by Tad Williams
My heart was beating fast. Out of pure selfishness, I did not want to be the one to tell her the whole story of what had happened in Serpent’s Vale. Already I had spent long stretches of the vigil beside my wounded master pondering what had gone wrong there and why. Unhappy thoughts will overwhelm an idle body, and my mind had turned back again and again to the tragedy. But some of what I saw as mistakes were things that my beloved master and his brother had chosen to do. I could not imagine myself blaming them to Lady Amerasu, not just because she was the Sa’onsera, the most revered of all the Zida’ya, but because she was their mother.
Why do you hesitate? she asked me. Please, do not make me wait to know more.
Only to put the thoughts in my head into some kind of order, I told her, though our connection through the Witness seemed so intimate that I felt sure she could guess I was not telling her the entire truth.
First tell me of my eldest son. I have had Dunyadi’s account, but I want to hear from you. Does Hakatri suffer? Is he in pain?
That question at least I could answer honestly. He does not show it, Lady Amerasu, but I think that is because he is deep in the fog of the kei-vishaa. He moves a little, and sometimes he speaks, but mostly only in single words, and I cannot often make sense of even those.
Will he live? she asked.
I am not the one who could tell you that, Lady. I know that he is strong. I know that the healer Geniki has done all he can. But I fear what will happen when my lord is no longer pressed down into slumber by the witchwood powder.
Then Hakatri must come back to Asu’a, she told me. Geniki has done well, and I would trust him with my own life as I have trusted him with my son’s, but I doubt he can do all that is needed.
I had a moment of hope. Are there healers at Asu’a who can cure my lord?
Cure him? I felt rather than heard the tremor in her thoughts. There is no cure that I have heard of for the bane of dragon’s blood. But there are other ways to ease his pain, ways that even Geniki does not know. Hakatri must come back to Asu’a. He must come back to us. For a moment her fear and sorrow were plain even to me. I beg of you, Pamon Kes, use whatever persuasion you can to convince my sons to return to their home.
I will try, S’huesa Amerasu. Of course I will. My world was shaken. Amerasu had always been a respected and even beloved figure, but always remote, at least from my humble vantage. Now she was pleading with me—with me, a Tinukeda’ya servant!—to help her get her children home.
* * *
• • •
The day after Amerasu spoke to me through the Witness, my master awoke. He had been taken from his bath of ice and moved to Dunyadi’s own bedchamber, where he lay on the softest, smoothest bedding that could be found. I was sitting beside him, of course, which was where I spent most of my hours, reading to him from a book of poems written by Benhaya-Shonó of Kementari, one of the greatest bards of my master’s people. I did not always understand these old, old poems—they held subtleties that I guessed only other Zida’ya could appreciate, references to famous tales from the Garden that I did not know and to people of the Great Exile who had died long before my time—but Benhaya—an invented name of the poet’s own choosing that meant “Sparrow”—had also created passages so sublime that I sometimes forgot the one who made them was not of my race, that he had been writing not for me but his own folk.
As I read, a murmuring noise from the bed made me look up to see that Hakatri’s eyes were open and that he appeared to be trying to say something. I moistened his lips with water, then lifted the cup to his mouth so he could drink.
“It hurts so, Pamon,” were his first words.
I was so full of joy that he recognized me that it was all I could do not to grab his hand and kiss it. “Master, it is good to hear your voice!”
He groaned, and when he spoke it was in a nearly breathless whisper. “I wish I could say . . . that it is good to be alive. But there is fire burning all through me, Pamon. In my body, all the way down into my bones. By the Garden, it would have been better if I had died.”
Even the mere daub of watered wormsblood that had briefly touched my own hands was still causing me great pain, as if I had held them in a flame: I could not doubt he was in terrible agony, but I could think of nothing to do but reassure him, however baselessly. “No, Master! What is wrong may be remedied. There is no remedy for death.”
But Hakatri was no longer listening. His moment of wakefulness had taken all his strength, and he had lapsed back into insensibility once more.
In the days that followed my lord was awake more and more. Though his pain was always present, and he spoke about it in the wondering tone of a child who has discovered something utterly new, at times he seemed nearly himself. He asked if the dragon was dead, and of course for news of Ineluki. I assured him that the worm had died but Ineluki had not, that by luck his brother had avoided all injury. That was not entirely true: Ineluki might have avoided wounds of the flesh, but his spirit seemed sorely injured. I heard many tales of his bitter anger at the mortals who had fled before the dragon, and I also heard he spent most of his time walking alone among the trees of Birch Hill with a face like stone, so that nobody dared approach him.
Reassured about his brother, Hakatri asked me about Cormach and his Hernsmen. I had not yet heard the news of the prince’s survival, so I could tell him only what I had seen in Serpent’s Vale. In all ways but his suffering, my master seemed so like his ordinary self—if he had not, I might have kept silent about the hatred Ineluki seemed to have conceived for the mortals. But I spoke, and though Hakatri was disturbed by Ineluki’s fixation with the Hernsmen’s supposed crimes, not mere failures, my master himself seemed to feel no anger toward them.
“They feared for their prince,” he told me through cracked lips. “We none of us know precisely what we will do in such a moment. Whatever my brother’s feelings, I hope Cormach survived. He was one of the best mortals I have met.”
And that was my master, summed up. Do you wonder that I loved him? To suffer such a terrible thing and yet to feel pity for lesser creatures?
With Hakatri’s wits apparently restored, I was finally able to tell him of his mother’s words to me. By the time I finished, his pain had once more grown too great for him to talk, so I hastened in search of old Geniki who brought more kei-vishaa and gave it to my master in a cup of wine. Then, before Hakatri sank down into sleep once more, he told me, “I will go back to Asu’a as soon as it can be arranged—I will have to be carried, I fear. I cannot even stand yet, let alone sit a horse. But I do not know what my brother will say. I worry for him. When I am awake again, I will . . . I will . . .” Then the witchwood powder pulled him back into slumber.
“When our kei-vishaa is gone, Pamon, his suffering will be fearful,” the healer Geniki warned me in the passage outside my master’s room.
“That cannot happen!” I said, suddenly terrified. “As it is, he can barely live with the pain!”
“I have sent to other healers I know in nearby settlements, asking them to share some of their own store, but none of them have much by the end of a Great Year. And even Asu’a’s deep groves, where the witchwood trees still stand in large numbers, may not provide enough blossoms to keep his pain forever at bay. We would use up every bloom the seasons give us. Witchwood trees take a long time to flower and renew themselves.”
“What are you saying, Master Geniki? That we will not be able to stifle his pain at all? That my poor master will have to live with agony that he already says is killing him despite being given kei-vishaa every day?”
The healer’s long face was mournful. “I fear that is exactly what I am saying, Armiger.” He put a hand on my arm, a rare intimate gesture between one of the Zida’ya and one of my own people. “I can tell you are devoted to him. I tell you this sad truth so you can consider your own path.”
“Path?” I was confused. �
��My path is my master’s path. I will stay with him no matter what may happen.”
“Even so,” the healer said. “Heed me carefully. I have been told that Lord Ineluki’s unfortunate oath led to this disastrous state of affairs. I would suggest you take that lesson to heart. Do not make promises you may regret in the fullness of time.”
I could not understand what he meant then. I see it differently now, and I am grateful for what Geniki tried to tell me. I was too caught up in the moment, in my master’s suffering and my own sense of what I owed him, but if I saw the healer again I would thank him. He tried to think of what was right for the servant as well as the master—a rare thing among any of the world’s people.
A few days later, Hakatri i-Sa’onserei was carried from Birch Hill on a litter by a foursome of Lord Dunyadi’s retainers. A small company of other young Zida’ya traveled with us to protect my helpless master. The bearers remained silent through most of the long journey, as though they carried a corpse instead of a live body. At times they would sing quietly, though whether to cheer themselves or Hakatri I do not know. I made certain to talk to my master whenever possible, though he seldom responded with more than a glance or a shadow of a smile. His face was scarred by the dragon’s blood, but not as badly as his arms, chest, and belly, where the burning black stuff had been trapped against his skin by his witchwood armor.
Traveling must have been dreadful for him. I can only guess at the agony he endured for days of being trundled over hills and down dales, despite the care his bearers took with him. I certainly did not begrudge him either his waking silences or his long bouts of murmuring, sometimes whimpering slumber: the suffering on his face when he was awake made me grateful that he could sleep at all.
We went by barge up the Redwash to the Moonpath Bridge, where the keepers—Zida’ya all—stood at mournful attention as we carried Hakatri ashore, then watched for a long time as we continued on toward Asu’a. Lord Ineluki was with us, but even more silent than the bearers: I do not think I had more than a few curt words from him during the journey, until we finally sighted the pinnacle of Nightingale Tower on the sixth day of our sad passage. The statue of Jenjiyana looking toward the Lost Garden glinted red-gold like burnished copper as it threw back the setting sun.
“It is always good to catch the first glimpse of home,” I said to Hakatri, who had awakened a short while earlier but was keeping his eyes closed. “All those who love you must be waiting anxiously to see you.”
“To see his wounds,” said Ineluki from behind me. The abruptness of his speech and the bitterness in his voice surprised me. “To see what I have done to my own brother. To curse me.”
I turned. The younger brother’s fair face was set in lines of deep misery: he looked as though he were being led to execution. “Surely, my lord,” I said, “they will be as glad to see you whole and hale as they will be to see my master returning.”
He stared at me then, the first time he had truly engaged with me since we left Dunyadi’s house. “You think so, do you? You are a servant, Pamon, and not even one of my people. What do you know of their long memories? They have still not forgiven Nerudade of the Hamakha, who died even before we left the Garden. Do you think they will welcome me back? I all but killed their darling—their favorite.” For a moment I saw something deeper beneath Ineluki’s sour expression, something frightening—a spiteful emptiness in his golden-eyed stare that was ordinarily hidden, I suspect, and with good reason. That look of icy rage quite transformed him, and for the first time ever in my life I feared my master’s brother.
I could not bear to meet Ineluki’s gaze any longer; I turned back to my master and offered him a drink. He tried to lift a hand to take it himself, but it was too painful, so he let the arm drop again and waited for me to bring the cup to his lips.
“Brother,” Ineluki said, “this was my fault, but I swear that I will—”
“No!” Hakatri’s speech was slurred but we had no trouble understanding him. He opened his eyes and stared at his brother. “No oaths. Swear nothing . . .” He tried to lift his arm again and this time managed to raise it high enough to make the sign that signified peace upon you. “Anger . . . breeds anger.”
“The mortals deserted you—ran like rabbits at the moment of our greatest need!” Ineluki was struggling with himself, I could see, fighting to keep his words measured. “How can I not hate them almost as much as I hate myself?”
“Anger . . . breeds . . . anger.” That was all my master could manage, then his eyelids sagged again and he spoke no more that evening.
* * *
• • •
I cannot imagine a world without Asu’a the Eastward-Looking, or a time in which that great city no longer exists, but I could not have imagined a world without Lord Hakatri in it either. The chief lesson fate can teach us, I think, is to trust no certainties.
I have approached great Asu’a from many directions over the years as I traveled at my master’s side, from a boat on the Ocean Road as we slipped from the river into wide green Landfall Bay, and through the flowering meadows of the north, while the wide-winged cranes flew over the palace roofs and wheeled about the tallest towers like leaves caught by the wind. But the time I will always remember above all others is that journey back from Birch Hill, when we brought my wounded, suffering master home to the city’s white walls.
Colorful pennants of many clans flew from Asu’a’s high places, the cloud-tall spike of Nightingale Tower, the huge but gracefully curving walls of Thousand Leaves Hall, and the walls of glinting island-marble, white as new-fallen snow. When I think of Asu’a even now, it is the Asu’a I saw that day that looms first in my memory. May it always stand on the headlands above the bay as a beacon to those of good heart.
From the number of Zida’ya and Tinukeda’ya and even dark-garbed Hikeda’ya waiting to see us as we entered the city gates, an observer might have thought we had returned in glory from war. We had defeated our foe, though at great cost, but the folk of Asu’a had barely heard of the worm before Hakatri fell: this was not so much a triumphant return as a mournful one. My master was much loved and talk of his terrible wounds had swept through the city. The crowds were mostly silent as we carried him past on the litter. A few sang songs—old, proud tunes like “Senayana’s Ode,” or the touching strains of “Garden of Memory,” which spoke of the deaths of Drukhi and Nenais’u. This last upset me, and I wanted to shout at the ones singing it, “My master is not dead! He will live! He will do great things!” But I stayed silent, as usual.
Amerasu and Iyu’unigato themselves, dressed in everyday robes as though to emphasize that this was no celebration, met us at the base of the Tan’ja Stairs. They accompanied our sad procession as we mounted to the upper floors of the palace, Hakatri still carried in his litter. He was breathing faintly, but otherwise insensible. Once my master’s mother reached to touch him, then seemed to remember his terrible burns and stopped short. I thought I saw a tear glinting on her cheek as she withdrew her hands and let her long sleeves fall over them once more, but I could not be certain. I had never seen any of the highest Zida’ya weep.
When Lord Hakatri was carried into his bedchamber the healers were already there waiting for him, almost a dozen all told. As Ineluki and I and a few others lifted him carefully from the litter—despite all our caution my master still gasped in agony at being handled—the healers watched closely. Most of their faces were golden, but I saw a few white-skinned Hikeda’ya among them. When Hakatri was lying on his own bed for the first time in two moons or more they all gathered over him like a flock of gulls fighting over a fish. I nearly wept.
And just like that, I was pushed from my master’s side. He belonged to the healers now. Pamon Kes was no longer useful.
* * *
• • •
The Moon of the Dove soon gave way to the moons of the Nightingale, Otter, and Fox. Day after day, as his wife Briseyu
sat helplessly by, the healers plied my master with potent syrups and rubbed his skin with soothing unguents. I stood outside the door of his chamber and listened, but his cries of pain were often too much for me to bear. I visited him whenever I could, and as the Season of Growing set in and the weather grew warm, he seemed to recover a little of himself, though his agony only eased for short stretches. Other than Briseyu and my master’s mother, the Sa’onsera, who both sat for hours at his bedside, his most constant companions were Lady Athuke of the Gentle Hands, Asu’a’s most renowned healer, and Magister Jikkyo of the Hikeda’ya Order of Song, who had been sent by Queen Utuk’ku herself to attend Hakatri. One or both of these skilled healers were almost always at my master’s side, although Athuke did not seem overly fond of the Singer, as those of Jikkyo’s order called themselves.
Jikkyo was blind, his eyes clouded so that they were as white as his skin. Since he also affected white garments and his hair was of the same hue, I found him a ghostly and unsettling presence. He spoke softly, which was all to the good in a suffering lord’s chamber, but many times when I came in to see my master I would find Jikkyo there, talking urgently to Hakatri in a low voice, but the Hikeda’ya mage would stop when he heard me enter. The suddenness with which he would fall silent disturbed me. What could he be saying to one such as my master that he thought should be hidden from a mere servant like me?
Perhaps because of his blindness, Jikkyo always had an acolyte beside him. This female Hikeda’ya was quite unexceptional of feature and indeterminate in age, but she seemed as odd to me as the Magister of Song himself. She never spoke, and when she was not helping Jikkyo in some way, she sat and stared at nothing, appearing as blind as her master, though she was not. But every once in a great while she would turn those dark, dark eyes on me, and at such times it was all I could do not to shudder, because I saw nothing that I recognized in that stare. She was flesh and blood, but when I met her gaze she might have been a child’s doll, her eyes only shiny paint. Athuke told me the acolyte’s name was Ommu.
