“Not where, but when. You know that.” The angel seemed to give off a sort of joy; if she had been a flower, Simon thought, she would have been standing in a patch of sunlight, surrounded by bees. “It was so terrible those other times when I had to go back. I was only happy here. I tried to tell you that once, but you could not hear me. ”
“I don’t understand. ”
“Of course. You have never heard my voice until now. Never my own voice, that is. You heard hers. ”
There were no words, Simon realized suddenly. He and the angel were not speaking as people spoke; rather, she seemed to give him her ideas and they found a home in his head. When she talked of “her,” of the other whose voice he had heard, he did not perceive it as a word, but as a feeling of a protecting, holding, loving, but still somehow dangerous, female.
“Who is ‘her’?”
“She has gone on ahead, ” the angel said, as though he had asked a completely different question. “Soon I will join her. But I had to wait for you. Simon. It doesn’t bother me, though. I am happy here. I’m just glad I didn’t have to go back. ” Simon felt “back” as a trapped, hurting place. “Even before, when I first came here, I never wanted to go back ... but she always made me.”
Before he could question further—before he could even decide whether, in this strange dream, he wanted to question further—Simon found himself in the tunnels of Asu‘a. A familiar scene spread before him—the fair-haired man, the torch, the spear, the great glittering something that lay just beyond the archway.
“What is this?”
“Watch. It is your story—or part of it. ”
The spearman took a step forward, every inch of him aquiver with fearful expectation. The great beast did not move. Its red claw lay curled on the ground just a few paces before his feet.
Simon wondered if the beast slept. His own scar, or the memory of it, stung him.
Run away, man, he thought. A dragon is more than you can know. Run away!
The spearman took another cautious step, then stopped. Simon was suddenly closer, looking into the wide chamber as though he saw through the eyes of the golden-haired man. What he saw was at first hard to take in.
The room was huge, with a ceiling that stretched up beyond the limits of the torchflame. The walls had been blasted and melted by great fires.
It’s the forge, Simon realized. Or that’s what it is now. This must be the past.
The dragon lay sprawled across the cavern floor, red-gold, as though the countless scales mirrored the torchlight. It was larger than a house, its tail a seemingly endless coil of looping flesh. Great wings stretched from its haunches to the elongated spurs behind its front claws. It was magnificent and terrifying in a way that even the ice-dragon Igjarjuk had not been. And it was completely and utterly dead.
The spearman stared. Simon, floating in a dream, stared.
“Do you see?” the angel whispered. “The dragon was dead.”
The spearman took a step forward to prod the inert claw with his spear. Reassured, he moved into the great chamber of melted stone.
Something pale lay beneath the dragon’s breast.
“It’s a skeleton, Simon whispered. ”A person’s skeleton.“
“Hush, the angel said in his ear. ”Watch. This is your story. “
“What do you mean?”
The spearman moved toward the pile of white bones, his fingers tracing the sign of the Tree in the air. The shadow of his hand leaped across the wall. He leaned close, still moving slowly and stealthily, as though any moment the dragon might suddenly roar back to life—but the man, like Simon, could see the ragged holes where the dragon’s eyes had been, the withered, blackened tongue that lolled from the gaping mouth.
The man reached down and reverently touched the human skull that lay beside the dragon’s breastbone like a pearl from a broken necklace. The rest of the bones were scattered close by. They were blackened and warped. Looking at them, Simon suddenly remembered Igjarjuk’s scalding blood, and felt a pang of sadness for the poor wretch who had slain this creature and received his own death. For slain it he had, it seemed; the only bones which still hung together were a forearm and hand, and they were wrapped around the hilt of a sword driven nearly to the hilt in the dragon’s belly.
The spearman stared at this odd sight for a long time, then at last lifted his head, looking wildly around the cavern as though in fear someone might be watching. His face was somber, but his eyes gleamed feverishly. In that instant Simon almost recognized him, but the grayness of his thoughts was not entirely dispersed; when the fair-haired man turned back to the skeleton, the recognition faded.
The man dropped his spear and detached the skeletal hand from the sword’s hilt with trembling care. One of the fingers broke loose. The man held it for a moment, his expression unreadable, then kissed the bone and tucked it into his shirt. When the hilt was freed, the man put his torch down on the stone, then took the sword in a firm grip. He placed his boot against the dragon’s arching breastbone and pulled. Muscles rippled on his arms and cords stood out in his neck, but the sword did not come free. He rested for a moment, then spat on his palms and gripped the sword again. At last it slid out, leaving a puckered hole between the gleaming red scales.
The man lifted the sword before him, his eyes wide. At first Simon thought the blade a simple, almost crude piece of work, but its lines were clean and graceful beneath the char of dragon’s blood. The man regarded it with an admiration so frank that it was almost greedy, then lowered it abruptly and looked around again, as though still afraid someone might be watching. He picked up the torch and began to move back toward the chamber’s arched doorway, but stopped to stare at the dragon’s leg and clawed front foot. After a long moment’s consideration, he kneeled and began sawing away with the blackened sword at the leg’s narrowest point, just in front of the wing-spur.
It was hard labor, but the man was young and powerfully built. As he worked, he looked up anxiously, staring into the shadows of the vast room as though a thousand scornful eyes were watching him. Sweat was trickling down his face and limbs. He seemed possessed, as though some wild spirit had taken hold of him; when he had sawed almost halfway through the thing he suddenly stood and began hacking with the sword, smashing at the arm with blow after blow until bits of tissue spun away on all sides. Simon, still a helpless but fascinated observer, saw that the man’s eyes were full of tears, that his youthful face was contorted in a grimace of pain and horror.
Finally the last of the flesh parted and the claw rolled free. Shivering like a terrified child, the man shoved the sword through his belt, then hefted the huge claw up onto his shoulder as though it were a side of beef. His face still full of misery, he staggered out of the chamber and disappeared up the tunnel.
“He felt the Sithi ghosts,” the angel whispered to him. Simon had been -so caught up in the man’s private torment that he was startled by her voice. “He felt them shame him for his lie. ”
“I don’t understand. ” Something was tickling his memory, but he had been in the gray for so long.... “What was that? And who was the other one-the skeleton, the one who killed the dragon?”
“That is part of your story, Simon.” And suddenly the cavern was gone and they were in nothingness once more. “There is much still to show you ... and there is very little time. ”
“But I don’t understand!”
“Then we must go deeper still. ”
The gray wavered, then dissolved into another of the visions that had come to him in sleep upon the Tan‘ja Stairs.
A large room opened before him. A few candles made all the light, and shadows hung in the corners. The room’s sole occupant sat in a high-backed chair at the room’s center, surrounded by a scatter of books and scrolls.
Simon had glimpsed this person during his stairwell dream. As in that earlier vision, the man sat in the chair with a book spread open in his lap. He was past middle age, but in his calm, thoughtful feature
s there still remained a trace of the child he had once been, an innocent sweetness only slightly diminished by a long hard life. His hair had mostly gone to gray, although it still held darker streaks and much of his short beard remained light brown. He wore a circlet on his brow. His clothes, though simple in form, were well-made and of good cloth.
As with the man in the dragon’s lair, Simon felt a twinge of recognition. Before the dream, he had never seen this person—yet, in some way, he knew him.
The man looked up from his reading as two other figures entered the room. One, an old woman with her white hair caught up in a ragged scarf, came forward and kneeled at the man’s feet. He put his book aside, then stood and gave the woman his hand to help her up. After saying a few words that Simon could not hear—as with the dragon-dream, all these shapes seemed voiceless and remote—the man walked across the chamber and squatted beside the old woman’s companion, a little girl of seven or eight years. She had been crying: her eyes were puffy and her lip trembled with anger or fright. She avoided the. man’s gaze, pulling fitfully at her reddish hair. She, too, wore simple clothing, an unadorned dark dress, but despite her disarray she looked well cared for. Her feet were bare.
At last the man reached out his arms for her. She hesitated, then flung herself at him and buried her face against his chest, crying. Tears came to the man as well, and he held her for a long time, stroking her back. At last, with clear reluctance, he let her go and stood. The girl ran from the room. The man watched her go, then turned to the old woman. Without saying another word, he slipped a thin golden ring from his finger and gave it to her; she nodded and wrapped her fingers around it as he leaned down and kissed her forehead. She bowed to him; then, as if her own composure was fast slipping, she turned and hurried away.
After a long moment the man walked to a book-covered chest that lay beside the wall, opened it, and withdrew a sheathed sword. Simon recognized it immediately: he had seen that sparsely decorated hilt only moments before, standing in a dragon’s breast. The man held the sword carefully, but did not look at it for more than a moment; instead, he cocked his head as though he heard something. He made the Tree sign with slow deliberation, lips moving in what might have been prayer, then returned to his seat. He set the sword across his lap, then picked up his book and opened it, spreading it atop the sword. But for the set of his jaw and the faintest tremor in his fingers as he turned the pages, he might have been thinking only of a good night’s sleep—but Simon knew that he was waiting for something far different.
The scene wavered and dissipated like smoke.
“Do you see? Do you understand now?” the angel asked, impatient as a child.
Simon felt as though he groped at a large sack. Something was inside it, and he could feel strange corners and significant bumps, but just when he thought he knew what it contained, his imagination failed. He had been in the gray fog a long time. Thinking was difficult—and it was hard to care.
“I don’t know. Why can’t you just tell me, angel?”
“It is not the way. These truths are too strong, the myths and lies around them too great. They are surrounded on all sides by walls I cannot explain, Simon. You must see them and you must understand for yourself. But this has been your story. ”
His story? Simon thought again about what he had seen, but meaning seemed to slither away from him. If he could only remember what things had been like before, the names and stories he had known before the grayness surrounded him... !
“Hold to them,” the angel said. “If you can get back, these truths will be of use to you. And now there is one more thing I must show you. ”
“I’m tired. I don’t want to see any more. ” The urge for restful oblivion had returned, pulling at him like a powerful current. All he had gained from this visitor was confusion. Go back? To the world of pain? Why should he bother? Sleep was easier, the drowsy emptiness of not caring. He could just let go, and all would be so easy....
“Simon!” There was fear in the angel’s voice. “Don‘t! You must not give up. ”
Slowly the angel’s verdigrised features appeared once more. Simon wanted to ignore her, but although her face was a mask of lifeless bronze, there was something in her voice, some note of true need, that would not let him.
“Why can’t I rest?”
“I have only a little while left with you, Simon. You were never near enough before. Then I must give you a push to send you back or you will wander here forever. ”
“Why do you care?”
“Because I love you. ” The angel spoke with sweet simplicity that held neither obligation or reproach. “You saved me—or you tried. And there are others I love who need you. There is only a small chance that the storm can be turned away-but it is the only chance that remains. ”
Saved her? Saved the angel who stood on the tower top? Simon felt exhausting confusion tug at him again. He could not afford to wonder.
“Then show me, if you must.”
This time the translation from gray nothing to living vision seemed more difficult, as though this place was somehow harder to Teach, or as though her powers were flagging. The first thing Simon saw was a great circular shadow, and for a long time he saw nothing else. The shadow grew ragged at one edge. Tracings of light appeared there, then became a figure.
Even in the dislocated netherworld of the vision, Simon felt a stab of fear. The figure that sat at the edge of the shadowy circle wore a crown of antlers. Before it, point down, double-guarded hilt clutched in its hands, was a long gray sword.
The enemy! His mind was empty of names, but the thought was clear and cold. The black-hearted one, the frozen yet burning thing that caused the world’s misery. Simon felt fear and hatred burning inside him so strongly that for a moment the vision flickered and threatened to vanish.
“See!” The angel’s voice was very faint. “You must see!”
Simon did not want to see. His entire life had been destroyed by this monstrosity, this demon of ultimate evil. Why should he look?
To learn the way to destroy it, he told himself, struggling. To keep my anger strong. To find a reason to go back to the pain.
“Show me. I will watch. ”
The image strengthened. It took Simon a moment to realize that the darkness which surrounded the enemy was the Pool of Three Depths. It gleamed beneath the cloak of shadows, the stone carvings uncorrupted, the pool itself alight and scintillant, shifting as though the very water were alive. Washed by the liquidly shifting glow, the figure sat on a pedestal on a peninsula of stone with the Pool all around.
Simon dared to look closer. Whatever else it might be, this version of the enemy was a living creature, skin and bone and blood. His long-fingered hands moved fretfully on the pommel of the gray sword. His face was covered by shadow, but his bowed neck and shoulders were those of one horribly burdened.
His attention captured, Simon saw with surprise that the antlers upon the enemy’s head were not horns at all, but slender branches: his crown was carved from a single circlet of some silvery-dark wood. The branches still bore a few leaves.
The enemy lifted his head. His face was strange, as were the faces of all the immortals Simon had seen—high-cheeked and narrow-chinned, pale in the shifting light, and surrounded by straight black hair, much of which hung in twisted plaits. His eyes were wide open, and he stared across the water as though in desperate search. If something was there, Simon could not see it. But it was the expression upon the enemy’s face that Simon found most disconcerting. There was anger, which did not surprise him, and an implacable determination in the set of the long jaw, but the eyes were haunted. Simon had never seen such unhappiness. Behind the stern mask lurked devastation, an inner landscape that had been scoured to bare rock, a misery that had hardened into something like the stuff of the earth itself. If this being ever wept again, it would be tears of fire and dust.
Sorrow Simon remembered the name of the gray sword. Jingizu. So much sorrow He felt a kind of c
onvulsion of despair and anger. He had never seen anything as terrible, as frightening, as the enemy’s suffering face.
The vision wavered.
“... Simon . . .” The angel’s voice was as quiet as a leaf tumbling across the grass. “... must send you back....”
He was alone in misty gray nothingness. “Why did you show me that? What is it supposed to mean?”
“... Go back, Simon. I am losing you, and you are far away from where you should be.... ”
“But I need to know! I have so many questions!”
“... I waited for you so long. I am called to go on, Simon. . . .”
And now he did feel her slipping away. A very different kind of fear caught at him. “Angel! Where are you?!”
“... I am free now ... Faint as feather brushing feather. ”I have waited so long. . . .“
And suddenly, as the last touch of her voice slid away, he knew her.
“Leleth!” he cried. “Leleth! Don’t leave me!”
A sense of her smiling, of Leleth free and flying at last, brushed him, then was gone. Nothing came in its place.
Simon was suspended in emptiness, without direction or understanding. He tried to move as he and Leleth had moved, but nothing happened. He was lost in the void, more lost than he had ever been. He was a rag blowing through the darkness. He was utterly alone.
“Help me!” he screamed.
Nothing changed.
“Help me, ” he murmured. “Someone.”
Nothing changed. Nothing would ever change.
23
The Rose Unmade
The ship plunged again. As the cabin timbers creaked, Isgrimnur’s empty cup bounced from his hand and clanked to the floor.
“Aedon preserve us! This is horrible!”
Josua’s smile was thin. “True. Only madmen are at sea in this storm.”
“Don’t joke,” Isgrimnur growled, alarmed. “Don’t joke about boats. Or storms.”
“I was not jesting.” The prince gripped his chair with his hand as the cabin lurched again. “Are we not mad to let the fear of a star in the sky hurry us into this attack?”