The tunnel was featureless as a rabbit warren, and led downward, ever deeper into the earth’s black places. Simon desperately wanted to return to the light, to feel the wind—the last thing he wanted was to be in this place, this long, slender tomb. But there was nowhere else to go. He was alone again. He was utterly, utterly alone.
Aching in every joint, struggling to push away each dreadful thought before it could find a resting place in a mind which felt no less pained than his body, Simon plodded down into shadow.
13
The Fallen Sun
Eolair stared at the remnants of his Hernystiri troop. Of the hundred or so who had left their western land to accompany him, only a little more than two score remained. These survivors sat huddled around their fires at the base of the hillside below Naglimund, their faces gaunt, their eyes empty as dry wells.
Look at these poor, brave men, Eolair thought. Who would ever know that we were winning? The count felt as drained of blood and courage as any of them; he felt insubstantial as a ghost.
As Eolair walked from one fire to the next, a whisper of strange music came wafting down the hill. The count saw the men stiffen, then whisper unhappily among themselves. It was only the singing of the Sithi, who were walking sentry outside Naglimund’s broken walls ... but even the Hernystirmen’s Sithi allies were alien enough to make mortals anxious. And the Noms, the Sithi’s immortal cousins, sang, too.
A fortnight of siege had razed Naglimund’s walls, but the white-skinned defenders had only retreated to the inner castle, which had proved surprisingly resistant to defeat. There were forces at play that Eolair could not understand, things that even the mind of the shrewdest mortal general could not grasp—and Count Eolair, as he often reminded himself, was no general. He was a landowner, a somewhat unwilling courtier, and a skilled diplomat. Small surprise that he, like his men, felt that he was swimming in currents too powerful for his weak skills.
The Norns had established their defenses by the means of what sounded, when Jiriki described it to him, like pure magic. They had “sung a Hesitancy,” Jiriki explained. There was “Shadow-mastery” at work. Until the music was understood and the shadows untangled, the castle would not fall. In the interim, clouds gathered overhead, stormed briefly, then retreated. At other times, when the skies were clear, lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The mists around Naglimund’s keep sometimes seemed to become diamond hard, sparkling like glass; at other moments they turned blood red or ink black, and sent tendrils swirling high above the walls to claw at the sky. Eolair begged for explanation, but to Jiriki, what the Norns were doing—and what his own people were trying to do in retaliation—was no stranger than wooden hoardings or siege engines or any of the other machinery of humankind’s wars: the Sitha terms meant little or nothing to Eolair, who could only shake his head in fearful wonder. He and his men were caught up in a battle of monsters and wizards out of bardic songs. This was no place for mortals—and the mortals knew it.
Pondering, walking in circles, the count had returned to his own fire.
“Eolair,” Isorn greeted him, “I have saved the last swallows for you.” He motioned the count toward the fire and held up a wineskin.
Eolair took a swallow, more out of comradeship than anything else. He had never been much of a drinker, especially when there was work to do: it was too hard to keep a cool head at a foreign court when one washed large dinners down with commensurate amounts of spirits. “Thank you.” He brushed a thin skin of snow from the log and sat down, pushing his bootsoles near to the fire. “I am tired,” he said quietly. “Where is Maegwin?”
“She was out walking earlier. But I am certain she has gone to sleep by now.” He gestured to a tent a short distance away.
“She should not walk by herself,” Eolair said.
“One of the men went with her. And she stays close by. You know I would not let her go far away, even under guard.”
“I know.” Eolair shook his head. “But she is so sick-spirited—it seems a criminal thing to bring her to a battlefield. Especially a battlefield like this.” His hand swept out and gestured to the hillside and the snow, but Isorn certainly knew that it was not the terrain or weather that he meant.
The young Rimmersman shrugged. “She is mad, yes, but she seems to be more at ease than the men.”
“Don’t say that!” Eolair snapped. “She is not mad!” He took a shaky breath.
Isorn looked at him kindly. “If this is not madness, Eolair, what is? She speaks as though she is in the land of your gods.”
“I sometimes wonder if she is not right.”
Isorn lifted his arm, letting the firelight play across the jagged weal that ran from wrist to elbow. “If this is Heaven, then the priests at Elvritshalla misled me.” He grinned. “But if we are dead already, then I suppose we have nothing left to fear.”
Eolair shuddered. “That is just what worries me. She does think that she is dead, Isorn! At any moment she may walk out into the middle of the fighting again, as she did the first time she slipped away....”
Isorn put a wide hand on his shoulder. “Her madness seems more clever to me than that. And she may not be as terrified as the men, but she is not unafraid. She doesn’t like that damned windy castle or those damned, filthy white things any more than we do. She has been safe so far and we will keep her that way. Surely you do not need more things to worry about?”
The count smiled wearily. “So, Isorn Isgrimnurson, you are going to take up your father’s job, I see.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have seen what your father does for Josua. Picks the prince up when he wants to lie down, pokes his ribs and sings him songs when the prince wants to weep. So you will be my Isgrimnur?”
The Rimmersman’s grin was wide. “My father and I are simple men. We do not have the brains to worry like you and Josua.”
Eolair snorted and reached out for the wineskin.
For the third night running, the count dreamed of the most recent skirmish inside Naglimund’s walls, a nightmare more vivid and terrifying than anything mere imagination could contrive.
It had been a particularly dreadful battle. The Hernystirmen, now wearing masks of cloth rubbed with fat or tree sap to keep off the Norn’s madness-dust, had become as frightening to look at as the rest of the combatants; those mortals who had survived the first days of the siege now fought with terrified determination, knowing that nothing else would give them a chance of leaving this haunted place alive. The greatest part of the struggle had taken place in the narrow spaces between scorched, crumbling buildings and through winter-blasted gardens—places where Eolair had once walked on warm evenings with ladies of Josua’s court.
The dwindling army of Norns defended the stolen citadel with a kind of heedless madness: Count Eolair had seen one of them shove forward against a sword rammed through his chest, working his way up the blade to kill the mortal that clutched the hilt before dying in a coughing spray of red.
Most of the giants had also died, but each one exacted a horrible toll of men and Sithi before it fell. Dreaming, remembering, Eolair was again forced to watch one of the huge brutes grab Ule Frekkeson, one of the few Rimmersmen who had accompanied the war party out of Hernysadharc, then swing him around and dash his brains out against a wall as easily as a man might kill a cat. As a trio of Sithi surrounded him, the Hunë contemptuously shook the almost headless corpse at them, showering them with gore. The hairy giant then used Ule’s body as a club, killing one of the Sithi with it before the spears of the other two punched into the monster’s heart.
Squirming in the dream’s unshakable grasp, Eolair helplessly watched dead Ule used as a weapon, smashed left and right until his body began to come apart....
He woke quivering, head throbbing as though it might burst. He pressed his hands against his temples and squeezed, trying to relieve the pressure. How could a man see such things and keep his reason?
A hand touched his wrist.
Terrified, Eolair gasped and flung himself to one side, scrabbling for his sword. A tall shadow loomed in the doorway of his tent.
“Peace, Count Eolair,” said Jiriki. “I am sorry I startled you. I called from outside the door, but I thought you must be asleep since you did not reply. Please forgive my intrusion.”
Eolair was relieved, but angry and embarrassed. “What do you want?”
“Forgive me, please. I came because it is important and time is short.”
The count shook his head and took a slow breath. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Likimeya asks that you come. All will be explained.” He lifted the tent flap and stepped back outside. “Will you come? I will wait for you to dress.”
“Yes ... yes, certainly I will.”
The count felt a sort of muted pride. Likimeya had sent her son for him, and since these days Jiriki seemed involved only in things of the first and most crucial order, the Sithi must indeed think it important that Eolair come. A moment later his pride turned to a gnawing of disquiet: could circumstances be so bad that they were searching for ideas or leadership from the master of two score terrified mortal warriors? He had been sure they were winning the siege.
It took only a few moments to secure his sword belt and pull on his boots and fur-lined cloak. He followed Jiriki across the foggy hillside, marveling that the footfalls of the Sitha, who was as tall as Eolair and almost as broad, should only dimple the snow while his own boots dug deep gouges in the white crust.
Eolair looked up to where Naglimund crouched on the hilltop like a huddled, wounded beast. It was almost impossible to believe that it had once been a place where people danced and talked and loved. Prince Josua’s court had been thought by some rather grim—but, oh, how those who had mocked the prince would feel their mouths dry and their hearts flutter if they saw what grim truly meant.
Jiriki led the count among the gossamer-thin tents of the Sithi, tents that gleamed against the snow as though they were half-soaked in moonlight. Despite the hour, halfway between midnight and dawn, many of the Fair Folk were out; they stood in solemn clusters and stared at the sky or sat on the ground singing quietly. None of them seemed at all bothered by the freezing wind that had Eolair clutching his hood close beneath his chin. He hoped that Likimeya had a fire burning, if only out of consideration for the frailties of a mortal visitor.
“We have questions to ask you about this place you call Naglimund, Count Eolair.” There was more than a hint of command in Likimeya’s voice.
Eolair turned from the blaze to face Jiriki, his mother, and tall, black-haired Kuroyi. “What can I tell you that I have not told you already?” The count felt a mild anger at the Sithi’s confusing habits, but found it hard to hold that emotion in the presence of Likimeya’s powerful, even gaze. “And is it not a little late to be asking, since the siege began a fortnight ago?”
“It is not such things as the height of walls and the depth of wells that we need to know.” Jiriki sat down beside the count, the cloth of his thin shirt glinting. “You have already told us much that has helped us.”
“You spent time in Naglimund when the mortal prince Josua ruled here.” Likimeya spoke briskly, as though impatient with her son’s attempts at diplomacy. “Does it. have secrets?”
“Secrets?” Eolair shook his head. “Now I am completely confounded. What do you mean?”
“This is not fair to the mortal.” Kuroyi spoke with an emotionless reserve that was extreme even for the Sithi. “He deserves to know more. If Zinjadu had lived, she could tell him. Since I failed my old friend and she is now voyaging with the Ancestors, I will take her place as the lore-giver.” He turned to Likimeya. “If Year-Dancing House approves, of course.”
Likimeya made a wordless musical noise, then flicked her hand in permission.
“Jiriki i-Sa‘onserei has told you something of the Road of Dreams, Count Eolair?” Kuroyi asked.
“Yes, he has told me a little. Also, we Hernystiri still have many stories of the past and of your people. There are those living among us who claim they can walk the Dream Road, just as you taught our ancestors to do.” He thought sourly of Maegwin’s would-be mentor, the scryer Diawen: if some Hernystiri did still have that power, it had little to do with good sense or responsibility.
“Then I am sure he has spoken of the Witnesses, too—those objects that we use to make the journeying easier.” Kuroyi hesitated, then reached into his milk-white shirt and produced a round, translucent yellow object that caught the firelight like a globule of amber or a ball of melted glass. “This is one such—my own.” He let Eolair look for a moment, then tucked the thing away again. “Like most others, it is of no use in these strange times—the Dream Road is as impassable as a road of this world might be in a terrible blizzard.
“But there are other Witnesses, too: larger, more powerful objects that are not moveable, and are linked to the place where they are found. Master Witnesses, they are called, for they can look upon many things and places. You have seen one such.”
“The Shard?”
Kuroyi nodded his head once. “In Mezutu‘a, yes. There were others, although most are now lost to time and earth-changes. One lies beneath the castle of your enemy King Elias.”
“Beneath the Hayholt?”
“Yes. The Pool of Three Depths is its name. But it has been dry and voiceless for centuries.”
“And this has something to do with Naglimund? Is there something of that sort here?”
Kuroyi smiled, a narrow, wintery smile. “We are not sure.”
“I don’t understand,” the count said. “How can you not be sure?”
The Sitha lifted his long-fingered hand. “Peace, Eolair of Nad Mullach. Let me finish my tale. By the standards of the Gardenborn it is quite short.”
Eolair shifted slightly; he was glad for the firelight, which disguised his flush of embarrassment. How was it that among these folk he was as easily cowed as a child—as if all his years of statecraft had been forgotten? “My apologies.”
“There have always been in Osten Ard certain places,” Kuroyi resumed, “which act much like Master Witnesses ... but in which no Master Witness seems to be present. That is, many of the effects are there—in fact, sometimes these places exhibit more powerful results than any Witness—but no object can be found which is responsible. Since we first came to this land long ago, we have studied such places, thinking that they might answer questions we have about the Witnesses and why they do what they do, about Death itself, even about the Unbeing that made us flee our native land and come here.”
“Forgive me for interrupting again,” said Eolair, “but how many of these places exist? And where are they?”
“We know of only a handful between far Nascadu and the wastelands of the white north. A-Genay‘asu’e, we call them—”Houses of Traveling Beyond“ would be a crude rendering in your tongue. And we Gardenborn are not the only ones to sense the power of these places: they often draw mortals as well, some merely seekers-after-knowledge, some god-maddened and dangerous. What mortals call Thisterborg, the hill near Asu‘a, is one such spot.”
“I know it.” Remembering a black sled and a team of misshapen white goats, Eolair felt his flesh tighten. “Your cousins the Norns also know about Thisterborg. I saw them there.”
Kuroyi did not seem surprised. “We Gardenborn have been interested in these sites since long before the families parted. The Hikeda‘ya, like us, have made many attempts to harness the might of such places. But their power is as wild and unpredictable as the wind.”
Eolair pondered. “So there is not a Master Witness here at Naglimund, but rather one of these things, a ... Beyonding House? I cannot remember the words in your tongue.”
Jiriki looked toward his mother, smiling and nodding with what almost looked like pride. Eolair felt a flash of annoyance; was a mortal who could listen and reason such a surprise to them?
“An A-Genay‘asu. Yes, that is what we believe,” said Kur
oyi. “But it came to our attention late, and there was never a chance to find out before the mortals came.”
“Before the mortals came with their iron spikes.” Likimeya’s soft voice was like the hiss that preceded a whip-crack. Surprised by her vehemence, Eolair looked up, then just as quickly turned his gaze back to Kuroyi’s more placid face.
“Both Zida‘ya and Hikeda’ya continued to come to this place after men built their castle here at Naglimund,” the black-haired Sitha explained. “Our presence frightened the mortals, though they saw us only by moonlight, and even then only rarely. The man the Imperators had given to rule over the locality filled the fields all around with the iron that gave the place its name: Nail Fort.”
“I knew that the nails were there to keep out the Peaceful Ones—what we Hernystiri call your folk,” said Eolair, “but since it was built in the era when your people and ours were at peace, I could not understand why the place should have needed such defenses.”
“The mortal named Aeswides who had it done may have felt a certain shame that he had trespassed on our lands in building this keep so close to our city Da‘ai Chikiza, on the far side of those hills.” Kuroyi gestured toward the east. “He may have feared that we would some day come and take the place back; he may also have thought that those of our folk who still made pilgrimage to this place were spies. Who knows? In fact, he traveled less and less out of the gates, and died at last a recluse—afraid, it was said, even to leave his own well-guarded chamber for terror of what the dreaded immortals might do.” Kuroyi’s cool smile returned. “Strangely, although the world is already full of fearful things, mortals seem always to hunt for new worries.”
“Nor do we relinquish the old ones.” Eolair returned the tall Sitha’s smile. “For, like the cut of a man’s cloak, we know that the tried and true is best in the long run. But I doubt you have brought me here only to tell about what some long-dead mortal did.”