by Tad Williams
“Gods, it’s big.” Barrick lowered his shoulder against the bow and began to push. The boat gave a squishy creak but did not move. Vansen came up beside him and began to help him, but it felt like trying to slide a basket of wet clothes the size of a house; Vansen was certain that his own blood was going to burst from his ears before the thing moved even a fingernail’s breadth.
At last the boat scraped forward, skidding a few heavy inches. Vansen clenched his teeth until they felt as if they might shatter and pushed harder; beside him he heard Barrick talking quietly to himself. The reed boat shuddered and began to slide, faster and faster until Vansen stumbled trying to keep up with it and found he was already knee high in the silver sea.
“Push a little farther to get it moving,” Barrick said quietly. “And when you get in, stay low.”
Vansen pushed, walking on his tiptoes, trying not to splash. He was chest high in the silvery liquid now. It was thicker than water but more slippery, shiny and heavy, but less so than actual metal. It was also disturbingly warm. “We’re in it—the silver stuff!” It was all he could do to whisper, so strange did the substance feel where it touched his skin, almost . . . alive.
Barrick scrambled up into the boat, then turned and reached a hand down to help Vansen climb up also. Vansen threw himself down in the bottom of the boat, gasping for breath, and watched the silvery liquid run off him, slithering away into the crevices between the bundled reeds. “What is it? What is this lake made of?”
Barrick Eddon had stretched out, too, lying on his side near the far side of the boat. His eyes were half-open and fixed on nothing, as though he could see through the bundled reeds of the gunwales, and perhaps even through the stone of the cavern itself. “You ask, what is the sea made of, Captain? The very last remains of my oldest ancestor.” He smiled a little, but it only made Vansen feel cold. “You’ve been splashing in the blood of a god.”
38
A Visitor to Death’s Estate
“By the time the Orphan reached the house of Aristas the piece of the sun had burned his hands away to ash. He gave the piece of sun to his friend and then fell down dead at his feet.”
—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”
EVERYTHING HAPPENED with astonishing swiftness.
Briony, the Temple Dog soldier, and the Syannese knight Stephanas were making their way silently across the hilly temple yard with nothing but the light of the three-quarter moon, which was just strong enough that Briony didn’t notice the lesser light, a dim glow on the overhang at the front of the Eddon family tomb, until they were almost on top of it.
Both fear and fury surged through her. What was Hendon doing in her family’s vault?
As she signaled to the Syannese to stay quiet, two soldiers in dark cloaks came up the steps of the tomb together locked in some kind of struggle.
“The dead . . . !” one of them gasped to the other even as he fought with him, so frightened he could barely speak. “He’s trying to bring back . . . !” The terrified soldier at last broke free from the other, who seemed to have been trying to restrain him, and sprinted off across the cemetery grounds to disappear into darkness. The other soldier watched him go for a moment with wide eyes, but he must have heard something closer to hand. He lowered his spear and began inching toward the spot where Briony and Eneas’ soldiers crouched behind a stone vault.
“Who is that?” he demanded in a quavering voice. “Step out, in the name of the lord protector . . . !”
One of Tolly’s men, then. Briony nodded to the soldier with a bow, who stood up and loosed his arrow more or less in one motion. Hendon Tolly’s sentry looked down at the slender wooden shaft shivering in his gut as though it were the most puzzling thing in the world, then he folded over and dropped noiselessly to the ground.
Briony led Stephanas and the other Syannese soldier down the stairs. To her surprise, the tomb’s main vault, the place where her grandfather, mother, and brother had all been laid to rest, was empty except for the coffins that contained them and other recent Eddon ancestors, but she could hear voices—surprisingly loud voices—in the inner vault. She looked to Stephanas and the soldier, raising a finger to her lips.
“The child,” she whispered. “Remember—save the child at all costs.”
And then they stepped through the short passage between vaults. When they emerged with weapons raised into the light of the inner tomb, Briony saw several figures, the most startling a man with a long knife about to murder the infant prince on some sort of makeshift altar, but before she said a word her Syannese bowman shot the knife-wielder in the chest. The man spun in surprise and then toppled heavily to the floor, his long dagger clinking on the stones as it bounced away.
Hendon Tolly acted almost as swiftly as the archer. By the time the man with the knife touched the stone floor of the crypt, Tolly had thrown the heavy book he was holding at the bowman, knocking his weapon out of his hands. Hendon’s sword hissed out of its scabbard. Briony drew hers, too, but Hendon had no intention of anything so civilized as fighting an armed enemy. His slender blade leaped forward like the tongue of a silver snake and hung, barely wavering, above tiny baby Alessandros, who had begun to cry, a strange, homely sound in the middle of such an unhomely place.
“Well, now,” said Tolly, his eyes wide and bright in the light from the torches burning in the sconces. He moved a step closer to the infant prince, all the time keeping his blade within a few inches of the child’s eyes. “What an interesting evening this has turned out to be!”
“Don’t listen to talk,” Shaso had always told Briony, usually after distracting her into dropping her guard. “It is either foolishness on the part of your opponent, or it is meant to distract. Know where you are.” Briony did her best to follow that advice, though the sight of Hendon Tolly’s smirking face only a couple of yards away made her hand tighten on the hilt of her sword until it ached.
Briony had never been inside this inner vault, with its six walls and narrow shelves and dark, deep corners—a chamber that now seemed full to bursting even without the ancient coffins. Besides herself and the two Syannese, the only ones still standing were Hendon and one of his guards and what appeared to be a hostage, a dark-haired woman Briony recognized after a moment as the Summerfield noblewoman Elan M’Cory, the one who had been so miserable about Gailon Tolly’s death. Tolly’s other minion, the knife-wielder, was lying facedown on the floor in a small pool of blood. But Hendon’s sword so near the young prince’s throat trumped any advantage Briony had in numbers.
And it was clear that Hendon knew that. “Retreat, Briony, or I will kill the child. You will not take me without losing little Alessandros here. I would happily rob you of a brother as I go.” He laughed.
“Is there nothing decent in you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “This is a pointless conversation. You could not understand me if you lived as long as the fairies do. Go slowly back, out of the tomb. If you let me get the door closed, as I should have been minded to do before, then you can do as you wish.” He laughed again. “You can call for a battering ram if it pleases you!”
“No. Don’t be a fool. I will not leave the child with you.”
“I feared you would be stubborn. It is so like you self-satisfied Eddons.” Hendon nodded slowly, letting his gaze slide to her guards. “I see you have brought the Syannese to Southmarch.” Tolly raised a mocking eyebrow. “Which of course means that you have whored yourself out to young Eneas.” His eyes widened at her expression. “No? Truly? Well, then, perhaps to the old man himself. Is that it? Did Olin’s daughter give herself to the ancient king of Syan to save her people? How noble!”
It took every bit of strength she had to resist Hendon’s goading, to stay where she was. The crying of baby Alessandros was beginning to make her head ache. “Sir Stephanas,” she said. “Send your man to find Prince Eneas. Tell him we have Hendon Tolly trapped in my family’s vault.”
“No! If he even takes a step toward the outer vault,” Hendon Tolly warned her, “I will take out this child’s eye. The little prince will still be fit for my purposes, but he will scream all the louder.”
“Dog! Is this your idea of honor? To threaten children?”
Hendon Tolly laughed so hard it could be nothing but genuine. “Honor? What whey-faced nonsense is that? Do you think I care for such things?”
“Gods! You are filth, Tolly. And even if you keep me here for hours, eventually Eneas will come looking for me. There is no way out of here.”
He looked amused at this. “Truly? Well, that is sad.”
Briony was desperate to shake him from his certainty, to get him away somehow from the child. “Yes, you are as good as on the headsman’s block—and then he’ll minister to your treacherous family, too. I will knock down Summerfield House myself and drag your brother and your mother out into the light of day like the creeping things they are. ...”
Tolly nodded. “If you do, you’ll probably find our mother still there, but it’s rather a funny story about my brother, Caradon.” He laughed. “It seems he’s found himself a bit short lately. ...”
“For the love of the Trigon, Highness!” said Sir Stephanas loudly. “Do not waste words on this coward any more. We have him outnumbered!”
“No, Stephanas ...” Briony began.
“She’s right, young fellow,” said Tolly with a grin. “After all, it might seem like you have me outnumbered, but there are only two of you and a woman against me—a duo of Syannese, at that. There has never been a day that a few butter-eaters could beat a man from the March Kingdoms . . . !”
“Braggart!” To Briony’s horror, Stephanas leaped toward Tolly, striking down at Tolly’s sword with his own to sweep it away from the helpless infant, but Tolly only stepped aside and then his slim blade flicked out. Stephanas stumbled, then stood up straight and took another couple of halting steps, blocking Briony’s view of Hendon Tolly. Stephanas let go of his sword, then his knees folded and he slumped to the ground, blood pulsing from the socket of his eye. Hendon lunged toward the baby again . . . but Alessandros was gone from the makeshift altar.
“What . . . ?” He saw Briony and stopped. His lips curled, but this time the smile was slow and reluctant. “Well played, girl. You are resilient, you Eddons, I will grant that. Now stop this foolery and give me the child.”
Young Alessandros was surprisingly heavy, and squirming and crying on top of it. Briony raised her own sword and slowly pivoted, keeping herself not between Hendon Tolly and the door, but between him and the other Syannese soldier, who was looking at Stephanas’ last, gasping moments with round, startled eyes.
“Take the child,” she said to the young soldier. “Take him!”
“No!” Hendon moved forward but Briony took a step back, keeping distance between them. “Take the baby, curse you!” she snapped at the Temple Dog. “Take him and run back to the residence. This is the king’s son! Get him to safety!”
The soldier reached out his hands, but stared at Hendon all the while like a rabbit watching an approaching snake. Briony pushed Alessandros toward him, then almost sighed with relief as the young soldier took the child. “Run, I said—run!”
Hendon looked as though he was about to say something, but then suddenly lunged forward with a stroke so long and vicious that if Briony’s own blade had not been raised enough for her to bring it up with only a flick of the wrist and divert Tolly’s attack, his thrust would have gone right through her. He struck and then struck again, so swiftly that it was all she could do to fall back and stay between Tolly and the door, shielding herself behind her own moving blade as he hammered at her.
“Run!” she screamed.
The Syannese soldier at last took the point. In an instant, Briony’s last soldier had vanished from the inner vault carrying the infant in his arms. Only when Briony heard his feet scuffing on the stairs leading up from the outer vault did she take a breath. “The child’s out of your reach now, Hendon.”
“Bitch,” said Tolly. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’ll die slowly for that. And, after all, your blood will serve as well as that child’s for my sacrifice. ...” He turned to his guard, who was still holding Elan M’Cory. “Forget that whore. Come and help me with this mannish princess.”
A little unnecessary emphasis in his words warned her. Briony turned from Elan and the other guard just in time to save herself from another of Tolly’s unexpected attacks.
He quickly forced her back, but instead of letting her get to the door of the inner vault, he kept her moving until he was backing her toward his own guard, but even as Briony realized this she heard a shout of surprise and pain. She risked a swift glance, enough to see that Elan M’Cory had leaped onto the soldier’s back and was scratching at his face with her nails. The guard shouted and cursed as he tried to throw her off.
The distraction gave Briony time to avoid Hendon’s thrust and keep backing past them, around the outside of the six-sided vault, doing her best to keep Hendon on the other side of the lead coffin that lay in the center of the room. Briony realized that he had forced her into a losing game, and that Elan M’Cory was about to be overpowered by the soldier in Tolly’s boar-and-spears livery. Then the odds would be two to one. She feinted twice, then took a wild, swinging blow at Hendon’s head that he dodged easily, but did not let herself be carried so far that his following stroke could find her unprotected belly. As Hendon took a step back to set himself once more, Briony suddenly turned and lunged in an unexpected direction herself, slashing Hendon’s guardsman across his face. As he dropped his blade and reached up to his bleeding cheeks and mouth, she plucked her long Yisti dagger from her belt and stabbed at him, piercing his mail and sinking the slim blade deep into his belly.
The man stumbled, gurgling, then fell across the lead coffin.
“There’s your bloody sacrifice or whatever you were planning, Hendon,” she said, keeping the corpse between them as she circled and tried to catch her breath. “Now I’ll be happy to send you off to Kernios after him.”
Tolly’s face was set hard. “You have learned a few things.” He feinted, then lunged, then lunged again, the second one actually meant to strike her. It nearly did. She was weary already, but Hendon was not even breathing hard. He was not a big man, but he was very strong, with muscles like braided whipcord. “Was it Shaso who taught you so well, or your new lover, Eneas?” he asked. “I was the one who had Shaso killed, you know. It was by my order that nest of black traitors in Landers Port was burned to the ground. Too bad you weren’t roasted with the other birds in that same oven. ...”
Don’t listen, she told herself even as she wanted to weep with rage. Don’t listen. She dodged another one of his attacks, then a moment later caught a second one on her blade and just ducked under it, but she felt the sharp tip of Tolly’s steel pierce her surcoat and for an instant even slide along her neck before she spun away. She was tiring badly; the effort made her lose her balance and almost fall. Hendon saw his advantage and leaped after her, raining strokes on her like a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, so that Briony could do nothing except try to keep her steel between Hendon’s sword and her flesh.
But I can’t. He’s faster than me . . . stronger than me . . . and he always has been . . .
Suddenly Elan M’Cory screamed, a shriek of genuine terror that made even Hendon Tolly take a step back from Briony to look. A dark shape blocked the doorway between the vaults, and now took a shaky step forward into the inner vault.
At first, Briony thought one of the dead out of her family’s tomb had risen to stand swaying on the edge of the darkness, its filthy, tattered cloak like a shroud, its deathly face hidden deep in a hood. It reached toward them with hands that looked like ragged claws in the flickering torchlight, still wrapped in the cerements of the grave.
It spoke, but its voice was an inaudible, scraping hiss. The hairs on Briony’s neck rose and her heart, already spee
ding, threatened to burst from her breast.
“B-B-Brothers protect us!” Briony said.
The apparition tried again to speak, and at last words could be heard—ragged, gasping words nearly as painful to hear as they must have been to form. “Briony ...!” the thing scraped. “I have . . . come back ... from Death’s lands ...”
Her breath caught in her throat as the hooded shape took another staggering step into the vault. “Zoria’s mercy,” she gasped, “is that you, Shaso? Gods preserve us, is that you?” But even as she said it, even as superstitious terror gripped her, something seemed wrong.
Even stranger was Tolly’s reaction: the lord protector’s eyes bulged and his hands lifted as if in hopeless defense against this phantom, the sword he held in one fist all but forgotten. “You . . . ! But . . . but you’re dead!”
And then Elan M’Cory came crawling across the ground, weeping and praying, and Briony was convinced that the chaotic air of Midsummer had driven everyone around her mad.
The bandaged hands came up and slowly tugged back the hood. At first Briony could make no sense of what she saw—the milky, damaged eyes and the oozing, pale skin worthy of any corpse, blotched all over with what looked like black earth. But then, as the ruined face turned slowly from her to Hendon Tolly, she suddenly knew what she was seeing—who she was seeing.
“Gailon,” she breathed. “Gailon Tolly.”
The thing pointed at Hendon. “You,” it rasped, each word an agony. “You killed me.”
“What is this madness?” But the bluster had gone from the lord protector’s voice. “Is this some trick? You were dead, brother. Shot with a dozen arrows. But you are no ghost, that I would swear—you are flesh and blood ...”
“Your men . . . shot me, brother, then . . . buried me with my servants and friends.” Each word came a little easier now, but he still spoke with a halting and ruined voice. “They were not very good shots, as you can see.” He bared his teeth in a terrible grin. “Hours, days, I lay wounded in the dark earth with the corpses of my companions, too weak to move . . . but unable to die. I was a stranger in Death’s estate and Death did not want me. When I realized I was still alive, I dug my way out of what you meant to be my grave, Hendon, then came back to tell Briony of your treachery.” He turned his nearly sightless eyes toward Briony. “But I see you learned too late what my brother is—the rottenest fruit of my father’s loins. Now all I can do to atone for my mistake . . . is to end his life.”
