Shadowheart Part 37

"A madman and and a madwoman!" the prince shouted back. "Here is one who thinks himself the rightful heir of Syan, and another who believes herself mistress of this very castle!" a madwoman!" the prince shouted back. "Here is one who thinks himself the rightful heir of Syan, and another who believes herself mistress of this very castle!"

"For the love of the G.o.ds!" Briony told him in a horrified whisper. "Eneas, are you mad? These are Tolly's men!"

"Perhaps," he said cheerfully. "But perhaps not. Let us find out."

"What foolery are you at, man?" demanded the fellow on the wall. "Mistress? Your mistress is likely a slattern and you are certainly a drunk fool, fisherman. Get back in your boat and go away before we feather you and your lady properly!"

One of the Syannese soldiers already had an arrow on his string and was preparing to dispatch the guard when Eneas held out his hand. "Leave him be," he said quietly.

"But, Highness . . . !" the soldier protested. "Did you hear . . . ?"

"I heard." Eneas raised his voice. "It is you who is feeling the breath of Old Knot on the back of his neck, fellow. I am Prince Eneas of Syan. Open the gate! We are allies of your true king!" He turned and said quietly to Briony, "That should start some interesting conversations!"

More heads popped up along the top of the ma.s.sive gate, and several men held up torches, peering down into the darkness below for a look at the visitors. Briony could only hold her breath and pray for Zoria's continued protection. The gatehouse above it, and the monstrous towers on either side probably housed a pentecount of men or more. Eneas might have far more men than that, but they had no protection and nowhere to go if the archers began firing on them. The Skimmers were gone and there was no other way off the narrow piece of land in front of the gate.

"That is is the Syannese prince!" one man atop the gate shouted. "I've seen his banner! That's him!" the Syannese prince!" one man atop the gate shouted. "I've seen his banner! That's him!"

"Liar!" another screamed. "Or traitor!"

"Open the gates!" someone called. "Let them in! They sank them Otarch ships!"

"I'll kill the first man who goes near that windla.s.s . . . !" a man cried, and then many voices began shouting at once, and even the figures lined up atop the gate suddenly dissolved into chaos. To Briony's horror, a figure came flying off the top of the gatehouse, ten times a man's height in the air, and hit the ground in front of Eneas and his men with a horrible moist thump.

Flames rippled across the top of the gate and in the narrow slits in the towers on either side as men with torches ran in and out. One of the Basilisk Gate's huge bells began to ring out an alarm, then fell silent again almost immediately, as though the bell ringer had met a sudden, violent end. Torches began appearing along nearby sections of the wall as the struggle at the main gate caught the attention of the other guard posts.

"Form up!" Eneas told his men. "Shields up-the arrows may begin flying any moment!"

Briony was only too happy to lift her shield over her head, although it was not long before her arms were aching so badly she would almost have preferred being shot. A few arrows did come sailing down, but more or less randomly, and not from atop the gate itself, as though a few scared soldiers on the walls were merely firing out into the darkness.

At last silence fell, then the great gate creaked open; Eneas held his men back when they would have surged through. The portcullis shuddered and rose, and a handful of figures with torches stepped into the cobbled opening, a s.p.a.ce wide enough for a dozen men to ride through.

"Is it truly you, Prince Eneas?" one of the torchbearers asked, taking a limping step forward and holding up his torch, which rippled as the breeze from the bay whipped through the open gate.

"It is. Do I know you?" Eneas strode forward. Briony hurried to stay with him-his confidence, at that moment, seemed better protection than any Syannese shield.

"No, sire. You wouldn't. But we true Southmarchers are happy to see you. Was it you burned the Xixy ships?"

A crowd of guardsmen quickly surrounded Eneas and his men, but to Briony's relief the mood was more festive than combative. Several dozen were climbing down from the nearest guardhouses to see what was happening, but most of the fighting was already over. At least a dozen men sat sullenly on the ground with their backs to the wall, being guarded by men with spears. Half a dozen more lay nearby and did not need to be watched, as their contorted limbs and the blood on their tabards made clear.

The soldier who had spoken saw Eneas and his men looking at the dead. "They were Tolly's men, those sc.u.m. One of them tried to ring the bells. The rest would have been off to warn the Protector and his bullyboys-they've all gone to ground in the royal residence. What is happening, Sire? Have you come to chase the d.a.m.ned Summerfielders out? May the G.o.ds bless you if you have, Highness." He peered out past Eneas and the others, squinting as if he could make out what was happening on the far sh.o.r.e. "What about that autarch? What happened to his ships?"

"These are long stories," Eneas said. "And my men will need food and drink and a place to sleep."

"Of course, Prince Eneas ..." the leader began, but then Briony stepped out of the shadow of the wall and into the torchlight.

"I will not enter my own home in secret," she said. "You men have done more than open the gates for the Syannese-you've let the Eddons back in as well." She pulled off her helmet and hoped they could still recognize her with her hair cut short.

The men around her heard a woman's voice and turned, staring. The leader, the man with the limp, lowered himself to one knee. "Praise the Three," he said. "It's King Olin's daughter."

Murmuring, the other men, who had been gathering around her, began to get down on their knees.

"Do not bow," she said. "Look at me-please don't bow! I don't want to make my presence known yet. Not until we learn how things fare here and decide what to do next." She would have preferred that they had remembered her name as well as her father's, but the hope and even happiness on the faces of most of the men she could see was reward enough. "All of you who can hear me, come now. Let no one leave. Set some men to watch the gate again while you others follow Prince Eneas and me."

"The inner keep is Hendon Tolly's armed camp, Highness," one of the guards said. "You're safe here in the outer keep, but most of Tolly's supporters are with him in the residence. They have at least as many men as your Syannese, Princess, and they also hold many of our women and children."

"All the more reason that we should move slowly and not make a great parade," Briony said. "Take us to a place where our soldiers can rest."

Several of the Southmarch guards let out a cheer, but the others silenced them. The limping man who had welcomed them looked up at Briony.

"Is it truly you, Princess?" he asked.

"It is. And my father is alive, too. The Eddons have not given up their throne-or their people."

"And will it all be well, then? Things will be well again?"

She looked at him and suddenly the weight of who she was, and what she still had to do pressed against her like a great stone on her chest, so that for a moment she could not speak. "That is beyond my power to say," she managed at last. "But I will do everything I can to make it so."

Something about seeing his sister still troubled Barrick, although he could not say exactly what that something was. It was not emotion-at least not the sort of confused, ill-defined feelings that had been so common in him before the gift of the Fireflower-but it made it hard to concentrate on what Saqri was saying about Lady Yasammez.

". . . So she will meet us in the Great Delve."

"But I don't understand. Why didn't Yasammez come up with us to fight the Xixians? She lives for war!"

Saqri's thoughts had something of both unhappiness and anger in them, but those she chose to express were straightforward. "I imagine she wished to see what I would do with the command and the Seal. Perhaps she had matters of her own to deal with as well."

"Like what?" A swirl of Fireflower memories tantalized him but he was learning how to do what Ynnir had taught him; to simply be be and let them swim around him like fish. and let them swim around him like fish.

"Dissension among her close advisers, I suspect. You know about the disagreement between Yasammez and my husband. What you may not know, or may not have been able to sift from what the Fireflower has given you, is that the distinctions are not so simple as to be divided into two camps only."

"Tell me." But what he said was closer to "Bring me to your thought." "Bring me to your thought." He found that in his own head he was now using Qar ideas nearly as frequently as his native tongue. He found that in his own head he was now using Qar ideas nearly as frequently as his native tongue.

"From the first, great Yasammez warned that we should sweep the mortals from the land before it was too late. But her great age and long experience have changed her, and her hatred of your kind is no longer as deadly as it once was. However, there are still many others of our people, some of the wilder folk, Tricksters and Elementals, who would happily see your kind vanish from the earth forever. ..."

"But then why did Yasammez send me to King Ynnir?" Barrick asked. "Does that mean she's changed her mind about my people somehow? Or that she thought keeping me alive could . . . could help the Qar?"

Saqri let him feel a blank, cloudy thought, another kind of shrug. "I do not know. I have tried to sense her mind on this but she keeps it hidden, even from me." And now she let him feel a little of the pain that caused her. "So much has changed. Once Yasammez was more to me than my own mother ..."

She did not finish the thought, and Barrick did not press for it. Too much hurt and confusion was there, things he could not understand, feelings so naked and private in a being of such immense composure that he did not want to go farther.

"So we face our final hours, Barrick," Saqri finished at last, "and all that was once certain has become uncertain. Except for defeat. That, as always, is the end of all our stories."

The dark lady met them in a place the Funderlings called the Old Baryte Span, her vanguard carrying torches that made the veins of quartz in the walls flash like lightning. Barrick could not help wondering if this great show of light was for him, since most of the Qar saw as well in dark pa.s.sages as the little people who usually walked here.

As Yasammez stepped down from the crude rock stairway onto the cavern floor, Saqri raised her hands in greeting. "We are together again."

"Yes. We are together again." Yasammez turned her somber face toward Barrick. "You have had to fight against your own people now. Do you still wish to stand with us?"

"My own people?" It took him a moment to understand she was talking about the Xixians, the autarch's soldiers. "They are nothing to me-invaders. Intruders. If I could kill them all with one swing of my sword, I would."

Yasammez looked at him for a long moment, silent and calculating. "Time is short," was all she said.

The council was surprisingly brief. Barrick had grown used to the Qar taking days to decide or do anything, but it seemed the pa.s.sing of the Seal of War to Saqri had brought a great change: Yasammez offered little in the way of advice and objected to almost nothing, letting Saqri make the decisions and give the orders.

"We must try to beat the southerners to the Last Hour of the Ancestor in the uttermost deeps," Saqri said when she had heard from all her lieutenants. "But they are too many for us to stop them by main strength. Even if Vansen and his drows are still alive and we could attack the southerners from both sides, the autarch has too many soldiers. Fighting is beside the point, anyway. Time Time is what is important now, and they are already deep below us, at the doorway to the depths." is what is important now, and they are already deep below us, at the doorway to the depths."

Fireflower thoughts and memories swirled in Barrick's head, but the silent presence that had been Ynnir led him to those that mattered, each as delicately precise as a note picked out on a lute. He began to understand. "But Crooked . . . is dead." He shook a little at the storm that realization raised inside him-all the meanings, the memories, the ancient hopes and miseries. It was hard even to say it. The G.o.d whose blood ran in him and in Saqri was dead. The G.o.d who had fathered Yasammez, and whose own parentage had started the G.o.dwar . . . Barrick ignored a cold wind of irritation from Yasammez and some of the others. "He pushed the old G.o.ds through and then sealed the way behind them. But the autarch wants to release them again!"

Saqri nodded. "And like most mortals, he has no idea of how dire many of these . . . beings are, how long they have waited outside the walls of nightmare ..."

"And how fiercely and greedily they are watching for their chance." Yasammez stood, her black armor covering her like a shadow, so that for a moment it seemed her face rose in darkness like the moon. "Whatever sins mortal men have committed, I would not wish such horrors on the earth itself, which is blameless. It is time. We can wait no longer. What is your wish, granddaughter?"

Saqri paused as if the Porcupine's abruptness had caught her by surprise. "We need a better way." She turned to the Ettins. "Singsc.r.a.pe, you and others have been working here while the rest of us fought the southerners. What have you found?"

Hammerfoot's son spoke in a rumbling voice like a slow avalanche. "Tunnels that will lead us down to the naked wound of Crooked's last and greatest effort, and from there to the ultimate depths, Mistress. Some of the way must still be cleared, and we will have to fight when our way crosses the autarch's line of descent, but if we strike swiftly and work tirelessly, we may yet beat the humans to the Last Hour of the Ancestor."

"Let it be so, then." Saqri let out a breath, the closest thing to a sigh Barrick had ever heard from her. "Tomorrow is the last day-perhaps the last day that ever will be. Let none of us say that he or she could have given more."

Daikonas Vo watched the parade of monsters with dull fascination. He had been stumbling in darkness for so long that the glare of their torches made him blink and shy away. What did they want? Were these truly pariki pariki as the Xixians called them-the fairies of his own mother tongue? What were they doing here beneath the castle? He had thought the autarch had driven them all away . . . as the Xixians called them-the fairies of his own mother tongue? What were they doing here beneath the castle? He had thought the autarch had driven them all away . . .

Vo shook his head to clear away some of the confusion. Did it matter? He had been wandering in darkness for so long he could scarcely remember who he was. Only the hot pain that had spread from his gut and now ran through his entire body like poison reminded him of what had happened to him, why he still breathed and walked when everything inside him urged him to lie down and accept the sweet relief of death.

If even death would be a relief, that was. Because in the dark, lost hours Vo had begun to hear his mother's voice again, whispering the stories of the G.o.ds to him, warning him of the serpents and other shadowy demons that would hunt him after he died and keep him from the bosom of Grandfather Nushash, the sun.

And weren't these grotesques marching below him through the underground caverns proof that such things could and did exist even in life? Bat-winged, hyena-headed, some covered with rough scales like the lowest desert snake . . . and their eyes! Glittering, glowing eyes that burned like coals. Surely they could see him even in his stony hiding place high on the cavern wall where the narrow trail he had been following had suddenly ended, a hundred feet above the cavern floor. So many times he had almost fallen to his death in this dark, ancient h.e.l.l-there must be a reason he still lived! The G.o.ds existed and had taken pity on Daikonas Vo. There could be no other explanation. And when he completed his task they would honor him. No beasts would hunt him in the dark lands of death. No serpents would devour him.

The things below had been still for a long while, immersed in some silent ritual. At last, though, they roused themselves and began to make their way farther into the depths, toward what must be the same ultimate goal as Daikonas Vo's. He would follow them, he decided. To one who had been wandering so long in darkness even the distant light of their torches would be enough to lead him, their stealthy pa.s.sage loud enough to guide him without his coming too close and being discovered.

As if to remind him what the penalty for such clumsiness would be, a burning pain made him grimace and bend himself double so that he almost tumbled from the ledge. The agony did not pa.s.s for long moments.

The girl with the red streak in her hair, the girl who had tried to murder him, was waiting in the depths. Great Sulepis was waiting there, too. Even the G.o.ds were waiting there for Daikonas Vo. He could not disappoint them.

As the pain ebbed and the last of the immortal monsters pa.s.sed out of the cavern he began to climb carefully and quietly down from his high place.

After traveling for so long by dark, narrow ways that Barrick fell into a waking dream, Saqri at last signaled that it was time to make camp. For a while now they had been following a ledge around the lip of a great, nearly circular chasm that seemed only a little less wide than the old inner walls of Southmarch, and which fell away far beyond the light of any torches.

"This is the wound," Saqri said as she stood watching her householders preparing the camp. "This is the scar of Crooked's last struggle."

"This? This hole?" It did not match with the Fireflower memories that drifted up through his thoughts like bubbles. "We are there . . . ?"

"No." She moved closer to the edge. "If you dropped a stone, it would drop for long, long moments still before it rattled to the bottom. But far down, past many twists and turns of this great rift, that low place waits-the Last Hour of the Ancestor. So this is the beginning of the last part of our journey. When we have prepared, we will begin the climb down."

"All the way to the bottom?" Barrick thought of the stone dropping and dropping through darkness and could not imagine descending such a distance. "There aren't ropes long enough for that in the whole world!"

Saqri allowed herself a tiny smile. "We will go down a little way to the next tunnels, then use them. Later we will return to the wound again. It will take time, but at last we will reach the place where our enemies . . . and our allies . . . are gathering." She made another gesture with her palm facing down-Water Enters Soil. "You have some little time now, manchild, so rest. I will send for you when we are ready to move on." "You have some little time now, manchild, so rest. I will send for you when we are ready to move on."

He did his best to follow Saqri's advice, but his own disquiet and the continuous murmur of the Fireflower voices made him too restless. He rose and walked among the Qar, watching them work, marveling at their different shapes and types despite the Fireflower chorus a.s.suring him that all was ordinary and familiar. He did not speak unless one of the Qar spoke to him, still uncertain of his place among these strange and ancient people. He thought he saw resentment on many of their inhuman faces, curiosity on some others, and it occurred to him that his presence was at least as disturbing to them as it was strange to Barrick himself.

What am I? I'm certainly not their prince, but I'm no ordinary subject, either. I have the blood and the memories of all their kings inside me, but I know less about them than I know about the peasants in far-off Xis.

He made his way at last to the edge of the rift and stood a long while in silence, trying to make sense of such a great hole in the earth. How could his family have ruled this place for generations and know so little about it? Or was it only Barrick himself, hung and smoked in his own misery, who had been oblivious?

"Master?" someone asked. It was a Qar term of carefully chosen resonance-it meant not so much a leader or superior as a foreigner whose status was not yet known. Barrick turned and found a trio of goblins standing behind him, looking up with solemn, shining eyes.

"Yes?"

"We have been in the side tunnels, doing the bidding of the queen in white. While there, we smelled a man. A human man."

For a moment he thought they were insulting him obliquely, perhaps suggesting that he bathe: the Qar were much more interested in cleanliness than Barrick's own people, he had noticed already. "A man . . . ?"

"Yes, Lord. Like you, but different." The goblins nudged and glared at each other, then the one who had been chosen as spokesman tried again. "Older. A little smaller. Will you come and see?"

Barrick let himself be led away from the lip of the great chasm. "What have you done to him? Is he a captive?"

The goblins looked shocked. "No, Lord!" said the spokesman. "We would do nothing without your word ..."

"The queen was busy," said one of the others, earning a glare from the one who had been talking. "And we are frightened of the dark lady."

"Quiet, fool," muttered the third, but it was unclear to whom she was speaking. Only the whispered knowledge of the Fireflower allowed him to discern which goblins were male and which female.

They led him up a winding path through the Qar forces until they were just beyond the camp. Here at the edge of things, where the light of the torches was dim and the shadows long, Barrick was reminded again of how little he had seen of the sun since he had first set out on this blighted adventure.

I should have stayed under the open sky as long as I could. . . .

His thoughts were interrupted by a memory of Briony and himself as children, running along the bright hillside of M'Helan's Rock, knee-deep in white meadowqueen blossoms as the sea boomed and hissed below. The thought was as painful as a dagger, a cold stab in his heart. He felt the Fireflower memories swarm up and cover it like b.u.t.terflies alighting on a bush, but for the briefest moment he had a twinge of doubt. Was the Fireflower keeping things from him, somehow? Separating him from his own life?

A moment later all such speculation vanished as another group of bare-foot goblin soldiers appeared, half a dozen at least, prodding diffidently with their slender, sharp spears at a man twice their small size. For half a moment Barrick thought it might be one of the Xixian soldiers who had become separated from his troop, but the man's round face was as pale as Barrick's own . . .

Barrick stared. The man stared back at him.

"My prince . . . ?" the man said at last. "Are you . . . do you . . . ? Is that truly you, Prince Barrick?"

It took longer for Barrick to remember. "Chaven," he said at last, speaking the name out loud. His voice was dry and ragged from disuse. "What are you doing here, physician?"

"Prince Barrick-it is is you!" The man stared as though newly awake; a moment later, as if something had slipped inside him and his feelings could now move freely, he suddenly lurched toward Barrick with arms wide. Barrick stepped back from the embrace. "But you are so tall, Highness!" Chaven said. "Ah, I suppose it has been almost a year ..." He shook his head. "Listen to me babble. How do you come to be here? How did you survive the war with the fairies?" He gestured to the goblins, who were watching the exchange with deep suspicion. "Are you a prisoner? No, you have made them you!" The man stared as though newly awake; a moment later, as if something had slipped inside him and his feelings could now move freely, he suddenly lurched toward Barrick with arms wide. Barrick stepped back from the embrace. "But you are so tall, Highness!" Chaven said. "Ah, I suppose it has been almost a year ..." He shook his head. "Listen to me babble. How do you come to be here? How did you survive the war with the fairies?" He gestured to the goblins, who were watching the exchange with deep suspicion. "Are you a prisoner? No, you have made them your your prisoners somehow ..." prisoners somehow ..."

Barrick found himself increasingly impatient with this stocky little man who would not stop talking. "I asked you what you are doing here. You are in the middle of a Qar camp and we are at war. You do not belong here."

Chaven stared at him. "Why so cold, Highness? Why so angry? I have done nothing but good for your family in your absence-I helped to save your sister's life!"

Barrick was awash in confusing ideas, the voices of the Fireflower and his own memories. He did not even know himself why he was angry with the physician. "I will ask you one last time, Chaven-why are you here, sneaking around on the outskirts of our camp?"

"Sneaking? I ..." The scholar shook his head, then fell silent. "I will be honest, Prince Barrick-I do not know. I . . . I confess that I am a little confused. I seem to be lost, too." He looked around him slowly. "Yes, where am I? Last I remember I was with Chert and the others ..."

The name meant nothing to Barrick. He was about to turn his back on the man when one of the goblins pulled at his sleeve. "He is hiding something, Master. We saw it when he approached-there, under his robe. It is a little man of stone. 'Ware lest he try to hit you with it ..."