The Hollow Queen

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author

Copyright Page

 

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To the great Ward Evers, who was the godfather of this series, who dreamt it into being at NOLA in the French Quarter during the ALA Conference of 1993 over uncounted Dixie Blackened Voodoos, and who insisted that medieval music, string theory of physics, archeology, anthropology, herbalism, and linguistics could, in fact, be the basis for a fantasy series. Thank you forever, my friend.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With greatest respect and gratitude to the two editors who have shepherded this series through its birth and its upcoming completion: Jim Minz, who saw it in the raw in a different era and served as its midwife putting an enduring stamp on it, and Susan Chang, who inherited it in difficult circumstances and has, through kind patience and expertise, brought it to the summit of the mountain overlooking the valley beyond.

Thank you.

 

THE WEAVER'S LAMENT

Time, it is a tapestry

Threads that weave it number three

These be known, from first to last,

Future, Present, and the Past

Present, Future, weft-thread be

Fleeting in inconstancy

Yet the colors they do add

Serve to make the heart be glad

Past, the warp-thread that it be

Sets the path of history

Every moment 'neath the sun

Every battle, lost or won

Finds its place within the lee

Of Time's enduring memory

Fate, the weaver of the bands

Holds these threads within Her hands

Plaits a rope that in its use

Can be a lifeline, net—or noose.

 

1

THE FORGES, YLORC

The ring of steel against anvil was always a lovely percussion line for a song, and Sergeant-Major Grunthor was in the mood for singing as he pounded away, shaping the new pick hammer he was making.

The fires of the ancient forges of Canrif, designed and built a millennium and a half before by Gwylliam the Visionary, splashed light over the enormous smithy, adding a dance of shadows to the heat and smell of the place, increasing the Sergeant's already considerable pleasure. Gwylliam, an ancient king he had never met, was a genuine anus of a human being in Grunthor's estimation, but an undeniable genius at smithing and architecture. Therefore he thought it only right and fitting to shape his newest song in tribute to the long-dead inventor, whose mummified remains he and his comrades had come upon a few years before, splayed out on a table that was hidden away in the vault of a secret library in the bowels of the citadel the man had literally carved out of a mountain range in what now was the kingdom of the Firbolg, known as Ylorc.

Grunthor threw back his head between swings of the forge hammer and let his glorious bass, often a few notes flat, fill the high-ceilinged chamber with song.

Oh, Gwylliam was a piece o' shit

But that don't matter none,

'E liked ta build and loved ta smith

'Cause makin' stuff is fun.

It isn't nice ta beat yer wife

Ya shouldn't if you 'ave one,

But anyone would wanna smack

That bitch that they called Anwyn.

Yen the broadsmith, the Archon responsible for the forges, stood in as close an approximation to attention as the wiry Firbolg body was capable of and tried to maintain a placid expression, when what he really craved was to go to bed.

“Join in, Yen,” the Sergeant instructed as he turned the pick hammer on its side. “That's an order.”

“Don't know words, sir.”

“Hmm. Could be a problem, then. Once Oi get the chorus down, Oi better 'ear ya.”

“Yezzir.”

“Hmmm, now—where was Oi?”

“‘Bitch that they called Anwyn,' sir.”

“Ah, yes.” Grunthor opened his mouth to begin a second verse but, struck suddenly by decorum, he removed the shield from his eyes with great drama and stepped momentarily away from the anvil. He turned and looked furtively around the smithy floor.

“Where's me pint?”

“Base of anvil, sir.”

“Ah, yep—'ere she is.” Grunthor scooped up the amber bottle, pulled the cork with his back teeth, spat it out, and held it high to the towering ceiling above, adding its shadow to those that were already dancing there.

“'S'only proper we drink a toast to Annie,” he said solemnly. “'Ere's to Anwyn, dead,
again
, a third an' 'opefully final time. You was a worthy adversary, Annie. Well, not really. You was a craven, manipulative nightmare with far more opinion of yerself than you ever deserved. May you writhe in the Vault o' the Unnerworld in unceasin' agony for Time Immemorial, amen.”

“Amen,” said Yen automatically.

The Sergeant-Major, who stood fairly close to eight feet tall with shoulders as wide as a one-ox plow, waved the bottle aloft for a moment longer, then downed the contents, following up with a resounding belch that echoed through the smith chamber.

The guards atop the ramparts applauded politely.

Grunthor acknowledged their applause with a tip of the empty bottle, put it back at the base of the forge, then picked up the tool he'd been smithing and held it out for the broadsmith's inspection.

“Yer opinion, Yen?”

The Archon examined the hammer.

“Not one of your better ones, sir.”

The Sergeant's enormous amber eyes narrowed. He held up the newly crafted pick hammer to them and inspected it himself.

“You best be talkin' about the song, sonny. This 'ammer's a thing o' beauty.”

“Yezzir.”

The manic light went out of the Sergeant's eyes, and his face grew solemn.

“Really? The truth now, Yen, no jokin'. This is important.”

The broadsmith signaled silently for Grunthor to turn the hammerhead over, and leaned closer to look at it again. The tool was approximately three times the size of the pick hammers that were routinely produced in the kingdom's commercial forges for mining and rock climbing in the peaks of the Teeth. Grunthor himself had designed the original model for the routine hammers several years before, and it had become one of the kingdom's most successful goods of sale, sent in trade around the world. In addition, its contribution to the expansion of the kingdom to new heights, literally, and the mining of the gemstones and rare minerals that he and the Firbolg king, Achmed the Snake, had discovered in the depths of areas unexplored in Gwylliam's day, was significant.

His expression at the moment could only be described as hurt.

Yen thought carefully and cleared his throat.

“You said big one for smashing.”

“Yeah,” said the Sergeant-Major. “What's wrong with it?”

“Head too long compared to height. Need to be shorter.” Yen cleared his throat again. “Not by much.”

“'Ow much?” Grunthor demanded.

The broadsmith looked at the head of the tool again. Then he held up his fingers with an infinitesimal gap between them.