Into the narrowdark, p.7
Into the Narrowdark, page 7
The creature dragged her farther away from the bank, and as she spun, her hand closed on a piece of wood. She jabbed it at the creature’s face—or at least where a face should be. For a moment the rasping mouth gaped, and Miriamele yanked her foot away. She swam hard for the surface and managed to get her head above water and suck in a life-giving breath. In that fleeting instant she saw that the bank was now much farther away, then the clammy mouth closed on her leg once more and dragged her back down.
She had only managed to take in a small amount of air. Already darkness seemed to be flowing over her thoughts like spilled ink.
Simon, she thought. Simon. Home.
The thing had now engulfed her leg almost to the knee. She shoved at her attacker’s tough, smooth skin, and kicked as hard as she could with her failing strength, but she might as well have tried to kick loose an anvil. She looked up to a circle of light shining in the murky green above her.
Is it Heaven?
Then the thing that held her spun again and she lost sight of the shining spot, the light fading in a whirl of green and black and green and black.
Hakatri
First Interlude
For an unmeasurable time he knew nothing except that he had died. The intrusive chaos of being alive had become so distant as to be utterly without importance. He had died, and now he slept, though his sleep was not entirely dreamless: he had thoughts, though they were slow and cold as fish in a frozen winter stream. Still, the ending of his life had finally brought him a kind of peace. Instead of squeezing him in its cruel grip, time now flowed around him without touching him, slow and heavy as a river of mercury. Somehow, he had escaped its awful tyranny and the pain that living had inflicted on him—or so he believed as the world, which he could hardly recall, spun on without him.
But if he had almost forgotten the world, that did not mean the world had forgotten him.
After a seeming eternity of this glorious nothingness, something began to prod at his sluggish thoughts, drawing him up from his vegetal slumbers toward a greater awareness—and, unavoidably, toward the living world he had so willingly left behind. Something in that world was calling him. He did not want to be called, but try as he might, he could not ignore it. With that return to awareness came something else: a memory of life and its unending, unendurable pain. And with that memory came horror.
Like some underground creature dragged from the dark safety of its burrow into harsh daylight, he tried desperately to wriggle away from the increasing pull, to escape back down to shadowed, dreaming unconcern. Life was agony, he remembered now with horrifying certainty, and he would do anything not to experience it again.
But whatever sought to awaken him would not let him escape so easily, did not care that all he wanted was to be left alone. And as the cruel, nameless thing drew him closer to life and light, torment returned—a growing and horrific pain, not just of the body but of the spirit too, a terrible gash in his being that he knew would split him open and expose every part of him once more to life’s merciless attentions. But struggle though he might, he was drawn ever upward, and as he rose the old agony burst out in full force, blooming like some scorching fire-flower, growing with each passing instant until it overwhelmed everything else.
He could think again. He could feel. But after so long at peace, he could imagine nothing worse.
Pain and madness came rushing in together like a burning wind, and his thoughts became a firestorm. Wordless words thundered through him, drawing him up ever faster toward the terrible, terrible light.
Then life caught him in its jaws and shook him. The glare of the living world came blazing in from everywhere at once—a dreadful, scalding radiance. He screamed and heard his own voice, no longer just curls of dream but something that shrieked real words made of real breath. He screamed until it felt as though the sky itself must crack open and the firmament shatter and fall. Pain was everywhere. Pain was everything. Treacherous, hateful life had stolen his peace and dragged him screaming back into endless suffering. He could not bear it. All he wanted . . . all he wanted . . .
“We summon you!” The words cascaded over him, burned through him like sparks landing on fine muslin. “We summon you!” The words were in a tongue he did not know, but they forced their way into him as the dragon’s black blood had done so long ago. Was it one voice or many that dragged him upward? Whatever it was sang a harmony that gripped him like the claws of some great hunting bird as the terrible words thundered on. “We speak the Word of Command! You are summoned back. Return! The hour has come and your blood calls you!”
He could not form words or even the shapes of words, but his whole spirit seemed to shudder in horror.
“Come back to us! You cannot turn away from the Word of Command. RETURN!”
And then he was pulled out into the blinding, burning light, into the monstrous grip of time, and he howled and howled like something skinned alive.
3
Mummers’ Parade
It was never less than terrifying to attend the Queen of the Norns, but this was even worse. Today Tzoja, High Magister Viyeki’s mortal mistress, needed to ask Queen Utuk’ku a question—a question whose answer she feared. Just thinking about it made her tongue grow large and useless in her mouth and her heart race until it seemed to rattle against her ribs.
Shrouded in layers of darkness—her blindfold, the heavy mask, and the inky shadows inside the queen’s wagon—all of Tzoja’s attention was fixed on her fingertips as they slid over the queen’s slender body, pushing here, palpating there. But what she was really trying to do was to summon her courage. Do I dare speak to the Mother of All unbidden? This lean frame, which felt so ordinary, belonged to a creature who could destroy her as easily as Tzoja herself might flick a bit of catkin fluff from her sleeve. And the more she thought about the uncountable years the queen had lived and the power that was in her, the more Tzoja wanted to say nothing, to simply finish what she was doing and scuttle away, back to her dark wagon.
She knew she dared not wait any longer. “Your Majesty.”
The pause was long. Tzoja wondered if the immortal queen had fallen asleep. Then Utuk’ku’s voice was inside her head, intimate as a kiss but cold as the lips of a corpse. What do you want, mortal?
Tzoja took a breath. “Your Majesty, is . . . is anything I’ve done . . . the tinctures, the ointments . . . is any of it helping?”
Another long silence passed. No. Or perhaps there is a fraction less suffering than there would be without your mortal remedies.
Tzoja could only wait, trembling now that the truth of her failure had been acknowledged, wait for her service to the queen to be ended and perhaps her life as well. But the queen stayed silent; for a moment Tzoja had the shuddersome feeling of sharing the room with something dead.
Was there more you wished to ask? Utuk’ku’s question was without weight: she was apparently thinking about something else.
The serpent is sleeping today, Tzoja decided, unutterably grateful for whatever was distracting the queen. I still live. But I must poke it again. “Forgive me, Great Majesty,” she said out loud. “I have done what I can, but I could do more. With respect, if you wish me to help you then I must know what works and what does not. I need truth.” Tzoja’s skin was prickling badly now. She was an eyelash away from disputing with the sacred Mother of All, or so any Hikeda’ya courtier would see it. As Tzoja waited for an answer, the darkness and silence seemed to swell. She had become little more than a small, frightened animal and had to struggle not to turn and run. The whole world seemed to tilt inward, as though the queen’s supine body were a deep pit whose vertiginous depths could cause Tzoja to lose her wits and fall simply from being too near. But when the queen’s words finally sounded in her head, they felt shallow, almost sullen.
Foolish little mortal creature. You cannot understand.
Tzoja swallowed, took a breath. “Please, then, Majesty—help me to understand. Tell me what else I can do for you.”
You can do nothing, slave. My own healers have long since exhausted their lore and their experience without curing my pain or even much diminishing it. The queen’s words were as bitter as rotting grain. I have eaten the last of the witchwood fruits. The sacred trees we brought from the Garden are all dead now—every last one. Help me? Little mortal, little buzzing fly, I was old already when your ancestors lived in caves, when they heard giants shouting in anger every time thunder cracked. After so long, nothing but the kei-t’si itself could prevent death from dragging me down into darkness—but the witchwood fruits are all gone. And on my way down the long descent, I will suffer for all those fleeting centuries I kept death at bay. The queen’s thoughts were as heavy and cold as the lid of a stone sarcophagus.
Tzoja had never heard the Mother of All say so much at one time. Despite knowing the terror and destruction that the silver-masked queen had brought to so many, at this moment, with her hands on Utuk’ku’s spare and chilly flesh, Tzoja could not think of her as entirely inhuman. A little pity, even, bloomed deep inside her, a single early wildflower emerging from a snowbank.
But do not misunderstand me, child. Harder thoughts now, sharp as icicles. I must stay alive—I must stay strong. I have one last, important task I must perform for my people, and only I can do it. So, you will continue to search for your herbs and simples. Continue to make your potions. They do not seem to harm me, and it could be they will help me to last that little bit longer . . . for the sake of my people.
“I will do as you ask, Your Majesty.”
But do it swiftly. We will not stay in this place long, so take this chance to gather whatever you can.
Tzoja had been so concerned with merely staying alive that she hadn’t considered that things might change now that Naglimund had fallen. “Where are we going, Your Majesty?”
This time the silence went on very long, until the blackness seemed to spin around her. Tzoja could almost feel the queen’s disapproval through her fingertips. With an involuntary gasp, Tzoja pulled the shroud back up over Utuk’ku’s body.
“I h-have b-been . . . been foolish, Majesty.” She could barely hear herself above the thundering of her own pulse. “I had no right to ask such a question of the Mother of All. Because of your generosity, I forgot myself. Please forgive me, Your Majesty. Forgive an ignorant mortal.”
Go. The word fell into her thoughts and lay there like a discarded dagger. Tzoja gathered up her flasks and her bag of herbs and hurried out.
* * *
“Follow me, Viyeki-tza.” The voice was a familiar one—his old master, Yaarike. But High Magister Yaarike had been dead for a long time.
Viyeki accompanied the dim shape deeper into the tunnel. Even though he knew he must be dreaming, he still looked for landmarks. “Where do we go, Master?”
“You are the master now, Viyeki-tza.” The figure before him was little more than a shadow, except for the ni’yo gleaming in its hand like a tiny star. “That is why you must see the crossings before you reach them and discern the seams that will reward excavation from those which might collapse. If you choose wrongly, you will not be the only one to pay the price.”
“Do you mean my family, Master?”
“Not just them.” The dim shape abruptly stopped. They were in a place where many corridors met, some rough and hand-hewn, others smoothed and polished by expert hands—so many corridors that Viyeki could not count them all. Some led upward, others down into the depths or away toward every quadrant of the compass, like a single, invisible knot that tied together dozens of cords. “You must choose,” the shadowy figure said.
“How could I choose from so many ways, Master? I do not know any of them. I have never been in this place before.”
“Precisely,” said Yaarike’s shade. “That is precisely the problem you must solve, Viyeki-tza. Choose carefully. All of the passages are dangerous, and most lead directly to disaster and death. You will need all your wisdom and luck to pick the one passage that might lead you back to the air and the sky.”
Confusion and fear now overcame him. “Air and sky? Our people would never choose that! How could we be safe in such a place?”
“We could not. But that is the choice you must make, nevertheless.”
The walls of the tunnels began to slump inward. Stones and dirt began to patter down on his head. Viyeki tried to cry out, but earth filled his mouth and he could not spit it out. It surrounded him, weighing down his arms and legs, smothering him. He would be lost and forgotten for all the ages to come . . .
“High Magister! High Magister, wake up!”
As he struggled to claw free, he felt the heavy, prisoning earth changing beneath his fingers, until he realized he was gripping cloth instead of sliding soil.
“High Magister, please be careful—you are hurting me!”
As he recognized his secretary Nonao’s voice, Viyeki discovered that he was sitting on his bed, tangled almost painfully in his blanket, and that he was twisting Nonao’s arm. A moment later he realized where he was—in his chambers in the conquered mortal fortress.
“You are to be summoned, High Magister.” Nonao just managed to hide his angry, hurt expression, though he could not make his bow look properly servile. “I have heard that the queen will call for you within the hour.”
“It would be dangerous to anticipate it, but I will go the moment the Mother of the People summons me.” Viyeki felt his throat tighten and his stomach writhe at the thought of facing her. He would almost rather have been back in his dream, smothering. “But how did this early news come to you?”
His secretary’s face was now carefully expressionless. “By chance, Magister. High Marshal Muyare has just come from the queen’s wagon. One of his body-servants told me.”
So Nonao had an informant in Muyare’s household. Viyeki set that bit of intelligence aside to be considered later. “And did this body-servant tell you anything else of interest?”
Nonao nodded. “Yes, Magister. It seems the high marshal and the army are being sent south to attack the mortal castle that once was Asu’a.”
More unhappy news, Viyeki thought. If a siege was coming, his Builders would certainly be expected to join the Order of Sacrifice in the flames and chaos of battle. And where was his only child now—Nezeru, his warrior daughter? Would she be one of those caught up and maybe killed as war blazed across the mortal lands? A chill settled in the pit of his stomach, but all he said was, “We live to serve the queen, Nonao. Make order of my things and prepare yourself and the others to leave as soon as possible.”
* * *
* * *
Viyeki crossed the blackened wreckage of the mortal fortress, doing his best to ignore the lingering stench of death wafting from the burial pits. The queen’s huge, linked wagons stood just inside the castle’s ruined front gates. Two silent Queen’s Teeth guarded the entrance at the nearest end, but a more welcoming figure was waiting for him there as well. Viyeki stopped and bowed deeply. “High Celebrant Zuniyabe. It is good to see you.”
The ivory mask inclined to show acknowledgment. “And you as well, High Magister.” The ancient celebrant was the final source other than the queen herself on all protocol and precedent. He was also one of the few ranking nobles that Viyeki did not actively distrust.
“I did not know you were here, my lord.”
“When the queen leaves Nakkiga, where else should I be?” Zuniyabe beckoned him up the stairs and into a sort of antechamber, a small room at the front of the wagon with a cushioned bench, the walls clad in beautifully carved wood that might have come straight out of the palace back home in Nakkiga. “These are strange days, are they not?” Zuniyabe said as Viyeki seated himself. “Who would ever have thought the Mother of All would not only leave our sacred mountain, but come so far?”
Viyeki nodded. “Strange days, indeed. But how are you, High Celebrant? Are you well?”
“As well as can be expected.” Zuniyabe sat on a nearby stool and folded his gloved hands in his lap. “Like most of us, I have not tasted the life-giving elixir of the kei-t’si for almost half a Great Year and I feel my strength ebbing. It is one thing for those of you who are still young, but we of the first generation here, the Landborn, are stretched already beyond what is natural. It is . . . uncomfortable.”
Such honesty from a high official almost felt like an invitation. Viyeki made a gesture of dignified concern. “Perhaps when all has been arranged to the queen’s satisfaction, you and I might find time to share a celebratory cup. I have saved a jar of very fine analita-zé for just such a happy occasion.”
“Perhaps. I would certainly enjoy that.” But the High Celebrant now sounded as if he might be regretting his unguarded remarks. His ivory mask showed only his eyes, making it hard for Viyeki to guess what he was thinking. “Please excuse me now, High Magister. I have duties for the Mother of All still awaiting me.”
When the High Celebrant had gone out again, Viyeki arranged himself to wait. After a span that might have been an hour but seemed like longer, more guards appeared and at last ushered him into the queen’s presence. At first, Utuk’ku’s white garments and silver mask were the only thing in the dim chamber he could see, but after a moment he made out the magician Akhenabi standing silent and motionless behind her high-backed chair, like a templar bug waiting to snatch a victim out of the air. A heartbeat later he realized that the queen had one more companion on the raised platform, an unmoving, seated figure at her left hand whose grotesque silhouette provoked Viyeki to a sudden, surprised intake of breath.
