by Tad Williams
The flame-thing laughed again. “No. We are more, far more! The Red Hand and its master have grown strong. All of creation must fall beneath the Storm King’s shadow. Those who betrayed us will squeak and chitter in that darkness!”
“You have no power here!” Shima’onari cried, grasping his wife’s upraised hand. The glow around the two of them intensified, until the fog of silvery moonlight had grown to encompass the fiery face as well. “This place is beyond you! Go back to your cold mountain and black emptiness!”
“You do not understand!” the thing exulted. “We, of all who ever lived, have returned from Unbeing. We have grown strong. Grown strong!”
Even as the hollow voice echoed through the Yásira, overwhelming the Sithi-folk’s cries of rage and alarm, the thing in the Mist Lamp suddenly billowed outward, expanding into a vast pillar of flame, its shapeless head flung back in a thundering cry. It spread its blazing arms wide, as though to grasp all before it in a crushing, burning embrace.
As the sun-hot fires leaped up, the butterflies clinging to the silken threads overhead began to puff into flame. A million of them seemed to spring into the air at once, a great cloud of fire and smoking wings. Burning, they flew through the air like cinders, careening into the shouting Sithi, crumbling as they struck the trunk of the great ash tree. The Yásira was in chaos, plunged in a blackness shot with spinning, whirling sparks.
The towering thing at the room’s center laughed and blazed, but gave no light. It seemed instead to suck all brightness into its own interior, so that it fattened and grew taller still. A wild, writhing knot of bodies leaped around it, the heads and waving arms of clamoring Sithi-folk. silhouetted against the red blaze.
Simon looked around in panic. Jiriki was gone.
Another sound was now rising through the chaos, swelling until it equaled the terrible mirth of the Red Hand creature. It was the raw-throated baying of a hunting pack.
A horde of pale shapes came flooding into the Yásira. White hounds were suddenly everywhere, their slit eyes reflecting the hellish light of the thing at the chamber’s center, their howling red mouths snapping and barking.
“Ruakha, ruakha Zida’yei!” Simon heard Jiriki shouting somewhere nearby. “T’si e-isi’ha as-Shao Irigú!”
Simon moaned, searching desperately for some weapon. A lithe white shape vaulted past him, carrying something in its dripping mouth.
Jingizu.
A memory forced itself into Simon’s head. As though the blaze without had kindled a blaze within, a burning tongue of remembrance leaped up inside him the black depths beneath the Hayholt, a dream of tragedy and ghostly fire.
Jingizu. The heart of all Sorrow.
The tempest of disorder rose and grew wilder, a thousand throats wailing in the spark-flurrying darkness, a broil of flailing limbs and terrified eyes and the maddening voices of the Stormspike pack. Simon tried to stand, then quickly threw himself back to the ground. The scrambling Sithi had found their bows; arrows were flying through the smoky air, visible only as streaks of light.
A hound stumbled toward Simon and sagged to the ground at his feet, a blue-fletched arrow through its neck. Revolted, Simon crawled away from the corpse, feeling the grass and the parchment ashes of butterflies between his fingers. His hand closed upon a rock, which he lifted and clutched. He crept forward like a blind mole toward where the heat and noise were greatest, driven by nothing he could describe, helplessly reliving something he might have experienced in a dream, a vision of spectral figures that ran in fearful panic while their home died in flames.
A huge beast, the largest hound Simon had ever seen, had driven Shima’onari back toward the trunk of the great ash tree, forcing the lord of the Sithi up against the blackened and smoldering bark Shima’onari’s robe was smoking. Weaponless, Jiriki’s father held the dog’s massive head in his bare hands, struggling to keep the clashing jaws from his face. Strange lights flickered around them, blue and glaring red.
Near where his father struggled, Jiriki and several others had surrounded the bellowing fire-creature. The prince was a small figure standing before the beast of the Red Hand, his witchwood sword Indreju a black tongue of shadow held upraised against the shimmering flames.
Simon lowered his head and crawled forward, still struggling toward the center of the Yásira. The din was deafening. Bodies pushed past him, some of the Sithi racing forward to help Jiriki fight the invader, others running like maddened creatures, their hair and clothes afire.
A sudden blow flung Simon to the turf. One of the dogs was upon him, its corpselike snout thrusting for his throat, blunt claws scraping at his arms as he tried frantically to twist out from under it. He groped unseeing until he found the stone that had slipped from his grasp, then struck at the creature’s head. It yelped wetly and dug its teeth into his shirt, gouging his shoulder as it tried to reach his neck. He struck again, struggled to free his weary arm, then brought the stone down once more. The dog went limp and slid down his chest. Simon rolled over and kicked the body away.
A scream abruptly shuddered out, overtopping the tumult, and a wintry wind howled through the Yásira, a freezing gale that seemed to pass right through him. Fanned by that wind, the fiery figure at the center of the chamber grew even larger for a moment, then fell back into itself in a burst of billowing flame. There was a sound like thunder, then Simon felt a great percussive slap against his ears as the creature of the Red Hand vanished in a rain of hissing sparks. Another rush of wind threw Simon and many others flat on the ground as air hurried to fill the space where the blazing thing had been. After that, a strange sort of quiet came down over the Yásira.
Stunned, Simon lay on his back staring upward. The sheen of natural twilight slowly returned, gleaming through the mighty tree whose limbs were now empty of living butterflies, but studded with their blackened remains. Groaning, Simon clambered up onto his shaky legs. All around him the inhabitants of Jao é-Tinukai’i were still milling in shocked disorder. Those Sithi who had found spears and bows were putting an end to the remaining dogs.
Had that terrible scream been the fire-creature’s death shriek? Had Jiriki and the others somehow destroyed it? He stared into the cloudy murk in the middle of the chamber, trying to see who it was that stood beside the Mist Lamp. He squinted and took a step forward. Amerasu was there…and someone else. Simon felt his heart lurch.
A figure with a helmet made in the image of a snarling dog stood at First Grandmother’s shoulder, wreathed in the smoke curling up from the scorched earth. One of this intruder’s leather-clad arms was around her waist, clutching her slight, sagging form as closely as it might hold a lover. The other hand slowly lifted the hound-helm free, revealing the tanned mask of Ingen Jegger.
“Niku’a!” he shouted. “Yinva! Come to me!” The huntsman’s eyes gleamed scarlet, reflecting the smoldering bark of the great tree.
Near the trunk of the ash, the huge white hound rose unsteadily. Its fur was scorched and blackened, its ragged maw all but toothless. Shima’onari remained unmoving on the ground where the beast had crouched, a bloodied arrow clutched in the Sithi-lord’s fist. The dog took a step, then fell clumsily and rolled onto its side. Innards gleamed from the opening in its belly as Niku’a’s broad chest moved slowly up and down.
The huntsman eye’s widened. “You’ve killed him!” Ingen screamed. “My pride! The best of the kennels!” He carried Amerasu before him as he took a few steps toward the dying hound. First Grandmother’s head bobbed limply. “Niku’a!” Ingen hissed, then turned and looked slowly around the Yásira. The Sithi stood unmoving all around, their faces blood-stained and ash-smeared as they silently returned the huntsman’s stare.
Ingen Jegger’s thin mouth contorted in sorrow. He lifted his eyes to the scorched limbs of the ash tree and the gray sky above. Amerasu was pinned against his chest, her white hair curtaining her face.
“Murder!” he cried, then there was a long moment of silence.
“What do you w
ant from First Grandmother, mortal?”
It was Likimeya who spoke so calmly. Her white dress was smeared with ashes. She had come to kneel beside her fallen husband, and she held his reddened hand in hers. “You have caused enough heartache. Let her go. Leave this place. We will not pursue you.”
Ingen stared at her as at some long-forgotten landmark seen after a hard journey. His frown stretched into a ghastly smile and he shook Amerasu’s helpless form until her head wobbled. He lifted his hound-helm—the fist that clutched it was crimson-drenched—and waved it in mad joy.
“The forest witch is dead!” he howled. “I have done it! Praise me, mistress, I have done your bidding!” He lifted his other hand to the skies, letting Amerasu slump to the ground like a discarded sack. Blood shone dully on her gray robe and golden hands. The translucent hilt of the crystal dagger stood out from her side. “I am immortal!” cried the Queen’s Huntsman.
Simon’s choked gasp echoed in the terrible silence.
Ingen Jegger slowly turned. Recognizing Simon, the huntsman curled his mouth in a lipless smile. “You led me to her, boy.”
An ash-darkened figure rose from the smoking clutter at Ingen’s feet.
“Venyha s’anh!” Jiriki shouted, and drove Indreju squarely into the huntsman’s midsection.
Driven backward by the impact of Jiriki’s blow, Ingen at last staggered to a halt, bending over the length of the blade which had been wrenched from its owner’s hand. He gradually straightened, then coughed. Blood dribbled from his mouth and stained his pale beard, but his smile remained. “The time of the Dawn Children…is over,” he rasped. There was a humming sound. Suddenly, a half-dozen arrows stood in Ingen’s broad trunk, sprouting on all sides like hedgehog quills.
“Murder!”
It was Simon who shouted this time. He leaped to his feet, his heartbeat sounding loud as war-drums in his ears; he felt the whipsong breath of the second volley of arrows as he ran forward toward the huntsman. He swung the heavy stone which he had clutched for so long.
“Seoman! No!” shouted Jiriki.
The huntsman slid to his knees, but remained upright. “Your witch…is dead,” he panted. He raised a hand toward the approaching Simon. “The sun is setting…”
More arrows leaped across the Yásira and Ingen Jegger slowly topped to the ground.
Hatred burst out like a flame in Simon’s heart as he stood over the huntsman, and he raised the stone high in the air. Ingen Jegger’s face was still frozen in an exultant grin, and for the thinnest moment his pale blue eyes locked with Simon’s. An instant later Ingen’s face disappeared in as mash of red and the huntsman’s body was rolled across the ground by the force of the blow. Simon clambered after him with a wordless cry of rage, all his pent frustration flooding out in a maddening surge.
They’ve taken everything from me. They laughed at me. Everything.
The fury turned into a kind of wild glee. He felt strength flowing through him. At last! He brought the rock down upon Ingen’s head, lifted it and smashed it down again, then over and over uncontrollably until hands pulled him away from the body and he slid down into his own red darkness.
Khendraja’aro brought him to Jiriki. The prince’s uncle, as all the other citizens of Jao é-Tinukai’i, was dressed in dark mourning gray. Simon, too, wore pants and shirt of that color, brought to him by a subdued Aditu the day after the burning of the Yásira.
Jiriki was staying in a house not his own, a dwelling of pink, yellow, and pale brown circular tents that Simon thought looked like giant bee-hives. The Sitha-woman who lived there was a healer, Aditu had told him. The healer was taking care that Jiriki’s burns were given proper care.
Khendraja’aro, his face a stiff, heavy mask, left Simon at the house’s wind-whipped entranceway and departed without a word. Simon entered as Aditu had directed and found himself in a darkened room lit only by a single dim globe on a wooden stand. Jiriki was propped up in a great bed. His hands lay upon his chest, bandaged with strips of silky cloth. The Sitha’s face was shiny with some oily substance, which served only to accentuate his otherworldly appearance. Jiriki’s skin was blackened in many places, and his eyebrows and some of his long hair had been scorched away, but Simon was relieved to see that the Prince did not seem badly scarred.
“Seoman,” Jiriki said, and showed a trace of smile.
“How are you?” Simon asked shyly. “Are you hurting?”
The prince shook his head. “I do not suffer much, not from these burns, Seoman. In my family we are made of stern stuff—as you may remember from our first meeting.” Jiriki looked him up and down. “And how is your own health?”
Simon felt awkward. “I’m well.” He paused. “I’m so sorry.” Facing the calm figure before him, he was ashamed by his own animality, ashamed to have become a screaming brute before the eyes of all. That memory had weighed heavily on him in the days just passed. “It was all my fault.”
Jiriki hastened to raise his hand, then eased it back down, conceding only a small grimace of pain. “No, Seoman, no. You have done nothing for which you should apologize. That was a day of terror, and you have suffered far too many of those.”
“It’s not that,” Simon said miserably. “He followed me! Ingen Jegger said he followed me to find First Grandmother! I led her murderer here.”
Jiriki shook his head. “This was planned for some time, Seoman. Believe me, the Red Hand could not lightly send one of their own into the fastness of Jao é-Tinukai’i, even for the few moments it lasted. Ineluki is not yet so strong. That was a well-conceived attack, one long considered. It took a great deal of power from both Utuk’ku and the Storm King to accomplish it.
Do you think it a coincidence that First Grandmother should be silenced by Utuk’ku just before she could reveal Ineluki’s design? That the Red Hand creature should force its way through just then, at a tremendous expense of spell-bought strength? And do you think the huntsman Ingen was just wandering in the wood and suddenly decided to kill Amerasu the Ship-Born? No, I do not think so. either—although it is true that he may have stumbled on your trail before Aditu brought you here. Ingen Jegger was no fool, and it would have been far easier for him to track a mortal than one of us, but he would have found his way into Jao é-Tinukai’i somehow. Who can know how long he waited beyond the Summer Gate once he had found it, waiting for his mistress to set him upon her enemies at just the right moment? It was a war plan, Seoman, precise and more than a little desperate. They must have feared First Grandmother’s wisdom very much.”
Jiriki lifted his bandaged hand to his face, touching it for a moment to his forehead. “Do not take the blame upon yourself, Seoman. Amerasu’s death was ordained in the black pits below Nakkiga—or perhaps even when the Two Families parted at Sesuad’ra, thousands of years ago. We are a race that nurses its hurts a long time in silence. You were not at fault.”
“But why!?” Simon wanted to believe Jiriki’s words, but the horrible sense of loss that had threatened to overwhelm him several times already that morning would not go away.
“Why? Because Amerasu had seen into Ineluki’s secret heart—and who would have been better able to do that than she? She had discovered his design at last and was going to reveal it to her people. Now, we may never know—or perhaps we will understand only when Ineluki sees fit to display it in all its inevitability.” Weariness seemed to wash through him. “By our Grove, Seoman, we have lost so much! Not only Amerasu’s wisdom, which was great, but we have also lost our last link with the Garden. We are truly unhomed.” He lifted his eyes to the billowing ceiling, so that his angular face was bathed in pale yellow light. “The Hernystiri had a song of her, you know:
“Snow-white breast, lady of the foaming sea,
She is the light that shines by night
Until even the stars are drunken…”
Jiriki took a careful breath to ease his scorched throat. A look of surprising fury contorted his normally placid face “Even from the place where I
neluki lives, from beyond death—how could he send a stranger to kill his mother’?”
“What will we do? How can we fight him?”
“That is not for you to worry about, Seoman Snowlock.”
“What do you mean?” Simon restrained his anger. “How can you say that to me? After all we’ve both seen?”
“I did not mean it in the way it sounded, Seoman.” The Sitha smiled in self-mockery “I have lost even the basest elements of courtesy. Forgive me.”
Simon saw that he was actually waiting. “Of course, Jiriki. Forgiven.”
“I mean only that we Zida’ya have our own councils to keep. My father Shima’onari is badly wounded and Likimeya my mother must call the folk together—but not at the Yásira. I think we will never meet in that place again. Did you know, Seoman, that the great tree was burned white as snow? Did you not have a dream once about such a thing?” Jiriki cocked his head, his gaze full of subtle light. “Ah, forgive me again. I wander in thought and forget the important things. Has anyone told you? Likimeya has decreed that you will go.”
“Go? Leave Jao é-Tinukai’i?” The rush of joy was accompanied by an unexpected current of regret and anger. “Why now?”
“Because it was Amerasu’s last wish. She told my parents before the gathering began. But why do you sound so unsettled? You will go back to your own people. It is for the best, in any case. We Zida’ya must mourn the loss of our eldest, our best. This is no place for mortals, now—and it is what you wanted, is it not? To go back to your folk?”
“But you can’t just close yourselves off and turn away! Not this time! Didn’t you hear Amerasu? We all have to fight the Storm King! It is cowardice not to!” Her stern, soft face was suddenly before him again, at least in memory. Her magnificently knowing eyes…
“Calm yourself, young friend,” Jiriki said with a tight, angry smile. “You are full of good intentions, but you do not know enough to speak so forcefully.” His expression softened. “Fear not, Seoman. Things are changing. The Hikeda’ya have killed our eldest, struck her down in our own sacred house. They have crossed a line that cannot be recrossed. Perhaps they meant to, but that matters less than the fact that it has happened. That is another reason for you to leave, manchild. There is no place for you in the war councils of the Zida’ya.”
