by Tad Williams
"My father heard it from the autarch himself. Everyone says this Sulepis is quite mad!"
Eneas frowned. "I suppose. But it gives us very little time. Have you rested?"
"I'm well, yes." The scout had brought her back to camp just before sunrise, and Briony had promptly fallen directly into a dark, deep sleep, so that now the whole evening, especially speaking to her father, felt like a dream.
"But what will we do?" she asked. "We have so little time, and I saw the Xixian camp-they are so many! Close to ten thousand men camped on the mainland, more than half of them fighters. And from what I heard, many more have already gone into the tunnels. I think they plan to attack the castle from below, through Funderling Town."
"Funderling…?" He looked at her blankly for a moment, then nodded. "Ah, yes, the Kallikan settlement. I have heard of it-the fabled ceiling, is that right? Your father must be correct. There could be no other reason for the autarch to be in such haste-Hendon Tolly is barely fighting back at all and the autarch's ships rule the bay. I would guess the castle might even surrender in a matter of days if the Xixians simply kept knocking down the walls with their cannons."
Briony felt a flare of anger. "Tolly is a monster, but there are still men in Southmarch-and women, too!-who will not give in so easily."
"I believe you, Princess." Eneas smiled; it was approving, not mocking. "I have seen the stuff the country's royal family is made of, so why would I doubt their subjects? Still, we cannot make any decisions until tomorrow at the earliest. That is when the first of the spies we have sent into the camp will begin to report back on the autarch's full strength and perhaps even something of his plans…"
"No!" She realized she had shouted: everyone in the tent was staring at her. "I mean… my father… I do not want to wait before we free him. I've thought of a way to do it, but if we wait longer they may take him somewhere beyond our reach!"
It took Briony a moment to realize that the prince was looking at her strangely, as was his lieutenant and several others. "You do not know?" he asked.
"Know what?" But already she had that vertiginous feeling, what had seemed solid crumbling away beneath her. "Tell me!"
Eneas sighed. "Your father has already been moved," he said. "Some of our spies say that an armed party of more than a hundred men escorted a prisoner to the tunnels in the rocky hills along the bay." He reached out a hand to her, but Briony pulled back. "I am sorry, Princess, but it was your father, King Olin. He is no longer within our reach-at least not for the present."
The tears which she had held back ever since the night before suddenly filled her eyes; Briony knew she could not hold them in. She turned sharply and walked out of the tent, desperate to find a place where Eneas and the rest could not hear her when she began to weep in earnest.
"It will do no good to argue with her," Saqri warned, but Barrick had grown weary of being told what to do and what to think by the Qar in all their manifestations. He followed the retreating forms of Yasammez and her small troop of bodyguards as they walked back through the passageways toward the cavern where they were camped.
The fearsome dark lady of the fairies had already disappeared into her tent when he arrived. The Elemental before the doorway did not want to let him in, but Barrick simply stood, ignoring the thing's gestures and even the silent, resentful threats the thing offered him, thought to thought. The Fireflower suggested that he had standing among these folk and he was determined to use it. The flickering of the Elemental's Profound Light through the gaps in the shrouding cloth grew brighter and more agitated, but Barrick Eddon was not going to let himself be treated like a servant. He might be a fool, he might be a mortal fool, but he had survived impossible hardships to be here-Yasammez would not escape him so easily.
At last the half-hidden fires guttered and diminished. The Elemental stepped aside, but not without a last flare of protest as Barrick walked past.
Yasammez was alone in the tent, without even her counselors or guards; Barrick couldn't help wondering whether that meant she trusted him or simply counted him as no possible threat. The angry confidence that had sent him after her began to melt as soon as he saw her sitting cross-legged and as still as stone, her pale hands resting on her knees.
"And what do you want, little blood-jar?" Yasammez asked.
He had become so used to his new and strange ways of hearing and seeing that for a moment he could not tell if her words had been silent or spoken out loud, but after a moment he realized he could feel a tiny reverberation lingering in the close air of the tent. He decided that he would speak out loud as she had. Perhaps she thought she could anger him by speaking in air and echoes as if he were any mortal, but if she did, she did not know how Barrick Eddon had changed. "I wish to speak with you, Great-Aunt."
"I am not your great-aunt. The blood that is in you gives you no rights with me, any more than pilfering a royal signet ring would make you fit to issue orders in the king's name. That blood-our family's sacred blood, gift of our patron god-was stolen."
Now he truly was angry, but he held it in. "Don't speak to me of signet rings and royalty, Lady Yasammez. My family may not be as old as yours-or at least our throne may not be-but I know a great deal about the rights of kings and queens. Those rights have a price, and part of that price is doing what is best for your people. Do you really think refusing to fight for Southmarch is what's best for yours?"
She cocked her head like a heron watching a fish. "Ha! I am being lectured by a spring toadlet, newly hatched and still wet from the pond." She showed her teeth, but it was not a smile. "I have told my people the truth. It is too late to win by force of arms. Better to accept what is written, to run and perhaps live a little longer or stay and accept that the final hour of the Long Defeat has come at last."
"So you're giving up?" He stared at her and the voices in his head murmured a thousand different things, a storm of confusion, secrets, old tales, half-forgotten histories, battlefield incidents, all with the black, shadowy form of Lady Porcupine standing at their center like a witch from a nursery tale. "No. I don't believe that. You never surrender. Everyone knows you would fight for your people to the last drop of blood, so why should you counsel them to do what you would never do yourself? What do I not understand, Lady Yasammez?"
This time the wolfish grin pulled her lips back so that she looked as though she might be thinking about the skin on his throat. "You are a very annoying mortal, Barrick Eddon. What makes you so certain of yourself? Look at you! You are a scarecrow, cobbled together from other people's odds and remnants-the immortal blood of your betters runs in your veins, you have been bespelled by senile Dreamers and gifted with the Fireflower, though you cannot possibly understand it. Why should I even give you the courtesy of an audience? Why should anyone treat with you at all, a mere child who has taken everything that makes him exceptional from someone else?"
She was right, which made it even more important that Barrick not lose his temper. The question she asked was deceptive, because what lay behind it was true-there was no reason she should be speaking to him, should even bother to defend herself.
"Why, then?" he asked. "Why do you speak to me at all?" Barrick moved a step closer. Her strength was palpable. Within him the Fireflower sang of woe and defeat and courage. "You remind me of someone, Lady Yasammez."
One thin spiderweb of eyebrow rose. "Do I? A mortal?"
"I have not known many immortals until the last few days." Unbidden, he seated himself cross-legged before her. "Yes, a mortal. My teacher, Shaso dan-Heza. He was the greatest warrior of his people, I'm told, just as you are. But he lost his purpose."
The predatory smile appeared again. "I have not lost my purpose."
"So Shaso thought, too-but he had. You see, my father captured him and took him away from his own people. And although he taught us, and eventually became Southmarch's master of arms, a part of him never left Tuan, never left Xand-never left the old days."
"So you think I am trapped in the past? Is tha
t your considered judgment, O wise princeling?"
"I think you are crippled just as he was-by distance. In Shaso, it was distance from Tuan, which was always more real to him than Southmarch, although he never went back. But with you I suspect it's the distance between then and now-between a time that made sense for you and these strange modern days, when, to fight a greater evil, you must ally yourself with those you see as traitors and enemies… with mortals."
"I do what is best for the People," the dark lady said, but for the first time a little of her ease had gone. "You could carry the Fireflower for centuries and still not be worthy to judge me…"
"Then tell me-when Ynnir presented you with the Pact of the Glass, what did you say?" The Fireflower had already brought him the answer on wings of murmurous near-memory.
Yasammez cocked her head again. It was said that the Autarchs of Xis held the falcon as their token-well, here was a true hunting bird, bright-eyed and remorseless. "I told him that the People's enemies must not be allowed to hasten the Long Defeat. That we no longer had a choice, and must fight or surrender."
"But now you all but demand we surrender. Queen Saqri has returned! The autarch means to wake the gods-even you said this would be disaster for us all! Why won't you fight, Yasammez?"
He could feel the misty tendrils of her thought pulling at him as she silently considered. "I will not fight because there is no longer a point," she told him at last. "The end of the Long Defeat is here-I see that now. The People… my people," and here she gave him a look so fierce he could almost feel his lashes smoldering, "have done all they could. With only a handful of troops we have defeated your armies of ten times that number. But the king of Xis has a hundred times that number or more, and priests and mages whose handiwork we have not even seen yet. There is no victory over such a force."
"So you would leave the mortal men of Southmarch-not just my people, but the Funderlings, too-to fight and die while your army sits by and does nothing? That is how you would write the last pages of the Long Defeat? With cowardice and callousness?"
"Grace and cowardice are two different things, child of men."
"Then let your people fight if they wish to! You can watch gracefully while the rest of us pretend we have a chance." He was angry now, and the incomprehensible differences of age and experience between them suddenly seemed unimportant. "Saqri came here to fight at your side. I don't believe she came here to watch others being slaughtered without lifting a finger."
Yasammez looked different now, like a wounded creature that still might strike. For a long moment she did not look at Barrick at all, but he could feel her anger, cold and strong. When she did rise abruptly to her feet and reached into the chestplate of her armor, he even raised his hand, fearing a thrown dagger. Instead, she drew out something that dangled on a black chain, a light glinting red as molten iron, and held it out to him. Her thoughts were like a roiling thundercloud, but although he could feel her anger and despair, most of it was hidden from him. Something else lurked there, too, something deep and terrifying, but he could not tell what it was.
"Take the Seal of War," she said. "Take it and give it to Saqri. Keep it yourself if you wish. I care not. If I am no longer fit to judge, then I am no longer fit to command."
He stared at the dangling glow. "But…"
"Take it!"
He did, reaching toward her with as much caution as toward a poisonous serpent. She stared at him as he let the heavy gem rest on his hand, and he swore he saw hatred in her eyes, although he was not entirely certain why.
"Because I am a mortal?" he asked. "Because my family stole the Fireflower?"
She understood him. "All of it," she said. "And more. Fight if you wish. It will only make the end harder. And what if the cosmos spins a-widdershins and you are victorious? The People are still doomed. The Fireflower will find no more bearers-the royal line of the Qar is dead and only Saqri remains. So go, little mortal, and tell the others how you taunted Lady Porcupine and lived. It will be a pretty tale to while away the hours before death takes us all."
So fierce was the heat behind her words, so furious her stare that Barrick suddenly could not speak. He turned, the Seal of War dangling from his fist, and stumbled out of the tent.
Briony was not so foolish as to go far from the perimeter of the camp but she could not simply spend the day sitting, as Eneas and his Temple Dogs seemed perfectly content to do. Too much anger and too much frustration were inside her. She had to move.
She found a little hill overlooking the camp and in sight of the sentries, then set off to climb it. The day was gray, but patches of sunny sky slid by overhead, and the way up was just difficult enough to engage her mind. By the time she reached the top about midday, she felt better. Still, she dared not think about her father too much. To have been so close to him after all this time, and then to lose him again…!
Prince Eneas and his captains were planning swift, unexpected raids to harry Sulepis' mainland troops, and to prevent supplies from reaching the autarch's army. This last was largely pointless as long as the autarch still controlled Brenn's Bay, but at the very least Eneas meant to make the autarch aware that he had enemies behind him as well as in front of him.
But although Briony didn't really expect the Syannese prince and his troops to do anything else, she could not escape the bitter idea of her father being taken away into the depths. But why should he be taken down into the tunnels under the castle? What lunacy did the southern king have planned?
Her father had also told her that his old, bad feelings were coming back to him as he returned to the castle. Perhaps that had something to do with why the autarch had brought him here. And gods? Her father had said something about gods, too, and Midsummer's Night, which was far less than a tennight away.
If only I had a longer time to talk with him. If only I could see him again, embrace him again… The tears were coming back.
Briony pulled out Lisiya's charm and turned it over and over in her hand, trying to find some kind of peace. So many questions, and none of them likely to be answered soon, or at all. And meanwhile, the sun slid by overhead, in and out of the clouds, on its remorseless passage toward Midsummer's Day.
Despite her climb, she lay awake for a long time that night listening to the soldiers talking and singing quietly and playing dice. The scouts the autarch had sent out to search for the raiders had long since returned to their encampment along Brenn's Bay, so the men were enjoying the relative security.
Briony was still clutching the charm in her fist. Please, dear Lisiya, she prayed, help me to sleep. I feel like I will go mad if I do not get to sleep tonight! But when sleep came at last in the deep watches of the night, Briony did not immediately recognize it for what it was…
She was walking through what had once been a forest, something deep and green and quiet-but that had been before the fire. Now it was a scorched wasteland, pocked with the blackened remains of trees both standing and fallen, the grasses and undergrowth burned away, even the earth itself blackened. It was hard to tell what time of day it was because of the pall of smoke that lay over her and made the gray, hot sky seem shallow as a bowl. Smaller wisps still rose from the ground, as though the flames had stopped burning only a short while before.
It was as she crunched through the burned stubble that she realized she was still holding Lisiya's charm tight against her breast.
Briony found the demigoddess at the base of what had been a great silver oak tree, but was now little more than a tortured sculpture made of charcoal. Lisiya was leaning on a staff, frail and gray as a dandelion puff. She looked half her previous size, as though the hot winds had leached all the moisture from her, leaving only skin and bones.
"Somebody is angry at me," she said with a weary grin.
"Who did this?" Briony asked. The demigoddess looked so delicate that she almost didn't dare approach her.
"I cannot say. I am being watched." Lisiya lifted a clawlike hand. "The sky itself listens
."
"Is this because of me?" Briony asked, sinking to her knees on the scorched earth. "Because you helped me?"
"Possibly." Lisiya shrugged. The demigoddess had previously seemed inexhaustible, but now moved as though she was afraid any effort might snap her brittle bones. "It does not do to speculate, child. The gods are asleep and that makes it hard to understand them, or even to recognize them…"
Briony didn't understand. "Is there something I can do to help you?"
The specter of a smile crept across the gaunt, wrinkled face. "Listen. I will tell you what I can. I am… limited, though." She sagged a little, then pulled herself upright on her staff again. "The hour is coming. It is almost here. The hour when the world we know will end."
"But… do you mean it's too late?"
"It is too late to turn things back to the way they once were," Lisiya said. "It is too late for the world that was. What kind of world will come-that you may yet be able to influence."
"Influence? How?"
"That is not for me to say. But you have only a little time."
"Do you mean Midsummer Night? My father said…"
"Men call it Midsummer, but here in the place of the gods and their dreams, it marks the moment when the sun begins to die. And every year since time itself began, since Rud the Daystar first mounted the firmament, the battle rages. Mortal men celebrate Midsummer as if it is a victory, but it has always been the opposite-the moment when the sun, when light itself, begins to lose its battle. It is an ill-omened day." She shook her head.
"But what can we do? It's almost upon us!"
Now the frustration showed on Lisiya's bony face. "I do not know! I am only a small thing, when it comes to it-a servant, an errandrunner-and I am out of my depths. But I called to you, or you called to me, so there must be something I can give you, some word…" The old woman closed her eyes, making Briony wonder what was happening: Lisiya seemed so tired she could barely breathe, swaying in place like a long stalk of grass. At last, she opened her eyes.
"Omphalos," the demigoddess said faintly. "Look for the omphalos, that which connects the past to the womb and the womb to the future-that which is the center of the spinning universe."
