Tad Williams - Shadowrise

Vansen dropped the ax to the floor of the cavern. “I will not fight. If you will not take me to your mistress then you may as well kill me. I ask you only to let the Funderling monk return. Your Browncoal will tell you he came in good faith and only to translate.”

“I make no bargains with sunlanders ...” snarled Hammerfoot, raising his tree-stump fist over Vansen’s head.

“Do not kill him, Deep Delver,” a new voice called, icy as an Eimene wind. “Not yet.”

“Elders protect us,” Antimony murmured.

“Lady Yasammez!” Hammerfoot sounded surprised.

Vansen turned to see a small procession stepping down off the spiral track and onto the cavern floor. Leading it was someone he had never seen before but nevertheless recognized instantly. She was taller than Vansen himself and caparisoned in black plate armor. A long white sword, unsheathed and thrust through her belt as though it were merely a spare dagger, seemed to glow with a subtle light of its own. But it was the woman’s face that arrested him, stony as a ritual mask, hard as a figure carved atop a tomb. At first Vansen saw nothing alive in that face at all but the eyes, brilliant as slashes of fire. Then the fiery gaze narrowed and the thin lips curved in a mirthless smile and he saw that it was indeed a face, but one without kindness or sympathy.

“So many visitors today,” she said. “And all unwanted.” She came closer. Even when he closed his eyes Vansen could feel her nearness like the approach of a winter storm. Beside him, Antimony let out a noise that might have been a whimper. “I suppose you hope to convince me that we should band together against the common foe.”

Vansen blinked. Was she talking about Hendon Tolly? “I… I’m not ...” It was hard to look at her, but it was also hard to look away. He felt like a moth circling a candle flame, hopelessly drawn and yet knowing the mere touch of it would scorch him to ashes. “I do not know what you mean, Lady.”

“Then the world spins more strangely than even I thought,” she said. “This small delegation here has come to inform me that the human creature known as the Autarch of Xis will soon enter the bay with a force of ships and men.”

Vansen stared, seeing for the first time that it was not only armed guards who accompanied the Lady Yasammez: looking cowed and fearful beside her stood three hairless, long-armed folk.

“Skimmers!” Vansen was utterly surprised. “Are you from Southmarch?” he asked, but the hairless men only looked away as if he had said something shameful. Vansen turned back to the dark lady. “The Autarch of Xis is the most powerful man on the two continents. Why would he come here?” Vansen looked around. Even in this moment of ultimate danger, he could not help marveling at how the world he had known had been so thoroughly shattered and rearranged into this —fairy warriors, giants, Funderlings… and now, apparently, the monster of Xand was joining this mad Zosimia festival. “He has the greatest army in the world,” he said loudly, as much for Yasammez’ supporters as the dark lady herself. “Even the terrible Lady Porcupine cannot defeat him. Not without help ...”

“Fool.” Her voice snapped like a drover’s whip. “Do you think that just because my folk will soon stand between two human armies I must sue for peace?” She glared around the chamber as though daring any of her minions to speak. Clearly, from their blank faces and downcast eyes, none of them even contemplated it. “I would rather die in the mud of the Hither Shore than make another pact with treacherous mortals!” She turned to the giant ettin. “This prattle is meaningless, Hammerfoot. Go on about your sport. Kill them quickly or slowly, as you choose.”

Antimony cried out in fear, but Vansen took a step toward her, crying “Wait!” In an instant a dozen Qar bows were drawn and aimed at him. He stopped, realizing he could easily be killed before saying what he needed to say. “You spoke before of a pact, Lady Yassamez. I know of another one—the Pact of the Glass!”

She looked at him, her expression unfathomable. “Why should I care? It has ended—the Son of the First Stone’s gambit has failed. There is nothing now not even this southern wizardling on his way here with all his warriors… that can prevent me burning this house of treachery to its foundations.”

“But the Pact of the Glass hasn’t ended!”

It might have been some trick of the shadows and the flickering torches, but for a moment Ferras Vansen thought he saw the dark lady become bigger, saw her silhouette grow and become spiny as a black thistle. “How dare you speak thus to me!” she cried, and he could feel the raging words clamoring in his head. He fell to his knees, clutching at his skull, almost weeping from the pain. “ My father is dead! Kupilas the Artificer is dead! Despite imprisonment and solitude and pain you could not even imagine, he kept this world safe for century upon century… but now he is dead. Do you think I will bandy any more words with creatures like you—the destroyers of my family? Let this mortal autarch come! He will find nothing waiting for him but ruins. In my father’s name and memory, and in the memory of all the lives you mortals have stolen from us, no living thing shall survive here and the gods will sleep on in exile forever!”

But as she turned away again Vansen dragged himself up onto his knees and reached toward her. His head was throbbing, and blood dripped from his nose and into his mouth, so that he tasted salt.

“Kill me if you wish, Lady Yassamez,” he called, “but hear me first! I knew Gyir Storm Lantern. We traveled together behind the Shadowline. He was… he was my friend.”

She spun and took two long steps back toward him, hand on the hilt of the white sword. “Gyir is dead.” The words landed cold as hailstones. “And he was no mortal’s friend. That is not possible .”

“I am more sorry to hear of his death than you know. I was there in Greatdeeps with him in his last hour, and if we were not friends we were certainly allies.”

The reptilian gaze fixed him. “I doubt that. But what does it matter anyway, little man? He failed me. Gyir is dead, and in a moment you will be too.”

“You may be wrong, Lady. I think there is a chance that despite his death Gyir may yet succeed, and if he does, it will be because of a gift you sent to the king of the Qar—a gift named Barrick Eddon, prince of Southmarch.”

Her hand curled more tightly around the sword’s hilt. She was close enough, Vansen realized, to decapitate him with one swing. He bowed his head, resigned to whatever would happen next. “Gyir did not fail you, Lady, and if he died, it was doing your bidding. The pact could yet succeed.”

He waited for the blow but it did not come.

“You will tell me all you know about Gyir Storm Lantern,” she said at last. “You will live that long, at least.”

Briony could not stop marveling at the size of the Syannese camp. She had expected a group of men waiting on horseback, perhaps as many as a pentecount of soldiers camped beside the Royal Highway. Instead, after reaching the road and riding on through the rain for perhaps an hour Briony and her captors reached a muddy meadow full of tents—hundreds of them, she felt sure, an entire military encampment crowded with foot soldiers, mounted knights, and their attendants. As they turned to look at her, curiosity plain in even the sternest faces, her stomach clenched. Would they execute her? Surely not—not simply for running away! But she couldn’t get Lady Ananka’s cold-eyed stare out of her head. Briony had learned early that when you were a king’s daughter people might hate you without ever knowing you.