Shadowheart Part 23

The Onir Beccan Market was the best and biggest fish market in all of Bluesh.o.r.e, and the healthy portion it took from all the catches sold there by fishermen from all the cities along Brenn's Bay had been enriching the ruling Aldritch family for at least two centuries. It was a bustling, successful place, oddly no less so now even with war on its doorstep, and it was the first real city she had seen since Agamid. As Qinnitan walked through the marketplace between arguing Bluesh.o.r.emen, hurrying cooks, ostlers and innkeepers and drunken Marrinswalk sailors, she was reminded of the seafront in Great Xis, a place she seen only once since she was a child, on the night of her escape from the Seclusion. Perhaps it would not seem so impressive now, but as she remembered the port's mad crush of people and the sights and sounds and smells that could exist together nowhere else on earth, she felt a terrible pang of homesickness for the places where she had grown up and the people she had known as a child. But her parents had all but sold her, she reminded herself, and her childhood friend Jeddin had nearly gotten her killed, so what exactly was she missing?

Still, she had certainly been happy at the docks. She remembered one time she had gone with her father when he had to speak about a job for her older brother. While he was talking to the dock factor, little Qinnitan had wandered off and spent a blissful time alone in a world of dreams and miracles and mysteries. She had seen a man selling monkeys and another selling parrots, and then one of the monkeys had got loose and climbed up among the parrots and what screaming and shouting there had been! She had also seen a real witch, a woman being carried along the waterfront on a litter by two bearers, an old, cruel woman weighted down with necklaces of gold, with a face like a sea turtle, and everywhere she pa.s.sed, the people behind her turned away and made the pa.s.s-evil sign, or spat on the ground.

Qinnitan had also seen a man dancing on crutches even though he had no legs, and another who could set his skin on fire and then blow it out again, both performing for coppers. She saw children singing and dancing, too, and many of them did not seem to have parents. Young as she was, she had still been a little envious of them.

Now, ten or more years later, far away from her home or even any thought of having a home, she again touched the feeling from that long-ago day, being alone but not lonely, of being solitary and yet sufficient. Because what else was there to . . . ?

Qinnitan banged into something and suddenly found herself tangled in a heavy cloak or cloth. Her arms caught, she lost her balance and fell, and something large stumbled over her, driving her knee and elbow into the stony cobbles so that she cried out in pain and even cursed a little.

It was only when the man yanked his cloak away from her, almost knocking her over again, that she realized she had collided with a soldier and made him fall. His friends, three more soldiers, helped him up.

She was confused and frightened by the way they all stared at her, but it was only when one of the soldiers said, "She curses in the name of Nushash!" in perfect Xixian that she realized she must have said something in her native language.

Before she could even begin to guess what four Xixian soldiers were doing in a fish market in Bluesh.o.r.e, they had surrounded her.

"What a funny thing to find in the middle of nowhere," another soldier said, also in flawless Xixian, accented ever so slightly with the vowel sounds of the southern desert. "A sweet little girl from home. She could be your sister, Paka."

"Watch your tongue," growled the one who must have been Paka. "This little wh.o.r.e is no sister of mine." He grabbed Qinnitan's arm and began to hurry her across the wide market. "But she does have a few questions to answer. Don't you fools remember? We're supposed to have our eyes out for girls this age who speak Xixian-that's straight from the Golden One's minister. If you'd let her go, we'd have been facing the torture-priests."

The other guards, trotting after him now, lowered their heads and muttered in shamefaced piety at the mention of the autarch's name.

Qinnitan could not believe her ill luck. Panicked, she tried to break away, but Paka the sergeant had her tight.

"No use struggling," he told her. "You'll just get hurt."

When they came out of the darkness at last it was not in martial procession like the Rooftoppers, but in a small group-Yasammez, dark as a crow's wing, her chief eremite Aesi'uah (the name drifted into Barrick's thoughts like an echo), and two hulking shapes-Deep Ettins, the Fireflower whispered to Barrick, the largest of them no less important a figure than Hammerfoot of Firstdeeps.

For a moment Saqri and her many-times-great-aunt only stood looking at each other, then Saqri stepped toward her and extended her hands to Yasammez. Their fingers met and they both stopped again, but what pa.s.sed between them was deeper than any embrace. It went on and on, a river of meaning pa.s.sing silently between them.

Barrick watched, unmoving. Rafe the Skimmer caught his eye and grinned as if this momentous reunion were some kind of surprise the Skimmer youth had arranged all by himself. The giant Hammerfoot's expression was harder to read, even with the whispers of insight that flooded Barrick's skull, but it was not hard to see dislike and distrust in the creature's deep-sunken eyes and sour expression.

Saqri and Yasammez finally stepped away from each other, so Barrick could compare them side-by-side. The family resemblance was unmistakable, but so were the differences: although at first glance neither of them looked to be out of the prime of womanhood, Saqri had a softer, more rounded face. Yasammez had the look of a predator, her nose strong, her cheekbones high and sharp, her eyes tilted up at the outer corners as if she stood in a perpetual wind. Her black armor-she wore every piece except a helmet-added to her dangerous appearance.

Now she looked Barrick up and down. "I could not have believed that the Book could contain such a strange chapter, yet here you are again." Yasammez spoke aloud, each word like the chime of cold steel. "I had meant only to show Ynnir what the sacred Fireflower had come to in the veins of mortal murderers, but he has bested me again. The Lord of Winds and Thought must be the cleverest coward who ever lived."

"He is no coward," Saqri said calmly, "and it is too soon to a.s.sess what he has done, but it seems premature to judge his actions."

"You always had a soft spot for your brother," Yasammez said. "Even when I told you he would bring destruction on all our line. Can you pretend I was wrong?"

"As I said, it seems too early to judge." Saqri bowed her head for a moment. "But I would prefer not to argue with you in any case, my great and beloved. Let us see what we have and what we may yet do. Later there will be time to talk of who was right and who was wrong."

Yasammez could not have made her distaste for this more plain, but still her pale face remained as expressionless as a mask beneath her tangle of dark hair. "Later there may be time only to die," Yasammez said. "However, that is not the way to greet kin, and not the way I wish to greet you, my only heart." And without saying anything more she turned and walked away into the shadows. After a moment, Saqri and Barrick followed.

"I'll just go and tell my folk that it's all begun, shall I?" Rafe called after them. "Tell them to send folks as like to flap lips to join the war council."

Barrick didn't know what to say, and none of the Qar seemed to feel a need to reply.

"Right, so," said the Skimmer cheerfully. "I'll get to it, then."

They were beneath Southmarch-beneath even Funderling Town! Barrick had never suspected there was anything beneath the Funderlings' underground city except stone. Surely they must be in the very roots of the earth now!

As Barrick sat on cushions on the floor of Yasammez' tent, with Saqri and the tent's mistress again locked in deep, silent communication, he could feel the whole history of the place, or at least as much history as was known to the last Qar who walked the same earth as the G.o.ds did. He knew that Kernios-Earth Father-had met his end here at the hands of Crooked, the clever G.o.d whom mortals called Kupilas. He knew that the cavern in which this tent stood, surrounded by the Qar camp, had once been known as "Glittering Delights," and had served as the garden of Immon, the gatekeeper, although that version of the cavern was no longer visible (or at least only appeared at extremely irregular intervals.) Saqri sat up straighter. She had put on something more martial, a less spiny version of the armor Yasammez wore, its cream-colored plates trimmed with different shades of gray and blue. "I do not know why you still keep so much hidden from me," Saqri said, and the fact that Barrick heard her say it was evidence that she wanted it heard.

"Because you are not yet yourself." Yasammez' tone was stern but Barrick's deepened understanding could also detect a note of unhappy need-almost a plea.

"May I know the subject?" he asked. "Perhaps Lady Yasammez-to whom I am grateful for having my life spared, of course-now thinks I would have been better off as a dead example than as a live prince. But I am here, and for better or worse your Fireflower now burns in my veins-mine, Lady. So please, talk to me if you value my goodwill. I grow tired of wondering what's afoot."

Saqri actually smiled, although it might have been purely perfunctory. "Wait only a few moments more-talking, in large part for your benefit, Barrick Eddon, is just what we are about to do. . . ."

Even as she said it, folk began filing into the large tent, silent and watchful as deer, although with some the silence was distinctly more threatening. Elementals swathed in runecloths but still leaking radiance, bright-eyed Tricksters, Changers, Stone Circle People (each of whom might have been the twin of little Harsar back in Qul-na-Qar) goblins and drows and Mountain Korbols all entered in groups of two or three and spread themselves along the perimeter of the tent. They were followed by a contingent of Skimmers. Rafe was one of them, and he was carrying the box from his boat. Although the light in the tent was dim, Barrick could see at least a dozen Rooftoppers standing at the rail of the box like pa.s.sengers on a ship watching for the approaching sh.o.r.e.

But where are the Funderlings? he wondered. he wondered.

"Hear me!" a loud, clear voice said from behind them in the ordinary tongue of Southmarch mortals. It was Aesi'uah, Yasammez's chief eremite, but her mistress did not even look up as the counselor spoke. "On behalf of my lady Yasammez, I bid you lay down your weapons and your feuds-all peaceful folk have safe welcome in this house." The words echoed in Barrick's mind, a time-lost traditional greeting, a memory of more warlike days that now seemed to have come again.

"The Autarch Sulepis' army is outside the castle walls," Aesi'uah continued. "He has brought machines the world has not seen since the G.o.ds' day, great guns that smash the stone like a hammer. He has bred monsters. He has even bred living children of the Exile to use like beasts, all so that he can raise the G.o.d he thinks is Whitefire-Sulepis calls him Nushash-from eternal sleep and force him to wield his matchless strength on the autarch's behalf." She bowed her head for a moment. "He has studied and prepared carefully. We believe he has the power to do just what he intends."

"But how could he command a G.o.d even if he could wake one?" said a Skimmer man, standing up. "Egye-var speaks to us through the sisters and the Scale, but we could no more tame him than we could tame the watery ocean itself."

"The southerner believes he has a way to force the G.o.d to do his bidding," said Saqri, speaking up from her seat beside Yasammez. "The ripples of his exploration-with apologies to Turley Longfingers and his beloved ocean-could be felt in the Deep Library, and even by some of the more sensitive still among the living." She paused in an odd way, and Barrick suddenly sensed that she spoke of herself-that her own long, long sleep and the dreams that had come with it had not always been peaceful or pleasant. "We do not know how this mortal plans to control a G.o.d, but we believe after everything else he has done, it would be foolish to a.s.sume he cannot accomplish it."

"So, if it pleases my fellow monarchs," little Queen Upsteeplebat called out through her speaking-trumpet, "what is the point of our all being here? The autarch has already plunged down past these halls and is moving in the deeps with his men, forcing his way downward to the Funderlings' sacred place-to the Shining Man."

"It is not not only the Funderlings' sacred place," said Saqri. "No matter which G.o.ds we chose to follow, he who is prisoned in the Shining Man saved us all from continuing enslavement. Without him, the G.o.ds would yet rule us." only the Funderlings' sacred place," said Saqri. "No matter which G.o.ds we chose to follow, he who is prisoned in the Shining Man saved us all from continuing enslavement. Without him, the G.o.ds would yet rule us."

"Would that have been so bad, Mistress?" asked Turley the Skimmer. "Our G.o.d speaks often-like to us and it's done us naught but good."

"It could be that you misremember what it was like when the sea G.o.d could take a more active interest in things," Saqri said. "But I will grant that he was always the most peaceful of the brothers-his power came not just from his strength but also from his wisdom. In any case, it is not the return of the G.o.ds we fear, though it is something worth fearing, as much as the more frightful idea of a mortal madman controlling an immortal's power."

Aesi'uah spoke again, relating things Barrick had already heard but with new details which had clearly been learned only recently, like the story of the autarch's visit to M'Helan's Rock and conversation with Hendon Tolly, which the Dreamless woman now reported word for word in her calm, clear voice. She, and occasionally Saqri, also spoke of things Barrick had not heard, or had heard only imperfectly, retelling the tale of Crooked and his destruction of the G.o.ds in such a way that it seemed almost entirely different from the version the raven Skurn had told him, full of strange details which raised quiet Fireflower echoes in his thoughts.

From time to time the Skimmers and the tiny people called Rooftoppers chimed in as well, and Barrick began to grasp how little he had truly known about his father's kingdom, especially its capitol, when he lived in Southmarch.

"A question occurs to us," Queen Upsteeplebat said at last. "Where are the Funderlings? Where are the stonecutters? The children of Egye-Var are here, as are those of us who worship the Lord of the Peak. . . ." She gestured to her Rooftoppers. "But where are the minions of old Karisnovois, King of the Mud and the Rock?"

Aesi'uah turned to look at her mistress, Yasammez, but it was Saqri the queen who spoke instead.

"That is part of the reason we are here," Saqri told her. "The Funderlings are at this moment far below us, fighting to protect the deep place they call the Mysteries from the autarch and his thousands-the place we call Ancestor's Blood."

"What do you mean, fighting? Below us?" Barrick didn't like the sound of that at all. "We sit here talking when this autarch is already in the depths?"

Yasammez stirred. "Too late to pretend innocence, last bearer," she told Barrick coldly. "Come out and speak or hold your peace." After this cryptic remark, she stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her dark, dark eyes once more.

"We would hear the answer that this young man seeks," said Upsteeplebat. "But first we would know his name."

It was bizarre for Barrick to realize he could be in a meeting of nearly a hundred souls in his own castle-or at least beneath it-but not be recognized. He bowed toward the tiny, handsome woman. "I am Barrick Eddon, son of King Olin, Majesty. I am a prince . . . now the only prince . . . of Southmarch."

The murmur of surprise that rose seemed laced with more than a few angry mutters. Most of the latter seemed to be coming from the Skimmers. Turley, their leader, turned to Barrick with a worried look.

"Your pardon that we didn't recognize you, Prince Barrick. My daughter speaks well of your family-especially your sister, whom she helped leave the castle."

"My sister? Briony?" It had taken a moment for his sister's name to come to him. Briony seemed . . . diminished diminished now, somehow, her place in his memory and thoughts smaller than it had been in the past, as though a mist had flowed between them. "Is she truly here?" now, somehow, her place in his memory and thoughts smaller than it had been in the past, as though a mist had flowed between them. "Is she truly here?"

"She lives," said Saqri. "But I cannot discover where she is. These days the restlessness of the sleeping G.o.ds disrupts all the gifts of Grandmother Void, but what have become most difficult are far-seeing and far-talking." She spread her hands-The Sea is Calm. "Later I will tell you all I know . . . but right now we have more pressing matters than even sisters and brothers." She looked at Yasammez as though she would say something to her ancestor, but then turned back to the rest of those watching. "The Funderlings and the men who fight with them are far below us in the place they call the Maze, making a stand against Sulepis and all his men and monsters. The hour is fast dying when we can still help them directly. Thus we come to what we think will be the final struggle." "Later I will tell you all I know . . . but right now we have more pressing matters than even sisters and brothers." She looked at Yasammez as though she would say something to her ancestor, but then turned back to the rest of those watching. "The Funderlings and the men who fight with them are far below us in the place they call the Maze, making a stand against Sulepis and all his men and monsters. The hour is fast dying when we can still help them directly. Thus we come to what we think will be the final struggle."

"But that is why we have joined together," said Upsteeplebat through her speaking-trumpet. The tent quieted so everyone could hear her. "The Exiles and the Firstborn, the commoners and the high ones of the Fireflower-we have joined together to fight for our home. Why do we waste time talking?" She pulled a tiny streak of silver from a sheath and lifted it high. "I pledge my sword as a token of my people's willingness to risk their lives in the service of this goal."

The roar of shrill cheers from the box was drowned out by Turley Longfingers, who rose yet again to say, "All well and good, but why should we? What benefits our our clans when we could be away before the next tide and find elsewhere to fish and ply our crafts?" clans when we could be away before the next tide and find elsewhere to fish and ply our crafts?"

"There is more to a decision to fight with us . . ." Saqri began, but Yasammez abruptly rose to her feet beside her, swift and ominous as a black cloud scudding in from the horizon.

"The water-man is right that this is no fight for his people," Ya.s.samez declared, "but he is wrong about the reason." She looked around the room from her thicket of armored spikes, her anger almost visible. Some of the mortals actually cringed as her gaze touched them. "The reason the Skimmers should not fight-that none none of you should fight-is because there is no point. Victory cannot be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of this failure because these are the final moments of the Long Defeat. Ancient apologies should be made and accepted by those . . ." she looked directly at Saqri," . . . who believe in such things. But the rest of you might just as well return to your families to spend your last hours with them. There is no cure for this disease. There is nothing ahead of us but death." Her long pale fingers rose to the ember-red stone on her breast. "So I declare as holder of the Seal of War." She said this not in anger, but with calm and horrifying certainty. "Those who ignore me will learn soon enough that I speak the truth." of you should fight-is because there is no point. Victory cannot be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of this failure because these are the final moments of the Long Defeat. Ancient apologies should be made and accepted by those . . ." she looked directly at Saqri," . . . who believe in such things. But the rest of you might just as well return to your families to spend your last hours with them. There is no cure for this disease. There is nothing ahead of us but death." Her long pale fingers rose to the ember-red stone on her breast. "So I declare as holder of the Seal of War." She said this not in anger, but with calm and horrifying certainty. "Those who ignore me will learn soon enough that I speak the truth."

And then Yasammez turned and walked from the tent, leaving open mouths and silence behind her.

19.

Mummery "The north was almost empty of men in those days because of the great cold that had followed the Theomachy, after Zmeos, the jealous G.o.d of the sun's fire, was defeated by his three brothers, Perin, Erivor, and Kernios . . . "

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

FERRAS VANSEN COULD BARELY sit still. "Where are they? Where are the Qar? I thought we had an understanding!" The fearsome Yasammez was beyond anyone's understanding, of course, but her councillor Aesi'uah had as much as promised Vansen that the Qar would fight side side by side with Vansen and the Funderlings-after all, what else could the Twilight folk do?

"I do not mind waiting a little while longer for them," Cinnabar said. "It will give me time enough time to put on my armor. Where is my son, Calomel? He was going to help me with it." The magister shook his head mournfully. "I have not worn armor since my youthful days in the warders. Even if it will still fit me, I fear I misremember which strap goes to which buckle . . . Calomel? Where are you, boy?" When the Funderling youth appeared, his father said, "Go and get it all for me, son. It's time." Calomel trotted off.

The guards brought the Qar's messenger to Vansen and the other commanders.

"Spelter?" said Malachite Copper. "They sent you?"

Vansen glanced up in surprise as the drow entered the makeshift command post. He liked Spelter, but why should the Qar use a humble military scout as their envoy when so many others like Aesi'uah could speak the mortal tongue just as well?

The bearded man bowed, a quick downward flick of his chin. His inscrutable, vulpine face seemed even more blank than usual. "Magisters, Captain-I bring you greetings from Lady Yasammez."

"I am glad to have her greetings," Vansen said, "but what I need is to know what's in her mind. She gave me to understand the autarch was her enemy, too. He is not stopping, and we are falling back to protect the Mysteries."

"Yes, we know," said Spelter, nodding once.

"Well, then? Is she coming? Will your mistress stand beside us as she all but promised?"

For a brief moment Vansen glimpsed the unhappiness that had been hidden in Spelter's dark eyes, perhaps even the twist of a frown in the drow's beard, and his heart went cold.

"No, Captain," said Spelter. "She is not."

"What?" Cinnabar stumbled forward, his vambraces dragging on the floor. "Not coming? But we gave your mistress sanctuary in our own tunnels-we gave you all all sanctuary when the autarch came! And this is how she pays us back? Leaving us to fight alone?" sanctuary when the autarch came! And this is how she pays us back? Leaving us to fight alone?"

"I am sorry, Magister." Spelter turned to Vansen and nodded a salute. "Captain." He kept his back rigid and his eyes staring ahead, even when there was nothing before him to stare at; a soldier was a soldier, it seemed, even among the Qar. "I regret bearing this news. You are brave allies. I can say no more. Good luck."

Vansen watched the drow walk back across the chaos of the breaking camp. A few of the Funderlings watched him with superst.i.tious fear. Only half a year ago the drows and the Qar had been stories to excite and frighten young children. Now they were real.

Real, but cowardly, Vansen thought in sudden rage. He should have known that Lady Porcupine was too proud and spiteful to be able to overcome her hatred of mortals-he should have known! Now it was he who had betrayed his allies by promising them help that would not come....

"b.a.l.l.s of the Brothers!" he spat, full of fury and shame. "Cinnabar, I've failed. I'm prepared to hand the command to Copper right now if you'll let me."

"You'll do nothing like it," said a startled Malachite Copper, coughing up some of the water he'd been drinking.

"He's right," said Cinnabar. "You'll do nothing like, Captain. We hung you on the marshal's hoist because you're the best for the task." He reached out blindly to take another piece of armor from his son Calomel, but his hands were shaking. "You've done nothing to show otherwise. By the Elders, Captain Vansen, do you blame yourself for the Qar not coming? If you had not risked your life to make treaty with them, we'd still be fighting them as well as the filthy, fracturing autarch!" Cinnabar looked upset. "Sorry, lad. Don't tell your mother I said that in front of you."

Young Calomel brightened considerably.

Vansen shook his head. "Do not be so quick to exonerate me, Magister. Perhaps the Qar and the autarch would now be fighting each other if I hadn't interfered."

"Still and all," said Copper, "don't be foolish. No one else would have done differently, but you were the only one who could could do it, in any case." do it, in any case."

"Once more our old friend Copper speaks the truth," Cinnabar agreed, waving his hand. "Enough. Except to say that not only won't we let you out of your responsibilities, Captain Vansen, my people will long remember what you did for us." A moment later, he added, "If the Elders decree that my people survive, that is."

Vansen, who had already been mulling his own version of this, nodded. "A wise soldier never presumes that the G.o.ds will reward good intentions." He felt about to drown in his own misery. "Well, if the fairies aren't coming, I suppose we need wait no longer. Anything else left to finish here?"

"Me." Cinnabar, tongue between his teeth, was busy with his high-collared chest plate.

Calomel reached up and helped his father tie the knots. "He's almost ready, Captain."

"And he looks very handsome, our Cinnabar," Malachite Copper said almost cheerfully, as if they had not just been told they were fighting alone. "Not in the least like a fat townsman who has forgotten everything he learned in the warders."

"Yes, I'm sure one sight of me and the autarch's men will all run," said Cinnabar, but no one had the heart to laugh.

He had become an animal, a thing of rough, matted hair and sharp teeth. He could smell her. He knew that the soldiers had taken her across the water-he had her scent and it told him everything. He could even smell the warm blood that would gush forth when he caught her and began to bite and tear . . .