Shadowrise s-3

by Tad Williams

  What was in the black glass container? Qinnitan had no idea. It looked like poison, but why would a man take poison by his own choice? Perhaps it was some powerful physic. Still, even though she could make little sense of it, the ritual was something to think about-to think about long and carefully. With nothing else left to her she had begun to hoard ideas like a miser hoarded coins.

  Qinnitan lay silent, eyes closed, but she had grown so sensitive to changes in the hour and temperature that she could feel the first warmth of approaching morning push gently against her chill face.

  How could she escape from her captor? And, if that failed, how could she end her life before he gave her to the autarch? She would welcome even as horrid a death as Luian's-the strangler had at least been relatively quick. It was what the autarch's servants would do to her while she lived that terrified her…

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the quiet clink of the stopper being pushed back into the black bottle, and then by the even more surprising sound of her captor's voice.

  "I know you are not asleep. Your breathing is different. Stop pretending."

  Qinnitan opened her eyes. He was staring at her, his own eyes strangely bright, glittering as though with some secret jest. As he tucked the bottle away in his cloak the wiry muscles moved like snakes beneath the skin of his forearms. He was horribly strong, she knew that, and quick as a cat. How could she hope to get away from him?

  "What is your name?" she asked for perhaps the hundredth time. He watched her, his lip minutely curled in amusement or contempt.

  "Vo," he said abruptly. "It means 'of.' But I am not 'of ' anything. I am the end, not the beginning."

  Qinnitan was so startled by this little speech that for a moment she could think of nothing to say. "I… I don't understand." She struggled to keep her voice calm, as if it was nothing unusual for this silent killer to divulge something about himself. "Vo?"

  "My father was from Perikal. His father was a baron. The family name was 'Vo Jovandil,' but my father disgraced it." He laughed. There was something wrong with him, she thought, something strange and feverish. Qinnitan was almost afraid to continue. "So he cut off his last name and went to war. He was captured by the autarch and became a White Hound."

  Even to Qinnitan, who had lived much of her life in the isolation of the Hive and the Seclusion, the name of the autarch's troop of northern killers was enough to make her heart skip a beat. So that was why a white man from Eion spoke such perfect Xixian. "And… and your mother?"

  "She was a whore." He said it offhandedly, but he turned his gaze away from her for the first time, looking out at the gleam of sunrise spreading across the horizon like a burning slick of oil. "All women are whores, but she was honest about it. He killed her."

  "What? Your father killed your mother?"

  Now he turned back to her, his eyes dull with contempt. "She asked for it. She struck him. So he beat her head in."

  Qinnitan no longer wanted to keep him talking. She could only raise shaking hands as if to keep such things away from her.

  "I would have killed her, too," Vo said, then got up and walked across the gently rocking deck to talk to the old fisherman Vilas, who was minding the tiller.

  Qinnitan sat crouched down against the stiff, chill breeze for as long as she could, then clambered along the bench to the rail where she vomited up the meager contents of her stomach. When she had finished she lay with her cheek against the cold, wet wood of the rail. The coastline itself was almost invisible, shrouded by fog, so that the boat seemed to travel through some lonely place between worlds.

  Something had definitely changed. In the following days Vo grew positively conversational, at least compared to what he had been. As the shallop crept northward along the coast it became his habit when he finished his morning ritual to talk to her a little. Occasionally he even mentioned places he had been and things he had seen, tiny fragments of his life and history, although he never again spoke of either of his parents. Qinnitan did her best to listen closely, although sometimes it was hard: this man Vo seemed to make no distinction between a meal he ate and a man he killed. There was nothing friendly in his talk, nothing of ordinary interaction. It seemed instead a kind of compulsion that came upon him when he had finished licking the needle, as though whatever lurked inside the poison bottle made him too ecstatic to remain silent. The fever never lasted long, though, and often he was angry and resentful with her later on, giving her less food or treating her roughly for no reason, as though she had tricked him into speech.

  "Why do you say all women are whores?" she asked quietly one morning. "Whatever the autarch told you of me, I am not that. I am still a virgin. I was training to be a priestess. The autarch plucked me out of the Hive and put me in the Seclusion."

  Vo rolled his eyes. The iron control that usually governed his every action seemed to grow slack during that first hour of the morning. "Whoring has nothing to do with… coupling," he said, as though the word tasted bad. "A whore sells who she is for protection, or food, or richer things." He looked Qinnitan up and down with blank disinterest. "Women have nothing else to offer but themselves, so that is what they sell."

  "And you? What do you sell?"

  "Oh, never doubt I am a whore, too," he said and laughed. He clearly did not laugh very often-it sounded awkward and angry. "Most men are, except those who are born with wealth and power. They are the buyers. The rest of us are their sluts and catamites."

  "So you would be the autarch's whore, then?" She put as much scorn in her voice as she could muster. "You would hand me over to him, to be tortured and murdered, just to earn his gold?"

  He stared at his own hand for a long, silent moment, then held it up before her. "Do you see this? I could snap your neck in a heartbeat, or drive my fingers through your eyes or between your ribs to kill you and there is nothing you could do to prevent me. So I own you. But here in my gut is something that belongs to the autarch. If I do not do what he commands it will kill me. Very painfully. So he owns me." Vo stood, swaying a little as swells rolled the boat, and looked down at her vacantly, his feverish mood beginning to fade once more. "Like most people, you waste your time trying to puzzle out the meaning of things.

  "The world is a ball of dung and we are the worms that live in it and eat each other." He turned his back on her, pausing only to add: "The one who eats all the others wins-but he is still the last living worm in a lump of shit."

  27

  Mayflies

  "Some scholars believe that the Elementals may be some other kind of creature entirely, less natural even than the fairies themselves."

  -from "A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand"

  For long moments Ferras Vansen could only sit and stare into the near-darkness trying to understand what had happened. He was weak and queasy and his head was ringing like a bell, a single continuous chime. Chert Blue Quartz stood over him, mouth working broadly, but Vansen could hear no sound.

  Deaf, he thought. I'm deaf. And then he remembered the thunderclap that had knocked him from his feet, a crash louder than anything he had heard since the blasting in the pits of Greatdeeps.

  He pushed that nightmare memory from his mind and closed his eyes once more. Dizziness picked him up like a boat on a rough current and swirled him around and around. He was suddenly aware for the first time in days that he was really, truly underground-deep in a hole beneath the world, with an unimaginable weight of stone between him and the sun. If only someone would take a giant stick and poke a hole through it so he could see the light again, instead of being lost beneath it… lost, confused, baff led…

  "… Throw it farther," someone whispered. "… Didn't know…"

  Vansen opened his eyes again. Chert was still talking but now he could hear him, although the small man sounded as if he were a hundred paces away. Still, it meant that his hearing was coming back.

  The cavern was full of other Funderlings as well, living Funderlings, none of whom Vansen recognized u
ntil Cinnabar himself appeared beside him, dressed in armor of a type he had never seen before: the small man was covered with round plates so that he looked a cross between a turtle and a pile of discarded dishes.

  "How is he?" the Funderling magister asked Chert. Where had Cinnabar come from? All Vansen could remember was that he hadn't expected to see him anytime soon. For that matter, it seemed strange to him that Chert Blue Quartz was here as well.

  "I think he was deafened by the burst." Chert's voice still sounded muffled.

  "I'm not deaf," Vansen said, but the Funderlings showed no sign of having heard him. He repeated it, trying to be louder. It seemed to work because both of them turned toward him at the same time. "My hearing is returning," he explained. "What happened?"

  "It was all my fault," said Chert, his face creased in worry. "I found some of our blasting powder beetles in the storage hall-we use them to crack rock-and thought, well, I didn't have a weapon, and it might scare the Qar away, so I brought one. When I got here I saw they were all over you, so I lit it, came up behind, and threw the beetle as far as I could." He looked chagrined. "My arm is not as strong as it once was…"

  "Nonsense!" said Cinnabar. "My men and I would never have arrived in time. Because of you, Master Blue Quartz, the fairies were reeling and confused when we arrived and they couldn't retreat fast enough. You saved Captain Vansen and quite possibly the temple as well!"

  Chert looked surprised. "Really…?"

  Vansen suddenly remembered the last moments. "Where is Sledge Jasper? Is he…?"

  "Alive," Cinnabar assured him. "Ears ringing like yours, but he is not complaining-oh, no. Too weak to complain, in any case. Some of my men are bandaging him-he leaked a lot of blood, but he'll live. There is a fighter who would make the Elders proud!"

  Vansen could not quite shake the feeling that he was buried beneath a millionweight of heavy stone. He could move, but every part of him seemed misshapen, unfamiliar, and his thoughts were sluggish. "You said this… beetle… was full of rock-cracking powder. Is it the stuff called serpentine or gunflour-the same black powder we use for cannons? Is there more of it?"

  "Yes, there's more," Chert said. "Nearly another dozen shells in the storeroom, and probably more blasting powder as well. But we have no cannons down here, nor room to shoot them…"

  A young Funderling in armor hurried up. "Magister Cinnabar, one of the enemy that was smashed up by the blasting powder… one of those drows…!"

  "What, man? Chip it loose and let's have it."

  "He's alive."

  Strangely, Vansen recognized the captive. The dirty little man staring resentfully up at him was the one who had tried to stab him, and whose wrist he had snapped. Indeed, the shaggy creature was cradling that arm, which was swollen and bruised.

  "Can we speak to him?" Vansen asked.

  Cinnabar shrugged. "My men have been trying to. He refuses to answer. We know nothing of what tongue he speaks-he may not even understand us."

  "Then kill him," Vansen said loudly. "He's useless to us. Cut off his head."

  "What?" Chert was shocked. Even Cinnabar looked taken aback.

  Vansen had been watching the prisoner carefully: the little man had not flinched, had not even looked up. "I do not mean it. I was just curious whether he was only pretending not to understand. We must think of a way to make him tell us what he knows about his mistress' plans."

  Chert still looked suspicious. "What does that mean? Torture?"

  Vansen laughed sadly. "I would not hesitate if I thought it would save your family and my people aboveground, but the answers given by a man under torture are seldom useful, especially if we cannot speak his tongue well. But if you think of any other ways, let me know. Otherwise, I may begin to change my mind."

  Magister Cinnabar gave directions for the prisoner to be taken back to the temple, then hurried off to supervise the other tasks he had assigned. Those of his reinforcements not gathering up bodies or helping the wounded had already been sent to repair the breach the Qar had made into the Festival Halls.

  Vansen rubbed his aching head. He wanted nothing so much as to lie down and sleep. He had been exhausted long before Chert's bursting shell had nearly deafened him, and although his wounds had been washed and bandaged while he was senseless he ached mightily all over. He wanted a drink of something strong and at least an hour in bed, but he was the commander here, more or less, so it would have to wait.

  "You said you had a dozen more of the gunflour beetles and more powder," Vansen said to Chert.

  "That's what we have at the temple. We have more in Funderling Town, much more. We use it to break up stone when we must work fast-when we are not given time to do things in the old, proper ways…"

  Vansen had learned more than he really wanted to in the past month about the good old days of wet-wedging and sand-polishing. "Let us talk to Cinnabar about it, then," he said hurriedly. "Perhaps we can prepare a welcome for next time that will make the dark lady and her soldiers think twice about coming into our home uninvited."

  Chert did his best to get Vansen to rest-the captain was ribboned with cuts and still clearly not hearing very well-but the big man would not be dragged away from the battlefield, so Chert returned to the temple alone. The Metamorphic Brothers had already heard news of the battle and almost all of them wanted to ask Chert about it, including many who seemed to think of him as a kind of hero. In another time he might have enjoyed the attention but now he was too frightened and weary to want anything but to get back to his room. He had seen some of the Qar forces, however briefly, and he knew there were thousands more of them besieging Southmarch aboveground. He had caught a very small number of these attackers by surprise with a blasting beetle, but next time there would be no surprise. The drows might even have rock-cracking powder of their own.

  Chert was almost back to his room when he remembered Flint, whom he had left with the physician. Wearily he turned back up the corridor, but when he got to Chaven's room and rapped on the heavy door nobody answered. When he tried it, the door was not locked or even latched. He pushed it open, suddenly fearful.

  Chaven lay stretched full-length on the floor as if he had been stunned with a club; there was no sign of Flint. For a terrible moment Chert thought the physician was dead, but when he kneeled beside him he could hear Chaven moaning quietly. Chert found a basin of cold water and a cloth and splashed water across the physician's broad, pale forehead.

  "Wake up!" He did his best to shake Chaven, who was twice his size. "Where is my boy? Where is Flint?"

  Chaven groaned and rolled over, then struggled until he could sit by himself. "What?" The physician looked around his room as if he had not seen it before. "Flint?"

  "Yes, Flint! I left him with you. Where is he? What happened?"

  Chaven looked blank. "Happened? Nothing happened. Flint, you say? He was here?" He shook his head slowly, like a weary horse trying to dislodge a biting fly. "No, wait-he was here, of course he was. But… but I do not remember what happened. Is he gone?"

  Chert almost threw the wet rag at him in exasperation. He quickly searched the small chamber to make sure the boy was not hiding somewhere. He did not find him, but in one corner of the room he discovered a small hand mirror and a stump of candle lying on the floor. He smelled the wick. It had only recently been extinguished.

  "What is this?" he demanded of the confused physician. "Did you get up to some of your mirror tricks with him? Did you frighten him into running away?"

  Chaven looked both affronted and anxious. "I can't remember, to tell the truth. But I would never hurt or frighten a child, Chert-you should know that."

  Chert remembered the boy's cries of terror the last time the fat physician had tried out his mirror-magics. "Pfah! He's gone, that's all I know. Have you no idea at all where he might be? How long he's been gone?"

  But Chaven was mystified-and useless. He could only look from one corner of the room to another, rubbing his eyes as though the light in the dar
k room was too bright.

  Chert was hurrying through the halls when he suddenly remembered the library. Flint had already got them both into trouble for going there once. What more likely place for him to end up this time?

  To his immense relief he found the boy slumped in what seemed like ordinary childish sleep at one of the ancient tables, his head cradled on an irreplaceable book, a centuries-old collection of shallow carvings on sheets of mica thinner than parchment. As Chert lifted the boy's head to slide the pages from beneath him he glanced at the antique writing. He could not read it-it was too old, too strange-but it reminded him of the scratchings he had seen on the walls deep in the Mysteries. What was the boy doing with it? Did he have any sense of what he was up to? Flint acted sometimes as if he was ten times his true age, but at others he seemed nothing more than the child he was.

  "Wake up, boy," he said gently. He could forgive almost anything as long as he didn't have to tell Opal he'd lost their child. "Come, now."

  Flint lifted his head and looked around, then closed his eyes again as if to go back to sleep. He was far too big for Chert to carry-he was taller than his foster father, now-so Chert had to pull on his arm until the boy got to his feet and reluctantly allowed himself to be led out of the library and back across the temple to the room they shared. For once they seemed to be in luck: Vansen was apparently keeping Brother Nickel and the other monks busy with the temple's defense. Flint's return to the library had apparently gone undetected.