Hengfisk shook his head like a dog emerging from the water, looked at Rachel once more, then all around the stairwell on either side. The expression on his face had changed again: he looked like a man trapped beneath a crushing weight. A moment later, without warning, Hengfisk turned and stumbled up the stairs. She heard his uneven footfalls winding away into darkness.
Rachel lurched to the tapestry and pulled it aside with clumsy, shaking fingers. When she had fumbled open the door, she fell through and pushed it closed behind her. She shot the bolt before throwing herself onto her mattress and pulling her blanket all the way over her head, then lay trembling as though she had a fever.
The song that had tempted him up from the safer depths was growing more faint. Guthwulf cursed weakly. He was too late. Elias was going, taking the gray sword back up to his throne room, back to that dusty, bloodless tomb of malachite statues and dragon’s bones. Where the sword’s music had been there was now only emptiness, a gnawing hollow in his being.
Hopelessly, he chose the next corridor that seemed to slope downward, retreating from the surface like a worm unearthed by a shovel. There was a hole in him, a hole through which the wind would blow and the dust sift. He was empty.
As the air became more breathable and the stones grew cool beneath his touch, the little cat found him again. He could feel its buzzing purr as it wound itself around his feet, but he did not stop to give it comfort: at that moment, there was nothing in him to give. The sword had sung to him, then it had gone away once more. Soon the idiot voices would return, the ghost-voices, meaningless, meaningless. …
Feeling his way, slow as Time’s great wheel, Guthwulf trudged back down into the depths.
15
Lake of Glass
The noise of their coming was like a great wind, a roaring of bulls, a wildfire sweeping through dry lands. Although they ran on roads unused for centuries, the horses did not hesitate, but sped along the secret paths that twined through forest and dale and fen. The old ways, untraveled for scores of mortal generations, were on this day opened again, as though Time’s wheel had been stopped in its rut and turned back on itself.
The Sithi had ridden out of summer into a country shackled by winter, but as they passed through the great forest and across the places of their ancient sovereignty—hilly Maa’sha, cedar-mantled Peja’ura, Shisae’ron with her streams, and the black earth of Hekhasór—the land seemed to move restlessly beneath the tread of their hooves, as though struggling to awaken from a cold dream. Birds flew startled from their winter nests and hung in the air like bumblebees as the Sithi thundered past; squirrels clung, transfixed, on frozen boughs. Deep in their dens in the earth, the sleeping bears groaned with hungry anticipation. Even the light seemed to change in the wake of the bright company, as beams of sunlight came needling down through the shrouded sky to sparkle on the snows.
But winter’s grip was strong: when the Sithi had passed by, its fist soon closed on the forest once more, dragging everything back down into chill silence.
The company did not stop to rest even as the red glow of sunset drained from the sky and stars glistened between the tree branches overhead. Nor did the horses need more than starlight to find their way along the old roads, though all those tracks were covered with the growth of years. Mortal and earthly the horses were, made only of flesh and blood, but their sires had been of the stock of Venyha Do’sae, brought out of the Garden in the great flight. When the native horses of Osten Ard still ran untamed and frightened on the grasslands, ignorant of hand or bridle, the forebears of these Sithi steeds had ridden to war against the giants, or carried messengers along the roads that spanned from one end to the other of the bright empire. They had borne their riders as swiftly as a sea breeze, and so smoothly that Benayha of Kementari was said to have painted meticulous poems while in the saddle, with never a smeared character. The mastery of these roads was bred into them, a knowledge carried in their wild blood—but their endurance seemed almost a kind of magic. On this endless day, when the Sithi rode once more, their steeds seemed to grow stronger as the hours wore by. As the company sped onward and the sun began to warm beyond the eastern horizon, the tireless horses still ran like a surging wave rushing toward the forest’s edge.
If the horses carried ancient blood, their riders were the history of Osten Ard in living flesh. Even the youngest, born since the exile from Asu’a, had seen centuries pass. The eldest could remember many-towered Tumet’ai in its springtime, and the glades of fire-bright poppies, miles of blazing color, that had surrounded Jhiná-T’seneí before the sea swallowed her.
Long the Peaceful Ones had hidden from the eyes of the world, nursing their sadnesses, living only in the memories of other days. Today they rode in armor as brilliant as the plumage of birds, their spears shining like frozen lightning. They sang, for the Sithi had always sung. They rode, and the old ways unfolded before them, forest glades echoing to their horses’ hoofbeats for the first time since the tallest trees had been seedlings. After a sleep of centuries, a giant had awakened.
The Sithi were riding.
Although he had been battered and bruised to exhaustion during the day’s fighting, and had then spent over an hour after sunset helping Freosel and others to hunt loose arrows in the icy mud—a chore that would have been hard in daytime and was cruelly difficult by torchlight—Simon still did not sleep well. He awoke after midnight with his muscles aching and his mind running in circles. The camp was quiet. Wind had swept the skies clean, and the stars glittered like knife-points.
When it became obvious that sleep was indeed lost, at least for a while, he got up and made his way to the watchfires that burned on the hillside above the great barricades. The largest blazed beside one of the weathered Sithi monument stones, and there he found Binabik and a few others—Geloë, Father Strangyeard, Sludig, and Deornoth—sitting with the prince, talking quietly. Josua was drinking soup from a steaming bowl. Simon guessed that it was the first nourishment the prince had taken that day.
The prince looked up as Simon stepped into the circle of light. “Welcome, young knight,” he said. “We are all proud of you. You fulfilled my trust today, as I knew you would.”
Simon inclined his head, unsure of what to say. He was glad of the praise, but troubled by the things he had seen and done on the ice. He did not feel very noble. “Thank you, Prince Josua.”
He sat huddled in his cloak and listened as the others discussed the day’s battle. He sensed that they were talking around the central point, but he also guessed that everyone at the fire knew it as well as he did: they could not win a battle of attrition with Fengbald. They were too badly outnumbered. Sesuad’ra was not a castle to be defended against a long siege—there were too many places where an invading army could gain a foothold. If they could not stop the earl’s forces upon the frozen lake, there was little else to do but sell their lives as dearly as they could.
As Deornoth, his head bandaged with a strip of cloth, told of the fighting tendencies he had seen in the Thrithings mercenaries, Freosel strode up to the fire. The constable was still wearing his battle-stained gear, his hands and wide face dirt-smeared; despite the freezing temperatures, his forehead was dotted with sweat, as though he had run all the way down the hill-trail from New Gadrinsett.
“I come from the settlement, Prince Josua,” Freosel panted. “Helfgrim, Gadrinsett’s mayor, is gone.”
Josua looked at Deornoth for a moment, then at Geloë. “Did anyone see him go?”
“He was with others, watching the fighting. No one saw what happened to him.”
The prince frowned. “I do not like that. I hope no harm has befallen him.” He sighed and put down his bowl, then stood up slowly. “I suppose we must see what we can find out. There will be scant chance in the morning.”
Sludig, who had come up behind Freosel, said: “Your pardon, Prince Josua, but there is no need to bother yourself with it. Let others do this so you can rest.”
Josua smiled
thinly. “Thank you, Sludig, but I have other tasks up at the settlement as well, so it is no great effort. Deornoth, Geloë, perhaps you would accompany me. You, too, Freosel. There are things I would finish discussing with you.” He pushed absently at one of the fire logs with the toe of his boot, then drew his cloak about him and moved to the path. Those he had summoned followed, but Freosel turned back for a moment and came and put his hand on Simon’s shoulder.
“Sir Seoman, I spoke quick the other day, without thinking.”
Simon was confused, and more than a little embarrassed to hear his title in the mouth of this powerful and competent young man. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“About the fairy-folk.” The Falshireman fixed him with a serious look. “You may think I made fun, or showed disrespect. See now, I fear the Peaceful Ones like any God-fearing Aedonite man, but I know they can be powerful friends, for all that. If summon ’em you can, go to it. We need any help we can get.”
Simon shook his head. “I have no power over them, Freosel—none at all. You don’t know what they’re like.”
“Nor do I, that’s true. But if they be your friends, tell ’em we be in hard straits. That’s all I have to say.” He turned and went up the path, hurrying to catch the prince and the others.
Sludig, who had remained, made a face. “Summon the Sithi. Hah! It would be easier to summon the wind.”
Simon nodded in sad agreement. “But we do need help, Sludig.”
“You are too trusting, lad. We mean little to the Sithi-folk. I doubt we will see Jiriki again.” The Rimmersman frowned at Simon’s expression. “Besides, we have our swords and our brains and our hearts.” He hunkered down before the flames and warmed his hands. “God gives a man what he deserves, no more, no less.” A moment later he straightened up, restless. “If the prince has no need of me, I will go and find a place to sleep. Tomorrow will be bloodier work than today.” He nodded at Simon and Binabik and Strangyeard, then walked down toward the barricade, the chain on his sword belt clinking faintly.
Simon sat watching him go, wondering if Sludig was right about the Sithi, dismayed because of the feeling of loss that idea brought.
“The Rimmersman is angry.” The archivist sounded surprised by his own words. “I mean, that is, I scarcely know him …”
“It is my thinking you speak the truth, Strangyeard.” Binabik looked down at the piece of wood he had been carving. “Some folk there are who are not liking much to be beneath others, especially when it was once being otherwise. Sludig has become again a foot-soldier, after being chosen for questing and bringing back a great prize.” The troll’s words were thoughtful, but his face was unhappy, as though he shared the Rimmersman’s pain. “I am afraid for him to be fighting in battle with that feeling in his heart—we have shared a friendship since our travels in the north, but he has seemed dark and sad-hearted to me since coming here.”
A silence fell on the little gathering, broken only by the crackle of the flames.
“What about what he said?” Simon asked abruptly. “Is he right?”
Binabik looked at him inquiringly. “What are you meaning, Simon? About the Sithi?”
“No. ‘God gives a man what he deserves, no more, no less,’ that’s what Sludig said.” Simon turned to Strangyeard. “Is that true?”
The archivist, flustered, looked away; after a moment, though, he turned back and met Simon’s gaze. “No, Simon. I don’t think that is true. But I cannot know the mind of God, either.”
“Because my friends Morgenes and Haestan certainly didn’t get what they deserved—one burned and one crushed by a giant’s club.” Simon could not keep the bitterness from his voice.
Binabik opened his mouth as though he would say something, but seeing Strangyeard had done the same, the troll stayed silent.
“I believe that God has plans, Simon.” The archivist spoke carefully. “And it may be that we simply do not understand them … or it may be that God Himself does not quite know how His plans will work out.”
“But you priests are always saying that God knows everything!”
“He may have chosen to forget some of the more painful things,” Strangyeard said gently. “If you lived forever, and experienced every pain in the world as though it were your own—died with every soldier, cried with every widow and orphan, shared every mother’s grief at the passing of a beloved child—would you not perhaps yearn to forget, too?”
Simon looked into the shifting flames of the fire. Like the Sithi, he thought, trapped with their pain forever. Craving an ending, as Amerasu had said.
Binabik carved a few more chips from the piece of wood. It was beginning to take a shape that might be a wolf’s head, prick-eared and long of muzzle. “If I am allowed the asking, friend Simon, is there a reason that Sludig’s saying struck you with such strongness?”
Simon shook his head. “I just don’t know how to … to be. These men have come to kill us—I want them all to die, painfully, horribly. … But Binabik, these are the Erkynguard! I knew them at the castle. Some of them used to give me sweets, or lift me up on their horses and tell me I reminded them of their own sons.” He fidgeted with a stick, scuffing at the muddy soil. “Which is right? How could they do these things to us, who never did them any harm? But the king is making them, so why should they be killed, any more than us?”
Binabik’s lips curled in a tiny smile. “I notice you are not having worries about the mercenaries—no, say nothing, there is no need! It is hard to feel sorry for those who are searching out war for gold.” He slipped the half-finished carving into his jacket and began to reassemble his walking-stick, socketing the knife back into the long handle. “The questions you are asking are important ones, but they are also questions without answers. This is what being a man or woman means, I am thinking, instead of a boy or girl child: you must be finding your own solution to questions that are having no true answers.” He turned to Strangyeard. “Do you have Morgenes’ book somewhere that is near, or is it now up in the settlement?”
The archivist had been staring into the flames, lost in thought. “What?” he said, suddenly rousing. “The book, you say? Oh, heavenly pastures, I carry it with me everywhere! How could I trust it left in some place unwatched?” He turned abruptly and looked shyly at Simon. “Of course, it is not mine—please do not think I have forgotten your kindness, Simon, in letting me read it. You cannot imagine how wonderful it has been, having Morgenes’ words to savor!”
Simon felt an almost pleasurable twinge of regret at the memory of Morgenes. How he missed that good old man! “It is not mine, either, Father Strangyeard. He merely gave it to me for safekeeping so that eventually people like you and Binabik would be able to read it.” He smiled gloomily. “I think that is what I am learning these days—that nothing is really mine. I thought for a time that Thorn was meant for me, but I doubt it now. I have been given other things, but none of them quite do what they are supposed to. I’m glad someone is getting good use of Morgenes’ words.”
“We all are getting such use.” Binabik smiled back, but his tone was serious. “Morgenes planned for us all in this dark time.”
“Just a moment.” Strangyeard scrambled to his feet. He returned a moment later with his sack, inadvertently spilling its contents—a Book of the Aedon, a scarf, a water skin, a few small coins and gewgaws—in his effort to get to the manuscript lodged firmly at the bottom. “Here it is,” he said in triumph, then paused. “Why was I looking for it?”
“Because I was asking if you had it,” Binabik explained. “There is a passage I think Simon would find of great interestingness.”
The troll took the proffered manuscript and leafed through it with delicate care, frowning as he tried to read by the uncertain light of the campfire. It did not seem that it would be a very swift process, so Simon got up to empty his bladder. The wind was chilly along the hillside, and the white lake below, which he glimpsed through a break in the trees, looked like a place for phantoms. When
he got back to the fire he was shivering.
“Here, I have found it.” Binabik waved the page. “Would you prefer reading for yourself, or should I go to reading it for you?”
Simon smirked at the troll’s solicitousness. “You love to read things at me. Go ahead.”
“It is in the interest of your continuing education, only,” Binabik said mock-severely. “Listen: ‘In fact,’ Morgenes writes,
‘the debate as to who was the greatest knight in Aedondom was for many years a source of argument everywhere, in both the corridors of the Sancellan Aedonitis in Nabban and the taverns of Erkynland and Hernystir. It would be difficult to claim that Camaris was the inferior of any man, but he seemed to take so little joy in combat that for him warfare might have been a penance, his own great skills a form of punishment. Often, when honor compelled him to fight in tournaments, he would hide the kingfisher crest of his house beneath a disguise, thus to prevent his foes from being overmatched simply by awe. He was also known to give himself incredible handicaps, such as fighting with his left hand only, not out of bravado, but out of what I myself guess was a dreadful desire to have someone, somewhere, finally best him, thus removing from his shoulders the burden of being Osten Ard’s preeminent knight—and hence a target for every drunken brawler as well as the inspiration of every balladeer. When fighting in war, even the priests of Mother Church agreed, his admirable humility and mercy to a beaten foe seemed almost to stretch too far, as though he longed for honorable defeat, for death. His feats of arms, which were talked about across the length and breadth of Osten Ard, were to Camaris acts almost shameful.