“Barrick was always troubled, always querulous, but after the first time the affliction struck—my affliction, passed down to him like the waters of a fouled river—he ceased to trust in the goodness of Fate entirely. And who could blame him? When he was young the sickness took the same course as it did in me. He would fall to the floor in fits of rage, choking, trembling, scarcely able to breathe, and struggle so that two strong men were needed to check him even though he was but a child. I grieved, of course, that I had brought this curse into his life, but I felt I could teach him how I had survived, the way I locked myself away when I felt the fits coming upon me. But then his sickness changed and found a different path.
“In Barrick, it became something that no longer made him rage and flail like a madman, but instead which slowly poisoned him on the inside. His view of the world became darker and darker, as when an eclipsing moon divides the earth from the sun. In my foolishness I thought at first that when his outward fits stopped it meant that he was getting better—that he was somehow fighting off the curse that had so polluted my life. I was wrong, but by the time I understood that, he had crawled so far into the shadows that I could no longer reach him. He was witty, clever, yet so crippled by my own poisoned blood that I think only his love for his sister kept him alive.
“For he did love her, and Briony loved him. They were twins—did I say that?—and their hearts beat as one from the moment they came into the world, born in the same hour. Perhaps that had something to do with their mother’s death. Ah, gods, I no longer know! It has been so long, yet the pain feels as fresh as when I cut myself with my shaving blade yester morning.
“And here is another shameful confession—I loved Briony most of all. No, let me say love, not loved—please, may the gods grant that she lives! I loved Kendrick’s honor and kindness and his dutiful nature, and I loved him because he was my firstborn. I love Barrick despite all the pain I gave him and he gave me… but I love Briony with such comfort and certainty that I cannot express it. She contains all that is best in me, and much of what was excellent in her mother. To think that such a powerful love should have failed her so completely—that I should have failed all of them so utterly…”
Again the northern king fell silent. When he spoke again his voice was quite different, somber and almost without feeling.
“I have bored you long enough. I thank you for indulging me. I think I will go and walk up and down the decks of my prison a little while and listen to the gulls.”
The paramount minister of Xis heard Olin move, followed by his guards, the footsteps slowly growing fainter. After he was gone, no one else moved or spoke. Had he been talking to the guards, or to empty air after all, addressing only the cloudy spring sky? Vash slid himself out of the pantry as carefully as his stiff old bones would permit and hobbled down the stairs to the deck, then climbed back up to where Olin had been. The king had indeed left—Vash could see the top of his head at the far end of the ship, where he leaned on the rail under the wary eye of several soldiers—and there was no sign of the autarch or Panhyssir or Dumin Hauyuz or any other rational being. The only soul on the deck was the halfwit scotarch Prusus lolling in his chair, hands and head jerking, a thread of spittle dangling from his chin. For a moment Prusus the Cripple seemed to look back at him, but as Vash walked toward him the scotarch’s stare rolled vacantly, as though the paramount minister had suddenly disappeared from his view.
Pinimmon Vash stopped in front of the quivering shape and looked the scotarch up and down, thinking… wondering…
The world has slipped its mooring, Vash thought. Yes, the world I knew has drifted out of familiar waters. Where it goes now, only gods and madmen can guess.
“Something is following us,” Barrick whispered.
“Aye.” When the raven spoke quietly he was hard to understand, all rasp and whistle. He fluttered down onto a stone and clung to the mossy surface, then lowered his head between his shoulders and fluffed himself bigger. “Silkins,” he croaked. “Saw them when us flew over trees. Five nor six, us guesses.”
“Let them come.” He feared them, but Barrick also felt strangely sure he had not come so far and survived so much to die at the hands of these spindly thread-covered monstrosities. He felt strong—weirdly so, as though something powerful bubbled inside him like the foam on a mug of beer. It almost made him want to laugh out loud.
“Let them? Kill us both, they will—or worset, take us back to they hanging nests and put they grubs in our bellies.” The raven flapped up into a tree branch several paces ahead. “Seen it happen to Followers, I have. Not even dead when the younglings hatch…”
“They won’t do it to me. I won’t let them.”
The black bird shuddered and puffed up his feathers again. “Did you take a bump to the head when you climbed so long on that dire hill? Not at all the same since then, you.”
Barrick couldn’t help smiling. It was true, although he wasn’t certain why. He did feel different—stronger, more certain… better. Even the constant dull ache in his crippled left arm, a pain that had plagued him for most of his life, was now gone: the only discomfort was an occasional prickle of the skin, as though he had slept on it.
Barrick held the torch near his forearm. The scars the Sleepers had made were all but gone, only three white stripes remaining that looked years old, although it had been no more than a day or two since he had descended from Cursed Hill. Even his hand, the loathsome crab-claw he had always tried to hide, now looked scarcely different from his other hand. What magic had those blind things done to him? It seemed they had brought him only good, but a nagging memory reminded him that they had spoken of a price…
Barrick tripped on a root and stumbled badly before regaining his balance. The ground was slippery from the mist that cloaked the twilight forest. A healthy arm wouldn’t keep him from falling and hitting his head.
“Surely us must find a place to be safe, Master,” Skurn said in a wheedling voice. “To rest. Tired, you are, and tired makes mistakes, as our old mam always said.”
Barrick looked around. He had been walking for what seemed most of a day, following the raven’s recollection of the best route toward the city of Sleep and its fearful inhabitants, the ones Skurn called Night Men. It wouldn’t hurt to stop and rest, especially if a group of silkins were following. He could roast the roots he had dug that morning, which would at least make them seem a little more like actual food: he had discovered several things that grew here which he could eat and keep down, but cooking them definitely helped.
“Very well,” he said. “Find me a place with a rock I can put at my back.”
“Wise you are, so wise. Us will find a helpsome spot.” The raven flapped heavily up through the canopy of trees and out of Barrick’s sight.
The thing was, Barrick reflected as he chewed, roasting these pale, soggy roots made them taste more like food, but it didn’t make them taste like good food.
“Couldn’t you find us an egg or something? ” he asked. “A bird’s egg? ” He had learned that it was important to be specific.
The raven turned toward him, the legs of some crawler he had pulled from under a log still wriggling in his beak. He tipped back his head to gulp it down, then shot Barrick a look of reproach.
“Hasn’t Skurn looked and looked? Didn’t us offer you the best us found, not even keeping none back for ourself?”
The “best” had been a large, soft grub the size of Barrick’s thumb, pale and waxy as a candle and leaking greenish fluid where Skurn’s beak had crimped it too fiercely. He had thanked the raven for his generosity and given it back.