Isgrimnur stared at the blood on his fingers as though it were something he had never seen before, then lifted his eyes to the grave, silent stillness of the mountain, which stood wreathed in stone dust and swirling snow.
“It’s over,” Isgrimnur said, though his mouth was so choked with dirt he could barely form the words. Despite everything else, he could only think of the pale shape of the warrior Suno’ku, her back straight as a sword blade while she waited for death. He spat to clear his tongue. “God save us all, Sludig, we will never clear that . . . and they will never escape. The war is over.”
Part
Five
The Long Way Back
“The thoroughfares of Nakkiga’s first tier were hung with snowy mourning banners, and even the poorest of the poor had some white token tied at arm or neck. The general’s own Sacrifice host formed an honor guard for their fallen leader, lining up along both sides of the Glinting Passage so that all who came to Black Water Field to honor her walked between them.
“Suno’ku seyt-Iyora’s coffin was empty, of course, but the people of Nakkiga still turned out in great numbers to bid the beloved warrior farewell. Despite the loss of such a figure, some even sensed an air of triumph to the ceremony: after all—and against all expectations—the mortals’ siege had ended, the enemy was leaving, and Nakkiga still stood.
“Except for the queen herself and Lord Akhenabi, both still under the veil of the yi’indra, all the highest nobles of our race attended Suno’ku’s funeral. Prince-Templar Pratiki of the queen’s own Hamakha clan placed a sacred witchwood crown upon the empty coffin, and the general’s commander and relative, High Marshal Muyare sey-Iyora, honored her with a wreath of yew branches. And as a further tribute to Suno’ku’s bravery and the esteem in which she was held by all, High Magister Yaarike of the Builders brought his family’s greatest heirloom, a jeweled necklace called The Heart of What Was Lost, and placed it beside the other offerings.
“When the ceremony was ended, the coffin and tributes were carried in a slow march through the crowds and then deposited in the Iyora clan vault. In a time of great danger to our race, Suno’ku had become the spirit of the Hikeda’ya. The people would never forget her.”
—Lady Miga seyt-Jinnata, the Order of Chroniclers
“Come, husband, why can I not tempt you? The smoked blindfish is exquisite, the best we have had in an age. Even better, it comes from your lake.”
“It is not my lake,” Viyeki said, but even he thought he sounded unconvincing.
“Of course it is.” Khimabu gestured for one of the new servants to take him the platter. “Who else’s would it be?”
One of the strangest and most fortuitous things that had happened when the stones fell and sealed off the gates was that the great throbbing and shifting of the mountain’s substance had also caused a collapse at the site deep in the mountain where Viyeki’s Builder host had begun digging around the Forbidden Deeps. This great rupture of stone had exposed an entrance into another part of the lower depths, revealing a heretofore unknown lake that had lain hidden in the darkness of Nakkiga’s roots since Time itself began. The new body of water, which a surprised Viyeki named Dark Garden Lake when he was summoned there by his workers the day after the collapse, proved to be rich with eyeless fish and other edible creatures and mosses, easing at a stroke the city’s fears of starvation. Although it seemed certain that public sentiment would rename it Lake Suno’ku, in all other ways Viyeki had received the credit for the momentous discovery. And if he was uncomfortable with his newfound acclaim, his wife was not.
“Why will you not eat?” she asked. “If you will not try the fish, at least have a little porcupine moss. The cook has outdone himself.” Porcupine moss was a bristly sort of lichen, hard to find, but when boiled and spiced it was a favorite of the old noble families.
“I cannot help thinking it all too convenient,” Viyeki said. “Magister Yaarike knows more of the deep places than anyone else in Nakkiga. He must have known there was a chance we would find a lake there.”
“It is of no matter,” said Khimabu in frustration. “Yaarike favors you, as he should. Despite all your worries, he has now announced to the Maze that you will be his successor as high magister! Is it so strange or wrong that he might have hoped you would find such a place?”
Viyeki put down his fork with the untasted fish still on it. “Forgive me, wife,” he said. “I am troubled by many things. I am poor company.”
“You are, it is true,” she said. “But I forgive you.” She brightened. Her features might have been those of a girl just emerged into womanhood. “My cousin Jasiyo says he thinks the Maze will honor you on the queen’s behalf. Think of that!”
He rose, trying not to seem too hasty, but his stomach had suddenly gone sour and the smell of the meal was making him queasy. “Yes, we are honored, of course,” he said. “And I am grateful. Please excuse me, my wife. My head is aching, and I feel the need of some air.”
It was not air he needed, or even freedom of movement. As he paced the streets of the second tier, Viyeki knew that what he really needed was certainty, or at least understanding. What he needed was for all his painful, confused thoughts to give him some peace.
The Hikeda’ya of Nakkiga had always lived with the shaking and crumbling of the earth. Thus, when the great stones had fallen upon the gates, most of the people had thought it only another example of the mountain’s uneasy sleep. But Viyeki had been outside the mountain during the first moments, before the others had dragged him through the sally-gate. He had seen the twilight suddenly turn black and the sky turn to falling stone. He had seen dozens of Rimmersmen obliterated beneath the tumbling rocks in an instant. He had watched General Suno’ku wait calmly for death, then saw her snuffed like a candle. He still awoke several times each night, gasping, trying in vain to shield himself from a thundershower of stone.
But his continuing disquiet was not caused simply by what he had experienced when the mountain fell. What was troubling him far more was Yaarike’s strange gesture at the general’s funeral.
Like the rest of the Hikeda’ya who were present, serfs and nobles, Viyeki had applauded Yaarike’s generous tribute to the fallen warrior, his tomb-gift of Clan Kijada’s treasured relic, The Heart of What Was Lost; unlike the others, though, Viyeki’s approval had not even lasted until the coffin had been slid into its niche. And the more he considered it the less sense it made, until now the question tormented him through all his waking hours.
Why would his master do such a thing? Many of the Hikeda’ya had genuinely loved and admired Suno’ku, but Yaarike had not been one of them. If any other high official had spoken of her so slightingly, then put a magnificent and treasured family heirloom—an heirloom of the Garden itself!—on her coffin, Viyeki would have thought it merely cynical, a political gesture to buy favor with the common herd who had revered the general and almost come to believe that she had fought off the Northmen and saved them single-handedly. But Viyeki’s master was famous for his dismissal of mere gestures, of his refusal to court popularity by appeasing either the masses or the powerful elite. In any case, Yaarike had no need to appease anyone. Even after the great rockfall, the work of the Builders during the siege and Viyeki’s own discovery made the high magister nearly unassailable.
So why should Lord Yaarike do such a strange thing? Why had Viyeki’s unsentimental old master felt moved enough to seal away his family’s greatest prize in someone else’s grave?
At a moment when his own fortunes were at their height, the puzzle of it would not let him be. And so, churning inside, Viyeki walked the dark streets, barely seeing the other nobles when they saluted him or the servants and low-caste workers who scurried out of his path.
“I have been the besieger and also the besieged,” Isgrimnur said as he sipped his bowl of ale. “But I have never seen anything as damnably strange as this.”
He
was sitting on a wooden chest in front of his tent while his carls cooked supper over the fire. The skies had cleared, and despite the afternoon shadow of the mountain stretching over the valley, it was not terribly cold. Sludig, still done up in his furs, held out his own bowl to be refilled.
“Rocks fall,” Sludig said. “Even mountains. God has His own plans.”
“It is not that.” Isgrimnur wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “It’s knowing that the White Foxes are still there. It’s as if they went into a house and closed the door and shuttered the windows, leaving us to stand helplessly in the street. The murdering creatures are there, only a few steps from us, but we can do nothing! If I had twice the number of men it still would take me half a year or more to clear all that stone.”
Sludig shrugged. “Let the fairies starve in their hole, my lord. We can’t get in, but they can’t get out, either.”
“They will not stay in there forever,” said Isgrimnur. “I cannot believe they will be unable to find their way out again. They tunnel like moles, those Norns.”
“Then we will come back and finish the job,” said Sludig, and drank deeply.
Isgrimnur watched his men beginning the long process of breaking down the camp and preparing for the trip south. They were in no hurry, nor should they be: many of the wounded were still too weak to walk, and it would be a long march home to Rimmersgard—even farther for most of the mercenary troops. He thought for a moment of the tall fellow he had knighted for helping kill a giant. Nabbanai, was he? Or Perdruinese? Something southern. That one likely wouldn’t reach home until Aedontide, poor devil. But perhaps his new rank would help speed his way. “Did we give those fellows who killed the giant anything? Some gold?”
“I will see to it, my lord.” Sludig stretched. “But not being a knight myself, I don’t know exactly how much to give them.”
Isgrimnur showed him a sour grin. “You need not fear I’ll forget your long, hard service, Sludig. In any case, you will be recognized and rewarded by the king and queen, too. So these men—reward them well. It takes courage as well as luck to kill one of those monsters.”
“Courage is always in supply,” Sludig said. “Luck, not so often, so let’s offer our thanks to the mountain for coming down on our enemies. The good Lord alone knows how many men we would have lost if we’d had to take the city inside it.”
“Shall we drink to the mountain? That seems strange, somehow.” Isgrimnur looked up at the great jagged cone. Steam and smoke still wreathed its upper reaches, as if to show that no matter what had happened, a scattering of stones here or there, the great peak still remained above such mundane things as even a war between mortals and fairies.
“Why not?” Sludig waved his bowl for more and one of the carls dutifully came forward with the jug. “We have drunk to defeated enemies before this, if they were brave or noble. The mountain ended the war, and because of that many of our men will see their homes and families again. That strikes me as noble enough to warrant a salute.” He lifted his bowl. “To the mountain! Long may she keep her secrets hidden from God-fearing men. Long may she keep the Norns out of the light and away from our lands.”
“Yes, I can drink to that, my friend,” said Isgrimnur as he lifted his own. “To the mountain, and to the end of killing.”
“And to all our brave dead.”
Isgrimnur, thinking of Isorn his son, suddenly could not find words and only nodded.
When they finished their toast Sludig sat silently, regarding the shadow-darkened peak. “At any rate,” he said suddenly, “now perhaps we can put our swords away for a time. The war is over. The Storm King and the Norns have been destroyed or driven back into the darkness.” He looked at the duke, slightly shamefaced. “In truth, I think I would like to buy a farm.”
Isgrimnur laughed so hard he spilled the last of his ale. “By the Ransomer, I wager that never in a thousand, thousand years, will such a thing come to pass—my brave, bloody-handed Sludig turned farmer! But thank you for amusing me when I thought I was beyond it.”
Sludig smiled. “Perhaps it will not happen, my lord. I have been wrong erenow, and changed my mind a hundred times about other things. But at this moment, after all we’ve seen and done, I think it would be nice to watch things grow.”
The Order of Builders had repair work underway almost everywhere in Nakkiga; with his noble blood, rank, and especially his new importance, it was easy for Viyeki to go where he pleased, see what he wished, and ask whatever questions he wanted. But the thing he was seeking did not appear on any of the official schemes, so it took some time before he tracked down the gang chief who had led the small crew.
The chief, a slender, older Hikeda’ya with hands so callused they were yellow, led Viyeki into the highest tunnels behind the mountain’s face, far above most of the work that had been done to shore up the gates and defend the heights of Ur-Nakkiga, to a place many hundreds of cubits above the starting point of the rockfall.
“Here it is, my lord Host Foreman,” said the underling. “The work was done in the very first days of the siege and then abandoned.”
Viyeki looked around. The natural cavern had been hastily and crudely enlarged, but that was not what caught his attention. A row of a dozen or more tunnels had been gouged in the cavern’s rough floor nearest the outside of the mountain, each tunnel as wide as Viyeki’s waist. Somewhat strangely, the rough chamber had its own well.
“Where does this water come from?” he asked, looking down into the blackness. He dropped a pebble, heard it splash not far below.
“From one of the meltwater rivulets that run down from the peak,” the chief told him. “All thanks to the Garden, the mountain itself makes certain we will never die of thirst.”
“And what was the purpose of your task here? What need was this digging so high above the gates meant to serve?”
“We were never told, Lord Viyeki.”
Finished with his inspection of the well, he examined the crude tunnels that had been sunk into the cavern floor. Their endings were beyond what he could see with his torch but they seemed unexceptional. When he had first discovered a passing mention of this place in the order’s records chamber, Viyeki had felt sure he had found something important, but now that he was here it was hard to see it as anything more than another abandoned project from the confusion of the siege’s early days. “Do you know who ended the digging here?”
The gang-foreman looked at him in surprise. Underlings were seldom told much about their work, and they almost never, ever asked. “No, Host Foreman. But the high magister himself came to see it in the beginning. Perhaps he was displeased with the location chosen.”
So Yaarike had been here to inspect the digging. “And did he say anything about the project being abandoned?”
Again the look of incomprehension. “No, lord. The order came to us some eight or nine bells later. There was much to do and it was a muddled time. I’m sorry I cannot tell you more.”
Viyeki nodded. “No matter. I am only correcting some of our records back at the order-house. Your assistance has been appreciated.”
The gang chief looked cautiously pleased, but still maintained his stance of extreme humility. “It is an honor to serve you, Lord Viyeki,” he said. “Everyone knows that you saved our people from starvation.”
He waved his hand, dismissing the praise. “The spirit of the Garden was watching out for us all.”
As he followed his guide back down the steep tunnels to the lower levels of the works, he felt compelled to ask, “Did anyone visit this site during the last days of the siege, after the work was abandoned?”
“I don’t think so, Lord Viyeki. Why would they?”
“Of course,” Viyeki said. “Why indeed?”
The temple bells rang to mark the passage of the days, and the life of Nakkiga continued as it had since the siege’s end, the city both mourning it
s dead and rejoicing at its unexpected salvation. But Viyeki found he could not do either with any comfort: the questions of what had happened before the collapse of the mountainside still worried at his thoughts like a canker. Even his wife Khimabu, who was otherwise very contented with the state of affairs, noticed his distraction.
“It would be one thing if you mourned the dead properly, dressing in white and paying the priests for bells to be rung on feast days,” she told him. “But instead you go about with a long face and your robes covered in dust like a common laborer. My family wonders what is wrong with you—and so do I.”
But on the few occasions he tried to explain, she did not want to hear.
“Why would you act this way? Can you not understand that we have been very fortunate? Why would you wish to trouble your people, who have had enough of suffering, with questions about something that is over and done with?”
Thus, when Viyeki discovered several more similarly abandoned projects above the failure line of the collapse, each one with its own well, all strung along the face of the mountain like gems on a necklace, he told no one. There was only one he wished to speak with about it in any case, and Viyeki was not quite ready for that conversation.
“We come now to the end of this particular tale of the Wars of Return, and to a necessary apology from your chronicler. Because these words were written less than half a Great Year after the events described, and because your scribe lived through the siege of the city and felt the mountain fall it has been more difficult than usual to keep this chronicler’s flawed perceptions from affecting the proper recounting of fact.
“The only true history is that which has survived for generations and provided edification to our people, history that gives us an understanding of the past which holds firmly to the eternal truths of who we are—the undeniable truths of our martyrs, our sacred home, and our beloved monarch.