28. Secrets of the Black Earth
When Pale Daughter’s child was born he reached his full growth in only a few seasons. He was called Crooked, not because of his heart, which was straight as an arrow’s flight, but because his song was not one thing or the other and flowed in unexpected directions. He was mighty in gifts, and by the time he was one year old he had become so great in wisdom that he created and gave to Silvergleam his father the Tiles that would make their house mighty beyond all others.
But then the war came and many died. The oldest voices remember how the People took the side of the children of Breeze, even though they died like ants before the anger of Thunder and his brothers. And ever after the firstborn children of Moisture hated the People for opposing them, and persecuted them. But in later days those who took Thunder’s side would prosper because of their fealty to Moisture’s brood.
—from One Hundred Considerations, out of the Qar’s Book of Regret At first Vansen could not even muster the will to sit up. The memory of the corpse-pit was like a weight on his chest.
I will say it again. Rise, Ferras Vansen.
It was not his own name that resounded in his head so much as an image of himself, although it seemed a distorted view, the skin too dark, the features coarse as those of the inbred families of the upper dales he used to see in the market at Greater Stell when he was a child. It was the Storm Lantern’s view of him, perhaps.
What do you want? Let me sleep.
We must try to make sense of what we have seen, sunlander—and there is something else, too.
Vansen groaned and opened his eyes, then forced himself into a sitting position, scraping his back and elbows on the cell’s rough wall. Barrick was still asleep, but he twitched and moaned quietly, as if trapped in a nightmare.
Let him be for the moment. I have words to share with you.
The memory of the pit would not go away. Gods protect us, what are they doing down there to work all those creatures to death?
Gyir nodded. So you too noticed that most of them showed no sign of what killed them. Yes, perhaps they were worked to death. The fairy touched the palm of one hand to the back of the other. Whatever the tale behind it, it is certainly a new page for the Book of Regret. The thought that accompanied the words was not so much of a real book as of a sort of frozen storm of ideas and pictures and feelings too complex, too alien for Vansen to grasp.
What else could it be? They looked like they’d just fallen down dead. No marks on most of them. Vansen was more familiar with corpses than he wished to be, especially those found on a battlefield, each one its own little Book of Regret, the ending written in cruel wounds for all to read.
We must not make the mistake of supposing that which we do not know for certain, Gyir said. The waters in these deep places are sometimes poisonous. Or it could be that they were felled by a plague. Or it might be something else... Even while his skin crawled at the thought of being locked in a massive prison with plague raging through it, Vansen could not help being struck by the quality of the Storm Lantern’s thinking. The creature he had considered little more than a beast, a bloodlusting wolf, was proving instead as careful as an Eastmarch scholar. Something else? What?
I do not know. But I fear the answer more than I fear poison or plague. Gyir looked to Barrick, still murmuring in fitful sleep. I wished to spare the boy talk of the dead we have seen. His thoughts are already fevered with terror and other things I do not entirely understand. But now we must wake him. I have something to say to both of you— something important.
More important than plague?
Gyir crouched beside the prince and touched his shoulder. Barrick, still twitching, immediately calmed; a moment later the boy’s eyes opened. The fairy reached into his jerkin and pulled out a handful of bread he had hoarded from the earlier meal, went to the barred window in their cell door and, as Vansen watched in astonishment, threw it into the center of the outer chamber.
After a moment of surprised hesitation the other prisoners rushed to the scattered bread like pigeons, the bigger taking from the smaller, those of similar size or health fighting viciously among themselves to keep what they had grabbed or to steal what they had failed to get by quickness. In a few heartbeats the chamber outside went from a place of quiet misery to a nest of yowling, screeching mad things.
Now we may talk—at least for a moment, Gyir said. I feel someone is listening close by—Ueni’ssoh or one of his lieutenants, perhaps—but just as noise will cover the sound of spoken voices, enough anger and fear will muffle our conversation from anyone near who can hear unspoken words.
Vansen did not like the sound of that. People can hear us talking in our heads?
Speaking this way is not a secret, sunlander, only a matter of skill or birth—or perhaps in your case, strange fortune. The Dreamless, Uein’ssoh, can certainly do it when he is close. Now give me your attention. He turned to look at Barrick, who still looked bleary. Both of you.
Gyir took something else out of his jerkin, but this time kept his hand closed. I will not show this thing I hold to you, he said. I dare not expose it, even in this chaos—but this will show you its size in case you must take it later.
Vansen stared. Whatever lay in the fairy’s long-fingered hand was completely hidden, small as an egg. What...?
Gyir shook his head. It is a precious thing, that is all you need to know—unspeakably precious. My mistress gave me the duty of carrying it to the House of the People. If it does not reach them, war and worse will break out again between our two folk, and the suffering will not stop there. If this is not delivered to the House of the People, the Pact of the Glass will be defeated and my mistress Yasammez will destroy your castle and everyone in it. Ultimately, she will wake the gods themselves. The world will change. My people will die and yours will be slaves.
Vansen glanced at Barrick, who did not look as dumbfounded as Vansen felt. The boy was staring at Gyir’s fist with what seemed only passing interest. Why...why are you telling us this?
I am telling you, Ferras Vansen, because the prince has other burdens to carry—struggles you cannot know. Yasammez has laid a task on Barrick as well. I do not know it or understand its purpose, but she has sent him to the same place as I go—the House of the People. The Pact of the Glass must be completed, and so I tell you now because I know that even if you do not believe all I say, you will follow the prince wherever he goes. Listen!
He fixed Vansen with his weird red eyes, demanding, pleading: his words swam in fearful thoughts like fish in a swift cold, current. Understand this—if I die here, you two must take this thing from me and carry it to the House of the People. You must. If you do not, all will be lost—your people, mine, all drowning in blood and darkness. The Great Defeat will have a swifter, uglier end than anyone could have believed.
Vansen stared at the strange, almost entirely expressionless face. You are asking me to perform some task...for you? Or for your mistress, as you call her—the one who has put a spell on the prince? For your people, who slaughtered hundreds of my guardsmen, burned towns, killed innocents? He turned without thinking to Barrick, but the prince only stared at him as though trying to remember where they had met before. Surely this is madness.
I cannot compel you to do anything, Ferras Vansen, said the fairy. I can only beg this boon. I understand your hatred of my kind very well—believe me, I have all those feelings for your folk, and more. Gyir lifted his head, listening. We can speak of this no longer. But I beg you, if the time should come—remember!
