The Briar King (49 page)

Hesitating, he waited for a break in the music, but the melody never quite seemed to find its end, teasing the ear with promise of closure but then wafting on like a capricious zephyr.

Finally, remembering who was king, he rapped on the wooden surface.

For long moments, nothing happened, but then the music stopped in midphrase, and the door swung inward, silently, on well-oiled hinges, and in the orange light a narrow wedge of ghost-pale face appeared. Eyes of milky white looked upon no world William knew, but the ancient Sefry smiled as if at a secret joke.

“Your Majesty,” he murmured, in a slight voice. “It has been many years.”

“How—?” William faltered again. How could those unsighted eyes know him?

“I know it is you,” the Sefry said, “because the Kept has been whispering for you. You were bound to come.”

Corpse fingers tickled William's spine.
The dead are speaking my name.
He remembered that day in his chambers, the day Lesbeth returned. The day he'd first learned about Saltmark from Robert.

“You will want to speak to him,” the old one said.

“I don't remember your name, sir,” William said.

The Sefry smiled, to reveal teeth still white but worn nearly to the gums. “I was never named, my liege. Those marked to keep the key are never named. You may call me Keeper.” He turned, and his silk robe shifted and pulled over what might have been a frame of bone. “I will fetch my key.”

He vanished into the darkness of his abode, and reappeared a moment later with an iron key gripped in his white fingers. In the other hand he carried a lantern.

“If you would but light this, Your Majesty,” he said. “Fire and I are not friendly.”

William took a torch from the wall and got the wick going.

“How long have you been down here?” William asked. “My father said you were the Keeper in his father's time.”
How long do Sefry live?

“I came with the first of the Dares,” the withered creature said, starting down the hall. “Your ancestors did not trust my predecessor, since he was a servant of the Reiksbaurgs.” He hissed a small laugh. “A wasted fear.”

“What do you mean?”

“That Keeper no more served the Reiksbaurgs than I serve you, my liege. My task is older by far than any line that ever sat this throne.”

“You serve the throne itself, then, without regard for who sits it?”

The Sefry's soft footsteps scraped ten times on stone before he softly answered. “I serve this place and this land, without regard for thrones at all.”

They continued in silence, down a narrow stair that cut through stone in which the black bones of unknown beasts could be seen now and then—here a rib cage, there the empty eyes of a flat and alien skull. It was as if the stone had melted and flowed around them.

“These bones in the rock,” William asked. “Are they monsters imprisoned by my ancestress, or some older Skasloi sorcery?”

“There are sorceries more ancient than the Skasloi,” the Keeper murmured. “The world is very old.”

William imagined his own skull, gazing emptily from the stone across unimaginable gulfs of time. He felt suddenly dizzy, as if suspended over a great pit.

“We are below Eslen, now,” the Sefry informed him. “We are in all that remains of Ulheqelesh.”

“Do not speak that name,” William said, trying to control his breathing. Despite the narrowness of the stair, his strange vertigo persisted.

The Sefry shook his head. “Of all names that might be spoken here, that is the least powerful. Your ancestress destroyed
not only the form of the citadel, but the very soul of it. The name is only a sound.”

“A dread sound.”

“I will not speak it again, if it bothers you,” the Sefry promised diffidently.

They continued without speaking, but the way was no longer silent. Along with the scraping of their shoes on the stone there was a hissing, a whispering. William could not make out the words, if indeed there were words, if it were not some movement of air or water in the deeps of the place. And as he drew nearer their destination, it began to sound familiar.

Was the old man right? Was the Kept calling his name? The words lisped, as if from some creature with no lips,
Hriiyah. Hriiyah Darrrr …

“Why are his guardians never named?” William asked, to shut the voice from his head.

“You feel why, I think. Names give him a little power. Never fear. He is feeble, and what strength he has I will check.”

“You're certain?”

“It is my only duty, Sire. Your grandfather did come here often, your father, as well. They trusted me.”

“Very well.” He stopped, staring at the door that appeared before them. It was iron, but despite the damp no rust marred its surface. In the lamplight it was black, and the curling characters that grooved its surface were blacker still. A faint smell hung in the air, a bit like burning resin.

The Keeper approached the door and placed his key in one of two locks. But he paused.

“You need not do this, Sire,” the Sefry said. “You may always turn back.”

He thinks me weaker than my father and grandfather,
William thought, ashamed.
He senses a lack of will.

“I think I must continue,” he said.

“Then it needs the other key.”

William nodded and reached beneath his doublet to the chain that hung there, and extracted the key he had worn
since taking the throne, the key that every king of Crotheny had worn since the days of the elder Cavarum. William himself normally didn't wear it; its weight felt cold against his breast, and most days it remained in a coffer near his bed. He had put it on that morning before descending to the dungeons.

Like the door it fitted, the key was black metal, and like the door, it seemed impervious to rust and all other marks of time's scythe.

He placed the key in the lock and turned it. There was hardly any sound, just the faintest of
snicks
from somewhere within the great portal.

I am king,
William thought.
This is my prerogative. I am not afraid.

He grasped the handle of the door and tugged, and felt the amazing mass of it. Yet despite its inertia, it moved, almost as if it was the touch of his hand rather than the strength of his arm that moved it.

The voice grew louder and broke into a weird, low sound that was perhaps a laugh.

“And now, Sire, you must extinguish the lantern,” the Keeper said, “before we open the inner door. Light has no place there.”

“I remember. You can guide me?”

“That is my task, Sire. I am not yet too infirm for it.”

William snuffed the lantern, and black welled up from the dark heart of the world. He felt the press of ancient bones all around him, as if in the darkness the stone were flowing, creeping closer to take him in.

A moment later, he heard the sound of metal sliding, and the odor strengthened and bittered. He had smelled something like it once in his own sweat, just after an unexpected bee-sting.

“Qexqaneh,”
the Sefry said, in the loudest voice William had yet heard him use.
“Qexqanehilhidhitholuh, uleqedhinikhu.”

“Of course,” a voice burred, so close and familiar it made William jump. “Of course. There you are, Emperor of Crotheny. There you are, my sweet lord.”

The tone was not mocking, nor were the words, quite. Nevertheless, William felt mocked.

“I am emperor,” he said, with forced confidence. “Speak to me accordingly.”

“A mayfly emperor, who will live hardly more than two beats of my heart,” the Kept replied.

“Not if I have your heart stopped,” William said.

Motion then, a sound like scales scraping against stone, and more airy laughter. “Can you, could you? I would weep black garnet tears for you, Prince of Least. I would bleed white gold and shit you diamonds.” A rasping cough followed. “No, little king,” the Kept continued. “No, no. Those are not the rules of our game. Your bitch ancestress saw to that. Go back to your sunlit halls and cuddle 'round your fear. Forget me and dream away your life.”

“Qexqaneh,” the Keeper said firmly. “You are commanded.”

The Kept snarled, and sultry rage infused his voice. “My name. Older than your race, my name, and you use it like a rag to wipe up the run from your bowels.”

William tightened his lips. “Qexqaneh,” he said. “By your name, answer me.”

The Kept's anger vanished as quickly as it came, and now he whispered. “Oh, little king, gladly. The answers shall give me joy,” he said.

“And answer truthfully.”

“I must, ever since that red-tressed whore that began your line shackled me. Surely you know that.”

“It is so, Sire,” the Keeper agreed. “But he may answer elusively. You must sift his words.”

William nodded. “Qexqaneh, can you see the future?”

“Could I see the future, I would not be in this place, foolish manling. But I can see the inevitable, which is something else again.”

“Is my kingdom bound for war?”

“Hmm? A tide of blood is coming. A thousand seasons of woe. Swords will lap their fill and more.”

Dread gripped William, but not surprise.

“Can I prevent it?” he asked, not really hoping. “Can it be stopped?”

“You can own death or it can own you,” the Kept said. “There are no other choices.”

“Do you mean by that that I should prosecute this war? Attack Saltmark, or Hansa itself ?”

“Little does that matter. Would you own death, little king? Would you keep it near your heart and be its friend? Will you feed it your family, your nation, your pitiful human soul? I can tell you how. You can be immortal, King. You can be like me, the last of your kind. Eternal. But unlike me, there will be none to prison you.”

“The last of my kind?” This was confusing talk. “The last Dare?”

“Oh, yes. And the last Reiksbaurg, and the last de Liery— the last of your pitiful race, manling. Your first queen killed you all. It has been a slow death, a sleepy death, but it is awake now. You cannot stop it. But you can
be
it.”

“I don't understand. No war can kill everyone. That's what you are saying, is it, Qexqaneh? That only one man will survive the slaughter? What nonsense is this?” He looked at the Keeper. “You are certain he cannot lie?”

“He cannot knowingly lie, no. But he can twist the truth into rings,” the Keeper replied.

“I can tell you,” Qexqaneh murmured silkily. “You can be the one. You can put out the lights of this world and start a new one.”

“You're mad.”

“Someone will do it, little king. The Nettle-man is already arising, you know. The rot has spread deep, and maggots crawl up. Even here I smell the putrescence. You can be the one. You can wear the night raiment and wave the scepter of corruption.”

“Be clear. Do you really imply the end of the world is at hand?”

“Of course not. But the end of your house, your kingdom, your foul little race and all its issue—that is indeed on time's nearest horizon.”

“And one man shall cause this?”

“No, no. What are those things on the side of your head? Does nothing you hear reach your brain? One shall
benefit
from it.”

“At what cost?” William asked skeptically. “Other than the cost of being like you?”

“The cost is light. Your wife. Your daughters.”

“What?”

“They will die anyway. You might as well profit from their slaughter.”

“Enough!” William roared. He turned to leave, then suddenly spun on his heel.

“Someone attempted to murder my wife. Was this why? This tainted prophecy of a future even you admit you cannot truly see?”

“Did I admit that?”

“You did. Answer me, Qexqaneh. This prophecy of yours. Do others know it?”

The Kept panted for a few moments, and the air seemed to warm. “When you wretched slave beasts stood on the bones of my kin,” he grated at last, “when you burned every beautiful thing and believed that you—you lowly worms—finally owned the world, I told you then what would happen. My words began the new era, this age you name Everon. They are remembered in many places.”

“So the attempt on my wife?”

“I do not know. Coincidences happen, and your race is fond of murder. It's what made you such entertaining slaves. But she will die, and your daughters, too.”

“You do not know that,” William said. “You cannot. You speak only to deceive me.”

“As you wish it, so it is,” Qexqaneh said.

“Enough of this. I was mistaken to come here.”

“Yes,” Qexqaneh agreed. “Yes, you were. You do not have the iron in you that your ancestors did. They would not have hesitated. Good-bye, mayfly.”

William left then, returning to the halls above, but laughter
walked behind him like a thousand-legged worm. He did not sleep that night, but went to Alis Berrye.

He had her room lit with tapers, and she played on the lute and sang lighthearted songs until the sun rose.

CHAPTER TEN
LOST

ASPAR WHITE OPENED HIS EYES to a vaulted stone ceiling and a distant, singsong litany. Fever crawled like centipedes beneath his skin, and when he tried to move, his limbs felt like rotting fern fronds.

He lay still, listening to the strange song and to his old-man breath, rasping, puzzling at the air above him, interrogating his mute memories.