The Rose of Sarifal (30 page)

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 estates.”

Suka pictured an enormous cavern with pale white cows contentedly grazing in the dark, licking the mossy rocks. She leaned back on the silk pillows. “I mean,” continued Marabaldia, “I was so worried about him. I thought he might be dead. Now I find out he’s been happy all that time. I mean, he claims he was miserable, but why should that be? I’m so relieved, and yet so angry at the same time, as if I’d wasted all that hurt.”

“But what do you feel?” said Suka, mentally crossing her eyes again. “I mean, we don’t do things because of reasons. But what does your heart tell you?”

Et cetera, et cetera—it was all a waste of time. But pleasant, what with the fine wine. And it wasn’t as if Suka had a whole lot else going on. Eventually they turned to other subjects, a solemn toast to Poke, now lying in state in some refrigerated alcove. Suka had almost had to smile to see the expressions on the faces of the fomorian honor guard, laying out the body of a pig among the marble sepulchers of the slain. Dwarves had cut these passages and rooms, generations before.

“I must have faith,” Marabaldia said. “I must have faith my friend didn’t die for nothing.” And then she went on to explain how Ughoth had brought the tribes
together to punish Prince Araithe for his insult to one of the nine ruling families. For ten years the leShay had held Marabaldia hostage, in return for certain vague concessions, mostly connected with the dark elves, the cyclopses, and the Pact of Eschatos. But now a fomorian army had mustered under the nine flags. If they could unite with the eladrin of Synnoria and with Rurik’s men, they would be unstoppable. The leShay would fall. Flowers would bloom on every hillside, and brass bands would play in every town. Ice cream would be served at every meal. Again, Suka was extemporizing: Pigs would shit gold in long, yellow streams, and chickens would grow lips. Parents would love their children and would never drink too much—it was ridiculous, she decided. She didn’t know what Lord Mindarion was smoking, but she wanted some. The knights of Synnoria would never fight with Ughoth; they were too proud. And you could never build an alliance among people with such disparate goals, united only in what they hated and despised. Besides, Marabaldia herself had no interest in revenge. Her heart was too pure. Halfway through her explanation she asked Suka to admire the jeweled brooch Ughoth had given her, pretty, but less symbolic than a ring—what did that mean? She wanted Suka to explain it to her. Instead, the gnome had examined the fine work, the pearls set in circles of braided gold. No fomorian could have made such a thing, with his huge, clumsy, brutal hands. No, this had been made by slaves.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Don’t read too much into it.”

Later, in their comfortable, quilted chamber, Marabaldia fell asleep. The gnome sang her a lullaby:

Oh, father dear, don’t curse and sigh when I am dead and gone, / I’m going to a better place that I will call my own
.

D
ARKNESS
C
LEAR

T
HEY CAME TO THEMSELVES IN SHADOW, EXCEPT FOR SIX
dim lamps that formed the circumference of a rough circle around them. And soon even these lamps guttered out, leaving them in purest darkness. The floor was made of polished tile, Lukas decided. It was warm here. The air was stuffy, rich, and fragrant, with too much oxygen to comfortably draw breath.

He wondered who was there with him and whether he was the only one awake. He wondered where they were, and he breathed in through his nose, searching for clues. He smelled dirt, and cobwebs, and lemon grease, and incense, and wet, growing things, and blood. Hmmm. A poser. He listened to the others’ soft, hesitant breath. Who was there with him? Someone was in tears.

“In Al Qahara at the desert’s edge,” said Gaspar-shen in his high, calm voice, “They make a concoction out of flour, chicken’s eggs, sugar, and cow’s butter, which they mix together into a sort of paste. Then they add small pieces of chocolate, which they bring on camel-back from ancient Okoth. They bake small circles of this
paste on an ungreased pan. They call this a ‘cookie,’ I’ve been told. Because you cook it, I suppose. Things you boil, perhaps they are called ‘boilies’ in that language.”

“Who told you this? Perhaps your head could be considered a ‘boilie,’ if it were properly prepared.”

“A traveler from a far country …”

“…  Or maybe a ‘soakie,’ ” Lukas mused.

“…  related this strange narrative. He told me people eat these things by dunking them into cow’s milk.”

“Bullshit,” said Lukas indulgently. “Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“In distant Al Qahara, this is considered normal. What is happening now, perhaps they would find difficult to believe.”

“Then they’re not so stupid as they sound,” Lukas grumbled. “Are your clothes wet?”

“Yes. It is a pleasant feeling.”

Amaranth said, “You are talking about the desert of Ruarin. I have heard of this place in my lessons when I was young. There are ruined cities in the sand, which are full of efreet and devils and djinn of all kinds. So I was told by my professor, the same wise man who explained to me why the fey can’t set their hearts on mortal creatures, because their lives are short and full of suffering.”

She was talking about her brother Coal, Lukas guessed. But she was not the one who was weeping in the darkness. That must be the girl dressed in the wolf’s skin, whose name he didn’t know. The Savage had not crossed the portal with them.

“And what about the opposite?” this girl now said, when she was able to speak. “What about a mortal woman … if she sets her heart …?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Amaranth primly. And then in a moment, “Oh, but I know where we are. The Earthmother told me about a gateway in the marsh. A gateway that would bring me home.”

Lukas, resting comfortably for the moment, felt her sit up next to him. She rummaged for something in her clothes. Then she held out her hand, and something glowed in it, a blue light that slowly gathered strength. “Someone gave this to me when I was nine years old,” she said. “A final gift.”

She stood up, and raised her arm above her head. “Something to lighten the darkness,” she said, and as she spoke the light got brighter, glowing from between her fingers, making her entire hand transparent, and showing them the place where they now found themselves, a high, square chamber full of pale vegetation and pale blooms of every kind, colossal succulents and bloated flowers. The four of them were on a circular stone dais about twelve feet across, with the humid earth beneath it, thick with vines. In each corner of the chamber stood an elaborate wooden screen carved to resemble a spider’s web. The work was intricate and fine. And in front of each screen stood a statue of a single female deity in four incarnations, one fashioned out of gold, one of ebony, one of bronze, and one of stone. Closest to Lady Amaranth, the ebony statue showed an image of the Spider Queen, personified as a maiden of the dark elves,
her cap of white hair carved in ivory, and balls of ivory in her eyes. Slim and graceful, she carried a spear in her right hand and a net in her left.

The other images were different. The one closest to Lukas was carved from sweating bloodstone, as if permanently greased. The goddess was human and hypersexed, with bloated, glistening breasts and a bulbous ass. With a seductive leer on her beautiful face, she squatted over some vanquished adversary, humbled through another force than violence. The wooden image was half spider and half woman, and the golden one, the smallest, was a spider only, its egg sac full to bursting.

“This is not good,” said Gaspar-shen. The strange patterns underneath his skin, like living tattoos, began to pulse with sea-green light.

“No,” Lukas agreed.

They had no sense of a ceiling above them. The walls ascended into obscurity. There was one doorway, which seemed to lead into a tunnel, and as they watched, a light started to flicker there.

They clambered to their feet. Lukas had lost his bow and quiver, but still kept his sword, and Gaspar-shen raised his scimitar. They were caught in the drow’s web—Lukas could see that now—a shrine to the dark elves’ loathsome deity. He wondered, though, why he could feel no sense of menace. The wolf-girl sobbed quietly to herself, and Lady Amaranth, the bulb of light in her left hand, stared at the carvings and the heavy, hanging plants with wonder and delight. No doubt in her sequestered life on Moray she had heard nothing of the Spider
Queen, full of venom and deceit, dragging her distended body through the bottomless layers of the Abyss and then up through the burrows of the Underdark, spinning her stratagems and nursing her regrets.

“Ware,” said Gaspar-shen.

But there was nothing to fight or be afraid of. Breathless, a girl slipped into the chamber, holding a lantern that swung from a small chain, a pierced-metal cylinder that cast a crazy swarm of lights. “Ah, so it’s true,” she said. She pressed through the pallid stalks of undergrowth until she stood next to the dais looking up, an elf maiden who in human terms looked to be between fourteen and nineteen years, dressed in a simple linen shift, fastened at the waist with a red cord. The white linen and her cropped white hair contrasted with the utter blackness of her skin. Lukas got a quick impression of a wide mouth and heavy lips, an arched, proud nose and wide eyes. She made a circuit of the dais, the light from her lantern scattering like a swarm of bees. “I saw the green-eyed white girl chasing a black kitten through the grass. And my sister saw the golden spider hanging from its branch, struck with a burning arrow of sunshine that lit her web on fire. We all saw it. And the green-eyed girl is Chauntea the Earthmother in her human shape, and the kitten is the king of beasts. And Chauntea told us that this portal would be open for a moment, from Moray to the citadel—no one has come this way in oh-so-many years!”

As she spoke, breathless with excitement, three others had come in to join her, drow maidens dressed in the
same fashion, all carrying their little swinging lamps. And they also started chattering as they rushed around the chamber, bowing as they did so to the four altars, and reaching up to touch and push apart the masses of white and yellow leaves. Soon Lukas could no longer tell which of them had spoken first, or distinguish which of them was speaking now. Their voices rose together, sometimes in unison, sometimes breaking apart into conflicting stories: “My sisters and I had the same dream—not the same, exactly. It was looking down into the well of paradise where the gods live. And … the girl had the kitten in her lap. No, he was bad and scratched her, and she swatted at his nose. No, but the spider was in the moonlight, and her web shone with it.”