of old Sveros, the night sky, from "It is a brave thing you are doing, my prince," Sisel different mothers. Barrick wondered if any one of the said. Trigon would be willing to die for his brothers as he He means to say "stupid," Barrick decided, but of would give his life for Briony - as he almost certainly course that was a word even a hierarch of the was going to give his life for her. But since they were Tngonate would not use to an enthroned prince. "I gods and thus immortal and invulnerable, how would have my reasons, Eminence. Some of them are good such a thing happen? How could gods be brave? ones." Hierarch Sisel was still droning. The old man had Sisel raised his hand. It was meant to signify no more insisted on leading the ceremony himself because of 751 752 needs to be said, but to Barrick it was irritatingly close is ours. They must be destroyed like rats or locusts, to Shaso's raised hand, which throughout his without compunction." childhood usually meant: Shut up, boy. "Of course, Barrick could only nod Rats. Locusts. He let himself Highness. Of course. And the Three Powerful Ones be censed. The perfumes in the smoke reminded him grant that you and the others come home safely. Tyne of the spice stalls of Market Square, made him wish is to lead, of course?" His forehead wrinkled as he badly to be there again with Briony, as when they realized what he had said. "In support of you, of were children and had escaped for a delicious, course, Prince Barrick." giggling moment or two with half the household in He almost smiled. "Of course. But let us be honest. ragged pursuit. I'm to be a sort of . . . what do they have on the front After he had removed the ceremonial robe, Barrick of a ship? A masthead?" followed the knights and nobles out of the temple. "Figurehead?" Tyne Aldr itch and the others looked rested and refreshed, as though they had just come from a bath "Yes. I don't expect the soldiers to listen to me, and a nap, and Barrick couldn't help being jealous that Hier arch - I have no experience of war yet In fact, I the trip to the temple had given them this comfort - a hope to learn something from Tyne and the others If comfort he himself did not feel. the Three grant I come back safely, that is." Earl Tyne saw Barrick' s troubled face and slowed until Sisel gave him a strange look - he had perhaps they were walking side by side. "The gods will protect detected something a little false in Barrick's pious us, never fear, Prince Barrick. The creatures are manner - but he was also relieved and clearly didn't uncanny things, but they are real - they are made of want to think about it much. "You show great wisdom, flesh. When we cut them, their blood will flow." my prince. You are unquestionably your father's son." How can you be sure of that? he wanted to ask. After "Yes, I think that's true." all, the only person in all of Southmarch with any Sisel was still puzzled by whatever lurked beneath experience of their enemy was that soldier Vansen, Barrick's words. "These are not natural creatures we who had actually been present for the killing of one of face, my prince. We should not be troubled at what we the Shadowline creatures, although admittedly a small do." and not very dangerous one, and who had also been We? "What do you mean?" attacked by a much larger thing that half a dozen soldiers had not managed to harm at all, even as it "These . . . things. The Twilight People, as they are took one of their company like a child snatching a superstitiously named, the Old Ones. They are unnatural - the enemies of men. They would take what sweetmeat from an unguarded plate. 753 754 Barrick did not share any of these thoughts either. pale sunshine spilled in through the open doors, and realized that every one of these men lived inside his "The monsters will be frightening, no doubt," said own head just as Barrick lived in his, and that all of the Tyne quietly. They paused as the temple acolytes hundreds of people waiting anxiously on the stairs pushed open the heavy bronze doors and let the bay outside the temple for a glimpse of the nobility of air spill in, ruffling hair and clothing and making the Southmarch lived within their own thoughts as well, as candle flames sputter. "Remember, Highness, it is completely and separately as Barrick himself did. important that we show the men a courageous face." It's as if we live on a thousand, thousand different "The gods will give us what courage we need, no islands in the middle of an ocean, he thought, but with doubt." no boats We can see each other We can shout to "Yes," said Tyne, nodding vigorously. "They did for me each other. But we can none of us leave our own when I was a youth." island and travel to another. Barrick suddenly realized that although Tyne Aldritch This idea hit him with a far stronger force than any of was more than twice Barrick's own age, he was still a the ritual he had just experienced inside the temple, great deal younger than the twins' father, King Olin. and so he did not realize for a moment that the crowd He was a man still young enough to have ambitions - of people on the steps was pushing the ring of guards perhaps he hoped that Barrick would remember him back toward the temple doors, that in their fear over as a loyal friend and mentor if they all survived, that the rumors of war and even more terrifying things, the his fortune would rise even higher if Barrick Eddon throng of common folk was only moments away from became king someday. Tyne's daughter was nearly of trampling the very people they expected to defend marriageable age, after all. Perhaps he dreamed of a them Some of the priests began to shut the great royal connection. doors again. The guards were shoving back with the Up until this moment it had been hard for Barrick to long handles of their pikes and a few of the crowd think of m ost of his elders as anything other than an were knocked down and bruised. A woman screamed undifferentiated mass, at least those who were not yet Some men began trying to pull the pikes away from dodderingly old. Now for the first time he examined the guards. A few clods of dirt thudded down on the the battle-scarred Earl of Blueshore and wondered steps, one hit a Marrinswalk baron on the leg and he what Tyne himself saw when he gazed out at the stared dumbfounded at the stain on his clean hose as world, what he thought and hoped and feared. Barrick though it were blood Rorick shouted in alarm, perhaps looked around at Sivney Fiddicks and Ivar of as much at the threat to his own cleanliness as the Silverside and the other lords, faces held up, jaws set danger to his person Then, as if it happened in a in expressions meant to be brave and inspiring as the dream - he was still caught up in the idea of people as 755 756 islands - Barrick watched Tyne draw his sword, heard across the yard. Heads turned and the shouting slowly the rattle and hiss of a dozen blades leaving their began to diminish. scabbards as other nobles followed Blueshore's lead. Barrick was breathing very hard: it was difficult to The smell of the crowd so close around them was an wield the pike with only one hand, bracing it under his animal reek, alien and frightening. arm to hammer at the door, but it had worked. Most of Tyne and the others - they're going to kill people, he the crowd stared openmouthed at their young prince realized. It scarcely seemed possible it was in front of the temple doorway. happening so swiftly Or the people may kill us. But "What do you want?" he cried. "Do you want to crush why? He looked at the faces around him, saw a us? We are going out to fight for the city - for our land. growing realization reflected between the nobles and In the holy name of the Three, what do you think commons that things were falling to pieces and that you're doing, pressing in on us like this?" none of them knew how to stop it. Some of those caught up with the guards stepped But I can, he realized. It was a heady feeling, although back, shamefaced, but others were more entangled; oddly cheerless. He raised his good hand and walked the process of undoing the near-riot was as down a few steps Tyne snatched at him but Barrick complicated as unpicking delicate stitchery. A ducked away. guardsman still grappling with a sullen onlooker "Stop!" he cried, but no one could hear his words overbalanced and fell with a clang of armor and above the shouting of frightened people most of the several of his fellow guards moved forward angrily. faces staring up at the temple portico couldn't even Barrick raised his voice again. "Stop. Let the people see him. He turned and bounded back up the steps to tell me. What do you want?" where the massive bronze doors still stood halfway "If you and the other lords go, Prince Barrick, who will open - one of the cleverer priests, perhaps Sisel protect the city?" a man shouted. himself, had realized it would not be a good idea to "The fairy folk will come and take our children!" cried lock out the prince regent and the other nobles while someone else, a woman. they were surrounded by a furious mob - then he Barrick made a show of his confident smile. It was yanked a pike away from one of the nearest strange how easily this kind of thing came to him, this guardsmen, who surrendered it with a look of useful duplicity. "Who will protect the city? The city is complete confusion and misery, as though he protected by Brenn's Bay, which is worth more than suspected that for some inscrutable princely reason any knights, even these fine nobles. Look around you! Barrick was about to strike him with his own weapon. If you -were a warlord, even the warlord of a fairy Instead, Barrick used the heavy pike head to pound army, would you want to come up that causeway and against the bronze door until the raw echoes flew 757 758 against these high walls? And don't forget, my sister distressed by how easily they could be swayed from Briony will still be here, an Eddon on the throne - one extreme to another? believe me, even the Twilight People don't want to get And we are not even truly at war. Not yet, He had a her angry." sudden chill of presentiment, What will it be like when A few of the people laughed, but others were still things begin to go bad? calling out anxious questions. Tyne made a show of And where will the gods be then? sheathing his sword. "Please!" Barrick said to the crowd. "Let us get on with · this day's work - we are to ride soon. Avin Brone the lord constable will come back here and speak at midday, to tell you of how we will defend the castle The noise of hammers was almost deafening, as and the city, what each of you can do to help." though a flock of monstrous woodpeckers had descended on Southmarc h Castle Men clambered on "The Three bless you, Prince Barrick!" a woman every wall and tower, it seemed, putting up wooden called, and the pained hope in her voice was real boardings against the possibility of a siege. After the enough to touch him even to frighten him. "Come torpor that had gripped the castle in the past months, home safe to us!" it was almost a relief to see so much activity, but Other blessings and good wishes rained down, a Briony knew this was no mere attack from a moment before it had been clumps of dirt and even a neighboring kingdom against which they must defend few stones. The crowd didn't disperse, but they themselves. The March Kingdoms were at war with a opened a path so that Barrick and the rest of the completely unknown and perhaps unknowable enemy knights could head back toward the Raven Gate and When the men on the walls and towers looked out the inner keep. toward the still innocent western horizon, and they "You handled that well, Highness." Tyne sounded a looked often, the fear on their faces was plain even little surprised. "The gods told you the right words to from the ground Not only the workers found their say." attention compromised the princess regent was so "I am an Eddon. They know my family. They know we busy watching the work that she stumbled into a low do not lie to them." But he couldn't help wondering. boxwood hedge Rose and Moina hurried forward to Did I truly do that? Or did the gods indeed work help her, but she shook them off, murmuring angrily. through me? I felt no god, that's all I know. In truth he "These cursed hedges! How can a person even was not certain how he felt at all - proud that he had walk?" Sister Utta appeared in one of the gallery quelled an anxious mob and given them hope, or archways. Despite the cool gray skies she wore only a 759 760 light wrap over her plain gown. A wimple of the same "Merolanna? Feeling better. With these musters of color covered her hair, so that her handsome face soldiers marching in and all these guests in the castle, seemed almost to hang in the air like a mask on a she is in her element - like a sea captain in a storm. wall. "It would be hard to make a knot garden without She's been looking in on my stepmother, too, since hedges," the Zorian sister said gently. "I hope you Anissa's time is close and Chaven has seen fit to haven't hurt yourself, Highness." disappear." It was hard for Briony to keep her anger at the physician to a polite growl. Finished brushing the "I'm well, I suppose." Briony rubbed at her lower leg. bits of boxwood off her hose and the bottom of her She had discovered one of the disadvantages of tunic, she straightened up. The smell of hyssop and wearing hose like a man - there was nothing to protect especially lavender were strong here despite the cold your shins from pokes and bumps. breeze off the bay, but they were not soothing. She Utta seemed to know what the princess regent was wondered if anything would soothe her. "And you, thinking; in any case, she smiled. "It was kind of you Sister - are you well?" to visit me." "My joints are sore - it always happens when the wind "Not kind. I'm miserable. I have no one to talk to." She freshens. If you wish to go in out of the garden, I will looked up in time to catch the hurt glance that jumped not complain." from Moina to Rose. "No one but these two," she said "I can barely hear you with all this clattering, anyway, hastily, "and I have complained to them so much that and it won't be better anywhere else out of doors. they are surely tired of hearing my voice." Where shall we go?" "Never, Highness!" Rose said it in such a clattering "I was about to go to the shrine and make an offering hurry to make her feel better that Briony almost for the safety of your brother and the rest. It is quiet laughed. Now she knew that they were tired of there. What do you think?" listening to her. "I think that would be lovely," Briony told her. "Rose, "We worry for you, Briony, that's all," Moina agreed, Moina - stop making eyes at those men on the wall and by forgetting to use her mistress' title she proved and come along." that she was speaking the truth. They are good and kind, these girls, she thought, and for a moment felt herself old enough to be their grown The castle's Zorian shrine had none of the ostentation sister, even their mother, although small, yellow- of the Erivor Chapel, let alone the huge and grand haired Rose was her own age and dark Moina almost Trigonate temple. Little more than a single large room, a full year her elder. it stood in a corner of the keep near the residence, just below the Tower of Summer. The altar was simple "How is your great-aunt?" asked Utta. 761 762 and only one small stained-glass window brought in colorful window; her arms hung at her side and her the daylight, a rendition crafted in the previous century eyes were cast down as though she looked at her own of Zona with her arms outstretched and seabirds feet, but there was a faint smile on her lips that Briony landing on her hands and flying about her head. It was had always liked, the smile of a woman who kept her a strangely beauti ful picture, Briony had always own counsel. Moina and Rose came forward and lit thought, and even in today's poor sunlight the colors candles also, although they both seemed a little glowed. The shrine was empty, although Briony knew confused and made the three-fingered sign of the that an older Zorian priestess and at least two or three Trigon over their breasts as they set the candles young novices lived in the apartment beside the down. They were doing their best, Briony reminded chapel. They were Utta's friends - her family, really, herself, fighting annoyance: they wer e both girls from since her true kin were far away in theVuttish Isles country families and had barely been exposed to and far in the past as well. Zoria's worship or sisterhood at all until coming to live in Southmarch castle. "When did you last see any of your family?" she asked her tutor. "Your blood family." Merciful Zoria, robed in wisdom, bring my brother Barrick home safe, Briony prayed. Bring them all back Utta appeared startled by the question. "My brother safe, even Guard Captain Vansen. He is not such a visited me here once some years ago. Before that - bad man. And help me do what is best for oh, my, Princess Briony, I have not seen any of them Southmarch and her people. She looked up, hoping to since I joined the Sisters." see something in Zoria's face that would tell her the Which must have been thirty years or more, Briony goddess had heard her and would honor her request guessed. "Don't you miss them?" (she was the princess regent, after all - didn't that "I miss the time when I was young. I miss the sense of count for something?) but the serene features of being in that house, on that island, and feeling that it Perin's virgin daughter were unchanged. was the center of the whole world. I miss how I felt She suddenly remembered. And bring Father home about my mother then, although later I came to feel safe again from Hierosol. She had prayed for that differently." She bowed her head for a moment. "Yes, I thing every day, but today she had almost forgotten. A do, I suppose." quick chill moved over her. Did it mean anything? Was Briony thought it strange to have to consider whether a god whispering to her, trying to tell her something or not you missed your family. She hid her puzzlement had happened to him? Could it be her fault - had she in the act of choosing and lighting a candle and setting shown too much pride in her own abilities as ruler of it on the altar before the statue of Zoria.This version of Southmarch? the goddess was much more staid than the one in the "I ho ped this place would bring you some peace, 763 764 Princess," said her tutor. "But you look troubled." from the walls when the tide came back in. Little wonder, Barrick reflected, that Envor of the Dark Seas "Oh, Utta, how could I look otherwise?" had always been held the special patron of the Eddons. Who else but the sea god had given them · this almost unconquerable vantage? Briony and the others will be safe here no matter Brother and sister were silent as they rode down the what, he thought. causeway across Brenn's Bay toward the great field His twin didn't seem to be sharing his thought, but where the mustered soldiers had been quartered, a gnawed at her lower lip in the way she did when she swath of harvested land an hour's ride distant, at the was worrying about something, a habit carried over southernmost edge of Avin Brone's fiefdom of from childhood so completely it almost seemed a Landsend. The day was cold and clear but the wind cherished memento. He followed the line of her was rising. It wrapped the new cloak Merolanna had sight.The captain of the guard, Vansen, was riding a embroidered for him around Barrick's neck in a short distance to the side of them. Barrick felt a touch strangler's grip. He grunted as he used his crippled of jealousy, although he knew it was absurd. arm to free himself, but still did not speak. He knew She still hates that one, he thought Loathes him to the Briony wanted him to, but he did not want to hear point of unfairness, as if it were all his fault Kendrick what she would say in turn. He had heard it enough died. times already. They rode in silence for a long time, so that Barrick From the center of the causeway they could see that was almost drowsing in his saddle when his sister the low-tide shallows and mud flats at the base of the finally spoke, and at first he could make no sense of castle mount were full of workers - almost another her words. army, it seemed, swarming above the mud on "He won't defend the city." makeshift platforms. They had demolished the ramshackle ma rket town before the gate, and now "Who? What city?" were pulling apart the stones of the causeway itself "Avin Brone," she said, as if the name tasted bad. beneath the castle walls, preparing to replace it with a "The rest of South-march, of course, the mainland. He wooden bridge that could be torn down in moments, said that the walls are too long and too low on the thus completely cutting the castle off from the land inland side, and it's too hard to defend." and forcing any invader to ride over sucking mud with "He's right How would we do it?" Barrick pointed to the water up to the horses' necks, or else find a way to thicket of gabled roofs stretching away down the get boats across the bay's tricky currents under fire 765 766 coastline and outward as far as the base of the hills. It annoyed Barrick to be told things about war by his He was grateful to be distracted from his own heavy sister. It annoyed him even more that she had clearly thoughts, but it seemed odd to be talking with his been paying more attention than he had. "No point? sister about such things - as though they were playing So what should we do, just surrender?" at being adults. "That's not what I meant and you know it." "I don't know," she said. "But we can't possibly get all The hour wore on as they rode in silence up the coast those people inside the keep . . ." road into the lower reaches of Landsend. The chill air "The gods save us, no, we bloody well can't, Briony! carried little except the clean tang of the pines and the You couldn't get a quarter of them into the castle and ever -present smell of the sea. have room for them to sit down, let alone feed them Briony finally said, "We can't be certain it will be a all." siege, Barrick. We don't even know what these twilight "So we should just abandon them if there's a siege?" creatures plan - they're not men, they're something else Only the gods can guess what they'll do." "We have to hope there won't be a siege. Because if there is, we'll have to do more than leave those "We'll have an idea soon enough. If they've marched people to fend for themselves. We'll have to burn that into Daler's Troth, we'll meet people who know part of the city down." something about them and how they fight. We'll send you back word as soon as we hear anything." "What? Just to keep the besiegers from getting their hands on the stores there?" She turned abruptly to face him. "Oh, Barrick, you will be careful, won't you? I'm so angry with you, I don't "And the wood, and everything else that we don't want you to go." destroy. As it is, you . . . we . . . will probably have to stand by while the catapults throw the stones of our He felt himself stiffen. "I'm old enough to decide for own city onto us." myself." "You don't know that, and neither does Avin Brone." "But that doesn't mean it's right." She stared, shook Her anger seemed mostly sadness. "Nobody knows her head. "I'm frightened for you. Don't let's argue anything! There haven't been any sieges of proper anymore. Just. . .just don't do anything foolish, please. cities in the Marchlands for half a hundred years - I No matter what . . . what dreams you have, what you heard Father talk about it once. Some people say fear." there won't ever be again because of cannons and The cold heaviness that had cast a shadow over him bombards and . and all those other things that blow all day was abruptly pierced by a shaft of regret and stones and metal balls through the air. There's no love. He looked at his sister, her so-familiar face - his point." 767 768 own face, but seen in a bright mirror, open where he they all looking at anything except the prince and his was pinched and hidden, golden and pink where he sister that they had only just averted their eyes. was angry, bloody -red, and corpse -pale - and wished "The gods make a mockery of us," he said quietly. that things had turned out a different way. For just as His attention distracted by his near-swoon, he had he had been struck earlier that day by the powerful failed to notice that they had arrived at the field. The certainty that some unstoppable downward slide had mustered men were waiting below them in ragged begun, so also he couldn't help feeling deeply, array among the shorn stalks of grain, a thousand or wordlessly, that he and his beloved twin, his best and more of the earliest arrivals who had been chivvied perhaps only friend, would never again be together in into lines by their sergeants, but still did not look much this way. like an army. More men streamed in every day from The certainty hit him now like a blow in the stomach: a the provinces, but instead of joining this westbound gulf would open between them, something wide and company most of the newcomers would bolster the deep. Was it death whose cold breath he could almost defenses of Southmarch itself. feel, or something stranger still? Whatever it was, he "Don't say such things about the gods," Briony began to shudder and it quickly became so strong that pleaded. "Not when you are about to go away. I can't he could barely stay upright in his saddle. Suddenly bear it." he pitched forward, falling down some dark tunnel, He looked at her and despite his shame and misery, flailing away into a nothingness where a cold, knowing felt a thump of love for her in his chest. After all, what presence awaited him. . . . else did he have in this world? What else did he fear "Barrick!" He heard her terrified voice as if from the to lose? Nothing. He reached out and patted her other side of a crowded, noisy room. "Barrick, what's hands where they clutched the reins of her horse wrong?" Snow. "You're right, strawhead. I'm sorry. And I don't The roa ring in his ears eased a bit. The gray day mean it. I don't believe the gods are mocking us." returned and pushed back the darkness. He was And he was telling the truth. For in this open place, leaning low over his saddle, his head almost on his beneath this low gray sky, Barrick had suddenly horse Kettle's neck. "I'm well enough. Leave me decided that he did not believe in the gods at all. alone." A measure of Briony's fright was that she had seized · his crippled arm. He snatched it back and straightened up. No one around them seemed to be staring, but he could tell by the studied way in which After clambering all the way down the treacherous 769 770 paths hidden below the balcony at the end of the He fancied that the shadow froze for a moment, but Maze - who could have guessed there even were there was no reply to his call and an instant later it such things as paths going down to the Sea in the vanished in the confusion of pulsing light. Depths? Who used them, the temple brothers? - Chert Cursing, he hurried up and down the shore again, but had finally reached the shore to stand on the rounded still could find no trace of how the boy had crossed the stones in a madness of shimmering colors, but he metallic underground sea. As he stood, muttering in couldn't find any evidence of how the boy had crossed exhausted frustration, he suddenly remembered the silvery sea. He couldn't help wondering whether another small person in his charge, one he had almost he was being punished by the Earth Elders for completely forgotten in the excitement of seeing what bringing an outsider down to the sacred Mysteries, for he felt sure was the boy. approaching their deep haunts without the proper "Beetledown! Fissure and fracture, I've left him up ceremony. He felt impious just being so close to the there alone for an hour or more!" And sick, too, having Shining Man, which loomed like a mountain at the trouble getting a full breath. Chert was stabbed with center of its island. Even here on the shore he could the sharp point of his own helplessness - so many still make little sense of it except for its roughly things gone wrong and no way to fix any of them. The manlike shape. It wasn't easy even to see that much boy - everything in life had gone wrong since the the Shining Man's uneven glow lit the ceiling and moment he and Opal saw that sack dropped beside reflected from the Sea in the Depths as well, so that the Shadowline. all the walls of the huge cavern were painted with We should have left him there, he thought, and even smears of wobbly, many-hued light. with the aching in his heart, the love he had to admit But why would the Elders punish me and yet allow the he felt for the pale-haired child, it was hard to argue boy to cross? Cher t felt a moment of doubt. Perhaps with that thought. he had not seen Flint at all - perhaps he had been He scrambled back up the path, which was really little fooled by a bat's shadow, by his own fatigue, or more more than a goat track - but whoever heard of goats likely by the heady, disturbing air of the deepest living a thousand teet below the ground? That thought Mysteries. had scarcely passed through his head when he saw Then he saw a movement again on the island, a something gleaming farther up the cliffside, something shadowy silhouette against the glow of the Shining pale that stood between himself and the balcony at Man that pushed all uncertainty from his mind. "Flint!" the end of the Maze. He stared in amazement at what he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth, he could only believe in these hot, flickering depths jumping up and down on the rocky shore. "Flint! It's must be a sort of fever-vision. me, Chert!" 771 772 Even on the surface in the waking world - at least this sick - he had lost everyone in his charge, all those side of the Shadowline - there was no such thing as a who needed him most! - Chert got down on his hands deer with skin white to the point of translucence, a and knees, holding the lantern close to the ground as ghostly stag with weirdly slender legs and antlers like he searched desperately around the base of the a tangle of sprouting roots, not to mention those huge, limestone knob for some sign of his companion. He milky -blue eyes that glowed bright as candleflame. could only pray to the very gods he had impinged But that was what seemed to be staring down at him, upon that when he found him, Beetledown would still at least for one astonishing moment. A heartbeat later be alive. it was gone. It was an undignified position to be in, but he did not Chert paused, clinging to a jutting outcrop, suddenly care at all until he heard a small voice, a yard or so light-headed and fearful he might fall. Could it have from his ear, say, "Didst tha drop somewhat?" been real? Or had he breathed too deeply of the "Beetledown! Where are you?" Mysteries? "Just here, hinden this clutter of stone whatnots, but Oh, Lord of the Hot Wet Stone, help me - was that mind tha come quiet. Don't scare un away." what I saw on the island, too? One of those things and "Scare who away?" The Funderling crept forward, his not Flint at all? But unless the light and shadow had gloom lightening a little for the first time since he distorted the island-shape beyond anything he could realized he could not reach the Shining Man's island. credit, surely what he had seen there walked on two Against all reason, he felt a small swell of hope. "Is it legs, had a round head - had been, in fact, a person. Flint? Did you find my boy?" When he reached the spot where the glassy-white "Not unless thy boy wears whiskers and long tail." deer had stood, he found no sign of anything living. Chert stopped. The bowman was crouching a bit unsteadily in the fork of a two -part stalagmite, a Chert was feeling quite sickened with terror of the formation that did not reach Chert's waist but was a gods and their sacred places by the time he reached hilltop for the little man. Beetledown had his bow the spot where he had left Beetledown it took him a trained on something Chert couldn't see until he few stupefied moments to be quite certain he was crawled closer and marked the shiny black eye and standing before the same knob of stone where he had twitching nose in the shadows. Startled by his left the Rooftopper, even though his own coral lantern appearance, the rat flinched and began to skitter was sitting where he had placed it, still gleaming. along the stone wall, but one of Beetledown's tiny The little man, however, was nowhere to be seen. arrows smacked against the wall just in front of its head and it froze again, only its nose moving. His stomach now roiling so that he feared he might be 773 774 "How long have you been trying to kill it?" Chert beast might stop trying to bite. asked, amused as well as relieved. He would never "But why will tha stay?" have taken the Rooftopper for such a poor shot, but "Because there has to be a way onto that island - the he supposed the heady, close airs of the caves had boy's there, after all. And I'm going to find it." taken a toll. "Are you really that hungry?" "P'raps a boat there is, that un's found and crossed "Hungry? Th'art a huge, daft thing. No idea to eat it, I with." foremeant to ride it." Chert's heart sank. He hadn't thought of that. "Well, "Ride it?" even so," he said at last, "if he comes back across, I'll "Too far for me to walk back to the good air," be here to make certain he doesn't get away again. explained Beetledown. "But now here tha stand with And what if he needs help? How do you cross thy huge, daft shoulder." The tiny man smiled weakly. quicksilver with a boat, anyway? What if it . . . "So will tha carry me back home again?" overturns or comes apart. They come apart "You were going to ride this rat?" Chert was coming to sometimes, don't they?" his understanding slowly, but he had the beginnings of "Never tha hast been on a boat, true?" said an idea. "All the way back up?" Beetledown with a little smile. "A Gutter -Scout am I," Beetledown said a little "True," Chert admitted. indignantly. "Well-used am I to breaking a wild ratling "And I'm to ride away, then send `ee help. From to the saddle." He shook his head. "And I'll tell `ee true where, good Master Funderling?" - I cannot take this heavy, choking air much longer." "My wife Opal, if you can find her again. Otherwise, "Then let's catch that rat. He might make us both ask any of my folk to take you to her." happy." Beetledown nodded. He pulled a knot tight on his rat- bridle, squinting at it with a sharp, experienced eye. Beetledown was putting the last touches on a "Un'll do." He stood. "Perchance `twould be better makeshift saddle - more of a harness, really - were I to send some of yon temple fellows - what did constructed from one strap of the coral lantern knotted tha call uns? The Metal Marching Brothers, with threads and fraying cloth from Chert's shirt. The somewhat?" saddle's eventual recipi ent was currently a prisoner in "The Metamorphic . . . Oh, fissure and - I never the bottom of Chert's bag, happily scavenging up the thought of that! And they've already met you - they'll crumbs left there from the meal Chert had purchased know who you are. Of course." He was angry with at the Salt Pool. And after he ate, Chert hoped, the himself for not coming up with such an obvious idea, 775 776 but events had overwhelmed him. against the creature's flank and it scuttled forward. He was still flicking its hindquarters with the bow, this time He helped Beetledown fasten the harness. The rat trying to get it to turn, as rider and mount vanished was calmer now but still not precisely docile and it into the shadows of the path leading away uphill; all took no little time. The Rooftopper was patient and Chert could see of them in the last moments was a skillful, however, and at last Chert was gingerly moving point of light, the piece of coral strapped to the holding the rat in place while Beetledown climbed onto rat's back. the creature's back. As soon as Chert took his hand away, the rat tried to bolt, but the Rooftopper gave the "That is, if un can find `ee again `neath all this mucky creature a stinging slap on the muzzle with his bow; stone!" Beetledown called back to Chert, his small the rat squealed and tried to take off in another voice already sounding as though it came from miles direction and was again punished. When all the away. cardinal points had proved equally dangerous, the rat crouched low and motionless except for huffing sides · and anxiously blinking eyes. "Un's learning," said Beetledown with satisfaction. The straggling end of the army had finally "Take a little of the coral light," Chert told him, disappeared around a bend in the coastal highway, breaking off one of the brightest bits; the Rooftopper heading toward the Settland Road and the hills, fastened it under one of the straps of the rat's leaving behind only a few hundred watchers and a harness. "It'll make it easier to see in some of the dark muddy, trampled field. It wasn't right, Briony knew - places Good journey, Beetledown. And thank you for this army should have marched out with trumpets, your help and kindness." He wanted to say something with a parade through the streets, but there hadn't more - he had a sense that this exceptionally small been time to arrange such a thing - nor, to be honest, man had become more than an odd acquaintance, would she have had the heart for it. But the people that a friendship, however unlikely, had sprung up would be frightened because of this near-secrecy, a between them, but Chert was not a man comfortable thousand men simply gone. In the past, wars had with sentiment. In any case, he was tired and very almost always begun with a brave show. frightened. "The Earth Elders protect you." Perhaps the day is coming for a different kind of war, "And the Lord of the Peaks watch over `ee in thy turn, she considered, although she had no idea what such Chert of Blue Quartz." The Rooftopper kicked his a thing might be. The world is changing swiftly, after booted heels against the rat's sides, but the animal all, and not entirely for the worse. Besides, the times didn't move. Beetledown smacked his bowstaff are too grim for parades and trumpets. 777 778 But then again, she thought, perhaps that is when we message, the mysterious potboy asking to see her. need such things most. She slowed and was almost knocked down by Rose and Moina in their blind hurry to keep up. "Have the potboy brought to me," she told one of the She couldn't eat her food and couldn't stop weeping. guards. "I will see him in the Erivor Chapel." Barrick went away like a man to the gallows, was all she could think. His jests, the cheerful farewell when "Just him, Highness?" he kissed her the last time, had not fooled her. Rose She thought of the potb oy's erstwhile companion, the and Moina were desperate to get her to lie down, but poet Tinwright. The last thing she wanted just now sleep was the last thing Briony could do, and in any was to have to endure his boobish flattery. "Bring him case it was only late afternoon. and nobody else." Oh, Barrick! she thought. You should have stayed with me. You should have stayed. She sniffled angrily, She almost forgot the potboy again, but after she left ignored a maid's offer of a kerchief and wiped her the lord constable, the smell of incense wafting out of nose with her sleeve instead, getting a tiny bit of the shrine to Enlo in Farmers' Hall reminded her and pleasure out of hearing her ladies-in-waiting moan she made her way to the chapel. their disapproval. The strange man named Gil seemed to be waiting "I will go and talk to Lord Brone," she announced to extremely patiently, his long, sleepwalker's face them. "He said there were things he needed to speak almost empty of expression, but the guards around to me about - siege preparations, no doubt. And I will him looked a little itchy, and Briony realized with some have to talk to Lord Nynor about feeding the new dismay that she'd kept them all waiting for a good muster that just came in from Helmingsea." piece of the day. "But . . . but shouldn't they come to you?" Rose asked. Well, I am the princess regent, am I not? "I will walk. I like to walk." She immediately felt better. Yes, she reminded herself, but this was also a castle Having something to do was so much better than readying for siege. Perhaps there were other things sitting helplessly, thinking about Barrick and the these men should have been doing. Still, it nettled her others riding off into . . . what? a bit. Halfway across the inner keep, her ladies scuttling "Your fellows look tired," she said to the sergeant. "Did after her like baby quail, the women followed by a you have a hard time getting him here?" contingent of anxious guardsmen, Briony suddenly "Not him, Highness. We had a hard time keeping the remembered what she had forgotten from yesterday - girl from coming along." or had it been the day before that? That idiot poet's 779 780 "Girl?" Briony was completely confused. "What girl?" blank eyes closed, opened, slow as the flutter of a dead leaf. "And they say he is not to leave the castle - "The one Captain Vansen brought back, Highness. he is not to go into the west." What's her name - Willow? The girl from the dales." "He's not . . . ? But he already has left! Why . . . ?" "But why should she want to come along?" She was about to rage over being told this only now, The sergeant shrugged, then realized it was not what but she knew it was her own fault. The flash of anger one did in front of princesses. He lowered his head. "I turned into something quite different, something icy in don't know, Highness, but the men in the stronghold her chest. "Why shouldn't he go?" say she is there every day, watching this one like a Gil slowly shook his head. She suddenly realized that cat beside a mousehole, sitting with him when she she knew nothing about him at all - that Brone had can. They don't say nothing, either of them, but she told her only that he worked in a low inn near watches him and he doesn't watch her." He colored a Skimmer's Lagoon. "If he goes into the west," the little. "That's what I'm told, Ma'am." potboy said, "he must beware of the porcupine's eye." Briony narrowed her eyes, turned to the apparently "What does that mean?" The sense of having made a fascinating potboy. "Did you hear that? Is it true about terrible mistake was on her, but what was she to do the girl?" about it? Even if she believed it utterly, was she to His cool, clear eyes were almost as empty as the send a fast messenger just to pass Barrick this . . this stare of a fish. "There are people," he said slowly. "I prophecy? He had already been infuriated once by the seldom look. I am listening." man's soothsaying No, she decided, she would put it "To what?" in a letter to go with the first regular courier. She would phrase it as though to amuse him - perhaps it "Voices." He smiled, but there was something wrong with it, as though he had never completely learned the would stick in his head, and if there turned out to be any truth to it, that would help him. She offered a trick. "They try to speak to you, some of them. They prayer to the gods that her foolishness and laxity bid me to tell you about your brother - the one who has the dreams." would not have some terrible cost. "What does it mean?" The potboy shook his head. "I "What voices?" It was hard not to be angry with do not know - the voices do not tell me, they only someone who looked at you as though you were a chair or a stone. "And what do they tell you about speak so that I can hear them, like people on the other side of a wall." He took a maddeningly long Prince Barrick - your liege lord?" breath. "It is happening more often now, because the "I am not certain. The voices speak in my head, in world is changing." sleep and sometimes even when I am awake." The 781 782 "Changing?" "Oh, yes. Because the gods are awakening again." He 31 said it very simply, as if it were a truth available to all. "Right under our feet." A Night Visitor A STORY: The tale is being told In the corridors, in the courtyards It is only the sighing of a dove's wings - from The Bonefall Oracles The day's prayers and rituals had been particularly grueling Qinnitan found herself ill now almost every time Panhyssir gave her one of the potions, but also sometimes full of a useless, undirected vigor, and that was the case now, hours after she had heard the song of midnight prayers. She couldn't sleep and wasn't sure she wanted to, but neither did she want to he in bed and listen to her own breathing. That morning, when she had drunk the priest's elixir, she could almost feel it scouring away her insides, as though she were being cleaned like a gourd filled with pebbles and boiling water. The weird sense of being un-tethered also seemed to last longer each time, as though she were becoming a guest in her own body, and not a particularly welcome one either Worst of all, and something she could not bear thinking about too 783 784 much, was that when she drank the Sun's Blood and some prize Qinnitan had secured for herself. Even dropped into that momentary but still terrifying Luian, who had been her staunchest ally, had grown a darkness, that living death, she felt like a cricket stuck little distant from her. Their conversations had become flexing on a fishhook, as though she were living bait awkward, like two women meeting in a marketplace dangled above ultimate depths while something huge who both knew that one had slandered the other moved beneath her, sniffing, deciding. recently. It was Jeddin and his ridiculous, unreasonable passion for her - it stood between them And what could that something be, a thing with now like a closed door. thoughts as slow and shuddering as the movements of the earth itself. Could there even be such a thing, or So now Qinnitan lay sleepless in her narrow bed in was the elixir disordering her mind? Just a few months the deep watches of the night, thoughts scurrying like back one of the young queens had lost her wits and busy ants, the occasional snoring of her maids outside had not been able to stop laughing and weeping. The her door poking at her like a cruel child every time it girl had claimed that the Favored spied on her even in seemed she might be drifting toward slumber. The her dreams. She had torn her clothes and walked up days in the Hive seemed impossibly far away and down the passageways singing children's songs Everything that was happy and simple seemed until at last she disappeared from the Seclusion beyond reach. And because she lay wakeful, thinking altogether. such feverish, miserable thoughts, Qinnitan heard the quiet noise of someone moving at the far side of her What do these people want from me? Qinnitan chamber as plainly as if they spoke to her, and knew wondered hopelessly. Do they truly wish to drive me that she was not alone. mad? Or are they simply murdering me slowly, for some strange reasons of their own' Her heart lurched, sped. She slowly sat up, squinting into the near-darkness beside the door. All she could She was becoming obsessed with the idea of being see by the glow of the shuttered lamp was a shape, poisoned, and not just because of the high priest's but it was a shape that had not been there when she foul elixir. Each time someone handed her a cup, any had crawled into her bed. time she accepted food that was not spooned out of a communal pot, she felt as though she was about to Tanyssa. The First Wife has sent her for me. She step off a cliff. It was not merely the open and obvious could see the Favored gardener's square face in her malice of Paramount Wife Arimone - many of the mind's eye, the eyes empty but for the guarded other women had begun to look at her strangely, too, sullenness of a whipped dog. Even if I scream, she'll regarding her sessions with Panhyssir and the other kill me before help can come. priests of Nushash as a sign of some kind of And if the gardener was on Arimone's business, unwarranted favor, as though that daily misery was 785 786 Qinnitan knew she might scream herself hoarse The thing was almost upon her. She saw a shadowed without bringing any help at all. face loom up and her superstitious terror turned her arm to stone when she should have struck with the She slid out of the bed and onto the floor as quietly as pin, should have buried it in the dark spots of the she could, letting out a small whimper like a disturbed intruder's eyes; instead she felt the thing bump sleeper in the hope of covering the sound of her own against her and recoil. The feeling of cool, human movements and perhaps even making the assassin flesh was so startling that the sinews of her arm finally stop moving for fear of waking her up. Desperate, her caught life and she slashed at it. Her attacker fell back heart still hammering painfully fast, she struggled to with a strange, breathy whimper but no words, no think of what she might use for a weapon. The shout of pain or surprise, and Qinnitan's heart scissors that the slaves used to cut and shape her stuttered again with superstitious fear. hair. But they were at the bottom of the basket under her bedside table, inside the ivory sewing kit - she "Leave me alone!" she cried, but it came out a choked could never get them out in time. murmur. The thing scrambled away from her, still making the strange, animal noise, and cowered on the As her hand passed over the small table, she touched floor. Qinnitan leaped past it and ran toward the door, something cold and hard and her fingers closed on it. ready to scream for the huge Favored guards waiting It was a dressing pin Luian had given her, a handspan only a few dozen paces away from the sleeping long and ornamented with a gol d-and -enamel chambers, but then she stopped in the doorway. The nightingale. She curled the nightingale into her fist, thing was weeping, she realized, a bizarre, rasping raised the pin like a dagger. Tanyssa would not sound. murder her without bleeding for it, Qinnitan decided. Her mouth was dry, her throat as tight as if the She reached up and burned her fingers pulling the strangling cord were already twisting tight. lamp from behind its slotted screen, but when she had the handle and lifted it up, flooding the room with The shape by the doorway began to move again, yellow light, she saw that the fearsome thing crouched slowly, silently, feeling its way with outstretched hands on her floor was only a small, dark-haired boy. With much of the dim light behind it now, it seemed scarcely even human, too thin of limb to be Tanyssa, "Queen of the Hive!" Caution and fear still kept her let alone any of the other stranglers Arimone or the oath of surprise quiet. She moved closer. The boy autarch might send. For a moment Qinnitan's already looked up at her with wide, frightened eyes. A long racing heart threatened to stop entirely. Was it a scratch down his chest dripped blood, showing where ghost? A shadow-demon from out of Argal's night she had caught him with her nightingale pin. "Who are kingdom? you?" she whispered. 787 788 The child stared at her, tears in his eyes and on his He touched the cloth gingerly. He still looked as cheeks. He opened his mouth but what came out was though he might bolt at any moment, but at last he only a low grunt. She flinched and he threw his arm in nodded his head. front of his face to protect himself. "Good. I am sorry I hurt you. What are you doing One of the Silent Favored! He was a mute slave taken here?" in one of the wars of Xis, an infant at his capture, Even in the lamplight she could see his face pale so perhaps. The autarchs of the Orchard Palace and quickly that she feared she had given him a mortal their highest servants had always liked to surround wound after all. She tried to restrain him, but he themselves with such boys, who could neither spill clambered grunting to his feet and reached into the secrets nor cry out, no matter what kind of cruelties blood-soaked waistband of his breeches, making soft were visited on them. "You poor thing," Qinnitan said, hooting noises like a dove. He pulled out a bag that half to herself- - it did not immediately occur to her had been tucked away there between his body and that one who could not speak might yet be able to the clothing. It was red with the blood of his body and hear and understand. She put out a cautious hand wet, and for a moment she was reluctant to take it, but and he shrank away again. "I won't hurt you," she his expression was so anguished she realized that he said, hoping that at least the tone of her voice would was afraid something within had been ruined. She convince him. She was talking too loud, she realized- took it from him and saw that the drawstring was she might wake up her maids, and although moments sealed with silver thread and wax. She held the lamp earlier she would have welcomed it, suddenly she did close, but did not immediately recognize the seal not want anyone intruding. When she spoke again, printed on it. Qinnitan took a breath, suddenly only the wounded child could hear her. "Let me help reluctant again, but the boy made a little whimpering you. I am sorry. Do you understand? I th ought you sound like a dog waiting to be let out of doors and so were . . .You frightened me." she broke the wax away from the string and shook out The boy whimpered again but let her examine his into her hand a curl of parchment and a gold ring. wound. It was long but shallow. Still, blood was The signature at the bottom of the parchment said already soaking the waist of his white linen breeches. "Jeddin." She cursed again, but silently this time. She hunted for a moment until she found one of the "I have it," she said. "It is safe - the blood has not clean cloths waiting for her next moonblood and soaked through. Was it the captain who sent this? The pressed it against the cut, then found an old scarf and Leopard captain?" tied it around his waist to hold the bandage in place. The boy shook his head, puzzled. Qinnitan was "It is not a bad wound," she whispered. "Can you puzzled, too, then she had another thought. "Luian? understand me?" 789 790 Favored Luian? Did she send this?" Now he smiled, although it was a pamed and sickly it began. She stared at Jeddin's precise and one, and nodded his head. surprisingly delicate script. At least he's left my name off it, she thought, but a moment later the power of "Very well. You have done what was asked. Now you that single word reached out and struck her as must go out again, as silently as you came, so as not powerfully as a blow How had things come to this? It to wake the ones sleeping outside. I truly am sorry. was like something out of an old story, that this Have someone dress that wound properly. Tell them . powerful man should risk both their lives to prove his . tell them you fell on a stone in the garden." love, and that another even more powerful man - the The boy looked doubtful, but he rose and patted his mightiest on earth - should have already claimed her bandage to make sure it was still in place. He bowed as his own. to her, and the courtly display was so strange in the Me! Me, Qinnttan. It was impossible to compass. middle of the night, with the lamplight and the smears of blood on the floor, that she almost laughed with shock to see it. A moment later he slipped out through I was a fool to take the risk of meeting you. You were the curtains and was gone. right to tell me so. There is talk. One of my enemies Qinnitan waited, listening to the silence, then bent to suspects. It must be Vash the chief minister but he the task of cleaning the blood from the floor, blotting it can prove nothing. up with another of her own rags. The thought of reading what Jeddin had to say filled her with a sour Dread seized her, so powerful it almost stopped her dismay Was it some foolish love poem that had breath. She did not want to read any more. But she almost cost a child his life? Or was it something newer did. and more dangerous, him ordering her to meet him somewhere, with the same sort of threats he had used to cow Luian into cooperation? However the day may come when he can act against me despite the favor the autarch all praise to His Finished, with the room exactly as it had been before name has shown me. No it is because of the favor the midnight vis-ltors arrival, she set the lamp on her that the Golden One has shown me. He hates me. bedside table and sat cross-legged on the bed, Vash I mean. As do others here. leaning close so she could read. I must prepare for a day when things might change. I have my own followers loyal to me but my own safety Beloved, would mean nothing to me without you. If such a day 791 792 should come I will send a messenger to you who will She did not love Jeddin, she knew that, but something speak the sacred name Habbih. And just as the son of in his madness touched her. Beneath that powerful the great god went down from the mountains and his body beat the heart of a child - a sad child, running enemies and onto the boat that brought him wounded after the rest but forever too slow. And as a grown to Xis so we will sail to freedom. In the harbor in a man he was handsome in a way she could not ignore, ship near to the Habbih temple there is a small fast that was also true. Qinnitan caught her breath. Could ship named Morning Star of Kirous. I did not name it there be something to it after all? Did sh e dare to have after you my beautiful star. I have had it since I was feelings for him? Was there a way he actually could first lifted to my place over the autarch's Leopards but save her from this horrid place? when I learned that some in the Seclusion called you She thought about it for only a very short time, then by that name it only proved to me that the fates have burned the parchment in the lamp's flame until it was meant this for us from the first. When you go there powdery, black ash. But she saved the ring. show the captain this ring. He will know it and show you all courtesy and when I join you you will see how sweetly that morning star sails. I hope it will not come to this beloved. I may yet defeat Pinimmon Vash and my other enemies and perhaps find some way that our love can grow under the Golden One's sunshine. But as the saying goes there is no rest in a viper's den - not even for vipers. He had signed his name with a flourish. Fool, she thought Oh Jeddin, you fool! Had the boy woken up the guards or even her servants, had this fallen into anyone's hand, she and Jeddin and probably Luian would all be kneeling before the executioner this very moment. The captain of the Leopards was infected with a particularly dangerous sort of madness, Qinnitan thought, one in which he could praise the autarch even as he schemed to rob the ruler of the earth of his chosen bride. 793 794 rumbling downhill toward him, filling the road, its drovers making a great clamor as they guided it through the most treacherous spots. Others coming 32 into Fitters Row from Squeak-step Alley - several tradesmen, some soaked apprentices, and more than In This Circle of the World a few soldiers mustered out of the provinces - now stopped in the shelter beneath the overhanging buildings to watch the unfolding events. The oxcart TEARS: would not arrive in a hurry, but neither did the ancient jester seem to see it coming. Tinwright sighed in irritation. He absolutely did not Laugh and be joyous want to go back into the muddy street to drag the man Says the wolf out of danger, but Puzzle was the closest thing to a Howl at the sky friend he had these days and he was reluctant to see - from The Bonefall Oracles the old fellow crushed by a wagon. "Puzzle! The gods damn your shoes, man, come on! That beast will be standing on you in another The cold rain was slapping down and Fitters Row was moment!" a river of mud. Matty Tinwright stepped gingerly from board to board - some of which, like foundering boats, The jester looked up, blinking. Puzzle was dressed in had sunk into the ooze until only the tip of one end what Tinwright thought of as his civilian attire, funereal protruded - in a determined effort to keep his shoes dark hose and hooded cloak and a hat whose giant, clean. His new clothing allowance had not run to bedraggled brim made it hard for him to see beyond wooden clogs, or at least the choice between clogs his own muddy feet. It was a far more comic outfit and the largest, most ostentatious ruff for his collar than his motley could ever be; Tinwright thought the had been no choice at all as far as he was concerned. old man should wear it to entertain the nobility. More than ever, he was determined to make a good "Hoy!" shouted Tinwright. The jester seemed to see appearance. him at last, then looked around at the approaching One of the boards in mid-street had now disappeared oxcart, the irritated animal and its team of cursing entirely and old Puzzle stood like an allegorical statue drovers so intent on skidding down the muddy street of his own name, marooned and peering that Puzzle might as well be invisible. He blinked and shortsightedly at the gap in front of him, two full yards swallowed, finally understanding his peril. One of mud as sticky as overboiled marrow. An oxcart was 795 796 storklike leg went out, his muck-covered slipper did take a bit of the luster offTin-wright's own reaching unreasonably for the distant board, then he advancement in the world. stepped off and directly into the mud and with a few Conary's look was sour, but it took in the huge ruff squeaks and thrashes sank in up to his skinny thighs. and the new jacket. "Tinwright, you whoreson, you It was fortunate for Puzzle that the oxcart and its stole my potboy." drovers were more at tentive than they had seemed. "Stole him? Not I. Rather, it was him that nearly got He suffered nothing worse than a further splattering me banged up in the stronghold under the keep. But as the cart slewed to a stop a yard or two away. The good has come of it, so I do not begrudge him. I am ox lowered the princess regent's poet now." He examined a stool, its head and stared at the blinking, mud-slathered then wiped it with a kerchief before sitting down. jester as though it had never seen such a strange "The princess gone deaf, then, has she? Poor girl, as creature. if she didn't have troubles enough." Conary put his hands on his hips. "And if you're nz so high in the It was not the entrance that Tinwright had planned, so world, you can bloody well pay me them three starfish it was just as well that his old haunt the Quiller's Mint you owe, or I'll have the town watch in to pitch you was dark and crowded and scarcely anyone even into the street again." glanced up to see them come in. A trio of outland Tinwright had forgotten about that and couldn't help soldiers laughed at the brown shell hardening on making a face, but he had come flush today thanks to Puzzle's lower extremities, but made a little room for money he had borrowed from Puzzle, and he did his the shivering old man as Tinwright deposited him best to move the coins ungrudgingly from his purse to beside the fire. He snagged the potboy as he ran past the tabletop. "Of course. I was detained at the - a child of nine or ten had replaced Gil, he noticed, pleasure of the regent, you see, or else I would have doubtless one of Conary's multitude of relatives, but been back to pay you long ago." young enough not to have become work-shy yet - and Conary looked at the coppers as though for the first bade the boy bring a brush and some rags to get time - new ruff and quilted jacket notwithstanding - he ofFthe worst of the mud. This done, Tinwright might consider believing in Tinwright `s exalted new sauntered up to the serving table where Conary was position. "Are you drinking, then?" breaching a cask. It was a real table now, not just a "Aye. And my companion is the king's own royal trestle-board; the poet couldn't help being impressed jester, so you would do well to bring a jug of your best and a little irritated. The coming siege had brought ale over to the fire. None of that rubbish you give some good to someone, as the crowd of unfamiliar everyone else." He waved his hand grandly. drinkers gathered in the Quiller s Mint proved, but it 797 798 "Another starfish, then," said Conary. "Because them He gave Brigid his most amiable nod. "No, I have had three are mine, remember?" other duties that have kept me away." Tinwnght grunted - was he not clearly now worthy of She pinched at his jacket, let a ringer trail across his credit? - but disdainfully dropped another coin on the starched ruff. "It seems you've come high in the world, tabletop. Matty." Puzzle appeared to have thawed out a bit, although This was more like it. He smiled and turned to Puzzle. he had abandoned the scraping of his soiled hose and "You see, they remember me here." The old man slippers with quite a bit of mud still on them and was didn't appear to be listening very closely. His weak staring into the fire as though trying to imagine what eyes were following the quiver of flesh above Brigid's such a fascinatingly hot an d shiny thing might be bodice like a starving man eyeing a dripping roast. called. Tinwright turned back to the girl. "Yes, Zosim has smiled on me. I am now poet to the princess regent "Now, is this not better than trying to find a place to herself." drink in the castle kitchens?" Tinwright asked him loudly, "with the soldiers elbowing and shoving like The wench frowned a little, but then her own smile geese fighting for grain?" came back. "Still, you must get a bit lonely up at the castle, even with all those fine ladies. You must miss Puzzle looked up. "I . . . I think I have been in this your old friends - your old bed . . . ?" place before, long ago. It burned down, didn't it?" Now it had become a bit much, and even though the Tinwright waved his hand. "Aye, many years back, or old man was still goggling at the girl's breasts, happily so I'm told. It is a low place, but it has its charms. A oblivious, Tinwright himself didn't really want to be poet must drink with the common folk or else he will reminded of his previous situation. "Ah, yes," he said, lose himself from too muc h contemplation of high and though he spoke airily he gave her a stern look. "I things, so I sometimes came here before I was raised suppose a few nights Hewney and Theodoros and I up." He looked around to see if anyone had noted his did sleep here after having a few scoops too many. remarks, but the outlanders by the fire were playing at Riotous times." He turned for a moment to Puzzle. dice and paying no attention. "We poets have a weakness for strong drink because "Well, well." A jug of ale and two tankards clanked it sets the fancy free to roam." He patted Brigid on the down onto the hearth at their feet and Puzzle's eyes bum, as much to get her attention as anything else, bulged at the expanse of bosom revealed by the and tried to slip her a ha'fish. "Now, my girl, if you woman bending over. She straightened up. "Matty don't mind, my companion and I have important Tinwright. I thought you were dead or gone back to business to discuss." She stared at him and his West Wharfside." 799 800 proffered coin. "Be a good lass, Brigid - that is your "Yes, well I was eager to go, of course, but Nynor felt I name, if I remember correctly, yes . . . ?" would be of more use if I stayed here - to lift up the spirit of the princess, with her brother away and all." In Afterward he was glad she had not been holding a actuality, it had been Nynor who had come to him to mug or a tray, but even the bare-handed slap on the make arrangements - he had heard of Princess back of the skull was enough to bring tears to his eyes Briony's offhand commission through some source and pitch his new hat into the ashes at the front of the Tinwright could not even guess - and Tinwright had hearth. gone down on his knees, even wept a little, swearing "You dog!" she said, so loud that half the crowded that it was all a mistake, that someone had tavern turned to watch. "A few days past the walls of misunderstood one of Briony's offhand remarks. the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to Nynor had said he would have to speak with her solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep himself, but that had been days ago and the prince on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as regent and the army had ridden out since then, so custard, he doesn't pretend he's done her a favor." Tinwright felt he was now fairly safe. Still, even He could hear laughter from the other patrons as she thinking about it, he could barely restrain a shudder. flounced away, but his ears were ringing from the Matty Tinwright going to war! Against monsters and blow and their gibes were no louder in his throbbing giants and the gods alone knew what else! It didn't head than the noise of a distant river. even bear thinking about. No, his smooth skin and handsome face were suited only for battles of the more intimate kind, the sort that took place in beds With a few tankards of ale in his belly, even the watery and secluded hallways, and from which both piss that Conary sold at the Mint, Puzzle had become combatants walked away unharmed. positively animated. "But I thought you said the other "I asked to go," Puzzle suddenly proclaimed. "They've day that you were commanded to go with the no use for me here, those two. Not like their father. soldiers," the old man asked, wiping a thin line of froth from his lips. "To be a war -poet or somesuch." There was a good man. He understood my jokes and tricks." In a moment he had gone from chucklingly Much of the good cheer had gone out of him now, but cheerful to teary -eyed. "They say he is still alive, King Tinwright did his best. "Oh, that I spoke of it to the Olin, but I fear he will never come back. Ah, that good castellan - Lord Naynor, his name is?" man. And now this war and all." He looked up, "Nynor" Puzzle frowned a little. "Not a mirthful fellow. blinking. "Who are we fighting? Fairies? I understand Never been able to make him laugh. Thinks too much, none of it." I suppose." "Nobody does," Tinwright said, and here he was again 801 802 on firm ground. "The rumormongers are running mad entirely unfastened, but the old fellow was staring at even in the castle, so who knows what they are saying the tavern door as it swung closed, shutting out the out in the city?" He pointed to a group of men standing rainy afternoon. over a table, smoking long pipes and sharing a "Curfew tonight," Conary shouted from behind his broadsheet. "Do you know what that scurrilous table on the far side of the room. "Closing time is pamphlet claims? That the princess regent and her sunset bell. The jack-o' -lanterns will be here soon, so brother have murdered Gailon Tolly, the Duke of drink up, drink up!" Summerfield." He shook his head, genuinely angry. "But I thought . . ." Puzzle said slowly. To think that someone could speak such calumnies of "What?" Matty Tinwnght set down his tankard, the lovely young woman who had recognized considered another drink, then tried to decide whether Tinwright's quality and raised him up from the he would prefer a trip to the Mint's unspeakable privy undeserved muck of places like this to the heights for or to stand in the pouring rain emptying his bladder which he was meant . . . He shook his head and against a wall on the way back. "What is it?" downed the remains of his fourth or fifth tankard. He would have liked another, but Brigid was still serving "I . . . I just saw someone I know. Chaven the and he dared not call her over again. physician - the royal physician. He was talking to that man in the hood over there." Puzzle stirred. "No, the Puzzle was looking around, too. "She's very pretty, one in the hood's gone too. Maybe they went out that girl." together." "Brigid? Yes, pretty enough, but her heels are as "What is so strange in that? A physician of all people round as the full moon." He scowled into the lees at must know the good that ale will do - the best physick the bottom of his mug. "Be grateful you are past the of all." age of such things, my good fellow. Women like that are the bane of man's existence. A night's innocent "But he is gone or rather he is not gone, obviously." tumble and they feel they can tie a string to your Puzzle shook his head. "He has left the castle, gone freedom and drag it around behind them like a child's on a sudden journey. Everyone was surprised. Ah, toy." well, I suppose he has come back." "Past the age . . . ?" Puzzle said, a little doubtfully "Clearly, he has been somewhere dire indeed, if this is perhaps, or merely wistfully, then fell silent. He was the first place he visits on his return. " Tinwright quiet for such a long time that Tinwright finally looked heaved himself up onto his feet. He was beginning to up, thinking that the old man had fallen asleep, but think that maybe he had drunk a bit more than he had instead Puzzle's eyes were wide. Tinwright stared thought, lost count somewhere. "Come, let us go back around, wondering if perhaps Brigid's dress had come ourselves. They are a poor lot here at the Mint, 803 804 despite the occasional doctor or royal poet." He used to the idea of a life confined, but for him this view helped Puzzle up. "Or king's jester, of course," he of the world that is part of his birthright - the sky, life, added kindly. "No, they do not understand quality and adventure stretching out in all directions . . .? here." And of course now her brother was riding out into that world and she was terrified for him, but also envious. It is two separate betrayals, not only to leave me · behind at all, but to leave me with the throne and all those people clamoring, begging, arguing. Still, it Briony had always liked Barrick's rooms better than didn't diminish her love for him, but changed the her own in some ways. She had the view down to the powerful connection into something like an overfond Privy Garden from her sitting room, and that was child who wouldn't stop pestering but could not be pretty enough, especially on sunny days, and on rainy safely put down. days the doves all perched on the windowsill, Oh, and Barrick is in danger, if what that strange murmuring, and it felt as cozy as pulli ng a blanket potboy said is true. But there was nothing she could over her knees But from her window the stony bulk of do - nothing she could do about anything except to Wolfstooth Spire took up most of the horizon, so her wait and prepare for the worst. And the gods view was foreshortened, limited to the local and awakening, the strange man said, wouldn't explain it. domestic. Barrick, though, could see out across the What did that mean? What does any of this mean? rooftops from the small window in his dressing When precisely did the whole world begin to run mad? chamber, past the forest of chimneys and all the way A cloud slid past. A single ray of sunlight angled to the sea. As Briony stared out of her brother's down, dazzled for a moment on the Tower of window now, the Tower of Autumn was glinting white Summer, then was swallowed up in gray again. Briony and brick red, and beyond it lay the open ocean, blue- sighed and turned to her ladies. "I must dress." black and moody. The little storm that had just passed had left the sky sullen, but it was still heartening "But, Highness," said Moina, startled. "These clothes somehow to look out across all this space and open are . . . they . . . you . . ." sky, across the roofs of the castle like mountainous "I have told you what I will do and why. We are at war, small countries, and to think about how big the world and soon that will be more than words. Mv brother is was. gone off with the army. I am the last of the Eddons in Did they give him thes e rooms on purpose, because this castle." he was the son and I was the daughter? For me the "There is your stepmother," Rose offered timidly. "The gardens, the quiet places, the old walls, to let me grow child. 805 806 "Until that baby is born, I am the last of the Eddons in Southmarch." Briony heard the iron in her own voice · and was amused and appalled. What am I becoming? "I told you, I cannot merely be myself any longer," she If it was a weather change, it was a strange one said. "I am my brother, too I am my whole family." She Vansen stood on the hillside behind the scouts and saw the looks on her ladies' faces and made a noise looked out across the expanse of valley, at the of exasperation. "No, I am not going mad. I know what Settland Road winding along at its bottom, and tried to I'm doing." make sense of what he felt. The air was close, but not But do I, truly? A person can fall into a rage of grief or from the nearness of any storm, although a heavy rain despair and do themselves and others harm. Other had swept through at midday and the road had been madnesses could creep into the sufferer's heart so hard going for the rest of the afternoon Neither was it stealthily that they did not even realize they had gone a smell, although the air had a certain sour tang that mad. Was this really just fury against the scorn of men reminded him of the burning season in autumn, of and a desire to hold her brother close in the only way bonfires now two months past. Even the light seemed now left to her? Or was this rage against ordinary inexplicably strange, but for no reason he could name courtly dress a kind of fever that had taken her, that the sky was darkening quickly now, the sun setting had gradually grown to un-woman her entirely? Oh, behind a slate-colored blanket of clouds, and the gods and goddesses, I ache so? They are all gone! hillsides seemed unusually green against the dark Every day I want to weep. Or curse. pall, but it was nothing he had not seen hundreds of She spoke none of this, or let any of it show on her times. face except perhaps by a certain angry stiffness that It's because you're afraid, he told himself. Because silenced Rose and Moina completely. "I must dress," you crossed that line once and you're afraid you might she said again, and stood as straight as she could, as find yourself behind it again Because you've seen proudly upright as any queen or empress, while they what's coming and you're afraid to meet it. began to clothe her in her brother's clothes. All morning and afternoon they had encountered At the very last the ladies pretended they could not do people fleeing the rape of Candlerstown, most merely it, that they did not understand the working of the hurrying ahead of rumors of its end, but some - almost thing, although it was much more simple than any all women and children lucky enough to have escaped lady's garment, so she put on the heavy sword belt in wagons - who had actually survived its destruction. herself and buckled it tight across her hips before The stories of these last were particularly terrifying sliding the long blade into the sheath. and Tyne Aldritch and Vansen and the others had 807 808 spent much of the afternoon trying to understand what captain he had caused two bad fights back in it meant for them, vainly trying to concoct a strategy Southmarch with his bragging - but young Dawley was that could counter such nightmarish madness. The a different story, cautious and thoughtful despite his first few refugees' tales had so unsettled the soldiers years, and much more so since their shared who heard them, themselves conscripted farmers little adventure. Had it not been for his own desire to see different from the husbands and fathers these families what was ahead of them, Vansen would happily have had so recently lost to such ghastly enemies, that with let Dawley lead this scouting party himself, despite his Earl Tyne's permission Vansen had ridden ahead with lack of experience. a company of scouts to glean what information he "I think we stay here tonight, Dab, or at least that is could from the oncoming victims and then give them what I will suggest to Earl Tyne. Will you take the men what aid he might before turning them aside to where down and start looking for water? It seems to me outliers of the army could give them food and water, there should be a stream there, beyond that hillock." hoping to prevent the dreadful stories washing Dawley nodded. The other scouts, wilderness repeatedly across the main body of troops like waves veterans almost to a man, had heard the captain - of freezing water. FerrasVansen already knew this there was no need for the formality of orders.They second night out from Southmarch would be a grim, clicked softly to their mounts and started down the anxious camp; no sense in turning it into anything road. worse. A few hundred such as these and I might not fear It was pointless, of course, those who couldn't stand even the Twilight folk, Vansen told himself, but he even to hear about the terrible Twilight People would knew it was not true. Even standing in the midst of a probably have scant chance of surviving a battle with thousand of the stoutest men in the world would not them, but Vansen hoped that the fact of real combat thaw a freezing, terrified heart. would give men back their hearts no matter how frightened they were. Any enemy who could be touched, fought, killed, was better than the one you The valley was full of fires.This close to home, they could only imagine. were still eating fresh meat and bread that could be broken without having to saw at it with a knife, which He turned to Dab Dawley, one of the survivors of his was a rare pleasure on march. Some of the own ill-fated expedition across the Shadowline. It was guardsmen from Kertewall were playing pipes and only with great reluctance and at the express order of singing. Despite the mournful Kertish tunes it was a Princess Briony that he had increased the pleasingly ordinary sound, Vansen was glad of it and responsibility of Mickael Southstead, whom he didn't certain that others felt the same. trust very much at all - the night he was named a 809 810 He was wandering back toward the fire when he saw by strength, and some who feared that others meant a figure standing at the crest of one of the low hills, to take what was theirs even when it was not true, that inside the ring of sentries but not near any of them. He greed and fear lay at the bottom of most fights. But puzzled for a moment before he recognized it as that army he had seen beyond the Shadowline, that Prince Barrick.Vansen was a little surprised, thinking array of the sublime and terrible, that ghastly, glorious that the prince would have preferred to be in the midst host - what could they want? Why had they left the of Lord Aldritch and the other nobles, drinking and safety of their misty lands after two centuries or more, being waited upon, but Vansen knew from his a time in which their original enemies had long since experience with the royal family that the boy had disappeared and new mortals unnumbered had been always been odd and solitary. born, lived, and died again, all without knowing the shadow folk as anything but the stuff of old stories and But he's a boy no longer, I suppose. In fact, Barrick evil dreams? was the same sort of age Vansen himself had been when he first left home to seek his fortune in the city - He fought a shudder. They were not men, not even an age when he had been certain that he was a man, animals, but demons, as he knew better than anyone, despite no confirming proof. Watching Barrick, he so how could a mere man hope to understand their could not help remembering Princess Briony's fear for reaso ns? her brother. Certainly the lad should be safe enough - Young Barrick turned at his approach and watched for he was scarcely two dozen yards from the nearest a moment before turning back to what he had been carnpfire - and Ferras Vansen had a respect for gazing at so intently - nothing, so far as Vansen could solitude that many others did not, but he couldn't help tell. "Prince Barrick, your pardon. Are you well?" being anxious. After all, Collum Dyer was within my "Captain Vansen." The young man continued staring arm's reach when he was taken. It would be horror out at the night sky. The wind had herded the clouds enough to have to tell that lovely, sad young woman away and the stars had come out. Fer -ras Vansen that her brother had died honorably in battle - he couldn't help remembering how, as a small child, he couldn't imagine telling her the prince had been stolen had once thought they were the cook fires of people by fairies right out of camp. like himself - sky shepherds, perhaps, living on the As he strode up the hill, the wet grass slapping at his other side of the great bowl of the heavens, who legs, Vansen suddenly wondered what the Twilight called the fires of the Vansen family and their People wanted. Although there had been few true neighbors stars in turn. wars during his lifetime, he had ample experience of "It is getting cold, Highness. Perhaps you would be violence and knew that there were some men who more comfortable back with the others." could only be stopped from taking what they wanted 811 812 The prince didn't answer immediately. "What was it taught me." He stiffened a little. "But I think it's true. like?" he finally asked. Who knows what will happen to us in Kernios' cold hands?" "What was it like . . . ?" "Yes, who indeed?" "Behind the Shadowline. Did it feel different? Smell different?" Now the memories of his days in the shadowland were seeping back, as though the lid he had put on "It was frightening, Highness, as I told you and your them had been kicked loose. "I was afraid because sister. Misty and dark. Confusing." the world there was strange to me. Because I could "Yes, but what was it like?" His bad arm was hidden in not trust my own senses. Because it made me feel his cloak, but the other hand pointed at the sky. "Did like a madman." you see the same stars - Demia's Ladder, the Horns?" "And there is nothing more frightening than that." Vansen shook his head. "I can't quite remember now. Barrick was darkly pleased by something. "No, that is It - it was all very much like a dream Stars? I'm not true, Captain Vansen." He peered at him again. "Do sure." you have a first name?" Barrick nod ded. "I have dreams about . . . about the "Ferras, Highness. It is a common enough name in other side. I know that now. I've had them all my life. I the dales." didn't really know what they were, but hearing what "But Vansen isn't." you said about . ." He turned to fix Vansen with a surprisingly sharp glance. "You say you were "My father was from the Vuttish Isles." frighten ed. Why? Were you afraid you'd die? Or was it Barrick had turned back to the stars again. "But he something else?" made his home in Daler's Troth. Was he happy? Is he Vansen had to stop and think for a moment. "Afraid to still alive?" die? Of course. The gods give us the fear of death so "He died, Highness, years ago now. He was happy that we won't squander their gifts too lightly - so that enough. He always said he would trade all the wide we will use what is given us to the fullest. But that isn't ocean for a crofters patch and good weather." what I felt there - that's not the whole of it, anyway." "Perhaps he was born out of his place," said Prince Barrick smiled, although there was something Barrick. "That happens, I think. Some of us live our incomplete in it. "So we will use what is given us to the whole lives as if we were dreaming, because we fullest. You are a bit of a poet, Captain Vansen, aren't haven't found where we're meant to be - stumbling you?" through shadows, terrified, strangers just as you were "No, Highness. I just . . . that is what the village priest in the Twilight Lands." He suddenly tucked his other 813 814 hand under his cloak. "You're right, Captain Vansen - had come to know him well enough to feel certain that it's getting cold. I think I will have some wine and try to his annoyance had more to do with her making what sleep." he considered an unnecessary spectacle of hersel f at a delicate time than any particular disapproval of this The prince turned and walked down the hill. provocative unsexing. The lord constable had other He is still a boy, really, for all his philosophy, Vansen things on his mind he deemed more important, and he decided as he followed several paces behind, alert for clearly meant to use the stir over the arrival of the any threat, even here among the campfires. A child - main courses to speak to her. clever, angry, and fearful. The gods grant that he lives As the chicken carcasses were carried away, and the long enough for some of that knowing to turn into huge half-bullock sweating in its own juices was wisdom. carted in, surrounded by what to Briony's taste was an overly festive array of peacocks roasted and then · dressed again in their own feathers, the dogs barked excitedly and snuffled in the rushes for dropped bones. She reached down and scratched a furry head, The murmur of disapproving conversation, which at glad somebody here was deservedly happy, anyway. times threatened to become a roar, had begun the "The work on the fortifications is largely done," Brone moment Briony walked into the room and had not told her quietly. "But the strongest walls will not hol d if stopped since she took her place at the head of the table. Meals in the Great Hall were seldom quiet or the hearts inside are weak. The nobles are restive. Several have gone already, preferring to take their restful, and on any other day she would have taken chances in their own homes, or even to take to the something quietly in her chambers, but she had decided on a brave show and she would take what sea lanes if things seem to go badly." came. "I know." She had granted enough spurious requests in the last days, thin excuses that she felt certain she Hierarch Sisel sat on her right. Brone, although a few others at the table outranked him, took the place on could pull to tatters m an instant if she chose. "Let them go, Lord Brone. Those are not the folk we'll want her left because he was the lord constable and the at our sides if things do grow worse rather than merely castle was at war - or soon to be so. The hierarch, after an initial widening of the eyes and pursing of the seem bad, as they do now." She glanced at Hendon Tolly and his sister-in-law Elan, halfway down the lips when he saw her, had made polite conversation table but in a different world, surrounded by admirers just as though she were wearing proper womanly clothing; she was not certain whether she admired this like Durstin Crowel, the Baron of Graylock, all but the girl laughing broadly at one of Tolly's jokes. "In truth, or disliked it. Brone was disgusted, of course, but she 815 816 it's too bad they do not all leave. Southmarch might be war, if that is what it is, and only the barest details of harder to defend, but the waiting would be more Kendrick's death. But was this the sort of news to pleasant." send to a man imprisoned, that his kingdom stood threatened, and so strangely? Even prisoned in "But that is just the thing . . ." Brone leaned back and Hierosol, he would have heard about Kendrick, and of waited for one of the squires to drop a slice of beef Shaso s imprisonment, whether or not he had onto his trencher. "For every fainthearted noble that received her last letter - was that not heartache rides off south or sets sail to the east," he said when enough? She suddenly missed her father so badly the youth had moved on, "a retinue of men-at-arms she found it hard to breathe. Barrick, too. She wished goes with him, and we can scarcely afford to lose a her twin were beside her now, that they could escape one of them." together later to discuss all these yawning, greasy - Briony waved her hand: what could she do? One mouthed courtiers, Lady Comfrey M'Neel with her hair could not compel love, she had decided, especially already half-undone after drinking too much wine, fat not for the child when it was the father who had Lord Bratchard who saw himself against all evidence earned it. All the faces that had come before her, as a wit and a ladies' man, who u sed to paw Briony's mouthing reasons why they were urgently needed on hair and face when she was small and tell her what a the family lands or promising to return with a fresh pretty young woman she was growing to be. muster of troops had begun to look as distant and I hope that if this castle falls, the Twilight People take dead as the likenesses in the portrait hall. But she the lot of them and march them off to Vansen's foggy would remember them, if one day the sun shone on shadowlands with chains aroun d their necks. Southmarch again. She would recall who left and she would most certainly recall who stayed, and she would It was a stunningly uncharitable thought, and ignored punish and reward them accordingly. She owed that the many kind and good hearts around her, but at this to her father and Kendrick, now that they were moment the shout of conversation and clanking of helpless to protect this place both had loved so much. cups and knives seemed little better than the clamor of the barnyard, and these people, for all their finery, She was startled to realize that she had been thinking little better than pigs shoving to reach the trough. about her father again as though he were dead. She made the sign of pass-evil, something she had Hierarch Sisel was trying to say something to her, but scarcely done since childhood when she learned it at that moment a loud bray of laughter from from one of her nursemaids. He is well, she told handsome, stupid Durstin Crowel pricked at her like a herself. I will write him another letter tonight, send it needle and she flinched. The Baron of Graylock was out with a courier on a ship going south. She felt a roaring at something that Hendon Tolly had said, wash of shame. I have told him nothing of this coming laughing so hard that he choked on his wine and 817 818 sprayed some on his ruff and down his front, Crowel, who had been ready to laugh, sat with his occasioning fresh laughter from the others around mouth open, surprised. him. The author of the remark met her eye, his lips "We are all unhappy," Avin Brone said loudly. "To drawn in a satisfied smile. She knew, or felt certain have lost two such noble men so close together . . . she did, who was the butt of Hendon Tolly's jest. well, we can only pray that Lord Tolly's brother comes "Lord Tolly," she called, "like Erilo putting a blessing back to us safe." on the grape harvest, it seems you are bringing much- Tolly raised an eyebrow and smiled a little, content to needed mirth to our table tonight, when otherwise wait and see which way she would take this - whether people might be sitting quiet and thoughtful, she would acknowledge Brone s offered flag of truce. wondering what the gods have in store for us." His self -confidence was itself an insult." Briony found Beside her Brone cleared his throat and on the other it maddening that he should feel so secure as to side the hierarch tried his remark again, some bandy words with the reigning princess in her own innocuous comment about how all the fortification hall, at her own table, and then leave it to her to grasp work had made him think about some additions to the for peace if she wished. temple, but she was paying neither of them any She did not wish. Not tonight. attention. She and Hendon Tolly had locked eyes. "Yes, certainly many people hope that Gailon Tolly She was waiting for his reply, and now others were, appears again after such a mysterious disappearance. too: a few dogs beneath the table were growling and My brother Kendrick, though, will not be coming back, playing tug-o-war with a bone, but otherwise the room not in this circle of the world." had grown remarkably still. The Tolly eyebrow climbed yet higher. It was a "It is a credit to your hospitality, Princess Briony, that strangeness she could not get used to, that he was you provide us many diversions. You have given us both so much like and unlike his brother. She had so many interesting things to think about that I had never liked Gailon Tolly, had found him dour and self- almost forgotten that I am mourning the loss of my righteous and even a little dim, but his younger brother, Duke Gailon." brother had a smell of sulfur about him, a dark glint of "Yes, we have all been saddened by Gailon's something deep and more than a little mad. "Is Her disappearance," she said, ignoring another warning Highness suggesting that my brother - my brother the cough from Avin Brone. "It was especially a blow duke, the head of a family that has served because his departure from this house followed so Southmarch for centuries - might have had something soon after the death of my own brother." to do with the death of the prince regent?" A palpable unease had fallen over the table. Even "Here now!" said Hierarch Sisel, and though it 819 820 trembled, his voice was surprisingly strong. He had grew smaller and his eyes narrowed a little as he spoken even before Brone, a demonstration of his considered. "It was nothing, Princess," he said at last. dismay. "This is a terrible thing to suggest or even to "A bit of drollery I do not even remember it now." think, and may the gods forgive us all for such talk Lord Brone was murmuring at her ear again, trying to when our soldiers are riding into danger." get her attention. Briony was weary. It was time to let "Well said," growled Avin Brone. There were a few it go - let it all go. There were problems enough, the nods around the table as the nobles of better - or at gods knew, without allowing this man under her skin. least fainter - heart reacted with relief to the She nodded, letting him have a more or less graceful puncturing of the growing tension. "No one here retreat, but now Durstin Crowel tugged drunkenly at suspects Duke Gailon of anything and we all pray for Tolly's arm. his safe return. The guilty man is chained in the "You remember it, Hendon," he said "It was very stronghold even as we speak, and we have found not droll indeed. About . . ." he affected a whisper the the slightest suggestion that he had any entire table could hear, ". . . Prince Barrick." confederates." Something grabbed at Briony s heart. A low groan But Briony was suddenly remembering old Puzzle's escaped from the lord constable. "Ah," she said. "Was strange report of Gailon's visit to Kendrick's chamber, it? Then I really think you should share it." as well as Brone's own revelation that his spy had Tolly gave the Baron of Graylock a look of contempt, seen agents he thought were the Autarch's at then turned back to her. He took a swallow of wine; Summerfield Court. She kept her mouth shut, but she when he was finished, his face was composed again, did not move her eyes from Hendon Tolly's stony but she could still see that strange light dancing in his stare. eye - not drunkenness, but something more Let it go, Briony, she told herself. This is pointless. No, permanent. "Very well," he said. "Since both my friend worse than pointless. and my princess insist. I was much taken with your His lips quirked. He was enjoying the moment. raiment, Briony - your clothes." "Of course Lord Brone is right," she said aloud. It was She felt herself grow stiff and cold-masked as a like swallowing a bitter remedy. "The Summerfields statue. He had deliberately left out her title, as though are always welcome here - we are family, after all, they were both children again and he was taunting heirs of Anglin himself and Kellick Eddon. After the her, the mere girl who wanted to play with her betters. cares of the day, I was merely curious to hear the joke "Yes? I am glad it impresses you, Hendon. These are that those around you found so cheering." warlike times so I thought that a more warlike garb might be in order." Hendon Tolly's smile did not falter, but it definitely 821 822 "Yes, of course." He inclined his head a little. "Of equal Tolly even on her very best day. It would almost course. Well, all I was wondering is, if you are wearing be worth it to force him to kill her in self-defense. that . . ." he made a disdainful gesture, "does it mean Nobody would be laughing then, and all her cares that Prince Barrick is riding to battle in a dress?" would be over. The shocked murmur and the few startled gasps of But I'd never see Barrick again, or Father. Her arm laughter had scarcely begun when Briony found was shaking badly. She lowered the blade until the tip herself standing, her chair tumbled over behind her. clicked against the table leg. And one of the bloody Brone grabbed for her arm - she almost struck him for Tollys would wind up as regent until Anissa's child is trying - but he could not stop her. Her sword hissed born - if they let it live. from the scabbard. "Get out of my sight," she said to Hendon Tolly, then "If you think my clothes amusing," she said through turned her eye on the rest of the table, the rows of teeth clenched so hard her jaw would ache later, pale, gaping faces, some still with lumps of gravied "perhaps you will find my blade amusing, too." meat congealing in their fingers, arrested halfway from plate to mouth. "All of you. All of you!" "Princess!" hissed Sisel, shocked, but he was not such a fool as to grab at someone with a naked blade But it was Briony herself who slammed the sword quivering in her hand, woman or no. back into its sheath and then turned and stalked out of the Great Hall, scattering servants as she went. She Hendon Tolly stood up slowly, pleased and not doing managed to wait until the door fell shut behind her much about hiding it. His hand dropped to his own hilt before letting the flood of angry tears overwhelm her. and caressed it briefly, his eyes all the time fixed on hers. "Amusing indeed," he said, "but of course I could not raise my hand against the princess regent, even for such diverting sport. Perhaps we could have a test with children's weapons sometime, so that no one takes harm." Her heart was thundering now. She was tempted to charge him, to force him to unsheathe, no matter the result, if only to wipe that mocking satisfaction from his lean face. She did not even care that he was a well-known swordsman and she was simply the pupil of another famous blade, a pupil who had scarcely practiced since the summer and could not hope to 823 824 hair stood up in tufts. He stared out at the strange sheen of the meadows and the black blossoms moving in the breeze like the heads of children 33 watching them silently from the deep grass. "They should have been back by now." The Pale Things "Domey and the others are good men, my lord." Vansen looked across at the resting soldiers. At any other time after such a long halt they would have gone STAR ON THE SHIELD: straying off into the grass like untended sheep, but instead they stood uncomfortably where they had stopped, as if prisoned by the edges of the road. All the ancestors are singing These sons of farmers and shopkeepers wanted no The stones are piled one on another in wet grass part of the thorny vines or the unnatural, oily -looking Two newborn calves wait trembling flowers. - from The Bonefall Oracles "You said you've seen this before,Vansen." "Yes, Lord Aldritch. With my troop, in the north of It was a grim thing to stand at the Northmarch Silverside. Just a little while before . . . before things crossroad where he had stood only the month before began to go wrong." and see the hills now smothered by dark vines and "Well, blood of the gods, keep your mouth shut about nodding, bruise -colored flowers. The soldiers that, will you?" Tyne scowled. "This lot are all about whispered among themselves and scuffed their feet ready to turn tail and run all the wa y back to like restless cattle, but it was a far more disturbing Southmarch." He glared at a shaven-headed mantis sight for Ferras Vansen. He had seen such vegetation making an elaborate show of wafting a bowl of before, but forty miles or more to the west. It had incense around in the middle of the crossroad, spread far in a short time. moaning and singing as he went about his task of "Where are those scouts?" asked Earl Tyne for the banishing evil spirits. Many of the men watched this fifth or sixth time in an hour. He slapped his gloved spectacle with obvious unease. "I'm going to have that hands together as though the day were bitterly cold, priest's head off," the Earl of Blueshore growled, though the sun had not yet set and the wind was mild almost to himself. for Ondekamene. The war leader had dumped his "I think this lot will be all right when the time comes, helmet on the ground like an empty bucket and my lord. Many of them have fought on the Brenland pushed back his arming cap, his coarse, gray-shot 825 826 borders or against the Kertish hill bandits. It's the back the oxen who had strayed a little distance from waiting that's hard on them." the road to graze. "Ride out to them, bring them straight through to me," commanded Tyne. "I think Tyne took a drink from his saddle-cup and looked at under that tree, there, just a short way up the hill.That the guard captain for a long, considering moment. "It's will let us talk away from sharp ears." hard on all of us - that's the cursed thing. Bad enough waiting for the enemy to show themselves when you "Perhaps we should set the men to making camp, know you're fighting mortal men. What are they lord," Vansen suggested. "It is getting late to ride supposed to make of all this . . . ?" He waved his hand much farther and it will occupy them." at the poisoned hills. "A good idea, but let's hear what the scouts say first." Ferras Vansen was glad the earl didn't really expect The earl turned to his squire. "Tell Rorick and Mayne an answer. and Sivney Fiddicks to join me on the hill there.The young prince, too, of course - wouldn't do to leave him "Ah," the older man said suddenly, with real relief in out Oh, and Brenhall - he's probably under a tree his voice. "There they are." He squinted. "It is them, somewhere, sleeping off his noon meal." isn't it?" Vansen barely heard the last of this as the earl's other "Yes, lord." Vansen also felt the tightness in his chest squire helped him into the saddle, then he spurred loosen a bit. The sentries had been expected back at away to meet the scouts. noon and the sun was on the hilltops now. "They are riding fast." "They look as though they have something to say, "But how many are they, curse it?" Tyne tugged at his don't they?" Tyne turned and stared back at the line of mustache and looked as though he would like to slap soldiers on the road. It had been a full day or more Gar Doiney. "How many times must I ask?" since they had encountered the last refugees from "I'm sorry, your lordship." The scout's voice was dry Candlers-town, and although the tales were terrible, and cracked, as if he didn't use it much. "I've heard almo st unbelievable, their presence had at least you, sire, it's just hard to answer, like. With mist and proved that men could cross these hills in safety. But such we can only just tell they're camped on the since they had passed the last of those stragglers, the hilltop and in the trees. We rode around the long way army of Southmarch had traveled through empty, for a better look - that's why we're so long back." He near-silent lands, and now a stir was moving through shook his head. The scar between Doiney's eye and the ranks at the sight of the distant scouts. Behind the mouth that pulled up his lip and made him seem to soldiers the first row of drovers, anticipating that the smirk had gotten him into trouble before now, and train would soon move out again, began whipping Vansen guessed it might have had something to do 827 828 with the man's choice of a usually solitary profession - years old, far beyond anything so mundane as fear of but Vansen felt sure that even in his anger Tyne death. couldn't fail to mark the skittish look on the scout's "If Your Highness means perhaps it is a token force to weathered, bony face. Even a hardened, taciturn draw us, with the rest in ambush," said Doiney, campaigner like Doiney was disturbed by this awkward and uncomfortable at speaking to royalty, unknown, unnatural enemy. "Come back with us, sire "then I say anything is possible, your good Highness, - there must be an hour still of light. You'll see. It's but if they have another force squirreled away, they hard to make out anything. But there are hundreds are either so small they are hiding under the clovers there, thousands perhaps." or they are floating on a cloud in the sky, like, or Tyne waved his hand. "It's only that it is dangerous to whatever it is they say fairy folk do. Because of the have to guess. At least we know where they are." morning mist we did not mark the ones on the hill until our way back, and we rode far across these lands on "And you are certain there are no more of them both sides of the Settland Road and up the far anywhere else?" young Prince Barrick asked. He had reaches of the old Northmarch way as well, across all joined the circle on the hillside, the nobles standing kinds of ground." He stopped, clearly trying to think it close together to provide each other some protection all through, to make sure that he had said what he from the stiffening wind. The prince looked interested - meant to say. Vansen had never heard so many almost too interested, Vansen thought, as if he had words out of the man in all the years he had known forgotten that the men unrolling thei r bedrolls would him. "Meaning to say, Highness, by your pardon, there soon have to cross swords with this interesting are none others we can see for miles beyond except phenomenon, that some of them would almost for those as are nearly on top of us." certainly die. It was hard for Vansen not to feel a little resentment on behalf of Dab Dawley and all the other "What do they look like?" asked Rorick, his voice a soldiers not much older than the pr ince who would not little too gruffly ordinary to be quite believable. be surrounded and protected as Barrick would be, to "Hard to tell," Doiney told him. "Apologies, your make certain their experience of battle didn't become lordship, but it's that cursed mist and those trees. But too dangerous. we could see some of them in what looked like good, But who is it asked me to take care of the lad, to plain armor, not much different than you or me, and protect him? Was it the prince himself? No, it was his there were horses and tents and and all you'd expect. sister Perhaps I do him a disservice. Vansen was But there were other shapes too, in the trees . . ." He unsure again sometimes Barrick Eddon seemed a trailed off, made the pass-evil. "Shapes that didn't mere boy, younger even than his years, petulant and seem right at all, what we saw of them." anxious, at other moments he seemed a hundred 829 830 Tyne stepped backward until the tree was almost "So what do we do, then, Lord Aldritch?" asked the agai nst his spine. He peered out into the distance, prince. "Do you think they will they stand and fight?" although the wooded high place the Twilight People "If they won't, then we have learned something seemed to have chosen as their camp was blocked useful," Tyne told him. "But do not doubt that I fear a from view by the intervening hills. "First things first, trap as much as you do, Highness, although I suspect then," he said. "Vansen, we need a string of pickets we may be overthinking. Still, if they break and run we across the hills behind them and some miles down should not follow them, in case they mean to lead us both roads, changed often enough that they won't into the place we have heard about, beyond the start to see shapes in the night that aren't there, but Shadowline where everyone runs mad." do see the ones that truly are. They must keep ears "Almost everyone. Not our Captain Vansen." It was open, too. If there is some other force coming - if it is hard to tell how Prince Barrick meant it, as a trap - we must know about it before they arrive. And compliment or gibe. let's have the rest start making camp." Tyne's Vansen broke the short silence. "If my experience is to sergeant ran down the hill to give the orders. be of use, then I must remind everyone that my men Vansen leaned over and had a few quick words with and I had no idea we were crossing over into into Gar Domey as the nobles talked quietly among those lands so I think Earl Tyne speaks wisely If we themselves. "But the others that Muchmore took out best them, even if we seem to break them, still we have been back since noontime," Vansen finished, "so should go slowly and carefully." tell him it's them I want out, and you get your fellows Barrick Eddon stared at him for a moment, gave a something to drink and eat." sober nod, then looked around at the others and Doiney nodded, then bowed to the nobles and made a realized they were all watching him. "What, do you clumsy, unaccustome d leg for the prince before he wait for me? I'm not a general, not even a soldier yet. swung himself back onto his horse again. He cantered I've said that and I mean it. Aldritch, you and the back toward his little troop of horsemen, visibly others must decide." relieved to escape the councils of the great. The Earl of Blueshore cleared his throat. "Well, Vansen stared at the blossoming campfires. They Highness, then I say we must be alert and on guard were a reassuring sight agai nst the descending all this evening, and double the usual sentries - and twilight and he decided that Earl Tyne was a that is not counting your pickets, Vansen. If these thoughtful commander it was doubtful the enemy was shadow folk do not stir, then in the morning when the ignorant of their arrival, and the fires would give the light comes back, we will go up and test their strength. men much-needed heart's ease through a long, I do not think any of us much wants to go against worrisome night. 831 832 them in these unfamiliar fields when the sun is drifting down like a mote of dust or a bit of mushroom setting." spore, but that was ridiculous. Flint might have come from behind the Shadowline, he might be a good There were nods and a few grunts of agreement, but climber, but he had given no sign whatsoever of being otherwise nobody said anything. There was no need. able to fly. Still, Chert walked back to the slope below the jut of · stone balcony where he himself had entered and stared up the jagged face, scouting with his eye up the deer track - the ghost-deer track as he now had to Chert had been up and down the shore of the quicksilver sea a hundred times, it seemed, calling think of it - wondering if there was some other way across from near the Maze itself, some high path and calling until he was quite dizzy, with no reply made invisible by a trick of the light. Sighing - a sigh except echoes. He had discovered no hint of a way across the liquid metal, no bridge, no mooring post, that the thick, hot air quickly turned into a wheeze and then a cough - he clambered back up the slope. and - as best he could tell in the inconstant, flickering light - no boat on the shore at the far side. He had discovered one thing, though somewhere in the blue- He paused on the balcony of the Maze, peering out at and-rose-shot darkness above his head some sort of the weird glow of the Shining Man that filled the great cleft must open to the distant surface, a rock chimney cavern without fully illuminating it, then took out his of sorts where the fumes could disperse into the air remaining chunk of lantern-coral to make his way above Brenn's Bay. Chert knew enough about back through the Maze. He was glad he had quicksilver to know that if this were the true stuff, reclaimed it and did not have to traverse the labyrinth unaired, he likely would be not just light-headed but in darkness again - it had been too much like his age- dead or dying. ceremony, too much like that sense of helplessness He wondered if that could be the answer to the puzzle when he had been forced to march without touching - could the boy have somehow come down onto the any of his peers, following the voice of an acolyte he island from above? But what had Beetledown been could not see, a voice made strange and inhuman by following if it hadn't been Flint's scent? And how could the dark and the echoes. But this time he would have the boy have gotten down from such a height? The light . . rock face on the side of the silver sea - the side Chert How did Flint get through the Maze, then? It was a couldn't reach - was distant from the island, at least as question he should have asked before, and Chert was far from it as the side where he stood. He had a again angry with himself. Did Flint go to the Salt Pool momentar y, fanciful vision of the child somehow 833 834 first for a piece of Boulder's wares? Somehow Chert lost, surely he would be no worse off here than didn't believe it - the little man would have said wandering the shore of the quicksilver sea. The something. But how could the child have made his temple brothers, if they came, were the guardians of way through the Maze in utter blackness otherwise? the Maze. They should know its every corner. For that matter, how did he find his way around down Still, he could not forget his own proverbial bad luck. here at all? It was a mystery to rival the strangest They should, yes. But perhaps they don't. parts of the tale of Kermos and his fabulous battles. Chert did his best to retrace his steps, but he had Chert paused for a short rest, wondering what time of been distracted when he chose the wrong path and day it was now, since even his Funderling sense of couldn't remember how long he had walked or how how time passed in the skyless depths had been many times he had turned before realizing his mistake compromised by this place, then slowly made his way Chert held his glowing chunk of coral up to the slate back through the twisting Maze. He emerged into the walls, seeking some sort of clue, but although they soft, warm light of Emberstone Reach without having were covered with the same indecipherable carvings discovered a single hint of how the boy might have as the Maze's more famili ar reaches - vast, wall-wide made his way across the Sea in the Depths, or even figures with huge eyes and contorted limbs, as well as any sign of Flint's passage at all. Chert turned and curls and dots of what looked like writing but in no began to make his weary way through the Maze script he had seen anywhere else - it was all too much again, more and more certain he would never know the same from wall to wall and room to room to help what had happened to the boy, but this time, in his him find his way. exhaustion, he took a wrong turning and found himself Still, I've seen what not many other than the in a section of the labyrinth he had not entered before. Metamorphic Brothers can have seen, he thought, He could tell because it felt different beneath his feet, recalling his journey through blackness in his coming- and he realized for the first time that the route of-age ceremony What does it all mean? Can the between the Reach and the feature called the Balcony brothers read it? had been worn low in the middle over the centuries by The face and words of Brother Nickel came back to the shuffling passage of innumerable feet. He also him suddenly - the odd look in the man's eyes as he abruptly understood at least one of the ways that the told of their elder, Grandfather Sulphur, and his acolytes made their way through the Maze in dreams that "An hour is coming when Old Night will darkness. Now he found himself in a part of it where reach out that our days of freedom are over." Chert the floor stones were smoothly level, as if no one had shivered despite the thick heat of the place. Here in ever walked on them before. the depths, wandering beneath the eyes of these He fought down a moment of panic. Even if he was 835 836 supernatural beings, it was easy to feel the breath of were no thicker than the width of Chert's closed fist. Old Night on the back of his neck. Beneath the spot where they had lain was darkness. He turned sharply, suddenly convinced that something A little heat and a stronger smell of the quicksilver sea was following him, but the corridor behind him was floated up from the opening Chert leaned over and empty. I am making it worse, he thought. I should stop poked the coral light into it Stairs, steep stairs, wound and wait until the temple brothers come. down and away before vanishing in the depths. He sat up, rubbing his head Was this what the boy had And if the light from his coral finally died while he found? Or was it mer ely some other part of the waited' Darkness had never frightened Chert before, Mysteries, a path that would lead him to a worse fate but now it was a dreadful thought. even than being stranded in darkness in the Maze' He turned another corner and found himself in a dead- It's not like I've anything better to do, he told himself. end facing three stone walls. Vast faces carved on And if the Elders are angry with me well, surely those walls stared down at him so that he felt like a this won't make it any worse. child surrounded by angry parents. He let out a little gasp of surprise and heard it echo and fade, but He had heard better arguments, but he carefully let before he stopped walking he could hear something himself down through the opening, then squatted on else as well, a hollowness in his footfalls, an echo that one of the lower steps to look as far down the crude had not been there before. It confused him - for a little stairwell as he could, just in case the whole thing moment he thought someone else was in the Maze might come to a sudden end a few yards deeper and with him - but then he crouched down and held the fall away beneath his feet, pitching him down into gleaming coral close. He stared at the scratches on some abyss. Although the tunnel looked far less the stone flags, then rapped on them with his knuckle. carefully finished in its construction than the rest of the The sound was unquestionably different. Maze, it still seemed solid Funderling work and there were no sudden drops in view. As he cautiously Chert pried at the edge of one of the stones and to his inched down a few more steps, he looked up and saw astonishment it rose a little in his hands, shuddering that a slot had been cut into the bottom of one of the as it slid out of its collar of ancient mortar. Then, as he four stones that covered the hole, a handhold to drag strained and heaved, it was not just one that rose, but the cover back into place from below. four stones together. He got the fingers of both hands under it and, growling and moaning with the strain, Not very likely I'll be doing that, he thought, but he lifted the whole mass like the cover of a cistern and wondered how Flint could have managed to do it if he slid it rasping to one side. The conjoined stones made had descended these stairs. The boy was wiry, but a rough square less than a big-one's yard across and was he that strong? 837 838 All this thinking gave Chert another idea and he some huge, murky crystal. The dimensions of the crawled back out of the hole. He untied the shirt he place seemed to change, too, swelling and contracting had been wearing around his waist since he had got it even as he continued his trudge downward. For a time back from Beetledown - it was far too hot down here he coul dn't make sense anymore of how he had found for him to have felt any need of it - and tossed it out to his way here, and he became gripped by the dreadful the mouth of the dead -end so that someone in the certainty that he was descending the living stone passage would be able to see it without turning the throat of the Shining Man, being swallowed down into corner. the heart of the Mysteries. Then the sensation passed, replaced by flickers of light all around him like With the stone cover off the opening, I couldn't give the sparks that danced on the inside of closed eyelids. the temple brothers a better idea of where I've gone if Wordless whispers swam up the stairwell, a dull and I wrote them a letter. distant rush like waves crashing on a shore, and Feeling a little heartened despite his worries over superstitious terror gripped him again. what might be waiting in this narrow place, Chert Blue This is not my place Only the temple brothers should Quartz began to make his way down the stairs. be here, and perhaps even they do not know about this tunnel . ` Either the quicksilver vapors were truly much stronger Flint, he reminded himself, trying to fight off the panic here or something else about the downward passage that had him huddling on a step, hugging himself in was . . . Strange . . . because Chert was finding it exhausted terror. Remember the boy. That small, hard to keep his mind on the very important task of fiercely solemn face, the arms thin as Opal's broom not falling down the narrow steps. handle, the white-gold hair that would never he flat, The stairwell was largely featureless! every few dozen and stood up like iron-flower crystals despite Opal's steps he passed a string of symbols that might have best work with the brush. And Opal herself, of course - been a single, enlarged word, rendered in the same if Chert couldn't bring th e boy back to her, she would stylized writing he had seen above, but there were no be crushed. Something inside her would die. faces on these walls, no figures Still, he couldn't He forced himself to his feet and began descending escape the idea that things were moving around him, again. One step. It all starts with one step, then and that the failing light of his coral was being another. Then another. reflected back at him somehow from the bare walls as No, the Shadowline, he thought bleanly, it all started though it bounced off something less opaque than that day beside the Shadowline . . . But even as the mere stone, as though the stairwell burrowed down memory came into his head with a sudden bizarre not through the castle's well-known limestone, but 839 840 clarity - the forested hillside, the noise of hooves, the guess now in the most formless kind of way. He smell of the damp soil under his nose - as if a door shrugged and took a deep breath.The hot, sour air did had been opened and the past had crashed in, like a not seem to clear his thoughts. He staggered down noisy guest into a quiet room, he put his foot down the corridor. onto the next step and discovered something was "The deeps are no more like the town than the sky is very wrong Chert stumbled, flailed, and shrieked; like the ground, lad." then, with his heart pounding so hard it seemed it It was his father's voice in his head now, strangely Big might cannon through the cage of his ribs, he realized Nodule (unlike his firstborn son, Chert's brother, who that the wrong thing was not a deadly chasm beneath was the current magister, his father would never have his feet but the opposite, a floor - not too much let himself be called anything so pretentious as distance but too little. He had reached an end to what "Nodule the Elder") had been lamed by a rockfall in had seemed an endless downward spiral of steps. the early part of Olin's reign, and had spent the last He raised the chunk of coral and peered around, but if years of his life moving between his bed and his chair the world had suddenly gone from vertical to before the fire, but during Chert's boyhood he had still horizontal, it had not changed in many other ways- been vigorous. Of all his sons, Chert had been the before him lay more corridor hewed through the same one most like him - "the boy loves stone for stone's featureless stone. He was having trouble seeing sake," Big Nodule had often proclaimed to his cronies clearly, but the passage extended as far as the light at the guildhall - and he had taken Chert for long reached and probably much farther than that. walks through the unfinished works outside Funderling Beneath even the Sea in the Depths? If so, there Town, and even a few times to some of the hills might be an end to the journey at some point - he had above -ground or along the edge of Brenn's Bay, half feared that he might simply continue down into pointing out the way limestone came to light where the the earth for days and weeks, perhaps at last to arrive rainwater washed away the earth, or the trapped at the black tourmaline doors of Kernios' own centuries that were pressed in a sandstone bank subterranean palace, doors that were famously above the waves like dried flowers in a noble lady's guarded by Immon the Gatekeeper. It was a place book. Chert definitely did not wish to see while still alive, "A man who knows stone and its ways is as good as even if much of the original tale had been distorted by any man, big `un or Funderling, prince or kern, and the big folk. The Funderling version was even more he'll never lack for things to do and think about." That frightening. He tried to remember the distance across had been another of the old fellow's favorite sayings. the quicksilver sea but the unstable light had confused Chert was astonished to find that he was walking him. Never having been any closer, he could only 841 842 blind, not because his toral lamp had finally died, but being digested and changed, becoming something because he was weeping. hard like crystal, immobile and eternal, but with his thoughts still alive in the center of it, battering Hold on, you, he told himself. That man strapped you hopelessly to get out like a fly beneath an overturned raw with his tie-rope for stealing a few sugarcap cup. mushrooms out of Widow Rocksalt's garden. When he finally died, your mother didn't last even a year after, And now, as though the deep places that contained not because she missed him so much but because him suddenly went through some sort of paroxysm, he he'd worked her so in those last years that she was could feel the sensation of power, the presence that just bone-tired and couldn't go on any longer. he thought was the Shining Man, shift and grow less diffuse, more localized it was something he sensed as Still, the tears wouldn't stop. He found it hard to walk. powerfully as he could know down from up with his His mothers face was before him now, too, the heavy - eyes closed - the presence was no longer smother- lidded eyes that could seem either beautifully dignified mgly all around him, but instead had taken on a very or painfully distant, the mouth that turned down at any definite location, up and ahead of him. Instead of hint of what she deemed an unnecessary fuss. He giving him a goal, the power of it became something remembered Lapis Blue Quartz's nimble, work- that pushed against him like a strong, constant wind, gnarled hands as she made a yarn doll for one of her as though he and it were two chunks of lodestone grandchildren, her fingers always busy, a lways doing repelling each other. Che rt put his head down, eyes something. He couldn't think of a time when she had still prismed with weeping, and forced himself to take been awake and those hands were not occupied. step after agonizing step. "And what is this now?" He could hear her as clearly What is this place? What does it all mean? He tried to as if she stood beside him, her voice sour but not remember the words of the temple brothers at his without humor. "What noise is this? Fissur e and coming-of-age ceremony, the ritual tale of the Lord of fracture, it sounds like someone's skinning a live mole the Hot Wet Stone, but it came back only as a jumble in here." of sonorous words that buzzed in his head almost Chert had to stop for a while to get his breath, and without meaning, in pictures that were smeared like when he started again, it was hard just to keep wet paint. The earth was a broken thing, the voices walking. The walls, unbroken now even by the murmured and roared, a new thing, the lights in the occasional glyph, featureless as a rabbit scrape, sky so bright and the face of the world yet so dark, the squeezed in on him as though they meant to catch battle to take this place away from older, cruder gods him and hold him until the world changed. He could a thing not of days or weeks but of aeons, throwing again imagine himself in the belly of the Shining Man, mountains up where no mountains had stood, tearing 843 844 the face of creation so that the water rushed in and he saw; in fact, he wondered if he hadn't mer ely made great, steaming seas. passed into some different and only slightly less hectic realm of madness. He was standing at the foot of a "In the Days when there were no Days," the oldest of mountain, a great jut of dark stone, a massive shadow the temple brothers had chanted, beginning the in the thin, dim light that seemed to come from all initiation ceremony, and Chert and the other directions and none - but how could th ere be such a celebrants had only moaned, their heads full of thing, a mountain inside a mountain? Nevertheless, waking dreams that painted the dark around them, there it was, a monstrous black lump rising a hundred their stomachs sour from the k'hamao they had been times his own height or more; he stood at its foot like given to drink after fasting and purifying themselves an ant gazing up at a man. for two days before the being taken down into the Mysteries In the Days when there were no Days. Oh, Elders save me, it's the gate, the black gate. I have climbed all the way down to Kermos . . and But what now? W hat was this? The tunnel had lmmon - Noszh-la himself - is going to find me wanting somehow been yanked upright like a length of string. and chew me in those terrible, stony teeth .` It rose above him into the shadowy distance. Somehow Chert found himself on stairs again, but this Something flickered like lightning inside the vast black time he was climbing, not descending, his head shape that loomed above him. A moment later a mad chaotic with ideas, with visions that were not quite radiance began to leak out from every part of it, but visible, with the endless roar oe. The Lord of the Hot strongest in the center, where it formed the rough Wet Stone battling his foes, a roar that made the very shape of a man. A shining man. roots of the world quiver Chert felt that roar in his Chert stared in horrified fascination, but also with a bones now, felt it beginning to rattle him to pieces, to growing sense of relief. He was standing right at its crumble hi m like the sandstone cliffs his father had feet. He had crossed under the Sea in the Depths. shown him, falling to the relentless waves. Soon there Still, he had never imagined what it would be like to would be no more Chert, only fragments, crumbled stand before it. The rock seemed half translucent, half smaller and smaller until they became dust, then the solid black basalt, and the light that streamed out bent dust would scatter and waft away and spread into all as it came and broke into more colors than surely the dark places even the stars had never reached . . . could be contained in a rainbow - so many colors and all moving so strangely! He had to narrow his eyes When his thoughts at last came back to him, when the until they were almost shut and still it made him dizzy, dreams finally began to shred and disperse like wind- made his head waver and his stomach lurch. He tormented clouds, Chert couldn't make sense of what collapsed to his knees on the stony shore of the 845 846 island. The heart of the blazing, coruscating brilliance whole of the cosmos. did indeed have the shape of a person, although the stone - semi -translucent as volcanic glass, and the · very inconstancy of the lights made it hard to discern Still, it almost seemed to move, to writhe within the rock as though racked with nightmares, or as though it The sky had lightened a shade, but still no birds were sought escape. singing Barrick's heart hurried, fast as a dragonfly's wings, until he found it hard to get his breath. The At last Chert could not look at it even through quiet sounds of the camp rising were all around him. squinting eyes and so he lowered his face. He He wondered if any of the others had managed to crouched on all fours like a dog, feeling as though he sleep. would be sick, and it was then, as the glare faded, that he saw the boy lying stretched out on the gravel slope He tested the saddle straps once more, loosened and a few yards above him. then retightened one even though it did not need tightening His black horse, Kettle - named to irritate "Flint!" His voice flew out - he could almost see the Kendrick as much as anything else, who had believed echoes spreading and chasing each other, growing in noble names for noble steeds - whickered in smaller like ripples. He scrambled up the loose irritation. stones. The boy was curled on his side but almost facedown, one arm reaching upslope as though Barrick watched Ferras Vansen, the guard captain, offering a gift to the gleaming giant. Chert saw going from one smoldering fire to another, talking to something flat and shiny in the boy's hand as he the men, and found himself irritated by the man's calm turned him over, noted distractedly that it was the attention to duty Slept like an innocent child, no doubt. mirror that he and Opal had discovered in the boy's He didn't really know what to think about Vansen, but cherished bag, the child's one possession, but then didn't much want to trust him No one could truly be the sight of Flint's face, pale as bone beneath the dark quite that honest and forthright - years in the dust, eyes half open but sightless, drove all other Southmarch court had taught Barrick that. The guard thoughts from his mind. captain was playing some deeper game - perhaps the innocent one of craving advancement, perhaps He would not wake, no matter how Chert shook him. something more subtle Why else would he be At last the Funderling dragged the boy up and pulled watching Barrick so closely? Because he was, there him to his chest, then pressed the cold cheek tight was no doubt of that, Vansen's eyes were on him against his neck and shouted for help as though there every time Barrick turned around. Whatever the case, were people around to hear him - as though Chert the man bore watching Briony might have forgiven Blue Quartz were not the last living creature in the 847 848 him his derelictions, but his sister's angers were to the questioning of a prisoner, a scout from always quicker to cool. Barrick Eddon was not so Heavyhand's company we had captured. The man easily mollified. would say nothing of use no matter the persuasion, I will give him that, and when it became certain we A hand touched his shoulder and he jumped, which would get nothing more from him, my uncle slit the made Kettle prance in place, snorting nervously. man's throat and rubbed the hot blood on my face. "Sorry, lad," said Tyne Aldritch. "I mean, your pardon, `There,' he told me `Well-blooded is well-begun.' Nor Highness I didn't mean to startle you." would he let me wash it off until we rode. It itched so "You didn't . . . I mean . . ." that that I scarcely thought of anything else until I The Earl of Blueshore stepped back. His breath struck my first blow in anger." Tyne laughed quietly. "Harsh, but my uncle was one of the old men, the hard smelled of wine, although he showed no signs of men, and that was their way. Be glad we do not live in having drunk more than he should. Barrick remembered the stream winding down through the such times although perhaps we will miss his like before long, if the gods are unkind." He made the sign thorny black vines and couldn't really blame the man of the Three, then clapped Barrick on the back so that for not wanting to drink from it. "Of course," Tyne said. "It's only that I was remembering the night before my the prince almost lost control of his bladder once more. "Fear not, lad. You will do your father proud. first battle. Did you sleep?" We will send these Twilight folk back to their boggart "Yes," Barrick lied. What he really needed to do now, hills with something to think about." he realized, was piss. Tyne had almost frightened the Was that supposed to make me feel better? Barrick water out of him. wondered as Tyne walked away, but he couldn't worry "I was reminded of when I went as my uncles squire to about it long, as he was already fumbling with the Olway Coomb. Dimakos Heavyhand was one of the laces of his smallclothes. last chieftains of the Gray Companies, and he and his men had come into Marrinswalk, burning and looting. Your father was down in Hierosol with most of the Expecting little in the way of siege play, they had hardened Southmarch fighters, but those remaining brought only a small contingent of Funderling miners, made common cause with the Marrinswalk men and but these were also serving as gunnery men. Barrick such others as we could gather, then met the raiders tried to sit still in the saddle as the tiny shapes in in the valley. Dimakos had come there first and had leather hoods and cloaks, their eyes insectlike behind the high ground, although we were the larger force." thick spectacles of smoked crystal, aimed the Tyne smiled a hard smile. "My uncle Laylin saw that I bombards up the hillside. Although he was armored, was fearful about the battle to come and brought me Barrick was not going in the first waves of mounted 849 850 men, not least because he could only carry a light bent to the wishes of Ivar Brenhill and the other more sword instead of a lance, he should have been angry progressive war barons. Now he lowered the visor on at the coddling but found he was grateful. Dawn was his helmet and waved his arm. The first row of archers just touching the edge of the eastern sky. T clumps he let fly, then crouched as the second row filled the air of shadow were becoming bushes and trees again, with their own arrows. Tyne waved again and with a and although the forest at the top of the hill was still shout that was almost as daunting as the cry from the shrouded in mist, beneath the lightening sky it did not hilltop, the first wave of pikemen dashed up the slope, look quite so fearsome and mysterious. In fact, pike shafts waving and clacking like a denuded everything was equally strange to Barrick's eye just version of the forest above, the wielders sped by the now, befogged forest and mortal army; even though knowledge that the mounted men behind them would he was in the midst of it, he felt as though he looked ride down any stragglers. A flight of arrows whistled down on the scene from some high window, perhaps toward them from the heights, strangely few but from Wolfstooth Spire. terribly accurate. A dozen men were down already, at least one of them a knight: his horse was dying beside Still, he held his breath as fire was touched to the train him, legs thrashing as the other mounted men surged and the guns began to speak, barking like bronze past. dogs and spewing stone balls toward the trees on the hilltop. The first shots fell short, bouncing up the slope Long, confused moments of noise and smoke passed and vanishing into the leafy cover, but the Funderlings before Barrick and the men around him s purred their raised the bombards and let fly again, this time the own horses up the hill, time enough for the first wave round stones crashed into the center of the hill-crest, of foot soldiers to reach the top and plunge into the tearing away branches and knocking down trees. trees. He heard shouts, excited cries, even a few When the roaring stopped, there was only silence for screams, but over everything he heard the unnatural a moment as Barrick and the others peered through voices of the enemy - keening noises like seabirds, the drifting smoke. A wailing cry went up from the like the howls of wolves and the barks of foxes, but hilltop, and at first he felt a fierce, relieved joy - they with words buried in them to make the strange sounds had killed most of them, they must have! Then he even more terrible. heard the note of defiant triumph in the inhuman "Briony . . ." he murmured, but even he could not hear voices. It sounded like there were hundreds of them, the name. perhaps thousands. Some of the first wave of soldiers came reeling back, Tyne had waited impatiently for the barrage to finish. bloodied and shrieking. The fairies had built a wall of He had already made it clear that he believed thorns. The mounted men behind them pushed on, cannons were for siegework, nothing else, but he had some wielding axes, hacking their way in and killing 851 852 many of the wall's defenders. Arrows were snapping Barrick was surprised to realize it was Vansen, that out of the trees at them, but still strangely few, and the man had found his way to them through the trees Barrick could almost feel the mounting concern of and the mayhem, but he did not have long to Tyne and the other war leaders - was it an ambush, contemplate it. A figure suddenly sprang up from the after all? But the hillsides and meadows all around undergrowth - no, two figures, three! - and Barrick had were still empty for this moment, the forested crest to strike away a hand clawing at his bridle. The sound seemed the angry heart of the world, an island of of many voices echoed through the trees, as many noise and struggle surrounded by stillness. unnatural as natural, and in the cloudy, slanting light a thousand weird shapes loomed between the trunks - "They break out!" someone called in a throttled, high- shadows and tricks of the light, perhaps, but there pitched voice - Barrick thought it might be his cousin were enough real bodies and enough pale, hating Rorick On the hilltop a knot of men had been forced faces that he had no time to consider anything except backward out of the trees, fighting hand-to -hand with staying alive. a group of howling, white-haired warriors. At the center of the defenders a hugely tall figure stood in his stirrups, slashing with what even from a great distance Half a dozen men of Barrick's party were left of the seemed a bizarre, misshapen blade. The defender original dozen, although some of the others had was tall, with snowy hair flo'wing free in the wind like a merely become lost among the trees Vansen was one woman's, and Barrick thought for a moment he must of those remaining and he leaned close to Barrick and be an old man, but a glimpse of his face showed asked quietly, "Are you well, Highness?" youthful features, and skin stretched tight over bones Barrick could only nod. He was gasping for breath and sharp enough to cut leather. The Twilight man struck there were cuts and scratches on his hands and no down one of Tyne's soldiers, then another, spinning doubt elsewhere, but he thought he had killed at least the blade in the second man's guts like a peasant one of the fairy folk - a face that came toward him churning butter. One of the mounted nobles spurred down a shadowy tree branch, and which he had split toward him, lance lowered, and the white-haired fairy with a startled swing of his blade - and he did not or elf or whatever kind of creature he was knocked the seem to have any major wounds. The forest was weapon asi de before closing with his attacker. Barrick mostly empty here, although the fearful sounds of the lost sight of them behind a clump of trees as he Twilight folk were still loud, and unnatural shapes still neared the crest, then the forest was all around him flitted between the distant trees. and the men with whom he rode, mist puffing up from "I think I hearTyne this way," Vansen said, then their horses' hooves. spurred across the clearing. Barrick and the others "Forward!" someone else shouted. "But stay together!" 853 854 followed him, all strug gling for breath, their necks naked an d mostly manlike, pale as maggots. Those prickling, not certain when the next attack would whose heads he could see had huge swollen throat come. Barrick felt as though he was peering down one pouches, like frogs. Their dead eyes were solid black, of Chaven's optical tubes, that everything around him rapidly losing luster. had been bent except for that at which he stared. All "What are they?" someone asked. his blood seeme d to be rushing through his head "Horrible," someone else said, and it was true. while his body was coldly numb, hard and unfeeling "The thi ngs that made the noises," Vansen told them. as iron. It was a strange, terrifying, exhilarating "Listen." And for a moment they all heeded the feeling. silence. Ferras Vansen suddenly reined up beside a patch of "What . . . what does it mean?" Barrick asked. "Why?" deep brush and struck downward with his sword, then swung out of the saddle and began hacking away at "Because we have been tricked," said Vansen. something unseen. He was shouting, and although Beneath the spatters of blood, his face was almost as the guard captain's words couldn't be heard over the pale as the grotesque shapes at his feet. "Only a few shrilling of fairy voices, there was a wild look of waited for us on this hilltop - a few soldiers to cross disgust and fear on his face that cut through Barrick's blades with us, a few deceiving shapes, a few of these numbness, clutched at the pit of his stomach. He making the noise of hundreds." spurred forward with the others just as a great number "Gods! An ambush, after all?" Barrick looked around, of the keening fairies all went silent at the same expecting to see dozens more of the strange faces moment Unearthly voices still sounded, but only from appear in the branches over their heads, grinning the other side of the hilltop. savagely. Vansen stood upright, his killing finished, his blade "Worse," said Vansen. "Worse. Because they have dripping with blood and something else translucent as held us here and stolen a day from us with a very few tree sap. His face was a mask of horror. Barrick while the rest of their army rode on around us." dismounted awkwardly and made his way to the "Rode on . . . ?" captain's side. "Yes. Toward Southmarch." He was standing in the midst of what might almost have been a huge nest hidden in the undergrowth, trampled and exposed now, with bodies and body parts piled at his feet, glistening with blood and other fluids. The things lying there, Barrick could see after a moment of confusion at the unusual forms, were 855 856 somewhere in the great castle until everyone forgot what happened. But of course, nobody would forget and she couldn't run away. She was an Eddon. She 34 was the princess regent. They would be talking about last night's dinner for years. In a Marrinswalk Field There was nothing to do but go on. Nothing. Briony picked up her pen, dipped it into the inkwell, and continued her letter to her father. SWEETNESS OF FLOWERS: "I have not heard from you since Kendrick's death, She cannot stop or cry out and as I said, I can only pray that you received my She cannot grow letter telling you of that terrible day, that this which I write now is not the first you h ave heard of it. I miss Her bones are in the stream him, dear Father, I miss my big brother very much. - from The Bonefall Oracles Because he was the oldest, he was always certain he was right, and of course that was vexing at times, but I It had been a bad night, a night of little sleep. Briony honestly think he tried every day to do right. He had been up since an hour before dawn with such wanted to be you, of course, that is why. Even before anger running through her that she could scarcely sit he became the regent, he held himself like a man who still - anger at Hendon Tolly, of course, but also at will rule one day, who concerns himself with the needs herself for her foolish loss of control, at Barrick for not of the least of his subjects as well as the demands of being with her, at everything. his most powerful allies. And I stood there, waving a sword at him in front of "But, of course, that is what everyone else will everyone, and they all knew he could not lift a finger remember about him. What I will always remember against me - his ruler, and a woman at that. A . . . girl. about our dear Kendrick was the way he would fume And they all knew he didn't need to, either, because and scowl when Barrick and I teased him, but at last he'd already won. What a fool I must have looked! would give in and laugh as hard as any of us. Why is it that you and Kendrick could both do that, that you For a long moment it was all she could do to stay could see your own foolishness and admit it, even seated at the writing desk - she was itching with laugh about it, but Barrick and I cannot? embarrassment despite being the only person awake in the room. She wanted to run, to lose herself "There is more, certainly, that . . ." 857 858 even to think. She hoped that by hearing it she had lightened her brother's load, because he had certainly She stopped. A memory of Kendrick pretending to be burdened her. How could such a thing be true? But if angry at her while struggling to hide a smile had it was not true, how was it possible that Barrick, her suddenly come back with such power that for a twin, could be such a liar? And if it was true, how moment she could only sit and weep silently. Rose could she possibly write to her father as though Trelling stirred in her bed on the opposite side of the nothing had changed, as though she was the same room, murmured something, then fell back to sleep. loving daughter in the same, unchanged world? Anazona, Briony's youngest maid, scarcely ten years old, was snoring like an ancient dog on her little pallet Either Barrick is the world's greatest liar . . . or Father on the floor. It was strange to be awake in the midst of is . . . all these sleepers - like being a ghost. It was pointless. She had thought she could write to She went back and scratched out part of the last him, but she couldn't. sentence, changed it to read, ". . . that Kendrick could Briony was holding the last of the burning parchment do that and you can do it, too," because she realized to the candle when someone knocked at the door. she had put the king, her father, into the past again as She immediately dropped the ashes and stub of paper though he were dead instead of only imprisoned. The into the candleholder, as though she had been caught gods willing, it is nothing but a false fear! Still, the doing something wicked. "Who is there?" whole thing seemed a hopeless exercise. How could "It's Lord Brone, Your Highness," said one of her she tell him what truly was happening without making guards through the door. "He wishes . . ." him frantic with worry? How could she describe any of "Oh, Perin's bloody red beard, I can tell her myself," it, the terrifying Twilight People, the Tollys' flirtation growled the lord constable. "Let me come in, please, with the Autarch, the seemingly unending stream of Princess. I have urgent business." dreadful tidings? How could she tell her father how frightened she was for Barrick without breaking Olin's Even this early, with the sky outside still quite dark, heart? Avin Brone was dressed for the daylight hours, although he looked to have accomplished it in a hasty She put the pen back down and read over what she manner. He stared around the room as though had written. The greatest problem, of course, was that searching for enemies but saw only slumbering she couldn't speak about what was troubling her most women. - her twin's terrible story. Since Barrick had told her, it had stayed in the middle of her like a swallowed "We must speak m private," he told her. stone, a great, indigestible lump. Some days the "They are all deep sleepers, but if you fear for their heaviness of it made it hard for her to walk, to talk, 859 860 modesty, we can step into the hallway . . ." She was stunned. "But . . . how . . . ?" Briony forced herself to think more carefully. "What happened? Who "No. This is not to be discussed in front of the guards. found him?" Not yet." He looked around the bedchamber once more. "Ah, well," he said at last. "We must speak "One of the last musters out of south Marrinswalk, four quietl y, then." or five pentecounts, I don't recall. They came in late last night, an hour or so after the last bell, hurrying to She gestured for him to sit down at the writing desk, bring in their news. They had been coming up the but she herself remained standing. Something in his Silverside Road outside Oscastle and saw a great manner had alarmed her; she felt an almost animal number of ravens and other birds swarming in a field. urge toward flight. Although Brone seemed his When their leader took them closer they saw ordinary dour, distracted self, she could sense something shining. It was a buckle." something deeper was wrong, and she began to wonder how long it would take the guards to respond Briony s knees suddenly felt weak; she had to take a if she called out for them. Almost without thinking step to steady herself. Brone came up out of the chair about it, she took a step back from the lord constable, quickly and guided her to it in his stead. "But . how?" then another; then, a little ashamed, she turned the she asked. "Who did this? Bandits? Surely the fairy movement into a search for a thicker wrap. She was folk have not moved so far south?" Gailon Tolly, dead. conscious for the first time in an hour that her slippers Handsome, self-satsified Gailon. She hadn't liked him, were thin and her feet were cold. but she had never wanted . . . never imagined . . "Gailon Tolly has been found." "I can't say, Princess. Bandits seem the most likely explanation - almost all their money and jewelry had "Where?" been taken. Horses, too. There are more than a few "In a Marrinswalk field In a ditch, to be more precise, such bands who range the border between Silverside covered over with branches." and Marrinswalk and call theWhitewood their home. "What?" For a moment she had a mad vision of Gailon The thieves missed a brooch, though, and one of the in a kind of hiding-hole, playing a child's game. Then Marrinswalk men brought it in. That is our only she understood. "Oh, merciful Zona, in a ditch' Is he . . advantage - the discoverers do not know yet whose . ?" bodies they found, which has given me enough time "Dead, yes. Oh, most assuredly dead - along with the to tell you first, before it spreads all through the castle." He extended his broad fist and uncurled the men who rode beside him. Half a dozen in all, thrown fingers. A round brooch with a thick pin covered much together into a hasty grave, if you can even call it such." of his palm, the kind worn at the neck of a riding cloak. The silver was still streaked with mud, but the humped 861 862 shoulders and horned head of the bull were killed?" impossible to mistake . "Perhaps he won't." Briony forced herself to swallow. She felt as though "What do you mean?" she would be ill. "That's his. I've seen him wear it." "Perhaps he won't. Perhaps it wasn't bandits, or even "Or at least it's one of the Tolly family brooches. But I these Twilight folk. Maybe it was the Tollys' southern think we must assume one of the corpses is Gailon." friends." "Where are they?" she asked at last, staring at the It took her a moment. "The Autarch? Are you muddied silver circle as though it were an actual piece suggesting the Autarch would reach all the way into of bone. "The bodies?" the March Kingdoms to murder one of his allies - one "They have been taken to a temple in Oscastle. Until of his only allies, as far as we know?" they got there, the soldiers who found them thought "Perhaps they didn't become allies. Perhaps the the dead were local men, but no one in Oscastle had Tollys turned him down." any idea who they could be. The mantis in that town If what Brone told me in the first place was even true, thought he recognized one corpse as being Gailon she reminded herself. Briony put her hands to her Tolly, however, and being a wise man, he put his head. Now that Barrick was gone, she could fully trust fears in a letter and entrusted it to the captain of the no one. "What a dreadful tangle! I can't make sense of Marrinswalk pentecounts for secrecy. Still, the rest of it - I have to think. Perhaps you're right, but that still the muster are already telling their story to anyone doesn't help us any. Unless Hendon Tolly also here who will listen. It is only hours at the most until suspects the Autarch's hand and decides he can't Hendon Tolly hears of it, and he will have no trouble afford to make too much of a fuss . . ." She took a deciding who these mysterious dead really are." long, shuddering breath, trying to calm stomach and "Merciful Zonal. As it was, he all but accused us of spirit. "I only know that it will make matters worse at a murdering Gailon - he will trumpet it from the walls time when I believed such a thing wasn't possible." As now!" Briony spoke, she picked up the inkwell and moved it "Yes, and you did not help things with your back into the drawer, carefully put away the blotter, foolishness at dinner. Go ahead and throw me in the then the sealing wax. stronghold, but it must be said." "What are you doing?" asked Brone. For the first time She waved her hand. The sour taste in her mouth had she noticed the dark, circles under his eyes, the worsened. "Yes, yes, and I agree, and now you've weariness on his pouchy face. He had probably not said it. But what do we do? What do we do when slept more than an hour or two. Hendon starts up again, claiming I've had his brother 863 864 "Just clearing things away. I was going to write a letter shining crown Big as a mountain, he looked down to someone, but it's become clear that there's not from his throne but said nothing. The only sound in his much point to it." She paused. "Dead - Zoria preserve immense throne room was the low groan of great us! Poor Gailon. I never thought I'd say that. stones shifting, the roots of the world still alive and unsettled even all these aeons after the Days of For a moment she thought Avin Brone was shaking Cooling. her chair for some reason - that he was angry and had been hiding it - but then she realized he was several At last Chert could take no more. "Please, steps away and swaying unsteadily too In fact, it Grandfather, do not punish me!" seemed the whole world was shaking. A bench The groaning continued, but the mighty figure said hopped on the floor like a skittish horse One of her nothing. jewelry chests jittered offa table and smashed on the "I meant no harm I trespassed, but I meant no harm!" flagstones. Across the room, Moina sat up and stared The murk regarded him. A hand as vast as a wall around. Wearily. By the time the trembling stopped slowly lifted and spread above him - a benediction? A little Anazona was awake too, frightened and crying curse? Or did his god simply mean to crush him like a loudly. Even heavy -sleeping Rose seemed to have fly? The groaning stopped for a moment, then began been shaken almost to wakefulness. again, and for the first time Chert began to hear "Just a tremor of the earth," the lord constable said, something like wor ds in it, a dim, gnashing cadence. frowning at his sluggard niece, who had only yawned He is speaking to me, Chert realized But it is too slow, and turned over, but his leathery face had gone pale. too deep, for me to hear! "I felt one like it when I was a boy. It is over now." Too slow too deep. The light was flickering now, the Briony's heart was beating very fast. "Is it, Lord massive shape hard to see. Too deep. He couldn't Brone? Or is it that the world is approaching its end?" understand the words His god was speaking to him, "I must say that I have never known it so discomforted but he couldn't make sense of what was being said. in my lifetime," he admitted. "Tell me!" he shouted as the darkness closed in "Tell me so that I can understand . . .!" · But his god had no comprehensible tale to tell. The Lord of the Hot Wet Stone had no face, or at least He woke up shivering from the oppressive dream - if no face that Chert could see, only a murky, red-shot dream it had truly been. For a moment he couldn't blackness between his gigantic shoulders and his remember what place he was in, but the boy's body 865 866 pressed against him brought it back. Shivering, Chert He tried to stand, but it was too much effort - he was shivering - no, shaking all over. couldn't even rise to his knees while holding the boy. He set Flint down as gently as he could and then So cold he thought, but realized a moment later that clambered up to stand unsteadily over him. The boy the air was actually hot, hot enough to suck the sweat was his own height, weighed almost as much as Chert off his skin. Nevertheless an unpleasant chill was on did there was only one way to carry him, and that was him, an icy, bone-deep discomfort, nor could he stop to get the boy's entire weight up onto his shoulders, shaking. Also, and far more frightening, the voice of as it was said that Silas of Perikal- - or was it one of the god still rumbled in his ears. the other heroes of the big folk's tales? - had carried a No, it was the earth itself growling - one of the tremors young bullock every day, so that as the bullock grew his people called a Wakeful Elder, unusual but not into its maturity, Silas also grew more and more exceptional Chert himself was not trembling - the powerful, eventually to become the mightiest knight of ground beneath him was moving. He darted a fearful his age. glance up at the Shining Man, in size and threatening Or was, that Hihometes the Kraaan? Chert wondered juxtaposition so much like the god in his dream, but bleanly as he squatted beside the senseless child. where earlier it had flashed and smoldered it had now Absently, he pulled the mirror out of the child's grasp - gone strangely dark at its center, only a few glimmers the boy's grip was fierce, even in near -death - and put moving beneath the surface of the crystalline stone it in his own pouch. It felt like nothing special, no like silvery fish in a pool. heavier or lighter than it did before, no warmer, no The ground shuddered again, then the groaning died cooler. Yes, it was the Kraaan. No, wait, Hihometes and the greater movement stopped. For another was a demigod - he needed no training to lift great heartbeat or two he could hear the hiss of the beach weights. Chert could never keep all the stories of the stones around him as they continued to slide, to find big-folk heroes straight. So many of them, killing new arrangements, then everything was silent once monsters and saving maidens, and they all seemed more. more or less the same. Flint whimpered Chert, who had been certain he held He hauled the top of Flint's body up onto his shoulder, a dead child, almost dropped him in surprise, then his then grabbed him around the thighs and lifted until the heart leaped with unexpected joy and a new terror. side of the boy's belly was against his neck. Grunting, "Lad! Talk to me! It's me, Chert!" cursing under his breath, yet all the time able to watch But the boy was still again, his skin still clammy-cold his own ludicrous travails as though he were two beneath the dirt and dust. people at the same time, Chert slowly rose to his feet with the boy's legs dangling in front and his head The tunnel. I must carry him back. 867 868 dangling down behind. For a moment he was full of my work. I take care . . . I take care of my . . . my own the glory of having accomplished the near -impossible, ... then he took a step and felt his legs already trembling But then he did stumble, and fell, and lay panting on with the exertion, his back knotting at the weight it the stones with the boy on top of him. When he tried must bear. Worse, he remembered that he did not to make himself move again he could not because know where he had come up out of the tunnel and something dark was covering him, closing his eyes, onto the island. Chert knew he should put the boy stealing his wits. down and search instead of trying to carry his weight any farther than necessary, but he also knew that if he He came up out of exhausted sleep to find himself did that, he would never manage to lift him again. face to face with horror. It was hard to be certain in the dim light which were Something was touching his chin and his cheek: a footprints and which only shadowed valleys in the small but ghastly, malformed mask stared down on piles of smooth stones, but he turned his back to the him from only a short distance away, flare -nostnled, darkened Shining Man and did the best he could. At fang -toothed, with leathery black skin. Chert squeaked the beginning each step was very hard, by the time he - he had the breath for nothing more - and tried to had staggered fifty yards and still had not found the beat away the looming, blurry monstrosity, but he was tunnel mouth, each step was a sweating, wheezing lying on his belly and something was pinning his arms. agony. "Demon!" he moaned, struggling. The thing retreated, Lie down and wait for help, a voice in his head or its horrid face did, but he could still feel something instructed him. scratching at his neck. Lie down and die, suggested another as he missed "Not pretty, mayhap," a voice said, "but un's carried his footing and almost tumbled, almost dropped the me well. Seems sour t'name un so." helpless child. Chert stopped fighting, astonished, wondering if he The gods help those who help themselves, he had lost his wits again or was wandering in the thought, and then I hate the gods Why should the tunnels of dream. "Beetledown?" Elders torture me in this way? Why should they use the boy to hurt me and to hurt Opal? "Aye." A moment later the little man clambered down Chert's shoulder and into his view. Another step. Gasping, he almost fell. One more step. But what can you know about what the gods want? "Why can't I move? And what was that thing?" Who are you, little man? "For movin', well, it's thy boy lying athwart `ee I am Chert of the Blue Quartz clan. I know stone. I do hampering thy arms. That thing, as tha says, well . . . 869 870 a flittermouse, I calls it. Rode it back here, did I." The temple brothers voice came down to him, faint but echoing with urgency. "In the name of the Elders, how "A flit. . . A bat?" did you get across?" "Aye, likely." Something dark leaped past Chert's face. Chert started to reply, then stopped. When he did "There un goes," said Beetledown a little sadly. "Gone speak, he couldn't keep the astonishment out of his now, afeared because tha would try to roll over un." voice, for surely it was the Metamorphic Brothers' own He shook his head. "Testing and fidgeting, thy tunnel he had used. "Do you mean - do you mean to flittermouse may be, but a treat to ride once going say you don't know . . . ?" along proper." "You rode a bat?" There were more surprises - Chert even managed to "How else to get over yon evil-smelling silver water?" surprise himself. Despite being grateful to his Chert slid out from under Flint, letting the boy down rescuers, not to mention having been raised in the onto the stony beach as gently as he could. lifetime habit of trained respect toward their order, "How fares thy boy?" asked Beetledown. when he finally stumbled back into the temple, he answered all the brothers' questions about his journey "Alive, but I don't know anything more. I have to get him away, but I can't carry him." He wanted to laugh and the Shining Man as truthfully as he could but volunteered nothing about the mirror or Flint's unusual and cry. "Goo d as it is to see you, you won't be much origins. help there. And now you've lost your bat, so you're stuck here, too." It seemed impossibly sad. Chert sat If I tell them anything about where the boy comes on the loose stones, staring out across the Sea in the from, they won't let him leave. He felt certain of that, Depths. although he was not sure why. The brothers were "Mayhap if tha tell how tha came here, yon temple concerned, of course, and even a little angry about the boy's incursion into the Mysteries, but not fellows who followed me can come across and help inordinately so. He knew that his reticence was carry thy boy." selfish, perhaps even foolishly dangerous, but Opal "Temple fellows . . . ?" He looked up.There were was waiting for him back on Wedge Road, and she shapes on the far side of the quicksilver sea, small must be frightened now not just for the boy but for her dark forms moving atop the great balcony of stone. husband as well. He couldn't bear to think of going Chert's heart sped. "Oh, Beetledown, you brought back to her only to tell her the boy was being held them! The Elders bless you, you brought them!" He prisoner in th e temple. cupped his hands around his mouth, tried to shout, coughed, then tried again. "Hoy! Nickel! Is that you?" For their own part, the brothers brought him no farther 871 872 into the temple than the outer chamber, the great off to make arrangements. room of natural stone that the people of Funderling Chert let a young acolyte named Antimony, Town were allowed to see on a few of the highest holy moonfaced and broad-shouldered, take the front of days. Even Chert's carefully shaped version of the the litter while he took the back. A silent crowd of tale was enough to make them examine the boy very temple brothers watched them go. Tired as he was, carefully while they made a fruitless attempt at waking Chert was quite content to let someone else find the him. Flint had no visible wounds, no lumps or bruises way and pick the best spots. He looked down at Flint, anywhere on his pale skin, but nothing they did could pale and motionless but oddly peaceful, and even raise him from his deep sleep. Even wrinkled, wild- through his fear for the boy he felt a new rush of eyed old Grandfather Sulfur, whose prophetic dreams gratitude to Beetledown and to the Metamorphic had apparently contained Rooftoppers and a Brothers: at least he was bringing a living child, disturbance at the Sea in the Depths, came in on the however ill, back to Opal. arms of two acolytes to examine Flint, which made "You really rode a bat?" he asked Beetledown who, to Chert as nervous as walking on a slope of loose lessen the chance of being accidentally crushed, was tailings, but the ancient fellow went away again riding on the top edge of the litter near Flint's head. shaking his hairless head, saying that he saw and felt "A Gutter-Scout am I. All animals we master to nothing special about the boy. perform our duty." The tiny man coughed, then At last Brother Nickel told Chert, "We can do nothing grinned. "And yon rat fellow was so piddling slow I more for him. Take him home." could have outrun him my ownself." Chert finished his cup of water. He had drunk a "All I can say is thank you." bucket's worth in the last hours, he felt sure, every "Uns be useful words, so no need to apologize on drop a splendor. "I cannot carry him myself." them." "We will send a brother who can help you take him in "You've been very kind to us." a litter." "All for honor of queen and Rooftops." He made a little "Methinks I will ride on that, friend Chert," said salute. "And I have found thy stone world not so dull Beetledown in his tiny, high-pitched voice. "Better than as I thought. Could tha only bring a little more wind, thy pocket, being less whiffsome, beg thy pardon, and rain, and sunlight down into these holes, I would come better than yon old flittermouse, which tended to the again to make a visit." bony." Chert smiled wearily. "I'll mention that to the Guild." Nickel stared at the Rooftopper with superstitious distrust, as though he were a talking animal, but went 873 874 · still stretching in front of her, Briony walked back to the throne room from Merolanna's chambers through the Portrait Hall, for once her guards didn't have to The shaking of the earth had frightened almost hurry to keep pace. Although she had seen the everyone in the castle, but there was not too much pictures of her ancestors in their finery many times, so damage Some crockery had fallen and shattered in often that she scarcely glanced at them most days, the keep's huge kitchen and a serving maid had been today it was easy to imagine that they were looking terrified into apoplexy when an ancient suit of royal down on her with disapproval, that Queen Lily's kind armor in the Privy Gallery shook off its stand and eyes were full of disappointment, that even the portrait collapsed to the floor in front of her, but otherwise the of mournful Queen Sanasu looked more desolate than toll had been light Still, even without the news from usual. Marnnswalk and the tremor, it would have been a It had only been a matter of a few months since hectic morning Briony was kept busy until after the Kendrick had been murdered, Briony told herself, and noon bell, mostly working with Nynor and Brone to far less than a year since her father himself had last sort the movement and housing of the incoming sat on the throne, yet what had happened? The troops as well as many of the folk from the city outside kingdom was tottering, and that was more than just a the castle walls. The keep seemed crowded to fancy, as had been proved today most emphatically. It bursting with people and animals and the time had was difficult not to believe the trembling earth was the almost come when no more could be accommodated. anger of the gods made manifest, a warning from She stole a part of an hour to eat a meal with her heaven. Briony knew she could not escape a heavy great-aunt, but it was not much reliee. The dowager share of blame: she and Barrick hated to be called duchess was consumed with fear for Barrick just as children, but what else had they been? They had let Briony was, and had also been waiting to question the what was given to them to protect fall from their princess regent - and in several cases, argue with her fingers, left it out to rot like a discarded toy. Like the - about the disposition of various nobles and their body of a murdered man in a field . . . families within the inner keep When their voices rose, So grim were her thoughts that when the black-clad Merolanna's little maid Ellis watched with wide, figure stepped out of a side corridor her first frightened eyes, as if at any moment something unsurprised assumption was that one of her dead horrible could happen in this unexpected and ancestors, perhaps Sanasu herself, restless and unsteady new world. discontented, had come to point a finger of shame at her. It was unsurprising, though, that in such times her Almost staggeringly tired, and with a long afternoon guards' first thoughts were more practical they 875 876 clattered to a stop around her and leveled their pikes Briony blinked. Who was this girl? "I must answer only at the veiled woman. to my father, the king, Lady Elan. And to the gods, of course. But go to - ask your question." "Is that you, Princess?" the figure whispered as she pulled back her veil. "Did you kill him, Briony Eddon? Did you have it done?" The superstitious prickle on Briony s skin subsided, but only a little, as she recognized the face. "Elan? It was shocking to be asked so directly. She realized, Elan M'Cory?" in the split-instant between hearing and answering, that she had become used to deference - more used The Tolly sister-in-law nodded. Her young face wore to it than she had known. "No, of course I didn't. The the mark of a terrible grief - - a grief that Briony gods know that Gailon and I did not agree on recognized, as powerful as that which had seized her everything, but I would never. She stopped to catch after her brother's death. "Gailon is dead," the girl her breath, to consider what she was saying and said. doing. Standing a couple of yards away against the Briony waved the guards back. For a moment she wall, the guards were trying to hide their fascination. thoug ht about saying the politic thing it was early yet After a moment she decided it was too late for to be certain, after all. Nobody had seen the body who anything m this particular case except the truth. "In had known Gailon well. But the look of misery in the fact, and you may hold this against me as you wish, girl's gray eyes - eyes that were nevertheless bone- Elan M'Cory, Gailon wanted to marry me - but I didn't dry - touched her in that place of understanding, of want to marry him." shared sorrows. "Yes. Or at least it seems so." "I know that." But she sounded coldly satisfied. "For Elan smiled, a strange, grim little tug at the corners of his ambition." her mouth, as though she had been confirmed in "I do not doubt you are right. But that was not enough something larger and longer-lived than just a fear for to endear him to me.The gods may bear witness that Gailon Tolly's life - reassured in some bleak view of all I'll have no husband who thinks he can tell me where existence, perhaps. "I knew it. I have known it for to go, what to say, how to . . ." She stopped herself days." The eyes fixed Briony again. "I loved him, of again. What was it about this girl that had made her course. But he had no interest in me." say so much more than she intended? "Enough. I did "I'm sorry . ." not kill him, if he is truly dead. We do not know who "Perhaps it is better this way. Now I can mourn him for did." the right reasons I have one more question. You must Elan nodded. She pulled her veil back over her face. tell me the truth." "Neither you nor any other woman will have him now." 877 878 For the first time there was a mu ffled noise that might Selia colored very prettily. Like all else she did, it be a sob. "I wish you heaven's mercy," she said seemed an affront to any woman who wanted to do quietly, then turned and walked away without a something other than make men sigh - or at least so it courtesy or farewell. felt to Briony, whose dislike of the maid was already returning. "No, no," the young woman said. "I do not speak so well. She wishes very much to have talk with It was indeed a very long afternoon, and as the news you before the baby comes." of the murdered men found in Marnnswalk began to "I am quite busy, as my stepmother knows . . ." circulate, along with speculation about their identities, the day threatened to stretch without end. The news The young woman leaned forward and spoke quietly; impinged directly on Briony only slightly in her royal Brone and Nynor worked harder to pretend they were duties - questions and quiet asides from Brone, a not listening. "She fears you are angry with her. This perfunctory meeting with the hedge-baron in is bad for the baby, for the birth, she thinks. She was command of the Marnnswalk muster who was too ill for talking with you before, and now your brother enjoying his moment of fame and attention, and an has gone, the poor Barrick." Selia looked genuinely expanded set of concerns from Nynor, who had to sad, which only made Briony less sympathetic. decide whether to house these particular Marnnswalk That's my brother you've set your cap on, girl. Aloud, troops with all the others brought in to garrison the she said,"I will do my best." castle or try to keep them separate - but she also saw "She asks that you come and take a cup of wine with speculation in the faces of almost everyone who her on Winter's Eve." passed through the throne room. As if things had not Sweet Zon a, that's only a few days away, Briony been bad enough after her outburst at Hendon Tolly! It realized. Where has the year gone? "I will do my best was so grueling that the appearance of Queen to come to her soon Tell her I wish her only well." Anissa's maid was almost a relief. "I will, Princess." The young woman dropped a "Selia, isn't it?" With Barrick gone it was hard to hold graceful courtesy and withdrew. Briony caught Brone onto her resentment toward the young woman. "Tell and Nynor watching the maid as she walked away me, how is my stepmother?" and was disgusted that even old men should still be "Well enough, Highness, with the baby so close, but such lechers. She tried to keep it off her face as they she has concern not to see you." all returned to work, but not as hard as she might Briony's head hurt and she had trouble making sense have. out of the girl's foreign diction. "She wants me to stay The day's business dragged on, as what seemed like away?" almost every living soul in the castle came before her 879 880 with a complaint or a worry or a request, with "All the more reason " Steffans Nynor could be problems ranging from the crucial to the ridiculous. stubborn, and had not been castellan so many years What she didn't see was Hendon Tolly, nor - after her without developing ideas of his own. Briony was meeting in the Portrait Hall with his sister-in-law - any irritated and tempted simply to say no and dismiss sign whatsoever of the Tollys or their faction. him, but thought of what her father would say - something like, If you are going to give men tasks to "They are doubtless trying to decide what this do, then once they have proved themselves, you discovery means," Brone told her in a quiet aside. "I should let them get on without you standing over them am told they were out and about as usual this There is no point giving responsibility without trust. morning, but when they heard the news, they beat a retreat back into their rooms." "Why, then, do you think we should do this?" "I suppose it makes sense. But why did we put the "Because these are holy days in which we praise the Tollys and Durstin Crowel and the other gods and demigods, and we need their help now more troublemakers all so close together?" than ever. That is one reason." "Because Crowel requested it some time back, "Yes, but we can perform the sacrifices and the rituals Highness," said Nynor. "At the end of the summer he without the feasting and merrymaking." told me he would be hosting an entertainment with the "Why else do people need merrymaking, Highness, if Tollys during the Orphan's Day celebrations. I thought not to take some of the thorns out of life?" The old at the time he simply meant Duke Gailon and his man rapidly blinked his watery eyes, but his gaze was entourage." sharp and demanding. "Forgive me if I speak out of Briony frowned. "Does that mean they were planning turn, Princess Briony, but it seems that what a city something even then?" under siege most needs is courage. Also to be reminded what it is fighting to protect. A little Avin Brone grunted. "I don't trust the Tollys, but let us happiness, a little ordinary life, is a powerful aid to not pretend they're the worst of our problems." both those things." Old Nynor shook his head. "It is possible they had She saw the wisdom in what he said, but a part of her some scheme, Highness, but it is also possible that all couldn't help feeling it would be a sham, that falsity they were planning was a banquet. And, speaking of was worse than misery. which, Princess, we must make some arrangements about the feasting." Avin Brone seemed able to hear those thoughts as if they had been spoken. "People will not forget the true For a moment she didn't understand what he was dangers, Highness. I think Nynor is right. A muted talking about. "Feasting? Do you mean for Orphan's festivity perhaps - we do not want to seem to be Day? Are you mad? We are at war!" 881 882 celebrating too grandly in the shadow of war, and procession was not the oddest thing the people of most especially in the shadow of Gailon's murder - Funderling Town had heard of, but it was certainly one and your brother's death, too, of course - but neither of the odder things they had actually seen: by the time do we want to make this winter any more dreary than Chert reached his house with Flint and the acolyte he necessity dictates." was surrounded by a ragtag parade of children and more than a few adults. He did his best to ignore their "Very well, a quiet celebration it will be." questions and fondly mocking comments. He had no Nynor nodded, then bowed and withdrew. He looked idea what time it was, or even what day. The young pleased, almost grateful, and for an unpleasant temple brother Antimony at the front end of the litter moment Briony wondered if the castellan had some told him it was Skyday, fourth chime. Chert was other agenda, if he had manipulated her for some astonished to realize that he had been almost three secret, selfish purpose. days in the lower depths. And so it goes, she thought. I cannot do even the Poor Opal! She must be cracked with worry. simplest thing without doubt anymore, without fear, The news had run ahead on child feet; a crowd of without suspicion. How could Father live this way all neighbors waited at the mouth of Wedge Road to join those years? It must have been a little better in more the throng. The tale had reached his own house as peaceful days, but still . . . well: Opal ran out before he had even reached the Curse these times. dooryard, her face a confusion of joy and terror. He tried not to be upset that the first thing she did was · throw her arms around the senseless boy, even though it nearly upset the litter. He was even wearier than he had realized, and could only struggle to hold Before they reached the populous areas, Beetledown his end up and shake his head in silent dismissal of announced that he was taking his leave. He dismissed his neighbors' questions. Burly Antimony helped clear Chert's worried questions. "I'll find my way, sure. a path to the door. Naught else, these caves seem full of slow, stupid rat- "He isn't dead," Opal said, kneeling beside the boy. folk. I'll go home mounted proud, tha will see." "Tell me that he isn't dead." He was too tired to do more than thank the Rooftopper again. After all they had shared, it was a "He's alive, just . . . sleeping." hasty and strangely muted parting, but Chert didn't "Praise the Elders - but he's so cold!" have long to consider it. "He needs your nursing, dear wife." Chert slumped In the midst of such strange times their little onto a bench. 883 884 She paused, then suddenly rushed to him and put her a day of such bizarre branchings and cross-tunnels. arms around his neck, kissed his cheeks. "Oh, I'm so "Who are you?" glad you're not dead either, you old fool. Disappearing Opal came out of the back room with a look close to for days! I've been fretting over you, too, you know. " embarrassment on her face. "I forgot to tell you, what "I've been fretting over me as well, my girl. Go on, with the boy and all. She came about the second now. I'll tell you all this strange story later." chime or so and she's been waiting ever since. Said Antimony helped Opal move the boy to his bed, then she must speak to you, only to you. I . . . I thought it turned down her distracted offer of food or drink and might be something to do with Flint . . ." went out instead to placate the waiting crowd with The young woman stirred on the bench. She seemed some unspecific answers. Chert suspected the almost half-asleep. "You are Chert of the Blue acolyte didn't find this too dreadful a chore. From what Quartz?" he knew, the temple brothers, especially the younger "Yes. Who are you?" ones, didn't get much chance to come up to "My name is Willow, but I am nothing." She stood up; Funderling Town the market trips and other such her head almost touched the ceiling. She extended a opportunities for distraction and temptation were hand. "Come. I have been sent to bring you to my reserved for the older, more trustworthy brothers. master. " He could hear Opal in the bedroom, crooning over the boy as she took off his dirty rags, cleaning him and checking for injuries just as the Metamorphic Brothers had done. Chert didn't think fresh smallclothes would be the thing that woke the boy, but he knew very well his wife needed to do something. Chert looked up at a rustling noise, aware for the first time that he was not alone in the room. A very young woman, one of the big folk, sat on their long bench in the shadows against the wall, staring back at him with an air of patient detachment. Her dark hair was gathered untidily and she wore a dress that did not quite fit her thin frame. Chert had never seen her before, could thmk of no reason on or under the earth why someone like her should be in his house, even on 885 886 almost to death . . . but it was also somehow exciting too, like the shrieking, terrified childhood joy of being whirled in the air by her father or wrestling with her 35 brothers until she was pinned and helpless . . . The Silken Cord Qinnitan awakened wet with perspiration, heart galloping. Her wits were utterly jangled and her skin twitched as though she lay in the middle of one of the THE CRABS: great hives in the temple covered in a slow-buzzing blanket of sacred bees. She felt used by something - All are dancing by her dream, perhaps - even defiled, and yet as her heart slowed a languid warmth began to spread The moon is crouching low for fear through her limbs, a feeling almost of pleasure, or at He will see the naked Mother of All least of release. - from The Bonefall Oracles Qinnitan slumped back in her bed, breathing shallowly, overwhelmed Her hand strayed down to her His the great hand closed around her, she felt it breasts and she discovered the tips had grown ringing like a crystal, a deep, shuddering vibration that achingly hard beneath the fabric of her nightdress. had nothing to do with her, but which ran through that She sat up again, shocked and disturbed. The idea of monstrous hand like a blood pulse, as if she were that dark, all-swallowing mouth still hung over her bound to a temple bell big as a mountain. The thoughts as it had hung over her dream. She leaped impossibly vast shape lifted her and although she to her feet and went to the washing tub. The water could not see its face - it stood in the center of some had been sitting since the previous night and was kind of fog, light-shot but still deeply shadowed, as if a quite cold, but instead of calling for the servants to lightning storm raged inside the earth - she could see bring her hot water, she squatted in it gladly and the greater darkness that was its mouth as it brought pulled her nightdress up to her neck, then splashed her nearer, nearer. . . herself all over until she began to shiver. She sank down into the shallow bath, still trembling, and put her She shrieked, or tried to, but there was only silence in chin on her knees, letting the water wick up the linen that damp, empty place, silence and mist and the dark nightdress until it clung to her like a clammy second maw that grew ever larger, spreading above her like a skin. rolling thundercloud. The titanic thing was going to swallow her, she knew, and she was frightened 887 888 way; Qinnitan felt sure there was little room for friends or equals of any kind in the world of the Paramo unt The rest of the day was quieter and more mundane, Wife. although the torments of the endlessly droning prayers and the drinking of the Sun's Blood were as The hairdresser was finishing up just as the soldiers bad as ever If Panhyssir or the autarch were trying to on the walls outside began to call out the old ritual kill her with that potion, they were taking a ridiculously words for the sunset change of the guard - "Hawks long time about it, she had to admit, but whatever they return! To the glove! To the glove!" Qinnitan, intended, they were certainly making her miserable. reasonably certain that the autarch was not going to break his nearly year -long habit and summon her Just after Qinnitan's evening meal the hairdressing tonight, was looking forward to an hour or two of time servant came to dye her red streak - her witch streak, to herself before sleep and whatever unsettling as her childhood friends had named it - which was dreams might come with it. She thought she might say beginning to show at the roots again- Luian and the her evening orisons, then read. One of the other other Favored had decreed within days of her arrival brides, youngest daughter of the king of some tiny that such a mongrel mark had no place on one of the desert land on the southern edge of Xis, had loaned autarch's queens. The hairdresser also dried her hair her a beautifully illustrated book of poetry by the and arranged it into a pleasing style, on the one -in-a- famous Baz'u Jev Qinnitan had read some of it and thousand chance the autarch should finally call for her enjoyed it very much - his descriptions of that very eveni ng Qinnitan tried to sit quietly, this sheepherders in the and mountains who lived so close hairdresser had a way of poking you with a hairpin - to the sky they called themselves "Cloud People" and then apologizing profusely, of course - when you spoke of a freedom and simplicity that seemed moved too much. achingly attractive to her. The young desert princess I doubt she pulls that trick with Arimone. seemed quite nice, really, and Qinnitan entertained a But Qinnitan didn't like thinking about the Paramount hope that one day they might become friends, since Wife Since the day Qinnitan had gone to her palace, they were two of the youngest in the Seclusion This there had been no further invitations and no outward did not mean she had abandoned all sense, of course. sign of hostility, but it was not hard to see the way She never touched the book without wearing gloves. those wives and wives-to -be who considered The tale of a Paramount Wife from a century or so themselves friends of the Evening Star watched before who had dispatched a rival by having poison Qinnitan and made clear their dislike of her Well, they painted on the edges of a book's pages was one of might think themselves friends of the great woman, the first cautionary stories Qinnitan had heard upon but she doubted Arimone looked on them the same coming to her new home. 889 890 That tale spoke much of the Seclusion, not just the The letters had been made in a great hurry. It read: murderousness of the place, but the fact that the older wife had been willing to wait weeks or even months Come now. for the autarch's new favorite to cut her finger in such a way that the poison could enter when she turned the pages. Whatever men might say about women and There was nothing else. their reputed fickleness, the Seclusion was a place of Qinnitan did her best to be calm Perhaps this was just immense patience and subtlety, especially when the an example of Luian in a bad mood They had spoken stakes were high. And what stakes could be higher only occasionally in the last weeks, and had taken tea than to be certain it was your own child who would together in their old way just once, an awkward one day sit on the throne of the most powerful empire occasion in which the subject of Jeddin was in the air in the world between the seas' the entire time but never acknowledged. The two of Gloves or no, Qinnitan was looking forward to a little them had labored through a conversation of what time with the epic simplicity of Baz'u Jev, so it was should have been interesting gossip, but which had disappointing - and, as always in the Seclusion, a little instead seemed like wearying labor. Yes, it was frightening - when a messenger came just as the unusual for Luian to write in this hurried, informal way, hairdresser was leaving. but it might be evidence of some great swing of feeling - after all, Favored Luian was prone to She was startled to recognize the mute boy who had moments of heightened emotion that might have come into her room not a fortnight before. He was come out of a folktale, or even from a book of love wearing a loose tunic tonight, so she could not see poetry Perhaps she planned to shame Qinnitan for how his wound had healed, although he seemed being a bad friend. Perhaps she planned a weeping perfectly well. He would hardly meet her eyes as he renunciation of her own rights to Jeddin - if even Luian handed her the roll of parchment, but although that could be that self -deceiving. Or perhaps she just saddened her, it was not as though she was surprised wished them to be on good terms again. that he didn't want to be her friend; she had almost stabbed him to death with a dressing pin, after all. All the same, Qinnitan found herself following the mute boy across the Seclusion with a heavy, Strangely, the message was not tied or sealed in any untrusting heart. way, although she could tell from the strong violet perfume that the paper was Luian's. She waited until the hairdresser had gone out into the passageway Qinnitan was shocked to find a huge, ugly man before unrolling it. weeping in Luian's bed. Several heartbeats passed 891 892 before she realized it was Luian herself she was meal instead of sitting in your ch - chambers like a h - seeing, a Luian without face paint or wig or elaborate hermit." She wept a little more, as though at Qinnitan's dress, wearing only a simple white nightgown damp unsocial behavior. with tears and sweat. "Just tell me what happened." "Qinnitan, Qinnitan! Praise to the gods, you're here." "I don't know. He's b - been arrested. His lieutenant Luian threw her arms wide. Qinnitan could not help has been made chief of the Leopards, at least for staring. It really had been Dudon under that paint, now. It's Vash's doing, that horrid old man. He's after all - the lum py, self-absorbed boy who had always hated our Jin . . ." walked up and down the streets muttering the "For the love of the gods, Luian, what are we to do?" Nushash prayers. Qinnitan had known it, of course, Qinnitan's mind was already racing, but in a weary, but until now she had not really seen it. "Why do you defeated way, as if she were a runner at the end of a shy away from me?" Luian's face was red and long chase instead of just at the beginning. mottled, wet with tears. "Do you hate me?" Luian sobered a little, wiping her eyes with the back of "No!" But she could not bring herself to enter that her hand. "We must not lose our heads. Of course, we embrace, not from fastidiousness so much as the must not lose our heads We must stay calm." She sudden fear of swimming too close to someone who took a deep breath. "It is possible he has done might be drowning and dangerous. "No, I don't hate something that has nothing to do with us . . . but even you, Luian, of course not. You've been very kind to if they suspect the worst, he will never tell. Not Jeddin! me. What's wrong?" That is why I called you here, to make you swear to It was a wail that just avoided turning into a scream. say nothing, not even if they tell you he has "Jeddin has been arrested!" confessed. Don't speak a word - they will be lying! Our Qinnitan, for the second time that day, felt as though Jin will never say a word to Pinimmon Vash, not even her body was no longer her own. This time it seemed . . . not even if they . . ." She burst out weeping again. to have become a statue of cold stone in which her "They would torture him? Kill him? For sneaking into thoughts were trapped. She could not speak. the Seclusion?" "It is all so unfair!" Luian snuffled and tried to cover "Oh, yes, perhaps." Luian flapped her hands in her face with her sleeve. agitation. "But that is not the worst of it." She suddenly "What . . . what are you talking about?" she finally realized the mute boy was still standing in the managed. doorway, waiting for further orders and she waved him away with angry gestures. "He has been arrested! It is the talk of the Seclusion, as you would know if you came out to eat the evening "What is not the worst of it? Are you saying he has 893 894 done worse things than proclaiming his love for one of you do that?" the autarch's wives? Than smuggling himself into the "Because I loved him." Luian fell back against the Seclusion where whole -bodied men are killed on cushions. "My Jin. I would even help him to have you. sight? By the Bees, what other crimes did he have I would do anything he asked." She looked up, her time to accomplish?" eyes red -nmmed, but she was smiling. "You Luian stared at her for a moment, or rather this understand about love. You are a woman. You were familiar yet unfamiliar man who talked like Luian born a woman. You understand." stared, and then burst into tears again. "He wished to . Qinnitan turned and ran out the doorway. . . to . . . to depose the Golden One. The autarch!" Luian called after her, "Say nothing! He will never say In the first lurch, Qinnitan thought her heart might a word, our Jin will never . . ." never beat again. She could speak only in a strangled Qinnitan reached the corridor, her thoughts tumbling whisper, which was perhaps just as well. "He . . . was like pearls from a broken necklace. Was Luian right? going to kill the autarch?" Would J eddm's warrior code keep him silent even "No, no!" Luian looked aghast. "No, he would never under torture? raise his hand against the Golden One. He has sworn But it's not fair! I didn't do anything! I sent him away! an oath!" She shook her head at Qmnitan's She heard footsteps then - not the sandaled thump of foolishness. "No, he was going to kill the scotarch, the Seclusion's guards, men big as oxen, but not the Prusas the Cripple. Then the autarch would fall and. . whispering slide of barefooted women either. She . and somehow, Jeddm thought, he would be able to hesitated, but decided she did not want to be seen so take you for his own." close to Luian's rooms. It would make it seem as Qinnitan could only back away, waving her arms in though they had something to hide, meeting in the front of her as though to keep away some very hour of Jeddin's arrest. If Luian was right, that approaching beast. "The fool! The fool!" Jeddin could hold his secrets even under torture, the "But he will never tell - he will never speak a word of best hope was that all should seem normal, it!" Luian was up on her knees now, arms spread blameless. again, begging Qinnitan to come back and be Qinnitan stepped back into a shadowy cross-passage enfolded. "He is so brave, our Jin, so brave . . !" just before the approaching figure turned the corner "Why did you help him? Why did you let him put your into the main hallway, she silently thanked all the gods life and . . and my life at risk?" Qinnitan was shaking, there was no lamp in the wall niche. She looked for full of rage and terror. She wanted to run at Luian and somewhere to hide, but could only draw back close beat that doughy, wet face with her fists. "How could against a tapestry that hung on the wall. If whoever 895 896 was passing gave anything more than the quickest was clear hatred in the voice. "You fat, meddling glance, they would see her. bitch." The grunting turned to a choking hiss, then Qinnitan heard only the drumlike thumping of flesh on She flattened herself and turned her head away, the stone, heels or hands beating helplessly until they knowing that the magic of eyes invariably drew the too fell silent. attention of others, especially unwanted attention. Whoever it was stalked by without slowing. Qinnitan Her bones turned to leaden bars by terror, Qinnitan let out a silent sigh of relief. She crept to the edge of could scarcely move. She stumbled to the shadowed the cross-passage and saw a short, stocky shape turn cross-corridor and looked back to see the hangings on into Luian's chambers. It took her a moment to realize Luian's door billow outward. Her head was pounding. who had just passed. She pushed her face against the wall, burrowed into the space where the tapestry hung a little away from From the room, Luian let out a shriek of startled fright. the cool stone, and prayed. The footsteps went past Qinnitan could not help taking a few instinctive steps more slowly this time, so slowly that it was all Qinnitan toward one who had been her friend and was now in could do to keep her face turned into the wall, to stand dange r, then her better judgment stopped her. unmoving. Whether because of the darkness of the Tanyssa's voice was hoarse, as though the gardener passageway or because her mind was taken up with herself was a bit frightened, too, but there was also a what she had just done, the gardener who was also note of triumph in it. "Favored Luian of the Royal an executioner did not pause or even slow but walked Seclusion, I am here as the hand of God. You have on down the corridor. Qinnitan listened until she could betrayed your sacred trust. You have betrayed the no longe r hear the footfalls. Master of the Great Tent." She wanted to weep, but she felt as though some "Wh-what are you talking about?" terrible cold fire had swept through her and "There is no argument," said the gardener. "The evaporated every tear. Even her mouth was parched. Golden One has put his seal on it." Where could she go? What could she do? Luian's squeal of alarm suddenly turned into a loud She stood in the passageway only a few moments, grunting, a noise so horrid that for the first moments stepping from foot to foot in an agony of indecision. Qinnitan couldn't even imagine it coming from a Was Luian only the first of Tanyssa's tasks? Was she person. even now on her way to Qinnitan's chamber? "You . . . are for . . . the worms." Tanyssa, breathing I can't go back there. But where can I go? Where can hard, spoke in almost ordinary tones now - Qinnitan I hide? She thought for a moment of the little room off could barely hear her, although she stood trembling the Scented Garden that Jeddin had used for their only a pace or two from Luian's doorway - but there 897 898 assignation, then realized with a lurch of fear that a blessing. If she had possessed any, Qinnitan would such a place must now be infamous to the autarch's have drunk it then. lieutenants. In fact, there was nowhere she could hide, nowhere at all. They will turn the whole palace over like a jewelry box to shake me out. The only faint hope she had was to get out of the Seclusion. But how? How in the name of the Hive could she hope to get out past guards who would undoubtedly be looking for her? Jeddin's seal ring! She reached into her sleeve and found it and its chain, still in the secret pocket she had sewn there. A premonition - that, and the knowledge that there was no privacy for anyone within the Seclusion - had kept her from leaving it hidden in her chamber. But what good will it do me? Even if by some tiny chance they are not looking to execute me, too, even if my name has been kept from them, trying to pass the gate with a forged message from Jeddin would catch their attention for sure. Now the tears finally came, hot tears of helplessness that burned against her cheeks. Could she believe that Jeddin had given up Luian but had kept silent about Qinnitan herself? No. The chance was so small as to be invisible. You can't stand here weeping! she told herself. Stupid girl! Get out of the hallway! Hide! But where could she go? She was in the middle of the autarch's own palace and now she was his enemy. The most powerful man in the world wanted her dead, and that death was not likely to be either quick or painless. Poison, the terror of the Seclusion, suddenly seemed 899 900 in good odor once more." If such a day ever comes. Matty Tinwright couldn't 36 help feeling sorry for the old fellow who had lost favor, but he knew he would be no different. When the royal family reached out to touch you, it was like air to a At the Giant's Feet drowning man - anyone with a bit of ambition would tread water forever in hopes of continuing to breathe that air, scorning any other. BLACK SPEAR: And look at me, he thought then. Look how far I have come since I tasted that air - how high! It was far more He is smeared with blood and fat than poetic metaphor. He stood on a balcony of the Tower of Winter with nearly all of Southmarch below He is fire in the air him, only the black stones of Wolfstooth Spire looming He is called "One Rib" and "Flower of the Sun' at his back like a stern parent. A month ago I was in - from The Bonefall Oracles the mire. He watched the overloaded boats being pushed back from the Winterside water gate by soldiers, heard the faint sound of people pleading, "I am impressed," Tinwright said as he looked down children crying. I would have been begging for from their high perch and across the choppy water. sanctuary like the rest of them. Instead, I am assured The narrow reach of Brenn's Bay between the castle my place. I am fed and housed by the Eddons - by the and the mainland city teemed with small watercraft, word of Princess Briony herself. Ah, the gods, and strange in such unsettled weather but not surprising in most specially Zosim, Patron of Poets, have smiled on such an unsettled time: now that the causeway had me. been dismantled all those who would travel between city and keep had to do so by boat, braving the high, Still, he couldn't help wishing the gods would do whitecapped waves. "I did not think anyone but the something about the war that had brought so many royal household were allowed into the Towers of the frightened souls into the castle that Tin-wright now Seasons." found himself sharing his bed in shifts again, just as in his days at the Quiller's Mint. For a moment he felt a "I am part of the royal household." Puzzle drew twinge of real fear. himself up to his full height, but couldn't stay unbent very long; after a moment he rounded his shoulders It could not be that the gods have some plan to trick and let his head nod forward again. "I am the king's me, could it? That they have brought me to this high jester, you know. And when Olin comes back, I will be 901 902 estate only to let me die at the hands of warlocks and crafts, were moving toward the place. A Skimmer fames . . . ? He shook his head. The gloomy day had man, one long arm still holding the tiller of his tiny put foul thoughts in his mind. Briony Eddon herself sailboat, reached out and pulled what looked like a elevated me, defends me. She recognizes my art and small child out of the gray-green water. "Sorry," has brought me under her mantle. And everyone Tinwright said. "I don't understand." knows this castle will never be taken by siege - the "A song, man, a song!"The intensity in the jester's ocean will defend it just as the princess regent voice was such that Matty Tinwright turned away from protects me. the rescue. Puzzle's lined face seemed lit from within, Dark thoughts banished,Tinwright took a long swallow full of glee. "You must write something clever!" of the wine and then passed the heavy jug to Puzzle, How much wine has the old fellow drunk? "You want who had to hold it with both hands, trembling with the me to write a song for you?" effort as he lifted it to his lips. The thin jester swayed a Puzzle shook his head. "I will write the tune. I was little, like a sapling. much known for it in my younger days. For my voice, "It's a good thing you're holding that," Tinwnght told too." His face sagged. "Never grow old. Do you hear him. "The wind is growing fierce." me? Never grow old." "Good, that." The old man wiped his lips. "Wine, I In truth, Tinwright could not quite imagine such a mean. Warms a man up. Now, sir, I did not call you up thing, although he knew it lay in the distance here merely to admire the view, although it is very somewhere, just as he had been told there was fine. I need your help." another continent far to the south, a place he had Tinwright raised an eyebrow. "My help?" never seen and thought of not at all except to borrow the occasional metaphor set there - "dusky and sweet "You are a poet, sir, are you not? Winter's Eve is as a Xandian grape" - that he had heard used by other almost upon us. There will be a feast, of course. I poets. Old age was like that to him as well. "What kind must entertain the princess regent and the others. The of song do you wish to sing?" good old duchess will be there." He smiled for a moment, lost in some memory. "She likes my jests. "Nothing to make people laugh.These are not the And the other great and good - all will be gathered times for levity." The old man nodded, as if being together. I must have something special for them." unfunny was for him a careful decision instead of the helpless tragedy of his life's work. "Something heroic Tinwright was watching the bay again. A small boat and light-hearted. Some tale of Silas or one of the had capsized; a family was in the choppy water. It all other Lander's Hall knights might do. Perhaps. The seemed very distant, but still Tinwright was glad to Ever -Wounded Maid - that takes place at a Winter's see that a number of other boats, mostly Skimmer 903 904 Eve feast, after all." himself. "Shadow-weather, we used to call it." He turned suddenly to Tinwnght. "You do not think it has Tinwright considered it. There was no obvious value in anything to do with the Twilight People, do you?" the favor: Puzzle, despite his reminiscences, was no closer to the heart of power in Southmarch these days Tinwright looked at the thick mists crawling down from than Tinwright himself. Then again, what if the king the tops of the nearby hills, combs of white that did return? Odder things had happened. mirrored the wind -slapped waves of the bay. "This is a spit of land between the bay and the ocean. There are Also - and it took Tinwright a moment to understand always fogs here." this, so unusual was the impulse - he liked the old man and would enjoy doing him a favor. After all, the "Perhaps." Puzzle nodded. "Yes, of course, you are gods knew that Puzzle had not been blessed with the right. We older folk, when the cold gets into our natural gifts of art, as Matt Tinwright had in his own bones, it makes us think of." He wiped his eyes the calling. wind had made them water. "Let us go down. There will be a fire in the kitchen and we can finish the jug "Very well," he said. "But you have not given me much and talk about my Winter's Eve song." time." Puzzle beamed. "You are a stout fellow, Tinwright. Truly, you are a friend. It need not be overlong - the · attention of the court tends to wander by the time the meal is over and they have been well into the wine. "Who is your master?" Chert asked. Ah, thank you. This calls for another drink." He The girl Willow suddenly looked shy, the first thing she heaved up the jug for a healthy swallow, then passed had done that seemed in keeping with her age and it to Tinwright, who almost dropped it, his attention appearance. "I do not know his name . . . but I know again on the water. his voice." "The Skimmers have saved that family," he noted. He shook his head. "Look, child, I don't know you or "May the gods bite other gods, look at them! Half- what brings you here. It could be that at some other naked in this cold? I will never understand Skimmers. time I would go with you, if only to find out what sort of They must have blubberous hide like a seal." strangeness this is, but I have just returned from a "It is cold,"said Puzzle. "We should go down." He journey beneath the earth that would make the Lord of squinted into the distance. "Look, you cannot even that would make Kernios himself fall down and nap for see Landsend for the fog. And it has come down out a week. Our boy is in the other room, sick, perhaps of the hills, too, and all across the downs. It will cover dying. My wife has been terrified for us both. I cannot the city soon." He wrapped his thin arms around 905 906 go with you to see your master, especially when you "I must tell my wife," he said at last. cannot even name him." For a long moment she faced him, narrow face Few folk were still on the streets of Funderling Town solemn, as though the words he had spoken had not now that the lamps had been lowered for evening, but yet reached her ears. Her heavy -lidded eyes fell shut. those who were out watched Chert with surprise. Most When she opened them, she said, "Do you have the had already heard about the bizarre little parade that mirror?" had signaled his return from the depths, but even that "The what?" could not have prepared them for this sight Chert Blue Quartz, only just finished one set of-wild adventures, "The mirror. My master says that if you cannot come glumly following one of the big folk back out of town yourself, you must send the mirror with me." She as though walking to his own execution. And in truth, reached out her hand, guileless and direct as a girl his thoughts were nearly that heavy. half her age demanding a sweet. Even in his startlement, Chert couldn't help wondering about her. Opal didn't even shout, he thought as he followed the She was tall even for one of the big folk, and pretty girl toward the town gates. I could have borne it if she enough, but even though she was washed and her had shouted at me, called me names. I can scarcely frock was clean, if plain, there was something offhand believe I am going out again myself. But to see her and bedraggled about her, as though she had dressed turn her back on me, with nothing more than, "You do herself in the dark. what you must." Is it the child? Has she found something she cares for more than me? "Your master wants the mirror?" Without thought Chert put his hand into the pocket of his tattered, Or perhaps she's just like you, old fool, a part of him sweat-stained shirt, closed it on the smooth, cool suggested. Perhaps with the boy so still and deathly thing. Too late he realized he had given away that he she's got enough under her pick that she doesn't have had it, but the girl was not even looking at him. She time for something she doesn't understand. Not that stood, palm still extended, staring into the middle you understand it either. distance as though looking right through the wall of Music drifted out of the guildhall as he passed, the the house. voices of men and boys lifted in song. The men's choir "He says that each moment that goes by brings Old was practicing for year's end, the timeless songs of Night closer," she said. their people shared between them like a meal. Schist the chorister would be pacing back and forth, Chert was startled to hear Chaven's words, Chaven's listening, frowning, absently wagging one hand to terrible warning, coming from the mouth of this show the rhythm. For the singers all was ordinary moonstruck child. He groaned. 907 908 tonight, even the threat of war and tales of Cherts As he finally pulled on the coat, Willow led him weird adventures largely a diversion. The Funderlings through a gate and into an arbored garden lit by a few outlasted wars, or at least they always had builders, torches in stands Chert did not know what garden it diggers, miners, they were too valuable to kill and too was, and he certainly didn't recognize the man waiting hard to eatth in their serpentine retreats even if on a low bench. He had half-suspected he would find someone wished to kill them We stone folk stay close Chaven on the other side of this mysterious summons to the ground, his father used to say. The view ts not and it was hard to fight a feeling of disappointment so proud, but we're harder to knock down. bordering on real fear to discover this stranger instead. Would they outlast Old Night, too, if it came? The man turned his face toward them as they Why has my life been broken into pieces? Chert approached, his eyes seemed as disturbingly wondered. Why ha ve I been singled out? incurious as the girl's. He was almost Chaven's opposite, younger than the physician and much To his growing amazement, the girl led him into the thinner, with hair close-cropped in an awkward way very heart of the castle. A crush of people surrounded that looked as if he had done it himself with a knife, the Raven's Gate, guards arguing with a variety of and without looking. petitioners, but one of them recognized her and let her Perhaps that's why he needs the mirror, Chert through, although he cast a mistrustful eye over Chert thought, but he was not amusing anyone today, least before allowing the Funderling to follow her into the of all himself. "You sent for me," he said aloud, as inner keep. Willow did not speak to anyone, but led firmly as he could manage. "As though you were my him through open spaces, gardens, and covered master and not just the girl's. But you are not, so tell walkways until even his fine sense of direction was me your business." confused. The sun had set and the air was bitingly "Did you bring the mirror?" The man's voice was slow cold Chert was glad that he had brought his warm and quiet. coat, although it had been hard to believe he would need it when he left, so much was he still "You will answer my questions first. Who are you and remembering the heat of the depths. It made him a what do you want?" little sad that Opal had not reminded him to take it as "Who am I?" The stranger said it slowly, as though it she usually did, but he told himself that even his all- were an unexpected question. "Here, in this place, I seeing, all-knowing wife couldn't remember am called Gil. I think I have another name . . . but I everything, especially in the midst of such a strange cannot remember it." day. Chert felt a quive r of panic move down his backbone. 909 910 The man had the detachment of the mad, as calm as been thinking in a wordless way for some time; the Chert's old grandfather had been in his last years, mirror was the answer. The mirror was what had sitting beside the fire in his house like a lizard in the taken Flint down into the depths of the Mysteries, and sun, barely moving at all from unseen dawn to day's what had almost killed him. "No, I will not give you the end. mirror - if I even had such a thing." "I don't know what that nonsense means, but I know "You have it," Gil said mildly. "I can feel it. And it is not you have called me out of my home at a time when yours to keep." my family has great need of me. I will ask you again - "It is my son's!" what do you want?" Gil shook his head. "I think not, although that is "To prevent the destruction of two races. To put off the somewhat dark to me. But it doesn't matter. You have finality of the Great Defeat a little longer, even if it it now. If you give it to me, you may go home and cannot forever be averted." The one named Gil never think of it again." nodded slowly, as if he only now understood his own "I will not give it to you." words. For the first time, he smiled - a thin, ghostly "Then you must come with me," the strange man said. thing. "Is that not enough?" "The hour is almost upon us. The mirror must be "I have no idea what you mean, what these things are carried to her. It will not prevent Old Night and the you speak about." Chert wanted badly to turn around destruction of all, but it may gain a little time." and walk, even run, until stone was above him once "What does this mean? What are you talking about? more. Clouds hung overhead, night clouds so thick Carried to her? Who in the name of the Earth Elders is that he couldn't see the moon or stars, but it was still `her'?" nothing like being in his own place, among his own people and his own homely things. "She is called Yasammez," the stranger told him. "She is one of the oldest. She is death, and she has been "Neither do I," said Gil. "But I am given to understand loosed on your kind at last." a little, and that little is this - you must give me the mirror. Then your work is done." Chert almost clutched at the mirror again, even · though neither t e strange man nor the girl looked like h much of a threat to take it away from him. Still, they The afternoon sun was beginning to settle behind the were twice his height . . . Just let them try, he thought hills. From where they sat on a rocky hilltop Just let them try to get the thing my son almost died prominence, looking southeast toward the castle, for . And then he realized for the first time what he had although it was still too far away to see, the grass was 911 912 a damp, rich green and the sky was marbled with "Are our scouts fast enough to beat them to the city?" sunli ght and cloud. In all ways it would have seemed a asked Lord Fiddicks. "If we can get Brone's garrison crisp, cool day at the turning of winter had it not been out, we can catch them as between hammer and for the clot of fog rolling across the land below them, anvil." obscuring all but the highest slopes of the downs as it "Our scouts might, but I think we should not trust to reached toward Southmarch. them alone," said Earl Tyne. "Ah, but we have "It must be them," said Tyne Aldritch, and spat. "You pigeons, don't we? We will send messages that way. said that it came down from the Shadowline,Vansen, A bird will go faster than any man, especially if that a fog like that. You said they traveled under it like a man is riding a tired horse." cloak." Ferras Vansen cleared his throat. Oddly, he looked at The captain of the guard stirred. His face was Barrick for permission to speak. Despite his weariness pinched, worried. "That is what the merchant's and misery, Barrick was amused that the world of title nephew told us, the one whose caravan was attacked. and privilege should still exist after the morning's When my men and I stumbled across the boundary, debacle, but he nodded. there was no fog. But, yes, I think it's likely our "It is just . . ." Vansen began. "My lords, it seems to enemies are in that murk." me that we cannot wait." Barrick was finding it hard to do anything at this Tyne growled in irritation. "You would make the gods moment except stay upright in his saddle They had weep, man, you take so long to speak your mind. driven the army far and fast already today, and even What do you mean?" though he was mounted, he was astonishingly weary "If we go at this pace, we will not overtake them. They and his bad arm ached as though someone had are mostly on foot, as are we, but their troops seem to pushed a dagger between the bones of his wrist Not move swiftly. If they can march at night, they will for the first time today he wished he had kept his reach the mainland city by morning." mouth closed and stayed at home. "Good," said Rorick. He had sustained only a few But if we don't stop them, it will only be a different sort small cuts in the fighting - Barrick had noticed that he of death for those who remained behind in had not been one of the first into the thick of things - Southmarch. All during the day today the memory of but wore his bandages with a prideful flair. "Then we the pale faces of the shadow-things, the dead but still will trap them against the bay. Fairies do not like terrifying eyes, had troubled him. He had not eaten. water, everyone knows. When Brone comes out He could not imagine putting anything in his stomach against them, we will tear them to pieces." except water. Vansen shook his head. "I beg your pardon, my lord, 913 914 but I fear that idea. I think we must try to stop them on protector. the downs, in the farmlands outside the city." "First, as we have seen, strange things happen The other nobles made mocking noises - some even around the Twilight People. Can a pigeon find its way quietly called Vansen a fool, although he ignored their through or around that murk? Possibly. Will Brone be words. Even Tyne Aldritch seemed annoyed and able to see what happens as the fog comes down and turned to send his squire for wine. Barrick saw foot covers the coast and the city - will he know we are soldiers stealing the chance to sit or even he down fighting for our lives just a half mile away? It seems while the nobles argued on the hilltop; he realized that obvious, but believe me, things in those shadows are the men had been walking all day with armor and not always what they seem, as I learned to my regret weapons, and were at least as aching and dispirited You've seen a little of that now, too, all of you. as he was, but perhaps twice as tired. "More importantly, what happens when our enemy "Yes, tell us what you mean, Captain Vansen," Barrick reaches the city along the shore? Will they stand and said out loud. "Why shouldn't we wait and catch them fight us on open ground? Or will they disappear between our two forces?" instead into the streets and alleyways, into the sewers and cellars and deserted buildings? How will we fight Vansen nodded at him like a tutor pleased by hi s them then? We will be muddled, confused - you all pupil, which made Barrick regret taking the man's remember that wood on the hilltop, fighting against a side. "Because there are too many unknowns," the tenth of the numbers of this force. Would you give guard captain said. "What if we cannot get a message them a thousand more places to hide? It will be as through to the lord constable?" though their army had grown tenfold again." "Then he will come out when he sees the fighting," "But the city is largely empty," said one of the other said Rorick. "Really, that is a foolish fear. This is a nobles, puzzled. "The people have been taken inside waste of time. What is this man doing here?" the castle walls or have fled south." "He is here because until today, he was the only one "What of it?" asked Vansen. of us who had met the enemy," said Tyne; his irritation was obviously not confined to Vansen alone. "And "If they move into the city," Rorick said scornfully, while not all of us can say the same, he acquitted "then we will put fire to it We will burn them out. What himself bravely this morning as well." better way to deal with unnatural creatures?" Rorick flushed, covering it by sending his own squire "Forgive me, my lord," said Vansen, although he didn't for wine. look as if he wanted or expected forgiveness, "but that is spoken as only a man who owns several castles "Just say what you are thinking, Captain." Barrick can speak. Thousands of people make their homes wondered how he had suddenly become Vansen's 915 916 there! And the city and its farms keeps Southmarch first place!" Castle alive." Several of the nobles were startled by this into making "I have had enough of this peasants insults," Rorick the sign against evil. said, pawing at the hilt of his sword. "He must be "Do not speak so, Highness," said the Earl of punished." Blueshore, scowling. "Do not bring the anger of the "You have the right to challenge him, Longarren," gods down on us. I will tell that to even you. Take my Tyne pointed out, "but I will not punish a man for head for it if you wish." speaking as Vansen has spoken." "No, Tyne, I was wrong I apologize." Rorick looked from Tyne Aldritch to Vansen. He "It is not me who needs an apology, my prince." appeared notably reluctant to pull his sword from its "Don't worry, it's not you the gods will punish either." sheath. At last he tugged on his horse's reins and Barrick turned away from Tyne's surprised look. turned and rode down the hill His squire, who had just "Speak, Captain. Tell us your plan." returned with his saddle-cup, hurried after him. Vansen took a ragged breath; it was clear that he was "Continue, Captain," said Tyne. as exhausted as everyone else. A cut on his jaw had "Thank you, my lords." Vansen turned to Barrick, his reopened; a trickle of blood crawled down his neck face grim. "Leaving aside what my liege lord Earl like a tiny red snake. "We must ride, all of us. We Rorick thinks, Highness, do not forget that they seem must leave the men on foot to come as fast as they to be at least as many as we are. And even if we can Otherwise, we will never catch the shadow folk. would sacrifice many men in close fighting and then Who knows if even the water will stop them? Not me, put the torch to the greatest city in the March and certainly not Earl Rorick, begging my lords' Kingdoms, what makes us think that we could burn pardon. Who knows if even the walls of the keep will that city without hindrance? Having met this enemy keep them out? We must catch the shadow folk and twice, I think it is madness to suppose them such force them to turn and fight us, try to hold them until children. They plan! They are patient! And we do not the rest of our force catches up - there'll be no shame know the half yet of what they can do." in retreating once we first touch them and punish "So what would you suggest?" Barrick suddenly didn't them, especially with full dark only a few hours ahead. want to hear it. It seemed obvious it would not be But if we wait until tomorrow's daylight, they will have anything comfortable, with a fire and a meal at the end already reached Southmarch We mounted men must of it, and sleep to help ease his aching arm. "Go nip at them like a pack of dogs then scamper away, ahead, Vansen, tell. And may the gods curse us all for then strike again so they can't ignore us. We must fools for having got ourselves in this situation in the stop them and turn them until the men on foot arrive." 917 918 "But what about Brone and his troops?" asked Tyne. only moments before had been sailing past in tendrils "This seems madness when we have a garrison that like individual flags was now growing thicker, great can come out to support us." white billows of it flew up before Barrick, as if serving maids were shaking out the castle linens. He seemed "Let them, then!" said Vansen. "Send our messengers, to be moving through a world that was half green those with wings and those without. But I cannot say grass and dying winter sunlight, half gray emptiness this strongly enough, my lords - if we let them reach where he was alone but for the distant sound of the city before us, I fear that we'll regret it." horses and armor and the occasional shout of his Tyne looked a question at Barrick, who felt more than fellows, sun and fog turning the world a lternately light a little queasy in his stomach. He had known he would and dark like a swinging door. not like hearing what Vansen had to say, but it was He reentered the world of light for a few brief too late now he had heard it and he had recognized moments, then plunged again into swirling mists Men the dire truth in it. It was all he could do to nod his rode on either side of him, but he could not see their head. shields or crests well enough to recognize them. The one on his left suddenly stood in his stirrups Kettle stumbled in a rabbit hole and Barrick almost Something protruded from the joint of the rider's chest flew out of the saddle at full gallop, but he wrapped his and right shoulder like a long -stemmed black flower, hand in the horse's mane and held on until he could then the man fell backward, spinning heels over head, get himself straightened up again. He was and his horse veered away into the mist - mist that did momentarily grateful that he was not carrying a lance not clear but seemed to grow ever thicker. as many of the other riders were, that his crippled arm Vansen was wrong, was all Barrick had time to think, didn't permit it, since he would surely have lost it or, it is night already. worse, let it slip down point-first as the horse fought He turned to shout to the man on his other side, but for balance, likely knocking himself out of the saddle. as he looked for him something snapped past his Then he remembered that a man without a lance face, so close he could feel it brush his nose. The pale couldn't keep an enemy any farther away than the tip man riding on his right had tipped his visor back, his of his falchion. black They would have let me stay behind. They all told me eyes were huge and had no whites. Even as Barrick not to come. The words seemed to bounce in his head stared, the man the creature whatever he was, like loose stones in a bucket. The horses thundered nocked another arrow. Barrick knew he couldn't down the slope, riders able to do nothing more at such outrun it or duck swiftly enough, so he yanked with his speed than lean forward and hang on. The fog that good hand on the reins and sent Kettle sideways into 919 920 his attacker's mount. There was a thump of contact as behind. the bowstaff slapped against Barrick's face. The arrow He spurred toward the shouting. vanished harmlessly up into the air. Barrick still had not had a chance to draw his falchion, but he Tyne of Blueshore and a dozen other knights and managed to pull Kettle away again just as his enemy nobles had found each other, and Barrick had found lunged at him, leaving the manlike creature hanging, them. The enemy was thick around them, but not his hands wrapped around Barrick's saddle strap, his endless. There were moments between one spate of feet still locked in his own stirrups as his horse fighting and the next, sometimes long enough for galloped alongside Kettle. Despite the pulling and Barrick to catch his breath and even drink from his bumping of the horses, Barrick's enemy was slapping waterskin. He was holding his own despite being at his leg for what looked like a knife sheathed there. forced to fight with only one hand, and he found Shouting in disgust and fear, Barrick kicked at the himself embarrassingly grateful for his old nemesis, unprotected face over and over. The helmet flew off, Shaso, who had worked him so mercilessly all those revealing streaming silvery hair. The creature, despite years. all this, continued to pull himself nearer until the two Once or twice the fog cleared so that he could see horses were only a yard apart. Barrick finally dragged knots of combat all over the downs. Those instants his falchion out of its scabbard and shoved it artlessly when the mists rolled back and they could actually at the man's face, then hacked at the clawing white see something like a wholesome, natural twilight hands wrapped around his saddle strap until suddenly dragged a cheer from even the weariest of the fighters their grip dissolved in blood and the face with its around Barrick, his own voice as loud as any. They staring black eyes fell away - a flash of his armor as had held their own against the first attack of the he tumbled into the grass, then nothing. The riderless Twilight People. Barrick felt something almost like horse continued on for a few dozen paces, then hope. If they could reach some of their fellows, they turned and vanished through the fog. could begin to make an organized resistance, to make Barrick reined up and sat for a long moment, gasping a real stand or, as Vansen had suggested - only hours for breath, fearing that his jittering heart might crack ago, but it felt like years - then withdraw and try to lure like a newborn chick bursting its shell Men screeched the shadow folk after them. hoarsely somewhere in the fog to his right, and though The fairies didn't seem to be as many as they had he was terrified, Barrick realized it was better to be feared, but they were terrible foes. Their strangeness moving than to sit waiting for something to come down even more than their ferocity made them so. Most on him out of the roil of mist. were man-sized and man-shaped, armored and They would have left me behind. I could have stayed 921 922 carrying weapons of odd shapes and hues, but a few coordinated defense, and Barrick was only too happy were twice the size of any mortal, massive things with to follow. He had spent most of the last hour floating in patches of mangy fur and thick, sagging tortoise skin, a kind of singing silence, hearing but not recognizing powerful but slow. Barrick had already seen one of the sounds of combat, terror, and pam all around him, these monstrosities brought down by three mounted lost in red-shot mists, but now the mists were men with lances, and he had shouted with joy as the beginning to clear - at least those in his head, even if giant fell and lay shuddering in its own slow-oozing the fogs that blew across the hillside showed no sign black blood. The fairy army contained swarms of small of doing the same. creatures with ruddy hair and faces almost as narrow As something like ordinary thought returned, he as foxes' muzzles, too, and others not much larger realized that he wanted only to get out of this ghastly than apes who were covered all over with some dark, murk any way he could. He didn't want to kill tangled fur so that they appeared faceless except for anymore, not even monsters like these. He didn't want the staring gleam of their eyes Some of the enemies to make anyone proud of him. He didn't care what seemed to carry their own blankets of mist, so that anyone thought. even in the moments of clear light they were dim and War is a he. The disjointed words did not quite form in hard to see as a reflection in a muddy pond, and the his head, but they were there all the same, like broken thrusts of lances and swords never quite seemed to pieces of an object whose original shape could still be strike them straight. Wolves accompanied them, too, recognized. Because no one ever would. Terrible. If silently swift and horrible in their intelligence. They they knew, no one ever. Never. had already pulled down several of the horses by Tyne was at the front of their small company, and tearing at legs and unprotected bellies until the beasts reached the cluster of men on the hillside just in time stumbled and fell. to rein up in surprise as something huge burst through "That way!" Tyne shouted.The war leader's helmet the rank of knights, flinging aside heavy, armored men was battered and his sword was bloodied and and horses like a drunkard batting away a cloud of notched, but his voice was still strong Men moved to bees Tyne had only a moment to raise his sword in a him without hesitation as he spurred his horse toward gesture of helpless defiance before the leathery giant one of the clumps of fighting, a fog -shrouded mass of brought down its great cudgel of stone and wood on bodies and flashing metal - Mayne Calough and a him with such force that Tyne's horse was smashed to company of Silverside nobles, perhaps three or four the ground with its back broken and its legs fractured dozen mounted men all together, hard-pressed by at and splayed Nothing was left of Tyne Aldritch, the Earl least that many foes. Tyne clearly planned to bring the of Blueshore, but a headless jelly in a wreckage of two groups together with an eye toward mounting a crushed armor. 923 924 It was so sudden, so horrid, that Barrick could only quivering outcrop of mountain about to break loose gape as Kettle shied and stutter -stepped. The and tumble down to earth. Silversiders scattered from the giant, mounted men Barrick closed his eyes. running down those who had lost their horses, all of Briony. them leaping past the prince, a few shouting at him to Father. turn, to ride for his life. The giant thing lumbered toward him, the massive club whistling back and forth I wish . . . as it came, dispatching those who couldn't force their way past their fellows to escape, knocking them to pieces One of the fleeing knights lost control of his horse and the beast slammed into Kettle and forced Barrick's mount sideways. This time Barrick did not catch its mane before he fell. The wet ground drove the breath out of him so powerfully that for a moment he thought it was the giant's club that had struck him, but the fiery stab of pain in his arm told him otherwise he was still alive and there was worse to come. He rolled over and scrabbled along the ground to stay out of the way as his black horse tried to right itself, but it only bought him a moment. Better if Kettle had kicked my brains out . . . Better than this. The monstrous thing stood over him now, pouched eyes squinting from a face as bristly and wrinkled as the hind end of a wild boar. It was so huge it seemed to block the light, but there was almost no light le ft anywhere now, it seemed, anywhere in the world. It prodded him with the cudgel, shoving him a yard across the ground, and seemed surprised and pleased to discover he was still alive. He could feel his rib crack as the giant poked him again, then it raised its club high. The great weapon hung above him like a 925 926 and although they had fought bravely and surprisingly well, the tide had now turned against them. 37 The first step, she thought - but just barely. And the Year -Turning Day almost upon us. The king has lost There can be no question but that it must be done my The Dark City way jrom now on. She had blooded Whitefire today, but Yasammez did not lust after combat for its own sake - her anger was ECHOING HILLS: too refined, too pure, to need expressing in that fashion. She left the rest to Gyir and her other Count the spears, then build fires attendants and spurred her black horse up to a place where she could better see the sunlanders' city and For those who have no spears especially the castle that crouched on its mound of Sing together the old, old words stone across the water - the old hill, the sacred, - from The Bonefall Oracles terrible place, soon to belong to the People once more. She considered how her eremites would cause the Bridge of Thorns to grow above the water, how Even without the shadow-mantle it had been dark on her troops would cross through its sheltering branches this battlefield hours before the true night that was and come to the castle walls. Many would be lost in now falling - the Mist Children had made sure of that. the assault, but she had been thrifty of her army so far As Yasammez rode, she saw the murk they had and it would be the last great sacrifice in this part of created as a shade, a hue that only dimly stained her the world. First, though, they would invest the castle s vision, but she guessed that to the sunlanders the front garden, the deserted sunlander city on the Mist Children's work must seem like something else mainland. Her troops and followers would rest and entirely. Like blindness. Like despair. tend their wounded, then they would dance and sing All around her the struggle continued, a chaos of their victories, the first over their enemy for centuries blood and fog and the clash of metal on metal, but Those parts of the city they did not need would burn, nothing was hidden from Lady Porcupine. It had been and the sight of those fires would steal the casde a near thing - the decision of the mortals to ride her dwellers' sleep for their last nights of life, as though down in the open had been a clever one and she Yasammez herself had reached out and bent their guessed there must be at least a few real dreams into nightmare shapes. commanders among them - but the sunlanders had Her horse stepped nimbly over the corpses of mortals suffered by having to leave behind their foot soldiers, 927 928 and Qar Warriors of both armies still beat at each She extended her hand, spreading her fingers. His other in small knots across the damp downs. Screams surprised, frightened eyes closed and he fell back on filled the air, along with howls of many of the the wet grass, limp and senseless. Changing tribe and the buzzing songs of the Elementals, which to the mortals no doubt sounded · even more frightening than the other sounds. In the midst of this confusion her attention lit briefly on one of the giant servitors of Firstdeeps. The creature had The Winter's Eve pageant and its attendant temple killed several mortals despite his own streaming rituals had commenced early in the morning, and even wounds, and was about to dispatch another who lay though it was not yet noon, already Briony had begun on the ground at his feet, a youth whom the giant was mightily to regret letting Nynor talk her into holding prodding with his club like a cat playing with a stunned these most unfestive festivities. Rather than such mouse. She was about to turn away when something familiar events reassuring everyone as the castellan in the boy's features and dress arrested her. The giant had suggested, bringing the entire court together lifted his dripping cudgel. merely allowed rumor to travel faster and farther than ever it would have Rose and Moina had told her that "Stop." although none would admit it in public, many of the The servitor had never heard her voice, but he knew nobles seemed half-inclined to believe theTollys' his mistress. He paused, the great weapon barely assertion that Briony and Barrick had ordered Gailon trembling, although it had to weigh as much as the killed. The fact that Hendon and the rest of the Tolly trunk of a good-sized tree. The boy looked up as she supporters had kept themselves away from the rode toward him, his eyes bleary, face bloodlessly gathering only made it worse, made it seem that white. Yasammez was wearing her featureless helm Briony was cruelly celebrating during their time of and knew she must look as grotesque to his mourning. frightened eyes as the giant itself, her black armor Where are all those we have supported - where are bristling with spikes, Whitefire gleaming in her hand those whose loyalty we've earned time and again? Do like one of the moon's rays turned to stone. She lifted they forget what my father did for them, what Kendrick her helmet, stared at the momentarily reprieved did, what Barrick and I have tried to do even in our prisoner. The boy's eyes, which at first had been short time? Staring at the people crowded into the empty of anything but terror and a sort of resignation, great garden, which with its border of tents put up for opened even wider. the pageant had somewhat the look of a military Yasammez looked at him. He looked back at her. His camp, she couldn't help but believe that those she jaw worked, but he could not speak. 929 930 saw whispering were speaking against her. She knew "Yes, good Orphan," she told the boy, struggling to she dared say nothing herself - - to deny such gossip hold the gifts as she surreptitiously wiped her fingers was to give it even more force - and it maddened her. with her kerchief. "Because of your sacrifice, I will allow the Summer Queen to return and take her "I would like to see them all horsewhipped, every throne at the far end of the year. Go n ow to the gods disloyal one of them," she muttered. and be rewarded." "What, Highness?" asked Nynor. Little Idrin lay down and died with a great deal of "Nothing. Even on this chilly day, I am stifling in this kicking and groaning, but this year the crowd - costume." She flicked at the confining dress of the perhaps superstitious in these days of bad news - was Winter Queen that Anissa had worn the year before, not amused by such antics. They clapped politely, but the vast white hooped skirt and rock-hard stomacher, continued to murmur after the applause had died and all covered with pearly beads like frozen dewdrops. the smallest scion of Helm-mgsea arose from death On such short notice even half a dozen seamstresses and returned to his mother's side, his shepherds had not been able to alter it enough to make it fit costume now furred with wet grass. Briony s larger frame in a comfortable way. "Is it not Briony had just finished dismissing the court so that time yet for me to finish this foolish pageant? I want to they might have a rest and a chance to change eat." clothes before the feast began when she noticed "The ceremony is almost over, Highness." Skilled Havemore, Avin Brone's factor, who was standing and courtier that he was, Nynor tried to sound apologetic, waiting for her in a way meant to be both unobtrusive but he clearly disapproved of her complaints. "In a and compelling. She sighed. It was the functionaries moment you will . . . ah! There, now go and take what of busy men who were usually the most insufferable in the boy offers. Do you know your speech?" their self -esteem. She rolled her eyes. "Such as it is." She swept across "What does your master want?" she asked him, letting the yard and stood while little Idrin, Gowan of a little more of her anger show than she had meant to. Helmingsea's youngest son, handed her a sprig of "He was supposed to be here. If I can stomach such mistletoe and a posy of dried meadowsweet as he things, he can certainly make an appearance." lisped his ceremonial lines about the returning of the "Begging you r pardon, Highness," said Havemore sun and the days of bloom to come. He was an without meeting her eyes, "but Lord Brone wishes to attractive child, but his nose was running in a most speak to you. Urgently, he says. He humbly requests unflattering way, after she had already clutched it, you to come to the Winter Tower as quickly as your Briony realized to her dismay that the mistletoe was Highness' convenience will allow." sticky. 931 932 She was immediately suspicious. She didn't know much. Certainly the other three guards who had Havemore all that well. He came from Brone's wealthy stepped into the antechamber were looking at him as fiefdom in Landsend and was known to be ambitious. though they were going to make him regret his Could this be some trick to get her alone - some volubility in the guardroom later. "Most of the royal scheme of the Tollys for which they had enlisted the guards are from Suttler's Wall or Redtree or one of the lord constable's servitor? But even they would not other Eddon holdings." dare anything in the light of day. Briony decided she It only made sense. "But your captain,Vansen, he is was letting mistrust get the better of her - she would not an Eddon vassal by birth." have her guards with her, after all. It was not the first "No, Highness. He's a dalesman, is Captain Vansen . time Brone had summoned her rather than the other . but he's steadfast loyal, Ma'am." way around. Still, it was irritating and she wondered if The sergeant stepped forward. "Is he troubling you, the lord constable did not need a reminder about who Highness?" was the regent and who was not. "I will come," she said. "But tell him he must wait until I get this "No, not at all. I asked him a question, he answered." outlandish costume off and something more sensible She looked at the rawboned sergeant, who seemed on." nervous and irritated. He does not like having a girl my age on the throne, she realized. He'd like to tell me to be quiet and hurry up - that I am keeping that "What is your name?" she asked the young guard who wise old man Brone waiting, not to mention giving this had insisted on walking before her into the Tower of guardsman thoughts above his station. For once she Winter. It had occurred to her that she knew less was more wearily amused by this sort of thing than about these men who guarded her life than she knew angered. There were bigger foes and fears just now, about her horse or her dogs, despite the fact that she after all. "Let us go, then." had been seeing some of the faces for years. The summons was no Tolly trickery. Avin Brone was "Heryn, Princess Briony. Heryn Millward." waiting for her in the wide room on the third floor, a "And where do you come from?" public room once when the Tower of Winter was a "Suttler's Wall, Highness. Just north of Blueshore residence, although it was now largely given over to lands, on the Sandy." storage. "Highness," he said, "thank you. Please come with me." "And who is your lord?" Masking her irritation, she directed her guards to wait He flushed. "You, Highness. We Wall folk owe our and allowed him to lead her out to the chilly air of the fealty direct to Southmarch and the Eddons." He balcony. She looked down and saw a handkerchief seemed unsure, perhaps feared he had spoken too 933 934 with a heel of bread and a few crumbs of cheese on it been afraid for them, but she had come almost to the lying on the boards at her feet. At first she thought end of her ability to feel for others, the suffering of Brone himself had carelessly dropped it, but the bread displaced and frightened people had now become so was sodden and gray as though it had lain there a day universal. or two. "I might guess the same," Brone said, "had not this "Have you brought me to see where some spy has message come this morning." He pulled a tiny curl of snuck into the Tower of Winter and dropped his parchment from his purse, held it out to her. midday meal?" Briony squinted at it for a moment. "It is from Tyne, it Brone looked at her for a moment, uncomprehending, says, although I would never think him to write such a then glanced down at the bread on the kerchief and small and careful hand." frowned. "That? I care not for that - some workman or "Written by one of his servants, no doubt, but it is guard shirking, nothing more. No, Highness, it is indeed from Tyne, Highness Read it, please." something more fearful I brought you here to see." He Before she had digested more than a few lines she pointed out across the rooftops of the castle, out to felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. "Merciful the narrow sleeve of Brenn's Bay and the city beyond. Zoria!" It was scarcely a whisper, although she felt like The city was covered in mist, so that only the temple screaming it. "What is he saying? That they have towe rs and the roofs of the tallest buildings were been tricked? That the Twilight People have crept visible through the murk - a cloak of fog or low-lying past them and are coming down on the castle even cloud that extended out across the fields and downs now?" She read on, felt a little relieved. "But he says beyond the city so that most of the land on this side of they are going to catch them up - that we must be the hills was invisible. But as she stared at this gloomy ready to ride out in support." She fought down a rising though largely unsurprising sight, Briony saw a few wash of terror. "Oh, my poor Barrick. It says nothing of bright spots deep in the fog, as though torches and him!" even some bonfires burned there. "It says at the end to tell you he is safe - or was when "What is it, Lord Brone? I confess I can't make out this was written." Brone looked very grim, bristle- much." bearded and lowering like one of the hoary old gods "Do you see the fires, Highness?" thrown down by Perin, Thane of Lightnings. "Yes, I think so What of it?" "What do you mean - `when this was written'?" "The city is empty, Highness, the people gone." "He sent it yester -morning, Highness I have only just "Not completely, as seems apparent. A few brave or received it, although from what he says of the spot foolish souls have stayed behind." She should have where they were deceived, it cannot be much more 935 936 than a score of miles outside the city." animals watching a forest camp. "Then how could they have not caught up to them yet Barrick . . . she thought. But he must be . . . he cannot . . . ?" But she was beginning to guess at the terrifying be . . . truth. "Highness?" said Brone. "We should go down now. If "The sentries heard noises last evening and into the the siege is about to begin in earnest, we must . . ." night, noises they thought came from madmen left He stopped when he saw the tears on her cheek. behind in the town - clashes of weapons, groans, "Highness?" screams, strange singing and shouting - but faint, as She dabbed at her face with the back of her sleeve. though from behind the city's closed doors . . or from The brocade was rough as lizard skin. "He will be far away, in the fields on the city's far side." well," she said as though Brone had asked her. "We "What does that mean? Do you think that Barrick and will send out our men. We will cut the fairies down like the others have already caught the Twilight People?" rats. We will kill them all and bring our brave soldiers back." "I think perhaps they have caught up with them, Highness. Briony. And I think perhaps they have "Highness . . ." failed." "Enough, Brone." She tried to pull on the mask of "Failed . . ?" She couldn't make sense of the word. It stone - the queen's face, as she thought of it, although was a common one, but suddenly it had become she was only a princess still. Perhaps that's why I cryptic, meaningless. can't do it properly yet, she thought absently. Perhaps that's why it hurts. Struggling, she spoke more coldly "Tyne writes of the fog of madness that surrounds the to Lord Brone than she had intended to. "Enough fairy folk. What is that covering the city below? Have talking. Do what you must to make sure the walls and you seen a mist like that before, even m winter, that gates are secure, and prepare troops for a sortie if was still forming at midday? And who is lighting fires you are wrong and we do see Tyne come and engage there?" with the enemy. You and I will talk after the banquet." Briony wanted to argue with him, to come up with "Banquet?" reasons the old man must be wrong, answers that would explain all he had said and more, but for some "After all Nynor's trouble, the people must eat and be reason she could not. A cold horror had stolen over merry." Tears drying now, she did her best to smile, her and she could only stare out at the mostly invisible but it felt more like a snarl and she did not try too hard city - separated from the place where she stood by to amend it. "As he said, it may be the last joy for nothing except less than half a mile of water - and the some time, so it would be a shame to waste all those fires that burned in that gray mist like the eyes of puddings." 937 938 have been lost. With Tyne Aldritch dead, all was in disarray, and Tyne's second-in-command, the stolid, · unimaginative Droy of Eastlake would not have been able to salvage things even if he had lived. In fact, it The first gleam of dawn should have come as a relief, had been Droy's pig-headedness that had made the but it did not. They had held their ground and they loss so desperate. By the time he had arrived with the were still alive, but there was no one else in sight or weary foot troops, their torches making a fiery snake earshot with whom they could join forces. They were along the downs as they hurried to support the lost like shipwrecked mariners. mounted knights, Vansen had sent one of the scouts Ferras Vansen and a few men - Gar Doiney and two to him to tell him that it was useless now, that Tyne had fallen and the best thing Droy's foot soldiers could other scouts, along with the knight Mayne Calough of do was to try to flank the Twilight folk and beat them Kertewall and his squire, had held this high place since middle-night, an outcrop of stone in the middle to the deserted city, or, failing that, to fall back into the hills so that his army might eventually be able to of the field, not much bigger than a small farmhouse - provide the other half of a pincer with Brone's held it mostly, Vansen guessed, because it was on the fringes of the battle and of little strategic value. Not defensive force. Instead, the Count of Eastlake had ignored Vansen's message as the cowardly advice of that strategic value meant much anymore. Vansen a commoner, a jumped -up sentry in Droy Nikomede's had known for hours with a certainty as straightforward as a mortal wound that the fight was estimation, and had plunged his weary soldiers into battle. Within moments, half of them had become over and they had lost. completely disoriented by the mists and the strange He was angry with himself, although he still believed noises and shadows - Lord Nikomede and the others he had been right to insist they catch the fairy folk had learned nothing from the first fight, it seemed - outside the city. It had proved almost impossible to and had been cut down by archers they could not overcome the Twilight People without the superiority even see. Their own arrows seemed to do as much of numbers - or even apparent superiority, since damage to the survivors among Tyne's knights as to everything to do with the fairy folk was slippery and the enemy. hard to calculate. Already Vansen was plotting in the lulls between fighting what to do next time, how to A disaster. Worse, a mockery. This is how we defended Southmarch - with battle plans out of some take the advantage of surprise and concealment away player's comedy, with bravery sacrificed by from the shadow-people and their weird magicks, but all the time he had been doing it he knew that there blockheaded generalship. might be no next time, that more than this battle might Doiney tugged at the hem of Vansen's surcoat, 939 940 startling him out of his reverie. "Shadows, Captain. "To me!" he shouted and helped Mayne Calough to Over there. Coming near, I think." his feet, the knight's armor grating against stone as he dragged his aching body erect. "To me! Keep your Vansen squinted. It was a little easier to see now that backs together!" the sun was coming back, but not much. The mists wer e thinner, little more than what would be expected The bright-eyed things were almost on them now, on these meadows at this hour of the day, but they teeth bared as though they would not waste such still made the world an eerie and untrustworthy place. sweet work on their swords. As he had at least a Something was indeed moving up the small rise dozen times already, Vansen let his deeper thoughts toward the pile of stone they defended, a moving clot go away so he could concentrate on the business of of shadowy shapes. staying alive a little while longer. An arrow snapped past. Vansen jumped down from the prominence on which he had been crouching. The Lord Calough and his squire were dead, or at least the horses, herded together into a crack at the base of the knight was dead and the squire was clearly dying, with outcrop because for the moment they were useless, a great streaming gash beneath the point of his jaw. whinnied in fear. No more arrows came. That was one The hands with which the youth tried to hold in his small solace. own blood were all red, but his face had gone "Up!" Vansen shouted as half a dozen strange figures parchment-pale beneath the dirt and the blood was came charging out of the mist, eyes bright and faces pumping more slowly now. The squire stared off into as pale as masks. One ran on all fours like a beast, the misty morning sky, his bubbling prayers slipping although he seemed to have been arrested in the down into silence though his lips still moved Vansen middle of some transformation, with stripes of bushy wished there was something he could do to help the for sprouting unevenly down his back and sides and boy Perhaps, though, this was the most merciful way his face misshapen, as though someone had pushed Who knew what would happen to the rest of them a human face out from within, making half a muzzle when the shadow folk came again? Only Vansen out of nose and mouth Seven hours ago this sort of knew even a little of the way a man's own thoughts thing had sickened Ferras Vansen, made him feel could betray him under the dark magicks of faerie. lost, as though the world he knew had suddenly fallen Calough lay on top of the milk-skinned warrior he had away beneath his feet Now it was only another reason destroyed - a woman, although Vansen thought that to want to kill them, kill them all, these horrid, meant no less honor, for the fairy women fought like unnatural creatures that had themselves destroyed so demons, too - but the knight's own breastplate had many of his fellows. been torn open like a bite taken from an apple and his 941 942 guts were out Three fairy corpses had rolled down the Prince Barrick, stop!" Too late Vansen realized that he rock and lay tumbled together at its base in the had just directed the attention of any ransomers to the meadow. The other attackers had retreated into the greatest prize on the field, but the shadow folk had not murk, but only to get reinforcements.Vansen felt sure. seemed very interested in keeping any of their mortal It had been hours since he had seen any other enemies alive, no matter their station. mortals Something was going on to the east of their "Get down!" Doiney yanked at his leg, but Vansen outcrop, where the mist still lay thick on the ground, paid no attention. The mysterious figure that looked so but the discord of music and screams didn't sound like much like the prince sailed by on a black horse, any kind of fighting he knew. passing scarcely a dozen yards from where Vansen It sounded like the fairies were singing sweetly-sour watched, stunned. He shouted again, but Barrick temple harmonies as they killed the wounded, that Eddon or his supernatural double did not even turn to was what it sounded like. look at him. The familiar face was distant, distracted, eyes fixed firmly on the northwestern hills despite the "Get down, Captain," Doiney whispered from his perch intervening mists. behind some rocks at the crown of the outcrop. "They still have arrows left and they're probably gathering up "By all the gods and their mothers," said Vansen, "he's those they've already shot, too. You'll get a shaft in riding in the wrong direction - straight toward the the eye." Shadowline." He remembered Briony and his promise to her, but Doiney was tugging at him again, FerrasVansen was about to take this good advice reminding him that he had other duties as well. "It's when he saw something moving across the sloping the prince," he told the leader of the scouts. "He's meadow, not coming toward them but passing from riding away to the west. He must be confused - he's left to right in front of them. It was a mounted man, or heading straight for the shadowlands. Come with me, at least a mounted creature of some sort, a dark figure we have to catch him." on a black horse. Vansen crouched, but despite the superstitious fear that surprised him into shivers - he "It's just a will-o'-the-wisp," said Doiney, mouth had thought there was nothing left in him that was still stretched in a panicky scowl. "A fairy trick. There are alive enough to be frightened - he couldn't take his men here somewhere who need our help, and if there eyes off the apparition that sailed past them through aren't, we need to go east, try to get back to the the swirling ground fog. Fear turned to astonishment keep." as the figure moved into a shaft of weak sunlight and "I can't. I promised." Vansen scrambled down the rock he could see it clearly. to where his horse was hidden. "Come with me, Gar I "By Perin Skyhammer, it is the prince himself Barrick! don't want to leave you here." 943 944 Doiney and one of the other scouts, who had poked her anger made it a little easier. "Have you lost your his head up now to see what was happening, both wits? First you go off with that girl, then this? Why shook their heads, wide-eyed Doiney made the pass- should you go outside the castle gates with a evil. "No.You'll be killed or worse. We need your stranger? And now, of all times?" She gestured at sword, Captain. Stay with us." Flint. The child was silent on the bed, only the faintest motion of his narrow chest showing that he lived. He could only bear to look at their weary, frightened "He's so ill!" faces for a moment. "I can't." But which vow was more important, the one he had made to the princess, or the "I do not think he is ill, my dear one, I think he is one he had made to old Donal Murroy when he had exhausted. He will be well again, I promise you." But sworn to make the royal guard his own family and Chert didn't know whether he actually believed that. himself those guardsmen's dutiful father? He had little He was tired himself, very tired, having snatched only hope that the scouts would find the other survivors, a few hours' sleep after returning from the keep but at least they had a chance of making a run toward above. "The boy is the reason I have to go - the boy the east, although he knew their chances were and you. I wish you could see this Gil fellow. I don't considerably lessened without him: he was the best want to believe him, dear Opal, but I do." He lifted the swordsman among them and the only one in full nnrror and examined it again. Hard to believe so much armor. madness could surround such a small, unexceptional object. "Terrible things hang in the balance, he says. I He hesitated once more, but Briony Eddon's face was wish you could see him, then you would understand in his thoughts, shaming him, haunting him like a why I believe him." ghost. "I can't," he said at last, and led his horse out onto the foggy grass. He swung up into the saddle "But why can't I see him? Why can't he come here?" then spurred away. Barrick, or the thing that looked "I'm not sure," he had to admit. "He said he couldn't like him, had disappeared, but the marks of the come too close to the Shining Man. That is why the horse's hoofprints were still fresh. boy went instead." "Don't leave us, Captain!" cried one of the scouts, but "But it's all mad!" Opal's anger seemed to have won. Vansen was headed northwest and couldn't turn back. "Who is this person? How does he know Flint? Why He wished he could put his hands over his ears. would he send our son to do such a dangerous thing, and by what right? And what does one of the big folk know about the Mysteries, anyway?" · Chert flinched a little under the volley of questions. "I don't know, but he's more than just one of the big "But why?" Opal could barely hold back the tears, but 945 946 folk." Gil's calm, empty stare had remained in his He kissed Opal, too, although she could barely force thoughts. "There's something wrong with him, I think, herself to hold still for it, and quickly turned her face but it's hard to explain. He's just . . ." Chert shook his away, but not before he tasted her tears on his lips. head. That was his problem. He had spent much of "I'll come back, old girl." the last days in places where words meant little or "Yes," she said bitterly. "You probably will." nothing, but Opal had not. It saddened him, felt like a But as he went out the door, he heard her add quietly, breach between them. He hoped he would survive this "You'd better." strange time so that he could patch it up again. He missed his good wife even though she was standing right in front of him. "I must do this, Opal." Chert made a few wrong turns on his way back, since "So you say. Then what are you doing here at all, you this time he didn't have the girl Willow to guide him. cruel, stubborn old blindmole? Do you think you're The big folk dashing here and there around the castle doing me a kindness, coming back to tell me you're off seemed even more distracted than might seem to risk your life again after you've just returned? warranted with siege preparations still going on, and Worrying me to death with these mad stories?" at first he thought it a little strange that no one bothered to question a lone Funderling wandering "Yes," he said. "Not a kindness, but I couldn't go away through the grounds. Then he remembered that today again without telling you why." He walked across the was Winter's Eve, the day before Orphan's Day, one bedroom and picked up his pack. "And I wanted some of the most important holidays on the big folks' tools, also. Just in case." He didn't tell her that what calendar. Despite the fear of war they seemed to be he really wanted was his chipping knife, sharp-honed preparing for a feast and other entertainments: Chert and the closest thing to a weapon they had in the saw more than a few groups of courtiers in costumes house other than Opal's cookware. He couldn't quite even more elaborate than usual, and a trio of young imagine asking her for her best carving knife - it girls that seemed to be dressed as geese or ducks. seemed as though that might be the last blow on a quivery rockface. The man named Gil was sitting as still as a statue in a patch of weak morning sunlight in the garden when Opal had stamped out to the front room, fighting tears Chert found the place at last. Chert couldn't help again. Chert kneeled beside the boy. He felt his cool wondering if the stranger had waited on that bench all forehead and looked again to make sure Flints chest the night long, ignoring winter chill and the soaking was still moving. He kissed him on the cheek and said dew. quietly,"I love you, lad." It was the first time he had said it aloud, or even admitted it. Gil looked at him as if hours had not passed, as if they had only left off their conversation moments earlier. 947 948 "Now we will go," he said, and stood, showing no strangers and magical mirrors! The Mysteries coming stiffness. Indeed, he was weirdly graceful, displaying to life! The portly physician would have had something such economy of movement that what at first sight useful to say - he always did . . ."Ah," Chert appeared slow and awkward soon began to seem said."Ah.Wait a moment." He considered. "The girl more subtle, movement without wasted effort, so that told me you have been living in the castle stronghold. even his most mundane acts might have been the That is beneath the ground." carefully planned steps of an elaborate dance. Gil nodded his head slowly. "That is not so deep, I "Hold a moment." Chert glanced around, but the think. I feel it only a little." garden seemed to be one of the few spots in the "I know a way that also does not go too deep, at least castle empty of people preparing for either siege or not at first. When we are far away from the Shining feast. "We can't just walk out the Basilisk Gate, you Man, if that is what you really fear, we can go deeper. know. The castle is at war. The guards won't let us. Follow me." Not to mention that the causeway is down. You say As he led the strang er across the inner keep, certain we must reach the city on the other side - we would now for the first time of where he was going, he tried have to find a boat and the bay is dangerous today. to plan what he would say to Chaven's housekeeper Some say a storm is coming." or to the manservant - what was that suspicious old Gil regarded him. "What does this mean?" man's name? Harry? Could he convince them of Chert let out a snort of exasperation. "It means you some errand so they would allow him to go through haven't thought this part out very carefully, is what it the house unsupervised? He didn't think any of them means. We'll have to find some other way. You can't knew about the tunnel and the door off the cellar fly, can you? I didn't think so. Then you'll have to hallway. come back with me to Funderling Town. There are He was still scheming when they reached the stubby tunnels - old roads, secret roads - that lead under the observatory-tower, but the tale he had cobbled bay. They're not used much anymore even by us. We together - an important sample of stone Chaven had can go that way, or at least it's worth a try." been testing for him, but which Chert now urgently Gil continued to look at him, then sat down. "I cannot needed back - was to remain unused. Nobody go down into Funderling Town, as you call it. It is too answered to his knock. The door was bolted, although close to the deep places - to the thing you call the Chert jiggled it to make sure. A layer of dirt on the Shining Man. I . . . I cannot go there." threshold had been damped by the mist and drizzle into a muddy film naked of footprints, as though "Then we have hit bedrock with no tools." Chert nobody had gone in or out for several days. He shook wished again that Chaven had not vanished. Cryptic 949 950 the handle again but the door was latched tight. It feeling like a thief, until he was certain that nothing seemed that in Chaven's long absence the servants was stirring anywhere around him. He wondered had closed up the house. briefly about the chunk of stone that Flint had brought back - such a long time ago it seemed now' - but to With sinking heart he began to explain to Gil, but find anything in this hodgepodge would be the work of realized that the odd man saw nothing that needed hours if not days. He hurried down the winding stairs explaining. Chert looked up to the second -floor and let Gil in through the front door. window and its wooden balcony. Perhaps the shutters there were less securely guarded. "Follow me," he told him he couldn't assume anything was obvious to this strange, fish -eyed fellow Chert led "Can you climb?" he asked. Gil gave him that now - him down through several floors to the bottommost familiar, annoyingly expressionless gaze. "Never corridor and its featureless hallway, where he was mind. I'll do it.The Elders know I've been getting startled almost into a scream by a furry shape that enough practice at it lately." scuttled out of the shadows in front of his feet, but it was only a spotted black-and-gray cat who stopped It took him a while after he reached the balcony to and gave him a stare as arrogant as Gil's. It seemed catch his breath - half a night's sleep had not been healthy and well-fed. He wondered if it had found the nearly enough and his muscles were quivering with larder and was making a home of the Observatory the exertion - but he was pleased to discover that the now that the house was empty. end of his chipping knife could slide between the "Well met," Gil said as they all stood poised on the shutters and still give him enough leverage to lift the stairway. It certainly seemed that he was talking to the bar on the inside. He went throug h as quietly as he cat. The creature did not appear impressed, she could, considering he was still wheezing, and paused showed the two of them her tail as she trotted past for a moment in the cluttered room to listen. All around them up the stairs. him were the signs of Chaven's interests and In the featureless corridor at the bottom of the house obsessions, books and containers on every surface, Chert heard a noise from behind a small and caskets and sacks spilling their contents, apothecary otherwise unexceptional door that made him stop and chests with the drawers left open as though the snatch at his companion's arm to halt him as well. In physician had made one last hurried search of his other circumstances Chert would have said someone belongings before rushing out the door Nothing was in that room was moaning, although the voice did not too dusty, though, Chert decided that the sound much like anything human, but in the deserted housekeeper must have given it a good clea ning house of a man with many arcane interests he was before she left Still, he stood silent for a long time, less certain. In fact, he was only sure that he didn't 951 952 want anything to do with it, even if it was only the current circumstances robbed the trip of any pleasure sound of some odd mechanical device of Chaven's, for Chert, not to mention his recent memories of some tangle of leather hoses and bellows and glass having made his way beneath the silvery Sea in the pipes. After a heart-stuttering moment he pulled Gil Depths, plagued by nightmare visions every step of past the spot and down to the door at the end with the the way. This journey was not nearly so difficult, bell hanging beside it. It was a relief to close that door though it was much longer. Only the behavior of his behind them, to be out of the empty house and into companion made the experience anywhere near as the clean but crude Funderling tunnels he knew so frightening. well. Gil, in fact, seemed to be suffering as Chert himself "We should be no deeper than the stronghold here," had suffered deep in the Mysteries, beset by things he whispered to his companion. "Can you stand it?" invisible to the Funderling - muttering, even once or twice speaking in an unfamiliar language. It was only Gil nodded. after the lean stranger experienced his third or fourth "Good. Follow on, then. We've got a long distance to such seizure that Chert finally realized he had seen walk." something like this before. Flint, down in the Eddon family tomb. The crack in the Chert did not have either the time or inclination to visit earth there. Something suddenly occurred to him, Boulder for any of the glowing coral, so it was with a something he should have thought of before. Did Flint conventional and very smoky oil lamp throwing huge know - was that why he acted so crosswise in the shadows on the pale, sweating walls of the limestone tomb? Did he know he must one day go down there? cavern that he led Gil through the deep places Or did it frighten him because it called to him, and it underneath Brenn's Bay. At other times, Chert was only a few days ago that the call finally became thought, it would have been interesting to take this old too strong to resist . . . ? route from a time when Funderlings had less trust of As they reached the far side where the paths turned their larger brethren (for good reason) and wished an upward again, his odd companion went through yet escape to be available at all times. The old Exodus another change, this time as though a layer of his Road was largely unused these days, untended in strangeness had actually been scrubbed away. Gil many crumbling places and navigable only with the began to ask questions about where they were and help of a long rhyme Chert's father had taught him how long it would take them to get to the surface that that marked off the turnings as it wound from the outer seemed as though they could have come from the reaches of Funderling Town, through dripping caverns mouth of an ordinary man. Chert couldn't compass it beneath the bay and at last to the mainland. The and didn't try: far too much of what had happened in 953 954 these last days he not only didn't understand, but felt empty into the distance, but a few tethered boats still sure he never would. floated along the quay - their owners taking their chances in the keep, no doubt, hoping one day soon The underground way reached the surface at last on to reclaim them. Otherwise the docks and the the mainland, in a bank of seaside cliffs half a mile or waterfront taverns and warehouses were deserted. It so north of where the causeway had stretched. As was stunningly empty and Chert could not help they made their way out into the daylight, or as much staring; it looked as though some great wind had of it as there was on this bleak, misty afternoon, Chert come and blown all the people away. Fear stabbed at saw the castle they had left behind looming just him anew. It wasn't just his own life: all the world had across the strait, like a toy decorously carved by a turned topside-down. giant and set down in the water to wait his return. From this distance Chert couldn't even see the It was Gil who now took the lead, the Funderling who sentries on the wall. The keep looked deserted, its followed with increasing reluctance. A mist had crept windows empty as the cliff holes above his head down out of the hills and covered the city so that they where the shorebirds nested in spring. It was hard to could see only a few dozen paces ahead of them believe there were any living souls at all inside that even on wide Market Road, the empty buildings on castle or beneath it. either side seemed more like the silent wrecks of ships lying on the sea bottom than anything whole- He tried to shrug off the bleak thought. "We're on the some.The damp walls and guttered roofs dripped like other side of the water. Where do we go now?" the deepest limestone caverns, so that their footsteps "Into the city. Those tunnels - have I ever been in seemed to echo away multifold on all sides in a them before?" thousand tiny pattering sounds. "I don't know," said Chert, surprised."I shouldn't think Everything was so gloomy and unnatural that when a so." half dozen dark figures stepped out of the shadows "Very much they remind me of. . . something. Some before them it seemed so much like the inevitable place I once knew well." For the first time Chert could ending to a terrible dream that Chert did little more see actual emotion written on the man's features, in than gasp and stop in his tracks, blood thumping. One his troubled eyes. "But I cannot summon it to my of the lean figures stepped forward, leveling a long thoughts." black spear. His armor was the color of lead, and nothing showed of his face but a bit of bone-white skin Chert could only shrug and start down the beach. and the catlike yellow gleam of the eyes in the slot of Soon the seawalls of the city were looming above them. Only the base of the causeway remained where his helmet. The point of the spear moved from Chert to Gil and settled there. The apparition said something Market Road reached the shoreline, and the sea was 955 956 in a voice full of harshly musical clicking and hissing. "I am sorry I brought you here to die instead of leaving you in your tunnels to find your own time and place." To Chert's dull astonishment, Gil responded after a moment in a slower version of the same incomprehensible tongue. The gray -armored figure answered back and the exchange went on. Water dripped. The sentries moved up behind their leader, nothing much of them visible but tall shadows and a half circle of burning yellow eyes. "It seems . . . we are to be killed," Gil said at last. He sounded a little sad about this - wistful, perhaps. "I told them we bear an important thing for their mistress, but they do not seem to care. They are victorious, they say. There are no bargains left to be made." Chert fought against panic that threatened to clamp his throat, choke him. "What . . . what does that mean? You said they would want what we have! Why do they want to kill us?" "You?" Gil actually smiled, a sad twitch at the corners of his mouth. "They say because you are a sunlander, you must die. As for me, it seems I am a deserter and thus also to be executed. She who has conquered - she was my mistress once." He shook his head slowly. "I did not know that. Given time, it might have helped me understand other things. But it seems that time is what we do not have." And indeed, as Gil spoke, the semicircle tightened around them. Spear points hovered in front of their bellies, an ample supply for both of them. The only choice was to die standing up or running away. "Farewell, Chert of Blue Quartz," his companion said. 957 958 eyes of all his guards - and not just the guards: soon every servant would be watching for her, too, and everyone else in the Seclusion, royal wives and 38 gardeners and hairdressers and kitchen slaves . . . A glimmer of an idea came to her. Silent She forced herself to move, lurching back down the corridor to step through the hanging into Luian's chamber. Even knowing what she would find, it was IN THE DARK GREEN: impossible to suppress a groan of horror when she saw the sprawled body in the center of the floor, Whisper, now see the blink. although the purple face was turned away from her. The strangling cord was so deeply embedded in the And flicker of something swift. Favored's wattled neck that most of it was invisible. It is alive, it is alive! Luian's murderer had found that thick throat hard - from The Bonefall Oracles going: a muddy bootprint stood out starkly on the middle of the back of Luian's white nightdress like a religious insignia on the robe of a penitent. Qinnitan stood in the corridor outside Luian's chambers like someone blasted by a demon's spell, Qinnitan was fighting her roiling stomach when a amazed and defeated, waiting for death to come and huge, fresh wave of misery washed through her. "Oh, take her. Luian . . .!" She had to turn away. If she looked any longer, she would start weeping again and never When a dozen or so heartbeats had passed, her move until they came for her. hopeless terror ebbed, if only a little. She didn't want to give up, she realized. What if darkness was like She was rummaging furiously through Luian's baskets sleep, and that huge, terrible . . . something was and chests of belongings when she heard a sound waiting for her there as well? Except in death there behind her. Her hands flew up to protect her neck as would be no waking, no escape from that black and she turned, certain she would confront the grinning, gaping mouth . . . dead-eyed face of Tanyssa, but the rustling noise had been made by the mute slave boy, the Silent Favored She slowly shook her head, then slapped at her own who had brought her Luian's message, as he tried to cheeks, trying to make herself feel again. If she hide himself deeper into the room's naked corner. She wanted to live, she would have to escape from the had walked right past him. autarch's own palace, an impossible task under the 959 960 "Little idiot! You can't stay here!" She was about to He shook his head, and although terror still filled his chase him out the door, then realized she might be eyes, his refusal seemed more than just fear. He throwing away the one thing that could save her life. pointed at the other room - Qinnitan could see the "Wait! I need some of your clothes. Can you do that? naked feet through the doorway, as though Luian had Some breeches like the ones you're wearing. I'll need merely decided to lie down on the floor for a nap - and a shirt, too. Do you understand?" then at himself, then at Qinnitan. He looked at her with the wide eyes of a trapped "I don't understand." She was getting frantic. She had animal and she reali zed he had been even closer to to get out, and quickly. The chances were good that Luian's killing than she had. Still, she had no time to Tanyssa had already checked her room and was now spare on sympathy. looking for her all through the Seclusion, perhaps raising the alarm. "Just go! Go to Cusy or one of the "Do you understand? I need those clothes, now! Then other important Favored! Run!" you can go. Tell no one you were here!" Qinnitan almost laughed at her own fatal foolishness. "Of He shook his head again, sharply, and again his finger course you will tell no one - you can't talk. No matter. traveled from the corpse to himself to Luian. He Go!" looked at her with imploring eyes, then mimed what she realized after a moment was writing. He hesitated. She grabbed his thin arm and pulled him upright, then gave him a shove. He hurried out of "Oh, the sacred Bees! You think they will kill you, too? the door, bent so low his hands almost trailed on the Because of the letters?" She stared at him, cursing floor tiles, as though he were crossing a battlefield Luian even though it was beyond the laws of charity to where arrows flew. besmirch the dead before they had received the judgment of Nushash. Lui an had ensnared them all, She turned back to her search and a few moments she and that handsome, foolishly arrogant Jeddin. It later found Luian's stitchery basket. She took out the was bad enough what the two of them had done to jewel-handled scissors - a present from the Queen of Qinnitan, but to this poor, speechless boy . . . ! the Favored, Cusy, and thus hardly ever used - and "Right," she said after a long moment. She began to she ar off her own long, black hair. remembered what Jeddin was probably going through at this very moment and her anger died like a snuffed Even after she had taken the pile of clothes and candle. "You'll come with me, then. But first help me thanked him, the boy would not go. She gave him get these clothes on and clean away the hair I another push, but this time he resisted her chopped off. We can't burn it, since anyone would "You must leave! I know you're frightened but you know that smell, so we'll have to put it down the privy. And here's another important thing - we'll need can't let anyone find you here." 961 962 Luian's writing box, too." apothecary on their way to examine the herbs at a local market, and although the presence of each person added to her fretfulness, especially the two or The boy immediately proved his worth by leading her three servants she thought she recognized, she also out of Luian's rooms and down a back corridor told herself that the crowding made others less likely Qinnitan hadn't even known existed, skirting the to notice two Favored boys, and certainly a lot less Garden of Qu een Sodan entirely, which would be full likely to wonder whether one of those two boys might of wives and servants after the evening meal, be a Bride of the Living God. especially on a warm night like this one. They Still, it was all Qinnitan could do to stand in the crowd encountered only one other person, a Haketani wife or waiting at the alcove on the Seclusion side of the gate servant, carrying a lamp - it was hard to tell which when every instinct told her to shove her way th rough because Haketani women all wore veiled masks and and bolt to freedom - -just let them try to catch her! shunned ostentatious dress. The masked woman She did her best to slow her breathing, tried to think of went past with no reaction whatsoever, not even a what she would do on the other side. Small fingers nodded greeting; even in the midst of a desperate curled around her hand and she looked down at the escape Qinnitan felt a reflexive irritation until she boy. Despite his own wide, fearful eyes, he nodded realized that the woman saw only tw.o slave boys, his head and did his best to smile, as if to tell her that and no matter what the woman herself might be, they all would be well. still were beneath her notice. "I don't know your name," she whispered. "What is I should be thanking the Holy Hive instead of your name?" grumbling. His mouth twisted and she felt cruel - how could he The closer they got to the Lily Gate of the Seclusion, tell her? Then he smiled again and lifted his hands. the faster her heart beat. Loose hairs were working He laced his thumbs together with the fingers held out their way down the back of her neck, making the on either side, then let the fingers flap like . . . wings. rough cloth of the boy's shirt feel even more maddeningly itchy, but that was the least of her "Bird?" problems. Many more people were in the corridors He nodded happily. now, servants off to shop for their mistresses, slaves "Your name is Bird?" with bundles piled high on heads or on shoulders, He frowned and shook his head, then pointed up to some even pulling small carts, a female peddler with a the ribbed ceiling. Here, so close to the gate, the wheeled cage full of parrots, a Favored doctor in an remains of nests still stood in some of the shadowed immense, nodding hat arguing with a Favored angles. She could see no birds in any of them. "Nest?" 963 964 He shook his head again. "A kind of bird? Yes? out . . . Sparrow? Thrush? Pigeon?" "Ah, for old Cusy, is it?" The guard waved his hand. He grabbed her hand again and squeezed, nodding "Don't want to make the Queen of the Seclusion vigorously. grumpy, do we?" He stepped aside, glancing with idle but focused curiosity at Qinnitan as though he sensed "Pigeon? Your name is Pigeon. Thank you for helping that something about her was not quite right. She me, Pigeon." She looked up and discovered they had dropped her eyes and silently recited the words of the almost reached the front of the line, which narrowed Bees' Hymn as Pigeon steered her past the huge like a bottle's neck before a trio of large Favored guard and in behind the peddler woman, who was just guards. The Lily Gate was only a few paces away, being released, apparently innocent of contraband. glowing with the lantern lights of the outside world like something magical from a story. Two of the guards "They say they were lovers once," one of the guards were busy looking through a peddler woman's cart who had been searching the cart said quietly as he before releasing her back into the city - dwarfed by stepped out of the peddler's way. Qinnitan was them, the peddler wore an expression that was so startled until she realized he was talking to the other obviously and carefully no expression that it was guard. almost insolent in itself - but the third guard was all too "Him? And the Evening Star?" asked his companion, ready to look over Qinnitan and her companion. equally quiet. "You're joking." "Where are you going . . . ?" he began, but was "That's what they say." The guard's voice dropped interrupted by Pigeon making grunting noises. "Ah, even lower, to a whisper - Qinnitan only heard a little one of the tongueless whelps. Whose business?" of what he said before the pair of guards had fallen Qinnitan's stomach lurched. She had worked so hard too far behind her. "But even if she cared for him sail, on her other forged letter that she had completely she couldn't do him any good now. Nothing between forgotten she would have to produce some kind of the seas can help him . ." permission to leave the Seclusion as well - slaves, Jeddin? Were they talking about Jeddin? even the relatively select Silent Favored, could not Qinnitan felt hollowed, scorched, as though all her simply wander in and out at will. feelings had been burned away. The world had An instant before she would have broken and run, the seemed mad enough, but today it had spun into boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small realms of lunacy she could not have dreamed existed. silvery article the size of a finger and showed it to the guard. Qinnitan's heart climbed into her mouth. If it It was a warm evening and the streets were crowded. was Luian's seal-stick and the word had already gone 965 966 Outside the Seclusion the thoroughfare was full of Little Pigeon also sensed the danger - it would have expensive shops and teahouses - proximity to the taken someone not just mute but blind and deaf to great palace was almost infinitely desirable, no matter miss it - and he allowed Qinnitan to hurry him along what the trade - and Qinnitan felt such a sense of toward the docks. As they stepped out of yet another relief and joy to be free among the loud and cheerful narrow, dimly lit alley into Sailmakers' Row, a wide throng that it almost overcame the horror that still road whose other end touched the shipyards and the gripped her, but the feeling di d not last long. Not only nearest part of the docks, they found a tall shape had she seen someone close to her murdered, she standing in the road as if waiting for them. had now flouted one of the autarch's gravest laws. "Hello, wee ones." The stranger wore sailor's garb, the Even if by some strange chance she might have been pants barely below his knee and a mariner's cloth allowed to live despite Jeddin's and Luian's crimes wrapped around his head, but his clothes were ragged and her connection to them, the moment she had and his voice shook like a sick man's. "And what passed that door she had sullied herself. The autarch brings you wandering down here at this time of the would have no use whatsoever for a sullied bride of night? Are you lost?" He took a step toward them. "Let unimportant parents. a friendly hand help." I might as well be dead, she thought. A ghost on the Qinnitan hesitated for only a moment - he stood desert wind. It was a curious feeling, both empty and between them and their destination, but the autarch's exhilarating. wrath was behind them and they could not turn back - As they wound their way down through the hanging then she grabbed Pigeon's hand and started toward lamps of the market district and closer to the dark the stranger at speed. The boy hesitated only enough waterfront, the crowds became less friendly, the to make a slight drag on her hand, then he leaped criminal element less cautious, and the menace forward and ran beside her. The man stood, his arms increasingly tangible. As they passed down an spread but his dark-sunken eyes wide with surprise. alleyway between two long buildings, the only light When they hit him, he was knocked onto his back. He that leaked in from a shabby teahouse at one end with rolled there for a moment cursing before scrambling to its shutters half raised, she realized fatal misfortune his feet. was almost as likely to take them here as in the very "You peasecods, you puppies, I'll have your innards heart of the autarch's palace. She would never have out!" he shrieked. "I'll spike you and gut you!" He was come to such a place in her woman's clothes, but up and after them now, and although he was at least a there were many unpleasant folk who would be just as dozen steps behind, when Qinnitan looked back over happy with a pair of comely boys - especially those her shoulder he seemed to be closing the distance who presumably could not scream for help. rapidly. 967 968 "Where are we going?" she gasped, but Pigeon did cushions. She could barely summon breath. "Morning not know any better than she did, and could only run Star!" beside her. The boy was faster than her, she realized, "Here!" a voice shouted from a short way ahead. but he paced her, still holding her hand. What did "Who's there?" Jeddin's letter say - a temple, was it? The boat Qinnitan yanked Pigeon up what she hoped was the moored across from a temple? But what temple? correct gangplank. The man who had been chasing They came down out of Sailmakers' Row and onto the them stopped, hesitated for a moment, then turned quay, their pursuer's steps banging on the boards not away and took a few staggering steps into the far behind them. Qinnitan slowed and almost stopped, shadows and was gone from sight. Qinnitan leaned on daunted by the horrible sight of hundreds upon the ship's rail, gasping as the stars in the sky seemed hundreds of masts, of boats lined in their slips for to drift down and swirl around her like sparks. The what looked like a mile, all bobbing in turn as gentle masts and rigging were all around her, too, like some waves from the mild night sea ran down the length of kind of forest draped in spiderwebs, but she was able the quay. The footsteps grew louder and she began to to take in nothing else except burning air. sprint again. A rough hand grabbed her arm and straightened her "Little scallops!" the man panted. He seemed almost up, thrusting a lantern into her face. "Who are you? at their shoulders and Qinnitan reached for her last You shout as if you want to wake the dead." strength to stay ahead of him. "I eat little scallops!" "Is . . . this . . . the Morning Star of Kirous?" she In desperation she began to shout as loud as she gasped. could, "Hoy, the Morning Star! Morning Star! Where "It is. Who or what are you?" She thought she could are you?" until she ran out of breath. There was no see squinting eyes and a dark beard behind the reply, although she thought she saw movement on lantern, but it was hard to face the light. some of the dark ships. "We come . . . from Jeddin." Then her knees unlocked Now they all ran in silence for a moment, the man and the world spun around, the masts whirling like behind them wheezing but not slowing. "Morning merrymaking dancers as she fell into first gray, then Star!" Qinnitan screamed. "Where are you?" black emptiness. "Just up a few slips," someone shouted from one of the boats as they passed. · Qinnitan stumbled but Pigeon held her up. "Morning Star!" she shouted again, or tried, but her voice seemed quiet and strengthless, her legs soft as "We were told to expect you - although dressed as a 969 970 woman, not as a boy slave," said Axamis Dorza, She shook her head. "Only that Lordjeddin told me to captain of the Morning Star. He had brought her to the come to you and go where you carried me, that you small ship's tiny cabin. The boy named Pigeon and your men would protect me from his enemies." crouched at Qinni -tan's feet, silent and wide-eyed. She took a deep, shuddering breath, glad that she "We were even told that we might need to take you had every excuse for anxiousness. "Please, Captain, with us on short notice." Now he waved the forged tell me what my lord says." letter she'd written in Luian's chamber and closed with Axanus Dorza picked up the letter in his thick fingers Jeddin's seal. "We were not told we would leave and squinted. His eyes were so netted in wrinkles that without Lord Jeddin himself on board. What do you from the nose up he looked to be a great- know about this?" grandfather's age, but she guessed he was She breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the Hive and considerably younger. "It says only,'Take Lady the sacred protection of her beloved bees: apparently Qinnitan to Hierosol. All other plans must wait. Take the sailors had not heard of Jeddin's arrest. Now it her there tonight and I will meet you there." But meet was time to use the skills of deceit she had been us where, my lady? Hierosol is only a little smaller forced to learn in the Seclusion. "I don't know, than Great Xis! And why cross the ocean to Eion Captain. I only know that Jeddin told me to disguise instead of merely shipping to another port down the myself and bring this slave here, and to give you this coast and waiting for him there?" message." It was important, she reminded herself, not "I do not know, Captain." She suddenly felt as if she to know what Jeddin's purported letter said. "I know might tumble to the floor again in exhaustion. "You nothing else, I'm afraid. I am only glad we found you must do as you see fit. I put myself and my servant in before that man who was chasing us did whatever he your hands, as my lord Jeddin wished." planned to do." She did her best to sound like a The captain frowned and stared at the seal ring that queen, regal and sure of herself. he held in his other hand. "You have his seal as well But I am a queen, aren't I, at least of a sor t? Or I was. as the letter. How can I doubt you? Still, it is strange But it had never felt that way, not for a moment. and the men will be restless when they hear." The captain waved away the unimportant detail of "The palace is an unsettled place just now," she said their pursuer. "The docks are full of unnatural scum with as much quiet meaning as she could muster. like that, and others even worse, believe me. No, what "Perhaps your men will be happy to find themselves I do not understand is why we should leave without away from Great Xis for a little while." Lord Jeddin. I ask you again, do you know anything of Dorza gave her a hard stare. "Do you say there is this?" trouble in the palace? Is our lord involved somehow?" 971 972 She had baited the hook; it would not do to pull at the line too hard. "I have no more to say, Captain. To the wise, a single word is as good as a poem." 39 He went out then. Qinnitan fell back on the narrow bed, unable even to find the strength to protest when Winter's Eve Pigeon curled up on the hard floor as though he really were her slave. Out of the confusion in her own head, she suddenly heard the oracle Mudry's voice: DA NCING FOR WINTER: "Remember who you are. And when the cage is opened you must fly. It will not be opened twice." Dust, dust, ice, ice Was this what the old woman had meant? Qinnitan She wears the bones for eyes couldn't think anymore. She was too weary. I'm flying, Mother Mudry. At least, I'm trying to fly. . . She waits until the singing stops Within a few breaths she was asleep. - from The Bonefall Oracles She woke for just a few short moments. Above her head bare feet thumped on the planks and voices Puzzle was in surprisingly fine voice, a slight quaver rose, shouting instructions and singing songs of the the only thing to betray the passage of so many years. hard sea life as the sailors of the Morning Star Otherwise, Briony might have thought time had turned qfKirous prepared to journey to Hierosol. tail, that she was again a little girl sitting on her father's lap, the wind plucking in angry frustration at the roofs outside while they all sat safe and warm in the great dining hall. But those days were gone, she reminded herself. Nothing would bring them back. And if Tyne had really lost the battle, it could be that soon no one alive would even remember those times. Puzzle strummed his lute, continuing with the long, sad story of Prince Caylor and the Ever - Wounded Maid. 973 974 ". . . Then did he first glimpse her, the bleeding maid:" It was certainly a change from his dreadful, lugubrious paeans of praise to her, his comparisons of her to a virgin deity, full of aching stretches for rhymes - there The old jester crooned, telling of the knight's entrance were not many things that rhymed with "Zoria," into the Siege of Always-Winter, "merciful," or "goddess," after all. She was impressed and eve n pleased. She had given Tinwright a "He thought her sore hurt, e'en dead, and his noble commission as much to irritate Barrick and amuse herself as anything else, but perhaps he would heart. eventually prove a true poet after all. Did quail with woe to think that such a bloom must fade. Unless, she suddenly thought, he has stolen the whole thing from some obscure source. Before e'er it had been tasted by kiss, or figured by No, it was Winter's Eve. She would be charitable. She art; would even say something nice to him, although But then opened she her eyes, and, as she saw him nothing so fulsome as to fetch him puppy-dogging there, after her all evening. Smiled, though her beauteous face was wan and sad - "Thus, mstanter, Caylor pledged himself her slave, A pearl dtsplay'd upon the cushion of her golden hair - Declared that by her token whole worlds would he And he thought no empress of the south could match throw down, the loveliness she had. Yet she only shook her fair head and a reproachful Then Caylor's heart flew like an unhooded hawk, look him gave, straight to her breast, And raised her hands, white arms reaching from Although the troubled knight did not know whether he bloody -sleeved gown. were curst or blest." Then said she, `Good knight, worlds shall not woo me, nor words, She had to admit she was surprised, not so much to But only and you free me from this wound that steals find that Puzzle could still sing, but by the grace of my life Matty Tinwright's words. The young poet sat at the end of one of the front tables, near Puzzle's stool, Shall I be yours. looking as though he knew he had actually done something worthwhile. 975 976 One year gone I spurned haughty Raven, Prince of Yes, and they were certain that Dawet and his Birds, Hierosol men would ravish them as well, Briony thought sourly. On that night. And precious little help And he did my breast pierce with his terrible slow knife they were to me or anyone else . . . All of the physick of my father's court cannot staunch She shied away from any more thoughts of Kendrick's or even slow. death, let her mind instead hold the memory of Dawet The woun d that dire blade to me gave, nor stop this dan-Faar. Surrounded by red -flushed, drunken faces, crimson flow.' " she found herself longing for his company. Not in a romantic way - she looked around as though even the Briony even smiled at Puzzle, who barely noticed. He thought might have been obvious to those around her, but the nobles were busy licking suet pudding from was enjoying this moment of attention so much that their fingers and calling for more wine. No, it would he seemed to forget it was the royal family to whom he owed his position, not the courtiers, who have been a pleasure simply because of the quickness of his wit. There was no blurnness in considered the old man a rather tiresome jest. Still, he Dawet, who seemed always sharp as a knife. She was the center of all eyes, or should have been, and he clearly reveled in it. doubted he drank at all, and felt certain that even if he did, few had ever seen him the worse for it . . . The rest of the assembled nobility seemed strange to Oh, by all the gods, what will we do? How will we save Briony. Conversation was awkward, many whispering, others speaking too loudly, even after an evening's ourselves? It had been gnawing at her since she received Brone's news and she couldn't keep it at bay indulgence. The Tollys and their allies had made it any longer. She couldn't even bear to consider that clear they considered the feast as an insult to Gailon's memory and had not appeared. Thus, there had been anything might have happened to Barrick, but had to accept the possibility that Tyne Aldritch and his army even more drinking than would be expected on had failed. What then? How could she and her nobles Winter's Eve, mulled wine being sluiced down throats as though many of those present expected the worst plan for a siege against such a mysterious force? and expected it soon - for gossip about the possible Thoughts turning round and round between those who fate of Southmarch's army had sped through the were missing - she could not have imagined a castle all evening, tales of terror and defeat flying to Winter's Eve so friendless, so bereft of family - and ever y corner like little white moths rushing out of a the malevolent creatures who seemed now to be long -closed wardrobe. Briony herself had needed to separated from her beloved Southmarch Castle only soothe Rose and Moina, both in tears, who were by the narrow protection of the bay, Briony suddenly certain that they would be ravished by monsters. remembered that she had promised she would see 977 978 her stepmother Anissa tonight Her first inclination was also say, well done, sir You have breathed new life to send a servant to make her apologies, but as she into an old and beloved tale " She tried to remember looked around the room, at the sickly, over-cheerful how the story of the Ever-Wounded Maid ended, faces of those who were still upright, at the ruin of the hoping that Tinwright had not adopted some modern meal scattered down the tables, bones and shreds of approach to the finish that she hadn't heard, which skin and puddles of red wine like the remnants of would make it embarrassingly clear that her mind had some dreadful battle, she decided that she could think wandered. "Like Caylor, you have found the song that of nothing better than to walk for a time in the night heals the Raven Prince's dreadful deed." air, and that a visit to her bedbound stepmother, who She seemed to have got it right. Tinwright looked as was only days away from giving birth at most, would though he wished he could throw himself before her be the most acceptable excuse. and become her footstool. Although it took some doing, she even managed to Yes, but he won't be able to find a rhyme for that create in herself a small amount of sympathy for either, she thought. It was hard to break old habits. Anissa If Briony felt so helpless, with the reins of the She stood with a rustling of underskirts and said, "I kingdom in her hands, how much worse must it feel to must go now and take the tidings of the new season her stepmother, big with child and forced to sift to my stepmother, Queen Anissa." Those who could through the conflicting rumors that flittered into her still do so levered themselves upright as well. "Please, tower? sit yourselves down. The feast is not ended. Servants, A smattering of lazy applause and a few drunken keep the wine flowing until I return, so our guests may cheers caught her attention the song had ended. celebrate the warmth that the Orphan brought back. Briony was a little shamed to realize she had missed Remember, there is no season so dark that it does not most of it. see the sun come again." "Very fine," she said out loud, and clapped her hands. Gods protect me, she thought as she swished toward "Well sung, good Puzzle. One of the best the door in her great hooped skirt, I'm beginning to entertainments we have had for many a year." talk like one of Tinwright's characters. The aged man beamed. Heryn Millward, the young soldier from Suttler's Wall, "Serve him," she directed one of the pages, "for such was one of the two guards accompanying her tonight; splendid singing must be thirsty work." the other was a slightly older fellow, dark-stubbled and taciturn. She remembered to wish them both good "I will not take all credit, Highness," Puzzle said as he tidings for this night and tomorrow's holy day - the held out his hand for the cup. "I was assisted." courtesy acted as a sort of hedge against being "By Master Tinwnght, yes You told us. And to him I 979 980 impatient at how slowly they walked, encumbered by her eyes fill with tears and wiped angrily with her armor and halberds. sleeve. "Barrick is gone, too, fighting those creatures. And there are worse things, things you do not know. She had just crossed the outer courtyard and had May all the gods confound you, Chaven, where have almost reached Anissa's residence in the Tower of you been?" Spring when a figure stepped out of the shadows in front of her. Her heart slithered up into her throat and He shook his head slowly. "I deserve that curse, but she only recognized the apparition one thin moment largely because I have been foolish. I have been hard before young Millward shoved the spiked head of his at work trying to solve a dire riddle - more than one, halberd into the intruder's guts. to be honest - and it all has taken longer than I guessed it would.Yes, I know about the Twilight "Stop, guard!" she cried."Chaven? Merciful Zoria, what People, and about Barrick. I was absent from the are you doing? You could have been killed! And court, but not from gossip, which travels everywhere." where have you been?" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "Riddles - The physician looked startled and even shamefaced there are already too many riddles! In any case, I am as he stared down at the sharp spike wavering in front going now to see my stepmother. I must do that of his belly. When he lifted his gaze to Briony's, she before we can talk." saw that he was pale and puffy, blue-circled beneath the eyes, and that he had not put a razor to his beard "Yes, I know that, too. And I think I should accompany for days. "My apologies for frightening you, Princess," you." he said. "Although it would have been worse for me "She is close to her time." than for you, it seems." "And that is another reason I should come." As great a relief as it was to see him, she was not She waved at the guards to lower their weapons. prepared to forget her anger. "Where have you been? "Come along, then. I will drink a posset with her, then Merciful Zona, do you know how many times in these we will go." latest days I wanted desperately to talk to you? You "It may not be so swift, Highness," Chaven suggested. have always been our adviser as well as our doctor. Where did you go?" Briony did not have the patience on this long, woeful night to try to work out what he meant. "That is a long story, Highness, and not one for a cold and windy courtyard, but I will tell you all the tale soon." · "We are at war, Chaven! The Twilight People are on our doorstep and you simply disappeared." She felt 981 982 There seemed no proper way, Chert reflected, to when he caught a glimpse of the white neck working prepare yourself to die, but it also seemed as though beneath that chin as the stranger looked Gil up and this was the second or third time in the last few days down that Chert was convinced once and for all that he had been forced to try. "I don't want to," he said the stranger was not wearing a mask but his own quietly. The armored, yellow-eyed shapes looked actual flesh. down at him without a glimmer of emotion, their spear "His name is Gyir the Storm Lantern," Gil announced points a ring of dull gleams in the grayish light, but the suddenly. "He says we are to follow him." strange man beside him stirred. Chert laughed, a broken sound even to his own ears. "Of course not," Gil said. "All that live cling to life. If he had not gone mad, then Gil had - or the world Even, I think, my people." had. "Says? He has no mouth!" Chert bowed his head, thinking of Opal and the boy, "He speaks. Perhaps it is only that I feel his words how little all this meant, how foolish and unnatural it inside me. Do you not hear him?" was compared to his life with them. There was a rising "No." Chert was weary, as exhausted as if seeping patter that for a moment he felt certain was his own minerals had soaked his bones and changed them to racing heart. Then he recognized the sound and heavy rock. When the faceless rider turned back looked up, not in hope, but instead almost in toward the city and the guards prodded Chert with annoyance that the horrible waiting would continue. their spears, he marched ahead of them, but despite The man, if it was a man, rode one of the largest the sharp pikes at his back he did not have the will or horses Chert had ever seen: the top of his own head the strength to move swiftly. would barely reach its knees. The rider was large, too, but not freakishly so, dressed in armor that looked a · bit like polished tortoiseshell, gray and brown -blue. A sword dangled at the newcomer's side; under his arm he carried a helmet in the shape of an animal's skull, The Square of Three Gods had been draped all some unrecognizable creature with long fangs. around with dark-colored cloths, so that even in the But it was his face that was the strangest part. For a light of many torches the buildings hid behind veils of moment Chert thought the tall rider was wearing a shadow. She was waiting for them in a chair before mask of ivory, for other than the ruby-red eyes the temple steps, a plain, high-backed chair out of beneath the pale brow the stranger had no face, only some merchant's house that she invested with the a slight vertical ridge where a nose might be and a terrible dignity of a throne. smooth expanse of white down to the chin. It was only She was as tall as Gyir but both more and less 983 984 ordinary to look at; she was beautiful in a weird, "She wants the mirror," Gil said, getting to his feet. drawn -out way, the planes of her brown face and her The idea of resisting never even occurred to him bright eyes just a bit beyond human from most angles, Chert fumbled out the circle of bone and silvered then - when she cocked her head to listen to some crystal, held it out. The woman did not take it from sound Chert could not hear, or to look over the him, instead, Gil plucked it from Chert's palm and square, surveying her legions who sat patiently on the passed it to her with another bow. She held it up to ground - she abruptly seemed too extreme to pass for catch the torchlight and for a moment the Funderling a person even at a distance, like something seen thought he saw a look of anger or something much through deep water or thick clear crystal. like it flick across her spare, stony face. She spoke She was dressed as for war in a suit of black plate again, a long disquisition of clicks and murmurs. armor covered almost everywhere, but most heavily "She says she will honor her part of the Pact and send on the back and shoulders, with shockingly long the glass to Qul-na-Qar, and that for the moment spines, so that from a distance it was hard to make there will be no more killing of mortals unless the out her shape at all. Now that he was kneeling before Peopl e are forced to defend themselves." Gil listened her, it was clear to Chert that she had two arms and as she spoke again, then he replied, more swiftly and two legs and a slender, womanly figure, but even ably now, in that same tongue. when he finally gathered the courage to look up at "She speaks to me as though I am the king himself," her, it was hard to look very long There was Gil said quietly to Chert. "She says that by the something in her, some blunt, terrifying power, that success of this deed, I have won a short truce for the pushed his eyes away after only a few moments. mortals I told her that the king speaks through me, but Yasammez, Gil had called her as he made a only from a distance, that I am not him." sleepwalker's obeisance. His onetime mistress, he King? Distance? Chert had not the slightest idea what had said before. He had not spoken to her again since any of this signified. The oppressive strangeness was he knelt and saluted her, nor she to him. so thick it made him want to weep, but there was also The tall woman with the thickly coiling black hair now some stubborn thing in him like the rock that was in lifted a gauntleted hand and said something in the his people's names and hearts, a residue of spirit that unfamiliar tongue, her voice deep as a man's but with did not want to show fear before these beautiful, its own slow music. Chert felt all the hairs on his neck savage creatures. rise at once. This is all a nightmare, a part of him The woman Yasammez extended her arm, the mirror shrilled, trying to explain what could not be, but that in her long, long fingers. The faceless creature called part was buried deep and he could barely hear it. A Gyir the Storm Lantern strode forward and took it from nightmare You will wake up soon. 985 986 her No words were exchanged, at least none that fractionally more lively before. "You are to go, since Chert could hear Gyir made a bow as he put it into the there is truce." purse at his waist, then drew his fingers across his "Truce?" Chert finally located his own voice. "What eyes in a ritual manner before mounting his great gray does that mean?" horse. "It does not matter." Gil shook his head. "You mortals "She bids him take it swiftly and carefully to the blind did not cause the truce and you cannot change it. But one in Qul -na-Qar," Gil explained, as though he could the place called Southmarch will be unharmed." He understand silent commands as well as spoken ones. paused as Yasammez said something stiff and harsh "She says if anything happens to the queen in the in her own tongue. "For a little while," Gil clarified. glass, then she,Yasammez, will make all the earth And then almost before he knew it, Chert was weep blood." snatched up by rough hands and set on the saddle of Chert only shook his head. He was having trouble a horse and within moments Market Road and the city paying attention to any of what was happening now. It began to fly past him on either side. He never saw the was all too much. armored rider behind him, only the arms stretching Gyir swung up into the saddle and jabbed at the past him on either side that held the reins. Like the horse's flanks with his spurs. The beast's hooves dug orphan in the big folk's most beloved story, he dared into the earth of Temple Square and then rider and not even look back until he was dropped mount sped off, vanishing from sight so quickly that unceremoniously on the beach beside the caves. they might have been marionettes suddenly yanked Chert knew he should try to remember everything - he from the stage. knew it was all important, somehow; after all, his son After a long silence the woman or goddess or female had given everything but his life for that mirror and monsterYasammez spoke aloud again, her voice whatever bargain it might signify - but at the moment buzzing like a hummingbird's wings just inches from all he could imagine doing was crawling down into the Chert's ear. Gil listened silently. The woman looked nearest tunnel to sleep a little while, so he would have from him to the Funderling - her eyes seemed to glow the strength to stagger home to Funderling Town. before Chert's relucta nt gaze, like twin candle flames in a dark cave, and he had to look away before he · was drawn into that empty cavern and lost forever - then Chert's companion finally spoke. Briony led Chaven th rough the covered walk and out "I am to stay." Gil sounded neither happy nor sad, but into the open flagstone courtyard in front of the Tower there was something dead in his voice that had been 987 988 of Spring. The two guards leaning against the great none of the usual crowd of serving -women or even the outer door straightened up in wide -eyed surprise midwife appeared to be present. Briony walked to the when they saw her. She was too annoyed by this bed and pulled back the curtains. Her stepmother was errand and how it for ced her to wait before learning sleeping with her mouth open and her hands curled Chaven's news to remember to wish this new pair of protectively across her belly. Briony gently rubbed her guards the tidings of the season, but she remembered shoulder. on the stairs and promised herself she would make "Anissa. It's me, Briony. I've come to have a drink with amends on the way out. you and wish you a good Orphan's Day." They mounted to the door of Anissa's residence and Anissa's eyes fluttered open, but for a moment they knocked. A long time passed before the door opened didn't seem to take in much of anything. Then they a little way. An eye and a sliver of face peered out. found her stepdaughter and widened th e way Selia's "Who is there?" had when she saw Chaven. "Briony? What are you Briony made an impatient sound. "The princess doing here? Is Barrick with you?" regent. Am I allowed to come in?" "No, Anissa," she said gently. "He has gone with the Anissa's maid Selia opened the door and stepped Earl of Blueshore and the others, don't you back. Briony strode into the residence, her two remember?" guards, after a quick survey of the room, took up The small woman tried to sit up, groaned, then got her stations outside the door Selia looked at the princess elbows planted in the cushions and finally managed to from beneath her eyelashes, as though ashamed to lever herself upright. "Yes, of course, I am still sleepy. have kept her out even for a moment, but when she This child, it makes me sleep all the time!" She looked saw Chaven, her eyes grew wide with surprise. Briony up and down, frowned. "But what brings you He was certainly a surprise to me, Briony thought I here, dear girl?" suppose it's been just as long since they've seen him "You invited me. It's Winter's Eve. Don't you here either. "I've come as invited, to have a Winter's remember?" Eve drink with my stepmother," she told the young "Did I?" She looked around the room. "Where are woman. Hisolda and the others? Selia, why are they not "She is over there." Selia's Devonisian accent was a here?" little stronger than Briony remembered, as though "You sent them away, Mistress. You are still full of being caught off-guard made it harder for the young sleep, that is all, and you forget." woman to speak well. The room was dark except for But now Anissa noticed Chaven and again she low flames in the fireplace and a few candles, and 989 990 showed surprise. "Doctor? Ah, is it truly you? Why are the guardsman know to watch her, not the physician, you here? Is something wrong with the child?" while waiting to be told what to do. He joined Briony by the bedside. "No, I don't believe "If you are innocent, madam, I will beg your pardon so," he said, but with little of his usual good humor. most devoutly. And in no case will I harm you or your unborn child. I wish only to show you something." Anissa detected this and her face tightened. "What? Chaven put his hand into his pocket and produced a What is wrong? You must tell me." grayish object about the length of a child's thumb. "I shall," said Chaven. "If the princess regent will allow Now that he had moved into the light, Briony noticed me a moment's indulgence. But first I think she should for the first time that the physician's clothes were call in the guards." ragged and dirty. She felt another stab of doubt. "Guards?" Anissa struggled hard to get out of bed Chaven held out the stone and both Anissa and her now, her skin pale, voice increasingly shrill. "Why maid Seha shrank back as though it were the head of guards? What is going on? Tell me! I am the king's some poisonous serpent. "What is it?" Anissa wife!" pleaded. Briony was completely bewildered, but allowed "That is indeed the question," said Chaven. "A Chaven to move to the door and invite in young question I have worked hard to answer. It has taken Millward and his stubbled comrade, both of whom me to some strange places and to some strange folk looked more ner vous to be in the queen's bedroom in recent days, but I think I know. In the south it is than if they had faced an armed foe. Selia moved to called a kulikos. It is a kind of magical stone, most where her mistress now sat on the edge of the bed, often found on the southern continent, but they the queen's pale little feet dangling down without quite occasionally make their way north to Eion - to the reaching the floor. The maid put a protective arm sorrow of many." around Anissa's shoulders and looked defiantly back "Don't touch me with it!" Anissa shrieked, and at Chaven. altho ugh Briony was puzzled by what the physician "You are giving fright to me," the queen said, her was doing, she could not help feeling that her accent thicker now, too. "Briony, what are you doing stepmother was reacting too strongly. here? Why are you treating me so?" Chaven looked at Anissa sternly. "Ah, you know of Briony didn't answer her stepmother, but couldn't help such things, I see. But if you have done nothing wondering if she had been too quick to let Chaven wrong, madam, you have nothing to fear." have his way. Perhaps he had disappeared because "You are trying to bring a curse for my baby! The he was deranged. She caught young Millward's eye king's child!" and did her best to hold it for a moment, trying to let 991 992 "What is the point of this, Chaven?" Briony demanded. "Which makes it all the stranger that I should find the "She is about to give birth, after all. Why are you mark of something having landed in the loose soil at frightemng her?" the edge of the garden beneath that window. The marks were deep, so that even though many days had He nodded. "I will tell you, Briony . . . Highness. One passed, they had not disappeared." of the workers on your brother's tomb brought this stone to me because he thought it strange. I thought Briony stared at him. "Wait a moment, Chaven. Are little of it at the time, I must sadly admit, but there you suggesting that Anissa . . . a woman carrying a have been many things on my mind since Kendrick's child, the king's child . . . jumped out of the upstairs death. I know I am not the only one." window? All the way to the edge of the garden? That she somehow killed Kendrick and his guards, then Briony glanced at the two women huddled on the jumped down and escaped?" She took a breath, held edge of the bed. The chamber felt odd, as though a out a hand as she prepared to have the guards arrest storm hung just above them, making the air prickle. him. "That is truly madness." "Go on, get to the point." "Yes, make him go away," Anissa wailed. "Briony, "Something about this thing troubled me, though, and save me!" I began to wonder if it might be one of a certain class of objects mentioned in some of my older books. I "He is frightening my mistress, the qu een," cried Selia. discovered that the place it had been found was in a "Why don't the guards stop him?" direct line between the outside window of a room near "It is certainly much like madness to believe such a Kendrick's chambers and the Tower of Spring - the thing, Highness," Chaven agreed. He seemed very tower in which we now find ourselves, a building calm for a lunatic. "That is why I think you should hear almost completely given over to the residence of the all my tale before you try to understand. You see, I king's wife and her household." knew I could not make anyone believe a tale like that - "He is talking in madness," Anissa moaned. "Make I did not really believe it myself - but I was frightened him stop, Briony I am getting so frighted." and intrigued by what I had learned about kulikos stones. I decided I must know more. I went in search The physician looked to her, but Briony's heart was of knowledge, and eventually fou nd it, although the beating faster now and she wanted to hear the rest. price was high." He paused and wiped at his forehead "The windows of those chambers are all high above with his tattered sleeve. "Very high. But what I learned the ground," she reminded him. "Brone searched them is that in the south of Eion they believe a kulikos stone all. There was no rope left behind." summons a terrible spirit. So powerful is this ancient "Yes." The room was warm. Chaven was perspiring, dark sorcery, so dreadful, that in many places even his forehead glinting with sweat in the candlelight. 993 994 possessing one of these stones will earn the bearer He thrust the small gray object closer to the king's death on the instant." wife. "Here is the stone. Look at it. It was tossed aside by the one who employed it to murder the prince Listening to such words by flickering candlelight, regent after she had used it up, but doubtless a little of Briony felt as though she were in some story - not a those dark magicks still remain. Touch it, my lady, and tale of heroism and heavenly reward like the one if you have anything to hide, the stone will show that." Puzzle had just sung at the feast, but something far He extended his hand, bringing the stone close to her older and grimmer. bare arm. Anissa tried to squirm away from it as "Why do you say all this foolishness to my mistress though it were a hot coal, but couldn't disentangle when she is not well?" demanded Selia in a shrill herself from the protective embrace of her maid Selia. voice. "Even if someone has done some bad thing "No!" Selia snatched the milky-gray stone out of and then run past the tower where she lives, what is Chaven's hand so quickly that as he closed his fingers that to us? Why do you say that to her?" on nothingness, the girl had already pulled it against The guards standing by the door were murmuring to her own breast. He stared in surprise. "There is no each other now, confused and a little fearful. Briony need for this," the maid declared, then snapped out knew she couldn't let it all go on much longer. "State something in a language Briony did not recognize - a your case, Chaven," she or dered. short, sharp cry like a hawk falli ng on its prey. "Very well," he said. "I have learned that there is Briony tried to say something, to curse the young something interesting about the murderous kultkos woman for interfering, but a change in the air of the spirit. It is female, always female When it is room suddenly made it hard to talk, a cold filling and summoned, it only will inhabit the bodies of women." tightening of her ears as though she had dunked her "Madness!" cried Anissa. head into the water. "And it is particularly a favorite weapon among the "There is no need for this, or for anything else." witches of Xand and of the southernmost lands of Seha's voice suddenly seemed to come from a great Eion Lands like Devonis." distance. "I did not drop the stone away as a man drops away a maid when she is a maid no longer. I Anissa turned to her stepdaughter, holding out her was weary and it fell from me, and when I was strong hands. Briony couldn't help shrinking back just a little. "Why do you let him say this to me, Briony? Have I not enough aga in to go back and search for it, it was gone." The girl's voice rose, ending on a triumphant always been kind to you? Because I am from Devonis, cry, harsh, but still muted by the strange squeezing of I am a witch?" the air. "No one lets to drop a kuhkos stone, little man! "It is easy enough to discover," Chaven said loudly. Not by choice!" Selia lifted her hand and put the stone 995 996 in her mouth. as Briony gaped in astonishment, as if it built itself out of the very dust whirled through the chamber by the Her face abruptly blurred and changed, her torchlit rushing air. skin seeming to shrink away even as something darker unfolded from inside This devouring of light by A glint of eyes from deep in the dark instability of the darkness spread over her in the matter of a few face, then the thing lifted an impossibly long hand. heartbeats, as though someone had tossed a rock Scythelike claws clacked and rasped against each into a stream in which the girl was reflected, muddying other as it advanced on Briony. She stumbled back, the surface. The strangling air of the chamber finally almost boneless with fear, knowing now beyond doubt began to move, but instead of bringing relief it sped what had killed her brother Kendrick. She was faster and faster, a breeze that became a harsh wind, weaponless, wearing an impossible, ridiculous dress. then a full gale, swirling so swiftly that Briony could She was doomed. feel needle-sharp bits of dust and flecks of stone Briony grabbed up a heavy candleholder and swung stinging her skin. The guards shouted in surprise and it, but one of the thing's clawed hands swept it from terror but she could hear them only faintly. her grasp with a ringing clash Something rushed past The candles blew out Now only the fire gave light, and her, a long pole crashed into the thing's stomach and even the flames were bending toward the dark shape for a moment it was driven back. growing before the bed, the shape that had been the "Run, Highness!" screamed the young guardsman pretty maid Selia. Anissa screamed, a thin, threadlike Millward, trying to keep the thing pinioned on the end sound. Briony tried to call to Chaven, but something of his halberd like a boar. "Lew, help me!" had knocked the little man to the floor where he lay His fellow soldier was slow to come forward, by the limply mot ionless, perhaps even dead. The room was time he did take a few timid steps into the blinding filling with the mingled smells of hot metal and mud storm of grit, the thing had shattered Millward's and blood - but blood most of all, powerful, heavy, and halberd like a stick of sugar candy and was free again. sour. It closed with the second guard and dodged his Strangely, Briony could still see something of Anissa's swinging pike. Instead of running, Briony stared, maid in the horror, a thickness at its core that echoed transfixed. Why didn't the guards draw their swords - her shape, a gleam of her features m the dark, crude who could be fool enough to fight with such long mask, but mostly it was a blur of growth, an weapons in a small room. The apparition ripped at the inconstant, shadowy thing armored like a crab or second guard's midsection with a dull flash of talons spider, but far more irregular and unnatural Jagged- and he fell back, clutching at his shredded armor, edged plates and lengthening spikes of powdered gouting blood black a tar. s stone and other hard things grew and solidified even 997 998 The thing now slouched between Briony and the door. She held it in front of her, knowing it would be no Her moment of indecision had left her trapped. She more use than a broomstraw against that strength and thought she saw something moving behind the those terrible, hooked talons. monstrous shape - was it Chaven escaping? The Then a blossom of flame rose in the air behind the young guard Millward had finally drawn his sword, he thing, haloing it for a moment so that it seemed to swi ped at the thing but it gave no ground, only let out have taken on a new aspect, no longer a dark, muddy a rumbling hiss, a sound more like stone scraping on nightmare but a fire demon from the pits of Kernios' stone than the breath of a living animal, and sank deepest realm. The fire crashed onto its murky head back on itself, its shadowy form became darker and and shoulders in a shower of sparks and tumbling thicker. For a heartbeat Briony thought she could see ribbons of flame. The creature let out a rasping howl the maid Selia's face in it, triumphant and deranged, of surprise that made Briony's insides quiver as lips curled back in a silent scream of joy. though they had been completely turned to liquid. It The young guardsman leaped forward, shouting with turned to lash out at Chaven, who jumped back, terror even as he hacked at the shapeless thing. For a dropping the iron fire basket from his smoking, moment it seemed he might even be hurting it - the blackened hands, and somehow avoided being torn in monstrosity had shrunk to almost human proportions half by the sweep of the talons. Flames leaped on the and the claws spread like pleading hands, the dark thing's body and crowned its shapeless head, burning face all moaning, toothless mouth. Then the talons higher and higher until they licked at the ceiling. darted out almost too quickly to be seen and Heryn Stumbling backward, it pulled the curtains from the Millward sagged and collapsed backward, blood bed, tangling itself like a bear in a net. The bubbling from the hole of his eye socket, his face a diaphanous cloth sparked and swirled and now the red ruin. flames were bound to it. The shadow-shape writhed, flapping its clawed hands, and Selia's face came into Briony could barely breathe, her heart squeezed in view again, this time twisted in a grimace of alarm. It her chest by terror until it was near to bursting. The tore at the flaming curtains and they began to fall kuhkos demon moved toward her, edges shifting, away; in a moment it would be free again. Cold fury nothing quite clear except the gleam of its eyes and sent Briony forward with both hands wrapped around the clicking of the long, curved claws as they opened the broken halberd staff, which she drove as hard as and closed, opened and closed. She stumbled and she could into the center of the terrible thing. It was slid to the floor, fumbling desperately for a stool, like running into a stone column - Briony flew back anything to keep those terrible knives at bay. Her from the impact, dizzied - but the ragged hole of the hand closed on something, but it was only the butt of thing's mouth popped open and something flew out dead Millward's halberd, a length of splintered wood. 999 1000 and clattered across the stone floor. the fire now smoldering in the carpets. When she was certain it had stopped moving, she picked up a The kulikos beast howled again, this time in true pain chamber pot and emptied it over the burning shape, and terror, but the air was suddenly full of sparks and dousing the worst of the fire and adding the stench of flying dust. The wind that had swirled it into being now boding urine to the dreadful odor of fire and blood. As seemed to be pulling it apart. she listlessly began to stamp out the rest of the flames Briony tried to get up, but the beast's grating screech, Chaven crawled toward her, his hands blackened, his so loud that it threatened to shake loose the roof face stretched in a rictus of pain. timbers, made her stumble and fall again, and so the "Don't," he said hoarsely. "We shall have no light." retaliatory sweep of claws missed her and she lived. The thing that had been Selia threw itself to the floor, As absently as if someone else inhabited her body, moaning as it scrabbled after the lost kulikos stone. Briony found a candle and lit it from a bit of flaming The crawling shape was wreathed in flame, but at its bed curtain, then finished the job of putting out the core the human and demon essences were in fires. She lit another candle. She was not crying, but confusion now, flickering and rippling in smoke. It she felt as though she should have been. lurched up, hissing triumphantly, but the thing "Why?" clutched in its taloned hand was only a thimble - Chaven shook his head. "I was a fool. Because she perhaps one that had belonged to the maid herself. was ill before Kendrick died, and ill afterward, I The shape dropped the silvery thing and took a thought the maid truly had the fever that struck lurching step backward with a bellow of pain and Barrick. I see now she was only preparing the ground despair, the Selia-face now a visible mask of agony. before time for the weakness that would overcome her Briony's broken pikestaff shuddered in its chest, the after using the kuhkos. I thought the wi tch must be wound a fiery hole. It stumbled back against the bed Anissa and I tried to bluff her I did not guess the stone and the entire canopy finally pulled loose and fell atop could work again without much preparation, some it, a blanket of roaring fire. The shadow-shape roared kind of intricate charm . . ." and thrashed as the fire leaped upward, then, with a "No, why did she kill Kendrick? Was she going to kill mewling noise that for the first time had something me as well?" human in it, fell forward and lay stretched on the floor, twitching in the flames. Chaven stared down at the sodden, scorched mass .He peeled back a corner of the curtain. Briony was In the sudden stillness, Briony felt as though she had startled to see Selia's ordinary dead face, eyes open, been carried away to the moon, to some country from mouth gaping. Whatever spell had gripped the girl had which she could never return to the life she knew. She now passed, leaving nothing behind to show what she stared at the thing wrapped in burning curtains, and 1001 1002 had been except a smeared residue of grit, dust, and looked her up and down, amazed. She could only ash on her skin, clotted into a foul mud. "Yes, she guess what she looked like, smeared in ash and blood would have killed you, perhaps by poison - and and worse, but the guards certainly seemed terrified. Barrick, too, if he'd been with you. Your stepmother There was no time to coddle them or make up stories. did not invite you here, Selia herself did. That is why "By all the gods, are you both deaf? Did you hear Anissa seemed so confused. Why did she do it? For none of that happening inside? People are dead. The whom, I think is the better question, and I have no queen is about to give birth. One of you go upstairs answer." He examined his black, blistered hands and and help Chaven, the other run to find the midwife said ruefully, "I was so certain it could only be Anissa . Hisolda. I don't know where she's gone - Anissa's . ." maid probably sent her away." He looked at Briony and she stared back, both struck "Sh - she and the other w - w - omen went to the with the same thought. "Anissa?" she said. kitchen!" said one of the goggle -eyed guards. Briony s stepmother was curled on the floor on the far "Then go, curse you, go quickly! Fetch her!" side of the bed in a puddle of water, seemingly He ran ofe. The other, still looking at her as though oblivious to anything that had happened. The queen Briony was the most frightening sight of his short life, was half-delirious with pain, her hands clutching at her turned and dashed up the stairs into the tower. belly. "It is coming," she moaned. "The child. It hurts! I won't be the worst thing he's seen for very long. She Oh, Madi Surazem, save me!" stood, trembling beneath the naked stars, trying to "Get help," Chaven told Briony. "I am nearly useless catch her breath. The sound of people singing floated with these burns. Send for the midwife! Quickly!" to her across the empty courtyard. She hesitated for a moment. Amssa's wide-eyed look Winter's Eve, she remembered, but now it seemed of terror made her feel ill. She remembered her unutterably strange. Everything before the Tower of stepmother's fear as Chaven had all but accused her Spring seemed to have happened in another century. of murdering her stepson and the feverish feeling I just want to sleep, she thought. Sleep and forget. grew worse. The Loud Mouse, she and Barrick had Forget that moment when that dark thing had grown called their father's young wife, teasing, resentful. She out of dust and air and vile magicks, when her old life would never call this woman names again. of certainty, frail as it was, had vanished forever. Briony staggered out into the deserted tower with one Forget her stepmother, twitching in pain and fear. of the candles, made her way down the stairs and We've betrayed them all by our foolishness, she somehow did not fall. At the bottom she forced open thought. Father, Kendrick, Anissa, all of them. the door and found the two guards waiting there They Shaso. 1003 1004 She felt a dreadful stab of shame. Shaso, chained and suffering. She hesitated for a moment - she was so tired, so very tired - but pushed herself away from the 40 wall on which she had been leaning, away from the stones that to her exhausted muscles felt soft and Zoria's Flight inviting as a bed, and set out hmping toward the stronghold. One wrong would be put right before the dawn of Orphan's Day, in any case Zoria, merciful HEART OF A QUEEN: Zoria, she begged, if you ever loved me, give me a little more strength! As Briony left the courtyard and entered the Nothing grows from quiet colonnade, she thought she heard footsteps behind A pile of cut turves, a wooden box her, but when she turned there was no one there, the Carved with the shapes of birds stone path empty in the moonlight. She hobbled on - from The Bonefall Oracles toward the stronghold and the shackled ghost of her own failure. the maze garden behind the main hall was full of voices. The guests had left the table and bundled up against the cold to go outdoors - at least those seeking privacy they couldn't fi nd inside the brightly-lit halls. But how much privacy could there be, especially in full moonlight? It sounded like at least a dozen people were wandering through the maze, laughing and talking, women shushing the men, at least one fellow singing a bawdy old song about Dawtrey Elf-Spelled - something that didn't seem quite appropriate with the Twilight folk almost standing outside the gates. Winter was indeed crouching close this Winter's Eve, the air sharp and the wind picking up. Briony wasn't cold, but she knew she should be, in fact, she could hardly feel her body at all. She went past the outskirts 1005 1006 of the garden as quietly as she could, staying close to Anissa's chamber. the hedge of ancient yew trees, drifting toward the "Where are the keys?" stronghold like a floating spirit in a cloud of her own "Highness?" exhaled breath. She wanted nothing to do with any of "The keys? The keys to Shaso's cell! Give them to the courtiers. It had been all she could do simply to me." look at them across the dining hall tonight. Now, with the memory of the inhuman thing that had killed "But . . ." His eyes were wide. Kendrick lodged in her mind like a jagged shard of ice, I truly must look like a demoness. "Don't make me like the never-healing wound of the maiden in the shout at you, fellow Just give me the keys, then go song, she felt as though she would not be able to look and find your captain. Who is in charge with Vansen at any of their empty faces again without screaming. gone?" She found her way in through a back door of the hall, The man fumbled the heavy key on its ring down from but instead of making her way by the usual passages, a peg on the wall. "Tallow," he said after a moment's crossed through one of the small chambers behind panicky thought. "It's Jem Tallow, Highness." the throne room, avoiding the clutch of servants trying "Then go get him. If he's asleep, wake him up, to finish up their chores in time for a Winter's Eve although I can't imagine why he would be asleep on celebration of their own. No guards waited at the top Winter's Eve." But could it truly still be the same of the stairs down into the stronghold, and when she night? It had to be, but the thought was pushed open the unbarred door at the bottom, she unmanageably strange. "Tell him to bring soldiers and found only one man and his pike sitting through a meet me here. Tell him the princess regent needs him lonely watch. The guard was at least half asleep he now." Until she knew why the witch-maid Selia had looked up slowly at the noise of the door, rubbing his done what she did, until she found whether the eyes. She couldn't even imagine what she must look southern girl had allies in the murder of Kendrick, no like in her tattered gown, her face no doubt as one must sleep. streaked with ash and blood as her hands. "But . . ." "P-Pnncess!" He scrambled up onto his feet, fumbling "By all the gods, now!" for the handle of his weapon, which he managed to lift with the wrong end up. It would have been comic were The man dropped the keys in his alarm. Briony cursed it not all so miserable, the night so ghastly and full of in a very unladylike way and bent and snatched them blood and fire and if his stupidly earnest face hadn't from the floor. The guard hesitated for only a moment, looked so much like Heryn Millward s, the young then threw open the door and scuttled up the stairs. guard now lying dead in a puddle of his own blood in The lock on the cell was stiff and hard to turn, but with 1007 1008 both hands she managed to twist the key and at last Shaso pointed. "On that board on the wall." It was the door groaned open. The shape huddled on the taking him a long time to say each word. "I do not floor at the back of the cell did not move, did not even know which key fits these shackles. They have look up. scarcely ever been taken off." He's dead! Her heart, already so weary, sped again Briony s eyes filled with tears as she hurried to the and for a moment the darkness of the damp, cold board. She could see no difference between any of room threatened to swallow her up. "Shaso! Shaso, the dozen rings so she brought them all, weight that it's me, Briony! The gods forgive us for what we've pulled her arms down straight at her sides as she done!" hurried back to the cell. "Why didn't you tell me?" She began to fumble through the keys. She had to lean She ran to his side and tugged at him, relieved to hear close as she tried each in the lock of his shackles. the rasp of breath but horrified by how thin the old The old man's stench reminded her of the thing in man had become. He began to stir. "Briony . . ?" Anissa's chamber, but at least it was a more natural "We were wrong. Forgive us - forgive me Kendrick . . odor. "You didn't do it, so why didn't you tell me? ." She helped him sit upright. He smelled dreadful and What happened between you and Kendrick?" she couldn't help taking a step back. "I know who He was silent. First one, then the second of the killed Kendrick." shackles opened with a click of sprung iron. She could He shook his head. It was dark in the cell, the single not help feeling the wet wounds they had made on his brazier outside not enough to illuminate even such a wrists as she helped him to stand. He was smeared small space. She couldn't see his eyes. "Killed . . ." up and down with blood - but then, so was she. "Shaso, I know you didn't do it! It was Selia, Anissa's Shaso wavered, then managed to stand erect. He maid. She's . . she's some kind of witch, a shape- held out his hands, struggling for balance. "I did tell changer. She turned into . . . oh, merciful Zoria, some you that I did not kill your brother. I cannot speak of . . . some thing! I saw it!" any more than that," he said at last. "Help me up." His voice was rough with disuse. "For Briony loosed a small shriek of frustration. "What do the love of all the gods, girl, help me up." you mean? I told you, I know who murdered Kendrick. She did her best, tugging on his arm as he struggled Don't you understand? Now you must tell me why you to get to his feet. She babbled out the night's story to let us imprison you when it wasn't your fault!" him, not certain if he could even understand her in his He shook his head wearily. "My oath prevented me. It sick and weary state. The chains clanked and he still prevents me." slumped back down, defeated by their weight. "Where "No," she said, "I will not allow your stubbornness to . . are the keys for these?" she asked. 1009 1010 ." of confusion and bloody deeds behind you all across the castle tonight. The story I will tell will explain it all - The door of the stronghold creaked open and the but not to your credit." guard she had dispatched appeared in the doorway. He wore a distracted expression and his hands were "Traitor," rumbled Shaso. He slumped back against pressed against his stomach as though he cradled the wall, his strength apparently at an end. "It was . . . something small and precious. He took a step into the you and your brother who caused all this." chamber then stumbled and fell onto his face. In her "Some of it, yes." Hendon Tolly laughed. "And you, old anger and confusion it took Briony a moment to man, like a drunkard wandering in front of a heavy realize that he was not getting up, another instant to coach, did not get out of my way. And now you will notice the dark pool spreading beneath him. become the official murderer of the princess as well "Your master of arms is still the perfect knight, isn't as of Prince Kendrick." he?" Hendon Tolly stepped out of the stairwell and "What are you babbling about?" Briony demanded, into the room. He was dressed as though for a hoping that Tolly would speak long enough for her to funeral, but smiling like a child who had just been think of something, or for someone to come and save given a sweet. "A Xandian savage who would actually her. "Have you lost your mind?" But no one would die to preserve his honor." Three more men filed into come, she knew that. It was why he had stabbed the the room behind him, all wearing the Tollys' livery, all guard and let him die in front of her, as an illustration with drawn swords. "That is what makes my life easy, of her helplessness. The youngest Tolly was a cat you know - all these fools willing to die for honor." who liked to sport with cornered prey, and this was a "I have found out who killed my brother," Briony said, quality of sport he had been waiting for his entire life. startled and frightened. "I did not believe you had "Briony, little Briony." He shook his head like a doting anything to do with it. Why have you killed this guard? uncle. "So angry with my brother Gailon because he And why do you come before me in this threatening wanted to marry you and turn you into a respectable way?" She dr ew herself up to her full height. "Did you woman instead of the headstrong little trollop your have something to do with it?" She didn't believe she father allowed you to be. Such a monster, you thought could make Hendon Tolly hesitate about harming the him. But in truth, he was the only thing that stood reigning princess, but she might at least cause his between my brother Caradon and I and our plans for minions to have second thoughts. Southmarch. Which is why he had to die." "Yes, you really might have made a queen in time," "You . . . you killed Gailon?" Tolly said. "But you are green, girl-child, green. You "Of course. He opposed our contacts with the Autarch have come here without guards. You have left a trail from the first - he even came to argue with Kendrick 1011 1012 about it on the night your brother died. Caiadon and I explain them to her anon." He smiled again, mockingly had contacted Kendrick separately, you see, because cheerful. "By then you will be dead at Shaso's hand, a Gailon would not do it, and we had promised him that tragic echo of your brother's fate, and Shaso will be the Autarch would help him free your father in return dead by mine, or so everyone will hear. Then once we for a few small concessions about the sovereignty of have found and killed that fat physician, there will be certain southern nations. Kendrick had decided to no other story except ours. The Tollys will reluctantly take up our ally in Xis on his generous offer, you see." take the infant monarch under their protection. My brother will rule at Summerfield Court and I will rule "My brother would never do that!" here - although Caradon doesn't know that yet." He "Ah, but he did, or at least he agreed to do so. His actually made a small bow, as though he had done murder ruined what would have been a very useful her a service. "You see, that is the secret of history, bargain, at least for Caradon and myself. And for the little Briony - who tells the last story." Autarch, too, I suppose." He shook his head. "It is still Praise the gods, Chaven has escaped them, she a puzzlement to me - I can make no sense out of this thought. At least for the moment. Her heart was Devonisian servant girl and her place in things at all." beating so fast it seemed to drive the air out of her Briony was about to ask him another question, just to lungs. It was little enough to hope for - that sometime keep him talking - she was far too stunned and after her death, someone at least would know the terrified at the moment to absorb much of what truth, that the Tollys' story would not be the only tale Hendon Tolly was saying - but he raised his hand to of these days. silence her, then nodded at his guards. Hendon Tolly snapped his fingers. The three guards "Enough," he said. "Kill them quickly. We still have to moved forward, pikes out, pushing her back toward find that miserable little doctor." Shaso In this last moment she could only think blindly "You'll never get away with it!" of meaningless things - Barrick frowning over some petty irritation, Sister Utta drawing a careful circle on a Tolly laughed with genuine pleasure. "Of course we will. You Eddons, you talk of your sacred bond and scrap of parchment, the radiant smile of Zona in an old book - then a black shape flew past her shoulder the love of the people, but the world does not spin that and smashed into the face of the nearest guard, who way, however much you would like to believe it so. Your faithful subjects will forget you within months if pitched over backward, knocking down one of his fellows. A hand yanked Briony backward, then not days. You see, someo ne will have to protect something bright as a broken sun flew across the Anissa's newborn child - the last heir. It is a boy, by the by. The midwife is with her even now. Poor Anissa room and bounced off the wall, spattering blazing light across the guards and Hendon Tolly, who shouted in is much confused by the night's events, but I will 1013 1014 pain and surprise as flames sprang up on his heavy She did, grunting with the strain. A slowly widening black clothes. triangle of light spilling across the straw-covered cell floor showed that Hendon Tolly and his guards had Shaso was gasping like a dying man from the effort of decided to risk the door and were cautiously opening throwing first his chain, then the brazier. As he pulled it, but Briony and Shaso had managed to get the her toward the back of the stronghold, trapdoor in the bottom of the cell open as well. She Briony knew they had only postponed death. There was astounded to discover there was such a thing, but was nowhere to go, and the surprise assault had not this was no time for questions. At Shaso's mute been enough: already Tolly and his two remaining gesture she slid into the trap and found the ladder, guards were batting out the flames, although one of then stopped to hold it open so Shaso could clamber the soldiers was screeching in pain. down above her without losing his balance, but she As she staggered backward, she looked in anguish at was not much heartened: the pit seemed as hopeless the empty rack where the pikes were usually kept, a hiding place as the cell, however deep it might go. where on any other night but this odd combination of Shaso let the door fall down behind them, covering siege and festival some might have been found, then them in blackness. She heard something scrape and Shaso tugged her into the last cell and slammed the realized he was slamming shut a hidden bolt. A door behind them. moment later Tolly and his men were pounding on the trapdoor in a rage, the sounds echoing like thunder in "Hold it closed," the old man wheezed. "Just for . . . a moment." the narrow pit. "Crawl," Shaso said when they reached the bottom of Their enemy was just outside the door, too cautious to the shaft. "You will be able to stand soon." force it open without knowing what Shaso might be planning. "I will be happy to roast you alive in there," "By the gods - what is this?" Hendon Tolly shouted. He sounded breathless and no He shoved her hard. "Go! This is the stronghold of the longer quite so cheerful. Briony hoped his burns were castle, girl. The place of last resort in a siege. Don't agonizing. "It will suit our little tale just as well." you think there would be some secret way out if the Something creaked."Help me!" Shaso whispered, worst came to the worst?" voice ragged with pain. "It has come," she said, then decided to save her Briony took a step, stumbled and fell to her knees. breath for crawling. She found him by touch, found the heavy wooden In only a few moments Shaso's promise was fulfilled: thing in his bony hands. the narrow space widened until Briony couldn't feel "Lift!" the walls or ceiling. "Where does this go?" 1015 1016 "It lets out by the Spring Tower's water gate." through damp stone corridors and treacherous narrows that seemed httle more than holes dug "We must find Avin Brone We must alert the rest of through hard dirt, before they reached a small stone the guards!" room that smelled of tidal mud and bird droppings. It "No!" He grabbed at her leg. In the darkness, it was as had a high, slit window that bled moonlight, and for though she had been clutched by some root-fingered the first time since they entered the trapdoor she monster. Shaso's words came slowly as he fought for could see Shaso dan-Heza s bony, weary face. breath. "I do not trust Brone. In any case, we do not "We are in a storage room by the water gate," he said, know where he is. If Tolly's men find us, they will kill panting. She had ac tually heard him whimpering as he you immediately. They can always explain later that I crawled, a sound so bizarrely unexpected that it had had taken you hostage, that your death was an frightened her nearly as much as anything else she accident." had experienced on this mad and dreadful night. "No one will believe that!" Shaso showing pain, almost weeping! She could only "Perhaps not, in the light of tomorrow's day, but what imagine how dire his circumstances must truly be. good would that do you tonight? Or me, as I am "The Summerfield folk will be combing the castle. hacked to death in front of an angry crowd? Curse it, Others may be looking for you, too, but we can trust Briony Eddon, there is no time for this! We must get no one." out We must . . ." He paused to gasp for breath. It was "Surely. . ." terrifying to hear him so weak What if he died? What "Listen to me, girl! It is plain now how long and how would she do then? "You can stand now," he said at carefully the Tollys have been preparing, waiting for a last. "Take my hand. There is a place we can go." moment like this. Even if we reached Brone, even if "What is this tunnel? How did you know about it?" he proves loyal, who can know whether his guards are "I am the master of arms." He groaned in pain as he the same? We must get you away from here." stood. "It is my task to know of such things Avin Brone "Where? If there is so much danger, where can we knows, too. That is why he had me imprisoned in a go?" different cell." "First things first, Briony." He was shaking, trembling "Then why weren't Barrick and I told?" with the cold. "The only safe way to leave the castle is Shaso sighed, a mixture of regret and clench-jawed by water." pain. "Yo u should have been. Take my hand." "But the Twilight People are in the city just on the other side!" The journey seemed to last the better part of an hour, He shook his head. "Then we will go another way. 1017 1018 Across the bay and then southward down the coast. she wondered if she could entirely trust Shaso's There are places in Helmingsea . . . I have prepared . judgment. He was always so stiff-backed, so certain of . ." his own Tightness, but who could judge properly on such a night? What if he was wrong? Should she give "You . . . you thought something like this might up her throne without a fight, run away just for fear of happen?" Hendon Tolly? If she called to the guards, wouldn't For the first time the old man laughed. It was a hard they come to her in a heartbeat, their princess regent - sound to hear, and quickly became a racking cough wouldn't they hunt down Tolly like the murdering dog that was no more pleasant. "It is my task, Briony," he that he was? said when he could speak again. "My sworn task. To But what if, as Shaso feared, they did not? What if think of anything that might happen - anything - and they were secretly Tolly's men, already suborned with then prepare for it." lies or gold? Even with his body crippled and his life hanging by a Briony tried to imagine what her father would do, how thread, she thought she could hear a proud he would think Stay alive, he would have told her, she stubbornness in his words. It made her angry despite knew that. If you are alive, you make all that Tolly say; everything. "Shaso, why didn't you tell me the truth a he. But if someone puts an arrow in you, then the about Kendrick?" people have no choice but to believe him, because He shook his head. "Later. If we survive." He got Summerfield Court is the most powerful part of the slowly and awkwardly to his feet and held out a hand. kingdom outside Southmarch, and they have blood She shook it off and levered herself upright, conscious ties to the throne. for the first time of how weary she was too, how badly Shaso was leading her along the back rows near all of her ached. Skimmer's Lagoon, she suddenly realized. She had "Silent, now," he said. "Stay in the shadows." hardly ever been to this part of the castle, its narrow The alleyway outside the storage room was empty, streets full of ramshackle Skimmer houses, the quays although they could hear sentries talking on top of the jostling with the strangely shaped boats that seemed wall and a fire burned in the guardhouse beside the to house at least as many of the water folk as did the water gate. There had never been a night like this! more conventional dwellings that loomed beside the Winter festival being celebrated in the castle while docks. It seemed oddly quiet for Winter's Eve, terrible enemies were encamped just across the although she realized then that the hour must now be water, her stepmother's maid changing into a demon - approaching midnight; the streets were almost it seemed that anything, absolutely any horrible, deserted, some lights in high windows and a few ghastly, impossible thing could happen tonight, and snatches of faint music the only signs that people 1019 1020 even lived here. She could hear the tied-up boats she thought she knew what that boat had been bumping against the piers and the occasional sleepily carrying, and to whom. questioning call of a water bird. Selia's cursed witch-stone. If I had only paid more "Where are we going?" she whispered as they waited attention to what the Skimmers said . . . in the shadows to cross one of the larger streets. The The Skimmer girl recognized Briony and made a dwellings were crammed so close together and movement that was a sort of unschooled courtesy. leaned so alarmingly overhead that it seemed more "Highness," she said, but although interested, she did like a hornet's nest than any human place. Shaso not look overawed. Briony couldn't remember the girl's looked up and down, then waved for her to follow. name, so she only nodded back. "Here," he said. "This is the house of Turley, the The narrow passageway creaked like ships' timbers headman." as they walked down it. It smelled strongly, almost "Turley?" she whispered. It took her a moment to overpoweringly, of fish and salt and other less remember why the name was familiar. "I met him!" identifiable scents. The girl went ahead of them to open the door at the end of the hall. The room beyond Shaso did not reply, but knocked on the oval door; it was small and cold and the fire was tiny, as though was a strange patter n of sounds he made, too studied meant more for light than heat. A few candles burned to be accidental. A few moments later the door in the room as well, but it still wasn't bright enough for opened just a slice and two wide eyes peered out. "I Briony to be sure how many people sat crammed into need to speak to your father," Shaso said. "Now. Let the little space. She counted a dozen gleaming bald us in." heads before giving up, but more shapes were The girl stared as though she recognized him but crouched in the shadows against the walls. They all hadn't expected ever to see him at her door. "Cannot seemed to be men and they all turned to look at her be done, Lord," she said at last. "It is shoal-moot with roundly shining, blinking eyes, like frogs on a lily tonight." pond. "I don't care if it's the end of the world, child," the old "Headman Turley," said Shaso. "I need your help. I man growled. "In fact, it is the end of the bloody world. need a boatman.The life of the princess is in danger." Tell your father that Shaso dan-Heza is here on A room's worth of wide, wet stares grew even wider. deadly urgent business." The one called Turley muttered to his fellows for a The door opened and the girl stepped out of the way. moment before standing. "Honored, Shaso-na," he Briony realized she had seen this one before - the girl said at last in his slow, strangely-accented way, "we who, with her lover, saw the mysterious boat come are honored, but we are all here sworn to a shoal- into the lagoon the night before Kendricks' death. Now 1021 1022 moot. We may none of us leave until the night ends or they muttered in distress and surprise. else it be blasphemy. Even were one of us to die, his "You, Ena?" said her father. body would here remain until the sun's rise." "Me. I am as able with the boat as most men. This is "Is blasphemy worse than the death of the Princess of Olin s daughter, after all - we dare not send her away. Southmarch, Olin's daughter? Do you forget what you Who would give her shelter, who would take her owe him?" where she needs to go? Calkin? Sawney Wander- Turley winced a little, but his smooth face quickly Eye? There is a reason they are not here at the shoal- became impassive again. "Still, even so, great Shaso- moot. No, I will take her." ma." Her father hesitated, listening to the discontented Briony realized that the master of arms had murmurs of his fellows as he considered. His skin encountered someone as stubborn as Shaso himself mottled and his throat-apple bulged as though he and wished the situation allowed her to enjoy the would puff out some monstrous sack and give a spectacle. "Can't we wait until da wn?" she asked. froggy belch of anger, but instead he swallowed again and shook his head in disgust. Briony knew that "We dare not try to leave by boat in daylight. And gesture, had seen her own father make it many times. Hendon Tolly will not wait, but will find out soon where the passage we used gives out, and from there it will "Yes, Daughter. I see no other choice. You take them. be short work to think of searching along Skimmer's But be you careful, ever so careful!" Lagoon. Brone, too, if he thinks he is acting to save "I will. She is Olin's daughter and Shaso-Ma is a you, will not hesitate to send men house-to-house." shoal -friend." "But we want Brone to find us!" "Yes, but also careful for your own sake, you nasty "Perhaps. But again, if only one man be disloyal, an little pickerel." He opened his arms to her and she accident could happen - an arrow let fly at me that hits stepped to him and gave him a quick, practical hug. you by mistake, let us say . . ." The old Tuani warrior "Will you accept this, Shaso-mi?" Turley asked. shook his head. Briony thought he looked as though "Of course," said the old man hoarsely. he was having trouble standing so long. "Headman, Ena looked at Shaso carefully for the first time, up and can you not send us to someone else - someone you down. "You need some healing, those cuts and burns trust? We need a boatman." seen to. But first a tub of good seawater, to take the "I will be their boatman," announced the Skimmer girl. stink off you." She turned her heavy -lidded gaze on Briony had not noticed her waiting and listening in the Briony. The nakedness of her eyebrows made the doorway behind them, the voice made her jump. The girl's eyes seem mysterious and distant, like those of gathered men seemed to have missed her as well and 1023 1024 someone who had lived a long time in illness. "You, Barrick snatched his arm away but still did not turn to too, Mistress. Highness, I mean.You will never get look at Vansen, although he did speak for the first that great ragged skirt in the boat, so we must find you time. something of mine to wear, begging your pardon. But "Go away." we must be quick about it all. The moon is swimming, There was something odd in his voice, a but soon she will dive." sleepwalker's distance; the boy's refusal to turn his head began to seem more like madness than · contempt. Vansen grabbed him again, harder now, and the prince jabbed at him with his elbow, trying to wriggle free. The horses bumped against each other Ferras Vansen caught up to his quarry in the lower and whinnied, uncertain whether this was war or reaches of the hills, or at least that was where he something else. Vansen ducked a lashing fist, then thought he was, but he could not be sure. Only a few wrapped his arms around the prince and pulled months ago this had been the border of the Barrick toward him. Barrick's feet caught in the Shadowline, an eerie but otherwise ordinary place, but stirrups and he fell, taking the guard captain with now the hills were shrouded in mist and nearly him.Vansen avoided being kicked by the horses, but invisible and all the land down to the bay had become the ground seemed to rise up and hit him like a huge alien. fist. For long moments he could only lie on his back, "Prince Barrick!" The rider didn't turn but glided on wheezing. through the streaming mist. For long moments The horses had trotted on a little way and stopped. Vansen thought he might be mistaken, that perhaps When Vansen at last sat up, still not abl e to fill his he was calling to some phantom thrown up by the lungs completely, he saw to his dismay that Barrick Shadowline, but as he drew closer and eventually was already on his feet and limping toward his large pulled abreast of the black horse he could see the black horse where it cropped at the meadow grass, boy's pale, distracted face. "Barrick! Prince Barrick, half-hidden by mist although it stood only a few dozen it's me, Vansen. Stop!" yards away. The prince was holding his side as The young prince didn't even look. Vansen nudged his though it hurt him badly, but showed no sign of letting horse closer still, until it was rubbing shoulders with it stop him.Vansen struggled upright and ran after him, Barrick's mount, then reached across and grabbed at but he was weary and battered from the day's fighting the prince's arm, remembering only too late t at it was h and the fall; Prince Barrick had almost reached his the wounded one, the crippled one. horse by the time Vansen caught him. Crippled or whole, it seemed to make little difference. 1025 1026 "Your Highness, I cannot let you go there! Not into How will I ever get him back to Southmarch? he that land!" wondered. Barrick's shrieking grew increasingly ragged but did not stop or even slacken.Vansen In reply, Barrick pulled his dagger from his belt and started to crawl, trying to drag the boy along the took a clumsy swipe at Vansen without even looking ground toward his horse. I will have to tie him up. But at him.Vansen stumbled back in surprise, tripped, fell. with what? And how will I sneak him past the shadow The prince showed no urge to follow up on his folk? advantage; he turned and caught his horse again, which had skipped away in nervousness at their Barrick's struggles became even wilder, something struggle. Just as Barrick got his fingers under the belly Vansen would not have thought possible. He could strap to hold the horse and began to search for the pull the prince no farther, and had to stop a few yards stirrup with his foot, Vansen reached him again. from the horses, holding the boy wrapped in his arms and legs as Barrick went on screeching as This time he was expecting the knife and was able to monotonously as a broken-hinged gate fanning in the twist it out of the prince's fingers. The boy let out a wind. small grunt of pain, but still seemed to care little about Ferras Vansen himself; he simply turned again to At last it was too much. Vansen's own limbs were clamber up onto his saddle. Vansen grabbed him achingly weary, the boy's cries so heartrendingly around the waist and pulled him backward so that terrible, he began to believe he was somehow they both crashed to the ground This time he shoved crippling the young prince's mind. He let him go, his helmeted head against the boy's cloaked back and watched as the boy stopped shrieking, got to his feet, held on. Barrick gasped with pain and his struggles swaying - it was a blessed relief to have the silence became increasingly desperate, his arms and legs come rushing back - and staggered toward his horse, thrashing as wildly as those of a drowning swimmer. which waited with unnatural calm. As it became apparent that Vansen was the stronger, Vansen got to his feet and stumbled after him. "Where that the boy couldn't reach the older man's eyes or are you going, Highness? Don't you know you are vitals with his hooking fingers, Barrick writhed more traveling into the land of shadows?" and more madly. The low moan he had been making Barrick climbed into the saddle, slipping, struggling, as they rolled on the ground rose to a shriek, a clearly almost as weary as Vansen. He sat up, holding horrible raw noise that dug intoVansen's ears like a his side again. "I . . . I know." His tone was hollow, sharp stick, and the prince began to fling his arms and miserable. legs about, kicking, thrashing. Vansen could only hold "Then why, Highness?" When there was no reply, tight. He felt a little like a father, but of a child who was Vansen raised his voice. "Barrick! Listen to me! Why very ill. An insane child. 1027 1028 are you doing this? Why are you riding into the inevitable. shadowlands?" Vansen shivered. The boy hesitated, fumbling for the reins. The black Barrick abruptly spurred his horse northward. Vansen horse, Vansen noticed for the first time, had strange, ran to his own mount and spurred to catc h him until amber-yellow eyes. Vansen reached out, gently this they were riding side by side. time, and touched the prince's arm. Barrick actually "Please, Highness, I ask you one last time. Will you looked toward him for a moment, although his eyes not turn back to your family, your kingdom? Your did not quite touch Ferras Vansen's. "I don't know sister Briony?" why. I don't know!" Barrick only shook his head, bis eyes once more "Come back with me.That way there's nothing but gazing into nothingness. danger." But Vansen knew there was danger behind "Then you will force me to follow you into this terrible them as well, madness and death. Hadn't he first place that I barely escaped the first time. Is that what thought Barrick was fleeing the horrors of the battle? you want, Highness, for me to follow you into death? "Come back with me to Southmarch.Your sister will be Because my oath will not allow me to let you go afraid for you. Princess Briony will be afraid." alone." Vansen could see her now in his mind's eye, For an instant it seemed that he might have touched her lovely face and poorly hidden fear, as well as the something in the prince regent: Barrick sighed, bravery that was all the more striking because of it. sagge d a little in his saddle. Then the instant passed. Now I pay back for your older brother's life, Briony. "No. I am . . . called." Now I pay for dead Kendrick's with my own. B of ut "Called to what?" course, she would likely never know. The boy shook his head slowly, the gesture of a For a moment, just a moment, a little of the true doomed, lost man. Vansen had seen such a face Barrick seemed to rise to his eyes, as if someone once before, eyes so empty and distraught. It had trapped in a burning house came scrambling to the been a man of the dales, a distant relation of Ferras window to shout for help. "Into death?" he murmured. Vansen's mother, who had found himself caught up in "Perhaps. But perhaps not." He let his eyes fall a border dispute between two large clans and had closed, then slowly opened them again. "There are seen his wife and children slaughtered before his stranger things than death, Captain Vansen - stranger eyes. That man had worn just such a look when he and older. Did you know that?" came to say his farewells before going out to find his There was nothing to say. Exhausted in body and family's killers, knowing that no one would either spirit, Vansen could only follow the mad young prince accompany or avenge him, that his own death was into the shadowy hills. 1029 1030 Briony had never thought of Southmarch Castle as realized that she had learned very little about these something oppressive or frightening - it had been her people who lived inside her own castle. And a hidden home for all her life, after all - but as they moved lagoon! "Did you know about this place?" she asked quietly on foot along the edge of the lagoon, the keep Shaso. with its tall towers and lighted windows seemed to "I have never seen it," he said, which didn't quite loom over her like a crowned skull. answer the question. She didn't press him further, The whole night seemed a fantasy, a perverse one in though; he was barely able to stand upright as it was. which serving girls were transformed into monsters Ena appeared to have successfully explained her and princesses had to go disguised through their own mission to the Skimmer sentries. She directed Shaso domains in Skimmer clothes that stank of fish. and Briony into a long, slender rowboat, then climbed Ena led them through the dank, narrow streets to a in after them and rowed them out onto the tiny lagoon dock on the southern lagoon where the keep's huge toward a low, apparently natural opening in the far outer wall shadowed Fitters Row, but they did not get rock wall that must have been invisible under water for into a boat Instead, she took them through a at least half of every day. The oars moved easily in weathered door that opened right into the wide wall of the girl's strong, long-fingered hands. In only a short stone which defended the castle from the bay. The while the little boat slipped out onto the gentle swell of rough -hewn passage inside led to a stairwell that the bay, with the cloudy, vast sky overhead and the wound upward into the cliff wall for some twenty or night winds blowing. thirty paces, then down again for quite a few more "Why have I never heard of that lagoon?" Briony was steps, where Briony was astonished to discover cramped on the seat, her feet perched on the sack herself beside another tiny lagoon, this one entirely Ena and her father had provided that contained mostly surrounded by a rock cave that was lit by lanterns dried fish and skin bags full of water. She looked perched here and there along the shore. This must be back. "What if someone should invade the castle hidden inside the seawall, she marveled Two through that hole in the seawall?" Skimmer men sat cross-legged on the stony shore "It is only there for a little part of the day." The guarding a dozen or so small boats, but they were on Skimmer girl smiled an oddly shy, wide-mouthed their feet before Briony and her companions ever left smile. "When the tide begins to come back up, we the stairs. They both carried nasty-looking hooked must take the boats out of the water and leave the blades on long poles and did not lower the weapons cavern. There are other guards, too - guards you did until Ena had spoken to them in a guttural undertone. not see." Did the Skimmers truly have their own tongue, then? Briony could only shake her head. It was clear that Briony had heard many say that couldn't be true. She 1031 1032 there was much she had yet to learn about her own argued. We argued a long time, Kendrick and I, and home. bitterly. I told him that he was a fool to bargain with such a creature, especially a creature of such growing After a stretch of quiet, the motion of the little boat and power - that I would sooner kill myself than let him do the quiet repetitive creaking as Ena plied the oars this to his kingdom. All my life I have watched the began to lull her. Sleep was very tempting, but she monarchs of Xis at work, Briony. I saw Tuan and a was not ready to surrender yet. "Shaso? Shaso." dozen other nations in Xand dragged in chains before He made a grunting sound. the Falcon Throne, and it is said this Autarch is the "You told me you would explain what happened. Why worst of his whole mad line. But Kendrick was certain you did not tell me the truth." that the only way to withstand the Autarch in the long run was to have your father Olin lead a defensive He groaned, but very quietly. "Is this my punishment, coalition of northern nations - to give up Hierosol and then?" the other decadent southern cities. A demon's "If you want to think of it that way." She reached out bargain, I called it - the kind that only the demon can and squeezed his arm, felt where the hard muscle had win. Eventually, in drunken anger and despair and begun to devour itself during his dark, malnourished what I must admit was disgust as well, I. . . I left him. I weeks in the stronghold cell. "I promise I will let you passed Anissa's maid in the hall - summoned by sleep soon. Just tell me what happened . . . that Kendrick, I assumed. She was pretty and had a saucy night." eye, so I thought little of it." Shaso spoke slowly, stopping often to get his breath. A thought caught at Briony Kendrick said, "Isss . ." He "He called me in, your brother Kendrick. He had just could not remember the girl's name. He was calling been visited by Gailon Tolly. If that jackal Hendon told her "Anissa's maid" or "servant" as he . . as he died. It the truth in this one thing, anyway, Gailon must have was too dreadful to think on long, and she did not been arguing against the Autarch's offer, not for it. I want to be distracted. "You say you simply left, Shaso. thought he was the one who brought it, but it seems I But when we found you, we were covered in blood!" was wrong. In any case, your brother told me what he "As we disputed, as I raged against his foolishness, I . intended to do - to abandon your father's belief that all . turned my knife on myself. I told him . . . Oh, Briony, the nations of Eion must be defended. Kendrick thought that he could convince the other monarchs to girl, I hate that these were the last words . . . the last words I spoke with him." For a long moment it seemed let the Autarch take Hierosol, and that m return the that he wouldn't continue. When he did, the rasp in his Autarch would release your father. voice was harsher than before. "I told your brother I "Leaving aside whether or not it was honorable, I would cut my own arms from my body, the arms that thought it a foolish gamble. We drank wine and we 1033 1034 had so long served his father, before letting them slave again, after all these years. It only became clear serve such a treacherous son. That I would stab to me later what had happened." myself in the heart. I was drunk - very drunk by then, "But, you fool, why didn't you tell us?" and very angry. I could not bear facing Dawet dan- "What could I say? I gave my oath to your brother Faar across the table that night without wine and I had before he died that I would not speak of what had already had several cups before I went to your happened in that room. I was ashamed for myself and brother's room. I have cursed myself for it in the for him. And at first, before I understood the truth, my darkness of that cell many times. Kendrick tried to honor was outraged that you should come for me like wrestle the knife away from me. He was furious that I a criminal, simply because I had disagreed with the would argue with him, that I did not merely doubt his prince regent. But when I learned what had happened, strategy but denounced it and him. We fought for the I told you that I hadn't killed him, and that was the knife and I was cut again. Him, too, I think, but only a truth." He trembled a little under her hand, which still little. At last I came back to my right mind. He sent me touched his arm. "What does a man have if he gives away, making me swear on my debt to your father that up the bond of his word? He is worse than dead. Had I would not speak of what had happened no matter Hen-don Tolly not told you what your brother planned, how much I disagreed with him. I would be silent still." "To tell you truth, even after you freed me, I would Briony sat back, looking up at the jutting shadow of never have spoken of what he planned, poor the castle. She was shiveringly cold and weary, still Kendrick, the dishonor of bargaining with the bloody terrified by the night's events. Somewhere in that Autarch . . ."Again Shaso had to stop. Briony would darkened keep, she knew, armed men were searching have felt sorry for him but the newness of the betrayal for her and Shaso. "So where do we go?" was too much - Shaso's for keeping stubbornly silent "South," he said after a while. He sounded like he had and her brother's for thinking he knew more than their fallen asleep for a few moments. father, for thinking himself a king before he had gained the wisdom, for supposing he could "But after that? After we land? Do you have allies in manipulate a great and powerful enemy. "I . . . mind?" South, she thought. Where Father is being returned to my rooms," Shaso went on. "I drank a held prisoner. "My brother," she said out loud. "I . . . great deal more wine, trying to make it all go away. I'm afraid for him, Shaso." When you came for me, I thought that Kendrick was "Whatever happened, he did what he thought was still angry with me for insulting him, perhaps even that best. His soul is at rest, Briony." I had been too drunk and had hurt him in our scuffling, For a moment her heart was startled up into her that I would be locked up for insulting him - made a throat. Barrick? Did Shaso know something about him 1035 1036 that she did not? Then she understood. for granted, even some she had despised, the chilly, ancient halls as complicated as long stories, the "I didn't mean Kendrick. Yes, he did his best, the gods portraits of glowering ancestors, the gray trees below bless him and keep him. No, I mean Barrick." It was her window in the Privy Garden that budded so hard to find the strength even to speak: the long day bravely each cold spring - all had been stolen from had finally caught up to her. Tears made the dark her. She wanted it all back. geometries of the keep even more blurry. "I miss him. I am afraid . . . I'm afraid something bad has Shaso was asleep now, but Briony had missed her happened." own chance at healing slumber. For this little while, anyway, she was queerly wakeful, exhausted but full Shaso had nothing to say, but patted her arm of fretful thoughts. She could only sit and watch as the awkwardly. moon dove down through the sky and the waters of The boat slipped on, the oars moving steadily beneath the bay grew wider between her and all of her life until Ena's skillful hands. Briony felt like Zona in the this moment. famous tale, fleeing her home in the middle of the night. What was it Tinwright had written about that - overwritten, to be honest? "Clear-eyed, lion -hearted, her mmd turned toward the day when her honor will · again be proclaimed . . ." But the goddess Zoria had been escaping from an enemy and fleeing back to her The streets of Funderling Town were lit but deserted, father's house. Briony was leavi ng her home behind, so that they had the feehng of unfinished scrapes perhaps forever. And Zoria was an immortal. instead of thoroughfares. Chert, walking like a man Midlan's Mount with its walls and towers no longer who had lately seen too many of the world's strangest loomed over them like a stern parent, but was corners, could hear his footsteps echo from the stone beginning to recede, the bay widening between their walls of his neighbors' houses as he trudged up little boat and the casde, the forested shore growing Wedge Road and in through his own front door. closer, a blackness along the southern horizon that Opal heard him in the main room and rushed out from blotted the starry sky. Only a few lights burned where the back of the house, face full of misery and fear. He she could see them in the castle's upper reaches, a thought she would demand to know where he had few in the Tower of Spring, a few lanterns in the been all these long, long hours, but instead she just guardhouses along the wall and atop the harbor grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the breakwaters. She was filled with an unexpected, bedroom. She was moaning and he suddenly knew aching love for her home. All the things she had taken the worst had happened: the boy was dead. 1037 1038 To his shock, Flint was not dead but awake and to pull his fingers free, the boy who looked like Flint watching. Chert turned to Opal, but she still had the relaxed and let him hold it. Helpless and weary, all look of someone who had discovered her most prized thought of what had just happened to him outside the possession had been stolen. city gates swept aside, at least for now, Chert sat this way for an hour, calming a terrified child while his wife "Boy?" he asked, kneeling beside him. "How do you cried and cried in the other room. feel?" "Who are you?" Chert stared at the familiar face, the shock of hair so pale as to be almost white, the huge, watchful eyes. Everything was the same and yet the child also seemed somehow slightly different. "What do you mean, who am I? I'm Chert, and this is Opal." "I . . . I don't know you." "You're Flint, we're . . . we've been taking care of you. Don't you remember?" Slowly, weakly, the boy shook his head. "No, I don't remember you." "Well . . . if you're not Flint, who are you?" He waited in a kind of airless terror for the answer. "What's your name?" "I said I don't know!" the boy whined. There was something in him Chert had never seen before, a trapped and frightened animal behind the narrow face. "I don't know who I am!" Opal stumbled out into the other room, clutching her throat as though she couldn't breathe. Chert followed her, but when he tried to put his arms around her, she flailed at him in her misery and he retreated. Since he could think of nothing else to do he came back to the bed and took the boy's hand; after a moment of trying 1039 1040 Barrow - a royal guard Baz'u Jev - a Xandian poet Appendix Beetledown - a Rooftopper Big Nodule (Blue Quartz) - Chert's father Blackglass - a Funderling family PEOPLE Boulder - a Funderling. Adcock - one of the royal guard under Vansen's command. Brambinag Stoneboots - a mythical ogre. Agate - Funderling woman, a friend of Opal's. Bratchard, Lord - a nobleman. Agnes - daughter of Finneth and Onsin. Brenhall, Lord - a nobleman. Anazona - Briony's youngest maid. Brigid - a serving -woman at the Quiller's Mint. Andros - a priest, proxy to Lord Nynor. Briony Eddon - a Princess of Southmarch. Angelos - an envoy from Jellon to Southmarch. Brother Okros - physician-priest from Eastmarch Academy. Anglin - Connordic chieftain, awarded March Kingdom after Coldgray. Caddick - soldier of the Southmarch royal guard, known as "Longlegs." Moor Anglin III - King of Southmarch, great- grandfather of Briony and Barrick. Calkin - a Skimmer. Amssa - Queen of Southmarch, Olin's second wife Caradon Tolly - Gailon's younger brother. Antimony - a young Funderling temple brother Caylor - a legendary knight and prince. Argal the Dark One - Xixian god, enemy of Nushash Chaven - physician and astrologer to the Eddon family. Autarch - Sulepis Bishakh am-Xis III, monarch of Xis, most powerful. Chert (Blue Quartz) - a Funderling, Opal's husband. nation on the southern continent of Xand Cheshret - Qinnitan's father, a minor priest of Nushash. Avin Brone - Count of Landsend, the castle's lord constable Child of the Emerald Fire - a Qar tribe. Axamis Dorza - a Xixian ship's captain Chryssa - Chief Acolyte of the Hive Temple in Xis. Back-on-Sunset-Tide - Skimmer extended family Cinnabar - a Funderling magister. Barrick Eddon - a Prince of Southmarch Clemon - famous Syannese historian, also called 1041 1042 "Clemon of Anverrin." Dunyaza - Qinnitan's friend, an acolyte of the Hive Cloudwalker - another name for Perin, the sky god. Earth Elders - Funderling guardian spirits. Collum - Willow's younger brother. Eats-the-Moon - a Qar of the Changing tribe. Collum Dyer - one of Vansen's soldiers. Ellis - Merolanna's maid. Comfrey M'Neel - a noblewoman. Elan M'Cory - sister -in-law of Caradon Tolly. Conary - proprietor of the Quiller's Mint. Ena - a young Skimmer girl, Back-on-Sunset -Tide clan. Cononc, Sivonmc, and Iellic tribes - "primitive" tribes who lived on. Enlo - god of the harvest. Eion before conquest by the southern continent of Erivor - god of waters. Xand Euan Dogsend - Chaven's friend, "the most learned Cusy - chief of the Favored (eunuchs) of the Royal man in Blueshore." Seclusion in Xis Evander - Syannese count, envoy to Southmarch. Daman Eddon - Merolanna's husband, King Ustin's Ever -Wounded Maid - a character out of legend. brother Evon Kinnay - friend of Gailon Tolly, son of Baron of Dannet Beck - Raemon Beck's cousin Longhowe. Dawet dan-Faar - envoy from Hierosol Ewan - Finnith's son. Dab Dawley - a Southmarch guard Falk - a Southmarch guard. Dawtrey - a legendary knight, sometimes called "Elf- Fergil - son of Finneth and Onsin. spelled" Ferras Vansen - Captain of the royal guard. Derla - wife of Raemon Beck Finton - Raemon Beck's younger son. Dimakos Heavyhand - one of the last chieftains of the Finn Teodoros - a writer. Gray Companies Finneth - a woman of Candlerstown. Donal Murray - onetime captain of the Southmarch Funderlings - sometimes known as "delvers," small royal guard people who specialize in stonecraft. Droy Nikomede - a.k.a. "Droy of Eastlake," a Gailon Tolly, Duke of Summerfield - an Eddon family Southmarch noble cousin Durstin Crowel - Baron of Graylock Gar Doiney - a scout 1043 1044 Gil - a potboy at the Quiller's Mint. Heryn Millward - a Southmarch royal guard. Galhbert Perkin - Count of Craneshill, Lord Chancellor Hesper - King of Jellon, betrayer of King Olin. of Southmarch Hiliometes - a legendary demigod and hero. Gowan M'Ardall - an earl, his fiefdom is in Helmingsea Hisolda - Anissa's midwife. Grandfather Sulfur - a Funderling elder of the Hornblende - Funderling, Stonecutters Guild foreman. Metamorphic Brothers Hull-Scrapes-the-Sand - Skimmer extended family. Gray Companies - mercenaries and landless men Iaris - an oracle of Kermos, a semi-saint. turned bandits in the wake of the Great Death Idrin - young son of Gowan of Helmingsea. Great Mother - goddess worshipped in Tuan Ivar Brenhill - a knight and nobleman of Silverside. Greenjay - a Qar of the Trickster tribe Jeddin - chief of the autarch's Leopard guards, also Gregor of Syan - a famous bard known as "Jin." Grenna - a lady's maid Jem Tallow - a Southmarch guard officer. Guard of Elementals - a tribe of the Qar Karal - King of Syan killed by Qar at Coldgray Moor. Gwatkin - soldier of the Southmarch royal guard Kaspar Dyelos - Chaven's mentor, a.k.a. "Warlock of Gyir - a Qar, Yasammez's captain, a k a "Gyrir the Krace." Storm Lantern" Kellick Eddon - great-grandnephew of Anglin, first of Gypsum - a Funderling family Eddon family March Kings. Habbili - a god, the crippled son of Nushash Kendrick Eddon - Prince Regent of Southmarch, Haketam - people of the Haketan tribe in Xand eldes t son of King Olin. Hammerfoot - a Qar, of Firstdeep. Kermos - earth god. Hand of the Sky - a Rooftopper deity. Kert hillmen - a wild tribe that lives northwest of Kertewall. Hanede - Shaso's daughter. King Nikolos - Syan monarch who moved the Harry - Chaven's manservant. Trigonarchy out of Hierosol. Harsar - Ynnir's counselor. Krisanthe - Queen Meriel's mother, the twins' Hasuris - a Xixian storyteller. grandmother. Havemore - Brone's factor. Kupilas - god of healing. Hendon Tolly - youngest of the Tolly brothers. 1045 1046 Lander III - son of Karal, King of Syan, a.k.a. "Lander Metamorphi c Brothers - a Funderling religious order. the Good," "Lander Elfbane." Mica - Schist family member, Hornblende's nephew. Lapis - Chert's mother. Mickeal Southstead - a Southmarch guard. Layhn - uncle of Tyne Aldritch. Mistress Jennikin - Chaven's housekeeper. Laybrick - a Southmarch guard. Moina Hartsbrook - a young Helmingsea Leotrodos - Perikalese scientist friend of Chaven. noblewoman, one of Briony's ladies-in-waiting. Lepthis - an Autarch of Xis. Mokori - one of the autarch's stranglers. Lew - a Southmarch guard. Mormng-in-Eye - a Qar of the Changing People. Lindon Tolly - father of Gailon, former First Minister of Muchmore - a Southmarch scout. March Kingdoms. Nevin Hewney - a playwright. Lily - Anglin's granddaughter, queen who led Nodule - Chert's brother, a k a "Magister Blue Quartz." Southmarch in time of Gray Companies. Nose, Grand and Worthy - a Rooftopper dignitary. Little Carbon - a Funderling craftsman. Nushash - Xixian god of fire, patron god of the Little Raemon - Raemon Beck's oldest son. autarchs. Lord of the Peak - a Rooftopper deity. Nynor - Steffans Nynor, Count of Redtree, Lord Lorick Eddon - Olin's older brother, who died young. Castellan of Southmarch Castle. Ludis Drakava - Protector of Hierosol. Old High Feldspar - a wise elder of the Funderlings, now deceased. Luian - an important Favored in the Seclusion, previously known as "Dudon." Old Pyrites - a Funderling acquaintance of Chert and Opal. Madi Surazem - goddess of childbirth. Olin - King of Southmarch and the March Kingdoms. Matthias Tinwright - a poet, a k a "Matty." Onsin - a Candlerstown blacksmith, called "Oak- Mayne Calough - a nobleman and knight. arms." Meriel - Olin's first wife, daughter of a powerful Opal - a Funderling, Chert's wife. Brennish duke. Panhyssir - Xixian high priest of Nushash. Merolanna - the twin's great-aunt, originally of Fael, widow of Daman Eddon. Parnad - father of current autarch, Sulepis, sometimes known as "the Unsleeping." Mesiya - moon goddess. 1047 1048 Pedar Vansen - Ferras Vansen's father Perin - sky Sanasu - widow of Kellick Eddon, known as "Weeping god, called "Thane of Lightnings" Queen" Pinimmon Vash - Paramount Minister of Xis Sandstone - a Funderling family Prusus - scotarch of Xis, sometimes called "Prusus Sawney Wander-Eye - a Skimmer the Cripple" Schist - a Funderling family, one of them is chorister Pumice - a Funderling guildsman of Funderling Town. Purifiers - fanatics who banded together to punish Qar Sedimentary - a Funderling clan made up of several and others for the Great Death. families Puzzle - court jester to the Eddon family Qar - race of Selia - Anissa's maid, also from Devonis non-humans who once occupied much of Eion Shaso dan-Heza - Southmarch master of arms Quicksilver - important Funderling family Silas of Perikal - semi -legendary knight Quiet People - a name for the Qar Sni'sni'snik-soortah - Rooftopper name for Qinnitan - an acolyte of the Hive in Xis "Rooftoppers." Raemon Beck - member of a Helmingsea trading Sisel - Hierarch of Southmarch, chief religious figure family m March Kingdoms. Rafe - Ena's friend, Hull-Scraped-the-Sand clan Siveda - goddess of night. Raven, Prince of Birds - character from legend Sivney Fiddicks - a nobleman and knight. Robben Hulligan - a musician, friend of Puzzle Skimmers - a people who make their livings on and Rocksalt - a Funderling peddler. around water. Rooftoppers - little-known residents of Southmarch Stone Circle People - a Qar tribe. Castle Stone of the Unwilling - a Qar of the Guard of Rorick - Earl of Daler s Troth, an Eddon cousin of Elementals. Brennish ancestry, related to Meriel. Surigah - Xixian goddess. Rose Trelling - one of Briony's ladies-in-waiting, a Sveros - old god of the night sky, father of Tngon niece of Avin Brone gods. Rugan - the High Priestess of the Hive Talc - Schist family member, Hornblende's nephew. Rule - Avin Brone s informant Tanyssa - a gardener and errand-runner in the Royal Rusha - a hairdresser in the Royal Seclusion Seclusion. 1049 1050 Three Highest - reference to the gods of the Tngon. nemesis of Silas of Perikal Ynnir the Blind King - lord of the Qar, "Ynnir din'at sen -Qin, Lord of. Timoid, Father - Eddon family mantis (priest) Winds and Thought," a.k.a."Son of the First Stone" Toby - Chaven's assistant. Young Pyrite - a Funderling Tricksters - a tribe of the Qar. Zoria - goddess of wisdom Zmeos - a god, Perin's Trigon - priesthoods of Perin, Erivor, and Kernios nemesis acting in concert. Zosim - son of Erilo, god of playwrights and Trigonarch - Head of Trigon, chief religious figure in drunkards. Eion. Tully Joiner - a man of Candlerstown. PLACES Turley Longfingers - a Skimmer fisherman, Back-on- Sunset -Tide clan. Akans - an island between Xand and Eion. Twelve Families - governing body of old Hierosol. Badger's Boots - a Southmarch inn. Twilight People - another name for the Qar. Basilisk Gate - main gate of Southmarch Castle. Tyne Aldritch - Earl of Blueshore, an ally of Beetle Way - street in Funderling Town. Southmarch. Bird Snare Market - a marketplace in Xis. Uncle Flint - Chert's uncle. Brenland - small country south of the March Upsteeplebat, Queen - monarch of the Rooftoppers. Kingdoms. Ustin - King Olin's father. Brenn's Bay - named after a legendary hero. Utta - a.k.a. "Sister Utta," a priestess of Zoria and Candlerstown - Daler's Troth town. Briony's tutor. Cascade Stair - in the Funderling Depths. Whispering Mothers - Qar, known as "They who nurse Cat's Eye Street - a street in Xis. the Great Egg." Chapel of Erivor - Eddon family chapel. Widow Rocksalt - a Funderling. Chamber of Cloud -Crystal - in the Funderling Depths. Willow - a young woman. Cloud-Spirit Tower - a tower in Qul-na-Qar. Yasammez - Qar noblewoman, sometimes known as Coldgray Moor - legendary battleground, from a "Lady Porcupine," Qar word, "Qul. or "Scourge of the Shivering Plain" Yellow Knight - Girah." 1051 1052 Creedy's Inn - tavern in Greater Stell Nushash. Dale House - Daler's Troth town, seat of Earl Rorick Hier osol - once the reigning empire of the world, now much reduced; its symbol is the golden snail shell. Deep Library - a place in Qul-na-Qar Holy Wainscoting - Rooftopper sacred spot. Eastmarch Academy - university, originally in old Eastmarch, relocated to Southmarch at the time of the Jellon - kingdom, once part of Syannic Empire. last war with the Qar J'ezh'kral Pit - a place out of Funderling myth. Eastside Gate - one of the gates of Candlerstown Krace - a collection of city-states, once part of Eion - the northern continent Hierosoline Empire. Emberstone Reach - in the Funderling Depths Kertewall - one of the March Kingdoms. Fael - a nation in the heartland of Eion Landsend - part of Southmarch, Brone's fief, colors red and gold. Faneshill - a large town south of the Settland Road Lily Gate - gate leading out of the Seclusion into the Farmers' Hall - an ornamental hall in the Throne Hall city of Xis. Feather Cape Row - a street in Xis Little Stell - Daler's Troth town. Firstdeeps - a place in Qar lands Lower Ore Street - a main street in Funderling Town. Fitter's Row - a street in Southmarch Marash - a Xandian province where peppers are Free Kingdoms - the kingdoms of Eion which have not grown. fallen under the Autarch's rule. March Kingdoms - originally Northmarch, Southmarch, Funderling Town - underground city of Funderlings, in Eastmarch, and Westmarch, but after the war with the Southmarch Qar constituted by Southmarch and the Nine Nations Garden of Queen Sodan - a garden in the Royal (which include Summerfield and Blueshore) Seclusion of Xis Market Road - one of Southmarch's main roads. Great Gable - Rooftopper sacred spot Greater Stell - Dalter's Troth town Market Square - main public space in Southmarch. Gypsum Way - a street in Funderling Town i. Marrmswalk - one of the March Kingdoms. Hangskin Row - a street near the Old Tannery Dock. Marsh Road - main road in Candlerstown. Hawkshill - Daler's Troth town. Maze - in the Funderling Depths. Hidden Hall - part of the Rooftopper kingdom. Moonstone Hall - in the Funderling Depths. Hive - a temple in Xis, home of the sacred bees of 1053 1054 Mount (the), a k a Midlan's Mount - rock in Brenn's Scented Garden - a garden in the Seclusion of Xis. Bay upon which Southmarch is built. Seclusion - home of the wives of the autarch. Mount Xandos - mythical giant mountain that stood Sessio - an island kingdom in the south of Eion. where Xand now lies. Settland - small, mountainous country southwest of Northmarch Road - the old road between Southmarch the March Kingdoms, ally of Southmarch. and the north. Shadowline - line of demarcation between lands of Oak Chamber - a council chamber. Qar and human lands. Observatory House - Chaven's residence. Shehen - "Weeping," Qar name forYasammez's Old Tannery Dock - Skimmer name for dock near the house. Tower of Autumn. Shivering Plain - site of a great Qar battle. Olway Coomb - a battle-site in Marnnswalk. Siege of Always-Winter - a mythical castle. Ore Street - a main street in Funderling Town. Silent Hill - place behind the Shadowlme. Oscastle - a city in Marnnswalk. Silk Door - a place beneath Funderling Town. Quarry Square - a meeting place in Funderling Town. Skimmer's Lagoon - body of water inside Southmarch Qirush -a-Ghat - cavern towns of the Qar, name walls, connected to Brenn's Bay. means "Firstdeeps." Silverside Road - thoroughfare leading, among other Qul-na-Qar - ancient home of the Qar or Twilight places, between Southmarch and Summerfield. People. Southmarch - seat of the March Kings, sometimes Raven's Gate - entrance to Southmarch Castle's inner called "Shadowmarch." keep. Square of Three Gods - town square in mainland Redtree - an Eddon holding. Southmarch. Reheq -s'lai - Wanderwind Mountains. Stonecutter's Door - an exit from Funderling Town. Rose Garden - at the center of the Lesser Hall, Squeakstep Alley - a street in Southmarch. sometimes called "Traitor's Garden." Summerfield Court - ducal seat of Gailon and the Tolly Sailmaker's Row - a street near the docks in Great family. Xis. Sunken Garden - a Southmarch castle garden, Erilo's Salt Pool - underground sea pool in Funderling Town. shrine is there. Sama - a country in Xand. Sun's Progress Square - a plaza in Great Xis. 1055 1056 Suttler's Wall - a Southmarch town near the Blueshore Xand - the southern continent. border. Xis - largest kingdom of Xand; its master is the Syan - once-dorninant empire, still a powerful autarch. kingdom in center of Eion. Tessis - capitol city of Syan. THINGS and ANIMALS Three Gods - a triangular plaza in Southmarch; a Astion - a Funderling symbol of authority. populous district around that plaza. Blueroot - favorite Funderling tea-herb. Three Brothers Road - thoroughfare leading, among Book of Regret - a semi -mythical Qar artifact/text. other places, between Southmarch and Summerfield. Book of the Tngon - a late-era adaptation of original Tin Street - a street in Southmarch. texts about all three gods. Torvio - an island nation between Eion and Xand. Cloudchip - a type of crystal. Tower of Autumn - one of the four cardinal towers of Dado - a dog, raised by Briony. Southmarch Castle. "Dasmet and the Girl With No Shadow" - a Xandian Tower of Spring - one of the four cardinal towers of folktale. Southmarch Castle; Amssa's residence. Days of Cooling - legendary time in Funderling history Tower of Summer - one of the cardinal tower s of and myth. Southmarch Castle. Days of the Week - in the Eionic calendar, there are Tower of Winter - one of the cardinal towers of three ten-day periods in each month, called Southmarch castle. "tennights." Therefore, the twenty-first day of August Tribute Hall - hall outside Briony's bedroom passage. in our calendar would be more or less the third Tuan - native country of Shaso and Dawet. Firstday of Oktamene. (See the explanation under "Months" for more information.) Wedge Road - Chert and Opal's street. Firstday Sunsday. Wharfside - a district of mainland Southmarch. Moonsday. White Desert - vast desert that covers much of the center of Xand. Skyday. Whitewood - a forest on the border between Silverside Wmdsday. and Marrinswalk. Stonesday. Wolfstooth Spire - tallest tower of Southmarch Castle. Fireday. 1057 1058 Watersday. Lander's Hall - a near-mythical setting for stones of knightly adventure Gods day. "Lay of Kermos" - a famous story and song, part of the Lastday. funeral service Demia's Ladder - a constellation. Leaf, Singers, White Root, Honeycomb, Waterfall - - Earth-ice - a type of crystal. Flint's names for constellations Eddon Wolf - - the symbol of the Eddon family (silver Lymer - a hunting hound. wolf and stars on black field) M'aarenol - a location, possibly a mountain, in Qar "Ever-Wounded Maid" - a famous s tory. lands Family of Stones and Metals - a Funderling scheme of Maker's-pearl - a stone used by Funderlings for classification decoration. Feast of the Rising - Xixian festival at the end of the Mantis - a priest, usually of the Trigon. rainy season Meadowsweet - a common wildflower. Firegold - a mineral Fireworm - a poisonous snake. Months - each Eion month is thirty days long, divided Great Death - plague that killed a large part of Eion's into three ten-nights, with five intercalary days population between the end of the year - Orphan's Day - and the Great Golden Piece - part of the Rooftopper's crown first day of the new year, also known as Firstday or jewels Harrier - a hunting hound Year Day Thusly month/month correspondents are Hierosoline - the language of Hierosol, found in many liable to differ by a few days the first day of Trimene in Southmarch is not the exact same day as March 1 on religious services and scientific books, etc. our calendar. History of Eion and Its Nations - book by the historian Clemon Eimene - -January Diniene - February Horns of Zmeos - a constellation, also called the Old Serpent K'hamao - a drink, part of Funderling ritual Trimene - March Kettle - Barrick's horse Tetramene - April Kloe - a cat. Pentamene - May Kossope - a constellation. Hexamene - -June Kuhkos or kuhkos stone - a reputedly magical object Heptamene - -July Lastday - Funderling day of rest. 1059 1060 Oktamene - August Skyglass - Funderling name for a type of crystal Ennamene - September Snow - Briony's horse. Dekamene - October Sun's Blood - an elixir prepared by the priest of Nushash Endekamene - November Vuttish longboat - a raiding boat used by Vuttish Dodekamene - December. islanders in the northern ocean. Mordiya - Tuani for "uncle," can be honorary or actual. Whitefire - the sword of Yasammez. Morning Star of Kirous - Jeddin's ship. Wildsong Night - a holiday evening, in the days after Mossbrew - a strong Funderling drink. Winter's Eve Neverfade - a small white wildflower. Wolf's Chair - throne of Southmarch Castle. Pass-evil - hand si gn made to avert bad luck. Pentecount - a troop, numbering fifty. "Perin's great planet" - Pennos Eio, largest planet in the skies. Perinsday - a spring holiday. Podensis - a Hierosoline ship. Procession of Penance - a holy festival. Puffkin - a cat. Quiller's Mint - a tavern. Rack - a dog, raised by Briony. S'a-Qar - language of the Qar. Sandy - a river on the Blueshore border. Seal of War - a Qar gem, object of great importance. Screaming Years - an era of Qar history Shining Man - center of the Funderling Mysteries Shivering Plain - a famous Qar battleground Silver Thing - part of the Rooftopper's crown jewels 1061 1062