Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  To his surprise, the old woman laughed, a deep, throaty sound that went on for some time. It lasted so long that by the time she finished she was wiping her eyes.

  “So it is you, after all these years,” she said, then laughed again, but it only lasted a moment. “You.”

  “I beg your pardon? Have we met?”

  “No, no. But I knew someone would come. I just did not expect it would take so long—or that the messenger, when he arrived, would be . . . someone like you.”

  Etan’s annoyance at what felt like an insult was pushed aside by the swell of triumph. “So it is you, then, truly? You are Lady Faiera? You do not know how long I have looked for you or how far I have come.”

  “You have come from Erkynland,” she said. “And while you yourself have not been searching for twenty years, I would wager that whoever sent you has been looking for me that long.” She shrugged, amusement long gone. “But it does not matter much. Twenty years ago, today—the story is much the same. I will not go anywhere with you, so if that is your intention, put it from your mind. And do not think to force me.” For a moment he saw something strong in her face, strong and angry. “I plan to die here. Alone, if I am lucky. But I will not be taken from this place by anyone. Here I have found the closest thing to peace that I will know until God takes me.”

  “I did not come to destroy anyone’s peace, but to bring some peace to others—those who would know what happened to Prince Josua.”

  “Ha. Of course. I should have known that it would not be my well-being that troubled the minds of anyone in Erkynland.”

  Etan did not like the look on her face much. “You wrong my friends, Lady. They also have looked for you, and for a long time, as you guessed. But no one knew what happened to you. I have been here in Perdruin a fortnight at least, searching, but I was lucky enough to meet someone who had heard tales of you.”

  Faiera did not seem interested in that. “And who is left of the old League? For they must be the ones who sent you. The priest Strangyeard, perhaps, since you are both religious men?”

  “Father Strangyeard died some years ago from a fever. It was Lord Tiamak who sent me.”

  This time her laugh was a little less bitter, but still Etan heard pain. “Lord Tiamak? My, the swamp scholar has come up in the world. And he sent you? Who else lives? The little troll? I have forgotten his name.”

  “Binabik of Mintahoq. Yes, he still lives.”

  “I met the troll long ago, when I met Josua.” She sipped from her cup. “Do you truly want to hear my tale? I warn you, it will not lead you to the prince.”

  Etan swallowed disappointment, although he had not let himself hope too much. “Tell me what you know, please, my lady.”

  “Very well. But it is a tawdry story—you will not leave here with your faith in God renewed, or anything like it.”

  “I will treat with my own faith, Lady Faiera, you may rest assured.”

  “I sense a little steel under that dirty cassock. What did you say your name was—Etan? Very well, Brother Etan. As I said, I met Binabik when I met Prince Josua, although Josua had long since renounced his royal heritage. In my earliest days as a member of the League of the Scroll, Josua invited the Scrollbearers of the time to the place where he lived in Kwanitupul. Why he should choose such a backwater to make his home I still cannot understand, but he and his wife owned an inn called Pelippa’s Bowl.” As she spoke, she refilled her cup from a pitcher. “But to speak of Pelippa’s Bowl runs wide of what you wish to hear. Still, if you are going to understand, I must start the story even earlier in my life—if you are not in too much hurry.”

  “Whatever time you can give me, I will take, with thanks. I am your servant, Lady.”

  “Hah! It has been long since anyone was my servant. Still, I will take you at your word. I was not born in a hovel like this, I will have you know. I was born the daughter and only child of Baron Amando, a Perdruinese noble of some little wealth. As his only child and his heiress I was much sought after, if I say so myself. I danced at the court when I was young, and had many suitors, though you would not credit it now.”

  A little life had come back to her, and for a moment Etan could see beyond the ravaged, weathered face, past the wrinkles and dirt and all the years, and could very much imagine her as a young woman worth courting.

  “Count Streáwe himself was very taken by me, but nothing came of that. Still, my parents did not lack for eligible suitors, though I was not interested. Already I had grown fascinated by books, by poetry, and by natural philosophy, and could not imagine being married to someone who would cage me and show me off like a pretty bird. It would have turned into anger in the end. My father wanted me to marry and birth a boy to take the family name, but both my parents died of the Red Ruin when it ravaged Ansis Pellipe at the end of the Storm King’s War. I sold the family land and bought a fine house near the ocean. I made the place a haven for artists, bards, and poets, and answered to no one. I became a scholar of sorts, in part because, with the money I had inherited, I could afford to buy any books I wished, even those that many would have guessed had vanished from the knowledge of mankind. I had friends and intimates—lovers—but learning became my deepest love, particularly the recovery of old, lost knowledge.

  “One day I received a letter from Josua, onetime prince of Erkynland. I had heard of him, of course, but did not know he had lived beyond the war. He had learned my name from some of his friends in the Usirean Brothers—the circle of those who buy and study rare books is a small one, so I knew several of them—and he had some questions for me about one of the subjects that interested me most, divination as practiced by the ancient Sithi. We wrote back and forth—so many letters!—and if he was impressed by my knowledge and interest, I was even more impressed by him. After a year or two of such correspondence he asked me if I might have interest in joining the League of the Scroll. I knew of the League and a little of its role in the Storm King’s War, and was very much interested, but I was more interested in Josua himself, who even in his letters was like no man I had ever met. So I said yes.

  “A few years later he invited the members to come to his inn at Kwanitupul, which is where I met Binabik the troll, the Wrannaman Tiamak, and Father Strangyeard, who seemed at first out of his depth but soon showed that he had depths of his own, as well as a breadth of knowledge unlike anyone else’s. But it was Josua who most impressed me, of course.” She fell silent, then leaned back, eyes closed, and for a moment Etan wondered whether she would stop talking entirely.

  “You would not understand,” she said at last, eyes still firmly shut, “what it was like to meet him for the first time. I had formed such a picture of him, of his kindness and his wide wisdom, that I thought that seeing him in the flesh would be a disappointment—but it was not. He was a handsome man, of course. His brother Elias was too, it is said, but his heart was weak and he fell into corruption. Josua was like a saint stepped off a statue, tall and calm, with gray eyes so full of kindness that it was easy to forget how clever he was. Even the hand he had lost only made him seem more tragic, more heroic. I think I fell in love with him then, though I might have been a little in love with him before I ever reached Pelippa’s Bowl, just from the letters we had exchanged over the years. Not that he was ever anything but a colleague in those letters. A colleague and a friend. But I had come to want something more. I was not much past thirty years, and my heart was still young.

  “His wife Vorzheva was there, of course. She was beautiful in a terrible, dark way, the daughter of a barbarian chief, as full of anger and life as a thunderstorm. She did not like me from the first—women see things in other women that men do not always see, and I am sure she could sense a rival. All through the time we Scrollbearers stayed at the inn, through our long nights of talk and our ramblings across the city—which is one of the strangest in the world—she hovered at Josua’s elbow, claiming his attention when
ever she could, so that I came to resent her as much as she resented me.”

  Faiera poured a little more from the pitcher. “Yes, I know,” she said. “What right did I have to resent his lawful wife, who only fought to defend what was hers? But I was lonely, not simply for the fleshly part of love, but for the meeting of two minds, two souls, which I had never really known. Josua seemed like the perfect man to me.” She laughed harshly. “He still does. Is that not sad?”

  When Etan said nothing, but only got up and refilled his own cup with burdock wine from her pitcher, she shook her head. “You do not have to speak. Your judgment is plain on your face. Did you lead a man’s life before you became a monk? Did you love someone you could not have? No? Then you will not fully understand, no matter what you have been taught.

  “In any case, I did nothing to show how I felt, and when the others went away again I went too, back to my house in Perdruin. Despite the troops of guests and all the servants, it seemed quite empty. I decided that if I could not have Josua I could at least show him that I was someone to be reckoned with, offer him little gifts of my scholarship—something his grasslander wife could never match. So I threw myself even deeper into my studies. The Storm King’s War had ravaged the nations and done terrible damage, but the fact that men fought beside the immortals for the first time in centuries brought much learning into the world as well. Some like your King Simon actually lived among them and even became friends with them—or at least so I have heard. It was a wonderful time for those who studied Sithi lore.

  “At the same time, Josua’s letters to me, which still came frequently, and which I treasured as dearly as if they spoke of love instead of learning, began to have a troubled tone. He had been in correspondence, it seemed, with a young scholar who was following many of the paths I was treading myself. But this was no ordinary cleric or young noble. This scholar was Prince John Josua, King Simon’s son, the heir to the High Throne of all Osten Ard.”

  Startled, Etan made the sign of the Tree. “Prince John Josua? What year was this? How long ago?”

  Faiera frowned and brushed her wind-tossed hair away from her face. “I’m not certain. Things changed for me very soon after. But John Josua was very young then—perhaps only twelve or thirteen years. He was a clever, inward-looking child who had found his direction very early, or so I remember being told. He had been named in part after Josua, his great-uncle, and so it was only sensible he would share his fledgling discoveries with him. But young John Josua was already wandering into territory that worried the older Josua—I almost said ‘my Josua’—a great deal. I do not remember the details, but the young prince had found certain books or documents in the Hayholt that dealt with the ancient scrying arts of the Sithi, and Josua was frightened for him. ‘That is how Pryrates was ensnared,’ Josua wrote, and it was enough to frighten me, too. Pryrates had also been a member of the League, before evil thoughts and evil magic cankered his soul.”

  “I know,” said Etan. “But I am still surprised to hear John Josua was involved in such things at such a young age.”

  She shrugged. “I do not know much. I remember only what Josua told me. I wanted to help him, of course—I would have done almost anything for his good opinion—but I was a little afraid as well. In any case, over the year that followed Josua became more and more concerned about what the young prince was doing, what he was reading, what he was thinking.

  “I was still very interested in all these matters myself because of my own studies. One day a trader who often found obscure books for me, and occasionally stranger articles, sent me a message. He had found something not just unusual but surpassingly rare, and knew I would be his most likely customer. What he had found truly was astounding, and though it cost me a pretty price—five gold Imperators, if my old memory still serves me—he was right. It was an amazing find and worth every cintis-piece I paid.”

  “But what was it?” A thought occurred to him. “Was it a book?”

  She shook her head. “I will explain soon enough, Brother. The night I brought my new prize back to my house, I had a letter from Josua. He wrote that he was traveling to Erkynland to see his grand-nephew the prince, but that he hoped to stop in Perdruin along the way to visit me and have my advice, because scrying and other forms of divination were my chief study. I was thrilled—more than thrilled—and wrote back at once, telling him he would be most welcome. A part of me was excited simply to have Josua to myself, since his wife and family would not be accompanying him, but I also thought to surprise him and impress him with my find, so I said nothing of it in the letter.

  “So it was that he came at last to Perdruin. I had sent away my guests, though ‘guests’ is not precisely the word—most of them were all but living there and had been for years, feeding off my wealth. I had become disenchanted with them anyway as I grew more and more intent on scholarship. Josua was a little surprised to find the large house empty of everyone but me and the servants, but still we had a merry first evening, talking of many things and staying away from the subject of Prince John Josua, since I could see it troubled him and I wanted nothing to mar our first time together since we had met in Kwanitupul.

  “That first night I was so happy—! If Heaven is not just like that, I will be disappointed, because I can think of nothing better. And in truth, I think Josua did care for me more than a little. At the time, it felt like something much larger than that, but we had drunk a great deal of wine. It was hours past midnight when we both stumbled off to our separate chambers, and I remember praying that he would come to me—yes, sacrilegious, I know—but it did not happen.”

  “I do not judge you, my lady,” said Etan, though he was not certain it was true. “But it is clear you judge yourself.”

  “You cannot possibly guess.” Her anger had returned, like an ember fanned by a sudden breeze. “In any case, the next night over supper we returned to the subject we had carefully avoided—young Prince John Josua and his dangerous, foolish explorations.”

  “And what were those?”

  She waved her hand impatiently. “I have already told you what I remember. He was fascinated by the Sithi’s art of talking over long distances. He had been searching the castle for old books and had discovered things—not just books, but something else as well, though Josua did not give me details—that worried his great-uncle badly.”

  “Did he speak of a book called ‘A Treatise on the Aetheric Whispers’?

  “The lost book of Fortis?” Faiera gave him a sudden, sharp look. “No, I do not think that was mentioned. I would have remembered, despite all else that happened.”

  “Please go on, then.”

  “I was conscious that my time with Josua was limited—that he meant to leave the next day and continue on to Erchester and the Hayholt. It made me a little frantic, I think, to spend so much time talking about such faraway things, about the prince and about the long-dead Sithi, when Josua was sitting there with me. So I told him I had something to show him and brought out my new and expensive purchase—a Sithi scrying-glass.”

  “A scrying-glass?” Etan did not immediately recognize what she meant.

  “A mirror—but a special kind of mirror, made from the scale of a dragon, or so the stories are told. The Sithi used them to talk to each other over great distances. They called them Witnesses.”

  “A Witness!” said Etan. “Ah! Now I see. Of course.” He had never seen one himself, but they were mentioned several times in Fortis’s Treatise and he had heard Tiamak speak of them as well. “I am told King Simon once had one. But you had one too!”

  Faiera’s face was grim. “Yes, I did—for a little while. I thought Josua would be delighted by it. Such things are so rare, like finding a piece of the Execution Tree, or a shard of the actual bowl with which Pelippa gave water to the Ransomer. I suppose I even thought of it as a sort of love-gift, to share it with him. Instead, he was horrified.”

 
“Why?”

  “He said it was dangerous—unspeakably dangerous. He talked of Pryrates and even of Fortis the Recluse, who wrote the book you spoke of earlier. Josua said that many thought Fortis had found one himself, and that using it had exposed him to the terrible, mysterious fate that had taken him.”

  “I have never heard that before,” said Etan, more than a little disturbed. “What happened then?”

  She showed him a sour smile. “Do not think that I will say Josua took it from me, or that we used it and he vanished. My story is not that sort. I argued with him—I could not understand his unwillingness to even look at it, and it hurt me. I had offered him the finest gift I could, and he threw it back in my face, or at least that was how it felt. The argument grew heated, though not angry— Josua was not that sort—and I suddenly realized that instead of drawing him closer to me, as I had hoped, I was pushing him away. That is when I made my terrible mistake.”

  Again she fell silent, this time looking at her callused hands as she rubbed them together. Some time passed in silence before Etan’s patience began to unravel. “Your mistake, Lady?”

  “Do they no longer teach Senigo? Senigo of Khand?” she asked, still looking at her hands.

  “Of course I know him.”

  “Then you should remember what he said about truth. ‘It is like the foxglove. In proper measure it is the most sovereign of medicines. Too much, though, brings suffering and even death.’ And he was right.”

  Etan could not help shaking his head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lady Faiera. What did you tell Josua?”

  “Are you even listening, monk, or are you a fool?” For a moment, in the flash of her temper, Etan could see the noblewoman she had once been, proud, full of her own importance and her own woes. “Do you know nothing of women or men? I told him the truth, and by doing so cursed myself. I told him how I felt—that I loved him.” As she fought against a powerful sorrow, her face seemed a mask of something suffering its final throes. Etan could not think of anything to say. When she spoke again, her voice was raw. “With those few words I destroyed all the happiness of my life.” She finished her cup in a long swallow and then poured herself another with such haste and inattention that half of it spilled onto the ground beside the log. “What could he do but turn away from me?”