Shadowheart Part 17

-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"

SAQRI WAITED AS HE CLIMBED UP out of the waves onto the rocky sh.o.r.e, as poised in her formless white robes as a temple statue. She was also quite, quite dry. Barrick, drenched and drizzling seawater, had barely an instant to marvel at either that or the sea meadow he had not seen in so many years, then Saqri turned and started up from the sh.o.r.e toward the royal lodge, which was just visible through the trees at the top of the stony hillcrest.

"There are some things you learn after a few hundred years," the Queen of the Fairies called as he trudged after her, streaming water and making squelching noises with every step. "One of them is how not to get wet unless you want to."

He didn't have the strength to discuss it. Exhaustion and his sopping clothing were pulling at him like a legion of invisible goblins, making each step a terrible ch.o.r.e. Also, he could see the lodge more clearly now, and although the Fireflower voices seemed uncharacteristically silent, his own memories were not.

"First to touch the door is the lord of the cliff!" his sister shouted, and, without waiting to see if he had even heard her, she was gone, sprinting up the ancient steps. Barrick hesitated for a moment, waiting to see if Kendrick would run, too, but their older brother was waiting patiently for their father. Kendrick was twelve years old and determined to show he was nearly a man-he wasn't going to be playing any games. Barrick sprang up the steps after his twin.

"Cheat!" he yelled. "You had a head start."

"That's not cheating," she called over her shoulder, laughing so that she almost lost her balance on narrow steps worn to a shiny polish by rain and wind. "That's strategy!"

"If either of you step into that house without the guards," their father shouted from the dock, "I will skin you and feed you to the hounds!"

Which only made Briony laugh harder, of course-she loved those dogs so much, she'd probably enjoy being devoured by them, Barrick thought-and then she stepped a little short and almost fell back.

"Briony!" their father shouted. "Have a care, girl!"

She spun her arms around like the vanes of a windmill, trying to keep her balance, which gave Barrick the chance to help her. As he hurried past, he gave her the smallest nudge with his good arm so that she tilted forward and recovered her footing.

"Cheater!" she shouted after him. "You pushed me!"

Now it was Barrick who laughed. She knew it was a lie-she knew he'd looked after her, for once, instead of being the one looked after, and it felt glorious. He reached the pathway at the top and dashed along it toward the lodge, past the cypress trees. He had just caught sight of the broad coachway that lay before the front door-a most useless feature in a place with no roads and no coaches, but he supposed King Aduan and his builders might have had greater ambitions for the place-when he heard his sister's footsteps behind him.

"I've got you now!"

What, did she think that because his arm was crippled he was also lame? He put his head down and flung the last of his strength into a finishing burst, sprinting across the gravel coachway and thumping against the front door of the lodge just before his sister. Gasping too hard to say anything, they both slid down the door to sit side by side on the porch. His lungs finally full of air again, Barrick turned to her and . . .

THOOM!.

The crash of sound yanked him back to the present again, scattering his memories like dandelion fluff. He whirled around in the middle of the path to look back across the bay. It was hard to see what was making the noise, but thin streams of smoke were rising from the mainland town. For a moment, Barrick could almost tell himself it was the chimneys, that all was ordinary and he'd heard only thunder. After all, who would be firing a cannon . . . ?

THOOM! THOOM!.

. . . No, several of them-the Qar? Did they even use them? And where had Saqri gone? Could she be hurt? Could the cannons throw one of their b.a.l.l.s this far? He hurried up the hillside path.

No, she said, as close as his own thoughts. Move slowly, Barrick Eddon. There are many eyes watching. Move slowly, Barrick Eddon. There are many eyes watching.

He turned and, to his astonishment, saw that Saqri was now behind him-he had pa.s.sed her along the way, somehow. She did not speak again when she caught up, but walked on through the grove of twisted, s.h.a.ggy trees. When she reached the house, the door opened at her touch as though it had been waiting for her.

Barrick followed her inside, overwhelmed by the familiar, musty smells, but also by the exhaustion that dragged at him like a Skimmer net weighted with stones.

"Go and sleep," Saqri told him, speaking words into the air like any ordinary mortal. "You are safe for the moment. There will be time later for everything else that must be. Sleep."

Barrick did not argue. One of the beds was disarranged as though it had been slept in, although to judge by the sheets and blankets (which always stiffened in the salty air) that must have been weeks ago at least, but he couldn't worry about it because sleep was tugging him down as powerfully as the waters of Brenn's Bay had pulled him, and this time he did not have the strength to stay afloat.

So the bed was unmade. Just now he didn't care if Kernios himself had slept in it. Barrick dragged off his wet clothes and climbed naked under the stiff sheets. In moments he had fallen into deep slumber.

"We have visitors," Saqri said from somewhere close by.

Barrick struggled up from the tail end of a dream in which he had searched for Qinnitan up and down the streets of a desert city without ever catching up to her. He opened his eyes, uncertain at first of where he was, but then it all came back to him-the mirror, the green ocean, the G.o.d-haunted, dreaming depths. He sat up to find Saqri at the foot of his bed.

"What?" he said, trying to pull his thoughts together. "Visitors?"

He had been joking, but the fairy queen looked over her shoulder toward the main room of the lodge. "In truth, I suppose it is we who are the visitors and they have come to see whether we mean them any harm."

Barrick could only shake his head, trying to clear out the confusion. "Visitors? Here on M'Helan's Rock? But the place is empty . . . !"

Her pale, angular face seemed expressionless. "Do you think so?"

"Very well, then, I'll come." He waited for a moment, but she did not move. "Can you go out, please, so I can get dressed? I'm naked."

Saqri gave him an amused look as she pulled the door closed behind her-but she was sort of his many-times-great-grandmother, wasn't she? Surely it wouldn't be proper to dress in front of her as if she were a servant? Barrick scowled as he wrestled on his Qar clothing. It was very odd for her to look so young and beautiful. It confused him.

When he stepped out into the main hall of the lodge, he was uncertain at first of what he was seeing. The very floor seemed alive with movement, as though a carpet had come to life. A hundred or more tiny people were waiting there, he realized with growing astonishment-people as small as the Tine Fay he had met behind the Shadowline, but dressed in hats and hose and jackets like ordinary folk. Their little faces, each smaller than a copper crab, turned toward him expectantly, but Barrick found himself speechless.

One of the tiny figures, a little bearded man, stepped out from the crowd. He was noticeably stout and looked very well dressed, with a fancy hat and minuscule gold chain draped across his chest that might have been part of a child's bracelet, but which hung as heavily on him as a royal jewel. It was all Barrick could do not to bend down and pick him up to have a closer look.

"Duke Kettlehouse am I," he said in a voice scarcely louder or deeper than a mouse's squeak, "master by election of the esteemed Floorboard a.s.sembly of Rooftop-over-Sea, as well as uncle of Queen Upsteeplebat (whom you may have encountered, may her grandiosity remain unambiguous) and I and my folk, whom you see gathered here most bravely before you, wish to welcome you, our lordly lords and ladies . . ."

A little man with a pointy beard standing next to him, only slightly less well-dressed, poked Kettlehouse with his elbow.

". . . and, ah, of course." Kettlehouse took a moment to gather his thoughts. "Yes. We welcome you to our country again, Queen Saqri. It has been long."

"Since the war, or almost." Saqri nodded her head seriously, as if she were not talking to a man smaller than a mouse. "Many times have the winds blown since then. I wish better days had brought us together."

Kettlehouse looked pleased, if still tentative. "You are most kind, Majesty, most kind. We wish to speak with you about important matters-nay, incredulous matters! You know we have always, despite the difference in our onetime alliance, held the greatest and most tenacious respect for the old ones, our cousins, your people . . ." The pointy-bearded man gave him another nudge. "Ah. Your pardon. We wish to speak with you, if we may, about our peoples' future disposition toward each other-if you understand our meaning . . . ?"

Saqri nodded in that smooth but abrupt and birdlike way she had. "I understand well. I say with only truth on my lips that if by some impossible chance our two peoples survive what is to come, there will no longer be a shadow between us. I say that from the very heart of the People's House."

Some of the little people let out a cheer at this pledge; others as far as Barrick could tell, were weeping and blowing their noses, or whispering in excitement. The Fireflower voices, mitigated by the apparent presence of Ynnir, gave him glimpses of the long centuries of estrangement that might end here today.

Was this why we came here? he wondered. he wondered. Was there more to it than simply swimming to the nearest sh.o.r.e? Was there more to it than simply swimming to the nearest sh.o.r.e? It was almost impossible to tell with Saqri, as it had been with Ynnir: with both of them, that which was real and fleshly quickly became that which was uncanny. Even simply watching the Qar in their everyday moments was like trying to understand a conversation in someone else's tongue. It was almost impossible to tell with Saqri, as it had been with Ynnir: with both of them, that which was real and fleshly quickly became that which was uncanny. Even simply watching the Qar in their everyday moments was like trying to understand a conversation in someone else's tongue.

"I am certain I speak for the Floorboard a.s.sembly, then," announced Duke Kettlehouse after a moment's consultation with the pointy-bearded man, "when I say that we would be most happy to see that shadow of estrangement gone. Most extremefully happy. But now I must let my secretary, Lord Pindrop, explain to you things of which you may perhaps, begging the pardon of your infallibility, Mistress, not be aware." He took a step back and allowed the slender, pointy-bearded man to step forward.

"See what is written here," said Pindrop, proffering a sheet of parchment that seemed as large in his hands as a window shutter. "All the words spoken by Sulepis Autarch and Tolly, the Protector of Southmarch, when they met here only hours ago."

"What?" Barrick thought he had misheard the tiny man. "Here? The autarch? With a Tolly?"

Saqri took the note and read it, her face more like a statue's than ever.

"We heard everything he had to say," Duke Kettlehouse began. "We copied it most a.s.siduously, in fair hand, so that we could make certain Your Majesty . . ."

Little Lord Pindrop interrupted his duke. "The danger is grave indeed!"

"When?" demanded Barrick. "When was the autarch here?"

"Yesterday evening." Saqri looked up. "And if these written words report truly what was spoken here, then the southerner knows far more about this castle and its history than even the Fireflower and the Deep Library could guess. Even as we speak, this Autarch Sulepis is preparing to push his way into the deep places where the doorways are."

"Doorways? Like the one that brought us here?"

"Yes, places where the world is thin. But the doorway beneath this place that has most recently been your family's home is different than any other. It was opened by Crooked and then closed by him as well, and only his dying strength has kept it sealed so long. Through it, he banished the G.o.ds who had tormented him, and because of him they are still on the far side of that doorway, fettered by sleep. But even in that sleep they dream of returning and taking their revenge on the world. . . ."

Ideas drifted up to him from the Fireflower, ideas of such abstract but overwhelming horror that Barrick could scarcely remain standing.

Saqri, however, went on as though she had considered such things every day of her life. Perhaps she had. "Speaking of the places where the world is thin," she told the Rooftoppers, "we must go now to talk to the other tribe that shares this place with you."

"Of course! We are not the only exiles who would honor our ancient kinship," piped Duke Kettlehouse.

"We must leave soon," Saqri told him. "When darkness comes. Can you have those you would send with me ready by then?"

"We will have our emba.s.sy ready for you one hour before sunset," he a.s.sured her. "We will wait for you at the dock."

There were times when the Fireflower seemed to give everything shadows and reflections. As Barrick followed Saqri down the path from the lodge, it made all around him shimmer like a fever-dream. It was certainly easier to be here on M'Helan's Rock, where most things did not have the significance that was layered everywhere in Qul-na-Qar, but Saqri herself, both as the queen and as the last in a long succession of women who had carried and then surrendered the Fireflower, was so full of... meaning meaning that just being around her exhausted Barrick. that just being around her exhausted Barrick.

She talked calmly as they walked, as if by coincidence, about the G.o.dwar and the Long Defeat that began when the Qar made the fateful choice to stand and fight with the heavenly clan of Breeze, earning the enmity of the Three Brothers and their Moisture clan and losing sovereignty over many of their own folk, including the very Rooftoppers Barrick had just met.

Even when it was not the explicit subject of Qar conversation or art, Barrick understood now, the Defeat was still part of them. It was there unspoken in all their poetry, a silent counterpoint in all their songs. The years since Barrick's ancestors had stolen their princess and driven them back behind the Shadowline had confirmed to most of them that their end was near. That was why Yasammez' crusade had found so many willing soldiers. If the end was coming in any case, why not face it with courage?

And what of me? Where do I belong in this Defeat? Why did the G.o.ds, or Fate, or whatever rules men's lives allow the Fireflower to pa.s.s to me, if all I can do is die with it inside me?

Saqri had turned off the main path to follow the curving track that led toward the sea-meadow where he and Briony had spent so many of their childhood hours. She pa.s.sed across the meadow like a silk scarf being carried on the breeze, then stepped down onto a little winding path that Barrick remembered very well, a "fairy path" as Briony had called it, and which had amused Barrick and his twin because it led nowhere. He caught up with the queen as she reached the place where the descending track ended a little way above the waves of Brenn's Bay. To his surprise, a smooth-sanded gray fishing boat was bobbing in the water there, with a bare-chested Skimmer youth sitting in it, moving his oars to stay in one place as he looked at Barrick with cautious interest. But when he looked past Barrick and saw Saqri, the young Skimmer rose to his feet, hardly rocking the shallow-drafted boat at all, and made an awkward bow toward her.

"Told it true, they did." He sounded amused, but his face said his feelings ran much deeper. "Really are her, you are."

"I am pleased you recognize me, Rafe of the Hullsc.r.a.pe," she said.

His heavy-lidded eyes widened. "You know me?"

"I recognize all of our people, even those who grew up in exile . . . but I think you have already had some connection with these doings, have you not?"

He shrugged. "Suppose. Nothing to take home and feed the family, though, if you know what I mean, Mistress. But some . . ." He suddenly brightened. "Are you coming with all the rest? Is that what this is all about? "

Saqri nodded. "As is Prince Barrick."

For the first time the Skimmer really seemed to see Barrick. "And are you the true prince of Southmarch, then? Son of Olin the Good?"

For a moment Barrick was so tangled with thoughts of what he was and what he was not that he could hardly speak. "Yes, I am," he said at last.

"Brought here by the holy hand of Egye-Var himself," said Saqri.

The Fireflower voices whispered, Erivor . . . Erivor . . .

"Well, then, that is two in the eye for Ena's da!" said Rafe with sudden exuberance and slapped at the water, although he was careful to direct the splash away from Saqri. "The Queen of the Ancient Folk and the prince of this castle both to ride in my boat! Old Turley will be sour as pickled shark when he finds out . . ." The young Skimmer stopped and flushed in seeming embarra.s.sment, a strange mottled greenish brown that rose from his neck to his small ears. "Pardon, Mistress. You'll not want to hear me croaking, and of course there's work to be done. Please, Majesty, let me help you."

He stood up and extended a hand to Saqri, stared at it for a moment, then apparently reconsidered. He withdrew it, squatted and dipped his fingers into the water of Brenn's Bay, then wiped it quickly on his breeches before extending it again. Saqri allowed the Skimmer to help her onto the ladder that Barrick only now realized lay out of sight just below the curve of the ground where they stood. From her effortless balance and the grace with which she stepped onto the rocking craft, Barrick suspected the queen of the Fay had needed no help.

But why are we in a hurry? he wondered. he wondered. They said we'd leave when it's dark and it must be well over an hour until sunset They said we'd leave when it's dark and it must be well over an hour until sunset . . . The Fireflower voices offered no answer. . . . The Fireflower voices offered no answer.

He let Rafe's hard-skinned hand help him find the ladder, then turned and climbed down, grateful again for whatever the Dreamers had done to cure his crippled arm.

Now the young Skimmer pushed the boat out from the sh.o.r.e, but instead of heading out to open water and toward the castle, to Barrick's surprise Rafe followed the sh.o.r.e around to the quarter of the island opposite the castle, a spot the Eddon family had always left alone because of the tight tangle of trees and thornbushes that grew right down to the waves. Barrick had never really seen it from this angle, and certainly had never seen what appeared next: they were slipping toward a cave, which probably seemed an ordinary overhang of rock at higher tides, and whose entrance even now was scarcely higher than the gunwales of the fishing boat.

"Heads down," Rafe said. "No disrespect, but even fairy queens and drylander princes can get their blocks knocked."

Barrick bent forward far as he could until he was almost pressing his face against his own knees. After they slid past the overhang, he cautiously raised his head again to discover that the inside of the cavern was astoundingly large. Who could have guessed something like this was hidden under the thorns of the island's southeastern end?

Even at low tide the cavern was mostly under water, but above a sh.o.r.e of rocky tide pools, a lantern-lit dock led up from the water to a strip of stony beach and a strange little house, far longer than it was wide, its roof thatched with dried seaweed and beach gra.s.ses. After staring for a few moments, Barrick realized that what looked like a separate stone building at the back of it was a huge stone chimney that led straight up to the cavern ceiling and, he a.s.sumed, vented somewhere outside.

It's a drying shed, he thought. Like the Skimmers have all along the lagoon. But what's it doing here on M'Helan's Rock? How do they hide the smoke? Like the Skimmers have all along the lagoon. But what's it doing here on M'Helan's Rock? How do they hide the smoke?

As if reading his mind, the Skimmer Rafe said, "We only light the fires at night. Smoke comes out of a crack farther down the island-wouldn't find where it really came from unless you dug for weeks. Not that they light it very often any more. More a . . . what's it called? Tradition."

"An old tradition," Saqri said. "This is where your people first declared themselves to their master, the Water Lord."

He looked at her oddly, apparently both startled and gratified by her knowledge. "I wouldn't know about that, ma'am. I'm just a fisher."

"But you will be headman one day and the girl's father knows it," she said. "That is why he is hard on you, Rafe Hullsc.r.a.per."

This left the young Skimmer nearly dumb with surprise; he did not speak again until he had tied the boat to the dock and was helping Saqri and Barrick up the ladder.

"I'll go and fetch the little ones while you speak with the sisters," he told them, then climbed back into his boat.

As Barrick walked with Saqri up the little causeway toward the long shed he was suddenly struck by an odd feeling of both familiarity and utter strangeness. Something in him recognized this place, recognized its power, but another part of him couldn't imagine why such an unprepossessing building should sp.a.w.n such intense sensations. It felt old-old as Crooked's Hall in the city of Sleep, old as parts of Qul-na-Qar, but although the wood was gray and weathered, nothing he could see seemed more than a hundred years old-a pa.s.sing moment compared to the antiquity of the great House of the People, which after all had once been a G.o.d's home.

Two small, bent shapes stood waiting in the doorway of the longhouse, two Skimmer women who looked as old or older than the building.

"Welcome, daughter of Kioy-a-pous," said the more upright of the two. Like her sister, she had only a few wisps of hair on the crown of her head and her skin was as wrinkled as dried mud, but as she turned to Barrick, her eyes were sharp. "And to you, manling, son of Olin and Meriel-welcome, too. We were told of your coming. Ah, and you be somewhat more now than your seeming, be you not? We smell it. Gulda am I, and this my sister Meve."

Barrick only nodded at the odd greeting, but the reference to his mother surprised him. Still, the two old sisters had certainly been alive when his father had brought his new bride from Brenland. They might even have watched her ride in through the Basilisk Gate with all her dowry and household . . .

What had she thought about it all, young Queen Meriel? Barrick's father had always told his children how lively their mother had been, how much she had loved simple, joyful things like singing and dancing and riding. Would she have done anything different if she had known how little time she had to live? He couldn't imagine a better way she might have spent her days.

"Great queen, have you come to consult the Scale?" the one called Gulda asked Saqri.