Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  He remembered the feeling of her cool hands on his cheeks and how she had looked bathing in the river, long, lean legs and back, and wet, shining skin. He felt himself swelling and wanted to move closer still. One of his arms was draped over her, and as he nuzzled her neck and the back of her head, he slid his hand upward to cup the gentle swell of her breast.

  An instant later he was on his back, his hand and wrist burning like they were on fire. Tanahaya was crouched over him, her face frighteningly intent in the dim light of the embers. She had bent his fingers back until it seemed they must break.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. Even in his agony, he thought it was the calmest any female had ever sounded when she asked him that question.

  “I . . . I was . . . I just . . . I thought . . .” Morgan was so surprised by the sudden change of fortune, so unready to answer questions, that he could only burble like a half-wit. “I mean, I didn’t . . .”

  The hard look on her face softened a little, and she let go of his hand. He rolled out from under her and sat up, rubbing his wrist until the throbbing began to ease a little. “You must have had a dream,” she said. “You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

  From the way she said it, she was plainly offering him a chance to save face. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Yes,” she said. “That must be it. No undue liberties intended, but only the confusion that sometimes comes with dreams. Let us lie down again. Perhaps it would be better this time for you to lie with your back to me.”

  Morgan did as he was told. He still was not sure how she had grabbed and bent his hand so quickly, then rolled away and wound up on top of him—it seemed almost like a conjuring trick. He felt her move closer to him. Her warmth was a mixed blessing.

  “There,” she said. “Are you comfortable? Can you go back to sleep again?”

  “I’m certain,” he lied.

  “Good. Then take your rest. You will need it—we still have far to go tomorrow. But perhaps you should not dream of mortal women while I am trying to keep you warm.”

  “I’ll . . . I’ll do my best not to.”

  “Because in any case, I already have a lover.”

  Shamed and frustrated, Morgan spent a long time pondering what had just happened, as well as her last statement, before he could finally fall back into sleep.

  35

  Colors Too Bright

  Do not look to war for wisdom,

  * * *

  • • •

  the poet had written,

  Death comes to all; seeing more of it brings nothing

  But surfeit and sadness.

  The sounds too loud, the colors too bright to carry meaning

  And sudden death as pointless a lesson

  As the rap of an inkstone across the knuckles

  Of a dull student.

  No, my child,

  Do not look to war for wisdom.

  Shun’y’asu’s infamous, forbidden lines were as hard to ignore as the stink of death that surrounded them now. Viyeki could only look around him and wonder why he felt no gladness in victory, and why the words of a poem that his masters called treasonous resounded in his head.

  Only a short time ago, half a Great Year, the War of Return had ended in failure and humiliation for Viyeki’s people. He and his master Yaarike had made their way back to Nakkiga from the mortal lands in the south, harried by vengeful Northmen all the way, a struggle that had ended only when the face of the mountain fell, ending the mortals’ siege and burying the great city gate. During that flight and the many skirmishes along the way Viyeki had felt, if not joy, at least a sort of triumph each time the Hikeda’ya had beat back their persecutors. He had rejoiced at every dead mortal as a threat destroyed. But the destruction of Naglimund felt different. During the retreat, the Hikeda’ya had been defending themselves and trying to return home. But the mortals had not come anywhere near Hikeda’ya lands since then: the attack on this mortal fortress was an act of aggression, pure and simple, and Viyeki, though he would never voice his concerns aloud, thought it was both dangerous and foolish for his beleaguered people to anger the mortals again.

  He and Pratiki made their way down the hill with the prince-templar’s troop of soldiers, steering their horses through the front gate of what had once been a formidable fortress but was now little more than toppled walls and scorched ruins. Viyeki had left his own household guards behind—what was the need when he rode with Pratiki and a half-hundred Hamakha guardsmen? The mortal corpses that lay on all sides, splayed in the gaps in the broken walls or scattered in unrecognizable heaps at the bases of the burned towers, certainly offered little threat.

  General Kikiti was waiting on his horse inside the gate, clad in his dress armor, the witchwood polished so that even in twilight it gleamed. Behind him a half-company of Sacrifices stood in perfect order.

  “Well done, General.” Pratiki might have been congratulating him on a well-laid table or a well-planned entertainment. “What were our losses?”

  “Less than a score of Sacrifices, Highness, and some of those are only wounded and will recover. Most of those came because one of the giants was hit in the eye with an arrow and could not be controlled. But all the mortal soldiers and most of the men from the town have been killed—more than four hundred in all. The Garden was good to us.”

  “Indeed,” said Pratiki. “Your Sacrifices have done well. The Mother of All will be pleased. I will be certain she hears of how well you and your order have done here.”

  “That is kind, Highness, though I do not deserve praise for something the queen herself planned and ordered. It is she who should be exalted.”

  Pratiki nodded. “You may tell her so yourself. Soon she will be here.”

  Kikiti was clearly caught by surprise, as was Viyeki, who for a long moment thought he had misheard. “The Mother of All comes here, Serenity?” The look on the general’s face was something close to worshipful. “Is that true?”

  “This was not an idle blow against the mortals,” Pratiki said. “And when High Magister Viyeki finishes his work and the queen comes, the War of Return can finally be won.”

  Viyeki had known he had an important role to play, but he had thought he was merely retrieving an artifact to be taken back to Nakkiga. Never for a moment had he thought that the queen would actually leave the mountain and come to this far-off place. Utuk’ku had not left their mountain stronghold during his entire lifetime. “I . . . I am astonished by this honor,” he said weakly. It now seemed all too plain that he would not be seeing Tzoja or his home again for some time, and that thought troubled him more deeply than he would have guessed. “May I ask when the Mother of the People will arrive?”

  “Only she knows, High Magister,” said Pratiki, but without rancor. “Now, General Kikiti, will you show us the rest of what your Sacrifices have won for us?”

  They rode through the outer keep. Sacrifices and low-caste slaves were still dragging mortal bodies away. Instead of being burned, these were thrown into a vast pit in the shadow of the southern outwall.

  “I am glad to see you received my message,” said Pratiki. “Burning the bodies of the mortals would create even more smoke and increase the speed with which our presence here is discovered. I do not fear any mortal army, but I would not choose another fight before the queen arrives with more of our folk.”

  “Just as well, Highness,” said Kikiti. “The creatures smell even more foul when they are burning.”

  “And you have been careful to see that none escaped?”

  Kikiti hesitated so briefly that it was almost unnoticeable, but Viyeki felt sure the prince-templar saw it. “We think so, but we are still collecting reports. We lost a few Sacrifices on the far side of the castle, and we still do not know all that happened there. A borer was killed by a collapsing wall, along with several of its handler
s.”

  Pratiki seemed only a little interested. “But you have sent patrols onto the hillside and into the forest? We do not want refugees bearing tales.”

  As they rode toward the ruined gate of the inner keep, a scream slashed the air and a body came plummeting down from above, waving its arms and kicking its legs, to land on the stones at the base of the guard tower with a noise like a dropped egg. Moments later another mortal prisoner was flung off the battlements. This one did not make a sound falling, but the body striking the ground was just as loud.

  “Soon there will be none left to bear tales,” said Kikiti with a certain amused satisfaction. “But you look unhappy, Magister Viyeki. Does it disturb you to see our enemies—those who stole our land—being given the punishment they deserve? In fact, some might say we are too lenient, their deaths too swift, but we must put efficiency in front of our own pleasures. Do you not agree, Prince-Templar?”

  Pratiki smiled absently. He did not appear to mind the screams and the thump of bodies, but he did not seem to relish the sight either. “They are our blood enemies. Given the chance, they would murder the queen and all our folk. There is nothing more to say.”

  As they rode through the charred remains of the gate, Viyeki saw that those flinging mortals out of the tower were not the only ones dispatching prisoners. A squadron of Night Moth Sacrifices had gathered on the front steps of the mortal church—at least that was what Viyeki thought it by its architecture, though the mortal’s Tree symbol had been ripped from its high-peaked roof. The Night Moths, one of the fiercest of the Sacrifice legions, had assembled a crowd of mortal prisoners, not soldiers but women, children, and men too old to have been active defenders of the fort. These prisoners were being taken one at a time to the front of the landing atop the broad staircase, shoved onto their knees, then a Night Moth would step up and cut off the prisoner’s head. As Viyeki watched, a woman was forced to the ground, moaning and weeping, and then beheaded. Her head rolled and bounced down the stairs, long hair flailing, until it reached the bottom and came to a stop in the midst of many others. The Sacrifices laughed and talked in quiet voices. Some of them exchanged coins with each other, and Viyeki suddenly realized they were making wagers. He had to close his eyes for a moment as a feeling he did not entirely recognize washed over him. He covered for the failure of nerve by pretending to cough.

  They swept past the stairway and rode on toward the main residence, headed for the side of the fortress closest to the hill that towered above Naglimund. Here and there other Sacrifices were dispatching prisoners of their own, but in a more leisurely way, taking a limb off and watching the bleeding creatures as they struggled to escape, then taking off another, trying different combinations.

  “Surely that is not a very efficient method,” said Pratiki, and for the first time Viyeki thought he heard something like displeasure in the prince-templar’s voice.

  “No, Highness, it is not. But those Sacrifices are no longer on duty. They are merely amusing themselves. Do not fear, we have already selected the females we will send back to Nakkiga for the slave pens.”

  Pratiki nodded slowly, displaying no obvious emotion. “Ah. Of course.”

  Viyeki found himself disturbed by the casual torture. They are our enemies, he reminded himself. Given the chance, they would murder our queen and destroy our entire race. Pity has no place when mortals are involved. But his disquiet was not so easily allayed.

  Several of the largest buildings in the heart of the keep had been smashed to rubble. A few mortal corpses still lay on the ground, a few in armor, most wearing ordinary clothing. But these too were being dragged away by black-armored Hikeda’ya. Many of the corpses were female. Some were children. Even those that were man-sized and clad in battle gear seemed shrunken by death, less like dangerous enemies and more like the frozen birds that sometimes tumbled out of the sky around Nakkiga during a sudden winter storm.

  More of Shun’y’asu’s words came back to him:

  I must kill you before you kill me. That is truth.

  And you must kill me, or else I will be your death.

  Like scorpions in a crystal jar, for one to live the other must die—

  But who made the jar?

  And who put us in it?

  It was said that those lines alone had been enough for the Maze Palace to ban the great writer’s books. Soon afterward, Shun’y’asu himself disappeared. Some claimed the poet had left Nakkiga to find the better world of which he had so often written.

  Viyeki thought that might be true, but not in the way that most believers meant it.

  As the prince-templar’s company turned toward the far side of the residence, Viyeki saw for the first time the tumbled outer wall and the immense bulk of a single dead borer, half-covered by the stones of a collapsed guard tower. A cluster of dark shapes crouched beside it, and for a moment Viyeki thought they had disturbed carrion-eaters feasting on the dead, some sort of huge kites or vultures native to these unfamiliar lands. Then one of the dark shapes straightened and looked to the approaching riders. Even with the dark crimson hood covering her face, Viyeki recognized Sogeyu, the leader of the Singers. She waited for their arrival with the stillness of a serpent watching an unwitting animal approach its den.

  When they were only a few dozen paces away, Viyeki abruptly felt the air change. It seemed thicker now, and tasted of lightning. His skin prickled and the hairs on his neck stiffened.

  Prince Pratiki noticed it as well and reined up his horse. “What Song is this I smell? Should we continue to approach, Kikiti?”

  “Host Singer Sogeyu told us that they have found what we sought,” the general said. “She expects us.”

  Sogeyu detached herself from her Singers and came to greet the prince-templar. She seemed almost to glide, as though her feet did not touch the torn and bloodied ground. “Hail, Prince-Templar, blood of our great mother,” she said, dropping to one knee. “May the Hamakha live forever. May the serpent always guard us.”

  Pratiki nodded. “I thank you for your greeting, Host Singer Sogeyu. General Kikiti tells me that you have succeeded at your task.”

  Sogeyu pulled back her hood. Her face and shaven head were covered with small, precise brown runes that Viyeki guessed had been painted in dried blood. “We have, Serenity. I see the High Magister of the Builders is with you.” She nodded to Viyeki and made a sign of fealty, but he thought he saw something other than welcome in her eyes. “This is good, because we have found Ruyan’s tomb.”

  Viyeki did his best to banish all the unsettling things he had seen from his thoughts. “Is it in the spot your Singers are kneeling?” The ground here was hard-packed, but the frosts were at least a month away and the rain now falling would soften the earth. It should not be a difficult or lengthy task to dig.

  Sogeyu shook her head. “No, Magister Viyeki, not precisely. In fact the tomb is deep below the stone building there and encased in even more stone. Basalt blocks would be my guess from the way they echo against our songs . . . but I would not dream of instructing someone like yourself in your own field of knowledge.” She did not smile mockingly, but it felt as though she did.

  He did not like Sogeyu, and he did not like the task. Still, it was not the place of even a high magister to question the queen’s orders. “You said deep, Host Singer. How deep?”

  “Again, I cannot pretend to your knowledge, but I would suspect that some twenty cubits of stone lies between the surface and the buried crypt.”

  “You have a hundred Builders, Magister Viyeki,” said Pratiki. “Surely they can breach those depths without trouble. And they must, because the queen herself is coming.”

  An unexpected chill ran through him. “Our order can achieve anything the queen asks of us,” he said. “But numbers and time are always the limiting factors, Serenity. More numbers, less time. I suspect we can manage it, but I would guess it will take unti
l Sky-Singers’ Moon has waned.”

  “That is not acceptable!” declared General Kikiti, barely hiding his anger. “The Mother of All will be here in a matter of days. Do you suppose we can ask her to wait while your Builders meander through their work?”

  “A millionweight of stone and soil to shift is not something I think even the Order of Song could manage without considerable time and effort,” Viyeki said, keeping his voice as even as he could. “And the great borers are far too clumsy a tool for such delicate, important work. You can give me your Hammer-wielders, General—that will speed the breaking up of the rock. And perhaps the rest of your troops—and your Singers, Host Singer—can help to carry away the rubble while my men dig. Understand, this is earth, not solid stone. Any tunnels must be propped and scaffolded properly, or the mass above will collapse and we will have to start all over. Not to mention that many of my Builders would die.”

  “Then let them die,” said Kikiti. “They live to serve the queen, do they not?”

  “So you will give me your Sacrifices to help, General?”

  Kikiti seemed perilously close to losing his temper. “Sacrifices are warriors, not . . . not rodents. They are trained to fight, not to dig. And our presence here might be discovered at any moment, then the mortals will be upon us. Who will fight if our Sacrifice legions are beneath the ground?”

  “Who indeed?” said Viyeki. He had annoyed Kikiti, which was at least a small victory, and it allowed him to do something else—something he had been thinking about since he had entered the vanquished fortress. He turned to Pratiki. “I must have slaves, then, Serenity. Mortal slaves. All those still living must be spared and brought here to work if we wish to reach this tomb or crypt before the queen arrives.”