Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  I fear that though my search has begun here in Kwanitupul, the trail is too cold to follow to any good effect. To be honest, my dear friend and mentor, I am not even certain I will be able to send this letter to you until we are back in more civilized lands where I might find a post that can reach the High Throne in Erchester.

  Kwanitupul is the strangest place I have ever seen, although I am sure I can tell you nothing of it you do not already know. The people are the most perfect mix of so many different races, Wran-men and Nabbanai and islanders from farther south, and they dress in every sort of clothing that can be imagined, many in hats meant to keep off the fierce sun. These hats are wide, strange things like grain baskets, woven from reeds and decorated with feathers and even serpent skins. All these people live together in what seems to be a harmonious agreement to leave each other alone and instead bleed every possible coin from travelers. Between Madi’s thieving children and the Kwanitupulians—or is it Kwanitupulis?—I have already gone through far more of my money than I should have. I dread to think what will happen when Madi is set loose in the fleshpots of Nabban and Perdruin. I concede that his command of local dialects and his knowledge of the places we have traveled have both been very useful to my mission, but he and his family have worried me almost into despair.

  A last thought before I go out and try to find a ship bound for Erkynland to carry this message to you, my lord. I have carefully read the letters that you gave me from Prince Josua, and in the last one he said that he was sending to Lady Faiera in Perdruin to learn what she could tell him of “certain aetherial whispers.” Do you think he was speaking of the thing we both know but that I will not name here? Is that possible, or is the cursed thing preying on my thoughts? I ask you with hope you will tell me if my speculations are too fevered. That thing and our discussions of it are much on my mind. Am I seeing enemies and specters in every shadow?

  * * *

  Tiamak folded Etan’s letter carefully and slid it under the belt of his robe. He was distracted at the moment and would have to read it again later, but it certainly seemed as though Those Who Watch And Shape, the shadowy powers that ruled his people’s lives, were trying to tell him that he could not keep Fortis’ dreadful book secret from the king any longer. The box he had found hidden in John Josua’s library only made that more clear.

  It was, however, something he most decidedly did not want to do.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Please, Majesty, try not to be too angry—”

  “Angry? I am far more than just angry, I am furious!” Simon was red-faced and wide-eyed, disturbed in a way Tiamak had not seen. Not even Thomas Oystercatcher had ever angered him so. “You discovered that my son had one of the most feared books in Aedondom—a book that belonged to Pryrates himself! How could you dare to keep this from us?”

  A host of explanations rose to Tiamak’s lips, but he kept his mouth closed and instead, carefully lowered himself to his knees on the retiring room’s hard stone floor.

  “What are you doing?” The king’s anger was muddied now by another kind of discomfort. “Get up, for the love of Usires, or at least kneel on the carpet. I’m not a tyrant! But I am angry—and I have every right to be!”

  “Yes, you do, sire.” But Tiamak stubbornly remained kneeling. “And I beg pardon from the bottom of my heart. I made a decision that I thought was in the High Throne’s best interest—in your best interest, Simon. I regret it now.”

  “What are you talking about, my best interest?” The king’s temper was fiery, but seldom lasted long, although nothing seemed sure when the subject was his dead son, John Josua. He and Miriamele were both still in terrible pain, even all these years later. “How could you even think not telling me about this book was in my interests?” His scowl was profound. “God’s Bloody Tree, man, get up off the floor and talk to me, will you?”

  Tiamak did, although slowly and with a calculated show of discomfort. He hated to remind Simon of his infirmities—he didn’t like being pitied any more than the king did—but some situations called for every resource. Once Tiamak was perched on a stool they sat in silence for a moment.

  “Look at yourself, please, Simon,” he said at last. “You are trembling—almost weeping with rage. That is why I did not tell you about the book before. I did not know what it signified, and I did not wish to cause you and the queen heartache until I could learn more. Not because I was trying to deceive you, or make my own work easier, but because you are my friends.”

  Simon stared for a long moment, brows pulled low as though he suspected a trick. At last he sat back and slapped his hand hard on the chair’s arm. “I always want to know, Tiamak.” His voice was still full of fury, but it was layered with other sadness now. “God save me, John Josua was all we had.”

  “I know. And keeping anything about him from you and the queen made me sick inside. But it was precisely because I did not want to plunge you into grief again that I kept my discovery of the Aetheric Whispers from you. That is the burden of any king’s counselor, Simon—deciding what to tell and what not to tell, what burdens to add to those you already carry and which to keep to myself.” He held out the box. “But now there is more, and I dared not keep it secret any longer.”

  Simon took it gingerly, as if it held some venomous beast. “Is this something that also belonged to Pryrates?”

  “Don’t you recognize it?”

  Simon stared at the carved and inlaid cover, rubbing his finger over the cloaking dust and grit. “Yes, God love me, I think I do. Miri gave it to our son when he was getting his first beard. It held a razor, a whetstone, scented unguents, a piece of sponge-rock from the south for rubbing away whiskers, things of that sort. He must have liked it—he was clean shaven until the last years . . .” He trailed off, eyes suddenly overspilling.

  He Who Always Steps On Sand, Tiamak thought, keep my own feet on a safe track, because far more than this good man’s feelings are at stake. “Open it, please. But do not touch anything, I beg you.”

  Simon tipped up the lid, then stared at the contents. “What is this? Broken rubbish, it looks like.”

  “I believe they are Sithi things your son found in the depths beneath the castle.”

  “Under the castle?” The king looked stunned. “When would he have been there?”

  “I don’t know. But remember how much of this place you explored when you were young, and you did not have a prince’s privileges of movement. And where else would he have found all these things?” He pointed out the strange, big-eyed faces on some of the bits of carved stone in the box. “These look like the Dwarrows or Dvernings who supposedly built the castle Asu’a for their immortal masters,” he said. “And the silver bells or beads and the other objects also have the look of Sithi-make. But it is this little, harmless-looking thing that worries me most.” He reached in, using the fold of his sleeve to pick up the broken frame and hold it where the king could see. “I think this might have been a Sithi mirror, though the glass is no longer in it. And not just any mirror but a Witness, as they call it. You carried one for a time, Simon, so you know what they can do—”

  “Good God. Good God!” Simon made the sign of the Tree. “Do you think John Josua tried to use such a thing? Could that have . . . ?” He bunched his hands into fists and pressed them against his temples. “I cannot tell Miri this about our son. She will be horrified—heartbroken!”

  “It is far too early to even guess at anything of the sort, Simon, but this is why I felt I had to tell you now. It is exactly the sort of thing of which the Aetheric Whispers speaks.”

  “That foul book! Pryrates’ book!” The king had reddened again and was tugging at his beard as though he meant to pull it out by the roots. “Curse that wretched sorcerer! And curse King Elias for bringing him here! The book must have come from the priest’s bloody tower somehow. We should have pulled the whole cursed thing down af
ter the war ended, stone by stone, and seeded the ground with salt!” He sat up straight. “Well, I will do it now! I will have the damnable thing destroyed!”

  “But the dilemma has not changed, Simon,” Tiamak reminded him. “If we pull down Hjeldin’s Tower and expose the tunnels beneath it—tunnels that run beneath all of the Hayholt—who knows what kind of things the red priest captured and imprisoned there might be set free? Who knows what poisons he made or found? What kind of terrible spells?” He shook his head. “This castle may be our home and the seat of the High Throne, but it stands on the ruins of the Sithi’s greatest palace. It is a strange, haunted place beneath the cellars, and nothing so dangerous as pulling down the tower can be done without much care and thought.”

  Simon’s knuckles had gone white where he clutched the chair arms. “I don’t want to hear about ‘care and thought.’ Care and thought may have killed my son!”

  Before Tiamak could reply, the door to the retiring room opened, and a herald and a guard stepped in. And before she could be announced Lady Thelía pushed past them and hurried toward the king and Tiamak. She did not even make a courtesy, but said, “I beg pardon, Majesty, but a messenger has come for my husband saying that there is a dead man in the gatehouse and that he carried a message saying the prince’s company was attacked.”

  “The prince’s company?” said Simon in confusion. “My grandson?”

  As soon as he had seen the look on his wife’s face, Tiamak got to his feet. “Is he safe?” he asked. “Is Prince Morgan safe?”

  “I could make little sense of any of it,” she admitted. “But the messenger also said that Duke Osric has lost his wits.”

  His leg still in pain from kneeling, Tiamak took his wife’s arm and hobbled after Simon, who had already reached the door.

  * * *

  Osric stood just outside the doorway of the gatehouse, howling like a wolf. “They’ve killed him! The savages have killed him!”

  “For God’s sake, take him in hand,” Simon told Sir Kenrick. He felt as if his own sanity was being held together by something thinner than cobwebs. “Even if the worst has happened . . .” For a moment he could not speak, but he swallowed and tried again. “No matter what has happened, we cannot have the Lord Constable shouting like a madman in view of everyone. It will terrify the people.”

  “It looks as though people already know, Majesty.” Kenrick gestured toward the crowd on the Erchester side of the gate, dozens of pale, worried faces turned toward the gatehouse. Rather than reassuring them, the arrival of the king seemed to have made them even more frightened; some began shouting to Simon, asking what had happened. He forced his way into the gatehouse, elbowing past guards who stood in the doorway like uneasy cattle. Tiamak and his wife followed, letting tall Simon clear the way.

  Half a dozen more guardsmen and a barber-surgeon had gathered around a man lying on one of the tables where the guardsmen shared their meals. Thelía and Tiamak stood beside Simon to look at the dead man. Thelía let out a sigh of pity.

  The young soldier wore the tattered, stained surcoat of an Erkynguard, although the white dragon on one side of the Holy Tree was so drenched in blood that the two beasts on the insignia had become scarlet twins.

  “I fear it’s too late, Your Majesty,” the barber-surgeon said as Tiamak stepped forward to feel the man’s wrists and throat for a heartbeat. “You can see he’s shed too much blood. He must have ridden miles with that wound.”

  “Yes, the poor fellow is dead.” Tiamak looked around at the gaping soldiers. “Who here found him?” he demanded. “Did he speak?” For a moment no one answered.

  “God blast you all to the depths!” Simon shouted. In his fright, it was all he could do not to strike out at the useless, fearful faces around him. “You heard Lord Tiamak—answer! Who found this man?”

  “He . . . he rode into Erchester,” said a soldier, one of a trio who wore the blue and white of the City Guard. He spoke hesitantly, as though he might be accused of the murder himself. “People saw that he was hurt and called to him but he would not stop. He made it all the way down Main Row to the square before he collapsed. We brought him here. We are sorry, Majesty. We tried to help him.”

  “Did he speak at all?” Tiamak asked again. “What did he say?”

  “He could hardly talk,” said the soldier. “As we carried him, he told us his company had been attacked by Thrithings clansmen—by grasslanders. That they were taken by surprise, and the Erkynguards were slaughtered almost to a man.”

  “Are you sure that’s what he said?” Simon’s heart beat so fast and his head felt so hollow, he thought he might topple over like a felled tree. “Curse you, Osric, stop your shouting, I cannot hear the man!” He turned to the soldier who had spoken, and must have looked fearsome indeed because the man shrank away from his king like a terrified child. “Tell us, damn it!”

  Simon was about to shout at Captain Kenrick to drag the duke out of the guardhouse if necessary, but realized Kenrick was beside him now, staring at the pale face of the dead man.

  “I know him, Majesty,” the guard captain said heavily. “That is Ordwine of Westworth. He went out as part of the company with Prince Morgan and the lord steward, Count Eolair.”

  “God save us all,” Simon said quietly. He felt fevered, his head scalding hot while a frozen lump inside his chest grew more and more heavy by the moment. All he could think, over and over, was that Miriamele would blame him, and she would be right to do it. “What have I done? Sir Kenrick, please remove everyone but those who brought the man here.”

  Tiamak turned to the barber-surgeon. “Help me get his mail shirt off.” Simon’s long-serving advisor, at least, was not giving in to the helpless terror that seemed to have gripped almost everyone else.

  Simon was desperate to do something, to make something happen, but not even a king could bring a man back once the life was out of him. He could only wait and pray that a mistake had been made. So pray he did, but it felt no more useful than a child’s wall of sand raised in front of an incoming tide.

  With the help of the surgeon and another soldier, Tiamak wrestled the shirt and mail off the dead man. When the corselet came off, Ordwine’s head fell back and hit the table with a terrible, harsh crack. A few of the remaining soldiers cursed at this indignity, but Ordwine was beyond suffering. Tiamak peeled away the bloody arming-shirt beneath to reveal a huge, ragged hole in the man’s chest close to his right arm.

  “What use is all this?” Osric had slipped into the chamber while Kenrick was clearing out the other unwanted watchers. The duke sounded bewildered now, and for a moment Simon’s anger at him cooled a little. “The Thrithings barbarians have killed my grandson,” he said, but then his voice rose again to a shout of despair. “We should have burned them out years ago. Oh, God, merciful God!”

  “Kenrick, take some soldiers and get the lord constable out of this place. If he argues, tell him it is my royal order. Get some strong drink into him until he quiets, then take him back to his chambers and keep him there until I say otherwise. By the saints, tie him to the bed if you have to. And do not let Duchess Nelda talk you out of doing what you must.” He wished he too could leave, but he needed to be strong now—strong for Miri, strong for everyone else who needed him to be the king, no matter the horror and grief that threatened almost to stop his heart. He had never felt more alone than he did at that moment.

  Tiamak was testing the wound with his fingers, but stopped to roll back his sleeves, though the cuffs were already soaked in blood. Lady Thelía stood beside him, gathering bits of tattered shirt as Tiamak plucked them from the wound, and though she was clearly troubled, her face was nearly as composed as her husband’s.

  “Made by an arrow, that is my guess,” Tiamak said, probing again. “The wound is too small for a spear or even a sword. But the hole has been torn outward. Ordwine pulled it out himself, if I am any judge, so that h
e could keep riding.” He nodded slowly. “Poor, brave man.” He turned to the Erchester town guards. “We are still waiting for an answer. Think very carefully. What did he say to you?”

  “That they had been surprised by clansmen, my lord,” said the soldier who had spoken earlier. “That the Erkynguard had been slaughtered almost to a man—that was his word, ‘slaughtered’—that only a few had survived—”

  “So some of them lived?” Simon felt a surge of hope, though he knew it was foolish.

  “I think another guard accompanied him, bringing the message,” volunteered one of the other city guardsmen. “When we first picked him up from where he fell, he said, ‘They caught up with us.’ And he said someone else was dead. Firman! I remember. ‘They caught up with us,’ he said. ‘They killed Firman.’”

  “Firman—he was with the prince’s company too,” said the first guardsman. “Firman Ostler’s Son, that’s what everyone called him.”

  Tiamak finished examining the wound and began to search for other injuries. “You said he rode through the town. Someone find the horse and bring it here.”