Saqri took the note and read it, her face more like a statue’s than ever.
“We heard everything he had to say,” Duke Kettlehouse began. “We copied it most assiduously, in fair hand, so that we could make certain Your Majesty…”
Little Lord Pindrop interrupted his duke. “The danger is grave indeed!”
“When?” demanded Barrick. “When was the autarch here?”
“Yesterday evening.” Saqri looked up. “And if these written words report truly what was spoken here, then the southerner knows far more about this castle and its history than even the Fireflower and the Deep Library could guess. Even as we speak, this Autarch Sulepis is preparing to push his way into the deep places where the doorways are.”
“Doorways? Like the one that brought us here?”
“Yes, places where the world is thin. But the doorway beneath this place that has most recently been your family’s home is different than any other. It was opened by Crooked and then closed by him as well, and only his dying strength has kept it sealed so long. Through it, he banished the gods who had tormented him, and because of him they are still on the far side of that doorway, fettered by sleep. But even in that sleep they dream of returning and taking their revenge on the world.…”
Ideas drifted up to him from the Fireflower, ideas of such abstract but overwhelming horror that Barrick could scarcely remain standing.
Saqri, however, went on as though she had considered such things every day of her life. Perhaps she had. “Speaking of the places where the world is thin,” she told the Rooftoppers, “we must go now to talk to the other tribe that shares this place with you.”
“Of course! We are not the only exiles who would honor our ancient kinship,” piped Duke Kettlehouse.
“We must leave soon,” Saqri told him. “When darkness comes. Can you have those you would send with me ready by then?”
“We will have our embassy ready for you one hour before sunset,” he assured her. “We will wait for you at the dock.”
There were times when the Fireflower seemed to give everything shadows and reflections. As Barrick followed Saqri down the path from the lodge, it made all around him shimmer like a fever-dream. It was certainly easier to be here on M’Helan’s Rock, where most things did not have the significance that was layered everywhere in Qul-na-Qar, but Saqri herself, both as the queen and as the last in a long succession of women who had carried and then surrendered the Fireflower, was so full of... meaning that just being around her exhausted Barrick.
She talked calmly as they walked, as if by coincidence, about the Godwar and the Long Defeat that began when the Qar made the fateful choice to stand and fight with the heavenly clan of Breeze, earning the enmity of the Three Brothers and their Moisture clan and losing sovereignty over many of their own folk, including the very Rooftoppers Barrick had just met.
Even when it was not the explicit subject of Qar conversation or art, Barrick understood now, the Defeat was still part of them. It was there unspoken in all their poetry, a silent counterpoint in all their songs. The years since Barrick’s ancestors had stolen their princess and driven them back behind the Shadowline had confirmed to most of them that their end was near. That was why Yasammez’ crusade had found so many willing soldiers. If the end was coming in any case, why not face it with courage?
And what of me? Where do I belong in this Defeat? Why did the gods, or Fate, or whatever rules men’s lives allow the Fireflower to pass to me, if all I can do is die with it inside me?
Saqri had turned off the main path to follow the curving track that led toward the sea-meadow where he and Briony had spent so many of their childhood hours. She passed across the meadow like a silk scarf being carried on the breeze, then stepped down onto a little winding path that Barrick remembered very well, a “fairy path” as Briony had called it, and which had amused Barrick and his twin because it led nowhere. He caught up with the queen as she reached the place where the descending track ended a little way above the waves of Brenn’s Bay. To his surprise, a smooth-sanded gray fishing boat was bobbing in the water there, with a bare-chested Skimmer youth sitting in it, moving his oars to stay in one place as he looked at Barrick with cautious interest. But when he looked past Barrick and saw Saqri, the young Skimmer rose to his feet, hardly rocking the shallow-drafted boat at all, and made an awkward bow toward her.
“Told it true, they did.” He sounded amused, but his face said his feelings ran much deeper. “Really are her, you are.”
“I am pleased you recognize me, Rafe of the Hullscrape,” she said.
His heavy-lidded eyes widened. “You know me?”
“I recognize all of our people, even those who grew up in exile… but I think you have already had some connection with these doings, have you not?”
He shrugged. “Suppose. Nothing to take home and feed the family, though, if you know what I mean, Mistress. But some…” He suddenly brightened. “Are you coming with all the rest? Is that what this is all about? ”
Saqri nodded. “As is Prince Barrick.”
For the first time the Skimmer really seemed to see Barrick. “And are you the true prince of Southmarch, then? Son of Olin the Good?”
For a moment Barrick was so tangled with thoughts of what he was and what he was not that he could hardly speak. “Yes, I am,” he said at last.
“Brought here by the holy hand of Egye-Var himself,” said Saqri.
The Fireflower voices whispered, Erivor…
“Well, then, that is two in the eye for Ena’s da!” said Rafe with sudden exuberance and slapped at the water, although he was careful to direct the splash away from Saqri. “The Queen of the Ancient Folk and the prince of this castle both to ride in my boat! Old Turley will be sour as pickled shark when he finds out…” The young Skimmer stopped and flushed in seeming embarrassment, a strange mottled greenish brown that rose from his neck to his small ears. “Pardon, Mistress. You’ll not want to hear me croaking, and of course there’s work to be done. Please, Majesty, let me help you.”
He stood up and extended a hand to Saqri, stared at it for a moment, then apparently reconsidered. He withdrew it, squatted and dipped his fingers into the water of Brenn’s Bay, then wiped it quickly on his breeches before extending it again. Saqri allowed the Skimmer to help her onto the ladder that Barrick only now realized lay out of sight just below the curve of the ground where they stood. From her effortless balance and the grace with which she stepped onto the rocking craft, Barrick suspected the queen of the Fay had needed no help.
But why are we in a hurry? he wondered. They said we’d leave when it’s dark and it must be well over an hour until sunset… The Fireflower voices offered no answer.
He let Rafe’s hard-skinned hand help him find the ladder, then turned and climbed down, grateful again for whatever the Dreamers had done to cure his crippled arm.
Now the young Skimmer pushed the boat out from the shore, but instead of heading out to open water and toward the castle, to Barrick’s surprise Rafe followed the shore around to the quarter of the island opposite the castle, a spot the Eddon family had always left alone because of the tight tangle of trees and thornbushes that grew right down to the waves. Barrick had never really seen it from this angle, and certainly had never seen what appeared next: they were slipping toward a cave, which probably seemed an ordinary overhang of rock at higher tides, and whose entrance even now was scarcely higher than the gunwales of the fishing boat.
“Heads down,” Rafe said. “No disrespect, but even fairy queens and drylander princes can get their blocks knocked.”