Tad Williams - Shadowheart

“Today I swallow my own words. I default upon my oath. The Book of the Fire in the Void will find a way to even my account, I am sure.” Yasammez lowered her head as if a great weariness had just come over her, and for a moment the entire room grew completely still. Then she straightened, her face a mask again, and donned the Seal of War once more. “I decree that my people are still at war… but only with the autarch. Today I have made myself an oath-breaker, but there is no escaping it—this man’s danger must be faced. For he comes here to wake a god on the night of Midsummer, but down in the place you call the Mysteries there is more than one god waiting to be awakened, and many of them are angry with all the living.”

When he awakened, he was still as tired as if he had run for hours. It was impossible to tell how long he had slept; the luminous gray sky outside, the swirling clouds and damp, ancient rooftops seemed unchanged. He sat up on the bed, thoughts blurry and wordless, then put his feet on the floor and had to stop there, dizzy. He remained that way, head in hands, until he heard the queen’s voice.

“Manchild.”

He opened his eyes to find her standing over him. He was in a room that was plain but comfortable. Beside the bed a window with an open shutter looked down onto an enclosed courtyard and an overgrown garden of white-and-blue flowers. All of the other windows Barrick could see were shuttered.

“I had a dream ...” he began.

“It was not a dream,” Saqri told him. “You were on your way to the fields beyond, almost obliterated by the strength of the Fireflower. But my husband is with you now, helping you. Or a part of him is—the part that your need has prevented from going on.” Saqri’s dark eyes were solemn. “I do not know whether I should hate you for that or not, Barrick Eddon. Ynnir was meant to go on. He chose to go. But now because of the bond of responsibility or shame he feels to you, he lingers.”

“Ynnir is… inside me?”

“They are all inside you, it seems, all the men of the Fireflower, in almost the same way the women are all inside me, my mother and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, our family stretching back entirely to the days of the gods. But though a part of them remains with you, the Ancestors of the Father have in truth gone on to whatever lies beyond ...” She shook her head. “No. There are no words that will truly speak it from my thoughts to yours. But my husband… my brother… he cannot ...” Her face changed and she fell silent again. He heard a batwing whisper in the dark depths of his own being, but from a voice that was neither hers nor his own—“ Sad she is sad she misses me even through the fury oh proud sister you are still beautiful… !”

“I must spend some time in thought about this—about everything,” Saqri told Barrick at last. “I will go. Harsar will attend to you until I call you.”

Shortly after she had left the room, the strange little servant Harsar came to him with a tray containing what Barrick could only regard as a feast—bread and salty white cheese and honey and a bowl of the fattest, sweetest, most thin-skinned plums he had ever tasted. Harsar did not leave immediately, but stood watching Barrick eat.

“I have never seen one of your kind, except in dreams,” the manlike creature said to him at last. “You are neither so fearsome nor so strange as I would have expected.”

“Thank you, I suppose. I would say the same for you, except I’m not sure I’ve ever seen your kind even in dreams.”

Harsar gave him a squinting look. “Do you joke? Never seen the Stone Circle People? Your people used to dance with ours by moonlight! We took you down into our towns beneath the hills and showed you wonderful things!”

“Doubtless,” Barrick said, wiping honey off his chin. The excellent meal was improving his mood by the instant. “But I’m young, you must remember. Still, I’m sure my grandfather danced the Torvionos with your grandfather at every festival!”

The squint deepened until Harsar’s eyes had disappeared. “You are jesting. Foolery.”

Barrick laughed. It felt strange—he could not remember the last time he had done it. “You are right, sir. You have caught me.”

Harsar shook his head disapprovingly. “Just like ...” He stopped himself with an obvious effort. “To jest is to mock the seriousness of things.”

“No.” Barrick found himself needing to explain. “Jesting is the only way to make sense of some things. Perhaps because your people don’t die…”

“We die,” said Harsar. “Mostly at the hands of men.”

For a moment Barrick faltered. “Perhaps it’s because my people are mortal that we must jest. Sometimes it is the only way to live with things that cannot be lived with.”

“Not simply because you are mortal.” A sort of frown stretched the fairy-factor’s face; when he spoke again, it was almost as if to himself. “There are those among the People—yes, even the highest—who do this, who jest and speak meaningless words when they should be acting ...”

His anger is at me, a voice in Barrick’s thoughts said. And his frustration. He is not the only one, but he was the closest to me… except for my own sister-wife…

This new voice seemed so clear that Barrick thought against all sense and memory that Ynnir must be standing in the chamber. He looked around, hopefully at first, then increasingly wildly… “Lord? Where are you?”

Harsar stared, but with no more than polite concern, as though this kind of gibbering madness must frequently overtake the residents of Qul-na-Qar.

You told me I could not leave you—not yet. The king’s voice was as clear as if he stood beside Barrick. But now you must rest again. It takes no deathly wisdom to know you will need all your strength for whatever comes next, and you still are not strong enough to withstand the full bloom of the Fireflower. I need your attention. Send Harsar-so away.

Barrick began to mumble excuses, but whatever else he might have been, the exotic Harsar was by training a royal servant: he glimpsed what was wanted and promptly made himself scarce, taking the empty tray with him.

“You said he was angry at you… ? Harsar?”

You need not speak aloud, the king’s voice said. And you have no need to stand or sit, either. Lie down, for you are still weary. Rest. What Harsar thinks of me does not matter anymore. He is faithful to the Fireflower.

Barrick stretched out on the bed, found a delicate but surprisingly heavy blanket to pull over himself. Even with the king’s comforting presence so close, he began to feel the Fireflower voices stirring in him, threatening to pull him down, to drown him in an ocean of alien memories. How would he ever find the strength to reach the shore… !

Do not think of a shore, said the king, startling him with how much of Barrick’s mind he had understood. You are not drowning, but neither can you climb safely up from the Fireflower and leave it behind. It is part of you, now and forever.

Instead, think of the light of a single star low on the horizon. Swim toward that light. You will not reach it, but in time you will learn to be content to swim eternally in that endless ocean. In truth, you will never reach that glowing mote, but neither will it ever disappear from your sight.…