Sobs redoubled, she put her arms around Marabaldia s enormous neck, and together they turned to look at Poke, who lay unconscious, smeared with blood. Suka reached to run her hand along the rose tattoo, and they both took hold of her hands, one on each side, stroking her cramped, sharp, cloven palms. In time Marabaldia took up her burden again, but Suka stayed alongside, holding Poke s hand until it had entirely transformed, hardened, and grown cold.
By that time it was afternoon, and they had crossed the ridge. To the west Suka could see the land slope down toward Myrloch and the lake, and the fens surrounding it. To the east a thick mist hid the pass into Synnoria and the vale of the Llewyrr. Northward, straight ahead rose the Cambro Mountains, shattered pinnacles of granite streaked with glaciers and high chains of lakes. Underneath, the rock was full of holes, shafts and caverns dug by generations of miners, now abandoned. They climbed through valleys full of the heaped tailings below worm-eaten cliffs, red hills of the exhausted ore.
They were approaching the stronghold of Harrowfast, a fortified enclave in the mountains, built by dwarves, now overtaken by the fey on the marches of Synnoria. Here were the entrances into a world of caves and mining tunnels, now mostly disused. But over the course of generations, two miles down beneath the ridge of peaks, the fomorians and their slaves had dug a roadway all the way to Cambrent Gap, and then a spur to Citadel Umbra in Winterglen, an immense tunnel through the dark. The entrance to that road approached the surface near to where they were, a narrow chasm on the eastern side, where the wide black walls were covered with eroded reliefs, carved figures from the ancient times, gods and goddesses, kings and queens. Emissaries waited for them near a massive stone gateway leading down into the dark, a company of cyclopses dressed in burnished armor, carrying long lances with pennants hanging from the crossbars, flags as black as night, embroidered with the sign of the red torch clasped in a purple hand, now snapping and rattling in the fresh breeze. Captain Rurik and the eladrin had reached the place already on their horses, but when Marabaldia saw the flags she laid the stretcher down for the last time, and after combing her hair back between her fingers, pulled out her iron bar and marched forward, the grimace on her face transforming as she saw a fomorian warrior standing by himself. Suka, beside her, saw a look of indecision pass over Marabaldia s big face, and then a new determination. Marabaldia recognized this man. And another, and another, as the great giants rose out of the shadows of the rocks.
The cyclopses had started with a wailing cry that was half random howling and half music Suka could hear traces of a wavering melody and traces of harmony, also, between the high voices and the low. Now they settled to their knees, prostrating themselves just as Borgol had in the prison at Caer Corwell; they closed their eyes and pressed their foreheads into the stones. The fomorians bowed low, except for one, a giant of what was for them, Suka estimated, middle height, and the only one of them not wearing armor, or grasping clubs or battle-axes. He was a handsome fellow, Suka thought astonished at herself for making these distinctions between members of a race of grotesque and tyrannical barbarians with his black hair in a braid, and his eyes almost the same size, the right one slightly larger, of course, and shining now as if it itself were a source of light. Marabaldia gasped. She reached down to take Suka s hand between her forefinger and thumb, which the gnome squeezed reassuringly she knew who this was. Against all hope and reason, just as the world had turned irrevocably into shit, here was a gift from bright Sel ne s hands, a bridegroom who had waited ten years for his bride. Hurt and made brittle by the lycanthrope s slow death, Suka found herself, again, on a thin edge of tears, yet happy this time to see her friend walk forward into the circle of bowing, prostrating giants, and this one fellow in the midst of them, smiling now, dressed in his long, rich, fur-lined robes.
Because maybe there was hope for all of them, and Suka s friends were also still alive, and she would see them again on a bright, clear day like this, when the wind was in her face. Thinking somehow this was a gift for her as well, she stepped forward with the princess, reaching up to hold her hand, as if she were (she imagined later) a servant or a slave. She didn t think about that now. She looked up at her friend s shining face. Marabaldia was too shy to speak. Ughoth (that was the fellow s name, Suka subsequently learned) held his hand out, but she did not take it. She d been staring at the ground, but now she looked up, and Suka saw a beam as if of light or comprehension pass between their eyes she didn t have to talk. Everything, Suka imagined, was now revealed, or at least everything important. The rest were just details.
Ughoth cleared his throat a grunting, burbling, disgusting noise and said, Madam, I have the unfortunate duty of telling you your royal father has now passed away, and my father too has joined him in the Deep Wilds, friends now where they were enemies. Because of this my circumstances are now changed, and I am able to welcome you no, I rejoice to welcome you home, to my home. I know I must not presume now on past intimacies, so I am here to offer you my service in whatever decision you must undertake. I must tell you all of us, all of your subjects have never given up hope. But I especially have waited for you, picturing in my eye some version of a moment just like this, though always a pale shadow of reality, and with no understanding of the happiness I feel at this moment, and my joy and relief in your safety et cetera, et cetera, Suka thought, slightly startled at the personal, private tone his speech had taken at the end (intimacies, she thought that s one word for it), especially in this public space. But he had lowered his voice, and maybe no one else could hear except for her, Suka guessed but what was she? Chopped liver? Ugh. She didn t even want to think about that. But she imagined she was probably beneath the level of his notice quite literally, as it happened, because his head was six or seven feet above her own.
But Marabaldia was aware of her, at least enough to be embarrassed. She turned her face away from him, her eye shining like a star. We will talk about these things together, she said, brushing his fingers with her own. When we are alone. She made a gesture, and the cyclopses rose to their feet, and the rest of the fomorians ceased from bowing. I have brought up from the plain the bodies of my friends, slain in my service, human and fey there, you can see the horses. When we have laid them to rest, there will be time to speak.
And then more like this, ceremonial talk that tended to obscure feeling as a cloud did the moon. Other assorted dignitaries now stepped forward, and all privacy was lost. Representatives of the various factions made preliminary speeches, here in the stone agora of Harrowfast, among the snapping banners.
But all this ceremonial talk, in Suka s opinion, took too much time. This was a gathering of opposite forces, brought together in a common goal, the first such congress in the history of the world. So blah, blah, blah. Perhaps the verbiage was necessary to obscure what everyone suspected: There was no way.
Some differences are impossible to overcome. Suka already could guess the sequence. She felt she didn t have to sit with them or listen. The fomorians and Captain Rurik s men would be eager to move forward, and Lord Mindarion (much exhausted and reduced since his encounter with the darkwalker) would be tentative and unsure, unable to promise anything until he knew the whereabouts of Lady Amaranth the ginger slut (Suka was extemporizing here), who probably already had her hooks in Lukas, and the Savage, and heck, probably Kip and Gaspar-shen as well, if that were possible. Probably even Marikke was hot for her. A pound of dog shit, that s what she was worth. Or two. Or three. A big, smoking pile of dog shit on the crystal throne of Karador.
Amused by the mental image, she smiled, which was completely inappropriate to the solemnity of the occasion it was a good thing no one was paying attention. But what could she do? What she really wanted was a bath and a change of clothes. During the speeches, she found herself salivating with anticipation. She stared up at Marabaldia, and crossed her eyes with mock boredom.
Later, they descended underground down one of the stairways in the rock, through a gate carved in the shape of a demon s open mouth. The lamps were lit, and it was stuffy and warm in the small chamber near the bathhouse. The walls were lined with wooden panels with quilted fabric over them, and the floor was covered with mats of woven reeds. Suka lay on pillows, happy to be out of her leather doublet, her jailhouse shirt, and especially her underwear, which (let s face it) had not worn well during her captivity, and had been chafing her unmercifully. Now she wore a tangerine-colored cotton shift. One of the fomorians had something just her size no, no, don t ask questions, don t even think about it and was drinking wine from a crystal goblet so immense she had to lift it in both hands. And Marabaldia was with her, her own big limbs asprawl, also drinking, also at her ease indulging in what Suka realized was the royal fomorian equivalent of girl talk. The gnome smiled, and then, worried the expression might appear too bright and unmixed, allowed a shadow of sympathy to creep across it. Boy, she was happy about the wine, a sweet, amber wine. Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth, and she ran it back and forth under her teeth, playing with the stud through the middle of it, the dog s bone in the dog s mouth. She found herself fingering the rings along the ridge of her left ear, and examining the blue-flame tattoo that covered her right forearm, all the distinguishing marks if someone had to identify her body. Screw it, she thought. You re a nervous wreck. You ve got to stop thinking like this.
I just don t know if we have anything in common any more, said Marabaldia, rubbing her nose. How can I know? I mean, it s as if my life just stopped. All that time, just stolen away. He s been busy, working his father s
