by Tad Williams
But what did such things matter anyway? No matter who won this war, it meant nothing to Rafe. If he had to, he would pack up all his belongings, set Ena on Sealskin's bench, and together they would paddle away somewhere else, upcoast or down. Perhaps it was time for the Ocean Lord's folk to return to the Vuttish Islands? He and his sweetheart could surely find a deserted skerry and live out their lives there in happy solitude…
Musing on this and other fantasies, Rafe guided his boat in and out among the flotsam of the burned ships, looking for things to salvage. He had discovered a floating cask of southern honey this way the night before, the wood only lightly singed and the insides still protected by wax and cotton cloth, a find that had delighted his father who said he could get several silver coins for it at the least. In fact, Rafe felt sure that the goodwill caused by that discovery was why Mackel had finally told him the boat was his. Reminded of his good fortune, he patted Sealskin's strong but delicate frame. The next cask of honey would be for Rafe himself to sell. Perhaps he could buy Ena a wedding necklace.
He passed through the ghost fleet and made a wide swing along the coast below the Marrinswalk headlands. The sun was coming up soon, and he knew he should not be staying out so long. Daylight would make it harder to sneak back in. He supposed he could pretend to have fallen asleep in the boat shed while cleaning Sealskin. He had certainly done it enough times in his youth.
Rafe's planning was interrupted by something moving on the shore. He stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing-something tall that stood almost at the waterline and was shrouded in cloth that whipped fitfully in the freshening breeze. What was it? Some bit of useful wreckage that had floated ashore and that another scavenger had found and might be coming back for? Was that why it was covered by that tattered cloak? Did someone really think that was enough to claim it as their own?
Rafe swung his bow toward the shallows until he could not get any closer and still remain in the boat. The thing standing where the water splashed up onto the rocky strand was man-shaped, although still motionless but for the ragged, windblown cloth that covered it. Was it a statue? Or had some lonely wanderer died here, so slowly that he had remained standing? Rafe had found corpses on the beach before, most of them drowned, but others as unmarked as though they had come to such a lonely spot just to die. He had never found one still standing. A superstitious shiver went through him.
Then the figure turned.
Rafe gasped and paddled the boat back from the shore. It had been the movement of something that ived-something that stood on this lonely stretch of shore by choice.
Even as he stared, the figure slowly lifted one hand and beckoned to him. Rafe could only stare. The thing raised its arm higher and made a gesture that was broader but still stiff, as though the creature in the billowing cloak was very old or very weak. There was no question that it was gesturing at him.
"What do you want?" Rafe called. "If you value your life, don't you meddle with me! I'll break your pate for a laugh!"
The figure only beckoned to him again. Rafe's curiosity began to get the better of him. He plied his oar deftly and shot closer. As his boat bobbed beneath him, he examined this apparition, or at least what little he could see of it. The stranger wore a dark, hooded robe, ragged on the edges, which covered his face, and his hands appeared to be bandaged in old, dirty bits of linen so that no skin showed. Again, a shiver of dislike passed through Rafe. The boom of the surf died down for a moment, and he could finally hear the stranger's voice, or at least a rasp of loud breathing. It was a disturbing sound, but it proved that the creature was no ghost.
"What do you want of me?" he asked again.
Rafe could only see the faint gleam of the stranger's eyes as he pointed to Rafe's boat, then slowly extended his bandaged hand toward the castle in the middle of the bay. The meaning was quite clear.
"You want me… to take you there?" He laughed and hoped it sounded braver to the stranger than it did to him. "Are you joking, man? Why should I take you across the water? If you are a spy for the southerners, you can't be a very good one, with your bandages and your gloomy looks-like something out of a Kerneia parade!"
The man only pointed again.
"I asked you why? Why should I?"
The hooded stranger lowered his hand. After a moment he began to fumble with the knot of his robe. Rafe decided he did not want to see what was under this creature's cloak and began to back-paddle his boat to put a little more distance between them, but the specter was having trouble getting the robe untied. Rafe stopped and floated, paddle dripping in the air. What was this absurd creature doing?
The stranger finally succeeded in opening the knot of his cloth belt, but instead of stripping off the cloak he only pulled something out of the knot and held it up in the thin but growing dawn light, pushing it in Rafe's direction as if to hand it to him across the distance. Rafe could only stare. It was a gold piece as big as a bull squid's eye.
"You're saying you want to give me that," he said at last. Even to his own ears, he sounded a bit breathless. "To take you over to the castle. Over there." He pointed. The cloaked figure did not nod or say anything, but thrust the coin toward him again. "Very well then, if you say so. But, remember-I have a knife!" He reached down and lifted his fish-gutter. "So don't try anything or you'll regret it."
It took no little time to get the stranger into the boat. The man was crippled or at least he moved that way, with limbs that seemed stiff and brittle as icicles, but Rafe managed to get him seated on the bench at last and then took the gold. The man's bandaged hands were filthy, but the coin itself was shiny, real, and very beautiful. Payment made, the stranger promptly lowered his chin to his chest so that his hood covered his head completely, and then seemed to sleep.
Rafe paddled hard, trying to get back before the sun rose too high above the hills. He would have to find a place to let off this rich madman, then hurry home. Of course, even if his father found out and gave him a whipping, Rafe didn't much care-he was rich himself now. He could buy Ena not only a necklace but also the grandest dress the lagoon had ever seen, with more shells on it than there were stars in the night sky.
It was strange how the hours crawled past when your freedom had been taken. Qinnitan was realizing that she had been some sort of prisoner for much of her life, first in the Hive, although they had treated her kindly, then in the Seclusion. Finally, after one brief, heady taste of freedom in Hierosol, she had been recaptured by the monster Daikonas Vo. She had then managed to escape even him, but it seemed the gods themselves did not want her to be free, so here she sat, despite all her efforts, bravery, and sacrifice, the doomed prisoner of the world's most dangerous madman.
She shifted, trying to find a less painful position. With her arms tied behind her back, there was no such thing as comfortable. Around her, the High Priest's lackeys came and went, paying no more attention to Qinnitan in her cage than if she was a piece of furniture or the remains of a meal.
No, she thought, like a sacrificial animal. The knowledge of her suffering was far less important to them than her place in the upcoming ritual.
But what upcoming ritual? What did the autarch plan for her and for poor Olin, the northern king? She had listened carefully to every word uttered in her vicinity, especially by that bloated old monster Panhyssir, but she still had no real idea what the autarch planned.
Despite her determination to say nothing, she couldn't help letting out a moan of despair as the priests' potion began to act. Oh, sweet honey of Nushash, here it came again-that horrible burning crackle running from her head to her tail, like a bolt of slow lightning. In her memory the stuff Panyhyssir called "Sun's Blood" had become only another indignity of her time in the Seclusion, but now she was forced to experience again how truly vile it made her feel, the terrible thoughts it put into her head. She could feel her mouth force itself open in a silent scream, feel her fingers curling and cramping until she could no longer keep her tattered robe wrapped
around her. Qinnitan perceived herself crumpling to the floor as if she observed it from a great distance, then she watched the world turn sideways and disappear into the blackness of her closed lids.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
It was the slow throb of her own blood, the hot red river that, thanks to the priests' potions, now mimicked the god's own holy ichor. She could feel it moving sluggishly through her body, filling her as melted silver might fill an intricate mold, until everything that was Qinnitan-shaped had grown turgid and trembling, poured full of the deadly, exalted Sun's Blood.
And now something in the darkness became aware of her. It did not rise up so much as it uncloaked itself, and that cloak was the darkness in which the thing lived, just as a great whalefish lived in water or a monstrous thunderstorm lived in the sky. It was too big to live-it didn't make sense!-but at the same time she felt she understood it, almost was it…
But the more Qinnitan felt of its monstrous, cold interest, the more terrified she became. It drew nearer, and its very presence made her ripple and spread like an oil stain-any closer and she would surely come apart! But it did come closer, and suddenly Qinnitan understood that the god-thing wanted something from her-something she had not felt before. Always, she had sensed its predatory interest as just that, as something hunting, with herself as the hapless prey, trussed and left to the mercies of this merciless thing. Now, she realized with a quite different sort of horror that it didn't want to devour her, not in any ordinary sense. This impossible thing wanted to use her, to inhabit her so that it could cross the void and return to the land of the waking and the living.
Qinnitan knew she would never survive sharing her place in the world with something so powerful and uncaring-every moment it lived inside her would burn part of the real Qinnitan away. But that was exactly why they fed her the Sun's Blood, she realized: to prepare her as a vessel for the god, to make her a more hospitable home for this hideous presence which had not walked the earth for thousands of years. And she could do nothing to stop it. When midnight came, either she or King Olin would be offered up as a shell for this dreadful thing to inhabit.
Shrieking without sound, Qinnitan began to swim up through the blackness, desperate to escape. Patient as death itself, the thing let her go; after all, it only had a short time to wait before it would get everything it wanted.
Hands quickly but efficiently tied behind his back and a sack pulled over his head, Chert now was hurried across uneven ground. Cannon fire still boomed above his head but it was growing a little fainter. From the sound of the sea, he guessed he was being forced toward the North Lagoon. The men who had captured him spoke little among themselves, and although they did not spare him any kindness, they were no rougher than they needed to be, which made him decide with a sinking heart that they must be soldiers. That meant they were Tollys' men, and the swiftness with which they had grabbed and captured him suggested he had been recognized.
He staggered and nearly fell again as he understood that he might never see Opal again, or Flint, or Funderling Town. If he was to be executed, he might never see anything again but the inside of this noisome sack…
Chert stopped and planted his feet. "I won't go any farther until you tell me where you're taking me," he said, ashamed to hear how his voice quavered. "If I'm to be killed, at least tell me why. At least tell me who my murderers are."
"Keep moving, half-size," growled one of the men and gave him a shove in the back that sent Chert staggering forward once more. The man had an accent Chert couldn't place-perhaps he was a Kracian mercenary. Chert had heard rumors Hendon Tolly had been looking for help abroad since it became clear the Qar were headed toward Southmarch.
At last he was pushed into a doorway, feet crunching across a floor made of strewn rushes, then rough hands grabbed his shoulders and forced him down onto a stool. An instant later the sack was yanked from him. When he had finished blinking, he looked at the strange figure in the chair opposite. At first the armor made him think it was a man, a young one from the look of his face, but he realized a moment later it was a woman looking him up and down with calm interest, her golden hair cut short and her serious face smeared with dirt in what Chert could not help thinking was a most unfeminine way.
"Only one?" the woman asked. Chert was certain he had seen her before somewhere. "All that time and you only brought back one? What if he doesn't know?"
"None were coming out!" protested one of the men, whose accent was less pronounced than the others'. "You saw it, High… I mean, my lady. Tolly's men have it sewed up tight, and they were keeping them all inside today. But just now someone dropped a cannonball on the Kallikans' front porch and this one hurried out, so we grabbed him."
"Funderlings. Here, in Southmarch, they are called 'Funderlings,' Stephanas, not 'Kallikans.' " She turned back to examine Chert once more. "Don't be afraid," she said. "I hope they didn't treat you roughly. They are rough men, but I told them to be careful."
"They did not hurt me… but I can't say I was given much choice about coming."
"No, you weren't. Because I need your help and I need it badly."
And then he knew her, at once and in a rush, and the words came out without any further thought from him. "Fracture and Fissure! Whatever you want, Princess Briony. I am at your service. It is good to see you back in your home again."
Her eyes narrowed. "It is not my home again-not yet. Who are you?"
"Chert of the Blue Quartz. We met once before, on the day your brother killed the wyvern. You… you nearly ran me over with your horse."
"Merciful Zoria, I remember! That was you?" She laughed, and for an instant was once more the young girl he had seen that day. "Do you really mean that you will help me?"
He shrugged. "Of course. Your father is our king, Highness. Is he coming back, too?"
The girl's mouth set in a grim line. "If I have any say about it. But just now he is somewhere beneath our feet, a prisoner of the Xixians."
Chert's stomach lurched, and he had to suppress a groan. "I know too much about the Xixians already, Highness! They have pushed down past Funderling Town and are chewing their way into our sacred Mysteries like worms through an apple. I will be happy to help strike a blow at those southerners-just tell me what I can do for you." But even as he spoke these brave words, he could hear Opal's voice in his head: "Stop showing off for the Big Folk, Chert Blue Quartz. You have work of your own to do and time is dripping away!"
"Well, these men and I are not fighting the Xixians just yet…" The princess looked as though she wished it was otherwise. "My enemy is closer to hand-Hendon Tolly. But the prince of Syan and I cannot get our soldiers into the inner keep because the walls are too strong. I am kept at bay by my family's own castle!" Her laugh was sour.
"And what can I do?" he asked, but he was beginning to see the shape of things.
"I wanted a Funderling, Chert-any Funderling. I did not know it would be you. I need a way to get into the inner keep, and quickly." She fixed him with a surprisingly sharp, hard stare. "You see, I've learned things. I am not such a simple creature as I was when last I lived here. I met the Kallikans of Tessis, your relatives, and found that they keep secrets from their monarchs. I'm sure your folk have secrets they have kept from my family, too."
"Secrets…?"
"Passages beneath the castle, perhaps. Tunnels. Hidden doors? Things that the Big Folk-isn't that what you call us-that the Big Folk aren't supposed to know about? But now I need to know, Chert of the Blue Quartz. How can I get enough men into the inner keep to open that gate and let the rest of our soldiers through?"
He had reached a moment of decision, that much was clear. She was asking about the Stormstone Roads, even if she didn't know them by name. Everything in him that was conservative and cautious warned that this was not a decision he should make himself. After the hundreds of years his people had kept those passages secret from the Southmarch royal family, even the present extraordinary situation did not give him the auth
ority to make such a decision. But he had his own mission, and there was no longer any way he could get back in time to try something else.
"Will you give my people back their Funderling Town if you succeed? Tolly's men have occupied it."
Briony smiled. "Without a moment's hesitation. You have my word on it as an Eddon."
"Then I'll do my best to help you. You have my word as a Blue Quartz on that."
Her smile grew a little wistful. "It seems we both have weighty family names to live up to, Master Chert."
It was full dark when they reached the spot between the new walls and the castle's great outwall, a warren of small alleys between the ends of the East and West Lagoons where only the poorest lived because the walls loomed so high on either side that the sun only reached the streets for an hour or two each day, even in summer. Chaven's observatory was out of sight on the far side of the new walls, but the Tower of Spring stretched high above their heads. Chert imagined Tolly had a watch posted on its uppermost floor, but felt reasonably sure they were too close to the tower's base to be seen from there.
"Still," he whispered to Briony, "your men should keep their voices down. Sound bounces off stone in unexpected ways."
He led them down a tiny street and into a deserted house at one end of it, praying that he had remembered the location correctly, a hidden passage he had occasionally used when he wanted to depart Chaven's house without leaving the upground castle entirely. He was gratified by the surprise on Briony's face as he revealed the trapdoor hidden in what looked like a room piled with builder's trash.
