Shadowheart (97 page)

Aesi’uah waited for her mistress to return from the dreamlands. The daughter of ancient Sleep had waited patiently as Saqri and the others had sacrificed themselves, as the autarch’s ritual had gone forward, even as the screams of terror echoed through the cavern when the strange, gleaming shape on the island began to grow, as if the Shining Man had taken on monstrous, immortal flesh. Aesi’uah did not mind waiting: she could do little else. She was not a warrior but an eremite and could only wait until her mistress should ask her for her help.

Yasammez’s eyes flicked open, black and deep, but she remained where she was a long time, sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground at the foot of the cliff beneath the Maze. At last she rose.

“I am going to die now,” she announced. “Take any others of the People you can find who still can walk. Tell them to carry my sweet Saqri and the other wounded and retreat toward the surface as swiftly as they can.”

Aesi’uah felt quite sure that Saqri was beyond help, but she bowed to her mistress’ request. “What of the Guard of Elementals? I can feel them pressing you for an answer.”

Yasammez shook her head. “I have given them my answer, which is
no
—I will not use the Fever Egg. The mortal Barrick Eddon has taught me something.”

“Truly, Mistress?”

Yasammez’s smile was like a knife slash. In the distance Xixian soldiers were dying in flames at the hands of a jubilant god, their screeching like the far-off cries of birds. “Truly,” she said. “Their short lives seem to mean as much to them as the endless spans of the gods themselves—more perhaps. What right do I have, after my own long, Heaven-granted span, to take that away? Perhaps they will even make some accommodation with the returning gods and write an ending I cannot foresee. Our folk have suffered the Great Defeat, but perhaps their story will be different.”

Yasammez slid Whitefire from her belt. It glinted like white jade, like a fallen shard of the moon. She held it out and looked it up and down. “Long ago, this mighty blade was wielded by the sun god. It killed other gods.” She nodded. “Longbeard himself fell to this blade, and he was said to be the Heaven’s greatest warrior. We shall see if it has one last fight in it—if it can spill the blood of one more immortal. A pity that I do not have the sun god’s strength as well.”

She turned to Aesi’uah. “Approach me.” Yasammez then bent and, to the eremite’s amazement, gently kissed her brow. “You have been a good servant, Aesi’uah—one of the best I have ever known in all my uncounted years. I hope that when you find your death, it is a kind one. If my many-times-great-granddaughter lives beyond this hour, tell her the People died nobly today. I could have hoped for nothing better.” Yasammez turned and began to walk away down the rocky slope toward the silver sea, which was beginning to steam with the Trickster god’s spreading flames; after a few steps she stopped and turned. “If the manchild yet lives and you meet him, tell him that I remember his words. I have decided to let his people as well as my own find their ends in their own ways. I hope he understands the burden he must now carry.”

And then Crooked’s daughter went striding away once more, down to the misty, silvered sea, toward the god she had already faced once and had said she hoped never to see again. Her aspect grew around her as she went, swirling, spreading, dark and fierce as a thundercloud, a small, inky blot set against mounting fires.

Beetledown plummeted through the air tumbling end over end, and in that hurtling instant knew that he had failed: even if he miraculously fell onto the narrow path instead of down into the abyss, even should he survive the cracked bones, he would never be able to make the trip all the way up to the Funderling camp on foot.

But then something caught him.

It folded around him, soft and warm but solid, and for a moment he thought he must have fallen against the owl that had attacked him—nothing else made sense. But a moment later he was lifted up high in the air and the hand that held him opened and he found himself staring into the glowing light of one of the Funderling corals, which shone from a lantern on the head of the pale-haired figure who stared down at him.

“Hello, Beetledown,” said Flint. “I thought I’d find you here.”

Beetledown could only stare at the familiar, unlikely face in astonishment. “But . . . Chert’s son, th’art. What dost tha here?”

“I had a feeling I should be here,” the boy said. “And I was right—the Trickster god guessed your task and sent the bird to stop you. But there is no time to talk now. You must be on your way—hurry! Brother Antimony is waiting.”

Beetledown couldn’t help wondering if he might in truth be lying somewhere stunned or even dead and dreaming this whole thing. “Can’t. I’ve no way for getting there. Yon owl has killed my mount.”

Flint lifted his other hand up into the glow of the coral lamp and uncurled his fingers to reveal the brown, furry shape of Muckle Brown. Startled, the bat tried to spread its wings to leap free, but Flint gently closed his fingers over it again. “No,” he said. “I caught her, too.”

Beetledown could not help himself—he whooped with laughter. “What miracle is this? Something the Lord of the Peak has done, as’s not happened since the old days?”

“Perhaps,” Flint said. “I’m not certain. But you’d better go.”

“The owl . . . ?”

“It’s gone. Once it knocked you out of the sky, it had done what it was set to do. It’s been released now. I don’t think you’ll see it again.”

“Then help me get back onto yon flittermouse. Perhaps someday, Chert’s boy, tha willst be good enough to explain this all to me.”

“Perhaps.” Flint nodded slowly. “But that’s something I can’t see.”

Muckle Brown was unmistakably weary, but with Beetledown back in the saddle and the owl gone, she seemed willing to try to fly again. “I’ll go better slow,” Beetledown said. “She’s barely able to scrape air.”

“Not too slow,” Flint said, getting ready to fling bat and rider into the air once more. “Many are waiting on you. And when you see Mama Opal, tell her not to wait for me—she has to go with everyone else. But promise her she’ll see me again.”

Before Beetledown had time to make sense of all that, he was spinning up into the darkness in a whirl and crack of leathery wings.

—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”

 

 

 

M
UCKLE BROWN WAS BARELY ABLE to keep flapping her wings when he finally brought her spiraling down on the makeshift table where the Funderling monk Brother Antimony sat staring at a series of plans scratched on slate. The bat landed heavily and pulled her wings in close, interested only in breathing, careless of what might happen next. Beetledown rolled out of the saddle and scrambled down onto the flat stone.

“By the Elders!” said Antimony, startled. “What is this . . . ?

“I am Beetledown the Bowman, Brother—we have met before.” He slipped off his pack and lifted out the Astion, his arms trembling at its weight. “This, from Cinnabar. Un says the stones must fall
now
—that the battle in the deeps be lost.”

“But . . . but ...” Antimony was clearly overwhelmed. “Lost? Is that true?”

“I was there but a short while. That’s what un told me.” The Astion passed on, Beetledown sagged. “Hast tha any water to drink? I will share it with my mount.”

“What? Ah, of course.” Antimony rose. “But first I must deliver this news. The men are waiting. They have been stalling so as not to tear everything down, hoping that Chert would succeed . . . !” He shook his head. “Elders! This is a terrible hour. But we must do what we promised . . . we must . . . !” The Funderling monk was still muttering to himself as he ran out to the main part of the cavern where the workers were gathered.

Beetledown crawled across the stone until he could lean against Muckle Brown, who still seemed interested only in regaining her breath. “Th’art good, leatherwing,” he told the creature. “Hast done well. Hast done nobly.” He patted her. “There be my good girl. And soon summat wet coming.”

Soon the end of the world, too, or so it seemed. But at least they would both get a drink of water first.

 

The names and tales flared in Barrick’s mind like details picked out by lightning—Zosim the Trickster stealing the war chariot of Volios, Zosim covering himself in flowers so he could hide and watch Morna the goddess of winter bathe, after which he raped her. He had once disguised his voice to protect himself from the wrath of Perin Skylord, claiming to be Perin’s father Sveros returned from the void; now Zosim had disguised himself again, pretending to be Kernios to fool the Autarch of Xis into releasing him back into the world.

The Trickster had returned and the Fireflower voices inside Barrick were horrified: in the old days only the greater powers of the other gods had held Zosim back and thwarted his cruelest whims. Now he was alone in the world, the last of the gods. He was unstoppable.

Only the autarch and the last of his select Leopard troops still stood before the terrifying menace of Zosim Salamandros unbound. Most of the autarch’s ordinary soldiers had already fled in panic, many of them trying to wade through the silvery blood of Kupilas to escape the island, only to find themselves caught in its strangely viscous grip and pulled down. Zosim had picked out others for even harsher treatment: as he pointed at them they burst into flames with a noise like a muted thunder-clap, their dying shrieks lost in the god’s loud merriment.

On the far side of the silver sea, the remaining Qar and Vansen’s Funderlings were also in full retreat. The Xixians they had been fighting only moments before ran with them, no longer interested in anything but saving their own lives. Men and fairies were already struggling with each other for the dangling climbing-ropes, desperate to get back up to the Maze and the tunnels beyond.

Barrick’s strength was finally returning. He twisted until he could stretch his bonds as tightly as possible; after a few painful moments, the ropes snapped. The Fireflower ancestors, still stunned by the appearance of the Trickster god, were little more than a muddle of confused noise in his head. He found his sword where one of the panicked guards had dropped it and used it to cut Ferras Vansen’s bonds, then carefully did the same for the motionless black-haired girl.

Vansen rose slowly and unsteadily to his feet. The girl did not.

“Qinnitan.” Barrick knelt beside her, put his face so close he could smell the delicate saltiness of her skin. “Can you hear? Qinnitan, don’t leave me!” But it was useless: if she still breathed he could not detect it. The god forcing his way through into the world had burned in Barrick’s own thoughts like a glowing ember—how much worse must it have been for her, specially prepared to be a vessel of that god? He blinked rapidly, unable to look at her slack features any longer. Fate could not be so cruel—or could it?

He turned then to the other figure that lay beside her. His father’s beard had far more gray than he remembered, but otherwise it was the face he knew so well, one he had loved and hated in almost equal measure. Olin, too, seemed dead, but Barrick could sense a tiny pulse still throbbing beneath his ear. Was there anything left of him inside this near-corpse, or had the god burned it away while he occupied him? Was anything left besides barely breathing meat . . . ?

A tremendous splash startled him from his confusion. The monstrous, beautiful youth had waded into the middle of the silver sea to snatch up a handful of Xixian soldiers who had been trying to swim to safety. The god held the tiny, thrashing figures close to his beaming face.