by Tad Williams
To his exhausted relief, Beetledown had guessed correctly: a moment later they spun out into the wider, echoing darkness of the great chasm, but the owl was right behind them now and there was no way they could outfly it to the top of the chimney… if there even was a top to it. He banked toward the walls, hoping to find outcroppings along the side that would offer some protection as they flew, but they were still a long distance from the Funderlings' work camp and the bat was exhausted, barely able to keep its wings moving. Even without the owl following them, Muckle Brown would die soon unless she could rest.
Suddenly, a vast winged shape dropped down on him from one side, catching him completely by surprise-he had not known they were so exposed. Beetledown had only a moment to reach out with his blade but he missed his thrust. The owl's talons snapped shut, failing to close around the bat, but they caught Beetledown's saddle strap and tore him roughly from Muckle Brown's back. The bat screeched in pain and fear and tumbled down and away from him, but for a moment Beetledown himself continued to fly upward, as though he might somehow continue his desperate journey even without a mount. A moment later he reached the top of his rise and began to fall again, spinning helplessly through empty air, down, down, down…
"Why have I never been here?" the princess asked Chert as they made their way down along the narrow path that circled the immense hole he had come to think of as the Pit. "How could I be so ignorant of a path that climbs down deep into the earth from my own family's tomb?"
"This path was built even longer ago than the Stormstone Roads I took you through to reach the inner keep," Chert explained. The madness of these final hours made it almost seem no more than an ordinary confidence. "My ancestors of those oldest days were frightened that… that your ancestors planned to keep us trapped in Funderling Town, just as we feared it in Stormstone's time. We wanted our own ways of getting in and out."
"You did it so you could break a royal decree?"
"With respect, Highness, you would have done the same if the pick was in the other hand, as we say. Any people will try to protect themselves. That's why we built the Stormstone Roads, and this path, too."
"Explain to me."
Chert did, wondering all the time what the future would be for his folk, if there even was one. If the Big Folk know everything about us, then we will be at their mercy. And I have done much to make it that way.
"Because you feared us," she said flatly when he had finished. "All this work, all those workers injured and even dead, because you feared my family." She shook her head. "That is a grim legacy."
The way she said it gave him a little hope. "You are not to blame for what your ancestors did."
"On the contrary, our only claim to the throne is what our ancestors did! If history is meaningless, then so is the Eddon dynasty."
Chert shrugged. "Then perhaps each generation must earn its throne anew."
Her eyes widened a little. "You surprise me, Master Blue Quartz. That is a truly…"
Princess Briony never finished what she had begun to say. They had been making their way around an outcropping that forced them uncomfortably close to the inner edge of the path, but now the light of Chert's torch revealed a dark shape sprawled before them.
"By the Hot Lord!" Chert said, then felt a pang at using such blasphemy here of all places, only a short distance above the Mysteries and the Sea in the Depths. "It's the fellow you fought-the lord protector!"
Briony carefully nudged the figure with her boot. "He was no one's protector."
Hendon Tolly's one good eye flicked open. Chert gasped and jumped back, but the lord protector did not move. Tolly seemed to stare up at them, but it was hard to know whether he saw anything. Drying blood and the hilt of Briony's small dagger obscured his other eye.
"You tried to destroy everything I love," she said. "But you failed, Hendon. You will spend eternity with the rest of your kind, snakes and spiders, down there in the dark." She yanked the small dagger out of his eye socket, then before the wound even began to bleed again, she set her booted foot against his chest and shoved him over the side and down into the dark chasm.
Chert's footsteps were growing heavier and heavier with each yard they descended. "Highness," he said, slowing to a halt, "I really cannot let you go any deeper. We must have already reached the depth of Funderling Town-perhaps we could cross over somewhere and then go back that way."
"Where Durstin Crowel and many of Tolly's other murderous followers are preparing a last stand? Why would I want to do such a thing? Are you saying that we cannot get to my father and brother and the Qar going this way?" She turned on him. "Did you lie to me?"
"No, Mistress, no." Chert shook his head. He saw more than a little of Opal in this young woman (though it seemed presumptuous to say so.) Both of them had iron in their spines and neither of them seemed to expect much good out of him. "But every moment that passes brings us closer to some sort of disaster." Now that the moment had come, he did not want to tell her. Such a terrible decision-and the reigning monarch had to hear of it from the simple Guildsman who had made it in her place! "Will you simply trust me when I say we should go no farther? That the danger is too great?"
She still stared at him. He saw no softening at all. "Will I trust you, Chert Blue Quartz? Are you mad? What does that have to do with anything? Almost all who remain of my family are deep in the earth below me, fighting for their lives. Why under Heaven should I stop here?"
Chert saw that she would not budge, let alone turn back, and as he had learned from his life with another stern-minded woman, he also knew he had run out of choices.
"Stay just a few moments, then, Highness, and I will tell you why we should go no farther…"
When he had finished, the princess stared. Chert could not even count all the different humors on her face-fear, surprise, and anger were only the most obvious.
"Is this true?" she demanded. "You Funderlings will bring it down? Collapse the very stones beneath my family's home? With all who live in it still here? And my family down below at the heart of it all?" Her eyes narrowed. "And you say this was your plan?"
"Yes-but it was to happen only if there was no other hope, Princess. And it was more complicated than that-more subtle, I promise…!" He did not want to tell her that he thought it was too late for anything now anyway-too late to defeat the autarch, certainly, but too late for his own desperate idea as well. The strength was running out of him like a seam of dry sand. What did any of it matter? He had thought about and dreaded so many things for so long, but had never imagined he might find himself too far from all those he loved in this final hour even to die with them. Folly. It had all been folly.
Princess Briony blinked, nodded once, then turned and resumed walking down the path that wound around the Pit. Chert stirred. "Princess? Where are you going?"
"Where do you think I'm going, Funderling?" she called back over her shoulder. She did not sound as if she thought much of Chert Blue Quartz at this moment. "I'm going to die with my family. You may die as you choose."
"But, Highness, if the gunflour works and the rocks fall…!"
She turned on him, her face contorted with fury. For the first time Chert saw that more than just Princess Briony's clothes had changed since the first time they'd met. She had grown not just older, but… deeper, somehow. Stronger. And something he could see in her now but not recognize frightened him more than a little. "You have taken a risk that was not yours to take, Funderling," she said. "Now let me do what I must do."
"But it must already be too late…!"
"Quiet, you!" She took a step in his direction, and for a moment Chert was actually frightened she might harm him. "Until my father takes the throne again, I am the princess regent of this kingdom. All who live above and below, your folk and my folk, are mine to protect-but you and your fellow stonecutters have taken that from me. Now leave me alone… or if you will not do me that courtesy, at least be silent." She turned again and stalked off down the uneven trail
into the dark, a knife clutched in each hand. Chert hesitated for a long moment, then hurried after her.
Aesi'uah waited for her mistress to return from the dreamlands. The daughter of ancient Sleep had waited patiently as Saqri and the others had sacrificed themselves, as the autarch's ritual had gone forward, even as the screams of terror echoed through the cavern when the strange, gleaming shape on the island began to grow, as if the Shining Man had taken on monstrous, immortal flesh. Aesi'uah did not mind waiting: she could do little else. She was not a warrior but an eremite and could only wait until her mistress should ask her for her help.
Yasammez's eyes flicked open, black and deep, but she remained where she was a long time, sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground at the foot of the cliff beneath the Maze. At last she rose.
"I am going to die now," she announced. "Take any others of the People you can find who still can walk. Tell them to carry my sweet Saqri and the other wounded and retreat toward the surface as swiftly as they can."
Aesi'uah felt quite sure that Saqri was beyond help, but she bowed to her mistress' request. "What of the Guard of Elementals? I can feel them pressing you for an answer."
Yasammez shook her head. "I have given them my answer, which is no-I will not use the Fever Egg. The mortal Barrick Eddon has taught me something."
"Truly, Mistress?"
Yasammez's smile was like a knife slash. In the distance Xixian soldiers were dying in flames at the hands of a jubilant god, their screeching like the far-off cries of birds. "Truly," she said. "Their short lives seem to mean as much to them as the endless spans of the gods themselves-more perhaps. What right do I have, after my own long, Heaven-granted span, to take that away? Perhaps they will even make some accommodation with the returning gods and write an ending I cannot foresee. Our folk have suffered the Great Defeat, but perhaps their story will be different."
Yasammez slid Whitefire from her belt. It glinted like white jade, like a fallen shard of the moon. She held it out and looked it up and down. "Long ago, this mighty blade was wielded by the sun god. It killed other gods." She nodded. "Longbeard himself fell to this blade, and he was said to be the Heaven's greatest warrior. We shall see if it has one last fight in it-if it can spill the blood of one more immortal. A pity that I do not have the sun god's strength as well."
She turned to Aesi'uah. "Approach me." Yasammez then bent and, to the eremite's amazement, gently kissed her brow. "You have been a good servant, Aesi'uah-one of the best I have ever known in all my uncounted years. I hope that when you find your death, it is a kind one. If my many-times-great-granddaughter lives beyond this hour, tell her the People died nobly today. I could have hoped for nothing better." Yasammez turned and began to walk away down the rocky slope toward the silver sea, which was beginning to steam with the Trickster god's spreading flames; after a few steps she stopped and turned. "If the manchild yet lives and you meet him, tell him that I remember his words. I have decided to let his people as well as my own find their ends in their own ways. I hope he understands the burden he must now carry."
And then Crooked's daughter went striding away once more, down to the misty, silvered sea, toward the god she had already faced once and had said she hoped never to see again. Her aspect grew around her as she went, swirling, spreading, dark and fierce as a thundercloud, a small, inky blot set against mounting fires.
Beetledown plummeted through the air tumbling end over end, and in that hurtling instant knew that he had failed: even if he miraculously fell onto the narrow path instead of down into the abyss, even should he survive the cracked bones, he would never be able to make the trip all the way up to the Funderling camp on foot.
But then something caught him.
It folded around him, soft and warm but solid, and for a moment he thought he must have fallen against the owl that had attacked him-nothing else made sense. But a moment later he was lifted up high in the air and the hand that held him opened and he found himself staring into the glowing light of one of the Funderling corals, which shone from a lantern on the head of the pale-haired figure who stared down at him.
"Hello, Beetledown," said Flint. "I thought I'd find you here."
Beetledown could only stare at the familiar, unlikely face in astonishment. "But… Chert's son, th'art. What dost tha here?"
"I had a feeling I should be here," the boy said. "And I was right-the Trickster god guessed your task and sent the bird to stop you. But there is no time to talk now. You must be on your way-hurry! Brother Antimony is waiting."
Beetledown couldn't help wondering if he might in truth be lying somewhere stunned or even dead and dreaming this whole thing. "Can't. I've no way for getting there. Yon owl has killed my mount."
Flint lifted his other hand up into the glow of the coral lamp and uncurled his fingers to reveal the brown, furry shape of Muckle Brown. Startled, the bat tried to spread its wings to leap free, but Flint gently closed his fingers over it again. "No," he said. "I caught her, too."
Beetledown could not help himself-he whooped with laughter. "What miracle is this? Something the Lord of the Peak has done, as's not happened since the old days?"
"Perhaps," Flint said. "I'm not certain. But you'd better go."
"The owl…?"
"It's gone. Once it knocked you out of the sky, it had done what it was set to do. It's been released now. I don't think you'll see it again."
"Then help me get back onto yon flittermouse. Perhaps someday, Chert's boy, tha willst be good enough to explain this all to me."
"Perhaps." Flint nodded slowly. "But that's something I can't see."
Muckle Brown was unmistakably weary, but with Beetledown back in the saddle and the owl gone, she seemed willing to try to fly again. "I'll go better slow," Beetledown said. "She's barely able to scrape air."
"Not too slow," Flint said, getting ready to fling bat and rider into the air once more. "Many are waiting on you. And when you see Mama Opal, tell her not to wait for me-she has to go with everyone else. But promise her she'll see me again."
Before Beetledown had time to make sense of all that, he was spinning up into the darkness in a whirl and crack of leathery wings.
42
The Pale Blade "… At last the mourners' prayers reached Zoria, the most tenderhearted of all the goddesses. She appeared to the people of Tessis and asked them what they wished of her, and they told her of the Orphan and how he had given his life to bring back the sun…"
-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"
Muckle Brown was barely able to keep flapping her wings when he finally brought her spiraling down on the makeshift table where the Funderling monk Brother Antimony sat staring at a series of plans scratched on slate. The bat landed heavily and pulled her wings in close, interested only in breathing, careless of what might happen next. Beetledown rolled out of the saddle and scrambled down onto the flat stone.
"By the Elders!" said Antimony, startled. "What is this…?
"I am Beetledown the Bowman, Brother-we have met before." He slipped off his pack and lifted out the Astion, his arms trembling at its weight. "This, from Cinnabar. Un says the stones must fall now-that the battle in the deeps be lost."
"But… but…" Antimony was clearly overwhelmed. "Lost? Is that true?"
"I was there but a short while. That's what un told me." The Astion passed on, Beetledown sagged. "Hast tha any water to drink? I will share it with my mount."
"What? Ah, of course." Antimony rose. "But first I must deliver this news. The men are waiting. They have been stalling so as not to tear everything down, hoping that Chert would succeed…!" He shook his head. "Elders! This is a terrible hour. But we must do what we promised… we must…!" The Funderling monk was still muttering to himself as he ran out to the main part of the cavern where the workers were gathered.
Beetledown crawled across the stone until he could lean against Muckle Brown, who still seemed interested only in regaining her brea
th. "Th'art good, leatherwing," he told the creature. "Hast done well. Hast done nobly." He patted her. "There be my good girl. And soon summat wet coming."
Soon the end of the world, too, or so it seemed. But at least they would both get a drink of water first.
God of poets, thieves and drunkards.
God of fires.
God of lies.
The names and tales flared in Barrick's mind like details picked out by lightning-Zosim the Trickster stealing the war chariot of Volios, Zosim covering himself in flowers so he could hide and watch Morna the goddess of winter bathe, after which he raped her. He had once disguised his voice to protect himself from the wrath of Perin Skylord, claiming to be Perin's father Sveros returned from the void; now Zosim had disguised himself again, pretending to be Kernios to fool the Autarch of Xis into releasing him back into the world.
The Trickster had returned and the Fireflower voices inside Barrick were horrified: in the old days only the greater powers of the other gods had held Zosim back and thwarted his cruelest whims. Now he was alone in the world, the last of the gods. He was unstoppable.
Only the autarch and the last of his select Leopard troops still stood before the terrifying menace of Zosim Salamandros unbound. Most of the autarch's ordinary soldiers had already fled in panic, many of them trying to wade through the silvery blood of Kupilas to escape the island, only to find themselves caught in its strangely viscous grip and pulled down. Zosim had picked out others for even harsher treatment: as he pointed at them they burst into flames with a noise like a muted thunder-clap, their dying shrieks lost in the god's loud merriment.
On the far side of the silver sea, the remaining Qar and Vansen's Funderlings were also in full retreat. The Xixians they had been fighting only moments before ran with them, no longer interested in anything but saving their own lives. Men and fairies were already struggling with each other for the dangling climbing-ropes, desperate to get back up to the Maze and the tunnels beyond.
