The Dragonbone Chair

by Tad Williams

  “Carry these, if you will please,” he said. “I do not see many birds here, although quite often they are emerging now for feeding on the insects. It is perhaps we shall have to be settling for a squirrel—not that they are not tasting good,” he hastened to explain as they stepped over a fallen tree, “but there is a certain more delicate touch and experience in the hunting of small birds. When the dart hits, you will be understanding. I think it is their flying that touches me so, and how quickly their tiny hearts are beating.”

  Later, in the leaf-whisper of the spring evening, as Simon and the little troll lazed by the fire digesting their meal—two pigeons and a fat squirrel—Simon thought on what Binabik had said. It was strange to realize how little you understood someone that you had grown to like. How could the troll feel such affection toward something he was going to kill?

  I certainly don’t feel that way about that bloody woodsman, he thought. He probably would have killed me as quickly as he would have killed the Sitha-man.

  But would he have? Would he have taken the axe to Simon? Maybe not: he had thought the Sitha a demon. He had turned his back on Simon, something he would not have done had he feared him.

  I wonder if he had a wife? Simon suddenly thought. Did he have children? But he was a wicked man! Still, bad men can have children—King Elias has a daughter. Would she feel bad if her father died? I certainly wouldn’t. And I don‘t feel bad that the woodsman is dead—but I would feel sad for his family if they found him dead in the forest that way. I hope he didn‘t have any family, that he was alone, that he lived all alone in the forest by himself…alone in the forest…

  Simon started upright, full of fear. He had nearly drifted off, alone by himself and helpless…but no. There was Binabik sitting back against the bank, humming to himself. Simon felt suddenly very grateful for the little man’s presence.

  “Thank you…for the supper, Binabik.”

  The troll turned to look at him, an indolent smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “It is happily given. Now you have seen what the southern blow-darts can do, perhaps you would like to learn their using yourself?”

  “Certainly!”

  “Very good. Then I will be showing you tomorrow—perhaps then you can be hunting our supper, hmm?”

  “How long…” Simon found a twig and stirred the embers, “how long will we be traveling together?”

  The troll closed his eyes and leaned back, scratching his head through his thick black hair. “Oh, a while at least, I am thinking. You are going to Naglimund, correct? Well, I have sureness I will travel at least the great part of the way there. Is that a fair thing?”

  “Yes!…ummm, yes.” Simon felt much better. He, too, leaned back, wiggling his unshod toes before the coals.

  “However,” Binabik said beside him, “I am still not understanding why you are wishing to go there. I am hearing reports that the Naglimund stronghold is being garrisoned for war. I am hearing rumors that Josua the prince—whose disappearing became known even in the remote places of my travels—may be hiding there to make war on his brother the king. Do you not know these sayings? Why, if I may so presume, are you going there?”

  Simon’s moment of nonchalance evaporated. He’s just small, he chided himself, not stupid! He forced himself to breathe deeply several times before answering. “I don’t know much about these things, Binabik. My parents are dead, and…and I have a friend at Naglimund…a harper.” All true, more or less—but convincing?

  “Hmmmm.” Binabik had not opened his eyes. “There are perhaps better destinations than a fortress in caparison for a sieging. Still, you show quite the bravery for setting out alone, although, ‘Brave and Foolish often live in the same cave,’ as we say. Perhaps if your destination proves not likable to you, you may come and be living with we Qanuc. It is a great, towering troll you would be!” Binabik laughed, a high, silly giggle like a scolding squirrel. Simon, despite a certain rawness of nerves, could not help but join in.

  The fire had burned down to a dull glow, and the surrounding forest was an indeterminate, undistinguished clump of darkness. Simon had pulled his cloak tightly about him. Binabik was absently running his fingers across the holes of his flute as he stared up into the velvety patch of sky visible through a gap in the trees.

  “Look!” he said, extending his instrument to point up into the night. “Do you see?”

  Simon tilted his head closer to the little man’s. Nothing was in view above but a thin train of stars. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Don’t you see the Net?”

  “What net?”

  Binabik looked strangely at him. “Are they teaching you nothing in that boxy castle? Mezumiiru’s Net.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Aha.” Binabik let his head fall back. “The stars. That drift that you are seeing above you there: it is Mezumiiru’s Net. They say that she spreads it to catch her husband Isiki, who has run away. We Qanuc call her Sedda, the Dark Mother.”

  Simon stared up at the dim points; it looked as though the thick black fabric separating Osten Ard from some world of light was wearing thin. If he squinted he could make out a certain fan shape to the arrangement.

  “They’re so faint.”

  “The sky is not clear, you are right. It is said that Mezumiiru prefers it that way, that otherwise the bright light that the jewels of her net are making warns Isiki away. Still, there are often cloudy nights, and she is not catching him yet…”

  Simon squinted. “Mezza…Mezo…”

  “Mezumiiru. Mezumiiru the Moon Woman.”

  “But you said that your people call her…Sedda?”

  “That is right. She is the mother of all, as the Qanuc believe.”

  Simon thought for a moment. “Then why do you call that,”—he pointed up—“ ‘Mezumiiru’s Net.’ Why not ‘Sedda’s Net’?”

  Binabik smiled and lifted his eyebrows. “A good question. My people do call it that—or, actually, they are saying ‘Sedda’s Blanket. ’ I travel more, however, and am learning other names, and, after all is said, it is the Sithi who were here first. It is the Sithi who were long ago naming all the stars.”

  The troll sat for a moment, staring with Simon up at the black roof of the world. “I know it,” he said suddenly. “I will go to singing you the song of Sedda—or a little part, perhaps. It is song of great length, after all. Should I assay this singing?”

  “Yes!” Simon snuggled himself even deeper in his cloak. “Sing, please!”

  Qantaqa, who had been snoring softly across the troll’s legs, now woke up, raising her head to look this way and that, giving a low growl. Binabik, too, stared around, narrowing his eyes as he tried to pierce the gloom outside the campfire. A moment later Qantaqa, apparently satisfied that all was well, poked Binabik into a more pleasing configuration with her huge head, then settled back down and closed her eyes. Binabik patted her, took up his flute, and blew several preparatory notes.

  “Be understanding,” he said, “that this can only be a shortness of the whole song. I will be explaining things. Sedda’s husband, by the Sithi named Isiki, my people are calling Kikkasut. He is the Lord of all Birds…”

  Solemnly, the troll began to chant in a high-pitched voice—strangely tuneful, like wind in a high place. He paused at the end of each line to pipe skirling notes on his flute.

  “Water is flowing

  By Tohuq’s cave

  Shining sky-cave

  Sedda is spinning

  Sky-lord’s dark daughter

  Pale, black-haired Sedda.

  Bird-king is flying

  On the star path

  Gleaming bright path

  Now he sees Sedda

  Kikkasut sees her

  Vows she’ll be his.

  ‘Give me your daughter.

  Your daughter who spins.

  Spins slender thread.’

  Kikkasut calls then.

  ‘I’ll clothe her finely

  All in bright feathers
!’

  Tohuq he listens

  Hears these fine words

  Rich bird-king’s words

  Thinks of the honor—

  Sedda he’ll give up

  Old, greedy Tohuq.”

  “So,” Binabik explained in his speaking voice, “old Tohuq the sky-lord is selling his daughter to Kikkasut for a beautiful cape of feathers, which he will use to make the clouds. Sedda is then going with her new husband to his country beyond the mountains, where she is becoming the Queen of Birds. But the marriage has not much happiness. Soon Kikkasut, he begins to ignore her, coming home only to eat and curse at Sedda.” The troll laughed quietly, wiping the end of his flute on his fur collar. “Oh, Simon, this is always being such a length of story…Well, Sedda goes to a wise woman, who tells that she could gain back Kikkasut’s wandering heart if she will be giving him children.

  “With a charm the wise woman has given, made from bones and mockfoil and black snow, Sedda is able to then conceive, and she gives birth to nine children. Kikkasut is bearing, and sends word that he is coming to take them from her, so that it is properly raised as birds they will be, and not by Sedda raised as useless moonchildren.

  “When she is hearing this, Sedda takes the two most young and hides them. Kikkasut comes for taking away the others, and he asks of her the happenstances of the missing two. Sedda tells him they had become sick and dead. He goes away from her, and she curses him.”

  Again he sang.

  “Kikkasut winging

  Sedda she weeps

  Weeps for her lost

  Her children all taken

  But for the hidden pair

  Lingit and Yana.

  Sky-lord’s grandchildren

  Moon-woman’s twins

  Secret and pale

  Yana and Lingit

  Hid from their father

  Deathless she’ll keep them…”

  “You are seeing,” Binabik interrupted himself, “Sedda did not want her children to have mortalness and be dying, as the birds and the beasts of the fields. They were her all and onlyness…

  “Sedda is mourning

  Lone and betrayed

  Vengeance she plots

  Takes her bright jewels

  Kikkasut’s love gift

  Weaves them together.

  Mountain-top lofty

  Dark Sedda climbs

  Blanket new-woven

  She spreads on night’s sky

  A trap for her husband

  Thief of her children…”

  Binabik drilled a melody for a while, wagging his head slowly from side to side. At last he put the flute down. “It is a song of strenuous length, Simon, but it speaks of most important things. It goes on to tell of the children Lingit and Yana, and their choosing between the Death of the Moon and the Death of the Bird—the moon, you are seeing, dies, but then has return as itself. The birds die, but leave their egged young to survive them. Yana, we trolls think, chose the way of the Moon-death, and was being the matriarch—a word meaning grandmother—the matriarch of the Sithi. The mortals, myself and yourself, Simon-friend, are of the descent of Lingit. But it is a long, very long song…would you like to be hearing more some time?”

  Simon made no reply. The song of the moon and the gentle brush of night’s feathered wing had sent him swiftly down to sleep.

  19

  The Blood of Saint Hoderund

  It seemed that every time Simon opened his mouth to speak, or even to breathe deeply, it was immediately filled with leaves. No matter how often he bobbed and ducked, he could not avoid the branches that seemed to grab for his face like the greedy hands of children.

  “Binabik!” he wailed, “why can’t we go back to the road? I’m being torn to pieces!”

  “Do not complain so much. We will soon be returning toward the road.”

  It was infuriating to watch the tiny troll threading his way between the tangling twigs and branches. Easy for him to say “don’t complain!” The denser the forest got the more slippery Binabik seemed to become, slithering gracefully through the thick, clutching underbrush while Simon crashed on behind. Even Qantaqa bounded lightly along, leaving barely a ripple in the foliage behind her. Simon felt as though half of Oldheart must be clinging to him in the form of broken twigs and scratching thorns.

  “But why are we doing this? Surely it wouldn’t take any longer to follow the road around the edge of the forest than it’s taking me to burrow through it inch by inch!?”

  Binabik whistled for the wolf, who was momentarily out of sight. She soon loped back into view, and as the troll waited for Simon to catch up he ruffled the thick collar of fur around her neck.

  “You are most correct, Simon,” he said as the youth dragged up. “It is just as good time we might be making the longer way about. But,” he held up a stubby, admonitory finger, “there are other considerations.”

  Simon knew he was supposed to ask. He didn’t, but stood panting beside the small man and inspected the most recent of his lacerations. When the troll realized Simon would not rise to the bait, he smiled.

  “ ‘Why?’, you are asking curiously? What ‘considerations’? The answer is being all around, up every tree and beneath all rocks. Feel! Smell!”

  Simon stared miserably around him. All he could see were trees. And brambles. And even more trees. He groaned.

  “No, no, is it no senses you have left at all?” Binabik cried. “What manner of teachings did you have in that lumpish stone anthill, that…castle!?”

  Simon looked up, “I never said I lived in a castle.”

  “It is having great obviousness in all your actions.” Binabik turned quickly around to face the barely-visible deer trail they had been following. “You see,” he said in a dramatic voice, “the land is a book that you should be reading. Every small thing,”—a cocky grin—“is having a story to tell. Trees, leafs, mosses and stones, all have written on them things of wonderful interest…”

  “Oh, Elysia, no,” Simon moaned and sank to the ground, dropping his head forward to rest on his knees. “Please don’t read me the book of the forest right this moment, Binabik. My feet ache and my head hurts.”

  Binabik leaned forward until his round face was inches from Simon’s. After a moment’s scrutiny of the youth’s bramble-matted hair the troll straightened up again. “I suppose we may quietly rest,” he said, trying to hide his disappointment. “I will tell you of these things in a later moment.”

  “Thank you,” Simon mumbled into his knees.

  Simon avoided the task of hunting for supper that night by the simple expedient of falling asleep the moment they made camp. Binabik only shrugged, took a long draught from his water bag and a similar one from his wineskin, then made a short walking tour of the area, Qantaqa sniffing sentry at his side. After an undistinguished but filling meal of dried meat, he cast the knucklebones to the accompaniment of Simon’s deep breathing. On the first pass he turned up Wingless Bird, Fish-Spear, and The Shadowed Path. Unsettled, he closed his eyes and hummed a tuneless tune for a while as the sound of night-insects slowly rose about him. When he threw again, the first two had changed to Torch at the Cave-Mouth and Balking Ram, but The Shadowed Path turned up again, the bones propped against each other like the leavings of some fastidious carnivore. Not the sort to follow the bones to hasty decisions—his master had taught him too well—Binabik nonetheless slept, when he finally could, with his staff and bag cradled close.

  When Simon awakened, the troll presented him with a satisfying meal of roasted eggs—quail, he said—some berries, and even the pale orange buds of a flowering tree, which proved quite edible and rather sweet in an odd, chewy way. The morning’s walking also went considerably easier then the previous day’s: the country was gradually becoming more open, the trees more distantly spaced.

  The troll had been rather quiet all morning. Simon felt sure that his disinterest in Binabik’s woodlore was the reason. As they were coming down a long, gentle slope, the sun high i
n its morning climb, he felt driven to say something.

  “Binabik, do you want to tell me about the book of the forest today?”

  His companion smiled, but it was a smaller, tighter grin than Simon was used to seeing. “Of course, friend Simon, but I am afraid I have given you a wrong thinking. You see, when I am speaking of the land as a book, I am not suggesting you should be reading it to improve your spiritual well-feeling, like a religious tome—although paying attention to your surroundings for that reason is certainly possible. No, I am speaking of it more as a book of physic, something one learns for the sake of health.”

  It is truly amazing, Simon thought, how easy it is for this little fellow to confuse me. And without trying!

  Aloud, he said, “Health? Book of physic?”

  Binabik’s face took on a sudden look of seriousness. “For your living or dying, Simon. You are not in your home, now. You are not in my home, although I am undoubtedly being an easier guest than you here. Even the Sithi, for all the ages they have watched the sun as it is rolling around and around the skies, even they do not claim Aldheorte as theirs.” Binabik stopped, and laid his hand on Simon’s wrist, then squeezed. “This place where we stand, this great forest, is the oldest place. That is why it is called, as your people say, Aldheorte; it is always the old heart of Osten Ard. Even these trees of younger age,” he poked with his stick on all sides, “were pitting themselves against flooding, wind, and fire before your great King John was first drawing baby-breath on the Warinsten Island.”

  Simon looked around, blinking,

  “Others,” Binabik continued, “others there are, some that I have seen, whose roots are growing into the very rock of Time; older they are than all the kingdoms of Man and Sithi that were thrown up in glory and were then crumbling in obscurity.”