It had been perhaps a thousand years since the Norn Queen had smiled, but if she had remembered how, she might have smiled at that moment. Even the oldest of the Hikeda’ya had known no other mistress but Utuk’ku. Some of them could be pardoned, perhaps, for thinking that she was no longer a living thing, but like the Storm King a creature made entirely of ice and sorcery and endless, vigilant malignity. Utuk’ku knew better. Although even the millennial lives of some of her descendants spanned but a small portion of her own, beneath the corpse-pale robes and shimmering mask was still a living woman. Inside her ancient flesh a heart still beat—slow and strong, like a blind thing crawling at the bottom of a deep, silent sea.
She was tired, but she was still fierce, still powerful. She had planned so long for these coming days that the very face of the land above had shifted and altered beneath Time’s hand as she waited. She would live to see her revenge.
The lights of the Well flickered on the empty metal face she showed the world. Perhaps in that triumphant hour, Utuk’ku thought, she would once more remember what it was to smile.
“Ah, by the Grove,” Jiriki said, “it is indeed Mezutu’a—the Silverhome.” He held his torch higher. “I have not seen it before, but so many songs are sung of it that I feel I know its towers and bridges and streets as though I had grown here.”
“You haven’t been here? But I thought your people built it.” Eolair moved back from the stair’s precipitous edge. The great city lay spread below them, a fantastic jumble of shadowed stone.
“We did—in part—but the last of the Zida’ya had left this place long before my birth.” Jiriki’s golden eyes were wide, as though he could not tear his gaze from the roofs of the cavern city. “When the Tinukeda’ya severed their fates from ours, Jenjiyana of the Nightingales declared, in her wisdom, that we should give this place to the Navigator’s Children, in partial payment of the debt we owed them.” He frowned and shook his head, hair moving loosely about his shoulders. “Year-Dancing House, at least, remembered something of honor. She also gave to them Hikehikayo in the north, and sea-collared Jhiná-T’seneí, which has long since disappeared beneath the waves.”
Eolair struggled to make sense of the barrage of unfamiliar names. “Your people gave this to the Tinukeda’ya?” he asked. “The creatures that we called domhaini? The dwarrows?”
“Some were called that,” Jiriki nodded. He turned his bright stare on the count. “But they are not ‘creatures,’ Count Eolair. They came from The Garden that is Lost, just as my people did. We made the mistake of thinking them less than us then. I wish to avoid it now.”
“I meant no insult,” said Eolair. “But I met them, as I told you. They were … strange. But they were kind to us, too.”
“The Ocean Children were ever gentle.” Jiriki began to descend the staircase. “That is why my people brought them, I fear—because they felt they would be tractable servants.”
Eolair hastened to catch up to him. The Sitha moved with assured swiftness, walking far nearer to the edge than the count would have dared, and never looking down. “What did you mean, ‘some of them were called that’?” Eolair asked. “Were there Tinukeda’ya who were not dwarrows?”
“Yes. Those who lived here—the dwarrows as you call them—were a smallish group who had split off from the main tribe. The rest of Ruyan’s folk stayed close to water, since the oceans were always dear to their hearts. Many of them became what the mortals called ‘sea-watchers.’”
“Niskies?” In his long career, during which he had traveled often in southern waters, Eolair had met many sea-watchers. “They still exist. But they look nothing like the dwarrows!”
Jiriki paused to let the count catch up, and thereafter, perhaps out of courtesy, kept his pace slower. “That was the Tinukeda’ya’s blessing as well as their curse. They could change themselves, over time, to better fit the place that they lived: there is a certain mutability in their blood and bones. I think that if the world were to be destroyed by fire, the Ocean Children would be the only ones to survive. Before long, they would be able to eat smoke and swim in hot ashes.”
“But that is astounding,” said Eolair. “The dwarrows I met, Yis-fidri and his companions, seemed so timid. Who would ever dream they were capable of such things?”
“There are lizards in the southern marshes,” Jiriki said with a smile, “that can change their color to match the leaf or trunk or stone on which they crouch. They are timid, too. It does not seem odd to me that the most frightened creatures are often the best at hiding themselves.”
“But if your people gave the dwarrows—the Tinukeda’ya—this place, why are they so afraid of you? When the lady Maegwin and myself first came here and met them, they were terrified that we might be servants of yours come to drag them back.”
Jiriki stopped. He seemed to be transfixed by something down below. When he turned to Eolair once more, it was with an expression so pained that even his alien features did not disguise it. “They are right to be frightened, Count Eolair. Amerasu, our wise one who has just been taken from us, called our dealings with the Tinukeda’ya our great shame. We did not treat them well, and we kept from them things that they deserved to know … because we thought they would make better servants if they labored in ignorance.” He made a gesture of frustration. “When Jenjiyana, Year-Dancing House’s mistress, gave them this place in the distant past, she was opposed by many of the Houses of Dawn. There are those among the Zida’ya, even to this day, who feel we should have kept Ruyan Ve’s children as servants. They are right to fear, your friends.”
“None of these things were in our old legends of your folk,” Eolair marveled. “You paint a grim, sad picture, Prince Jiriki. Why do you tell me all this?”
The Sitha started down the pitted steps once more. “Because, Count Eolair, that era will soon be gone. That does not mean I think that happier things are coming—although there is always a chance, I must suppose. But for better or worse, this age of the world is ending.”
They continued downward, unspeaking.
Eolair relied on his dim memories of his previous visit to lead Jiriki through the crumbling city—although, judging by the Sitha’s impatience, which seemed bridled only by his natural courtesy, Jiriki might have been just as capable of leading him. As they walked through the echoing, deserted streets, Eolair again had the impression of Mezutu’a as not so much a city as a warren for shy yet friendly beasts. This time, though, with Jiriki’s words about the ocean still fresh in his mind, Eolair saw it as a sort of coral garden, its countless buildings growing one from another, shot through with empty doorways and shadowed tunnels, its towers joined together by stone walkways thin as spun glass. He wondered absently if the dwarrows had harbored some longing for the sea deep inside themselves, so that this place and its additions—even now, Jiriki was once again pointing out some feature that had been added to Mezutua’s original buildings—had gradually become a sort of undersea grotto, shielded from the sun by mountain stone instead of blue water.
As they emerged from the long tunnel and its carvings of living stone into the vastness of the great stone arena, Jiriki, who had now taken the lead, was surrounded by a nimbus of pale, chalky light. As he stared down into the arena, the Sitha raised his slim hands to shoulder height, then made a careful gesture before striding forward, only his deerlike grace hiding the fact that he was moving very quickly.
The great crystalline Shard still stood at the center of the bowl, throbbing weakly, its surfaces full of slow-moving colors. Around it, the stone benches were empty. The arena was deserted.
“Yis-fidri!” Eolair shouted. “Yis-hadra! It is Eolair, Count of Nad Mullach!”
His voice rolled across the arena and reverberated along the cavern’s distant walls. There was no reply. “It is Eolair, Yis-fidri! I have come back!”
When no one answered him—there was no sign of life at all, no footfalls, no gleam of the dwarrows’ rose-crystal batons—Eolair walked down to join Jirik
i.
“This is what I feared,” said the count. “That if I brought you, they would vanish. I only hope they have not fled the city completely.” He frowned. “I imagine they think me a traitor, bringing one of their former masters here.”
“Perhaps.” Jiriki seemed distracted, almost tense. “By my ancestors,” he breathed, “to stand before the Shard of Mezutu’a! I can feel it singing!”
Eolair put his hand near the milky stone, but could feel nothing but a slight warming of the air.
Jiriki raised his palms to the Shard but stopped short of touching it, bringing his hands to a stop as though he embraced an invisible something that followed the stone’s outline but was nearly twice as large. The light patterns began to glow a little more colorfully, as though whatever moved in the stone had swum closer to the surface. Jiriki watched the play of colors carefully as he moved his fingers in slow orbits, never touching the Shard directly, positioning his hands around the stone as though partnering the unmoving object in some ritual dance.
A long time passed, a time in which Eolair felt his legs beginning to ache. He sat down on one of the stone benches. A cold draft was wafting down the arena and scraping at the back of his neck. He huddled a little deeper into his cloak and watched Jiriki, who still stood before the gleaming stone, locked in some silent communion.
More than a little bored, Eolair began to fidget with his long horsetail of black hair. Although it was hard to tell exactly how much time had passed since Jiriki had approached the stone, the count knew it had not been a brief interval: Eolair was famous for his patience, and even in these maddening days, it took a great deal to make him restless.
Abruptly, the Sitha flinched and took a step back from the stone. He swayed in place for a moment, then turned to Eolair. There was a light in Jiriki’s eyes that seemed more than just a reflection of the Shard’s inconstant glow.
“The Speakfire,” Jiriki said.
Eolair was confused. “What do you mean?”
“The Speakfire in Hikehikayo. It is another witness—a Master Witness, like the Shard. It is very close, somehow—close in a way that has nothing to do with distance. I cannot shake it free and turn the Shard to other things.”
“What other things do you want to turn it to?”
Jiriki shook his head. He glanced quickly at the Shard before beginning. “It is hard to explain, Count Eolair. Let me put it this way—if you were lost and surrounded by fog, but there was a tree you could climb that would allow you to move above the mist, would you not do it?”
Eolair nodded. “Certainly, but I still do not quite see what you mean.”
“Simply this. We who are used to the Road of Dreams have been denied it of late—as surely as thick fog can make a person afraid to wander any distance from his home, even when his need is great. The Witnesses I can use are minor; without the strength and knowledge of someone like our First Grandmother Amerasu, they are of use only for small purposes. The Shard of Mezutu’a is a Master Witness—I had thought of searching for it even before we rode out of Jao é-Tinukai’i—but I have just found that its use is denied me, somehow. It is as though I had ascended that tree I spoke of, clambering up to the upper limits of the fog, only to find that someone else was above me, and that they would not let me climb high enough to see. I am balked.”
“I’m afraid it is all still largely a mystery to a mortal like me, Jiriki, although I think I see a little of what you are trying to explain.” Eolair considered for a moment. “Saying it another way: you wish to look out a window, but someone on the other side has covered it. Is that right?”
“Yes. Well put.” Jiriki smiled, but Eolair saw weariness beneath the Sitha’s alien features. “But I dare not go away without trying to look through the window again, as many times as I have the strength.”
“I will wait for you, then. But we have brought little food or water—and besides, although I cannot speak for yours, I fear my people will have need of me before too long.”
“As to food and drink,” Jiriki said distractedly, “you may have mine.” He turned back to the Shard once more. “When you feel it is time for you to return, tell me—but do not touch me until I say it is permitted, Count Eolair, if you will promise. I do not know exactly what I must do, and it would be safer for both of us if you leave me alone, no matter what it may seem is happening.”
“I will not do anything unless you ask me to,” Eolair promised.
“Good.” Jiriki raised his hands and began making the slow circles once more.
The Count of Nad Mullach sighed and leaned back against the stone bench, trying to find a comfortable position.
Eolair awakened from a strange dream—he had been fleeing before a vast wheel, treetop-tall, rough and splintered as the beams of an ancient ceiling—into the abrupt realization that something was wrong. The light was brighter, pulsing now like a heartbeat, but it had turned a sickly blue-green. The air in the huge cavern was as tense and still as before a storm and a smell like the aftereffects of lightning burned Eolair’s nostrils.
Jiriki still stood before the gleaming Shard, a mote in the sea of blinding light—but where before he had been as poised as a Mircha-dancer readying a rain prayer, now his limbs were contorted, his head thrown back as though some invisible hand was squeezing the life out of him. Eolair rushed forward, desperately worried but unsure of what to do. The Sitha had told the count not to touch him, no matter what seemed to be happening, but when Eolair drew close enough to see Jiriki’s face, nearly invisible in the great outwash of nauseating brilliance, he felt his heart plummet. Surely this could not be what Jiriki had planned!
The Sitha’s gold-flecked eyes had rolled up, so that only a crescent of white showed beneath the lids. His lips were skinned back from his teeth in the snarl of a cornered beast, and the writhing veins in his neck and forehead seemed about to burst from his skin.
“Prince Jiriki!” Eolair shouted. “Jiriki, can you hear me!?”
The Sitha’s mouth opened a little wider. His jaws worked. A loud rumble of sound spilled out and echoed across the great bowl, deep and unintelligible, but so obviously full of pain and fear that even as Eolair clapped his hands over his ears in desperation he felt his heart lurch with sympathetic horror. He reached out a tentative hand toward the Sitha and watched in amazement as the hairs on his arm lifted straight up. His skin was tingling.
Count Eolair only thought for a moment longer. Cursing himself for the fool he was, then flicking off a quick, silent prayer to Cuamh Earthdog, he took a step forward and grasped Jiriki’s shoulders.
At the instant his fingers touched, Eolair felt himself suddenly overrun by a titanic force from nowhere, a rushing black river of terror and blood and empty voices that poured through him, sweeping his thoughts away like a handful of leaves in a cataract. But even in the brief moment before his real self spun away into nothingness, he could see his hands still touching Jiriki, and saw the Sitha, overbalanced by Eolair’s weight, toppling forward into the Shard. Jiriki touched the stone. A great bonfire of sparks leaped up, brighter even than the blue-green radiance, a million gleaming lights like the souls of all the fireflies in the world set free at once, dancing and swooping. Then everything faded into darkness. Eolair felt himself falling, falling, cast down like a stone into an endless void. …
“You live.”
The relief in Jiriki’s voice was clear. Eolair opened his eyes to a pale blur that gradually became the Sitha’s face bent close to his. Jiriki’s cool hands were on his temples.
Eolair feebly waved him off. The Sitha stepped back and allowed him to sit up; Eolair was obscurely grateful to be allowed to do it himself, even though it took him no little time to steady his shaking body. His head was hammering, ringing like Rhynn’s cauldron in full battle cry. He had to close his eyes for a moment to keep himself from vomiting.
“I warned you not to touch me,” Jiriki said, but there was no displeasure in his voice. “I am sorry that you should have suffered so
for me.”
“What … what happened?”
Jiriki shook his head. There was a certain new stiffness in his movements, but when Eolair thought of how much longer the Sitha had endured what he himself had survived for only a moment, the count was awed. “I am not sure,” Jiriki answered. “Something did not want me to reach the Dream Road, or did not want the Shard tampered with—something with far more power or knowledge than I have.” He grimaced, showing his white teeth. “I was right to warn Seoman away from the Road of Dreams. I should have heeded my own advice, it seems. Likimeya my mother will be furious.”
“I thought you were dying.” Eolair groaned. It felt as though someone was shoeing a large plow-horse behind his forehead.
“If you had not pushed me out of the alignment in which I was trapped, worse than death would have awaited me, I think.” He laughed suddenly, sharply. “I owe you the Staja Ame, Count Eolair—the White Arrow. Sadly, someone else already has mine.”
Eolair rolled toward his side and struggled to stand. It took several tries, but at last, with Jiriki’s help, which Eolair accepted gladly this time, he managed to drag himself upright. The Shard again seemed quiescent, flickering mutedly in the center of the empty arena, casting hesitant shadows behind the stone benches. “White Arrow?” he murmured. His head hurt, and his muscles felt as though he had been dragged behind a cart from Hernysadharc to Crannhyr.
“I will tell you some day soon,” said Jiriki. “I must learn to live with these indignities.”
Together they began to walk toward the tunnel that led out of the arena, Eolair limping, Jiriki steadier, but still slow. “Indignities?” Eolair asked weakly. “What do you mean?”
“Being saved by mortals. It has become a sort of habit for me, it seems.”
The sound of their halting footsteps sent echoes fluttering across the vast cavern and up among the dark places.