by Tad Williams
“No need to fear me.” He turned and bowed to Merolanna. “You are the duchess, are you not? I have seen you once or twice in the castle after I was released.”
“Released?” said Merolanna. Utta stared—there was something familiar about him, although by most standards he had one of the least noteworthy faces she had ever seen. “Who are you, sir?”
“I was known for many years by the name of Gil, and had no other. Now I am called Kayyin...again. My story might interest you—in fact, it might interest me, too, if I could remember it all—but for now I am only to be your escort. Please, let me take you to her.”
“To whom?” Merolanna asked. Utta was suddenly too fearful to speak. The sun was sinking behind the great seawall and the city was all shadows. “What are you talking about, man?”
“To the mistress of this city. You are commanded to come to her.”
“Commanded?” Merolanna bristled a little.
“Oh, yes, Your Grace. She can command anyone—she is greater than any mere queen.” He stepped nimbly between them and took each woman by an elbow. “Even the gods must fear her. You see, she is kinswoman to death itself.”
“You certainly are an impertinent man,” Merolanna said. “Why do you speak so strangely? How did you come to be here?”
“I speak strangely because I am no man,” he told her. “Nor am I one of the Qar—not anymore, not after I lived so long as one of your kind, forgetting I was anything else. I am unique, I think—no longer one or the other.”
Utta was uncomfortably aware of shapes appearing from the shadows and falling silently into place behind them like an army of cats. She looked back. There were at least three dozen of the tall, slender warriors, eyes gleaming in the depths of their hoods and helmets. Chilled, heart speeding, she said nothing. If Merolanna did not know, let her enjoy her last moments of security.
The duchess certainly seemed to be doing her best to remain ignorant. “Are you not shamed to speak so?” she asked their odd guide. “I must say I do not think very highly of someone who is such thin milk as to say, ‘I am not one or the other’—especially when our two peoples are at war!”
“If you cut out the gills of a fish, Duchess, would you then blame him when he said he did not belong in the water? And yet, he still would not be a man, either.” As they reached the far end of the foggy square their guide stopped and raised his hand. “We are here.”
Before them lay the bulky stone towers of the Council House where the city’s leaders had met, a second seat of power in Southmarch that had on occasion, during times of weak rulers and strong councils, set itself on a nearly equal footing with the throne itself. Its square central tower still loomed above the surrounding buildings, a blocky shape like the chimney of some immense, underground mansion, but the rest of the ancient Council House looked different. It took Utta a moment to realize that what had softened its contours and shadowed its façade was a lattice of woody, dark vines that shrouded most of the building. The vines had not been there the last time she had been in Blossom Market Square, she was certain, but they looked like the product of centuries.
The three dozen or so Qar walking silently behind them had now grown to hundreds, a true army, which filled the square on either side of them, a forest of dimly glittering eyes and pale, hostile faces. Some did not even come close to resembling mortal men. Utta made the sign of the Three and fought against an urge to pull away from their guide and run. She turned to whisper something to the duchess, but she could see by Merolanna’s face that the older woman already knew what was happening and had only been pretending she didn’t. It was not obliviousness, but a sort of bravery.
More Qar stepped out in front of them, leaving only a narrow aisle between their ranks, leading to the steps of the Council House.
Zoria, forgive me for my selfish thoughts and my pride.
Utta put her head down, then lifted it as proudly as she could, like a prisoner going to the gallows. They climbed the wide stairs behind the man who did not know what he was.
It took a moment for her eyes to make sense of the gloom inside the main hall, and when she did she was surprised to see how many of the Twilight folk were here, too: they truly were quiet as cats, these Qar, as they seemed to call themselves. In fact, it was almost exactly like disturbing some congregation of alley-lurkers: the faces swung up, oddly shining eyes fixed on the newcomers, but the faces showed nothing. Some of them were so disturbing to look at that she could not bear to see them for more than an instant. When one of them curled a lip and snarled at her, showing teeth sharp as needles, Utta had to stop, unable to walk for fear she would stumble and fall.
“Just a little farther,” said Kayyin kindly, taking her arm again. “She waits right there—can you see her? She is beautiful, isn’t she?”
Utta let herself be led forward to the empty center of the room, which contained only one unprepossessing chair and two figures, one sitting, one standing. The one standing behind the chair was female, dressed in plain robes, but her eyes gleamed like fogged mirrors.
The woman in the chair was less obviously unusual, except for her size. She appeared to be as tall as a good-sized man, although achingly thin, but the spikiness of her dark, unreflecting armor made it hard to gauge anything to a certainty. She had the single most unfeeling face Utta had ever seen, one that made the famously stern statue of Kernios in Market Square seem like a child’s favorite uncle. Her high, slitted eyes and her wide, pale-lipped mouth might have been carved from stone. Utta felt her legs begin to tremble again. What had the odd man called her— Death’s kinswoman? Merciful Zoria and all the gods of heaven, she looks like Death iself!
Merolanna too seemed to have lost her courage: they both had to be urged forward by Kayyin, each step heavier than the last, until at last they both slumped to their knees a few paces from the foot of the throne.
“This is Duchess Merolanna Eddon, a member of the royal family of Southmarch,” Kayyin said as if he were the herald at a court ball. If he truly had lived in the castle once, Utta decided, it was not surprising that he knew Merolanna’s name. But then he added, “And this is Utta Fornsdodir, a Zorian sister. They wish an audience with you, Lady Yasammez.”
The woman in black armor looked slowly from Merolanna to Utta, her stare like the touch of an icy finger. A moment later she turned away as if the women were no more substantial than air. “Your japes bring me no pleasure, Kayyin.” Her voice was as chill as her gaze; she spoke with a strange, archaic lilt. “Take them away.” She spread her long white fingers, said something in a low mutter, then spoke aloud again in a language Utta and Merolanna could understand. “Kill them.”
“Hold a moment!” Merolanna’s voice trembled, but the duchess clambered up onto her feet even as Utta began to pray, certain that her last moments were upon her. “I have come to you not as an enemy, but as a mother—a mother wronged. I come to you seeking a boon and you would kill me?”
Yasammez stared at her, a black, unreadable stare. “But I am no mother,” the fairy woman said. “Not anymore. What seek you?”
“My child. My son. I am told he was taken by the Twilight... by the Qar. Your people. I wish to know what happened to him.” She gained strength as she spoke. Utta could not help admiring her: whatever her other foibles, Merolanna was no coward.
“Do you hear?” said Kayyin suddenly. “She is appealing to you as one woman to another. As one parent to another.” There was something oddly barbed in his tone. “Surely you will not harden your heart to her—will you, Mother?”
Yasammez shot him a look of venom unlike anything Utta had ever seen. If it had been directed at her, she felt sure she would have shriveled and burned like a dry leaf fallen into a fire. A stream of the sharp-edged yet strangely fluid speech rushed out of the woman in the black armor. Kayyin smiled, but it was the miserable smile of someone who had, with great effort, cut off his own nose to spite his face.
Death’s kinswoman swiveled around to stare at Utta and
Merolanna—this time, Utta could not meet her fierce gaze. “You come to me on a day when I have learned of the death of my treasured Gyir, when I have felt him die—the one who should have been my son instead of this changeling traitor. And with Gyir the Storm Lantern dead, the Pact of the Glass must be ended, because the Glass itself will never reach the House of the People.” The armored woman slammed her hand down on the arm of the rough chair and the wood snapped into flinders, but she did not seem to notice. “I will now wage war again on your people until the place you call Southmarch is mine, and if I must kill every sunlander man, woman, and child within its walls, I will do so without a qualm.” She stared again. Her anger faded and her expression hardened as though ice covered it. “It could be, though, that you will be more use to me as messengers, so I will not kill you yet. But speak no more to me of your child, sunlander bitch. I could not care if my people stole an entire litter of human whelps from you.” She waved. Several guards stepped forward and took possession of Utta and Merolanna, although the duchess seemed to have fainted. Utta could make no sense out of what was happening, only that they had stumbled into something more dreadful than her worst fears.
“It will be a joy to hear again the screams of your kind,” the monstrous woman said to Utta, then waved the prisoners away.
42. The Raven’s Friend
So it is that the true gods have reigned in peace ever since, thanks to Habbili and the wisdom of Nushash. After they die, those who bow their heads and do them homage will find themselves serving at the right hand of the mighty in the ultimate west. So say the prophets. So says the god of fire. It is truth, my children, it is true.
—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One
Briony’s male disguise, which had already been compromised by her stage costume representing the goddess Zoria, had not survived a search for weapons by the Syannese soldiers who had arrested her and the other players.
(Feival Ulian, who had left the stage as Zuriyal, wife of the rebel god black Zmeos, had also been led off to the palace in a gown. It was an open question as to which of them, he or Briony, felt more comfortably dressed.) Briony and Estir Makewell had been shoved into a room that wasn’t quite a dungeon cell, but was no chamber for honored guests, either: dank and windowless, it smelled of mold and sweat and urine, and contained no furniture but a single crude bench; the sound of the outside bar being lowered had a distressing thump of finality.
“Should have known there was more to you than a chance meeting,” Estir sneered. “That old mare Teodoros, up to his same old tricks. Did he bring you along to get into someone’s bed, then, winkle out secrets that way? Now we’re all for the headsman’s block, thanks to you two.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not a spy—I had nothing to do with any of this!”
“Oh, that’s likely.” Estir Makewell sat back with her arms folded across her dirty dress, but Briony could see that the woman was shaking with fear, and her own anger turned to something like pity.
“Truly, I knew nothing about this. I was running away from... from my home when I fell in with you.” Estir sniffed in an unconvinced manner. “What do you mean, same old tricks?” Briony asked. “Has he done something like this before?”
The woman glared at her. “Don’t pretend with me, girl. I saw you talking to that black fellow like he was an old friend— that Xixian. How would you know someone like that if you weren’t one of Finn’s coneys?”
Briony shook her head. At least Dawet had escaped, not that it would do Briony any good. “I know him a little, but it’s nothing to do with Finn. I had met him before, in Southmarch. But I swear on...on the honor of Zoria herself,” she thumped her fist against her chest, bleakly amused to be swearing on herself, or at least her costumed self, “that I knew nothing about any spying.” She suddenly looked at the closed door. “Do you think they’re listening?” she asked in a quieter voice. “Did we say anything we shouldn’t have?”
“What do you care if you’ve nothing to hide?” sniffed Estir, but she seemed a little less angry. “You’re right, though. We should keep our mouths closed. If that fat know-it-all’s got himself in trouble, it won’t be the first time. That’s all I’ll say, except to curse him for dragging us all into it this time.”
Briony looked at the walls, so damp they seemed to be sweating. They had trudged for the better part of an hour to reach this place, which she assumed must be in the royal palace, but they were several floors below the main body of the castle. I could disappear here very easily, she thought. Executed as a spy, and that would be the last of me. King Enander would be doing Hendon Tolly’s work for him without even knowing it. Unless they’re already in league...? It was hard to believe—Southmarch had never been a threat or even a real rival to Syan. What could Tolly offer to the more powerful Syannese monarchy except the uncomfortable possibility of dynastic upheavals? What king would would want to encourage that unless it benefited him personally?
But what had Finn Teodoros been up to? Was it a coincidence Dawet had come to the innyard?
Briony fell into a frowning, miserable silence, trying to understand what had happened and decide what she could do about it. Me, she thought, it’s down to me. Keep drifting or stand up. At last she went to the door of the room in which they were prisoned and rapped on it hard, with both hands.
“Tell your captain or whoever is in charge that I want to talk to him. I want to make a deal.”
“What are you doing, girl?” Estir demanded, but Briony ignored her.
After a moment the door swung open. Two guards stood in the doorway, only a little less bored than when they had thrown the two women into the room. “What do you want? Make it fast,” said one.
“I want to make a bargain. Tell your commanding officer that if you’ll bring me the man called Finn Teodoros and let me speak to him, I swear on the gods themselves that afterward I’ll tell you something that will make even the king of Syan sit up and take notice.”
Estir was watching her with her mouth open. “You traitorous bitch,” she said at last. “Trying to buy yourself out? You will get us all killed!”
“And take this woman out,” Briony said. “She knows nothing. Let her go or put her somewhere else, it makes no difference to me.”
The soldiers, actually interested now, exchanged a brief glance with each other, then closed the door and tramped away up the corridor.
“How dare you!” Estir Makewell said, striding forward to stand over her. Wearily, Briony stared up at her, hoping she wouldn’t have to fight the woman. “How dare you tell them what to do with me?”
Briony rolled her eyes, then grabbed the woman’s arm roughly, silencing her. “Stop—I’m trying to help you.” Estir stared at her, frightened. She had her mask on now, Briony realized, the Eddon mask that none of the players had seen. She made her voice hard. “If you keep your mouth shut, you and the others may walk away from this happy and healthy. If you cause a fuss, I can’t promise anything.”
Estir Makewell’s eyes grew wide at the change in Briony’s tone. She retreated to the other side of the room and stayed there until the guards came and led her out.
Finn Teodoros had some bruises around his eyes and a bleeding weal on his bald head. He gave Briony a shamefaced look as the guards led him in and sat him down on the bench beside her.
“Well, Tim, my young darling,” he said, “it seems as if your disguise has been penetrated by these crude folk from outside the theatrical fraternity.” He touched his swollen cheek and winced. “I swear I didn’t tell them.”
“They found out when they searched me. It doesn’t matter anyway.” Briony took a breath. The very fact that the guards had left the two of them alone in the room meant they were almost certainly listening to everything that was being said. “I need your help,” she told Teodoros. “I need you to tell me the truth.”
He gave her a look that contained a mixture of caution and amusement. “And who in this wretched old world can actually say
what that is, dear girl?”
She nodded, conceding the point. “As much truth as you know,” she said, then looked significantly around the room. “As much as you can tell.”
He sighed. “I am truly sorry you were caught up in this. I have tried to tell them that you had nothing to do with it.”
“Don’t worry about me. I am less innocent than you think, Finn. Just tell me one thing—were you working for Hendon Tolly?”
He stared at her, clearly calculating. “Tolly?”
“I may be able to protect you, but you must tell me the truth about that. I must know.”
“You, protect me? Girl, you are not Zoria in truth, you merely aped her on the boards!” He smiled, but it was little more than a fearful twitch. He swallowed, leaned close to her. “I... I do not know,” he said in a voice that was scarcely even a whisper. “I was given a...a task...by someone else. Someone high in the government of Southmarch.” She hazarded a guess. “Was it Lord Brone? Avin Brone?” His eyebrows rose. “How would you know of such things?”
“If I can save us, I will, and then you will learn more. Were you to meet with Dawet dan-Faar on Brone’s behalf? Drakava’s man?”
This time Finn Teodoros could say nothing, but in his surprise could only nod.
Briony stood up, walked to the door. “I wish to talk to the guard captain, please,” she called, “or anyone in authority. I have something to say that the king himself will want to know.”
This time there was a much longer wait before the door opened. Several guards came through, followed a moment later by a well-dressed man in the high collar of a court grandee. He had gray in his pointed beard, but did not otherwise seem very old, and he moved with the grace of a young man. He reminded her a little bit of Hendon Tolly, an unpleasant association. “Do not rise,” the noble said with perfectly pitched courtesy. “I am the Marquis of Athnia, the king’s secretary. I understand you believe you have something to say that is worth my listening. I’m sure it goes without saying that there is a very unpleasant penalty for wasting my time.”
