by Tad Williams
Barrick groaned and sat up. He ached all over from his numerous falls-except, oddly, his crippled arm, which still retained a stony numbness, although he could flex it now at least as easily as he ever could. "Skurn?" He opened his eyes. The black bird, head tilted to one side, stared at him with its fathomless black eye. "Gods, it is you." He let himself slump back, then sat up. "A fire! I can make a fire."
He scrambled to find enough dry leaves and grass to make a pile, then went to work, striking down at the crescent-shaped piece of metal with the flint. Once a few sparks fell onto the grass Barrick blew on them; after a little while he was rewarded with a curl of smoke and then a tiny, near-transparent flame. Relieved, he sat back and warmed his hands in front of the miniature blaze. "We must make camp somewhere nearby so I can build a proper one," he said.
"Not here." The raven lowered his harsh voice. "Here at the hill's bottom, silkins will find us."
Barrick shook his head. "I don't care. I have to rest, at least for a little while. I have climbed all the way to that hill's top today."
Now the bird tilted its head again, this time to inspect the boy. "Is that what you've been at all these last days? Climbing up hill and down hill like a Follower up a tree?"
"Days? One day at most, surely."
The raven examined his face carefully, as though he might be joking. "Days. But Skurn stayed. Skurn waited!"
Barrick did not have the strength to argue with a mad bird. He shielded the infant blaze with some stones, then went in search of a better place to camp-somewhere on good, natural stone, not the bony, yellowy stuff of the heights. Barrick wanted no more of any gods for a while, whether living or dead.
The heat of the fire was even more heartening than its light-it was wonderful to be warm again for the first time in longer than he could remember. After an hour or so the cold only lingered in his crippled arm, but even that was not a painful chill but a kind of absence, as if the organs of suffering had been somehow removed when he had gained his three parallel scars. They were all covered by scabs now and scarcely discomforting at all. His arm even seemed to have a degree of mobility it had not shown before, although Barrick could not tell whether that was because it could actually bend farther or just because it hurt less. The muscles were still weak, but it seemed a different kind of weakness, as though with more employment it would gain strength, like any ordinary limb long disused.
As a result he was in the best mood he had seen in a long while. Even in those first heady moments after he had escaped Greatdeeps and the monster Jikuyin, his happiness had been undercut by the loss of his two companions, Gyir and Vansen. Barrick knew he was still in great danger, perhaps with even more perilous times to come, but just now being warm and not in pain seemed a blessing as great as any that heaven could grant.
He stretched and yawned. "Tell me what you know about the city of Sleep," he asked Skurn, who was busy smacking a snail shell on a rock like a tiny blacksmith at his anvil.
The raven dropped the snail and turned toward him, feathers bristling around his neck like a courtier's ruff. "Pfagh! That be a foul name. Where did you hear such?"
"Spare me the warnings and the gloomy predictions, bird. Just tell me what you know."
"Us knows what any know and naught more. Night Men live there, who once were high among the Twilight folk until they fell into wicked ways, making foul allies and marrying only 'mongst theyselves and such. Then were they sent away. They made up their own city which they built in the dead lands down Fade River from here. None go there by their own will, it be said."
The idea that he would go to such a place seemed both frightening and amusing to Barrick-amusing only in that it was so clearly ridiculous. Follow the river Fade! It was like some bard's poem of fatal heroism. The Sleepers might have said a door in Sleep was his only way to reach the Qar king in his royal city, and it was true he had promised to take Gyir's mirror there, but that did not seem nearly enough compulsion to force him toward such an obviously murderous spot. What made them so sure he would do it? Why would any person who was not a half-wit go to such a place?
"Is that all you know, bird? How far away is it?"
"Us could fly there on five or six meals, like, but why would us?"
"I don't mean flying. How far for someone like me to walk?"
The raven dropped the snail shell again and hopped closer, examining Barrick carefully once more as though suddenly concerned that he was sharing the campsite with an imposter. "Just finished running up and down Cursed Hill, you did. Dost young master plan to visit every deathly spot in all the Twilight Lands, like pilgrim?"
Barrick grinned sourly. "What do you know of the gods, Skurn? Of what happened to them? Are they really gone from the world?"
Now the raven appeared truly agitated, hopping and flapping his way around the fire until he had found a stone to jump onto, as though he suddenly wanted to be a little farther off the ground. "Why yon strange questions? Us dasn't think too much about the ways of the gods, let alone speak on 'em. When they hears they names-even in dreams-they takes notice."
"Very well. No more talk." The pull of sleep was getting strong now, the fire like a warm blanket draped across his front, comforting, almost homely. "We can speak more on it tomorrow, when we set out."
"Set out?" The raven's voice had an unarguable touch of worry in it. "Set out where, young master?"
"For the city of Sleep, of course." Barrick almost smiled again. Was this how they had felt, those great heroes of old, Hiliometes or Silas or Massilios Goldenhair? As though they were part of some greater thing, tugged along through no choice of their own, helpless… but almost uncaring? It was a strange feeling. All of him, even his thoughts, seemed at this moment to be strengthened, yet as unfeeling as his arm. He looked down at the blackening blood on his skin, the three marks as though he had been clawed by some bird twice Skurn's size or more. What had the Sleepers given him?
Life is always loss, especially when you gain something, the old one had said. Did that mean they had also taken something from him? But what had he lost?
"You do not mean it, young master, do you? Not to go to such a place."
"You need not go, Skurn. This is my journey."
"But the silkins in the forest-and the Dreamless in that dreadsome city! They will freeze our blood and eat our skin!"
"You need not go."
"Then I will be lost here and alone."
Barrick fell silent then, but not out of pity for the bird. After he had slept he would wake. After he had awakened he would set out. He would walk until he reached the city called Sleep, then he would see what happened next-death or something else. He would go on like that until everything was over. It seemed simple, somehow.
But what had the Sleepers taken from him to give him such simplicity? And what had he lost…?
Weariness took him then, pulling him down into darkness, carrying him away from the flickering fire to a place that mortals shared with gods.
PART TWO
CLOAK
15
The Soiled Dove
"Ruohttashemm, home of the Cold Fairies and their warlike queen Jittsammes, was reported to be on the far side of the Stallanvolled, a great, dark forest that covered a large area of Old Vutland."
-from "A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand"
Feival, dressed in his new popinjay finest, was waving his hands behind the prince's head, urgently trying to signal something to her.
He's reminding me to get back to work, Briony realized. "Tell me again of how you led your men back from the south," she asked Prince Eneas.
"Yes, tell us again!" begged her friend Ivgenia.
"Surely you are bored with that story, ladies." To his credit, the king's son looked uncomfortable. "I have told it to you each time I have visited. The ending will still be the same if I tell it again."
"But it is such a good ending, Highness." Ivvie clearly would have been happy to listen to Eneas talk about anything, ev
en in a language she didn't understand.
"But so many stories of fighting!" he protested. "Surely highborn ladies like yourselves would prefer more wholesome tales."
"Not me," said Briony with something near to real pride. "I was raised with brothers and trained to fight by Shaso of Tuan, as you may remember."
Eneas smiled. "I do, and I pray that one day you will let me question you about his tactics and methods of teaching. I envy you such a splendid, famous instructor."
"Such excellent schooling was wasted on me, I fear. I was never allowed to practice my fighting skills with any men save my brother, and for all my life Southmarch did not taste war, at least not on our soil."
"But that is no longer true, Princess-the men of Southmarch have just fought several battles against the fairies."
"Battles that did not end well." She allowed a hitch into her voice-it was not entirely manufactured. "Battles that took our finest men… and separated my beloved brother from me as well… perhaps forever." She smiled bravely. "So it is good to hear of happier results, like yours. It gives me hope. Please, Prince Eneas, tell your tale again."
Still standing behind the prince, Feival vigorously signaled approval: he himself had taught her that brave, tragic smile.
Eneas laughed and gave in with good grace. He was easy to like, this prince: almost any other man would have been only too happy to blow his own fanfare and rehearse his glorious deeds for Briony, her ladies, and Ivgenia. Gailon Tolly, the duke of Summerfield, although he had turned out a better man than Briony had thought him (at least by comparison with his murderous brother) had always been far too willing to speak at length about his own adventures hunting or riding, making it sound as though every ditch he jumped had been a triumph over Kernios the Soul-Taker.
"Our army crossed the border and stopped at the outermost of the Hierosoline garrisons," the prince said. "Our commander, Marquis Risto of Omaranth, had been sent not so much to fight on Hierosol's behalf as to see the lay of things and send back a recommendation to my father-that is why father had sent Risto, a shrewd, careful man. But nobody guessed that the autarch would strike so swiftly or with such numbers. At the same time as he brought a great force from the sea and launched his assault on the walls of Hierosol itself, the autarch also sent a second, smaller armada up the Kulloan Strait by night with oars muffled and sails furled. They had been led through the most dangerous part of the rocky strait by a traitor from Hierosol-a sea pilot who betrayed his country for gold." Eneas shook his head, genuinely puzzled. "How could a man do such a thing?"
"It is impossible to understand," said Ivvie, nodding vigorously.
"Impossible," echoed Feival, who was prone to be a little more involved in conversations than was proper for a secretary. "Disgusting!"
"Not all people feel as strongly attached to their countries as you and I do," Briony told the prince kindly. "Perhaps because their positions in those countries are not so secure and privileged as ours."
"Or perhaps they are just inclined to treachery by birth or blood," Ivvie countered. "There are peasants on my father's land who not only poach from our forests, they withhold taxes and lie to the reeve when the counting-out season comes, claiming they have more children than they do, or less land, anything to avoid paying my father what they owe."
Some of the other ladies made noises of polite agreement. They shared a general dislike of the people who dug the soil and harvested the crops, although, like their menfolk, they often spoke about them in a way that Briony found sentimental and false. She did not claim to know the life of a peasant herself, but she had experienced enough nights in cold barns or open fields while traveling with the players that she couldn't believe anyone would choose that life for the pastoral joy of it. Also, Briony had seen enough of the machineries of justice and taxes to know that the ills were by no means all on the side of treacherous peasants.
Still, it would do no good to start an argument: the people in this court already thought of her as odd, and it might also poison the prince's mood at a time when she was doing her best to make him like her.
Feival was glaring at her again, and she realized that her wandering thoughts had taken her away from Eneas describing how the Xixian invasion had caught the Syannese troops by surprise, forcing them to take refuge in a Hierosolian fortress.
"But if Marquis Risto and the others were under siege, how did you discover their plight?" she asked. "You must have told me, but I'm afraid I've forgotten." She hadn't, of course, but there was nothing wrong with applying a thin layer of helplessness to her appeal-not overdoing it, as she might have when playing the Miller's Daughter in a farce like A Country Priest's Tale, but giving it enough push that Eneas might think of her as a needy younger sister, someone whose interests wanted protecting.
"Because he was on a mission from my father, Risto was carrying pigeons to send messages back to Tessis. He had brought the last set from our frontier fort at Drymusa, and it was just good luck I had seen him there when he passed through. I decided to wait another fortnight with my men before leaving because I was curious to hear his report about the state of things in Hierosol."
"How clever of you, Highness," Ivgenia said.
Eneas gave her a look of gentle reproof. "It was luck, my lady, as I said. I had no idea that Risto would walk into a siege. Xis has threatened Hierosol for years, but none of us truly believed it was more than bluff, since it was easier for the Xixian autarchs to snatch prizes among the rich islands on the southern coast. In any case, word came, and I was there with a company of battle-ready men. Good fortune, as I said, was on our side."
"A blessing from the gods," murmured Briony.
Eneas nodded. He was known to be devout, and had quietly gifted several temples while his younger siblings were spending their own money on the pleasures of earthly existence. "Yes, a blessing indeed. Are you sure you wish to hear this all again?"
"Please," Briony told him. "We get so little firsthand news."
He gave her a wry look. "But I hear you have been out getting a good look at the world, both on your way here and since you have arrived, Princess Briony."
For a moment she was nonplussed, until she realized he must be referring to her trip out of the palace with Ivgenia. But why would something like that interest Eneas? Unless he was just interested in Briony in a general way, and had been asking about her… She couldn't afford to be too sure of herself, though: he might be interested in Ivgenia, after all-she was a pretty, vivacious young girl with a good family bloodline.
"I have found trouble for myself in all kinds of places, Prince Eneas," she told him, ignoring Feival's smirk. "I obviously require better advisers to keep me from mischief. I hope you will feel free to lend me your wisdom."
He smiled. "I would consider it an honor, Princess. But from what I hear you have done well and bravely on your own."
He really was quite handsome-there were no two ways about it. Briony was of several different minds about all of this. On the one hand, she felt like a traitor-a real one, not just one of Ivgenia's father's tenants trying to withhold a half-basket of barley to get through the winter. After all, she intended to use this man, not for his good or his country's, but for her own family's-to make up, in part, for her own failures. But there were several problems with such a plan. One was that Eneas might well be too clever to be manipulated, in which case she might alienate someone who could otherwise have become a true ally here at court. Second, the prince was not the kind of man of whom she could happily take advantage. By all accounts except his own (which tended toward modesty) Eneas was kind, intelligent, and extremely brave. He loved his father but was not blind to his own country's failings. He was also fiercely loyal to his friends, as everyone assured her. How could she set out to use her so-called womanly wiles to get her way-the very methods she had long despised when used by her stepmother Anissa or the other ladies of the Southmarch court?
But the need is great because the cause is so important, she told
herself. The lives of my people. My father's throne.
Yes, and revenge against the Tollys, a sly little voice reminded her. Do not pretend you do not wish that as well. Not a noble motive, but one close to her heart. Hendon Tolly had taken almost everything from her. He and his brother Caradon deserved to die, preferably after much suffering and humiliation. Hendon had not just stolen her family's throne, he had made Briony feel helpless and weak, and for that alone she wanted him dead. Sometimes she felt as though she would never be strong again until Hendon had been punished for that crime.
"Princess?"
She lifted a hand to her mouth, embarrassed. How long had she been woolgathering? She dared not even look toward Feival, who must be beside himself. "I'm sorry, I…" Might as well use the chance when it was there. "I suddenly remembered… a painful thing…"
"It is my fault." He looked as though he believed it. "I should not have teased about your trip to the Flower Meadow market-that was cruel and thoughtless. I forgot utterly that was the day your young servant died. My deepest apologies, Princess."
Was that what they had been talking about-the market? She had entirely lost the thread. The simple thought of Hendon Tolly grinning that fox's grin of his as he bragged about how he had stolen her throne… "No, no," she said, recovering herself. "Not your fault, sir. Please, you hadn't finished telling us about the siege."
"Are you certain that you wish to hear my dry tale yet again?"
"It is not dry to me, Prince Eneas. It is like water to a parched throat. Go on."
He continued as Briony and Ivgenia and the other women listened intently, and even Feival kept forgetting that he was supposed to pretend he was working. Whether they were all fascinated by the prince's relief of the Hierosoline garrison and his escape back across the Syannese border with Marquis Risto and his men, or because Eneas was simply a fascinating man with an even more fascinating place in the world, the audience was no less rapt for it.
