by Tad Williams
Blood will open the doorway, manchild. Come to us!
Simon tried to speak to Binabik but could not. Instead, he thrust Thorn forward, clumsily pinking Sludig’s back with the point. The Rimmersman, coming slowly back to wakefulness, groaned.
“While he slept they struck his head with a stone,” Binabik said mournfully. “Because of his bigness, I am thinking. Me they only tied.” He sawed Sludig’s bonds against Thorn until they, too, fell slithering to the snowy ground. “We must be reaching the horses,” the troll said to Simon. “Have you sufficent strength?”
He nodded. His head felt far too heavy for his neck and the roaring in his thoughts was giving way to a frightening emptiness. For the second time that night he felt his inner self beginning to float free from its confining shell, but this time he feared there would be no returning. He forced himself to remain standing as Binabik coaxed the bleary Rimmersman to his feet.
The master is waiting in the Chamber of the Well....
“All we may do is run for the stables,” Binabik shouted over the wolfs menacing snarl. She had forced the diggers back, so that several yards of open ground stood between the ring of Bukken and Simon’s friends.
“With Qantaqa leading, we can perhaps be getting there, but we must not slow or hesitate.”
Simon swayed. “Get the saddlebags,” he said. “In the abbey.”
The little man stared at him incredulously. “Foolishness!”
“No.” Simon shook his head drunkenly. “I won’t go ... without ... White Arrow. She ... they ... won’t take that.” He stared out across the dooryard at the heaving mass of diggers gathered where Skodi had stood.
You will stand before the Singing Harp, you will hear His sweet voice....
“Simon,” Binabik began, then briefly swung his hand in the Qanuc ward against madmen. “You are barely able for standing,” he grunted. “I will go.”
Before Simon could respond, the troll had vanished through the door into the abbey’s lightless interior. Long moments later he returned, dragging the saddlebags behind him.
“We will hang most on Sludig,” Binabik said, eyeing the waiting diggers apprehensively. “He is too full of sleepiness to fight, so he will be our pack-ram.”
Come to us!
As the troll draped the bags over the bemused Rimmersman, Simon looked out at the circle of pale, naked eyes. The waiting diggers clicked and chittered quietly as though talking among themselves. Many wore tatters of crude clothing; some had rough, jagged-bladed knives clutched in their spindly fists. They stared back at him, swaying like rows of black poppies.
“Are you now ready, Simon?” Binabik whispered. Simon nodded, lifting Thorn before him. The blade had been light as a switch, but now it suddenly seemed heavy as stone. It was all he could do to hold it before him.
“Nihut, Qantaqa!” the troll shouted. The wolf sprang forward, jaws wide. Diggers piped in fear as Qantaqa plowed a furrow through flailing arms and gnashing teeth. Simon followed, swinging Thorn heavily from side to side to side to side.
Come. There are endless cold halls below Nakkiga. The Lightless Ones are singing, waiting to welcome you. Come to us!
Time seemed to fold in on itself. The world closed down into a tunnel of red light and white eyes. The throb of pain in his back seemed to grow as rhythmic as his heartbeat, and the aperture of his vision alternately spread and shut as he stumbled forward. A roar of voices as continuous as the sea washed over him, voices both within and without. He swung the sword, felt it bite, then shook it free and swung again. Things reached for him as he passed. Some caught and tore at his skin.
The tunnel narrowed to black for a while, then opened up for a few moments sometime later. Sludig, who was saying words too quiet for Simon to hear, was helping him up onto Homefinder’s back, pushing Thorn through the saddle-loops. They were surrounded by stone walls, but as Simon drove his heels into his horse’s ribs, the walls were suddenly gone and he was beneath the tree-slashed night sky, the stars glimmering overhead.
Now is the time, manchild. The door is opened by blood! Come, join us in our celebrations!
“No!” Simon heard his own voice shouting. “Leave me alone!”
He spurred ahead, leaping out into the forest. Binabik and Sludig, not yet mounted, shouted after him, but their words were lost in the din inside his head.
The door is open! Come to us!
The stars were speaking to him, telling him to sleep, that when he awoke he would be far away from ... eyes in the fire ... from ... Skodi ... from ... clawing fingers ... from ... he would be far away from ...
The door is open! Come to us!
He rode heedlessly through the snowy woods trying to outrun the terrible voice. Branches tore at his face. Stars peered coldly down through the trees. Time passed, perhaps hours, but still he rode wildly onward. Homefinder seemed to feel his frenzy. Her hooves flung clouds of snow as they pounded through the darkness. Simon was alone, his friends far behind, but still the fire-thing spoke gleefully inside his thoughts.
Come, manchild! Come, dragon-burned! It is a wild night! We await you beneath the ice-mountain....
The words in Simon’s head were a swarm of fiery bees. He writhed in the saddle, striking at himself, slapping at his ears and face as he tried to drive the voice away. Even as he flailed, something loomed abruptly before him—a patch of blackness deeper than the night. In a split instant he felt his heart falter, but it was only a tree. A tree!
His headlong flight was too madly swift to avoid the obstacle. He was struck as though by a giant hand and thrown from Homefinder’s saddle, tumbling through nothingness. He was falling. The stars were fading.
Black night came down and covered all.
17
A Wager of Little Value
The afternoon worn away. The wind-scoured sky stretched above the grasslands like a purple awning. The first stars were coming out. Deornoth, wrapped in a coarse blanket against the chill, stared up at the faint points of light and wondered if God had finally turned away His face.
Josua’s people were huddled together in a bull run, a long, narrow pen of wooden palings driven deep into the earth and lashed together with rope. For all their seeming flimsiness—in many places there were gaps so wide that Deornoth could slip through his entire arm and most of his shoulder—the walls were strong as mortared stone.
As he looked around at his fellow prisoners, Deornoth’s gaze stopped on Geloë. The witch woman held Leleth in her lap, singing quietly into the child’s ear as they both stared up at the darkening sky.
“It seems madness that we should escape from Norns and diggers to end here.” Deornoth could not keep an aggrieved tone from his voice. “Geloë, you know charms and spells. Could you not have magicked our captors somehow—put them to sleep, or turned yourself into a ravening beast and attacked them?”
“Deornoth,” Josua said warningly, but the forest woman needed no defending.
“You understand little, Sir Deornoth, of how The Art works,” Geloë replied sharply. “First of all, what you call ‘magic’ has its cost. If it could be easily used to defeat a dozen armed men, the armies of princes would be full of hired wizards. Secondly, we have not been harmed yet. I am no Pryrates: I do not waste my strength in puppet plays for the bored and curious. I have a greater enemy to occupy my thoughts, more dangerous by far than anyone in this encampment.”
As if giving such a long answer exasperated her—and indeed, Geloë seldom said so much at once—she fell silent, turning away to stare at the firmament once more.
Frustrated with himself, Deornoth shrugged off his blanket and stood. Had it come to this? What sort of knight was he, that berated an old woman for not saving him from danger? A shiver of anger and disgust traveled through him; he clenched and unclenched his fists helplessly. What could he do? What strength did any of this ragged band have left to do anything?
Isorn was comforting his mother. Duchess Gutrun’s remarkable courage had held though any nu
mber of horrors, but she seemed to have reached her limit. Sangfugol was crippled. Towser had virtually given in to madness. The old man lay curled on the ground, his eyes fixed witlessly on nothing, seamed lips trembling as Father Strangyeard tried to help him drink from a bowl of water. Deornoth felt another wave of despair rise and break within him as he walked slowly to the muddy log on which Prince Josua sat, chin on hand.
The manacle that had once prisoned him in Elias’ dungeon still dangled on the prince’s slender wrist. Josua’s thin face was painted with deep shadows, but the whites of his eyes gleamed as he watched Deornoth slump down beside him. For a long while the two did not speak. The sounds of lowing cattle and the shout and clatter of horsemen could be heard all around as the Thrithings-men brought in their herds for the night.
“Welladay, friend,” the prince said at last. “I said it was a poor game at best, did I not?”
“We have done what we could, Highness. No one could have done more than you.”
“Someone has.” For a moment, Josua seemed to regain his dry humor. “He is sitting his skeletal throne in the Hayholt, drinking and eating before a roaring fire, while we sit waiting in the slaughter pen.”
“He has made a foul bargain, Prince. The king will regret his choice.”
“But we, I fear, will not be around when the reckoning comes.” Josua sighed. “I am almost sorriest for you, Deornoth. You have been the most faithful of knights. If you had only found a better lord to be faithful to...”
“Please, Highness.” In his present mood, such words brought Deornoth real pain. “There is no one I would rather serve outside the Kingdom of Heaven. ”
Josua looked at him from the sides of his eyes, but did not reply. A party of horsemen rode past the stockade, the palings rippling as the horses thundered by.
“We are far from that kingdom, Deornoth,” the prince said at last, “but at the same time only a few breaths away.” His face was now hidden in darkness. “But death frightens me little. It is the hopes I have crushed that weigh down my soul.”
“Josua,” Deornoth began, but the prince’s hand on his arm stilled him.
“Say nothing. It is no more than the truth. I have been a lodestar for disaster since the moment I drew breath. My mother died birthing me, and my father’s greatest friend Camaris died soon after. My brother’s wife died in my care. Her only child has escaped my guardianship to suffer Aedon only knows what fate. Naglimund, a keep built to hold siege for years, fell beneath me in weeks; countless innocents died horribly.”
“I cannot listen to this, my prince. Would you take all the world’s betrayals on your own back? You did everything that you could!”
“Did I?” Josua asked seriously, as though he debated a point of theology with the Usirean brothers. “I wonder. If things are fated, then perhaps I am merely a sorry strand in God the Highest’s tapestry. But some say that one chooses everything, even the bad.”
“Foolishness.”
“Perhaps. But there is no doubting that an evil star has hung over all I have undertaken. Hah! How the angels and devils both must have laughed when I swore I would take back the Dragonbone Chair! Me, with my ragtag army of priests and jugglers and women!” The prince laughed bitterly.
Deornoth felt anger boiling inside him once more, but this time it was his liege lord who was the cause. It was almost breathtaking. He had never thought he could feel like this.
“My prince,” he said between clenched teeth, “you have become a fool, a damnable fool. Priests, jugglers, and women! An army of mounted knights could scarcely have done more than your women and jugglers—and certainly could not have been braver!” Shaking with fury, he rose and stalked away across the muddy compound. The stars seemed almost to tilt in the sky.
A hand closed on his shoulder, pulling him around with surprising strength. Josua stood stiffly as he held Deornoth at arm’s length. The prince jutted his head forward on his long neck, a bird of prey preparing to stoop.
“And what have I done to you, Deornoth, that you speak so to me?” His voice was tight.
At any other moment Deornoth would have fallen to his knees, ashamed at his own disrespectfulness. Now, he stilled his trembling muscles and took a breath before he spoke. “I can love you, Joshua, yet hate what you say. ”
The prince stared at him, his expression indecipherable in the evening dark. “I spoke badly of our companions. That was wrong. But I said nothing ill of you, Sir Deornoth ...”
“Elysia, Mother of God, Josua!” Deornoth almost sobbed, “I care nothing for myself! And as for the others, that was only a careless remark that you made out of weariness. I know you meant nothing by it. No, it is you who are the victim of your own cruelest treatment! That is why you are a fool!”
Josua stiffened. “What?”
Deornoth threw his arms up in the air, filled with the sort of giddy madness felt on Midsummer’s Eve, when all wore masks and told the truth. But here in the bull run there were no masks. “You are a better enemy to yourself than Elias can ever be,” he shouted, not caring anymore who heard. “Your blame, your guilt, your failed duty! If Usires Aedon were to return to Nabban today, and again be hung on the Tree in the temple garden, you would find a way to blame it on yourself! No matter who is speaking the evil, I will listen to a fine man slandered no longer!”
Josua stared as if stunned. The terrible silence was broken by the creak of the wooden gate. Half a dozen men with spears pushed into the stockade, led by the one named Hotvig who had captured them on the Ymstrecca’s banks. He strode forward, peering around the shadowed pen.
“Josua? Come here.”
“What do you want?” the prince asked quietly.
“The March-thane has called for you. Now.” Two of Hotvig’s men moved up, lowering their spear points. Deornoth tried to catch Josua’s eye, but the prince turned away and walked out slowly between the two Thrithings-men. Hotvig pulled the high gate shut behind them. The wooden bolt creaked back into place.
“You don’t think that ... that they will harm him, do you, Deornoth?” Strangyeard asked. “They wouldn’t hurt the prince, would they?”
Deornoth sank down onto the muddy ground, tears rolling down his cheeks.
The interior of Fikolmij’s wagon smelled of grease and smoke and oiled leather. The March-thane looked up from his joint of beef to nod Hotvig back out the door, then returned his attention to his meal, leaving Josua to stand and wait. They were not alone. The man standing beside Fikolmij was half a head taller than Josua and only slightly less muscled than the broad March-thane himself. His face, clean-shaven but for long mustaches, was covered with scars too regular to be accidental. He returned the prince’s stare with undisguised contempt. One hand, clatteringly laden with bracelets, dropped to caress the hilt of his long curved sword.
Josua held this one’s narrowed eyes for a moment, then casually allowed his glance to slide away, taking in the vast array of harnesses and saddles hanging from the wagon’s walls and ceiling, their myriad silver buckles glittering in the firelight.
“You have discovered some of the virtues of comfort, Fikolmij,” Josua said, eyeing the rugs and stitched cushions scattered over the floor boards.
The March-thane looked up, then spat into the fire-trough. “Pfah. I sleep beneath stars, as I always have. But I need someplace safe from listening ears.” He bit at the joint and chewed vigorously. “I am no stone-dweller, who wears a shell like a soft-skinned snail.” A piece of clanking bone rattled into the trough.
“It has been some time since I have slept behind walls or in a bed myself, Fikolmij. You can see that. Did you bring me here to call me soft? If so, have done and let me go back to my people. Or did you bring me here to kill me? The fellow beside you has somewhat the look of a head-chopper. ”
Fikolmij dropped the denuded bone into the fire and grinned hugely, his eyes red as a boar’s. “You don’t know him? He knows you. Don’t you, Utvart?”
“I know him.” He had a deep vo
ice.
The March-thane now leaned forward, peering at the prince intently. “By the Four-Footed,” he laughed, “Prince Josua has more gray hairs than old Fikolmij! Living in your stone houses makes a man old fast.”
Josua smiled thinly. “I have had a difficult spring.”
“You have! You have!” Fikolmij was enjoying himself immensely. He picked up a bowl and tilted it to his mouth.
“What do you want of me, Fikolmij?”
“It is not me that wants, Josua, despite your sin against me. It is Utvart here.” He nodded at his glowering companion. “We spoke of age. Utvart has only a few years less than you, but he does not wear a man’s beard. Do you know why?”
Utvart stirred, rubbing his fingers on his pommel. “I have no wife,” he rumbled.
Josua looked from man to man, but said nothing.
“You are a clever man, Prince Josua,” Fikolmij said slowly, then took another long draught. “You see the problem. Utvart’s bride was stolen. He has sworn never to marry until the one who stole her is dead.”
“Dead,” Utvart echoed.
Josua’s lip curled. “I stole no one’s bride. Vorzheva came to me after I had left your camp. She begged to go away with me.”
Fikolmij slammed the bowl down, splashing dark beer into the fire trough, which hissed as if startled. “Curse you, did your father have no male children!? What true man hides behind a woman, or allows one to have her way? Her bride-price was set! All was agreed!”
“Vorzheva had not agreed.”
The March-thane rose from his stool, staring at Josua as though the prince were a poisonous serpent. Fikolmij’s corded arms trembled. “You stone-dwellers are a pestilence. One day the men of the Free Thrithings will drive you into the sea and burn away your rotting cities with clean fire.”
Josua eyed him evenly. “The men of the Thrithings have tried that before. It is how we met, you and I. Or have you forgotten the uncomfortable fact of our alliance—an alliance against your own people?”
