by Tad Williams
Binabik’s grin returned. “He is not my Prince Josua, and he is—what was your wording?—drifty. But not foolish. Not foolish at all. And he may be our last hope for staving off the coming storm.” As though he had stumbled into an uncomfortable subject, the troll busied himself with their supper. He pushed a smoking bird over to the Rimmersman. “Here. Have something to eat. Perhaps if the Hunën are enjoying the cold weather, they will be leaving us alone. We can then gain ourselves a good night sleeping.”
“We will need it. We have a long road before we can give away this damnable sword.”
“But we owe it to those who have fallen,” Binabik said, staring out into the dark reaches of the surrounding forest. “We do not have the freedom of making a failure.”
As they ate, Qantaqa rose and paced about the campsite, listening intently to the wailing wind.
Snow was blowing savagely across the Waste, flung hard enough by the howling wind to strip the very bark from the trees along the Aldheorte’s ragged north fringe. The great hound, not hindered in the least by such unfriendly weather, bounded lightly back through the blinding flurries, stone-hard muscles coiling and uncoiling beneath its short fur. When the dog reached Ingen’s side, the Queen’s Huntsman reached into his vest and produced a length of gnarled, dried meat that had at one end something suspiciously like a fingernail. The white hound crunched it in a r ’ond, then stood peering out into the darkness, cloudy little eyes full of eagerness to be moving once more. Ingen scratched carefully behind the dog’s ears, his gloved fingers trailing across a bulgingly muscled jaw that could crush rock.
“Yes, Niku’a” the huntsman whispered, voice echoing within his helm. His own eyes were as madly intent as those of the hound. “You have the scent now, do you not? Ah, the Queen will be so proud. My name will be sung until the sun turns black and rotten and drops from the sky.”
He lifted his helmet and let the stinging wind batter his face. As certainly as he knew that frosty stars shone somewhere above the dark-ness, so, too, he knew that his quarry was still before him, and that he drew nearer to it with every day that passed. At this moment he did not feel himself to be the stolid, tireless hound that was his sigil, and whose snarling face made the mask of his helm; he was instead some subtler, more feline predator, a creature of fierce but quiet joy. He felt the freezing night on his face and knew that nothing that lived beneath the black sky could escape him for long.
Ingen Jegger slid the crystalline dagger from his sleeve and held it before him, staring at it as though it were a mirror in which he could see himself, the Ingen who had feared to die in obscurity. Catching some hardy beam of moonlight or starshine, the translucent blade burned with a chilly blue fire; its carvings seemed to writhe like serpents beneath his fingers. This was all he had dreamed, and more. The Queen in the Silver Mask had set him a great task, a task befitting the making of a legend. Soon—he felt it with a certainty that made him tremble—soon that task would be accomplished. Ingen let the dagger slide back into his sleeve.
“Go, Niku’a,” he whispered, as though the hidden stars might betray him if they heard. “It is time to hunt our prey to ground. We will run.” Ingen vaulted into the saddle. His patient mount stirred as if awakening.
The snow swirled, blowing through the empty night where a moment before a man, a horse, and a dog had stood.
The afternoon light was failing, the translucent walls of Jiriki’s house gradually growing darker. Aditu had brought a meal of fruit and warm bread to Simon’s room, an act of kindness for which he would have been even more appreciative had she not stayed to annoy him. It was not that Simon did not enjoy Aditu’s company or admire her exotic beauty: it was, in fact, her very beauty and shamelessness that disturbed him, making it especially difficult to concentrate on such mundane tasks as eating.
Aditu trailed a finger up his backbone once more. Simon nearly choked on a mouthful of bread.
“Don’t do that!”
The Sitha-woman made an interested face. “Why not? Does it cause you pain?”
“No! Of course not. It tickles.” He turned away sulkily, inwardly regretting his lack of manners—but not much. He was feeling, as he usually did around Aditu, quite flummoxed. Jiriki, for all his alien ways, had never made Simon think of himself as a cloddish mortal: beside Aditu, Simon felt himself to be made of mud.
She was attired today in little but feathers and jeweled beads and a few strips of fabric. Her body gleamed with scented oils. “Tickles? But is that bad?” she asked. “I do not wish to hurt you or make you uncomfortable, Seoman. It is just that you are so –” she searched for the proper word, “—so unusual, and I have seldom been near your kind.” She seemed to be enjoying his discomfiture. “You are very wide here…” She ran a finger from one of his shoulders to the other, sighing as this occasioned another muffled yelp. “It is clear you are not made like our folk.”
Simon, who had slid out of reach once more, grunted. He was uncomfortable around her, that was a simple fact. Her presence had begun to make him feel as though he had some kind of damnable itch, and in his solitude he had come to both yearn for and yet fear her arrivals. Every time he stole a glance at her slim body, displayed with an immodesty that still shocked him to the depths of his being, he found himself remembering the thundering sermons of Father Dreosan. Simon was astonished to discover that the priest, whom he had always thought an idiot, had been right after all—the devil did make snares for the flesh. Just watching Aditu’s lissome, catlike movements filled Simon with a squirming consciousness of sin. It was the more terrible, he knew, because Jiriki’s sister was not even of his own kind.
As the priest had taught, Simon tried to keep the pure face of Elysia the Mother of God before him when he was confronted by the temptation of flesh. Back in the Hayholt Simon had seen that face in hundreds of paintings and sculptures, in countless candlelit shrines, but now he was alarmed to find his memory turning traitor. In recollection, the eyes of Usires’ sainted mother seemed more playful and more…feline…than could possibly be proper or holy.
Despite this discomfort, in his loneliness he was still grateful to Aditu for all her attentions, however perfunctory he sometimes thought them to be, and however careless of Simon’s feelings her teasing sometimes became. He was most grateful for the meals. Jiriki was seldom at home of late, and Simon was more than a little uncertain about which of the fruits, vegetables, and less familiar plants growing in the prince’s extensive forest gardens could be safely eaten. There was no one but the prince’s sister on whom he could rely. Even among the first family—the “Root and Bough” as Jiriki had phrased it—there seemed to be nothing like servants. Every-one fended for themselves, as befitted the Sithi’s solitary habits. Simon knew that the Sithi kept animals, or rather, that the valley was full of animals that came when they were called. The goats and sheep must allow themselves to be milked for the meals Aditu brought him often included fragrant cheeses, but the Sithi seemed to eat no meat. Simon often thought longingly about all those trusting animals wandering the paths of Jao é-Tinukai’i. He knew he would never dare do anything about it, but—Aedon’—wouldn’t a leg of mutton be a fine thing to have!
Aditu poked him again. Simon stolidly ignored her. She got up and walked past the nest of soft blankets that was Simon’s bed, stopping before the billowing blue wall. The wall had been scarlet when Jiriki first brought him, but Simon’s Sitha host had somehow changed its color to this more soothing cerulean. When Aditu brushed it with her longfingered hand, the fabric slid away like a drawn curtain, revealing another, larger room beyond
“Let us return to our game,” she said. “You are too serious, manchild.”
“I will never be able to learn it,” Simon muttered.
“You do not apply yourself. Jiriki claims you have a good mind—although my brother has been wrong before.” Aditu reached into a fold in the wall and produced a crystal sphere which began to glow at her touch. She placed it on a simple tripod of wood
, letting its light spread through the darkened room, then took a carved wooden case from beneath the colorful shent board and removed the polished stones that served as playing pieces. “I think I had just made myself an acre of Woodlarks. Come, Seoman, play and don’t pout. You had a good idea the other day, a very clever idea—fleeing that which you truly sought.” She stroked his arm, making the hairs stand up, and gave him one of her strange Sithi smiles, full of impenetrable significance.
“Seoman has other games to play tonight.”
Jiriki stood in the doorway, dressed in what appeared to be ceremonial attire, an intricately embroidered robe in varied shades of yellow and blue. He wore soft gray boots. His sword Indreju dangled at his hip in a scabbard of the same gray stuff, and three long white heron feathers were braided into his hair. “He has received a summons.”
Aditu carefully set the pieces on the board. “I shall have to play by myself, then—unless you are staying, Willow-switch.” She gazed from beneath lowered lids.
Jiriki shook his head. “No, sister. I must be Seoman’s guide.”
“Where am I going?” Simon asked. “Summoned by who?”
“By First Grandmother.” Jiriki lifted his hand and made a brief but solemn gesture. “Amerasu the Ship-Born has asked to see you.”
Walking in silence beneath the stars, Simon thought about the things he had seen since leaving the Hayholt. To think that once he had feared he would live and die a castle-drudge! Was there to be no end to the strange places he must go, to the strange people he must meet? Amerasu might be able to help him, but still he was growing weary of strangeness. Then again, he realized with a flutter of panic, if Amerasu or some other did not come to his aid, the lovely but limited vistas of Jao é-Tinukai’i might be all he would ever see again.
But the strangest thing, he thought suddenly, was that no matter where he went or what he saw, he always seemed to remain the same old Simon—a little less mooncalfish, perhaps, but not very different from the clumsy kitchen boy who had lived at the Hayholt. Those distant, peaceful days seemed utterly gone, vanished without hope of reclamation, but the Simon who had lived them was still very much present. Morgenes had told him once to make his home in his own head. That way, home could never be taken from him. Was this what the doctor meant? To be the same person no matter where you went, no matter what madness occurred? Somehow, that didn’t seem quite right. “I will not burden you with instructions,” Jiriki said suddenly, startling him. “There are special rites to be performed before meeting the First Grandmother, but you do not know them, nor could you perform all of them even if they were told to you. I do not think that cause to worry, however. I believe Amerasu wishes to see you because of who you are and what you have seen, not because she wishes you to watch you perform the Six Songs of Respectful Request.”
“The six what?”
“It is not important. But remember this: although First Grandmother is of the same family as Aditu and myself, we are both children of the Last Days. Amerasu Ship-Born was one of the first speaking creatures to set foot on Osten Ard. I say this not to frighten,” he added hurriedly, seeing Simon’s distressed, moonlit expression, “but only to have you know she is different even than my father and mother.”
The silence returned as Simon pondered this. Could the handsome, sad-faced woman he had seen really be one of the oldest living things in the world? He did not doubt Jiriki, but his own wildest thoughts stretched to their limits still could not encompass the prince’s words.
The winding path led them across a stone bridge. Once over the river, they made their way into the more heavily wooded part of the valley. Simon did his best to take note of what paths they took, but found that the memories quickly melted away, insubstantial as starlight. He remembered only that they crossed several more streams, each seeming slightly more melodious than the last, until they finally entered into a part of the forest that seemed quieter. Among these thickly knotted trees even the cricket songs were hushed. The tree branches swayed, but the wind was silent.
When they finally stopped, Simon found to his surprise that they stood before the tall, cobwebbed tree he had found in his first attempt at escape. Faint lights shone through the tangle of silken threads, as though the great tree wore a glowing cloak.
“I was here before,” Simon said slowly. The warm, still air made him feel at once drowsy and yet keenly alert.
The prince looked at him and said nothing, but led him toward the oak. Jiriki set his hand to the moss-covered door, set so deeply into the bark that the tree might have grown around it.
“We have permission.” he said quietly. The door swung silently inward.
Beyond the doorway was an impossible thing: a narrow hallway that stretched away before him, as silk-tangled as the front of the oak-house. Tiny lights no larger than fireflies burned within the matted threads, filling the passageway with their flickering light. Simon, who could have sworn guiltlessly on a holy Tree that nothing lay behind the spreading oak but more trees, took a step back through the doorframe to see where such a hallway could possibly be hidden—could it pass down into the ground, somehow?—but Jiriki took his elbow and gently steered him across the threshold once more. The door fell shut behind them.
They were completely surrounded by lights and silken webs, as though they moved through the clouds and among the stars. The curious sleepiness was still upon Simon: every detail was sharp and clear, but he had no idea how long they spent walking in the scintillant passage. They came at last to a more open place, a chamber that smelled of cedar and plum blossoms and other scents more difficult to identify. The minute and inconstant lights were fewer here, and the wide room was full of long, shuddery shadows. From time to time the walls creaked, as though he and Jiriki stood in the hold of a ship, or inside the trunk of a tree far larger than any Simon had ever seen. He heard a sound as of water slowly dripping, like the last drops of a rainstorm trickling from willow branches into a pool. Half-visible shapes lined the dark walls, things shaped like people; they might have been statues, for they were certainly very still.
As Simon stared, his eyes not yet adjusted to the diminished light, something brushed against his leg. He jumped and cried out, but a moment later the flickering lights showed him a waving tail that could only belong to a cat; the creature swiftly vanished into the darkness along the walls. Simon caught his breath.
Strange as the place was, he decided, there was nothing truly frightening about it. The shadowy chamber had an air of warmth and serenity unlike anything he had experienced thus far in Jao é-Tinukai’i. Judith, the Hayholt’s plump kitchen mistress, would almost have called it cozy.
“Welcome to my house,” a voice said from the darkness. The pinpricks of light grew brighter around one of the shadowy figures, revealing a white-haired head and the back of a tall chair. “Come closer, manchild. I can see you there, but I doubt you can see me.”
“First Grandmother has very sharp sight,” Jiriki said; Simon thought he could detect a trace of amusement in the Sitha’s voice. He stepped for-ward. The golden light revealed the ancient yet youthful face he had seen in Jiriki’s mirror.
“You are in the presence of Amerasu y’Senditu no’e-Sa’onserei, the Ship-Born,” intoned Jiriki from behind him. “Show respect, Seoman Snowlock.”
Simon felt no compunction about doing so. He kneeled on wobbling legs and lowered his head before her.
“Stand up, mortal boy,” she said quietly. Her voice was deep and smooth. It rugged at Simon’s memory. Had their short contact through the mirror burned itself so deeply on his mind?” “Hmmm,” she murmured. “You are taller even than my young Willow-switch. Will you find the manchild a stool, Jiriki, so I do not have to stare up at him? Get yourself one, too.”
When Simon was seated beside Jiriki, Amerasu inspected him carefully.
Simon felt suddenly tongue-tied, but curiosity vied with shyness. He stole return glances while doing his best to avoid her almost frighteningly deep eyes.
She was much as he remembered her: shining white hair, skin tight-Stretched over her fine bones. Other than the measureless depths of her stare, the only hint of the immense age to which Jiriki had alluded was in the careful deliberation with which she assayed every movement, as though her skeleton were fragile as dried parchment. Still, she was very beautiful. Caught in the web other regard, Simon imagined that in the dawn of the world Amerasu might have been as terrifyingly, blindingly splendid to look upon as the face of the sun.
“So,” she said finally. “You are out of your depths, little fish.”
Simon nodded. “Are you enjoying your visit to Jao é-Tinukai’i? You are one of the first of your kind to come here.” Jiriki sat up straighter. “One of the first, wise Amerasu? Not the first?”
She ignored him, keeping her gaze fixed on Simon. He felt himself drawn gently but helplessly into her spell of command, a wriggling fish pulled inexorably toward the water’s blinding surface. “Speak, manchild. What do you think?”
“I…I am honored to visit,” he said at last, then swallowed. His throat was very dry. “Honored. But…but I don’t want to stay in this valley. Not forever.”
Amerasu leaned back in her chair. He felt himself held more loosely, though the power other presence was still strongly upon him. “I’m not surprised.” She took a long breath, smiling sadly. “But you would have to be prisoned here a long while before you would be as weary of this life as I am.”
Jiriki stirred. “Should I leave, First Grandmother?”
His question gave Simon a faint tremor of fright. He could feel the Sitha-woman’s great kindness and great pain—but she was so fearfully strong! He knew that if she wished, she could keep him here forever, just with the power of her voice and those compelling, labyrinthine eyes.
