The Stone of Farewell

by Tad Williams

  The bits and pieces he had doled out, however, seemed to satisfy Septes. The old man leaned back, still scratching idly at the drying soup stain on his breast. “Ah,” he nodded. His voice just carried above the tabletalk. “Welladay, we have heard enough fearsome stories to take what you say seriously, yes? Very seriously.” He gestured for the nearest acolyte to help him up. “Thank you for sharing our meal, Isbeorn,” he said. “God keep you. I hope we can speak more in the common room tonight. How long do you stay?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Isgrimnur replied. “My thanks to you, too.”

  The old man and his two companions disappeared into the crush of retreating monks, leaving Isgrimnur to sort out his thoughts. After a moment he gave up and rose from the table.

  I can’t even hear myself think in here. He shook his head grimly, pushing toward the doorway. His large size helped him make rapid progress and he reached the main hallway swiftly. Now I’ve gone and spouted my own piece, but I’m not a whit closer to finding poor Miriamele, he thought sourly. And how can I find out her whereabouts, anyway? Just ask someone if Elias’ missing daughter is anywhere in the place? Oh, and she’s traveling as a boy, besides. That’s even better. Perhaps I’ll just ask around, find out if any young monks have shown up at the Sancellan Aedonitis lately.

  He gave a bitter snort as he watched the river of habited forms swirl past.

  Elysia, Mother of God, I wish Eolair was with me. That damned Hernystirman loves this kind of nonsense. He’d track her down quick enough, with his smooth ways. What am I doing here?

  The Duke of Elvritshalla rubbed his fingers along his unnaturally smooth jaw. Then, startling even himself, he began to laugh at his own hopeless foolishness.

  Passing priests eddied nervously around the big-bellied northern monk, who was evidently caught up in some kind of religious fit. Isgrimnur roared and bellowed with laughter until the tears coursed down his chafed pink cheeks.

  Thunderstorm weather lay on the swamp like a blanket, damp and oppressively hot. Tiamak could feel the storm’s yearning hunger to exist; its prickly breath made the hair stand up on his arms. What he would not give for the storm to break and a little cool rain to fall! The thought of raindrops splashing on his face and bending the leaves of the mangroves seemed like a dream of the most benevolent magic.

  Tiamak sighed as he lifted his pole from the water and laid it across the thwarts of his flatboat. He stretched, trying without success to unkink the muscles of his back. He had been poling for three days and had suffered two near-sleepless nights filled with worry about what he should do. If he went to Kwanitupul and stayed there, would he be betraying his tribesmen? Could they ever understand a debt he owed to drylanders—or owed to a few drylanders, anyway?

  Of course they wouldn’t understand. Tiamak frowned and reached for his waterskin, sloshing a generous mouthful around before swallowing it. He had always been thought of as strange. If he did not go to Nabban to plead his people’s case with Duke Benigaris, he would simply be a strange traitor. That would be the end of it as far as the elders of Village Grove were concerned.

  He took his kerchief from his head and dipped it over the side of the boat into the water, then arranged it atop his hair once more. Blessedly cool water dribbled down his face and neck. The bright, long-tailed birds perched in the branches overhead stopped screeching for a moment as a dim rumble rolled across the swamp. Tiamak felt his heart beat faster.

  He Who Always Steps on Sand, let the storm come soon!

  His boat had begun to slow when he had stopped poling. Now the stern began to swing gradually out to the middle of the watercourse, turning him sideways so that he faced the bank—or rather, what would have been the bank if this were a dryland river. Here in the Wran it was only a tangle of clustered mangroves whose roots held in just enough sand for the colony of trees to grow and prosper. Tiamak made a resigned noise and pushed his pole back into the water once more, straightening the boat and prodding it forward through a thick clump of lilies which clutched at his passing hull like the fingers of drowning swimmers. It was several more days to Kwanitupul, and that was if the storm he was praying for did not bring heavy winds in its train, winds which might uproot trees and make this part of the Wran an unpassable snarl of roots and trunks and broken branches.

  He Who Always Steps on Sand, he amended his prayer, let a cooling but gentle storm come soon!

  His heart felt unutterably heavy. How could he choose between two such awful possibilities? He could go as far as Kwanitupul before choosing whether to stay there in accordance with Morgenes’ wishes or to go on to Nabban as Older Mogahib and the rest had ordered. He tried to soothe himself with that idea, but wondered if such thinking was not in fact just like allowing a wound to fester, when instead he should grit his teeth and clean it out so the healing could start?

  Tiamak thought of his mother, who had spent most of her life on her knees, tending the cookfire, grinding grain in the pestle, working every day from the darkness before dawn until it was time to crawl into the hammock at night. He had little respect for the village elders, but now he felt a sudden fear that his mother’s spirit might be watching him. She would never understand her son turning his back on his people for the sake of strangers. She would want him to go to Nabban. Serve his own folk first, then take care of his personal honor, that was what his mother would say.

  Thinking of her made it seem very clear. He was a Wrannaman first: nothing would change that. He must go to Nabban. Morgenes, that kind old man, would understand his reasons. Afterward, after he had finished his duties to his people, he would go back to Kwanitupul as his drylander friends had asked.

  The decision lifted part of the load of worry from Tiamak’s shoulders. He decided he might as well stop soon and scare up something for a noon meal. He reached down and tested his fishing line, tied to the back of the flatboat. It seemed light; as he pulled it up he saw to his disgust that the bait had been eaten again, but whatever had dined at his expense had not waited around to pay respects. At least the hook was still there. Metal hooks were painfully expensive items—he had paid for this one with an entire day of work as an interpreter in the market at Kwanitupul. The next month at market he had found the parchment with Nisses’ name on it, and had paid a full day’s wages for that as well. Two expensive purchases, but the fishook had indeed proved much sturdier than the ones he whittled of bone, which usually broke on the first snag. The Nisses parchment—he patted protectively at the oilskin bag lying at his feet—if he was correct about its origins, was a gem beyond price. Not bad work for two days’ marketing.

  Tiamak hauled in the line, wrapping it gently, then steered the boat over closer to the bank of mangroves. He poled along slowly, waiting until the mangrove roots gave way for a while to a short stretch of soggy dirt cluttered with waving reeds. Bringing the boat as close to the edge of the watercourse as he could, he pulled his knife from his belt and dug in the wet soil, at last turning up some spitfly roe. He wrapped the shiny things in his kerchief, saving one only to bait the hook. This done, he tossed the line back into the water to trail behind the boat. As he poled out into the middle of the stream once more, thunder grumbled in the distance. It seemed to be farther away than last time. He shook his head sadly. The storm was in no hurry.

  It was late afternoon when he passed out of the overhanging thicket of mangroves and emerged into unshadowed sunlight once more. Here the waterway grew wider and deeper. A sea of reeds rolled out toward the horizon, all but motionless in the oppressive heat, crisscrossed with the shining tracks of other watercourses. The sky was gray with threatening clouds, but the sun burned brightly behind them, and Tiamak could not help but feel more lighthearted. An ibis rose, white wings flapping slowly, then settled down into the reeds a short distance away. To the south, past miles of marsh and swamp forest, he could see the dark line of the Nascadu Mountains. To the west, invisible beyond an endless prairie of cattails and mangroves, lay the sea.

  Tiama
k poled distractedly, momentarily caught up in a correction he had decided to make in his great work of scholarship, a revision of The Sovran Remedies of the Wranna Healers. He had suddenly realized that the shape of the cattail itself might have something to do with its use among the men of the Meadow Thrithings as a marital potion, and was planning the wording of a footnote that would delicately suggest this connection without seeming too clever, when he felt a strange vibration against his back. He turned, startled, and saw that his fishing line was pulled taut, humming like the plucked string of a lute.

  For a moment he was sure it must be a snag—the pull was so strong that it had imparted some of its tension to the stern of the boat—but as he leaned over he saw some silver-gray thing rise briefly toward the surface, wriggling, then dive down into the brackish water again. A fish! As long as Tiamak’s arm! He gave a small cry of delight and began to pull on the line. The silver thing seemed to leap up at him. For a split instant one pale, shiny fin appeared above the water, then it vanished beneath the boat, stretching the line tight. Tiamak heaved and it gave a little, but not much. It was a strong fish. A sudden image of the line snapping and his next two days’ worth of meals swimming away filled Tiamak’s heart with sick horror. He lessened the tension on the fishing line. He would let the fish tire itself, then he could reel it in at his leisure. In the meantime, he would keep an eye open for a dry patch where he could build a fire. He could wrap the fish in minog leaves, and surely there would be wild quickweed growing somewhere nearby ... In his thoughts he could already taste it. The heat, the recalcitrant thunderstorm, his betrayal of Morgenes (as he still saw it) and all else receded in the warm glow of the contemplated meal. He tested the line again, rejoicing at the firm, steady pull. He had not had fresh fish in weeks!

  A splash impinged on his reverie. Tiamak looked up to see a rainbow of ripples spreading beside the shoreline, a couple of long stone-throws away. There was something else as well: a moment later he picked out a row of low bumps like tiny islands moving smoothly through the water toward his boat.

  Crocodile! Tiamak’s heart quailed. His wonderful dinner! He tugged hard at the line, but the fish was still beneath the flatboat and resisting fiercely; the line burned his palms as he struggled unsuccessfully to wrestle the fish to the surface. The crocodile was a dark blur just below the surface, the motion of its powerful tail sending eddies across the still water. Its craggy back breached for just a moment, a hundred cubits from where Tiamak sat, then it was gone—diving toward his fish!

  There was no time to think, no time at all. His dinner, his fishing hook, his line, all would be lost if he waited a moment longer. Tiamak felt a black rage flare into life in his empty stomach and a band of pain tighten itself around his temples. His mother, had she lived to see him at this moment, would hardly have recognized her shy, clumsy son. If she had seen what he did next, she would have stumbled to the shrine of She Who Birthed Mankind at the back wall of the family hut, then fainted dead away.

  Tiamak looped the cord tied to his knife-hilt around his wrist, then flung himself over the stern of the boat. Mumbling inarticulately with anger and despair, he barely sucked in a hasty breath and closed his mouth before the green, cloudy water closed over his head.

  Flailing, he opened his eyes. The sunlight filtered down through the watercourse, passing through plumes of drifting silt as through clouds. He darted a glance up at the rectangular darkness that was the bottom of his boat and saw a glittering shape hanging there. Despite his wild, heart-thumping panic, he felt a moment of satisfaction at the size of the fish lying torpid at the end of his line. Even his father Tugumak would have had to admit it was a splendid catch!

  As he stroked upward, reaching toward his prize, the shimmering thing darted along the boat-bottom and slipped out of sight along the craft’s far side, rising up out of Tiamak’s view. The line pulled taut against the wooden hull. The Wrannaman snatched at it wildly, but it now hugged the boat so tightly that his fingers could find no purchase. He gave a little cough of dread, sending bubbles dancing outward. Hurry, he must hurry! The crocodile would be upon him in a moment!

  His heartbeat boomed in the watery silence of his ears. His scrabbling fingers could not grip the line. The fish remained out of sight and out of reach, as if perversely determined that it should not suffer alone, and panic was making Tiamak clumsy. He finally gave up and pushed himself away from the bottom of the boat, kicking to bring himself upright. The fish was lost. He had to save himself.

  Too late!

  A dark shape slid past him and angled upward, slipping in and out of the shadow of his boat. The crocodile was not the largest he had ever seen, but it was certainly the largest he had ever been beneath. Its white belly passed over him, the tail a diminishing stripe buffeting him with its wake.

  His breath was pressing on his lungs, burning to escape and fill the murky water with bubbles. He kicked and turned, his eyes feeling as though they would push from his head, and saw the blunt arrow-shape of the crocodile skimming toward him. Its jaws parted. There was a glimpse of red-shadowed darkness and an infinity of teeth. He whirled, swinging his arm, and watched the horrifyingly slow movement of the knife as he pushed it against the wall of water. The reptile thumped against his ribs, rasping him with its horny hide as he struggled out of its way. His knife bit shallowly into its flank, dragging along the armored skin for a moment before bouncing off. A thin brown-black cloud trailed the crocodile as it swam on, circling the boat once more.

  Tiamak’s lungs felt as though they had grown impossibly large within his chest, straining at his ribs until spots of blackness began to appear before his eyes. Why had he been such a fool? He didn’t want to die like this, drowned and eaten!

  Even as he tried to struggle upward toward the surface, he felt a crushing pressure enfold his leg; in the next instant, he was jerked downward. His knife spilled loose from his hand, and his arms and free leg kicked wildly as he was pulled toward the darkness of the river bottom. A belch of bubbles escaped his lips. The faces of the elders of his tribe, Mogahib and Roahog the Potter and others, seemed to press down on his dimming sight, their expressions full of weary disgust at his idiocy.

  His knife-cord still looped his wrist; as he whirled down into river-darkness he struggled to find the hilt. His hands coiled against it and he summoned his strength, then leaned forward against the bottomward pull, finding the hard, rough jaws that clutched his leg. Clinging with one hand so that he could feel the crooked teeth beneath his fingers, he set the knifepoint against the leathery eyelid and pushed. The head jerked beneath his hands as the crocodile convulsed and bit down harder, which sent a bolt of scalding pain up his leg and into his heart. Another clutch of precious bubbles sprang from Tiamak’s mouth. He pushed the blade in as hard as he could, his thoughts a swirling black blur of faces and nonsensical words. As he twisted at the handle in mad agony, the crocodile loosened its jaws. He pulled at its upper jaw with desperate strength, forcing it up just far enough to jerk his leg free before it snapped shut again. The water was clouding with blood. Tiamak could feel nothing beneath his knee at all, nothing above it but the fiery pain of his bursting lungs. Somewhere below him the crocodile was tying itself in dark knots on the river bottom, swimming in ever-narrowing circles. Tiamak tried to claw upward toward the remembered sun, even as he felt the spark within him dying.

  He passed through many darknesses, coming at last into the light.

  The daystar was in the gray sky; the cattails stood windless and silent along the edge of the water. He gasped in a lifetime’s worth of hot marsh air, opening his entire body to it, then almost sank beneath the water again as it rushed into his lungs like a river shattering its dam and spilling down into a parched valley. Light of every hue gleamed before his eyes, until he felt as though he had discovered some ultimate secret. A moment later, as he saw his boat bobbing on the unsettled water a short distance away, the sense of revelation evaporated. He felt a sick, debilitating blackness again c
ome crawling up his spine into his skull. He struggled toward the boat, his body curiously painless, as though he were nothing but a head floating upon the watercourse. He reached the side of the flatboat and clung, breathing deeply as he summoned his strength. By sheer will he pulled himself over into safety, scraping his cheek raw on the thwart, not caring in the least. The blackness overcame him at last. He stopped struggling and sank beneath its surface.

  He awakened to a sky red as blood. A hot wind swept across the marshland. The blazing sky seemed inside his head as well, for he burned like a fired pot fresh from the kiln. With fingers that felt awkward as pieces of wood, he scrabbled his spare breechclout from the bottom of the boat and tied it tightly around the red ruin of his lower leg, unable to think much about the bleeding runnels that had been gouged from knee to heel. Struggling against the oblivion that was reaching out for him, he wondered absently if he would be able to walk again, then dragged himself to the edge of the boat and pulled at the fishing line which still hung over the side, trailing into green depths. With his failing strength he managed to wrestle the silver fish over the stern, letting it slide wriggling down next to him in the boat’s shallow belly. The fish’s eye was open; its mouth, too, as though it were trying to ask Death a question.