by Tad Williams
“CAN YOU FEEL THAT, LITTLE COUSIN?” Zosim bellowed at Yasammez. “CAN YOU FEEL YOUR ESSENCE BEING BOILED INSIDE YOU? THE SALAMANDROS IS FAR BEYOND YOU. I WOULD HAVE BURNED YOUR FATHER TO ASH IF HE HAD FOUGHT ME FAIRLY ... !”
From somewhere in the swirling, dark cloud Yasammez’s face swam up, deformed like melting wax, full of rage and agony. “You are Liar by name and nature,” she cried, her voice distant as a fading thunderstorm on the horizon. “If you had not struck from hiding . . . you would never have wounded him ...”
“WOUNDED? KILLED HIM! WITH MY FATHER’S SPEAR!” Zosim’s fires blazed again, so that for a moment he became a pillar of white flame that seemed to stretch up through the roof of the great cavern. Hundreds of steps away, Vansen felt the hairs on his arms begin to smolder, his skin to dry and crack, until he stumbled and almost dropped the king’s limp body. “YOUR RIDICULOUS, LIMPING FATHER IS FINALLY DEAD,” Zosim bellowed, “AND IN A MOMENT, YOU WILL BE, TOO.”
“It . . . matters not ...” Yasammez said, each word its own painful breath, each more faint than the one before. “I have . . . held you back . . . long enough ...”
What does she mean? Vansen wondered. Long enough? What does she see—or has she lost her wits at the end? We are dying. We are utterly defeated . . .
The laughter of Zosim was so loud and so gleeful that this time Vansen did stumble. Overbalanced, he fell to the loose stones; Olin’s body tumbled from his arms and rolled away. Vansen could barely see through the tears that filled his eyes, tears of pain and exhaustion and the endless, blistering hot winds that raged through the cavern.
Zosim’s voice rattled Vansen’s skull. “AFTER YOU ARE DEAD, I WILL CLIMB OUT OF THIS STONY TOMB OF MY FATHER’S AND UP INTO THE AIR. EVERYTHING THAT LIVES WILL SERVE ME OR DIE!” Again came the laughter, gusting and crashing, as flame licked the walls all around Zosim’s head.
Vansen crawled as fast as he could across the loose stones, praying again not to be noticed. He could tell by the waxing of the fiery light all around him that Yasammez was fading. He reached Olin where he lay, still unmoving and lifeless, then wrapped his arms around the king’s chest and began to drag him. He reached the boat and tugged Olin clumsily over the side so that he rolled into the bottom beside the senseless dark-haired girl. The huge craft was mired in the loose stones of the shore; Vansen knew he would not have been able to drag it himself even if he had not been bruised and battered to within an inch of his life. Where was Barrick?
At last, as the great golden blade ripped the dark cloud that was Yasammez into tatters once more, Vansen spotted the blue gleam of the prince’s armor. Barrick was not moving. Vansen hobbled toward him as fast as he could.
To his great relief, he could feel the prince’s chest moving steadily up and down, though his armor was burned and blackened and the prince’s usually pale face was bright red as if he had been dragged through a Midsummer’s Bonfire.
Midsummer midnight, Vansen thought. Who would have thought the world would end on such a day, in such a place . . . in such a manner? Yasammez was all but defeated, shrunk now to a shape less than half Zosim’s size, her great aspect curling further back on itself with each passing moment as the god in her was overwhelmed. Soon nothing would remain but what was mortal, and Zosim the Trickster would make short work of that.
“Prince Barrick! Can you hear me?” Vansen shook him again, but the prince did not wake. He began to drag him toward the boat, Barrick’s heels furrowing the stony ground. Halfway there, Vansen had to set him down, gasping in the hot air, never daring to look away for long from the pillar of fire at the center of the cavern as it steadily burned away the resistance of the woman who had been the greatest of all the Qar who ever lived.
As he finally reached the boat, something grabbed at the neck of his armor coat, yanking him backward so that he overbalanced and the prince fell from his arms. A long, curved Xixian blade fell across his neck as he lay on the ground, an edge so sharp that he could feel it cutting his skin merely by resting against his throat.
“Those are my prisoners, I think,” said the Autarch of Xis, showing all his teeth. Even as he spoke, the pressure grew on Vansen’s throat until he could feel blood trickling down his neck. “I will have them back, now, peasant.”
“Please, my lady!” Chert pulled at Briony’s sleeve again. He couldn’t help thinking that in other circumstances people might have their heads cut off for less. “Please, Princess, you can do nothing good for anyone by this course ...!”
Briony would not even slow. “Sir, I’m sure you are accounted a mighty warrior among your kind, but I am the princess of Southmarch and I am twice your size. If you tug at me again, I will throw you off this path!”
Chert withdrew his hand. He knew even better than she did what a long way down that would be. “But you will be killed!”
“No, everyone I know will be killed if I do nothing!”
With her determined stride and her manly armor, Briony had the look of something out of one of the ancient tapestries—Queen Lily riding at the front of her armies, perhaps, facing the Mantis and his mercenary legions. That the sweet-mannered girl who had run him down in the hills should have grown to this . . . ! Chert could not help admiring her, which made him all the more reluctant to see her throw her life away.
And I’ll throw my own life away, too, if I follow any farther ...
“My lady, please! See sense! I told you what will happen . . . !”
“But it has not happened yet. Perhaps it never will—perhaps you have miscalculated, or your gunflour has got wet.” She hurried down the path along the edge of the abyss, trotting when the way grew wide enough, slowing to a walk when it was narrow and the footing treacherous. “Then my family and my friends will need my help even more. No, you will not stop me, sir.”
“Unshored, stubborn . . . !” he muttered, but Chert of all people knew stubborn women well. They did not change their ways simply because a man told them to.
I can go with her and die or turn back and perhaps live—if any live through this, that is—and hate myself because I deserted her. Earth Elders, why have you cursed me? Why can I never be master of my own life . . . ?
As if in answer, Chert heard the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching. He stopped. After another step or two, Briony also stopped, staring into the darkness before them, but as the sound grew louder, it became clear that whatever approached was behind them, coming down from the surface.
“Who . . . ?” was all Briony had time to say when a young, dark-haired woman appeared in the circle of torch glow, running fast though she herself carried no light. She scarcely seemed to notice Chert or Briony as she dodged around them and hurried on; a moment later she had vanished into the darkness below them. For a few more moments they could hear her rapid footfalls, but then even those faded.
“What in the name of all the gods is happening here?” Briony said, staring wide-eyed. “How could she see? And why should she run that way, headlong into the dark?”
“I . . . I know her,” Chert said. “I know that girl.”
Briony was on the move again, hurrying down the path once more. “What do you mean? That was no Funderling—she was almost as tall as me!”
“I have met her—spoken to her. Her name is Willow. She is touched, I think, but she once led me to one of the Qar. ...”
“Willow? I know that girl, too. Captain Vansen brought her back from the western country—she had been lost behind the Shadowline, he said.” She sped her pace a little. “But why would she be hurrying down into the deeps without even a word? And how can she see to run in the darkness?”
Chert couldn’t answer. He didn’t know why the girl was there. He didn’t even know why he was still there himself.
This time they did not hear her until the last moment, when the girl called Willow burst out of the shadows in front of them, hurrying back toward Chert and the princess as though they had only now become visible to her. “Save him! They will hurt him! Plea
se, they are too much for him!” She threw herself down in front of Briony without any care for her own body and wrapped her arms around the princess’ booted ankles. “Save him—my Kayyin!”
“Wh-what? Who..?” Briony stammered, but the girl was already scrambling back onto her feet. She grabbed the princess’ arm and tried to tug her forward.
“Come! Oh, come! The creatures of fire and wind will kill him!”
Briony allowed herself to be pulled forward into the dark. Chert hastened after them. He could hear the sound of voices before them, one more or less human but others that gusted and whistled like the wind.
They stumbled out into a place where the path widened and saw what at first looked like a tall, slender man in the grip of some terrible palsy, arms flailing above his head and body swaying like a sapling in a fierce breeze—but it was shadows he fought with, Chert saw a moment later, shadows who clutched at him with hands like torn, flapping curtains.
“Help him!” the girl screamed.
Briony only hesitated for a moment, then raced toward the strange struggle with a dagger in each hand. Chert could only stare, wondering again what had happened to the young girl he had seen at the funeral. When had she become this thing of rope and steel?
But it doesn’t matter—those dark things will kill her. Then Chert, too, was running, waving his torch and trying to force a frightening bellow out of his pinched throat but not succeeding.
The half-elf was wrapped in a ragged mass of darkness that leaked light like a hooded lantern. As Briony approached, one of the creatures detached itself from Kayyin and floated toward her, billowing like a cloaked man in a high wind. Only its eyes had color, glinting like green garnets.
“Those are old blades you carry,” it said as it neared her. The voice seemed to sigh from every corner of the darkness beyond Chert’s torch. “Metal of a tumbled star. They have even wounded some of us in the past, and it is not easy to spite us.” The eyes flared briefly. “But wounding is not destroying—and you are no mighty warrior, girl.”
Briony had not stopped to listen, but was keeping her two blades before her as she moved in a broad arc, trying to draw the thing away from Kayyin and the other black shapes. “What you say is that you can be hurt, demon.” Her voice was tight but surprisingly steady. “That is all I needed to hear. I just killed my vilest enemy with my own hands, so come, then—let’s see who ends up the better!”
Briony crossed the knives in a quick flick as she lunged, like a single great pair of scissors. The apparition rippled away from her like smoke, then flowed back again and hooked at her with a ragged claw. Chert swung his torch at the thing’s arm, but the brand only passed through; the shapeless thing turned toward him and the darkness of its face seemed to fill his eyes. Chert was thrown backward. He cracked his head against the wall on one side of the path. The torch flew from his fingers and bounced toward the edge, landing a pace short; the flames rippled and nearly died, then flared up again.
Chert tried to rise, but it was not only the unsteady flames that made things before him tilt and spin. His head felt like it was full of bees, and his legs had no feeling at all. Earth Elders, he thought, I can’t die, not like this, not at the edge of someone else’s fight and away from Opal. . . .
The flapping, flickering thing that had spoken before swirled around Briony like mist, then slid just out of reach again when she swung her blades, as if it mocked her.
“Come close enough for me to kill you, you coward!” she said, her breath coming in gasps. “Queen Saqri swore that your kind would be our allies!”
“Saqri does not speak for us—and a mortal cannot kill an Elemental,” the thing said in a gleeful tone. “I am Shadow’s Cauldron and my doom is written down in the Book for long after you will be dust. Besides, I only sought to amuse myself until our task could be completed. Sisters? Have you taken our prize back from the thief?”
The other shadows lay stretched over the half-Qar Kayyin like black blankets, but at the sound of Shadow’s Cauldron’s voice they fluttered up into the air. Balanced in the overlap of their two darknesses was a large stone that gleamed yellow and roiled like muddy water. “We have it,” they declared, and it was their thoughts Briony understood, not their words.
“Yasammez is his mother,” one of the Elementals cried. “She must have told him of the Egg!”
“No,” said the other. “He saw it in her thoughts.”
“Take it, then,” cried the one called Shadow’s Cauldron. “How he learned of it does not matter!” The Elemental waved a ragged appendage and Briony was flung down, her knives clattering from her hands. Shadow’s Cauldron then blew away like mist and re-formed a heartbeat later in midair above the abyss, flapping now like some great, fire-eyed bat. “Now take the Egg and drop it onto hard stone, sisters. Crack it open and let death spill out for all these warm, fleshy creatures!”
All the shadowy shapes flew up into the heights so quickly that they might have been blown there by a howling wind. Only the gleam of their watching eyes and the sickly sheen of the Egg showed Chert where they hovered.
“The bodiless thoughts of the Deep Library helped us create this, but they did not have the courage to use it! Neither did Yasammez—in the end she died as much a coward as even Ynnir the Traitor. But we are different—we are the Guard of Elementals!” The calm certainty in the thing’s hissing voice grabbed at Chert’s innards like an icy hand. “We have nurtured it in our darkest garden and made it even more potent than Yasammez could have dreamed.”
“The Egg must not be broken,” croaked a weak voice. Kayyin crawled shakily onto his feet, so close Chert could almost have touched him. “When the fevers hatch out they will not just destroy what is in the castle but will creep up and down the earth for years to come, until there is nothing left that breathes,” the half-fairy said.
“Yes!” crowed Shadow’s Cauldron. “Our children will dance beneath the moon, with all the empty lands and seas to themselves. ...!” Its voice rose like a shrieking gale. “Cast the Egg down, sisters, and scour this sullied earth clean again . . . !”
“Those are my prisoners.” Of all those in the cavern, dead or still clinging to life, the autarch alone looked as though he had walked in from somewhere else. Sulepis was free of burns and only lightly touched with ash, his golden armor gleaming with the reflected light of the flames all around. The autarch’s falcon-crested helmet had been pushed high on his perspiring brow and his eyes bulged with an insane fury that Vansen had never seen before in any man. “And this boat is mine, too. What have you put there, dog—what else have you stolen from me? Ah, it is another Eddon, the fire-haired one. More ancient blood to be spilled, then, yes, more blood.” Although his knife pushed ever harder against Vansen’s neck, the autarch scarcely seemed to notice him. “Surely I can find another of Heaven’s prisoners—another sleeping god who will bargain for his freedom and rid me of this turbulent, treacherous Trickster,” Sulepis said. “No, the gods are not yet done with me—I will repay them for this slight. Who do they think they are?” His eyes turned back to Vansen. “I am the Golden One! I am the Living Sun!”
Vansen had to speak through clenched teeth. He fully expected these would be his last words. “You . . . are . . . only . . . another . . . fool.”
“What?” The autarch leaned down, pressing a little harder on the knife, spreading his knees to hold down Vansen’s shoulders and stop his struggling. “What are you? One of the Southmarch peasants?”
“I would rather ...” Vansen’s voice was barely a whisper; the autarch leaned closer. “I would rather be . . . the lowliest sheepherder in Southmarch . . . than you in your golden armor ...” Vansen had not been struggling at all, but reaching for a stone; he grabbed it and smashed it as hard as he could against the autarch’s gleaming falcon helmet.
Vansen had little strength left. The blow was only hard enough to surprise the Xixian god-king, but it allowed Vansen to throw him off. He did his best to crawl away, but Sulepis was on h
im in moments, stabbing with his blade so that Vansen could only throw out his hands to grab his enemy’s arms. He did his best to keep the blade from his unprotected face and neck, but Ferras Vansen was weary beyond description and wounded in several places; Sulepis was taller, well-muscled, and rested. Vansen managed to roll on the autarch’s wrist, forcing him to let go of his curved sword, but that was the guard captain’s only victory. As they struggled, the autarch quickly overpowered him again and clambered atop Vansen’s chest, then fastened his long, strong fingers around the northerner’s throat and began to squeeze.
The blackness gathered and spread before his eyes. Vansen could hear nothing but the roaring in his ears, see nothing but the blur of the autarch’s mad face, all eyes and bared teeth. Then a great flame seemed to fill the sky above them both, as though the glaring, blazing sun itself had fallen down into this deep place beneath the earth. An instant later, the weight of the autarch was lifted from Vansen’s chest. He coughed, struggling painfully for the air that had been denied him.
When he could look up again, he saw the tiny golden figure of the autarch dangling from the blazing white fingers of Zosim, whose vast, youthful face wore a smile of triumph.
“AND WITH CROOKED’S DAUGHTER DEALT WITH,” the god purred in a deep rumble like an approaching storm, “THAT LEAVES ONLY YOU, MY LITTLE SUMMONER.”
Sulepis struggled until the straps of his armor broke. He tumbled free, but as Vansen watched, the monstrous Zosim snatched him out of the air like a man catching a fly. “NO, I SHALL NOT LOSE YOU SO EASILY,” the god said. “AFTER ALL, I OWE YOU SOMETHING. YOU INTENDED TO COMMAND ME AS IF I WERE ONE OF YOUR SLAVES.” He laughed and the sound rolled and pounded through the massive cavern. He lifted the autarch until the struggling, shiny figure was just before his eyes. “I SEE YOU WEAR THE SUN LORD’S HAWK ON YOUR BROW, LITTLE MORTAL CREATURE. HOW HE WOULD LAUGH TO SEE THAT! BUT I LIKE THE IDEA. YES, YOU SHALL BE . . . MY CREST!”
