Last King of Osten Ard 02 - Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  The silent guard rode until the wagons were only a distant line of oblong shapes behind them. When they reached a stand of birches, the horse was reined to a halt and the guard dismounted. He lifted her from the saddle and set her down, then pointed at the ground. For a brief, almost giddy moment she thought about trying to run. Surely her executioner would find it hard to chase her in that white-enameled witchwood armor! But the breeze changed direction, and the chill blast brought a flurry of white petals skipping across the ground before her. Windflowers, she thought. She could smell the musky leaves.

  I will not run, she decided.

  The guard pointed again. She got down on her knees and began to pray. The smell of the windflower leaves and the rattling of the birch trees over her head so filled her in what she thought was her final moment that when something gently touched the back of her neck, she did not move, but waited calmly for the blow to fall.

  She was touched again, more firmly this time. Tzoja looked up to see the guard staring down at her, confusion visible on what she could see of his face through the slot of the helmet. He pointed to the ground again, then at the trees, then spread his hands wide before pointing to Tzoja herself. His sword was still in its scabbard.

  She understood then. He had brought her out at the queen’s orders, to forage for herbs and wild plants.

  Tzoja had time for one more prayer before she rose on unsteady legs and walked into the grove of slender white trees.

  * * *

  • • •

  I have begun too late in the year, she thought mournfully as she looked down at what she had been able to collect—mullein leaves, purple elderberries, and two roots of bistort, as well as a rootstock of Rhiappa’s Bells, a useful remedy for women’s pains, although who could know what would work on the ageless Queen of the Norns? It was a meager collection. No healer could find even a fraction of the things she needed as late in the year as the Fire-Knight Moon.

  No, she corrected herself. I am no longer in Nakkiga. I can call it what my mother’s people call it, the Third Red Moon. Or even what my poor lost father called it—Novander. I am in the world of men once more. She looked around, and though she still felt some of the curious dreaminess that had come over her when she had been sure she would die, she also felt a fierce joy at feeling the sun, at the wind chafing her face. Nakkiga was a world away. There was sky overhead—sky!

  It was perhaps the strangest feeling at the strangest time that she had ever experienced, but Tzoja realized that at that precise moment, she was happier than she had been for a very long while.

  * * *

  • • •

  Even such a small bit of freedom was heady, but the days were shortening now with autumn fading and sooner than she would have liked the sun began to set. Wolves howled in the nearby hills, and it did not take the guard’s summoning gestures to convince her it was time to go.

  The great train of wagons had stopped to change the teams of goats and let those released from their harnesses drink their fill at a nearby stream, so she and the guard did not have to ride far to catch up. To her surprise, though, her escort rode past the end of the procession where the slave wagons stood and continued forward. For a dark moment she thought she was being taken to the queen, but the guard stopped beside one of the other wagons in Utuk’ku’s train. He reined up at the steps below the wagon’s door, then sat unmoving. Tzoja waited too, uncertain of what was happening, but the guard did not respond even when she carefully tapped his witchwood-plated arm.

  He will not move until I release him, a voice said, speaking inside her head as the queen did, startling her so that she felt a sudden chill all over. The voice was not the queen’s but something stranger, something colder, a sighing whisper that echoed as though it traveled a long, lonely distance before it reached Tzoja. I have frozen his thought like a beetle beneath a drift of snow. When I am done, I will warm him back to life again. Come inside. Come to me. It was not a request but a command. Tzoja slid clumsily down from the saddle, her earlier dreamy contentment suddenly torn to tatters. She made her way up the wagon steps, but could not bear to touch the door. That did not matter, because it opened of its own accord.

  Heat and scented smoke engulfed her as she stepped inside. The interior of the large carriage was windowless, the blackness streaked with red, the only light she could see from a tray of coals smoldering on the floor. Behind the tray, seated cross-legged like a mendicant, was a shape that made Tzoja’s indrawn breath stop partway between her mouth and her suddenly straining lungs.

  The apparition was manlike and wrapped in a hooded cloak, as though even in this steamy compartment it huddled against the cold. Where she could see beneath the cloak, the shape was shrouded in cloth like a body readied for burial—old bandages, charred along the edges, with red light gleaming through the worn spots. The only other thing she could see were its eyes, but Tzoja could not look at those twin, burning points for more than an instant before turning away in quivering fear. She stared at the pan of coals instead and tried not to swoon. If she could have made her legs work she would have run, but they were as lifeless as sticks.

  So here you are. The voice rustled in her head like wind in standing reeds, like the rattle of dead leaves chasing each other down an empty street. Just hearing it made her want to weep like a child. I have wanted to see you in flesh, as more than the knot in the tapestry that you represent. This mortal form I wear is burning away, and soon I will not be able to see what is on this side of the door.

  Tzoja could no longer support herself. For the second time that day she kneeled, surrendering her doom to a greater force.

  So my triad-sister has gathered you to her. I am not surprised.

  “Who . . . who are you?” Tzoja finally managed to stammer. She could barely recognize her own words.

  You are not the only unusual traveler in the queen’s company, the faraway voice said. I am one who has been beyond the door. One of the Three, whose shaping will bring the final answers. I am the one who goes beyond and returns. There is another who stands in the doorway, and one who will not cross. We are the triad, and we will end things. You see, mortal child of stone and grass, there is an order that shapes all—an order only those who have stood outside the walls of death can understand.

  Tzoja could not bear to look into the smoldering red emptiness staring at her from the shadowed hood, but when she looked down, she saw that the cloaked and bandaged thing floated a hand’s breadth above the wagon’s floor like a wisp of burning ash. She closed her eyes.

  “But why did you call me here?” she whispered, weeping now. “What do you want from someone like me?”

  The words came to her across some inconceivable distance. Because you and yours are wound through all that will happen. Even with all I have seen, through the timeless shadows in which I have existed, I still feel something like curiosity. Your blood is a singular scarlet thread that crosses the great picture we three are weaving. The dead cannot lie, and I tell you this—your line has a destiny that even I cannot see in its fullness.

  Go now. We will meet again before the end. That I promise you, child of mortal man and mortal woman.

  The embers sputtered and faded. Smoke rose up from the tray of coals and shrouded the figure in swirling darkness, so that only a few glints of scarlet showed it was still there. Suddenly mistress of her own limbs again, Tzoja turned and stumbled out of the wagon.

  Outside, the guardsman of the Queen’s Teeth waited on his horse, both rider and beast still motionless. Tzoja took a few moments to regain her breath and slow her speeding heart, but the knowledge that the floating thing remained just on the far side of the wagon door was too much to bear. She clambered up into the saddle behind the guard, thinking she might slap him awake; a moment later, as if nothing had happened, he shook the reins and turned the horse back toward the rear of the train. The drovers were getting ready to whip the great
black goats into motion once more. As they rode past, and as the whips sang and the goats bleated in angry distress, Tzoja’s womb ached and her stomach churned with the knowledge that she had given birth—that she had brought a child into this world of unending horror.

  When the guard had helped her down from the saddle, he handed her the sack of plants she had collected, then rode away, stiff, straight, and silent.

  Tzoja bent over and was violently sick, spattering the meager contents of her stomach over the steps of the wagon and the ground below.

  45

  The Dust of Ancient Thoughts

  Morgan had been told all his life to sit still and wait to speak until it was his turn—and he had always hated it. It was all he could do to watch silently now as Tanahaya argued with the leader of the angry, white-clad Sithi who had captured them—the Pure, as they called themselves. But he had learned at least one thing in the months since he had first met the Fair Folk: there were many things he didn’t understand about the world, and sometimes it was better to keep his mouth closed until he learned more. He clenched his teeth until his jaws hurt and kept his hand away from Snakesplitter’s hilt. His life was in someone else’s hands—or, to be more precise, hung on someone else’s words. Since he could not understand the argument that flew back and forth between the two women in their swift, liquid Sithi tongue, his heart was beating very fast indeed.

  Tanahaya must have seen it on his face. “Do not be fearful,” she told him. “It will do us no good.” Then she turned back to Vinyedu and the Pure, but to Morgan’s surprise, this time she spoke Westerling. “All scholars know that the last time Amerasu Ship-Born spoke in the Yásira, she used the tongue of mortals because of the presence of Seoman Snowlock, whom she held in high esteem.”

  Vinyedu said something in her own tongue. It did not sound like any kind of agreement.

  “Because this mortal who stands before you, Morgan of Erchester, is the grandson of that same Seoman,” Tanahaya answered, and though there was no widening of eyes or gasps of surprise, Morgan could feel the change in the way Vinyedu and her followers looked at him. For the first time he sensed almost as much curiosity as outright dislike. “He has the right to hear what is said about him . . . and against him,” Tanahaya continued. “The Sa’onsera of Year-Dancing House, the greatest of us in these lands, decreed that was true for his grandfather. Would the Pure deny Amerasu’s wisdom?”

  As Vinyedu stood, silently thinking, the other Pure stared at Morgan in a way that made him tremble with the effort of staying silent, but Tanahaya’s face spoke clearly to him without words: This is dangerous. Do not interfere. At last Vinyedu turned back toward them.

  “I will not forgive you for using my reverence for our First Grandmother against me this way, Tanahaya of Shisae’ron.” Her words were measured and careful, and she spoke some of them strangely, but Morgan was still surprised by how well she used his tongue. “In respect of Amerasu’s memory I will speak so he can understand, but I care nothing for mortal kings or crowns. The presence of this child’s grandfather in Jao é-Tinukai’i brought us nothing but death and destruction.”

  “It was not the presence of Seoman Snowlock that brought death to our home, Vinyedu,” said Tanahaya. “It was the treachery of Queen Utuk’ku and the Hikeda’ya—something you know as well as me.”

  “All the same,” Vinyedu said. “I am not swayed. I will speak the animal tongue of the Sudhoda’ya, but that does not mean we will excuse this trespass. We Jonzao have broken with all who have turned their back on the old ways. We reject any alliances between our people and the mortals. And if we are dissatisfied with your answers, Tanahaya, you will still be driven out into the forest, and as for the mortal youth . . .”—she gave Morgan a significant look that started his heart rabbiting once more “. . . we may still destroy him, as a matter of principle.”

  “Then you will have to destroy me as well,” Tanahaya said calmly.

  “I can think of things I would regret far more than that,” Vinyedu replied. “Why are you here? Why did you seek us out?”

  “I sought you out in desperation. Out of fear for all our people, not just myself. The Hikeda’ya are everywhere in the forest, even along the boundaries of Misty Vale.”

  “This is known to us,” said Vinyedu.

  “Then did you also know that Hikeda’ya Sacrifices killed my master Himano and burned his house in the Flowering Hills?”

  Vinyedu fell silent, and although Morgan could never tell for certain with the stone-faced immortals, he thought she was surprised. Some of the other Sithi in the chamber spoke to her, and she replied rapidly in their tongue before turning back. “How do you know it was Hikeda’ya?” she asked Tanahaya.

  “Their marks were everywhere. And do you truly think even an army of mortals could have caught my teacher unaware?”

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “I cannot say. Perhaps as much as a moon cycle, but certainly no longer. I studied his body and that of his current student before I buried them.”

  Vinyedu sank down to her haunches and for a time did not speak. “Tsi anh pra Venhya!” she said at last, with real feeling. “It is no secret that Himano and I did not agree on many things, but I still mourn his death. The Hikeda’ya have lost all sense—they are more lost than even the most foolish of our own tribe.” She narrowed her eyes. “That still does not tell why you are here, though. Or traveling with a mortal, no matter his ancestry.”

  Tanahaya quickly told the story of all that had happened to her since she had last been in H’ran Go-jao. Vinyedu repeated her words in their own tongue for the crowd of Sithi who had gathered to watch and listen—they now numbered something close to three dozen. Surrounded by the sea of impassive faces and golden-eyed stares, Morgan felt as if he hardly dared breathe.

  After passing on the last of Tanahaya’s words, Vinyedu turned back toward them. To his surprise, Morgan saw the ghost of a smile curling the edges of her thin mouth. “And did you truly say that to Khendraja’aro, or do you exaggerate to make the story better?”

  Tanahaya’s words were cold. “I am a scholar and historian, like you, Lady Vinyedu, and like your admirable sister. I tell what I experienced as truthfully as I am able.”

  The smile disappeared. “Do not throw my sister in my face. Zinjadu chose her own course. She went with the others to aid the mortals—this whelp’s grandfather—and met her death because of it.” Vinyedu paused; when she spoke again it was without any expression Morgan could detect. “So you came here to find a Witness so you could tell Likemeya’s son and daughter what has happened. That makes a sort of sense, but Jiriki and Aditu mean little to us. They have chosen to flout the old ways. We have purified ourselves of all that.”

  “Can you purify yourself of the Hikeda’ya and their mad queen?” Tanahaya asked.

  “We do not need to answer to you, young one.” Vinyedu now rose. “You are not one of the Pure. In that way, you are no different than Utuk’ku, who sent a mortal to kill Amerasu—a mortal!”

  “Do not poison our talk with such foolishness. I am very different,” Tanahaya said. “Whatever you may think, I still believe we are one people, one blood. You suggest there is no difference between the Hikeda’ya and the rest of the Zida’ya. But Utuk’ku’s Norns see no difference between you and us—and they intend the same thing for you that they plan for both the mortals and the Sithi, which is destruction. Utuk’ku will not permit any of the old Keida’ya to survive unless they worship her.”

  Vinyedu shook her head. “Words.”

  “Yes, but words are what we use to build the world.” Tanahaya reached into her jacket, but stopped as several of the white-clad folk around her raised their bows. Morgan found himself clenching his hands into fists. “I draw no weapon,” Tanahaya said evenly. “You spoke of words, Lore-Mistress Vinyedu. Let me show you some.” She drew a flattened roll of parchment out of her jack
et, which Morgan recognized as the writings she had taken from beneath Himano’s body.

  Vinyedu stared. “What is it? You said nothing about this before.”

  “I had not had the chance, with the constant threats of death and banishment and assertions that there is no difference between my kind and the Hikeda’ya.” She passed it to Vinyedu. “This was beneath Himano when he fell, pierced with arrows and left to die like a dog beside the road.”

  Vinyedu carefully opened the parchment. “There is very little blood on it.”

  “The more fortunate for us. But the runes are the old writing of the Hikeda’ya, and I am not enough of a scholar to read it with full understanding—only a word, an idea, here and there.”

  “I will study this,” Vinyedu said slowly, “and see if I can find a reason that Himano might have tried to escape with it.” She looked around. “But we cannot remain here in the Place of Voices. We know as well as you that the Hikeda’ya have grown bold, and though they have not yet dared to enter our city, that does not mean they might not come close enough to loose arrows, especially if they hear us. We will go to the archives.” As she spoke the Sithi surrounding them began to move out of the chamber, quiet as stalking cats. “But you are still our prisoners,” Vinyedu added. “Forget that at your peril.”

  * * *

  The undergrowth was so thick with hazel, bracken, and firethorn that after an hour of hacking at it with his ax but making scant progress, Little Snenneq’s palms and fingers were bloody.

  “You will ruin yourself,” Qina told him. “Come here and let me bind those hands. The daylight will be gone soon—no point in trying to go farther today.”