by Tad Williams
"There are Funderlings-Copper's men!" said Dolomite excitedly. "They are attacking the upgrounders!"
"I know."
"The killing is terrible, but they are forcing the White Hounds forward into the rocks! Some of Copper's men are shooting crossbows into the entrance, keeping the other southerners out of the Counting Room."
Vansen nodded. "It is time to sound the horn again, Warder Dolomite. You haven't lost it, have you?"
"No, Captain!"
"Good. Then let them hear it once more. Let Sulepis himself hear it, somewhere back up the tunnel-let's hope it makes his skin crawl!"
"Yes, Captain!" A moment later the mournful call rose again, louder than the first time, so loud that Vansen felt pleasantly sure that the Xixians who survived were going to remember it with fear.
"Those Hounds know they're in a fight now!" Dolomite called a few moments later, having quite forgotten about silence. "And their other troops can't get in to help them! Look, the autarch's men are turning into hedgehogs, all spiked with arrows! Oh, Earth Elders, but they are still fighting." His voice faltered a little. "So much blood!"
Vansen decided it was time for his next trick. He sent Dolomite down the slope to Corundum's engineers to make certain they were ready, and while he waited for the young warder's return, he hefted the weighty cuttlehorn in his hand. Brother Antimony, who had given it to him, had told him it was made from a creature of the ancient days that had turned into stone.
Turned to stone-just like the greedy merchant in that old story. Can even a mute creature offend the gods? Vansen didn't know whether he understood all that Chaven and the others had told him, but he knew from his own experience that the gods' power was everywhere and it was dangerous. He knew enough of the gods to fear them more than he had ever feared anything else, even failure and ridicule.
"Corundum says they're ready," Dolomite reported, his sudden, quiet approach making Vansen jump. It was harder than he had thought to sit in the empty black, to rely on the eyes of others, but he knew darkness was their greatest advantage over the autarch's soldiers.
"Then we will fall back now while they are reeling." He lifted the horn himself this time, and its call soared once more through the great stone chamber. The White Hounds flinched and crouched a little lower, waiting for whatever would follow this time. They did not seem to realize for long moments that their enemies were stealing quietly away from them toward the passage at the back end of the Counting Room. Vansen and Dolomite joined the retreating group.
The White Hounds finally let out a shout as they realized that the last horn call had signaled retreat. The autarch's fiercest soldiers leaped forward, and with Malachite Copper's crossbowmen gone, for the first time their comrades trapped in the entranceway could finally join them. Together, the invaders surged like a wave across the uneven cavern floor, ducking as an occasional bolt snapped invisibly past, their cries for revenge growing louder and more savage as they sensed that they at last had these surprising little men on the retreat.
"Let the first half dozen lantern-bearers through," Vansen told the engineers as he and the others hurried out of the tunnel into Ocher Bar, the long cavern below the Counting Room.
So it was that when the first few dozen of the autarch's men came out of the passage in a half-crouch, holding their shields up and their torches even higher to see what was before them, no horn had to be blown. The commander of the engineers waved his arm and his minions threw their weight against the great iron wedge the Funderlings had brought down from the quarry for just this purpose. Wedge-staves bent, the wood groaning and the men groaning louder, and for an instant it seemed they would fail. Then, even as the first of the White Hounds below them realized what was happening and began looking up into the darkness for something to aim an arrow at, the slab of stone shivered loose and slid down onto the men just below so suddenly that only the wounded survivors had a chance to scream. They did not scream long.
The passage between Ocher Bar and the Counting Room was now sealed, at least for a few hours. Copper's crossbowmen loosed the rest of their bolts into the autarch's soldiers, mostly White Hounds, who were trapped on the near side of the rockfall, then the rest of the Funderlings hurried forward to finish the job, dispatching even the helpless wounded before Vansen could stop them. He had not guessed there'd be such reserves of ferocity in the little folk.
Ferras Vansen came forward as the first lanterns were lit. He stood over the bodies of the autarch's White Hounds, their armor so beautifully made and their beards so carefully braided. "Look at them," he said. "They must have thought Death invited them to a wedding instead of a funeral."
They came to a land they did not know, he thought, to kill people they did not know, simply because a madman told them to do it. He shoved them over with his foot, turning the nearest faces to the ground. Yes, they were soldiers too, like me. I feel for them-but I do not feel sorry.
The guards at the scotarch's tent stepped aside, their eyes so firmly downcast that Paramount Minister Vash thought it a wonder they'd been able to see and identify him in the first place. The scotarch's body servant, a eunuch almost as old as Pinimmon Vash, had the door open before Vash could even clear his throat.
"Come in, Paramount Minister," the Favored said. "I will tell the Desert Kite that you are here. No doubt he will graciously offer you audience."
Yes, thought Vash, he no doubt will, seeing as I can walk in when I want and Prusus can do nothing about it except to wag his head and make noises like a dying calf. "That is well," was all he said aloud. What was the eunuch's name? It was a curse to grow old. "And when you have announced me, and he has graciously agreed to the audience, perhaps you will be so good as to leave us alone for a space-the merest quarter of an hour."
Vash would not have seen greater suspicion in the Favored's face if he had announced he planned to put the scotarch in a sack and take him for a walk in the sun. "Great one, I do not understand," was all the body servant came up with.
"No, you don't. Come back after a short while, as I said. You shall find your master quite unharmed."
The smooth-faced man looked very undecided, but at last bowed again and went into the larger part of the tent, which had been separated from the rest by screens showing silk pictures of sand larks guarding their nests at the base of some of desert shrub Vash could not identify. No one in his family had actually seen the deep desert for several generations. Of course he hadn't ever wanted to be deep beneath the earth either, yet here he was.
The eunuch pulled back one of the inner screens and gestured him through with an appropriate amount of bowing, then ostentatiously let himself out of the tent, making enough noise that even if blindfolded Vash still could not have missed him leaving.
Vash walked to where Prusus sat, or rather leaned, in his traveling throne. It was a mark of how bizarre the autarch's choice had been that Prusus had no attendants beyond the single eunuch, and only a handful of guards. Previous scotarchs had commanded retinues only outstripped by those of the autarch himself.
But previous scotarchs, even the worst of them, had been able to talk and had possessed at least a little wit. Their heads had not lolled on their shoulders like overcooked mushrooms. Still, if poor crippled Prusus was like a mushroom, then he must feel comfortable here, down in the depths where such things thrived.
"Good afternoon, Chosen One, if it is indeed still afternoon." Vash bowed. "Please do not let me disturb you. I have come only to look for something." He gazed at the empty, rolling eyes, wondering if he would see any recognition there. "King Olin said I should listen to you." He could not help smiling and, in fact, almost laughed. "Which is, of course, a sort of code, since you don't actually speak. But I believe I may have underestimated you-as have many others. I believe you are not as addled as we thought. So tell me with your eyes, if you understand me. Did he leave something for me? Did Olin leave something for me?"
For a moment, as if his task could be accomplished only with a supr
eme effort of will, Prusus stopped shaking. He stretched forward his head as though trying to fall out of his chair-as though terror had gripped him and he sought escape. Vash fought back anger of his own. Why should he be forced to sully himself treating with a mismade creature like this? Then he realized that Prusus was looking fixedly in one direction, toward his own lap, and that he might have been trying to use his head to point the way.
Vash leaned in. There, clutched in the scotarch's bony fist, was a wisp of white-a piece of parchment.
"Ah," said Vash. " 'Look to the scotarch for help,' he said. Very clever." He reached out and fastidiously wiggled loose the folded scrap of parchment without touching the skin of the scotarch's hand. "And what treason against our beloved Golden One does the enemy king propose?" He said this for the benefit of any listeners, who always had to be assumed in the court of Sulepis, as in the courts of the autarch's father and grandfathers.
The parchment was unsigned, and from the clumsiness of the letters been written in a hurry.
"It is not too late to save yourself. Get word to Avin Brone inside the castle. Tell him what you know. Otherwise, both Southmarch and Xis will be destroyed. The madman S. has no allies. Everything that lives is his enemy."
Just looking at such a thing made Vash feel as if he stood in an icy wind, that he held a restless, angry viper in his hand. He knew he must destroy it, and quickly. Whether he remembered the words written in it or not, whether he let himself think about them or not, he would have to make sure nobody ever saw this piece of paper. Avin Brone indeed! Pinimmon Vash looked around, suddenly feeling like a thief forced to walk slowly down the street with stolen goods bulging in his pocket. Did he dare carry it all the way back to his own tent where he could burn it in his brazier?
Something made a bubbly, sighing noise nearby. Vash, his thoughts racing so fast he could barely move, looked absently at the scotarch, whose mouth was already moving again. This time Vash realized that the eerie noise, a nasal moan punctuated by wet sloshes of consonants, was actually somebody speaking words, and that with a little concentration he could even understand what was being said.
"Parsshhhmen isssh… shmalll…" Prusus repeated, his hand clenching and wriggling in the air as though it had its own life, its own secret joys and sorrows. "Jushh eaddd iddd…"
The parchment is small, he was saying. Just eat it.
Astonished, Vash did. It almost stuck in his throat, but he got it down at last.
22
Damnation Gate "… And the village of Tessideme, like most of its neighbors, suffered beneath year-round snow, icy wind, and frozen fields. The animals wasted and died, and the crops turned black and perished in the earth…"
-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"
The sun had burned the fog off the bay and Southmarch Castle's tall towers glinted in the sun from behind the great outer walls as they stretched toward heaven, each a different color, each with its own peculiarities of design. In ordinary circumstances it would have been an impressive sight, but to Qinnitan, a prisoner being taken to the one man on earth she was most terrified of seeing again, the sight meant nothing except failure and horror and the power of inescapable Fate: the gods were clearly bent on humbling her for trying to avoid the destiny they had assigned her.
As Qinnitan watched the approaching castle, she suddenly felt something she hadn't experienced for months, the sensation that had swept through her when the high priest Panhyssir had force-fed her his terrible potions: the world was not solid. It was as fragile as a bubble, and things waited beneath it. She could feel one of those things this moment. It was alive to her presence and unfazed by distance, because even though it lay more than a mile away across the cold waters of Brenn's Bay and buried beneath hundreds of feet of stone, it was also beside her, even inside her. Qinnitan could sense its interest-it felt her just as strongly as she felt it. Couldn't any of the other people on the deck of the troop ship feel its ghastly, intrusive presence as she did?
Why did you leave me, Barrick? Why did you stop talking to me? I'm so frightened…!
But it was pointless to mourn. Wherever he was, Barrick was only a mortal. In fact, like Qinnitan herself he was little more than a child: he couldn't do anything to save her from Sulepis, let alone from the gods themselves.
The sun was far too bright. Daikonas Vo knew it must be Hexamene now, almost summer, but the light still seemed too strong, a glare all around him as though he walked over a bank of blazing, white-hot coals.
"First rays, Nushash praise," he said out loud. When he was a child, his mother had always said that when she got out of bed in the morning, although she didn't say it much as he got older. Strange-he hadn't thought about the bitch in what seemed like years. Fitting that excruciating pain should bring his memories of her back.
As they rode a light tide into the docks in mainland Southmarch, the little cog stuffed with traders and their goods slipped between half a dozen Xixian warships lying at anchor or being escorted into harbor. The sailors on these other ships, unless they were in the middle of some task, watched Daikonas Vo and the others crowded on the cog's deck. He was still the object of much attention from the crew-a ragged beggar who had somehow commanded a place on a vessel the autarch had commandeered-but Vo did not intend stealth. If the girl from the Seclusion was being taken to Sulepis, perhaps had reached him already, it was far too late for stealth.
The deeper Vo walked into the camp the more eyes followed him. Men began calling to him, shouting at him to stop and tell who he was, did he think beggars could simply walk in among the tents of the famous White Hounds? Vo knew a few of his old comrades were following him. Ordinarily, he would have thought nothing of turning and confronting them. None of the White Hounds were cowards, but Vo had a way of looking at people, even very strong, very fierce people, that seemed to remind them that there were still things they wanted to do in life. But he dared not waste time.
He grunted and had to stop for a moment, bending double with his arms clutching hard across his belly, trying to keep his jaws clenched, to keep in the scream fighting so hard to get out. It was like a hot coal with legs crawling back and forth in his guts.
None of his old troop had recognized him yet; he must look like a beggar indeed. He finally managed to fight down the pain and straightened up before any of the soldiers confronted him. His goal was only a few dozen paces away, so he set off toward it, trying not to stagger, trying not to show any weakness that would make them hurry after him again, that might prompt them to pull him down like jackals on a wounded lion. Or to try, at any rate: Daikonas Vo knew he would kill them all first if he had to-fingers in eyes, kicking even as he heard bones snapping, all his weight pushing his hard forearm down until the other man's throat collapsed…
Vo could taste blood in his mouth. He spun around, arms up, ready to protect himself, but the soldiers who had been watching him had not followed. They were laughing among themselves, watching him stagger and twitch and talk to himself. Vo was full of shame. How bad was he? Had he pissed himself, too?
Shuddering, his guts like knotted, burning rags, he turned back and stumbled toward the quartermaster's tent.
Vasil Zeru looked up as he entered but clearly did not recognize his face: he curled his lip at Vo's appearance and turned back to scolding one of his underlings.
"Zeru, it's me, Vo," he said, leaning in the doorway. "Daikonas Vo."
It still took a moment more for the look of recognition to come. "By the fiery boots of the Lord, is that truly you? You look like you caught fire and someone put you out with a Thunderman's saber."
"I am…" he clenched his teeth again, waited for the spasm to pass, "I am in need of your help. And your private counsel."
The quartermaster understood. He sent the underlings away. "We have all wondered about… about your mission."
"Yes. I am in the Golden One's service," Vo told him, "on a special mission. I must reach him as quick
ly as I can. But there are enemies, traitorous, high-ranking enemies who wish to stop me… I have information the autarch must see!" He swayed, and that was entirely genuine, but it seemed to impress the quartermaster as well. Vasil Zeru was a hard man, but unlike most of the other officers his cruelty was impartial and meant as discipline. He had no wife, no son. The White Hounds were the closest he had to family, and he took his responsibilities very seriously. Vo, who had always made the other White Hounds uneasy, was exactly what Zeru liked in his unit-a clean-living, quiet and able professional soldier. So he believed, at least; Daikonas Vo's other pastimes were unknown to him.
"I will help you, of course," Vasil Zeru told him. "God's blazing blood, of course I will! Is it that old pantaloon, Vash? There is a devil who never lifted a blade or a bow himself, but would be quick to have someone else done in." He shook his head. "The kind that thinks nothing of sending soldiers to do every filthy task…"
"May Nushash bless you!" Vo was able to make it sound convincing because of the relief he was feeling; the pain in his gut had suddenly lessened. "I will tell the autarch of your service to him, of how you helped when others would not."
Old Zeru actually looked a little flushed with sentiment. "It is nothing," he said, but he seemed pleased. "What any good soldier would do for our great Falcon!"
"Do you have some water?" Vo asked suddenly. The retreating agony had left his throat ash-dry and his head as light as smoke. "To drink? " His voice sounded far away.
Then he fainted.
"By my ancestors!" said the young priest as he looked Qinnitan up and down. "What am I supposed to do with her?"
"Take her off our hands, Brother," the soldier on her left said. "Captain said if we even had a bit of fun with her, they'd have our heads. She's to go to the Golden One, or to His Radiance, the high priest."
