Shree climbed off the old man and lifted him, not tenderly, on to the chamber's one chair. I pulled his grey hood back and saw a large plum-coloured bruise on his forehead, just above the left eye. His breathing was shallow and tormented and his hands clutched the arms of the chair so tightly that his blue-veined knuckles turned white. My extreme annoyance at being stabbed in the heart began to fade.
"Honoured Bequiin," I said, fairly gently, "why did you do that? I thought you liked me."
He peered up at me with despair. "Too late," he cried, "too late! Now you cannot be killed!"
"Let me ask him," Shree said tightly.
"No, thank you. I know where you learned interrogation techniques." I sat down on the pallet so that my eyes were on a level with the Bequiin's. My mind was beginning to clear as the pain diminished, and a number of previously puzzling items were starting to make sense. I stared at the old man in front of me, trying to match him with the shadow-figure glimpsed in a dark corridor of the Tasiil, and reached out after a moment of adding things up to put my hand on his knee. "Tell me the truth, Ardin. Have you tried to kill me before?"
He nodded tearfully, not looking at me.
"The parth-asp? The poison? The Frath Minor in the Gilgard?"
He wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his grey robe, seeming a little calmer. "Billiil's attempt was not my doing; he was ploughing his own field then; he knew nothing about you except the Frath Major thought you were important."
I accepted that. "But the other incidents?"
"Yes, I tried several times to arrange your death while still you could die. And it would have been better for you, Tigrallef, if one of my hirelings had found his mark, for now it is too late." He began to weep again, feebly. "It has already begun, Scion, has it not?"
I was confused. "What do you mean? The plague?"
"The prophecy, bedamn it! I looked for you first in your own cell. I saw what was there."
"Ah," I said, "the furniture. I can explain."
A few tears coursed down his battered face. "No need. You have declared the two are one, yes?"
I bit my lip, surprised. Those words again, the ones the Lady had been irritating me with for some time. "So far," I said cautiously, "I've avoided saying any such thing."
He regarded me openmouthed; disbelief, hope, relief, chased each other across his face. "Marrich! I feared greatly when I saw—but the prophecy has not been completed. Marrich frath!" And he closed his eyes and babbled grateful prayers in Miisheli for a few moments, before he slipped off the chair to kneel in front of me, looking piercingly up into my face and breaking again into Gillish. "Scion, you must not carry out the prophecy, you must not speak the words of affirmation, there may be no going back for you if you do. The Great Nameless Last, Scion! Empires always fall, but this one will not—"
I rather lost his thread at this point. Do not imagine that the Lady was allowing me to listen without making her own views very clear. There was a wind rising inside my skull, freighted with words: he is a blaspheming fool, he is not of the Naar, he should not know these things, command me to silence him for his arrogance and presumption, command me, Scion, command me, the two are one, the two are one, command me, the two . . . I bit my hand hard enough to draw blood from the fleshy mount of the palm and forced myself to concentrate on the pain. Then I could hear the Bequiin again.
His face was mottled with emotion. He was still babbling about something called the Great Nameless Last—unknown to me, but the words plucked at a string. I nodded to Shree, who rose at once and lifted the old man back into the chair, more gently this time, and poured him out some water from the new jug on the table. The Bequiin broke off what he was saying to stare at the beaker as if he had never seen one before, and I took advantage of the lull.
"Drink up, Ardin, you'll feel much better. And then you can explain to us what you're talking about, because I honestly don't understand."
His efforts to calm himself were both visible and painful. After a few moments he accepted the water from Shree and took a long drink, and gradually the hectic colour in his face subsided. Shree and I patiently watched him struggle for control. When he spoke again, it was with all the dignity and detachment of the great scholar I knew him to be.
"Tigrallef—how shall I begin?—you were correct to doubt Cor Cahn's treatise on the fall of Fathan. And also right to compare it with the Clerisy's lies about the fall of Sher."
I nodded after a moment, trusting this was not the complete switch of topic it sounded like. "All right. Lakshi Cor Cahn lied about the fall of Fathan. But what does that have to do with trying to kill me?"
He overrode me with a schoolmasterly kind of gesture. "Why did I defend Cor Cahn's truthfulness to you? Because at the time you wrote to me, there was no evidence to gainsay him. That came later. It is true, I had doubts like yours and for the same reasons, but even speculations must have some solid basis before they can be explored."
"I don't agree," I began, but he raised his hand again.
"I have not come to discuss the philosophy of knowledge," he said with a flash of spirit. "Listen to me. It was twenty years ago that I first proposed a certain expedition to seek out the knowledge of the Ancients—I will tell you in a moment where I thought it could be found. But that was at a time when Sher was threatening to break the treaty with the League of Free Nations, and the court had better things to think about than a quest for historical truths and such playthings, which are, as you probably know, of interest only to scholars and other fools. They told me to go back to my books and be thankful for the privilege, and so I did, and so the matter rested for nearly fifteen years."
"I know that feeling. Our book budget in Gil—but never mind." I shut up hastily at the look in his eyes.
He slumped back into the chair and folded his hands in his lap. "Five years ago," he said softly with his eyes on the door, "a powerful prince and general named Liithis of Shiilk fought his way—no, Tigrallef, swam his way, through a sea of blood, to become the present Frath Major. He had been a pupil of mine many years ago, an intelligent and promising pupil, and I was pleased at first. I thought perhaps he would place rnore value on matters of scholarship than the illiterate barbarian who was Frath Major before him—and so he did, so he did."
I traded puzzled glances with Shree. "Not a good thing?" I guessed.
Ardin sighed. "No, Tigrallef. As it happened, not a good thing. He called me to him when he had been Frath Major for half a year—he had been looking through the records of the court, he said, and was very interested to find mention of the expedition I had proposed fifteen years before. What fools the court of the time had been, he said, to turn me down! Wisdom for the sake of wisdom, he said! Knowledge for the sake of knowledge! So much there was, he said, that we could learn from the Ancients! Marrich frath!"
Ardin's voice had risen, but he caught himself now and held his breath and listened. We listened with him, perforce—a comforting silence in the corridor. In my head, on the other hand, the Lady was murmuring sullenly to herself.
"It was a grand expedition," Ardin went on, almost in a whisper. "I was given everything I asked for. A thousand of the best animals, five hundred of the Frath's best troops, enough food and supplies for a year's quest, and the promise of more to come, as much as I could ever want. When we left Cansh Miishel, our caravan stretched for two hours' march along the road, and our encampments were the size of a town." He fell silent again, musing.
I reached out to touch his arm. "And did you find what you were looking for?"
Softly: "Yes, Scion."
"Where did you find it?"
Looking up sharply: "Can you not guess?"
I could, but Shree got there first. "Fathan," he said positively. "There were no ships on your list, and there are only two places a caravan can march to from Miishel—Grisot and Fathan. You went to Cansh Fathan."
Ardin looked at him thoughtfully. "Cansh Fathan. Yes."
Purposeful feet thudded d
own the corridor. Ardin half-rose, his face pale, his hands fisted in front of him, not breathing until they had passed Shree's door and continued down the corridor towards the stairway. Shree sighed and started to pare his fingernails with his knife.
I leaned forward. "Bequiin Ardin, what did you find in Cansh Fathan?"
Ardin sank back into the chair. His face was pale, but his eyes met mine steadily. "I found the imperial archives."
If he was intending a dramatic impact, he got one. I lost my breath; Shree dropped his knife. The imperial archives of Fathan! The long-lost written records of the most corrupt and cruel, the most gilded and glittering, the most heartless and gorgeous and barbaric and labyrinthine imperial court in the memory of the known world! I was dazzled by the sheer wonder of it—but for only a moment, until a few natural doubts set in.
"Ardin, I find this hard to believe. Fathan was completely destroyed by fire—all the historical traditions agree on that, from Storica to Zaine; and the few travellers who have dared to cross the boundaries of Fathan all describe—"
"A black and blasted land," Ardin cut in passionately, "where the soil was burnt to the bare rock, and the rock melted and flowed and froze again into vast stretches of hot black glass that burns even now to the touch, and nothing has grown since—yes, yes; it is true, Tigrallef, it is all true."
To avoid his eyes, I examined the inkstains on my fingers. "So how did the archives survive? If nothing else did, I mean." I looked up.
A dreamy smile came over the Bequiin's face. I recognized that quality of smile; I'd seen it on Angel and Shree, on the face of the First-Memorian-in-Exile, and felt it on my own face now and then: the smile of a scholar contemplating some personal victory of scholarship, great or small, some puzzle unravelled, some significant connection made, some truth uncovered.
"Twenty days," he said, "we crossed a land like the backside of a Storican hell. Flat plains of black glass, and endless ranges of black hills covered with rocks like cinders the size of my fist, and forests of blackened stumps that stretched as far as an eagle's eye could see, and nothing grew, and no water flowed; but on the twenty-first day, Scion, we came to the ruins of Cansh Fathan itself, which no traveller had seen for better than a thousand years—and Tigrallef, this is the wondrous part." His eyes sparkled into mine. "Tigrallef, Cansh Fathan was never burnt."
There was a grunt from Shree's direction. "Oh," I said after a moment.
"Never burnt!" he repeated. "Ruined, yes; tumbled and overgrown, but not one mark of fire, not a charred stone, nor a burnt timber, neither a speck of soot nor a streak of old smoke! And this in the midst of a land like a great hearth built by giants! Never burnt! Oh, I could tell you many other wonders of that place, and the strange and terrible things that happened while we were there—I arrived with half a thousand men, and I left with fewer than two hundred—but I have not the time now. I will say only that when I returned to Cansh Miishel, I took with me thirty-two wainloads of the court records of Imperial Fathan. Thirty-two wainloads, Tigrallef!" He peered eagerly into my face.
"Astonishing, Bequiin. A treasure beyond any valuing. Which brings me," I said carefully, "to my second question. Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't any memorian outside Miishel hear even a whisper of this remarkable find?"
He looked suddenly ashamed. "Liithis—the Frath Major—persuaded me."
"Persuaded? You mean, forced? Tortured?"
"No, no, if duress had been used, I should not despise myself so miserably now." He rose painfully and came to sit between us on the pallet. Even so, his voice dropped so low that I had to strain to hear him over the Lady's mutters. "He had vision, Liithis did, I will grant him that. Grisot was pressing hard again on our northern borders—these standoffs are so costly, and that is all that our history has been since Fathan fell, a thousand years of standoffs. Liithis persuaded me that the ancient writings of Fathan might hold a secret that could tip the balance in our favour, and help—" He stopped, blushing as only the old can blush, a fine network of veins reddening under his papery cheek-skin.
"And help—?" Shree prompted.
"And help to restore the empire," Ardin whispered, looking down at his hands. "So blind can we become to the lessons of history."
"But did you find such a secret?" I asked.
He raised his hands and dropped them again; a Miisheli expression of resignation. "I found you, Tigrallef."
"Me?" I laughed out loud. "In Cansh Fathan?"
He caught my hands. "Not by name, no, of course not. But like this." He shut his eyes and began to chant in a soft monotone, word after liquid word: Oballef's tongue. An instant later the Lady howled, causing a burst of pure agony that I thought would crack my head wide open—I grabbed Ardin by the front of his cloak, frantic with the pain.
"What does it mean? Tell me what it means!"
It was Shree who stopped me from accidentally strangling the Bequiin; he broke my hold and shoved me back on the pallet, and transferred the gasping Bequiin back to his chair. Then he shook me. I was still half-mad from that explosion inside my skull, and Shree told me later that the mountain started to tremble violently and only stopped when I managed to uncross my eyes; but all I remember is the Bequiin leaning forwards again, unafraid, and speaking softly but firmly into the dead afternoon silence.
"The texts were fragmentary—in Fathidiic, and Old Miisheli and Old Grisotin, and also in Naarhil, the secret tongue of your ancestor Oballef." He smiled faintly at the shock on my face. "Yes, Scion, I have long known of your Secrets of the Ancients—but of these texts, I could read some, and some I could decipher, and some defeated me. And this is what I learned: that there was an ancient race called the Naar, and its talisman was called the Harashil, and together they shaped the rise and fall of many great nations. I could understand nothing of their beginning, but Tigrallef—I could read a part of their end."
"The prophecy?" I held my breath. The Bequiin brought his face very close to mine.
"The prophecy, yes: that one day a man descended from the Naar would free the Harashil from its material bonds, and accept its power, and the two would become one; and together they would found a nation that would never fall until the world itself came to an end—the Great Nameless Last." His voice was hushed.
My head was an aching void suddenly, empty of whispers. "Is that all of it?"
"No, there was more, perhaps much more, but the text was too damaged for me to decipher."
"And what does it have to do with me?" This was said just to be difficult, because I already knew the connection all too well.
The Bequiin took my face between his hands, a look of pity coming into his eyes. "Tigrallef. You are the man of the Naar; the Lady in Gil is the Harashil. I understood this even before the deciphering was done—the great misfortune is, the Frath Major understood it as well. We knew the truth of what happened to Sher. Everyone knew. And when you shattered that thing known as the Lady in Gil, you carried out the first part of the prophecy."
I took his hands from my face and held them in mine. "What about my ancestor Oballef? How did the Naar become the Scions of Oballef?"
"Who knows? Fathan fell a century or more before Oballef landed in Gil—who knows what happened in the meantime? Perhaps he came to Gil from the ruins of Cansh Fathan; but who knows? The texts end well before Fathan's destruction."
"Of course they would." I closed my eyes, trying to clarify my thoughts, but the Bequiin began talking again.
"The Frath believes he can harness the Harashil through you—he desires to make Miishel the heart of the Great Nameless Last, and rule it himself by ruling you. He hopes for immortality and power. But he is a fool! He does not know the nature of the power he meddles with, and the evil that would come of it. An empire that would never fall! An empire that would end only with the world's end! An empire that would bring about the world's end . . . think of the lessons of the past, Tigrallef, and then think of the future."
"You don't need to tell me," I said glum
ly. "I already know."
The Bequiin lurched to his feet and paced unsteadily back and forth between the pallet and the window. "Then you are wiser than I—for by the time I saw the danger, I was already the Frath's creature and in the Frath's trap." He touched his fingertips to the dark swollen bruise on his forehead. "Forgive me, Tigrallef. I could not stop Liithis and so," his voice sank with shame, "I tried to stop you."
"Don't feel bad," I said, "part of me wishes you had done a better job of it. But Ardin, why do you blame yourself? You got the Frath Major involved, but that's all. You're not responsible for the prophecy; I broke the glass before you ever went to Fathan. Short of killing me, there's nothing you could have done to help me."
Apparently there was. He overhung me, his eyes burning into mine. He had started to sweat. "Listen carefully. The prophecy will not be complete until you declare yourself one with the Harashil—until you knowingly and willingly accept its power; that part of the text was very clear. And you have not done so."
"That's true, I haven't. She's tried to trick me into it a few times."
"Then you have felt her—it—the Harashil?"
"Yes," I said, with feeling. "Oh, yes."
The strength seemed to be draining out of him. He collapsed on to his chair and wiped a hand across his streaming forehead. When he spoke, his voice was weaker. "You cannot be killed, that is clear. But I believe there may be hope for you if you do these things: first, go from here. Take yourself as far from the Frath Major as you can. And second—resist the Harashil, break the chain that binds you to it, if you can find the way—"
"Can that be done?" I broke in.
He hesitated. "I will confess, I am not certain. There were intimations that it might be done, but the text was damaged at that point and I can tell you nothing more. Scion, I am tired and afraid. I have not long to live. Promise me you will do those things."
Gil Trilogy 2: Scion's Lady Page 26
