Tad Williams: Shadowrise

“It matters not—she is of little interest to me,” the autarch told him. “I have what I need, thanks to Ludis, and that is you… or rather, that is your blood. The one thing on which the oldest and most trustworthy of tale-tellers on both continents agree, as well as those alchemists and thaumaturges of my own land who performed secret experiments and lived to describe them, is that only the blood of Habbili—your people’s Kupilas—can open a path to the sleeping gods. Why is that important? Because if the path can be opened, the sleeping gods that Habbili banished so long ago can be reawakened and released.”

“You are mad,” Olin said. “And even if such madness were true, why would you do it? If we have lived so long without them, why would you let them walk the earth again? Do you think even with all your armies that you could stand up to them? By the Three Brothers, man, even the tiniest drop of their diluted blood in my veins has turned my life topsy-turvy! In their day they threw down mountains and dug oceans with their bare hands! Why would you, loving power as you do, free such dreadful rivals?”

“Ah, so you are not entirely naïve,” said the autarch approvingly. “You at least ask, but if it were true, what next? Yes, of course, I would be a fool to let all the gods go free. But what if it were only one god? And more important, what if I had a way to rule over and command that god? Would that power not become mine? It would be like having mastery over one of the ancient shanni —but a thousand times greater! Anything within the god’s power would be mine.”

“And this is what you plan to do? ” Olin stared. “Such hunger for more power and wealth in one who already has so much is ludicrous… sickening.”

“No, it is so much more. It is why I am who I am while other men, even other kings like yourself, are merely… cattle. Because I, Sulepis, will not surrender what I have when Xergal the master of the dead comes with his cowardly hook to take me away. What point conquering the earth if the bite of an asp or a piece of stone fallen from a column can end it in an eyeblink?”

“Everybody dies,” said Olin. There was contempt in his voice now. “Are you so frightened of that?”

The autarch shook his head. “I feared you might not understand, Olin, but I hoped the magic in your own blood might make a difference. What is a man who settles for what he is given? No man at all, but only a brute beast. You ask what a man who already rules the world can possibly desire? The time to enjoy what he owns, and then, when he ceases to enjoy it, to tear it down and build something else.” Sulepis leaned so far that Vash was terrified he might topple from the litter. “Little northern king, I did not kill twenty brothers, several sisters, and Nushash knows how many others to seize the throne, only to hand it to someone else in a few short years.”

Somebody was shouting outside and the platform began to slow.

“So, we near your old home, Olin. It is true, you do not look well—it seems you were right about being close making you ill.” The autarch laughed a little. “Still, that is another reason for you to be grateful to me. I shall make certain you do not suffer such unpleasantness for too much longer.”

“Golden One, why have we stopped?” Vash asked. He had visions of some of Olin’s people springing out of the woods in ambush.

“Because we are only a short distance away from the place where this coastal road comes out of the forest,” the autarch said. “We have sent scouts ahead to determine where we should make our camp. It is likely we will have to dislodge the Qar, who have been besieging our friend Olin’s castle for some months. Their army is small but they are full of tricks. However, Sulepis has some tricks of his own!” He laughed as gleefully as a young boy riding on a fast horse.

“But why are we even here?”Olin asked. “If you believe you must kill me to pursue your mad ideas, why come all this way? Simply to punish those of my family and subjects who still care for me? To taunt them in their helplessness?”

“Taunt them?”The autarch was enjoying this playacting. At the moment, he pretended to be insulted. “We have come to save them! And when the Qar are driven off and I am done here, your heirs may do what they please with this place.”

“You came here to save my people? That is a lie.”

Again the autarch refused to take offense. “It is not the whole truth, I admit. We are here because once this was the very place the gods were banished. Here, now buried beneath the buildings your kind made, lies the gate to the palace of Xergal—Kernios, as you northerners call him. And here Habbili fought him and defeated him, then pushed him out of the world forever. Here is where the ritual must take place.”

“Ah,” said Olin. “So as I suspected, it has nothing at all to do with anything but your own mad schemes.”

The autarch looked at him almost sadly. “I am not greedy, Olin, whatever you think. When I have the power of the gods at my service I will not need to quibble over this castle or that castle. I will rebuild the heavenly palaces of Mount Xandos itself!”

Olin and Vash could only stare in amazement and horror, although of course the Paramount Minister did his best to hide his feelings.

A good part of an hour had passed as they sat motionless in the middle of the coast road. Olin had fallen into silence and the autarch seemed more interested in drinking wine and dandling one of his young female servants while he whispered in her ear. Vash was using the delay to look through his records—he would be hideously busy the moment they reached the place to make camp—when one of the autarch’s generals came to the platform and asked for a word with him. After an exchange in which the general did not raise his voice above a whisper, the autarch sent him away. For a moment he was silent, then he began to laugh.

“What is it, Golden One?” Vash asked. “Is everything well?”

“Never better,” said the autarch. “This will be even easier than I planned.” He waved his gold-tipped fingers and the platform lurched into movement once more, the slaves carrying it groaning quietly as they began to walk. “You will see.”

It was some time before Vash learned what his master meant. As they reached a bend in the road the slaves got up and pulled back the curtains, giving Vash a moment of panicky vulnerability, but a moment later he saw why they had done it.

On the coast side of Brenn’s Bay, the mainland city of Southmarch was deserted. Much of it had been burned, or was still burning, but the smoke and the dancing flames gave the scene its only movement. There was not a living creature in sight anywhere nearby, and even the castle across the water looked empty, although Vash did not doubt that plenty of Olin’s countrymen lurked inside, sharpening their weapons to shed Xixian blood.

“See?” the autarch said in triumph. “The shore is ours—the Qar have gone. They had no wish to be caught between our army and the bay. They have given up their claim to the Shining Man!”

Vash was distracted by a noise behind him, but the autarch paid it no attention. Sulepis was gazing over the scene with obvious satisfaction, as though this were not Olin’s long-lost home but his own.

The noise, Pinimmon Vash realized after a moment, was King Olin praying as he stared out across the water toward the silent castle.