"You fool fool." Tolly walked over to him and stared up at the taller Hood, eyes slitted with contempt. "Calm myself? I should have your head for that. You understand nothing nothing. We cannot defeat that pagan b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He has ten times the troops we have-more!-and more than twice that at his disposal down in Hierosol. Not to mention what he could muster if he brought another army up from Xis after the winter storms are over. And unlike the fairy folk, the autarch has ships. We will be getting no more food from Marrinswalk or anywhere else." He picked up the tray he had knocked from the squire's hands, then let it drop to the floor again with a clatter. "Whether it is tomorrow or next tennight or half a year from now at the very longest, Southmarch will will fall to Sulepis." fall to Sulepis."

Hood stared down at him. The warrior's face was implacable behind his thick mustache but something in the way he stood at stiff attention suggested he was resisting the urge to strike his lord and master. Despite Hood's cruel reputation, at that moment Tinwright almost admired him.

"Of course, Lord Tolly," he said at last, then bowed, turned, and walked out.

Hendon Tolly walked to the door to watch him go. Puzzle crept to his feet with much grimacing at the stiffness of his joints, and hobbled across the room to Tinwright.

"I only came to tell you ..." he began.

"Puzzle!" Tolly shouted from the doorway. "Curse you, you ancient bit of dried jerk-meat! Are you not my royal jester?"

Tinwright surrept.i.tiously put out his hand and braced Puzzle as the old man's knees buckled and he nearly fell. "Yes, my lord!" Puzzle fluted. "Of course, yes, Lord Tolly!"

"Then make me laugh. Go to-I wish to be cheered!" Tolly stared at him, his face pale, eyes fierce and intent. "Did you hear? Amuse me."

"M-m-my lord, I am unpor . . . unpoo . . . unprepared! I came only to give a message to Master Tinwright . . . !"

"Very well." Tolly walked toward him slowly, a feline smile playing on his features. "I shall be just as in need of merriment an hour from now. You will return to me then and make me laugh uproariously or I will cut off your face and make it into a Midsummer mask to scare the ladies. Would you like that, Puzzle? You wouldn't, would you?"

"N-no! No, my lord!"

"I thought not. Then go and prepare your very best j.a.pes and comical songs. Do you see how I am frowning, old man? Well, in an hour, one of us shall have our face changed."

Puzzle tried to bow and moan and promise his cooperation all at once, but only succeeded in muddling himself so badly Tinwright had to brace the old man again. "Why were you seeking me?" he whispered to the trembling jester.

"Oh, Zosim preserve me!" Puzzle's red, rheumy eyes were welling with tears. "He will murder me!"

"He will probably forget," Tinwright tried to a.s.sure him. "He is very changeable of late. Just do your best and all will be well. Now, what was your message?"

The jester had to swallow twice before he could speak again. "Your mother is looking for you, Matty. She is looking for you all over the residence, and attracting much attention, little of it favorable." Message delivered, Puzzle patted his arm. "Farewell, lad. You were a good friend."

The old man trudged away, legs and arms as thin as pipestems, bells still chiming mournfully.

If only he would not try to be funny, Tinwright thought, he would be the most amusing fellow in the March Kingdoms. If ever a man was perfectly ill suited for his work, there goes such a man. he would be the most amusing fellow in the March Kingdoms. If ever a man was perfectly ill suited for his work, there goes such a man.

But he was only thinking about poor Puzzle to avoid considering the horror that was Anamesiya Tinwright loose in the royal residence. If anything could a.s.sure Matt Tinwright of being executed even before the doomed jester, it was the presence of his mother, stupid and righteous as a peac.o.c.k and no more discreet than a feverish child. It would be a miracle straight from Zosim if she had not already told half a dozen people about Elan M'Cory.

The G.o.ds, it appeared, had been searching for new ways to amuse themselves at a humble poet's expense, and now they had found one.

Puzzle survived. In fact, by the time he reappeared, the lord protector had either forgotten all about him or simply lost interest. "Who? The jester?" he asked the guard who had stepped into the room to announce Puzzle's return. Hendon Tolly did not even raise his eyes from his cup of unwatered wine-perhaps his dozenth of the evening. "Send him away. That moping horse-face is all I need to sour the last of this good Torvian red." The guard went out. Tolly looked blearily up at Matt Tinwright. "Go on! Make certain that fool of a guard sends him away. Tell him to give the old fool a good kick, too."

Before Tinwright could get to the door the castellan, Tirnan Havemore, suddenly leaped to his feet. "I will deal with the fool, my lord. Rest yourself."

Tolly did not look at either of them but only waved his hand.

Neither of the two men was willing to relinquish the chance to get out of their master's presence, even for a few moments. Both went out the door of the lord protector's chambers at the same time. Puzzle had already been sent away by the guard and was wandering down the corridor toward the kitchen, his relief combined with confusion.

"Puzzle, wait," Tinwright called after him.

"I will give him the message," Havemore hissed. "I am your superior." will give him the message," Havemore hissed. "I am your superior."

"As you wish, Lord." Tinwright knew better than to argue.

The castellan swept down the corridor with all the authority he could muster, his long, fur-trimmed robe swinging above his velvet slippers. He was clearly taking as much time as he could, delivering Hendon Tolly's criticisms in elaborate detail as the old man looked more and more morose.

"But he told me to come back!" Puzzle protested, apparently forgetting that his attendance would likely have ended in his execution. "Look! I prepared a new diversion-the ball floats in the air!"

After Puzzle had at last, and with great effort, chased down the bouncing ball, he was sent on his way. Tinwright waited for the castellan to return to the door so they could go back in together, but to his surprise Tirnan Havemore gestured for Tinwright to walk with him a little distance away from the guards.

"Lord Tolly does not like me to be long away from him. ..."

Havemore scowled. "Yes, yes. Enough of that." He was a tall man with a round, youthful face, but he had aged in recent months. He was not well shaved today and looked bloated and pink. "I would talk to you, Tinwright. Would you walk away from the lord castellan of Southmarch?"

"No, Lord."

"You are much in our master's company lately. If that scarecrow who just left is your rival in entertaining him, then it is little surprise, but still it seems odd the protector should take such pleasure from the company of a mere poet."

Jealousy? Or something more complicated? "Lord Tolly does what he wishes, Lord Havemore. And gets what he wants."

The other man studied him carefully. "We have only a moment before Tolly notices our absence, even full of wine. Answer my questions truly and you may find you have a friend you will need one day. What happened to Okros, the physician? I know the story we were told is a lie."

"I don't know. He died ..."

The stinging slap came so fast Matt Tinwright did not even have time to raise his hand. "Do not trifle with me, young man. I ask you again-Okros?"

Matt Tinwright rubbed his face. The masters of Southmarch were all terrified, that seemed clear, and none of them trusted Hendon Tolly. Tinwright lowered his voice to a near whisper before answering. "He was killed doing the lord protector's bidding." How much did he dare say? "It had something to do with a magic mirror . . . and the G.o.ds. I did not see it happen." There was no reason to mention that Tolly had made him perform the same ritual-that Tinwright himself had almost suffered Okros' fate while helping Hendon Tolly reach out to the land of sleeping G.o.ds.

Havemore blinked. "Witchcraft!" he said, peering at the nearby guards to make sure they could not hear him. "I knew it! That madman will doom us all." His shrewd eyes fixed on Tinwright again. "I also know you are close with my old master, Avin Brone. Do not deny it! Tell me what Brone plans. Does he have some strategy of his own to save the castle?"

"I truly don't know, Lord Havemore. He would never tell me."

"No, likely that's true." The castellan frowned, considering. "Tell Brone . . . tell him that his old friend and servant Tirnan wishes him well. Tell him that I still think of him fondly, and would . . . that I would be ruled by his wisdom about what to do to save our beloved Southmarch. You will say just those words to him, and to no one else."

Tinwright's heart was beating fast-he was being asked to carry a message to Brone saying the castellan was open to betraying Hendon Tolly!-but he found himself shaking his head.

"My lord, the protector will never let me away from his side for so long, especially not to visit Brone."

"Leave it to me," Havemore said. "I will arrange something, some pretext, to get you away from Tolly long enough to deliver my message."

"But, with respect, my lord, why do you not simply speak to Brone yourself? You are the castellan-surely you have ample opportunity?"

"Because some of my own men are Hendon's spies, though I do not know which. And there are other spies watching Brone. He and I could never meet without every word being carefully listened to. It is too risky. No, you must do it. If you succeed, you will have made a good friend in me. If you fail-well, I will not go to the block alone, poet."

Despite seeing the first gleam of hope he might be able to escape Tolly and the death he had a.s.sumed would inevitably come to him at the lord protector's hands, Tinwright was also awash with anger and disgust. Brone himself, Tolly, and now Tirnan Havemore, none of them thought anything of risking the life of Matthias Tinwright for their own schemes. What was he, after all, but a worthless poet? Why should they fret if he was killed furthering their schemes?

Of course he said nothing aloud except, "As you wish, my lord."

The roar of cannon fire went on like a winter storm.

The castellan Havemore soon made his excuses and departed the chambers, leaving Tinwright alone with the lord protector except for the silent guards and tiptoeing servants. Hendon Tolly was still drinking, but the fury was past and he had descended into a deep, strange quietude.

Tinwright was leaning discreetly against a tapestried wall, falling asleep on his feet and wondering if he dared to sit down on the floor, when the protector stirred in his high-backed chair and looked around until he found Tinwright.

"Come here, poet." He gestured at the floor near his feet. "Sit."

Matt Tinwright settled as far away from Tolly as he dared, so that if the protector should decide to hit him he would have to extend his arm a little and weaken the blow-he had learned a few things during his weeks in Hendon's company. Tolly's face was no longer flushed. He had gone quite pale, as if a fever in his blood had turned suddenly from hot to deadly chill.

"It is a poor excuse for a man who does not admit when he has met his match," he said. "I admit it. Sulepis is clever. The pagans consider him a G.o.d. His army is the greatest in the world. He is . . . a worthy adversary." He cast his eyes sideways toward Tinwright as if daring him to say otherwise. Tinwright had learned by now that it was best to speak only when asked a question, and sometimes not even then. "I thought that we each had one part of what was needed-that Sulepis had the blood sacrifice and I had the mirror. I believed we needed each other-and so did Sulepis. But something else is needed-this G.o.dstone. Sulepis doesn't have it but neither do I. In fact, I have nothing he needs at all, and that is why we are doomed."

Tolly lifted his cup and took a long swallow, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. He was very, very drunk. "That fool Okros misled me, or perhaps he hoped to trick me so that he could somehow gain the power for himself. Perhaps he simply did not know. Whichever is true, he never told me of any G.o.dstone, or any other magical bauble." He looked around a little vacantly, as if he was searching for his audience, which at this moment was only Matt Tinwright. "But I will will find some way to free the G.o.ddess. She is mine. She has told me so. And I will think of some way to keep her from the Xixian as well." find some way to free the G.o.ddess. She is mine. She has told me so. And I will think of some way to keep her from the Xixian as well."

Tinwright didn't understand much of what Tolly was saying. The protector kept calling the thing that had spoken to him "the G.o.ddess," but the Autarch of Xis had several times called it a G.o.d. Which of them was right? And what did such confusion mean?

Tolly finally looked down and saw the expression on Tinwright's face. He did not seem to like it. "You. Are you wondering why I let you live, poet?" he demanded. "Why I did not simply kill you when I caught you spying? Answer me."

As ever, Tinwright sought for the right words, the careful words. "I suppose I have wondered, my lord."

"You suppose, yes." The thin lips twisted in a smile. "As so many others do. But I'm different, boy, I'm different. I do not suppose-I must know know. Do you understand me?" Tolly had closed his eyes now as if deep in thought or memory; he did not wait for an answer. "Men are small creatures, most of them, creeping and crawling like mice. For centuries, they scuttled at the feet of the G.o.ds, hoping mostly to stay unnoticed. But even after the G.o.ds finally turned their backs on them, men kept scuttling. Like the vermin in the walls, they continued to live their lives in fear of larger creatures, not knowing and not caring what lay beyond their hidey-holes. They continued to fear the G.o.ds even after the G.o.ds left them. But I am no mouse, poet. I do not fear the G.o.ds or anything else. The only thing I fear is not to be understood."

Hendon Tolly was silent for a very long while, his eyes still shut-so long that Tinwright was contemplating getting up to go in search of some food and drink when Tolly spoke again.

"Who can understand me? Not one man in ten thousand, poet. Not ten men in all of Eion. The autarch-he is one of the few. It grates on my soul to admit it, but he is one of the few. He He is is alive alive, you see. He knows that the measure of the universe is the reach of a great man-no more, no less." Hendon Tolly opened his eyes. For a man who had drunk so much, he looked terrifyingly sober. "That is why you are here, poet. Because you must write of what I do. You must witness what becomes of me . . . so that I will be understood."

"By me, Lord?"

Tolly's bark of laughter was as sudden and violent as the slap he had given Tinwright earlier. "You? By the a.r.s.eholes of the foul, farting G.o.ds, poet, are you mad? You scarcely understand how to read and write. Do you know anything of Phayallos? The Book of Ximander Book of Ximander, which you have now held and read from? Of course not. You are like so many of your type, enamored with the mewling and whimpering of Gregor and the rest of the bards, thinking that truth lies in pretty words and pretty stories. You know nothing nothing ." He leaned and spat on the floor on the opposite side of his chair-a thoughtfulness for which Tinwright was grateful. "But you can write what I tell you to write. You can witness what I allow you to see and then write about it, and even with no better guide than a dull wit such as yours, in the centuries to come those who are worthy to understand . . . will understand. They will see my works and hear my words and those few will understand me. I care truly about nothing else. If I gain the power I seek, well and good. If I can do no more than thwart the autarch, that is well, too, as long as what I am- ." He leaned and spat on the floor on the opposite side of his chair-a thoughtfulness for which Tinwright was grateful. "But you can write what I tell you to write. You can witness what I allow you to see and then write about it, and even with no better guide than a dull wit such as yours, in the centuries to come those who are worthy to understand . . . will understand. They will see my works and hear my words and those few will understand me. I care truly about nothing else. If I gain the power I seek, well and good. If I can do no more than thwart the autarch, that is well, too, as long as what I am-who I am-does not disappear from the memory and minds of my equals, my very few equals, most of them not even born yet." He raised his cup and drained it to the dregs. "Go to your corner, poet. Go and sleep. The hour of your highest calling is almost come. One way or another you will see the world begin anew. You will see . . . I am-does not disappear from the memory and minds of my equals, my very few equals, most of them not even born yet." He raised his cup and drained it to the dregs. "Go to your corner, poet. Go and sleep. The hour of your highest calling is almost come. One way or another you will see the world begin anew. You will see . . . astonishing things astonishing things." Tolly closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, letting the heavy iron cup fall to the ground with a noise like a sword being forged. "You will see my . . . moment of glory, when the G.o.ds . . . recognize me at last for . . . for what I am."

When it was clear that Hendon Tolly would not speak further, Tinwright crawled into a corner and made himself as comfortable as he could in a pile of blankets on the stone floor. He pulled his cloak tight around him, but although the floor was chilly, that was not what set him shivering until sleep at last led him away.

Utta had never felt such confusion before. In all the strange happenings of the last months she had always had a clear-cut sense of what she needed to do next, but now she felt as if she were wandering lost in a fog. What had become of the old, familiar world she had known? The fairies had held her and Merolanna prisoner and threatened to kill them-but now those same fairies had become allies and were hiding beneath Southmarch. The Autarch Sulepis of Xis, a nightmare that had been little more than a name a year ago, was now camped on the near sh.o.r.e trying to blow down the castle walls. And the father of Merolanna's child, the one she was so certain the fairies had stolen . . . was now revealed to be Avin Brone. How could any of that be?

Despite the late hour, the roads and greens of the inner keep were crowded. Thousands of people had flooded in from mainland Southmarch when it was abandoned, and during the attacks on the castle, first by the Qar and now by the Xixians, those refugees had crowded ever closer to the inmost parts of the castle, so that the royal residence was now scarcely more than an island jutting above a sea of desperate, homeless people. The center of the castle had become a sort of village fair, except that the faces in the crowd were nearly all angry or bleak or both. Many of them stared at Utta with dislike as she pa.s.sed, and for the first time in her life she felt her Zorian robes marked her out not as someone who might help, but as someone who had done harm.

They think the G.o.ds have failed them, she realized. Zoria, the protector of the poor and downtrodden, has not answered their prayers. Zoria, the protector of the poor and downtrodden, has not answered their prayers.

As she pa.s.sed through a narrow s.p.a.ce in the crowd someone b.u.mped her hard enough to make her stumble. A few women nearby murmured disapprovingly at the discourtesy, but no one actually said anything out loud against the man who had done it-he was already gone, anyway-and Utta began to feel as though she walked, not among Zoria's children, as she usually did, but among beasts who might turn on her when she had gone far enough into their midst. Feeling suddenly old and frightened, she made her way out of the thickest part of the crowd toward the edge of the inner keep, but it was no less dangerous there. The camps along the wall seemed to be mostly full of men-she thought that strange, considering the need for every able-bodied man to fight-who turned from their campfires to watch her go past as though she were an object being offered for purchase, their eyes reflecting emotionlessly in the firelight.

Utta hurried toward the relative sanctuary of the guard tower that stood across from the front of the Throne hall. The Throne hall now was used mainly to house troops, and had already lost some of its roof to the autarch's bombardment, but it was lit by lanterns and looking at it made her feel a little less as though the entire world had been replaced by a different one when her back was turned. The Xixian cannons had gone silent so she asked one of the pikemen if she could climb the guardhouse stairs up onto the wall of the inner keep. She was craving air from the sea, air that did not smolder with the smoke of hundreds of campfires.

The soldier squinted at her a little suspiciously, but then nodded and said, "But you take care up there, Sister. There are children running around like wild things. Don't even have parents no more, some of them. They'll steal your purse and push you right off if they catch you too far from the tower."

Utta winced to think such things were happening here, in the middle of Southmarch keep. "I'm not going far. I just want to smell the ocean."

She kept her word, taking only a few steps out along the walkway at the top of the wall and keeping the guardroom fire in sight when she stopped to lean against the cold stones and breathe the salty air. A seagull screeched somewhere nearby. The outer keep also sparkled with fires, but only those of the soldiers: beyond the New Walls as they were called, most of Midlan's Mount was dark, although Utta could hear countless voices raised in argument and even the occasional song and knew that almost every inch of both the inner and outer keep were crowded with refugees from the mainland.

So many people! So little hope. Utta crossed her hands on her breast and prayed.

She was peering down, trying to make sense of where the gate to Funderling Town might be in the darkness, when she realized someone was standing next to her-someone who had come up to her in complete silence. Sister Utta was so startled she gasped and almost fell down, but the stranger did not move.

"You can feel it, too, can't you?" asked the newcomer-a young woman with wild eyes. "You can feel that it's happening."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry," Utta said, "I don't know what you mean." Perhaps this was part of a trick-distract her, then others would come up and try to rob her. Had she not been so frightened she might have laughed. Utta was a Zorian sister-what did she have that could be stolen? A wooden brooch in the shape of an almond? Some prayer beads? Her life? None of them was worth even the price of a meal.

"It's coming," the girl said. "The great day is coming-I can feel it. But I cannot reach him!"

She's mad, poor thing, but surely she cannot be worshiping the autarch? There were a few benighted souls, Utta had found, who were already so terrified by the events of the past year that they saw the autarch as some kind of heavenly scourge who would bring the sinful world to an end. There were a few benighted souls, Utta had found, who were already so terrified by the events of the past year that they saw the autarch as some kind of heavenly scourge who would bring the sinful world to an end.

"I'm not mad," the girl said, startling Utta so that she drew back again in alarm. "I know. I know what is going on underneath the castle. I can hear it, smell it, touch it. He is returning. The G.o.d is coming back. And the one I love is there, too." She turned and looked at Utta, her thin face youthful in the light of the torch burning at the guardhouse door. She looked as though she had scarcely eaten in days. "You! You know my lover. I can feel it. You have met him and spoken with him."

Utta had already begun to back toward the door. "Bless you, child. May Zoria the Merciful protect you from harm ..."

"I called him Gil, but his name is Kayyin now." She laughed a little. "It was Kayyin before, as well, but he changed it for a while. My silly, clever Gil."

The close-cropped hairs on the back of Utta's neck stood up under her coif. "What . . . what name did you say?"

"Kayyin of the Changing tribe. Lady Porcupine is his mother, but he is not so th.o.r.n.y as she is." She giggled, and it transformed her from a figure of potential menace into something entirely different. "But I cannot go to him. I feel him in my thoughts, but he cannot feel me." Her voice grew somber. "The men, the soldiers, they will not let me go down into Funderling Town. And Kayyin is beneath, waiting for the G.o.d to be reborn. But his thoughts are full of things I don't understand-worries about eggs and fevers, fevers and eggs . . . !"

Utta shook her head in confusion. "You truly know that the Qar are there, beneath us? Or is it only something you've heard?"

The girl laughed again, incredulous. "Heard? Heard it with every part of my body, knew it with every thought! I can feel Kayyin's heart beat through the stone."

Utta shook her head. She had heard-and seen-stranger things of late. "What are you called, child?"

"Willow." The girl made a clumsy little curtsy and laughed again, but this time the edge of desperation was gone; she sounded calmer, happier. "No one has called me that in a long time, though."

"It's a nice name," Utta said. "Come back to Zoria's shrine with me, Willow. You look as though you could use a good meal."

13.

A Glimpse of the Pit ". . . He was beaten then by the wicked captain, who would have killed him, but that even the ship's sailors took pity on the child and pleaded with their master to spare the Orphan's life He was beaten then by the wicked captain, who would have killed him, but that even the ship's sailors took pity on the child and pleaded with their master to spare the Orphan's life . . ." . . ."

-from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"