by Tad Williams
“But since Queen Utuk’ku slept the keta-yi’indra throughout the siege, and even as of this writing has still not returned to us from her healing exile on the Road of Dreams, this telling of our history can only be flawed and incomplete, full of the errors that come when one humble chronicler tries to tell the tale without the necessary perspective of time and the corrections of her superiors. Still, it was this scribe’s duty to do so, and she performed it as best she could.
“A great tragedy in the south was nearly followed by an even greater tragedy, the loss of our longtime home and the destruction of our people. But by the virtue of the nobles of our most important orders, the Sacrifices, the Singers, and the Builders, we survived. A lesson is here for all: Do not trust in what seem to be the truths of the moment. Put your faith instead in the things that are eternal. Love our queen and love our mountain, love and remember the Garden That Was Lost, and the song of our race will find its proper melody.
“Here this telling ends. The humble chronicler begs pardon for her failings and hopes that her efforts have brought at least something of use to those who read this.”
—Lady Miga seyt-Jinnata, Order of Chroniclers,
in the Eighth Great Year of High Celebrant Zuniyabe,
16th magister of that order
Viyeki’s Builders were digging out a blocked main tunnel to the outside. As he returned from an inspection of the workers’ progress, making his way down a narrow, nameless alley on the main tier of Nakkiga, he suddenly felt the hairs on his neck rise. It took a moment longer before he heard the muffled sound of soft boots. Instead of waiting to discover whether any of those coming behind him even approached his own rank, Viyeki heeded the warning of his lifted hackles and stepped to the side to allow those behind him to pass.
It was a line of Singers in robes the color of dried blood, a dozen or more, and the four at the back were carrying a litter. As the procession went by, some silent signal was passed. The litter stopped and its curtains parted. Viyeki could see nothing of the face in the deep-shadowed hood that appeared there, but he knew that unmusical voice the instant he heard it.
“Hold, there! I see a face I believe I know. Is that Viyeki sey-Enduya of the Builders?”
Surprised and perhaps even a bit frightened at the unexpected recognition, Viyeki made all the proper gestures of respect as he bowed low. “It is, great Lord Akhenabi, and it is flattering that you remember me. I only heard of your recovery a few bells ago, but I have already lit several candles in the temples in gratitude for your return to us. I’m sure all of Nakkiga feels the same.” Despite his fear of the powerful Lord of Song, Viyeki was not exaggerating: the people of Nakkiga might all tremble before the magician, but Akhenabi had been a familiar part of all their lives since before any but the queen and a few of her eldest councilors could remember. The news of his reawakening had been greeted by most as a reassuring return to the way things had been.
As befitted one of his stature, the great Singer gave no sign he had heard the flattering words. “I have been told that Lord Yaarike has named you his successor, Host Foreman. I hope that when you ascend to Yaarike’s title you will be as cooperative with the important work of our order as your master has been.”
Without another word or any sort of sign, Akhenabi’s litter rose back onto the shoulders of his carriers. The hooded procession abruptly moved off down the street, vanishing into the darkness and leaving Viyeki to ponder all the meanings that could lurk in the Lord of Song’s words.
Cooperative. He hopes I will be as cooperative as Lord Yaarike. That innocuous phrase, which ordinarily would have seemed only a bit of obvious politicking, seemed in present circumstances something more sinister. Of course our orders worked together during the siege for the good of all Nakkiga. But does Akhenabi mean some other cooperation with the Order of Song? Something darker and more secret?
After a long day spent breathing stone-dust in the sweltering depths of the mountain, Viyeki wanted nothing more than to return to his house, to order and quiet. But Akhenabi’s cryptic words gnawed at him, and he knew rest would be as elusive as it had been for many nights now. The only thing that might quiet his mind was finding answers to the questions that tormented him, though he knew hearing them might destroy his world.
But even if he could not put off the confrontation any longer, he still had to return to his house first. He had something there that he needed.
“Southerner! Porto! Over here!”
It was Kolbjorn, waving from the other side of a group of men hitching oxen to carts. “Hoy! Over here!” the Northman called.
Porto went to join him, stepping over the quantities of dung that decorated the muddy road. The wind had a freezing bite to it today, and the drovers and others were struggling to work while keeping their backs to the icy breeze.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” the young Rimmersman said. “One of the duke’s men is waiting for us back at the campfire.”
Porto pulled his cloak tighter. “Why? By the Good God, they’re not going to keep us here any longer, are they? I have five hundred leagues to ride home. I will be fortunate if I am back before the Elysiamansa festival.”
“You will be fortunate indeed if snakes don’t eat you,” said Kolbjorn. “I hear the southern lands are fierce with snakes.”
Porto rolled his eyes. The Rimmersmen all seemed to think he had spent his life in a steaming jungle like the swampy Wran instead of a perfectly civilized city. “Oh, yes, the snakes are common as kittens where I come from. They crawl into your bed at night to stay warm and then lick your nose to wake you when they’re hungry.”
Kolbjorn stared at him for a moment, sensing the other might be having fun at his expense. “Well, I’d rather fight giants every day than have those Devil’s creatures under my feet all the time.”
Porto laughed. “You are a braver man than I, Kolbjorn, but we already knew that. What does the duke’s man want?”
“Ask him. There he stands.”
The yellow-bearded Rimmersman was the only figure beside the fire—the one they called Sludig Two-Axes, one of Isgrimnur’s fiercest fighters. At the moment he looked distracted but otherwise approachable.
“You were looking for me, my lord?”
Sludig lifted his head. “Ah, yes. Porto of Perdruin, am I right? And don’t call me “my lord.” You’re a knight and I’m not.” He showed his teeth in a hard grin. “Yes, I’ve been looking for you. The duke sent this.” He lifted his broad hand. It held a purse.
When he was sure it was really meant for him, Porto reached out. “What is it?” He loosened the string and looked inside. “Sweet Mother of the Aedon, this is for me? Three gold imperators? And look at all this silver!”
Kolbjorn was smirking. “I already got mine. Counted it, too. Five gold’s worth all together.”
“But why?”
“Because it is traditional when a man has been knighted that he be given land or wealth,” Sludig said, grinning. “Duke Isgrimnur asked me to tell you he is short of land these days until all the new king’s and queen’s business is dealt with, but he can at least give you something to make your homeward trip a little easier. Do you accept it?”
“Accept it? My wife would skin me if I didn’t. Please thank the duke—he is very generous.”
“More than generous,” said Kolbjorn. “Was there one for Aerling as well? The man who led us?”
“He has had it already,” said Sludig. “Barely seemed to notice, I have to say. Busy polishing that giant’s skull.”
Porto shook his head. “He has not been entirely right since . . . the day the mountain fell.”
Sludig nodded. “In truth, none of us have been. Now I must be going. There is much to do before we break camp tomorrow and start back. Before your road parts from ours, Southerner, you and this young Vestiman should come and take a cup with me.”
�
�Seems a nice enough fellow,” Kolbjorn said when Sludig was gone. “He strangled one of the White Foxes with his bare hands, did you know that?”
Porto shrugged. “We have all done strange things here at the ends of the earth.”
The magister’s chamber on the highest floor of the order-house was chilly, as Yaarike always kept it, with a small oil lamp on his table providing the only light and heat. They had been working together for hours bringing the master lists up to date on the order’s many current tasks, but Viyeki was so full of disquiet he had spoken very little.
“You seem remote, Viyeki-tza,” Yaarike finally said. “You have scarcely attended to a word I’ve said, forcing me to repeat myself many times. That is not like you. You were always my most eager student.”
Viyeki took a breath, then another. “That is because something is troubling me, High Magister.”
Yaarike’s sharp eyes watched him closely. “Speak, then. I hope it is not that thing we spoke of before. You deserve all that has come to you from finding the hidden lake. It does not harm your fitting modesty.”
“That is not what troubles me now. May I share my thoughts, Master?”
“I think you should.”
Now that the time had come he found it hard to speak. The basalt walls of the order-house pressed in on him, their great age a silent reproof. How dare he stand beneath that arched ceiling, which had seen hundreds of foremen like Viyeki come and go, and harbor such thoughts about a high magister, let alone one who had been so generous to him? He felt he stood on sliding ground, being carried toward a precipice.
Better to jump than to fall.
“I have been thinking about how you showed me the Heart of What Was Lost when you thought you might not survive to return to Nakkiga, and wished to make certain it would reach your family. That was a great honor, High Magister.”
“I have trusted few who are not my blood as I trust you, Viyeki-tza.”
“But then you gave your sacred family treasure to be buried with General Suno’ku, to honor her. Putting the happiness of the people above your own desires.”
Yaarike looked at him evenly, but his tone had a question in it. “Yes. That is always a magister’s duty.”
“I do my best to understand all your lessons, Master. Because of that, I have been thinking, and I have decided that I need to show you something of my own family heritage. May I?”
“Of course.”
Viyeki withdrew the bundle of cloth from his robe and placed it on the table in front of his master. Then he carefully unwrapped it until the gray thing lay revealed.
For long moments Yaarike only looked down at the witchwood dagger, at its long, thin blade and its pommel in the shape of a flower, the petals made of milky crystal. “It is a beautiful thing,” the magister said at last. “How old?”
“Nothing like the Heart of What Was Lost,” said Viyeki. “This snow rose dagger did not come from the Lost Garden, but was made here in this land—in our old city of Kementari before it fell. It was given to my foreparent Enduyo in the era of the fifth Celebrant, as a token of gratitude from the queen. In some ways it is the foundation of our clan.”
“Your foreparent was greatly honored indeed, if this gift came from the queen’s own hand. May I hold it?” Now Yaarike glanced up to meet Viyeki’s gaze, his questioning look almost aggressive.
Viyeki spread his hands. “Of course, Master.”
Still cradling it in its wrappings, the magister tilted the slender blade to study it more carefully in the unsteady lamplight. Dark, thought Viyeki. It is always so dark inside the mountain and inside the hearts of the Hikeda’ya. For a moment, with the end of all things familiar pressing on his mind and speeding his heart, he again felt himself to be a creature that lived its life in secret, some sightless, burrowing thing of the dark depths. If the race of Hikeda’ya all died here beneath the mountain, the world outside might never know.
Nor care if they did know, except to breathe a sigh of relief, Viyeki decided, and in that instant nothing seemed to matter at all—not his honor, not his painful, complicated feelings about his master, not his marriage nor his clan nor any of the things that he had thought important.
Suddenly he felt too weak to stand. Without asking permission, he let himself sag into the chair opposite his master’s seat. Yaarike glanced up briefly from the snow rose dagger but said nothing. After a moment’s more inspection, the magister held out the knife. Viyeki took it back.
“I seem to remember some controversy surrounding Enduyo,” said Yaarike, “but I never knew the details.”
“Forgive me, Master, but I do not believe you.” Viyeki found himself growing bolder, as though he had let go of something that had previously kept him tethered to the known, the comfortable. “No, I cannot believe one of your wisdom would have offered someone like me the chance to succeed you unless you knew every detail of my ancestry back to the Eight Ships—if not all the way back to the Garden itself. And the controversy, as you call it, happened during your lifetime, when you were already a young foreman in this order. Surely you remember? After all, it ended my ancestor’s life.”
Yaarike actually smiled, a wintry twitch of his thin lips. “Ah, but I am old and have much to recall. Perhaps you could remind me, Viyeki-tza.”
“My ancestor Enduyo of Kementari was an official of the palace, a master cleric. He was ordered by the queen’s Oathbound to confirm the treachery of two Maze clerics with whom he often worked. He had no personal proof of their guilt, but the palace believed them guilty so he was ordered to testify against them. To refuse would have meant the disgrace and destruction of his entire family. Given no honorable choice, he elected instead to use this dagger and end himself. Like so.” Viyeki pulled his robe aside and let the knife slide forward a little until the tip of the narrow gray blade rested against his chest. “Even the clerics he had been ordered to incriminate attended his funeral, out of respect. Of course, they were still found guilty—still went to the executioner.” He looked up at his master. “So you see, this blade is schooled at solving difficult problems.”
“And is there a reason you brought it here to show me?” the magister asked. “I certainly hope you are not planning to use it to take a life today . . . yours or anyone else’s.” Yaarike poured himself a cup from the ewer on the table, then without asking filled another cup for Viyeki and pushed it toward him. “Here. This cloudberry wine is a very old vintage. It is said there is a trace of kei-mi in every barrel.”
Viyeki had never tasted the witchwood extract and knew he might never have another chance. He took the cup and drank deep. The wine was tart, almost too sour, with a taste that lingered on his tongue for long moments, as arresting as a memory both strong and bittersweet. “Thank you, my lord.” But he would not let himself be distracted. “So you see, I find myself in a dilemma today, High Magister. Only you of all others can help me to resolve it.”
“And this dilemma is . . . ?”
“Two choices. One is to denounce someone who has been my teacher and guide much of my life, one whom I have loved like a grandfather.”
“A truly dreadful possibility. And your alternative?”
“To remain silent about a terrible crime—not just the murder of a beloved hero but an attack on truth and history itself. So it seems I am trapped between betraying my mentor or my queen.” He touched the dagger lying in his lap. “You can see that following my ancestor’s course seems the only honorable alternative to those two unthinkable acts.”
His master drank deeply, then carefully wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand. “I think you had better tell me what has led you to this perilous situation, High Foreman.”
“The death of General Suno’ku, Magister. And the collapse of the mountainside. I have come to believe that neither were accidents.”
Yaarike’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but he only signaled for
Viyeki to continue.
He marveled at the calm in his own voice as he described the row of diggings he had found above the gate inside the mountain, all of them listed in the order’s records as abandoned projects, all of them exactly the same.
“And what do you guess the purpose of these diggings, as you call them, to have been?” Yaarike asked.
“To make the mountain fall.”
“And how would that be accomplished—and kept secret, no less?” He sounded as if he was challenging a bright pupil to think harder, not arguing against a foolish impossibility.
Now that he was committed to speaking what he had so long kept secret and silent, Viyeki felt as though his gut had been tied into a cruel knot. “The hard part would be the secrecy, because it would not be a simple or swift task. After all, it took nearly two score of our Builders working for days to bring down a much smaller weight of stone at Three Ravens Tower.”
“True enough. But who could undertake such a complicated and dangerous task here in Nakkiga without anyone knowing? And why hide it? The collapse of the mountainside saved our city and our people, after all.”
Every word from his master’s mouth pulled at the ends of the knot inside him, tightening it. “The deed was hidden because defense of our mountain was not its only purpose, I would guess. As to the other question, the person or persons responsible would need both knowledge of such things and the power make to make it happen and keep it secret from the people of Nakkiga.”
Yaarike nodded slowly. “That makes sense, at least. Please continue, Host Foreman. Tell me the rest of how this astounding trick could be accomplished from inside the mountain.”
“The set of tunnels in each digging would have been excavated by workmen who would not know what they were doing—tunnels leading down to a place where the rock of the mountain’s face was weakest. Then the workers would be sent away and the diggings declared useless. But each of those places also had a source of water close at hand. Could not someone repeatedly fill those new tunnels with water, which would then run down and into the cracks behind that weak spot in the mountain’s face? Even the youngest scholar in our order knows that once such water reached the end of its journey it would freeze because of the chill of the outside air. When the ice expanded, pushing the rock outward around it, more water could be poured in, beginning the process again. Eventually, enough of such careful, secret work could weaken the entire rock face until it split loose from the mountain’s surface and fell, destroying our enemies below and sealing the gates off from invaders for a long time. And only the most skillful of Builders could even hope to make such a thing happen at the proper time. Even so, it must have been very difficult.”
