Tad Williams: Shadowrise

“He passed out of the undersea house again through his secret paths, wondering whether to go next to confront Sky Man or Stone Man. Of the three brothers, Sky Man was the strongest and cruelest, and had made himself lord of all the gods. He ruled them from his palace atop the mountain called Xandos—the Staff—and the godly court protected him more completely than any walls. His sons Huntsman, Horseman, and Shieldbearer were almost as powerful as their father, and his daughters Wisdom and Forest could also best almost any warrior, let alone a cripple like Crooked. It would make sense to wait until last to attack Sky Man in his great fortress.

“But the truth was that cold, silent Stone Man, not his raging brother, was the one that frightened Crooked most.

“ So he traveled to the Staff on the paths of Emptiness, and all the clan of Moisture felt his passing but could not see or hear or smell him. Only Huntsman of the sharp eyes and Forest of the fleet foot could even guess where he was. Cruel, pretty Forest ran after Crooked but just missed catching him, pulling off a piece of his tunic. Huntsman fired a magical arrow that actually flew into the lost paths where Crooked walked and nicked his ear, so that blood dripped on his shoulder and his hand of ivory. But they could not stop him and soon he was deep in Sky Man’s palace, where the lord of the house slept his drugged slumber. Crooked bolted the door behind him.

“ ‘ Wake up!’ he cried to sleeping Sky Man. He wanted his enemy to know what was happening and who had done it to him. ‘Wake up, Loud Voice—I bring your ending!’

“ Sky Man was very strong, even after drinking the potion Crooked had created. He sprang from his bed and took down his great hammer Crackbolt, big as a hay-wain, and swung it at Crooked. He missed and broke his own gigantic bed into splinters.

“ ‘That is nothing to worry about,’ Crooked told him. ‘You will not need that bed again. You will sleep in another, soon—a cold bed in a cold place.’

“ Sky Man roared that Crooked was a traitor, then he threw his hammer as hard as his mighty arm could manage. If any other god or man but Crooked had been its target Crackbolt would have smashed him into bits and scorched those bits to charcoal. But the hammer stopped in mid-flight.

“ ‘Did you think I would make a weapon for you that you could use against me?’ Crooked asked him. ‘You call me traitor, but you attacked my father—your own brother—and threw him down by treachery. Now you will get what you deserve.’

“ Then Crooked turned Sky Man’s hammer against him, and the clamor of the blows were like the rumbling-tumble-roar of the lightning. Sky Man Perin cried out to his family and servants to save him. All who lived atop the Staff came running to his aid. But Crooked opened a doorway into the lands of Emptiness and before Sky Man could say another word, he struck him again with the great hammer and knocked him backward into that doorway. The lands of Emptiness pulled at Sky Man like a sucking wind, but Sky Man held on to the floor with all the strength that was in his mighty hands. He would not let go, but neither could he pull himself back from the empty lands where Crooked’s great-grandmother reigned. Crooked smiled at that and stepped back. He opened the door of Sky Man’s chamber and hid behind it. All of the other gods of the mountain, Wisdom and Shieldbearer and Clouds and Caretaker, rushed in. Seeing their lord in such danger they ran to help him, grabbing his arms and trying to pull him back, but the magic of Grandmother Emptiness was strong and they could not overcome it. While they struggled, Crooked came out from behind the door and walked up behind scrawny Old Age, who was at the back of the crowd. Old Age could not even reach Sky Man, but he was pulling on Wisdom, who was pulling on Huntsman, who was holding onto Sky Man’s hand.

“ ‘ I remember how you spit on my father’s corpse,’ Crooked said to Old Age, then lifted up his hand of bronze and his hand of ivory and shoved the ancient one in the back. Old Age stumbled forward and fell against Wisdom, who fell against Huntsman, and soon all those who had come from all over the palace to save their lord fell into the the land of Emptiness together. That broke Sky Man’s grip and they all tumbled into the cold darkness forever, every last one.

“ Crooked laughed to see them fall, laughed as they shouted and cursed, laughed hardest when they were gone. He had brooded long on the evil they had done him and he felt no pity.

“ One of Sky Man’s kin, though, had not come into the chamber to help his lord. That was Tricker, who never did anything he could let others do. When he saw what had happened, how Sky Man, the strongest of all the gods had been bested and banished, Tricker was afraid. He ran down from the palace of the gods to warn his father, Stone Man.

“ So it was that when Crooked at last came down from the great mountain Xandos and ran toward the house of Stone Man, swift Tricker had run before him. Crooked had no surprise to help him, so when he reached the great gates of Stone Man’s house he found them locked and barred and guarded by many soldiers. This didn’t stop Crooked. He stole around them on the roads only he and his great-grandmother knew, until he found himself outside the chamber of Stone Man himself. Tricker had warned his father and was just sneaking away, but Crooked caught him and they fought. Crooked grabbed him around the throat and wouldn’t let go. Tricker changed himself into a bull, a snake, a falcon, and even a living flame, but still Crooked wouldn’t let go. At last Tricker gave up and resumed his natural shape, a-begging for his life.

“ ‘ I tried to save your mother,’ Tricker whined. ‘I tried to help her escape. And I have always been your friend! When all the others were against you, I spoke for you. When they cast you out, did I not take you in and give you wine?’

“ Crooked laughed. ‘You wanted my mother for yourself and would have had her if she had not escaped. You did not speak for me, you took no side—that is always your way, so that you can ally yourself with whoever wins. And you took me in and gave me wine to make me drunk, so that you would learn from me how to make the magical things I gave to Sky Man and the others, but my ivory hand protected me by breaking the cup, and so you failed.’ He lifted Tricker up by the neck and carried him into Stone Man’s chamber. Crooked was still afraid of the lord of the dark earth, but he knew that one way or another the end was coming.

“ Stone Man Kernios trusted no one, so he had not drunk the potion Crooked’s mother had prepared for him. He stood ready now in his frightsome gray armor, his awful spear Earthstar in his hand. He was in the greatness of his strength and in his own palace. But he had one other weapon, too, and when Crooked entered by the roads of Emptiness, appearing from the air in front of him, Stone Man showed that weapon to him.

“ ‘Here is your mother,’ said Stone Man, ‘who I brought into my house but who repaid me with treachery.’ Stone Man had her grasped tight in his arm and held the point of his spear against her throat. ‘If you do not surrender to me, binding yourself with the same spells of Emptiness that have allowed you to murder my brothers, she will die before your eyes.’

“ Crooked did not move. ‘Your brothers have been shown more mercy than they showed my kin. They are not dead, but only sleeping in cold, empty lands, as you soon will, too.’

“ Stone Man laughed. They say it were like a wind from a tomb. ‘How is that better than death? Sleeping forever in emptiness? Well, you shall have no such gift, as you deem it. You will destroy yourself or your mother will bleed out her life, then I will kill you anyway.’