Tad Williams - Shadowheart

At last, and only because of the deep, awesome darkness through which they had been traveling, he finally saw the light: it was such a faint change that he would never have recognized it otherwise—more the memory of light than light itself. Although it grew steadily stronger as he walked, it was still a hundred paces or more before it even brightened his surroundings enough that he could finally make out the silvery outline of Saqri before him, then another hundred more before he could see the sides of the narrow, dirt-and-stone passage through which they walked, something that looked as if it had been crudely cut from the living earth in a single day’s work.

Where… ? he wondered, but felt Saqri’s thoughts settle gently over his, urging him to silence.

Soon enough.

The dim radiance ahead began to grow until it became a pearly cylinder of light, its base round and shiny as a coin. As they grew closer, he saw that the cylinder was a single large beam from a hole in the top of the tunnel, and the circle on the floor was the surface of a circular pool not much larger than a writing table but just wide enough to catch all the beam of light from above. Saqri stopped and he stopped beside her.

The Deep Library, she said.

Barrick had no idea what he was supposed to think. He had heard the name more than a few times from Ynnir. He had supposed it some deep vault in the lower part of the castle, or even a massive hall, filled with old scrolls and decaying volumes, a little (at least in his mind’s eye) like the library in Chaven’s observatory or his father’s rooms in the Tower of Summer.

The queen reached out without warning and took his hand in hers, then lifted her other hand into the light and gestured for him to do the same. Barrick had to take a step forward to reach, and as he did so he could see up the vertical tunnel toward the gleam’s source, a hole in the darkness that seemed impossibly distant, at its center a single point of white light.

Yes, Saqri told him. It is Yah’stah’s Eye, the hopeful star. It always shines above the Deep Library.

Barrick was astonished. But… but I haven’t seen a star in months… ! The Mantle —the word came to him unbidden, handed up by the Fireflower as if it had been a small object he had dropped— the Mantle covers the whole land… !

But the Deep Library does not see the Mantle, Saqri told him. It sees things as they are, or at least as they were. And the Eye is always above it. Now give me your thoughts and your silence.

It takes both of the heirs to the Fireflower to open the Deep Library, the voices told him—or was it Ynnir’s voice somehow braiding all the other voices together into one? That is another reason why losing you or Saqri now would cripple the People forever.

For a long time he only stood, listening to the murmur of the Fireflower, feeling the broad shapes of Saqri’s thoughts as she wove the summons, a chain of questions almost like children’s riddles:

He began to feel the presences gathering even before he saw the first of the silvery strands start to form in the radiance like bubbles clinging to the weeds in a pond. They came from nowhere—they came from nothing —but by the time they floated in the beam of light, they were something. They lived, at least a little, they thought, they remembered.

“We honor the summoners. We honor Crooked’s House. We honor the Fireflower.” The voices washed through his head like the sound of water dripping in a dark place. As each voice spoke, though it could be heard only inside Barrick’s thoughts, the pond or well at his feet spawned a little circular ripple. Soon the circles were crisscrossing. “Ask us and we shall give you what is in us to give.”

“The House of the People and the Last Hour of the Ancestor no longer share any of Crooked’s Roads,” Saqri said, her silent words seeming to drift up into the beam of light like motes of dust. “How can the distance be crossed? How can the gap be bridged?”

“In the elder days, one of the brightest could ride to the Ancestor in three days—fewer if his mount was not earthbound.”

“Yes,” said Saqri with a touch of asperity in her voice, “and the gods could make scented oils appear from the air then, too, and cause stones to blossom. Those days are gone. The great steeds have broken their traces years ago and fled to far lands. Those who traveled Grandmother Void’s roads can only go where the way is not barred—and the place we wish to go is barred to us.”

It was unutterably strange to stand before the Deep Library, to hear the voices and watch the surface of the pool rippling as if beneath the strike of invisible raindrops. It was different than the way the Fireflower manifested itself in his head, more chaotic and less like the conversation of humans, but with Saqri directing it, it did not pass beyond what he could take in, although he could by no means understand all of it.

“Terrible things are on the wind,” the Deep Library voices murmured. “The forbidding of the old roads, the dying god, the plans of the southern mortal that make even Heaven tremble ...”

“And Yasammez has a Fever Egg,” another voice said in mournful sing-song. “The end must truly be near. Perhaps even the Dark Lady has finally discovered despair.”

“The roads are still there, if only the gods would open a way for you,” moaned another.

“Stop!” Saqri said, and her voice was like a whipcrack. “The gods themselves are asleep! You know that, because it has been true for half of your existence! And besides, even were they not beyond our reach, with Crooked dying and the rest dreaming, the most powerful of the gods are our enemies! The Three Brothers and all their followers hate us. That is one reason for my great-aunt’s desperation.”

“Then all is lost,” whispered one of the Deep Library; a chorus echoed it, agreeing. The faces formed and disappeared, roiling for their moment of existence like weeds in a swirling river.

“All is lost!” they muttered.

“Almost all,” said one. “Do they hate the mortals, too?”

Saqri abruptly held up her hand.

“May I dismiss them?” she asked. It took Barrick a moment to realize she was asking him. Apparently it took both halves of the Fireflower to dismiss the Deep Library as well as summon it.

He raised his hand into the light and let her do what had to be done.

They walked back in what Barrick assumed was the silence of defeat.

“So what will we do?” he asked at last. “My people—the people of the castle—your people—they will all be killed!”

“If we cannot stop them, I fear you are right.”

He could not believe her calm. “But we can’t stop them. Everyone agrees! We are on the other side of the world and you heard what the Deep Library said—there are no roads left for us to use.”

“Not exactly.” Saqri’s thoughts were quiet, almost hesitant, as though she was still working out the details of some complicated picture in her head. “They said the gods’ roads are still available to us.”

“But the most powerful gods hate the Qar—you said that yourself! So what good would that do?”

“Ah, yes, the gods may hate the Qar,” Saqri said, an invisible shape in the darkness beside him, “but I cannot help wondering how they feel about your folk?”