“All the way to the bottom?” Barrick thought of the stone dropping and dropping through darkness and could not imagine descending such a distance. “There aren’t ropes long enough for that in the whole world!”
Saqri allowed herself a tiny smile. “We will go down a little way to the next tunnels, then use them. Later we will return to the wound again. It will take time, but at last we will reach the place where our enemies… and our allies… are gathering.” She made another gesture with her palm facing down—Water Enters Soil. “You have some little time now, manchild, so rest. I will send for you when we are ready to move on.”
He did his best to follow Saqri’s advice, but his own disquiet and the continuous murmur of the Fireflower voices made him too restless. He rose and walked among the Qar, watching them work, marveling at their different shapes and types despite the Fireflower chorus assuring him that all was ordinary and familiar. He did not speak unless one of the Qar spoke to him, still uncertain of his place among these strange and ancient people. He thought he saw resentment on many of their inhuman faces, curiosity on some others, and it occurred to him that his presence was at least as disturbing to them as it was strange to Barrick himself.
What am I? I’m certainly not their prince, but I’m no ordinary subject, either. I have the blood and the memories of all their kings inside me, but I know less about them than I know about the peasants in far-off Xis.
He made his way at last to the edge of the rift and stood a long while in silence, trying to make sense of such a great hole in the earth. How could his family have ruled this place for generations and know so little about it? Or was it only Barrick himself, hung and smoked in his own misery, who had been oblivious?
“Master?” someone asked. It was a Qar term of carefully chosen resonance—it meant not so much a leader or superior as a foreigner whose status was not yet known. Barrick turned and found a trio of goblins standing behind him, looking up with solemn, shining eyes.
“Yes?”
“We have been in the side tunnels, doing the bidding of the queen in white. While there, we smelled a man. A human man.”
For a moment he thought they were insulting him obliquely, perhaps suggesting that he bathe: the Qar were much more interested in cleanliness than Barrick’s own people, he had noticed already. “A man… ?”
“Yes, Lord. Like you, but different.” The goblins nudged and glared at each other, then the one who had been chosen as spokesman tried again. “Older. A little smaller. Will you come and see?”
Barrick let himself be led away from the lip of the great chasm. “What have you done to him? Is he a captive?”
The goblins looked shocked. “No, Lord!” said the spokesman. “We would do nothing without your word ...”
“The queen was busy,” said one of the others, earning a glare from the one who had been talking. “And we are frightened of the dark lady.”
“Quiet, fool,” muttered the third, but it was unclear to whom she was speaking. Only the whispered knowledge of the Fireflower allowed him to discern which goblins were male and which female.
They led him up a winding path through the Qar forces until they were just beyond the camp. Here at the edge of things, where the light of the torches was dim and the shadows long, Barrick was reminded again of how little he had seen of the sun since he had first set out on this blighted adventure.
I should have stayed under the open sky as long as I could.…
His thoughts were interrupted by a memory of Briony and himself as children, running along the bright hillside of M’Helan’s Rock, knee-deep in white meadowqueen blossoms as the sea boomed and hissed below. The thought was as painful as a dagger, a cold stab in his heart. He felt the Fireflower memories swarm up and cover it like butterflies alighting on a bush, but for the briefest moment he had a twinge of doubt. Was the Fireflower keeping things from him, somehow? Separating him from his own life?
A moment later all such speculation vanished as another group of bare-foot goblin soldiers appeared, half a dozen at least, prodding diffidently with their slender, sharp spears at a man twice their small size. For half a moment Barrick thought it might be one of the Xixian soldiers who had become separated from his troop, but the man’s round face was as pale as Barrick’s own…
Barrick stared. The man stared back at him.
“My prince… ?” the man said at last. “Are you… do you… ? Is that truly you, Prince Barrick?”
It took longer for Barrick to remember. “Chaven,” he said at last, speaking the name out loud. His voice was dry and ragged from disuse. “What are you doing here, physician?”
“Prince Barrick—it is you!” The man stared as though newly awake; a moment later, as if something had slipped inside him and his feelings could now move freely, he suddenly lurched toward Barrick with arms wide. Barrick stepped back from the embrace. “But you are so tall, Highness!” Chaven said. “Ah, I suppose it has been almost a year ...” He shook his head. “Listen to me babble. How do you come to be here? How did you survive the war with the fairies?” He gestured to the goblins, who were watching the exchange with deep suspicion. “Are you a prisoner? No, you have made them your prisoners somehow ...”
Barrick found himself increasingly impatient with this stocky little man who would not stop talking. “I asked you what you are doing here. You are in the middle of a Qar camp and we are at war. You do not belong here.”
Chaven stared at him. “Why so cold, Highness? Why so angry? I have done nothing but good for your family in your absence—I helped to save your sister’s life!”
Barrick was awash in confusing ideas, the voices of the Fireflower and his own memories. He did not even know himself why he was angry with the physician. “I will ask you one last time, Chaven—why are you here, sneaking around on the outskirts of our camp?”
“Sneaking? I ...” The scholar shook his head, then fell silent. “I will be honest, Prince Barrick—I do not know. I… I confess that I am a little confused. I seem to be lost, too.” He looked around him slowly. “Yes, where am I? Last I remember I was with Chert and the others ...”
The name meant nothing to Barrick. He was about to turn his back on the man when one of the goblins pulled at his sleeve. “He is hiding something, Master. We saw it when he approached—there, under his robe. It is a little man of stone. ’Ware lest he try to hit you with it ...”
“What? Nonsense!” Chaven cried, but he seemed more baffled than offended. He wrapped his arms around his middle as if he meant to protect his belly against an attack.
“What are they talking about, Chaven? Show it to me.”
“But… it’s not ...” Frightened by the look in Barrick’s eyes, Chaven reached into his robe and lifted out the thing he had been hiding. It was a small statue of a man with an owl crouched on his shoulder, crudely carved in crystal that was streaked with pale pink and gray and blue. The Fireflower voices sang loud and harsh in his head, as full of confusion as Barrick himself.
“I’ve… I’ve seen that statue before, somewhere.” He stared at it, then glanced up to Chaven, who still looked half awake but fearful, like a man dragged out of bed into a completely unexpected situation. Then it came to him, like a fire racing through dry kindling. “It was in the Erivor Chapel at home. Someone stole it.” Barrick’s face felt as if it was someone else’s—he had no idea what expression he wore. “I stole it. And Briony and I threw it into the ocean. How could you possibly have it?”