(Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay

by Tad Williams

  Olin sagged back onto his bench. “Forgive my behavior, but it seems I am to suffer one shock after another. It makes no sense. I am nothing to him.”

  “Think on it. I will send you what I can find of your family. As for your kingdom, I hear it is safe despite all these mad rumors of fairies. Your relatives the Tollys hold a regency as defenders of your infant child, or so I am told.” He looked suddenly stricken. “You did know you had a new son, King Olin, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.” He nodded heavily, like a man who can barely keep awake after a day’s exhausting labor. “Yes, I had a letter from my wife. Olin Alessandros, he will be named. Healthy, they say.”

  “Well, that is one small blessing, anyway.” Perivos Akuanis bowed his head. “Farewell, Olin. The gods grant we can talk again in days ahead.”

  Olin laughed sourly. “The gods? So you fear that Drakava will sell me to the autarch after all?”

  “No, I fear that the autarch will find a way over the walls and kill us all.” He made the sign of the Three, then sketched a mocking salute. “At which point, I will be home in Siris, waiting to die with my family, and you will be meeting your own fate. If it comes to that, the gods grant us good deaths.”

  “I would prefer that the gods help protect you and your family instead, Count Perivos. And mine.”

  The two men clasped hands before the Hierosoline nobleman went out.

  It was actually the middle of the afternoon before the first of the great guns had been assembled and mounted on its mighty carriage behind the walls of the captive fortress. The air was still putrid with the eggy stench of the sulfur, and Vash was just as glad he had only managed to nibble a bit of food here and there—some flat bread, a few olives, a single tangerine.

  “It is impressive, Ikelis, is it not?” The autarch smiled at the giant gun with the doting pride of a father.

  “Gunnery has never had a better tool,” said the Overseer of the Armies, looking sternly at Vash as though the paramount minister might dare to argue. “We will reach the citadel itself with that. We will send the dog Drakava scuttling.”

  “Oh, I will not waste this beautiful machine lobbing stones at Drakava,” Sulepis said. “May my sacred father himself protect Ludis Drakava—I do not want him dead! That might slow this entire venture down to a fatal degree.”

  “I’m afraid I do not understand, Golden One.” Johar’s latest look at Vash was a great deal more humble. He clearly did not have as much experience as the paramount minister at dealing with the autarch’s strange, sudden, and sometimes apparently mad changes of plan. “Surely you wish Hierosol to fall.”

  “Oh, yes, we are going to knock the walls down,” said the autarch. “We are going to knock them down so that we do not have to waste time on a siege.”

  “But, Golden One, I do not think even such missiles as those,”—Johar pointed to the huge, spherical stone being rolled up a ramp toward the cannon’s mouth by a dozen sweating slaves—“can punch through the walls of Hiersol. Those walls are two dozen yards thick, and the stonework is immaculate!”

  For the first time, the autarch’s smile vanished. “Do you think I am unaware of that, High Polemarch?”

  Like a man who has stepped one foot over the edge of a bottomless chasm, Ikelis Johar abruptly backtracked. “Of course, Golden One. You are the Living God on Earth. I am only a mortal and a fool. Instruct me.”

  “Someone ought to, clearly. We will fire the cannons at a single place on the wall until it collapses. Then we will land our troops and send them in.”

  “But…but trying to force through a single breach in those wide, wide walls? They will rain fire and arrows and burning oil on our soldiers. We will lose thousands of men in such an assault!” Johar was surprised enough to momentarily forget his own danger. “Tens and tens of thousands!”

  “My destiny—the world’s destiny—rides on my shoulder.” Sulepis’ pale eyes glinted, impossibly alert, impossibly lively. “These men are happy to live for their autarch, why should they not die for him happily, too? Either way, they will spend eternity in the golden glow of my father Nushash.” The autarch laughed, the musical trill of someone contemplating with absolute, amused indifference the murder of thousands. “Now, let us see our first Royal Crocodile sing for his supper, eh?”

  Johar, his brown face looking a touch more wan than usual, bowed several times as he backed away from the autarch’s chair and descended from the golden litter, then waved his arms and bellowed an order to his generals. The command was passed rapidly down the chain of command until the gunnery master bowed and ordered a last few creaks of the wheel, lifting the elevation of the snarling, reptilian muzzle. When he was satisfied, the gunnery master stood up straight, wiping at the sweat that covered his face on this chill day.

  “On the Master of the Great Tent’s word!” he bawled. “For the glory of Heaven and of eternal Xis!”

  The god-on-earth waved a languid hand. “You may set it off.”

  “Give it fire!” shouted the gunnery master. A shirtless man dropped the head of a flaming torch on the cannon’s touchhole.

  For a moment the gun was so silent that it seemed to have sucked all the noise out of the world. It was only as Vash realized that the waves were still murmuring in the strait and the gulls still keening overhead that the cannon went off.

  Some moments later the paramount minister of Xis scrambled up onto his knees, certain that he would never hear anything again: his head was buzzing like the hive of the fire god’s sacred bees. A pall of smoke hung in the air around them, slowly being fanned away by the wind. The cannon had rolled back several yards, crushing two unfortunate soldiers beneath it. The gunnery master was frowning at the bloody ruin beneath the wheels. “We’ll have to put sand underneath them, or chain them,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll have to roll it back each time and firing will take even longer.” It sounded to Vash’s throbbing ears as though he whispered the words from miles away.

  “It does not matter,” said the autarch, his voice almost as muffled. “Ah, it was beautiful to see. And look!” He pointed with his gauntleted hand.

  On the far side of the strait a chunk of pale rock the size of a palace door had been knocked out of Hierosol’s great seawall, leaving a darker spot like a wound. Atop the walls tiny soldiers scurried like startled ants, unable to believe in anything so powerful, unwilling to think anything could throw a stone so far, let alone actually chip the mighty, ancient defenses.

  “Ah, they hear us knocking on their door,” said the autarch, clapping his hands together in delight; Vash could barely hear the sound they made. “Soon we will come in and make ourselves at home!”

  A few moments later, and for the first time since the previous day, the bells of Hierosol began to ring again.

  34

  Through Immon’s Gate

  With his death, Silvergleam’s house fell. Whitefire and Judgment were banished into the same Unbeing to which old Twilight had been dispatched, and most of their servants slaughtered. Crooked only was kept alive because the children of Moisture coveted his arts. They tormented him first, cutting away his manhood so that he would never spread the seed of Breeze’s children, then they made him their slave.

  Even the victors did not sing of these deeds, but made false tales to hide their shame and grief. The truth could not be encompassed. The true story is called Kingdom of Tears.

  —from One Hundred Considerations

  out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

  THE MYSTERIOUS DARK-HAIRED GIRL had not appeared to him in days. His hours in the cell were long and empty, he was still angry with Vansen, Gyir had shown no evidence of having come up with the promised plan of escape (nor done much at all except sit in oblique silence), and Barrick was desperate for something to distract him from his own discomfort and dread, so he brooded about her.

  He had even begun to wonder if she might have been a herald of his own death—whether, despite all her words about courage and resistance, her presence a
ctually meant he was nearing the end of his life. Perhaps she was some daughter of Kernios, awakened or summoned by the nearness of the monstrous gate. Barrick didn’t know whether Kernios had a daughter—he had never been able to keep up with Father Timoid’s endless recitations of the lineages of gods, even if his family claimed relationship to one—but it seemed possible.

  Still, if the dark-haired girl was an emissary of the ultimate, he was not as afraid of dying as he had thought he would be. This Death had a kind, clever face. But so young! Younger than he was, certainly. Then again, if she was a goddess, how she appeared meant little—after all, the gods could become whatever they wanted, trees or stars or beasts of the field.

  But what was the use of wondering, in any case? Day after day of throbbing pain in his head and blurred thoughts, night after night of frightening visions—Barrick was not even quite certain of what was real anymore. Why had he been chosen for this particular torment? Not fair. Not fair.

  Push against it. He heard her voice again, but only in memory. Escape it. Change it.

  What had Gyir told him? You are only a prisoner when you surrender. Even steadfast, stolid Vansen seemed to reproach Barrick for his weakness—everyone else was so cursedly certain about things they didn’t have to suffer.

  Barrick opened his eyes a little. Vansen was sleeping next to him, the soldier’s thin face now softened by a beard which obscured but could not completely hide the hollowness of his cheeks. Though they drained every drop of the swill Jikuyin’s guards gave them, they were all slowly wasting away. Barrick had been slender to begin with, but now he could watch each bone sliding and moving beneath his skin, see the deformity of his shattered arm in more detail than he had ever wanted.

  For a moment, then, his eyes half shut, he could almost see King Olin’s features hovering before him instead of Vansen’s.

  I hope you’re happy, Father. You were so ashamed of what you did to me that you couldn’t even speak of it. Soon I’ll be dead and you’ll never have to see me again.

  But was it really all his father’s fault? It was the curse, after all, a poison in the Eddon blood they shared, and even his father’s blood was not as corrupted as Barrick’s. For proof, he need look no farther than the days and nights just passed: when Olin had escaped the castle his own curse had become less—his letters had all but said so. Barrick, though, was in the grip of even worse fevers of madness than he had experienced at home.

  He shut his eyes tight but sleep would not come. A quiet shuffling noise made him open them again. The latest shift of prisoners had just come back from their labors and one of the apish guards was coming right toward their cell. Gyir, who had been propped in a corner of the stony cell with his chin against his chest, slowly looked up. Barrick’s heart raced—what could the guard want? Had the time come for the blood sacrifice Gyir had feared?

  The creature stopped in front of the grille, cutting off most of the outside light. Gyir moved toward the door, but with a swift, easy grace that took a little of the edge off Barrick’s fear: he had learned to read the fairy’s movements a bit, and what they said now was not danger but only caution.

  The beastlike guard stood in silence, its face pressed against the bars. Nothing visible passed between the guard and Gyir, but after a dozen or so heartbeats the shaggy creature shook itself and then turned away, a puzzled, perhaps even frightened expression on its inhuman face.

  During the course of the following hours and days, many more guards and more than a few returning prisoners enacted a similar ritual as Barrick watched with fascination. He couldn’t help wondering what this had to do with the Storm Lantern’s talk of gun-flour, since there was none of the black powder to be seen. Instead, it was like watching the Bronzes ceremony at the Southmarch court, when the leading nobles of the March Kingdoms came and laid their weapons at the feet of the king sitting in the Wolf’s Chair and each of their names was marked on a bronze tablet which was then blessed and then laid into the vault at the great Trigonate temple. But the beasts of Greatdeeps were bringing the fairy nothing that Barrick could see, nor were they taking anything away.

  He realized that almost a year had come and gone since King Olin had performed the Bronzes ceremony before leaving on his ill-fated voyage. He wondered if Briony would take the fealty of the Marchwardens this year, and was suddenly filled with a homesickness so powerful it almost made him burst out sobbing. It was followed by a wave of loathing at his own helplessness, his own uselessness.

  Look at me! I lie here like a child, doing nothing, waiting for death. And what is my death? A warrior’s death? A king’s death, or even a prince’s death? No, it takes the form of a girl, a doe-eyed girl full of sympathy, and I wait for her like some smitten bard, some…poet. Then, the thought burning like fire in his guts: And even she thinks that I have given up—that I am a coward.

  Barrick dragged himself upright, ignoring the sharp pain in his arm, which was always worst the first time he bent it after having been asleep. He made his way over to Gyir and sat down beside him. The fairy, whose eyes had been closed as if in sleep since the last visitor or tributary had shuffled away, opened them to fix Barrick with the banked fire of his gaze.

  You do not need to sit near me to talk. I could speak to you from the House of the People, almost. You grow stronger every day.

  Why are those guards and other creatures coming to you? he asked.

  I am schooling them in what I need, Gyir told him. I do not want to say more, since we will risk all on this throw.

  Barrick sat quiet for a while, thinking. Why is all of this happening now? he finally asked. Not what I was just asking about, but…everything.

  Narrow your question, please.

  Everything that hasn’t happened before, or at least not for hundreds of years—the Shadowline moving, your people attacking Southmarch and warring against my people. And this demigod Jack Chain, or whatever he is, digging up the palace of Kernios. You can’t pretend those sorts of things happen all the time.

  Gyir let out the gust of bitter amusement that Barrick had come to recognize as a laugh. Your people and my people at each other’s throats is not so unusual. You slaughtered us for years. And, to be fair, we have attacked you twice since then.

  You know what I mean.

  Gyir stared at him, then nodded. Yes, I do. There are things I cannot tell you even though circumstances make us allies—promises I have made to others and oaths I have sworn. But here are some things I can tell, and should. Your companion must hear this, too. The fairy paused. Barrick turned and watched Ferras Vansen slowly push himself into an upright position, woken by the Storm Lantern’s silent call.

  Our time is short, Gyir said. You both must listen well. He spread his pale fingers. There are two ways other than experience that wisdom comes to the People. One is the gift of the Fireflower—this made a an idea in Barrick’s mind he could barely contain, something that was as large and complicated as anything Gyir had ever said—and the other is the Deep Library.

  In the most hidden places within the House of the People, the wisdom of our oldest days remains mostly in the form of the Preserved and their Voices—that is the Deep Library. These Voices speak the wisdom of the Preserved and thus are the People taught and reminded. Gyir’s thoughts were rhythmic, almost singsong, as though he passed on a story that he had learned in childhood. These Voices, along with the wisdom of the Fireflower, which is sometimes called the Gift, are what lifts the High Ones above the rest of the People and what has brought us dominion over our lands and songs.

  You have heard that the gods have been banished from this world into the realms of sleep. That was the work of the god we call Crooked, and about that mystery I can say little, but it is the foundation of all that comes afterward. The place where those events burned brightest, and where they still smolder thousands of years later, is at the place we name Godsfall—the place your people call Southmarch. Yes, Prince Barrick, your home.

  Barrick stared at him, confuse
d. Was the fairy trying to say that the gods had lived in Southmarch? Or died there? It was so bizarre a thought that for a moment he feared he was dreaming again.

  Only a few years ago, Gyir continued, the Voices began to warn us that the slumber of the gods in their exile had grown very shallow, very fragile. Just as the moon may pull on the earthly tides when he swings close, creating perturbations in the blood of those most sensitive, so the gods, even in sleep, are closer to us now than they have been since they were driven from the waking lands. Gyir paused to listen to something Vansen asked. No, I cannot say more about it now. It is enough to know the gods were driven out of the waking lands, that for a long time they have been gone, almost as though they were dead.

  But now the gods loom close, pushing into the minds and dreams of both your people and mine, and in countless other ways as well. That would be grim enough—dangerous too, because even in their eternal sleep the gods can still make mischief both small and great, and they ache to have back what was theirs. But by a grave chance, this ominous hour has arrived when another terrible thing was already happening to the High Ones of my folk, a thing that has plunged all of the House of the People into terror and mourning. Our Queen Saqri, the Mistress of the Ancient Song, is dying.

  Barrick had never seen the fairy show much in the way of emotion, but it was obvious from the pain in his thoughts that what he was saying struck him to his core.

  The High Ones, Gyir went on at last, at least those in the Line of the Fireflower, do not die as mortals die. We can all of us meet a violent end, and we are prey to illnesses and accidents just as you sunlanders are, but those of our highest house like Saqri and Ynnir are not like the rest of living things, either in their mortality or their immortality. That is all I can tell you. No, I hear your questions but it is not my secret to share with your kind. I have not the right.