by Tad Williams
Ferras Vansen couldn’t keep his mind for long on such bloodless matters as the princess approached. The past weeks had not been kind to her—she had not painted her face since the funeral and he could see by the blue shadows beneath her eyes that she had not slept well Still, despite this, despite the cold look she turned upon him, he could not imagine another face that would make him feel as he so helplessly did.
Perhaps it really is as the ancients say, he thought Perhaps a heart was indeed like a piece of dry birchwood, and could only take fire and burn brightly once—that any fire that came after would be only an ember, smaller and cooler.
Just my treacherous luck I should bum for her, for one I can never have, honorably or dishonorably, and who hates me in any case.
“Captain Vansen,” she said in a dry, firm voice, “my brother is resting, but he sends his wish that the gods speed your mission “ Vansen was a little surprised to see that there was an expression other than contempt on her face, the first time since Kendrick Eddon’s death that anything else had lit her features when looking at him. The problem was that he could not read the look, which might only have been weariness and disinterest. “I see you have your men ready.”
“Yes, Highness Your pardon, but are you certain you wish us to ride out so plainly in the middle of the day? Everyone will whisper of it.”
“Everyone is already whispering. How many people did that man there, Beck, speak to before he was brought to the castle? Do you think there is anyone in Wharfside or the Three Gods who hasn’t heard his story by now? You and your men will ride out down Market Road, across the causeway, and straight through Southmarch Town. Everybody will know that the Eddons are not so crippled by grief and fear that they ignore plundered caravans and kidnapped noblewomen.” She looked to Brone, who nodded his approval. “And this is not only for show, Vansen. We are not taking it lightly, my brother and I. So I trust you will take advantage of any trustworthy travelers on the road to send word back to us of your progress.”
“Yes, Your Highness. The monks of the university have a post service that travels back and forth on the Settland Road every fortnight, and it is a long time yet before the winter will stop them. I will keep you and Lord Brone informed, but I honestly hope I will not be gone so long.”
“You will return only when you have answers to give us,” she declared; sudden fury was like a whipcrack in her voice. “Of course,Your Highness.” He was stung, but in that moment he saw not just her anger, but something deeper and stranger in her expression, as though a frightened prisoner looked out from behind her face. She is afraid! It filled him with ridiculous thoughts, with the wild urge to kiss her hand, to declare his painful love for her. Thwarted in its natural direction and forced to find other escape, like steam hissing from beneath a pot hd, the sudden flicker of madness dropped him to his knees.
“I will not fail you again, Princess Briony,” he declared. “I will do what you have sent me to do or I will die trying.”
Even with his head down, he could sense the stir of surprise going through the other guardsmen, could hear Avin Brone’s sucked-in breath.
“Get up, Vansen.” Her voice sounded strange. When he was on his feet again, he saw that the anger was back in her eyes, along with a glitter that might have been tears. “I have had enough death, enough oaths, enough men’s talk about honor and debts—I have swallowed them all until I am ready to scream.
“You may think I blame you for my brother’s death. I do in part, and not only you, but I am not so foolish as to think some other guard captain would have saved him. You may think I have given you this charge because I want to punish you. There may be a little truth to that, but I also know you for a man who has done other things well, and who has the trust of his soldiers. I am told that you are levelheaded, too.” She took a step forward until only the broad sweep of her skirts separated them. Vansen couldn’t help holding his breath. “If you die without solving this mystery, you accomplish nothing. If you live, even if you have failed your charge, you still may do some good for this land at another time.”
She paused, and for a teetering moment it seemed to Vansen that she might say absolutely anything at all.
“But if the safety of any of my family is ever again on your shoulders,” she finally suggested, with a smile that would be cruel were it not so weary, “then you do indeed have my permission to die trying, Captain Vansen.”
She turned to his men and called to them,”May all the gods protect you. May Perin himself make your road smooth and straight.” A moment later she was walking back across the courtyard with Brone and the two ladies-ln-waiting hurrying to catch up.
“Not quite a court favorite, Captain, are we?” asked Collum Dyer, and laughed.
“Mount up.” FerrasVansen did not understand what had just happened, but there were many miles ahead of them, days of riding, and he would have plenty of time to think about it.
* * *
The one known as. The Scourge of the Shivering Plain rode down out of Shehen on her great black horse, letting the animal pick its way along the narrow hill paths with scarcely a tug on the rein, although in places the drop was so great that it was hard even to see the birds flying below her. Yasammez had no need for haste. Her thoughts were traveling before her, winged messengers faster than any bird, swifter even than the wind.
She descended from the heights and turned toward the oldest lands and the greatest city of all, which stood on the shores of the black ocean just outside the great northern circle of frost and ice. There were Qar folk that lived even in the northernmost lands beyond Qul-na-Qar, strange ones who walked in that permanent darkness and made songs with their fingers and their chill skin, but they had lived apart for so long that most of them had little to do with the rest of their race anymore. They scarcely even thought about the lost southern lands, for they had never lived there, and thus of all the Twilight People they had suffered the least at the hands of the mortal enemy. The cold ones would not serve Lady Porcupine: she would have to muster her armies from Qul-na-Qar and the lands that lay south of it, all the way down to the thrice-blessed fence that the mortals called Shadowline, and that the Qar themselves called A’sish-Yarrit Sa, which meant “Storm of Silence,” or, with a slightly different intonation of voice or gesture of the hand, “White Thoughts.”
The northerners might not care about the mortal thieves, but those who lived below their icy lands did. As Yasammez rode, they came up from the cavern towns of Qirush-a-Ghat, “Firstdeeps,” and out from the forest villages in the great dark woods to see her pilgrimage. The starlight dancers paused and grew silent on the hilltops as she passed. Those who did not know her—for it had been long since Yasammez had last left her house at Shehen—knew only that one of the great powers was passing, terrible and beautiful as a comet, and although they feared and respected such might, they did not cheer her, but watched in troubled silence. Those of the Qar who did recognize her of old were fiercely divided, because they all knew that where Lady Porcupine went, she was blown on winds of war and blood. Some returned to their families or villages to tell them that bad weather was coming, that it was time to put away stores of what was needful and strengthen the walls and gates. Others followed her in a quiet but growing crowd, their numbers swelling behind her like a bride's train. All of these knew that the bridegroom to whom she went was Death, and that her husband and master would not be careful of whom he took, but they followed her anyway. Centuries of anger and fear pushed them together, clenched them like a fist.
Yasammez was the blade which that fist had raised in the past. Now it would be raised again.
Her arrival threw Qul-na-Qar into confusion. By the time she rode through the great leaning gates at the head of a silent flock of Qar, the ancient citadel had already broken into camps of fanatical supporters and equally fanatical opponents, and a party larger than those two put together whose only shared philosophy was resistance to both extremes, a willingness to wait and see the shape that
time took. But none of this was obvious, and to the casual eye—if there had been such a thing in this place—the great capital would have seemed to move in its usual deceptively calm way, its immemorial ordered disorder.
The servitors of Yasammez who waited for her within Qul-na-Qar, almost all of whom had been born into that service since the last time she had visited the city, had scurried to air out her chambers on the sprawling castle's eastern side, heaving up the shutters for the first time in decades and opening the windows. The chill marine winds and the ocean's ceaseless noise, like the breathing of a vast animal, filled the rooms as they rushed to make things ready for their mistress. This was a day that all knew would someday form a chapter of its own in the Book of Regret.
But as she made her way through the Hall of the Gate, passing beneath its living sculptures without an upward glance, Yasammez was surrounded not only by her own minions but by all the dark city's excitement-seekers as well—those bright-eyed ones who dabbled in the showier magicks, others who passed their time refining the arts of war and the arts of courtship until they were scarcely distinguishable from each other, all the planners of secret campaigns and delvers of forgotten mysteries. She was surrounded by believers, too, those who had yearned for a voice to echo forcefully their own talk of catastrophe, to satisfy their yearnings for an all-smothering doom. All came singing and calling out questions, some in languages that even Yasammez herself did not speak. She paid none of them any attention, and passed instead from the Hall of the Gate to the Hall of Black Trees, then on through many more, the Hall of Silver Bones, the Hall of Weeping Children, the Hall of Gems and Dust. She stopped outside the Mirror Hall but did not go in, even though the blind king and silent queen waited behind the doors, aware of her coming since before she even left her high house.
Instead she told the servitor who guarded the entrance—a Child of the Emerald Fire who showed the faint glow of its kind even through its robe and mask— “Outside the gate there are thousands of our race who have followed me here from the countryside. See that they are well-treated. Soon I will speak to them.”
The masked figure did not reply, but bowed. Yasammez turned away from the Mirror Hall—it was not yet time to seal the Pact of the Glass, although that time would come before she left Qul-na-Qar again—and made her way to her old chambers overlooking the sea and the dark twilight sky. The crowd that had gathered inside the great castle and followed her through the halls like ants through a rotting tree were left to stand, to wait, to stare at each other in glee or shame or madness, and eventually to disperse.
It did not matter. There would be a time for all of them, Yasammez knew.
She had donned her plate armor, forged in Greatdeeps in the days before the Book, cured for centuries in an ice mountain without a name. The black spikes covered it like the quills of her namesake, a dark bristling that was obscured but not hidden by her cloak, which seemed almost as insubstantial as a thundercloud. Her head was bare she had set her featureless helmet on the table beside her, as though, like a favored pet, she wished it to watch the proceedings.
Seven other figures sat at the round table in Lady Porcupine’s chamber. It was dark in the room, only a single candle burning, its flame a-tremble before the open windows, but Yasammez and her allies did not need to see each other.
Some of what they said was spoken, some passed only in shared thought.
“Eats-the-Moon, what of the Changing tribe?”
“Many are with us I smell anger. I smell readiness. Ours were often the first of the People to meet the stone apes, back in the world before defeat, and the first to suffer as well. Not all are fighters, but those who are not shall be ears and eyes for the rest, swift fliers, silent crawlers.”
“Many? What number is that?”
A growl. “Many. More than I can count.” “And Greenjay? What of the Tricksters?”
“Cautious but willing to listen, as you would expect. Our tribe always likes to determine which side will win, and then join that side at an opportune time—not too late, but most definitely not too early.”
“Your honesty is commendable.”
“Can a frog be taught to fly? I tell you only what is true.”
“There will be no winner in this fight, even if we triumph. This is only a moment in the great defeat. But the mortals will suffer, and our own suffering will become less. What the stone apes inherit when we are gone will no longer taste sweet to them—will never taste sweet again. Make no mistake, the time has come for your Tricksters—and all the others, too—to decide the manner of their passing—not as individuals, but as families of the People.”
“But why, Lady? Why must we allow defeat? Still we are strong, and the old ways are strong. It is only our resolve that has been weak.”
“I have not yet come to you, Stone of the Unwilling. Soon I will ask you what the Guard of Elementals thinks…” “Ask me now.”
A pause. “Speak.”
“They think as I think. That we can retreat no farther, and that we can no longer live with exile and defeat. We must push them from our lands. We must put fire to all their houses and sickness in all their beds. We must shake down their temples and bury their cruel iron in the ground where it can become something clean again. We must bring on the Old Night.”
“I have heard you. But no matter what they wish, will your tribe follow where I lead, whatever path I may choose? Because only one can lead in this thing.”
“Can you lead, my lady? What of the Pact?”
“The Pact of the Glass will come to naught, an empty promise. But the old rules cannot be ignored, so I have agreed. It has been signed. Only an hour ago, I put my blood on it.”
“You signed the Pact? Then have they given you the Seal of War?”
For answer she lifted her helmet from the table. In the dark room the thing that had been hidden beneath it gleamed like molten stone. She lifted the red gem on its heavy black chain and put it on, let the stone fall with a dull clank onto her breast. “Here it is.”
For a moment only the sound of the ocean was heard, the waves pounding against the rocks. “The Guard of Elemental will follow you, LadyYassamez.”
The others spoke, one by one, telling her of their tribes, of their readiness or unreadiness, but all agreed—there were enough to muster. There were enough to cross the line and make war.
“Then I have one more thing to show you.” Yasammez reached beneath her great cloak. Buckles clicked. A moment later she lifted her scabbard and dropped it on the table, then wrapped her hand around the hilt of the sword and pulled it out. From point to pommel it was as white as packed snow, as licked bone. The candle flame, taxed by one too many chill breezes, shuddered and died. The only light in the room now was the subtle bhndworm glow of the sword itself.
“I have taken Whitefire from it’s sheath.” The voice of Yasammez, the People’s Fire of Vengeance, was matter-of-fact, whether aloud or in winged thought. Her words had weight because of who she was and what she said. “It will not be sheathed once more until I am dead or until what was taken from us is ours and the queen lives again.”
* * *
Briony found him outside, to her surprise and annoyance, wandering in the quiet and somewhat gloomy west garden of the residence. Except he was not wandering he was staring up at the roofline where the chimneys clustered like mushrooms that had sprouted after rain.
“I… Did you see that?” Barrick rubbed his eyes. “See what?"
“I thought I saw…” He shook his head. “I thought I saw a boy on the roof. Is it the fever? I saw many things when I had the fever…”
She squinted, shook her head. “Nobody would be up so high, certainly not a child. Why aren’t you in bed? I came to see you and they told me you had refused to stay in your chamber.”
“Why? Because I wanted to see the sun. But it’s almost gone. I feel like a corpse, lying in that dark room.” His face had closed again, the moment’s vulnerability replaced by something harsher. “It
’s not like you need me, in any case.”
Briony was shocked. “What do you mean? Merciful Zoria, Barrick, not need you? You’re all I have left! Gailon has just left the castle—left Southmarch entirely. He will be back in Summerfield in days, full of discontent, telling anyone who will listen about it—and many people will listen to the Duke of Summerfield.”
Her brother shrugged. “So what can we do? Unless Gailon’s talking treason, we can’t stop him saying what he wants. In fact, it wouldn’t be easy to do even if he were talking treason. Summerfield Court has walls almost as thick as Southmarch and the Tollys keep a small army there.”
“It’s too early to worry about things like that, and if the gods are kind or Gailon has a shred of honor, we may not have to. But we have problems enough, Barrick, so no more of this nonsense, please. I need you to be well. Better a few days bored and restless in bed now than you being ill all through the winter months. Let Chaven tend you.”
“No more of what nonsense?” He shot her another of his suspicious glances. “Are you certain you don’t just want me out of the way so you can do something foolish? Pardon Shaso, perhaps?”
Her heart felt like a lump of lead. How could her twin, her beloved other half, think such things? Had the fever really changed him so much? “No! No, Barrick, I would never do such a thing without your approval.” He was staring at her almost as if she were a stranger. “Please, now is not the time for you and I to argue. We’re all that’s left of the family!”
