51
A Web Across the Sky
The tale told by the Nakkiga parchment of witchwood seeds hidden beneath old Asu’a seemed something far away but closing fast—a storm that no one but Tanahaya could see coming, though its arrival would affect everything.
The witchwood? She could scarcely believe it. Is that what has caused this new conflict—the sacred wood, the last seeds of the Garden? Would Utuk’ku truly make war against the entire mortal world simply to live longer?
Of course she would, she realized a moment later. The Hamakha witch is trapped in times and grievances long gone, full of hate for mortals and even for her own kin. She cannot die until she has her revenge, but without the witchwood even her long life must end. Of course she will go to any lengths to find the last seeds.
Jiriki and Aditu must know of this quickly. They must tell the other Zida’ya clans about Utuk’ku’s cruel plan—my word alone does not have enough weight to convince Khendraja’aro or the defenders of Anvijanya and Vhinansu. She turned to Vinyedu. “Do you have a Witness? I must let the Sa’onserei know of our discovery.”
“Look here!” said Vinyedu as if she had not heard Tanahaya’s words. “The page is marked with the old Hamakha Seal—the queen’s own rune. This parchment was not merely copied, it was stolen from the archives of Nakkiga. Who could accomplish such a thing?”
An ornate rune had been stamped in white ink on a shield of black at the bottom of the unfolded parchment. Tanahaya had noticed it, but had not realized it meant that Utuk’ku herself had touched the document. A shiver of foreboding went through her. “Are you certain, S’huesa?”
“That is the queen’s own sigil, not that of one of her ministers.”
Now that Vinyedu had pointed it out, the import was clear. Still, something about the chronicler’s name and the mark above it tugged at Tanahaya’s attention, though she could not say why. “And who is that—the one who made this chronicle? I do not recognize the name—‘Nijin’.”
“Nijin was one of Utuk’ku’s court historians before the Parting,” Vinyedu said. “It is the first time I have seen an actual document with his name upon it. He died in the days of the Tenth Celebrant.”
Something about the parchment still puzzled Tanahaya, but the frightened voices in her head would not be ignored any longer. A wildfire was now burning across the land, that seemed clear, and every moment that it blazed unchecked would make it harder to extinguish—if it was not already too late. “I asked before, I ask again,” she said, “do you have a Witness here, Mistress? It is why I came to this place. Whatever you may think of them, the House of Year-Dancing must be informed of this.”
“The enemy of my enemy must be my friend, is that it?” Vinyedu’s face was sour. “The Pure must bend so as not to inconvenience those who have already cast their lot with the mortals?”
“No, you Pure must realize that you are Zida’ya by blood and heritage— the armies of Nakkiga will not see a difference between your folk and mine. Utuk’ku is mad and cares for nothing but herself. She will destroy us all without discrimination.” She saw Morgan watching their angry words. “Do not fear,” she told him in his own tongue. “We have learned something important today—something that may help everyone, especially your own people. Be of strong heart.”
“Even in the midst of argument, you take time to coddle a mortal,” Vinyedu said with bitter satisfaction.
“As I would any innocent trapped among people he did not know who were speaking a language he did not understand. Let go of your hatreds, at least for this moment, Vinyedu. I bear you no ill-will—nor, I think, do Jiriki and Aditu of the Sa’onserei.”
“Fair words that hide a foul history.”
“I think instead that your hatred of mortals blinds you to the crimes of Utuk’ku. She is the enemy, not Year-Dancing House.”
“Perhaps. But you are just as blinded by your own connection to the Sudhoda’ya. Why should there be some secret conspiracy to regain the witchwood seeds buried beneath Asu’a? Only a few seasons ago the Hikeda’ya all but owned it. The mortal priest Pryrates gave the Hikeda’ya freedom to roam the whole of old Asu’a. Why did Utuk’ku’s people not secure the witchwood seeds then?”
“Perhaps because the crisis was not so great then,” said Tanahaya. “When they fought what they call the War of Return, Utuk’ku and her Hikeda’ya still had their witchwood groves beneath the mountain, mirror-fed and secure. The line of the Garden-Root had not yet begun to fail.”
“What you say is not without sense,” Vinyedu conceded. “But Witnesses are nearly as hard to find in these terrible days as witchwood, yet you demand to use ours. You say you must warn the Sa’onserei, but is this not exactly how disaster came to Jao é-Tinukai’i? Jiriki brought a mortal there—this child’s grandfather, to make the folly even more pointed!—which led Utuk’ku’s destroyers down on them all.”
“That is not true!” Tanahaya said. “The Hikeda’ya attacked Jao é-Tinukai’i to silence wise Amerasu. This child’s grandfather was not to blame, and Morgan is not to blame now. And it is precisely because Utuk’ku wants her plans to remain a secret that Jiriki and the others must be told now.”
Vinyedu seemed about to respond with even more anger, but instead held up her hand, her lips pressed tightly together. After a long silence, she said, “I cannot consider what I must do and argue with you at the same time. You and your mortal ward remain here. I will return after I have had time and peace to think.” And with that, she turned and left the archive chamber. The other Pure watched her go, then turned their golden stares to Morgan and Tanahaya for a few moments, silent as flowers following the sun, before resuming their reading.
“Is she going to have us killed?” Morgan asked.
Tanahaya looked up from Himano’s parchment. “I do not know, to tell you the whole truth. The Pure have so removed themselves from the world I know that it is hard to say what they will think or do.” She saw his look. “I am sorry I have put you in danger, Morgan—but you are a prince, grandson of monarchs. You should know that sometimes the danger to all outweighs the danger to a few.”
He nodded, but looked distinctly unhappy about it.
The door to the archive silently swung open. It was Vinyedu, and she was not alone—half a dozen white-clad Pure, armed with bows and spears, stood behind her. Full of anger and regret, Tanahaya lifted her hands, determined not to sell her life cheaply.
“Do not fear,” said Vinyedu. “They are with me only for our protection as we cross to the Place of Silence. The sentries on the outskirts have sent word that Hikeda’ya are in the woods just outside the city. That is nothing unusual, but I will not take chances this day.”
“Tanahaya, what’s happening?” Morgan stood poised to run or fight.
“Forgive me,” said Vinyedu in Westerling. “I forgot I that I am to speak the mortal tongue for the benefit of the mortal youth.” She came forward, but the armed Pure remained in the outer chamber. “I have thought and thought. I do not agree with much of what you say, Tanahaya, but I am not so selfish that I wish to keep what we have learned from the scholars among your kind.”
“They are your kind too, Mistress.”
“Perhaps, but I am weary of that conversation. I have come to tell you that you may use the Witness—but only to speak to the Sa’onserei.”
Relief washed through Tanahaya. “Thank you, Mistress Vinyedu. I praise your wisdom and your generosity.”
“I still doubt it is wisdom, and it is most particularly not generosity.” Vinyedu had slipped into Zida’ya speech again. She made the sign called the Garden Endures. “I pray it is not foolishness either. Know this, though. You will only use the Witness with me watching, and you will cease the moment I say so, no matter what else is happening. Only with these promises will I let you touch it.”
Tanahaya looked to Morgan, who was still clearly disturbed by what must have seemed the threat of a deadly fight. “Do not fear, Prince Morgan,” she told him. “Much smoke but little fire. Good will come of all this, I promise.”
“Do not be so quick to promise what you cannot be certain to give,” Vinyedu told her, this time remembering to speak so Morgan could understand. “Come with me to the Place of Silence. But the young mortal cannot roam unwatched. He must accompany us.”
Morgan looked more than ready to escape the confines of the archive; he followed them without a word.
“It will be fastest to pass through Sky-Watching,” Vinyedu explained as she led them toward the surface, the half-dozen armed Pure surrounding them. “In a better time we could have used the Hall of Memory to reach it, but that collapsed long before our return. We will have to go up before we can go down.”
Tanahaya was trying to order her thoughts. She had not spoken to Jiriki or Aditu for two moons, and suddenly realized how many things she needed to tell them. She did not even know if her horse had made it back to H’ran Go-jao with the message that she was following Morgan.
As they reached ground level and mounted into the Place of Sky-Watching, rain fell on them through the ruined dome, spattering across the cracked, bare stone of the floor and making the ferns bow and dance. Once there had been nothing to see beyond the dome but sky, but over the years Oldheart had grown so close and high around the city that now all but the area directly above the roof was crowded with thick greenery. Tanahaya looked up at the hemispherical lattice of stone, crumbling in more than a few places but still stretched above the great chamber like a fishing net or a web, and wished keenly that she could have seen it in better days. Behind her, Morgan had stopped to stare upward as rain fell on his shoulders and matted his hair.
“Once the framework you see was filled with panes of crystal called Summer Ice,” Tanahaya told him. “We have lost the wisdom of its making now.”
“Speak for yourselves, you and the rest of the Zida’ya,” said Vinyedu from the top of the stairwell that led down below the chamber. “We Pure have found the secret again. One day we will have what is needed to rebuild it—to bring Da’ai Chikiza back to life.”
Tanahaya watched her vanish into a stairwell hidden behind part of the great frieze that covered the circular chamber from the floor to the bottom of the webbed dome. Stone representations of the moon calendar spanned the chamber, many carved as if in violent motion, each creature devouring the next—Lynx swallowing Crane as Crane in turn devoured Tortoise and Tortoise consumed Rooster, an endless cycle that represented the procession of seasons and years.
Morgan was still staring upward, but Tanahaya could see that the armed guards were growing impatient.
“Swiftly, please,” she told him. “I do not want Vinyedu to change her mind.”
“I thought I saw people in the trees,” the young mortal said. “Up there.”
Tanahaya looked, but saw nothing in the thick, intertwined boughs that loomed over the dome. “Did you hear her say there are Norns out in the forest? The Pure are warlike, as you have already seen, so do not fear—or at least do not fear a few Norn soldiers.”
Morgan only shook his head, but let her lead him across the uneven floor of the ancient chamber to the stairs.
As they entered the wide chamber, their escort of Pure warriors fanned out on either side of the doorway. Tanahaya barely noticed them as she took in her new surroundings. The Place of Sky-Watching had been a gaudy shambles open to the forest and the weather, but the Place of Silence was its opposite, a windowless, almost featureless circular chamber of stone lit only by the glow of a few lamps. Instead of the carved stone creatures that paraded around the walls of the domed chamber, the only decoration here were concentric horizontal lines that climbed the cylindrical walls to its low roof, as if she and Morgan now stood inside some mighty stone beehive. Large vertical alcoves with empty shelves, were carved directly into the wall of the chamber at intervals, thirteen in all, each with its own empty bench before it, but though all the benches faced the center of the room, nothing stood in the chamber’s center but bare dirt and a broken stone plinth, half of it standing, half lying on the floor.
“Is that—?” Tanahaya began, but Vinyedu did not let her finish.
“The seat of the Dawnstone. Yes, it was.” The mistress of the Pure did not bother to hide her painful feelings. “Da’ai Chikiza’s Master Witness. It vanished when the floods came and all the people fled the city. Some say it was swept away and lost. All we know for certain is that it is gone from our knowledge and from our hands, like the Green Column of Jhiná-T’seneí or the Speakfire, lost in the collapse of Hikehikayo.”
“We all know these tragedies,” Tanahaya said. “Nobody grieved more deeply for these losses than my master, Himano. But I do not need a Master Witness. One of the lesser ones will do for my purposes.”
Vinyedu surprised her then by reaching into her robe and withdrawing an object the size of two open palms, the largest Witness-mirror Tanahaya had seen. The dragon scale of which it had been made was intact, polished to a glassy sheen, and couched in a frame of age-darkened witchwood.
“It is very old,” Tanahaya said reverently.
“One of the first made in these lands of Exile.” Vinyedu held the mirror out to her. “Take it,” she said. “Use it. But remember my strictures.”
Tanahaya weighed it in her hands; the mirror was heavy, and seemed as full of potential as a living thing. “This will not be swift,” she told Morgan. “Sit quietly, please. No harm will come to you.”
His look suggested he was less confident about that than she was, but he found a space along the wall that was free of tumbled rocks and slumped to the ground to wait.
Studying the Witness, Tanahaya could not help wondering about the monstrous creature of whose body the polished scale had once been part. The dragon scale had a burnished silvery sheen over layers of reflection and refraction, so that her own image seemed that of a phantom. She held it up and stared into it as she chanted the Words of Joining—silently, because her master Himano had taught her that when she used a Witness she was not singing to anyone but herself. She did her best to order her thoughts and her needing heart so that she could reach out to that which she so deeply needed to find.
The scale’s shimmering surface seemed to have moving depths beneath it, like water. She let herself slide down through the levels and currents until she found the deeps that lay behind it all, the dark but clear place where only thoughts moved.
Jiriki of the Sa’onserei, she called, or she might have sung it—the words were no longer just words, but something less easily defined. Jiriki, can you feel me? I have need of you now. Join with me. But nothing came back to her except silence and emptiness. She tried to make her thought even more pure, as sharp as a blade. Willow-Switch! My need is great. If you have any power to answer, join me!
Then she felt it—a warming, then something emerging, small at first, but growing until it seemed to fill all the empty place. And at the center of it, he was.
Spark? Is that you? My heart fills with joy to feel your thoughts again. Are you well?
A surge of joy swept through her. In body, yes, dear friend, but troubled and full of news you must hear. She could not keep the jaggedness from her thoughts, though she feared they must be uncomfortable for him. I am in The Tree of Singing Wind, with the Pure. The mortal youth Morgan, grandchild of your friend Seoman Snowlock, is with me. He is alive and, for the moment, also safe.
That is welcome news indeed, Spark. She could feel his sudden pleasure and relief, like buds bursting from a naked bough.
But there is more you must know, and it is fearful.
Speak, then, and I will listen. But I wish there was no need for haste. You have been missed.
My teacher Himano is dead. She waited for his wordless rush of sympathy and surprise. Killed by the Cloud Children. He was trying to escape them with a parchment written in their ancient tongue—trying to hide it from them, I believe, but they caught him and cruelly ended him.
Utuk’ku’s crimes are unending, Spark. I am full of sorrow.
Master Himano is beyond this world’s pain now, but your mortal friends are not. The parchment says that the Witchwood Crown Utuk’ku seeks—a dozen seeds buried with Hamakho’s crown—was hidden long ago beneath the castle of the mortals, in old Asu’a.
She could feel his surprise deepen, and with it a creeping frost of worry. Are you certain?
As carefully as she could, Tanahaya shared what she and Vinyedu had learned. For long moments afterward the course between them was silent, empty. Then she felt him again, but now his thoughts seemed to come like echoes down a long valley, faint and indistinct.
. . . Grim, but we cannot be . . .
Jiriki? Willow-Switch? I could not understand you. . . . At once. We feared something . . .
Then she could not feel him at all, only the emptiness that yawned between them. Tanahaya spoke the Words of Joining again, wondering what she had done wrong. Nothing came back to her, as though the scale had suddenly lost its potency, though she had never heard of such a thing happening.
And even as she wondered at this a new force intruded abruptly into her thoughts, something she could almost see and could certainly feel. Strands of nothingness that somehow had substance were stretching across the empty places where the Witness had brought her, filling the darkness and twining about her own thoughts until she felt caught like a bird on a limed twig. The strands suddenly seemed to be everywhere, closing off the space that only moments earlier had seemed almost limitless. Frightened, Tanahaya tried to let go and return to the world, but she could no longer feel her hands or the Witness she held, could no longer see, though her eyes were open.
The strands grew together into a single mass, the shape of a mask like a gloating face, its empty mouth and eyes agleam with scarlet light.
A new and unfamiliar voice pushed into her thoughts then.
So. Tanahaya, is it? Himano’s little pupil. It is a great pity you were not with him in his last moments. Does that grieve you? Would it have been worth it, to suffer as he suffered and to die at his side?
The only remnant of her body she could feel was her heart, pounding faster and faster as the cold thing enveloped her in hopelessness.
Begone! she said, though her thoughts were so weak she felt as if she murmured against a thunderstorm. You are not wanted here. You will fail. Nakkiga has fallen under shadow, but shadows can be driven away.
The thing laughed, and she thought its disgusting enjoyment might drive her mad. And what do you know of shadows, young scholar? What do you know of any darkness but your own ignorance? Come, and I will show you things Himano never dreamed of. Come to me and be my pupil instead. You will learn that the darkness goes on and on forever—it has lessons for you that you cannot even imagine!
The presence on the other side of the Witness was far too strong for her: Tanahaya could feel it pulling her out of herself and deeper into the cold that lay behind its fiery laughter—the cold of death, the cold of emptiness unending. Her racing heartbeat was now a single overwhelming and continuous thunder, like many drums pounding at once with no silence between beats. She could feel herself diminishing, stretching, being pulled ever closer toward a place of return.
Then something snapped that pull like a cut thread. The darkness flew to pieces and light flooded in, a bright, blinding glare that she slowly recognized as the few small lamps that lit the Place of Silence, achingly bright compared to the darkness that had nearly swallowed her.
Tanahaya was on her hands and knees, head ringing and body shocked, as if she had fallen a long distance to the stone floor. The blurry form in front of her became Vinyedu. Someone else was crouching beside her, trying to lift her.
“No.” Her own voice sounded like something dying. “I will rise when I am ready.” She realized it was Morgan trying to help her, and felt a moment of unexpected affection for him. “Do not fear,” she told him between gasping breaths. “I will be well again.”
When she could finally climb into a crouch, she saw that Vinyedu was again holding the Witness. “I had to pull it from your hands,” she told Tanahaya. “Something had you.”
“Yes, it did. Something dark. I think it might have been Akhenabi of the Stolen Face. It felt like what I know of him—arrogant and cruel.”
“Arrogant, cruel, and very powerful,” Vinyedu said. “He bears no weapon of witchwood or bronze, but he is Utuk’ku’s greatest servant. You are fortunate I was here, but I have done myself no favors in breaking your bond with the Witness. I hurt all over, as though I have been burned.” Vinyedu sighed, and for the first time Tanahaya heard real fear in her voice. “We have learned a terrible lesson today. The Witnesses are no longer safe—” Vinyedu began, but she never finished. Someone was calling from the Place of Sky-Watching in the hall above them—a voice tinged with alarm.
“Cloud Children! There are Cloud Children in the city! There is fighting in the passages!”
Vinyedu gave Tanahaya a savage look. “Your great need to speak to the Sa’onserei has revealed us to our enemies.”
“No,” Tanahaya cried. “That can’t be! Even Akhenabi could not find us so quickly!” She turned to Morgan. “Unsheathe your sword and stay with me. Do not leave my side, no matter what happens.” And so saying, she drew her blade and guided him to the stairs that led upward to the rain and the city.
Rain was falling hard now, rattling the leaves above their heads, and the wind made the trees thrash as the Sithi named Liko led Aelin and his men deeper into the ancient forest.
The immortals had taken their horses—several of Liko’s followers were riding ahead of them through the dark, wet wood. The rest of the Sithi led Aelin, Maccus, and wounded Evan swiftly across high, slippery places and along hillsides dense with bracken, forcing the captives to leap over new-formed streams that raced down the muddy slopes into the dells below. Thunder growled and threatened, and from time to time a flash lit the sky beyond the trees, as though some impossibly vast creature was searching for them with a lantern.
At last, about half way across a long slope, in a spot thick with trees and dotted with rocky outcroppings, Liko the leader slowed to let the rest of the company catch up. Aelin was grateful for the chance to catch his breath—the immortals seemed able to run forever without wearying.
“Be quiet. Now we go into lodge,” Liko told them, his face stern. “I go first. Follow without noise. You understand?” Apparently satisfied, the Sitha made a sound like the cry of a bird; an instant later, the ground itself lifted up. Startled and fearful, Aelin almost fell before he saw that the opening into the earth had been covered by a sort of wooden screen disguised on top with dirt and leaves, and had been lifted by a Sitha beneath it, who now climbed up to hold it ajar.
“By Cuamh himself,” breathed Maccus Blackbeard. “Would have walked past that a dozen times and never guessed.”
Liko abruptly struck Maccus on the back of the head, not hard enough to injure him, but enough to freeze the Hernystirmen with surprise. Again the leader of the Sithi brushed his mouth with his fingertips, then pointed to the hole.
They were surrounded by armed Sithi, their weapons and horses gone, and even more dangerous enemies were lurking in the forest. As Uncle Eolair would say, Aelin told himself, when you are given only bad choices, choose the least dreadful. He took a shaky breath, then lowered himself feet-first into the darkness.
The tunnel was steep but short: Aelin managed to slither down and land with no injuries except to his dignity. Maccus and Evan were coming down behind him, so he crawled forward, then suddenly light burst out before him. The glare came from a shining round stone set on a wooden tripod, and though it was not as bright as it had first seemed when he came out of the dark tunnel, it was enough to show that the lodge, as Liko had called it, was a long, low, angular cavern inside a great mass of ancient limestone. He heard his two men emerge behind him from the base of the tunnel, but Aelin did not look back, overwhelmed by what was in front of him. He could not see how far the cave extended, but the part he could see was full of Sithi. Some were sharpening their swords—not made of proper metal, but a substance that looked more like stone or polished wood—while others fletched arrows, or sat alone or by themselves or in unspeaking groups. The silence of so many felt unnatural, and made Aelin’s heart beat faster.
Liko the Shrike had left them without a word, and now Aelin saw him talking to a hooded figure on the other side of the cavern. He then bowed and disappeared deeper into the cavern, out of Aelin’s sight.
“Evan’s bleeding quite a bit, sir,” Maccus said. Aelin turned to see that the young Aedonite’s face was white and he was shivering, his eyes unfixed. Aelin rose to look for something to bandage the wound, and almost stumbled into the hooded figure with whom Liko had spoken. This figure threw back the hood to reveal another handsome Sitha face, this one female.
“Your companion looks to have lost much blood,” she said. “My grandson should have told me.” She spoke with slow care, but her command of Westerling seemed nearly flawless, much better than Liko’s. She turned and called softly, then another Sitha rose from where he had been grinding something in a mortar and came toward them. The female Sitha spoke to him for a moment in their tongue, then with her help he removed Evan’s mail shirt. After a moment trying to unknot the wet cords of the shirt beneath shirt, the Sitha drew a small, thin knife from his sleeve. Maccus made a noise of surprise and reached for his own weapon.
“Stop,” said Aelin. “Be still. He means Evan no harm. He is only cutting away the lad’s shirt.”
“You are correct.” The Sitha woman had hair as white as a sun-bleached linen, which gave her a look of age, but her angular face seemed to Aelin like that of someone still capable of bearing a child. “We will not harm your friend.” She looked on as the Sitha she had summoned pulled the shirt back. Evan’s back was smeared with blood, but the wound did not look too deep. “Good. There is no sign of poison,” she said.
“Are we prisoners?” Aelin asked as he watched.
“No,” she said. “I do not think so—but not precisely guests, either.” She gave him a strange look; Aelin did not think it looked friendly. “My grandson did right to bring you here—these hills are not a good place for mortals. The long shadow war we have fought here against our own kind has become deadly.”
“Your own kind? The Norns?”
She nodded. “As you call them, yes. And you, mortal man—who are you and why are you here? Liko feared you might be sent to spy on us, but I think the Hikeda’ya would not bother with observers who were so obviously out of place.”
Aelin fought against rising anger. “Spies? The Hikeda’ya slaughtered my men, and hundreds more of my kind at Naglimund, only a league away on the other side of the hill. You are not the only one at war with them, my lady.”
Her lips twitched in what might have been a smile, but it did not touch her hard stare. “Perhaps. But you still have not told me your name, mortal knight.”
“I am Sir Aelin of Nad Mullach,” he said. “And who are you?” He nodded toward Evan, whose wound was being cleaned by the other Sitha. “At the very least, I owe you thanks for helping my man and giving us shelter.” He spread his hands. “Forgive me if I speak clumsily—I have never met one of your kind before today.”
“My mother named me Ayaminu,” she told him. “And I know your mortal kind better than I might wish, Sir Aelin.”