The voice grew louder and broke into a weird, low sound that was perhaps a laugh.
“And now, Sire, you must extinguish the lantern,” the Keeper said, “before we open the inner door. Light has no place there.”
“I remember. You can guide me?”
“That is my task, Sire. I am not yet too infirm for it.”
William snuffed the lantern, and black welled up from the dark heart of the world. He felt the press of ancient bones all around him, as if in the darkness the stone were flowing, creeping closer to take him in.
A moment later, he heard the sound of metal sliding, and the odor strengthened and bittered. He had smelled something like it once in his own sweat, just after an unexpected bee-sting.
“Qexqaneh,” the Sefry said, in the loudest voice William had yet heard him use. “Qexqanehilhidhitholuh, uleqedhinikhu.”
“Of course,” a voice burred, so close and familiar it made William jump. “Of course. There you are, Emperor of Crotheny. There you are, my sweet lord.”
The tone was not mocking, nor were the words, quite. Nevertheless, William felt mocked.
“I am emperor,” he said, with forced confidence. “Speak to me accordingly.”
“A mayfly emperor, who will live hardly more than two beats of my heart,” the Kept replied.
“Not if I have your heart stopped,” William said.
Motion then, a sound like scales scraping against stone, and more airy laughter. “Can you, could you? I would weep black garnet tears for you, Prince of Least. I would bleed white gold and shit you diamonds.” A rasping cough followed. “No, little king,” the Kept continued. “No, no. Those are not the rules of our game. Your bitch ancestress saw to that. Go back to your sunlit halls and cuddle ’round your fear. Forget me and dream away your life.”
“Qexqaneh,” the Keeper said firmly. “You are commanded.”
The Kept snarled, and sultry rage infused his voice. “My name. Older than your race, my name, and you use it like a rag to wipe up the run from your bowels.”
William tightened his lips. “Qexqaneh,” he said. “By your name, answer me.”
The Kept’s anger vanished as quickly as it came, and now he whispered. “Oh, little king, gladly. The answers shall give me joy,” he said.
“And answer truthfully.”
“I must, ever since that red-tressed whore that began your line shackled me. Surely you know that.”
“It is so, Sire,” the Keeper agreed. “But he may answer elusively. You must sift his words.”
William nodded. “Qexqaneh, can you see the future?”
“Could I see the future, I would not be in this place, foolish manling. But I can see the inevitable, which is something else again.”
“Is my kingdom bound for war?”
“Hmm? A tide of blood is coming. A thousand seasons of woe. Swords will lap their fill and more.”
Dread gripped William, but not surprise.
“Can I prevent it?” he asked, not really hoping. “Can it be stopped?”
“You can own death or it can own you,” the Kept said. “There are no other choices.”
“Do you mean by that that I should prosecute this war? Attack Saltmark, or Hansa itself ?”
“Little does that matter. Would you own death, little king? Would you keep it near your heart and be its friend? Will you feed it your family, your nation, your pitiful human soul? I can tell you how. You can be immortal, King. You can be like me, the last of your kind. Eternal. But unlike me, there will be none to prison you.”
“The last of my kind?” This was confusing talk. “The last Dare?”
“Oh, yes. And the last Reiksbaurg, and the last de Liery— the last of your pitiful race, manling. Your first queen killed you all. It has been a slow death, a sleepy death, but it is awake now. You cannot stop it. But you can be it.”
“I don’t understand. No war can kill everyone. That’s what you are saying, is it, Qexqaneh? That only one man will survive the slaughter? What nonsense is this?” He looked at the Keeper. “You are certain he cannot lie?”
“He cannot knowingly lie, no. But he can twist the truth into rings,” the Keeper replied.
“I can tell you,” Qexqaneh murmured silkily. “You can be the one. You can put out the lights of this world and start a new one.”
“You’re mad.”
“Someone will do it, little king. The Nettle-man is already arising, you know. The rot has spread deep, and maggots crawl up. Even here I smell the putrescence. You can be the one. You can wear the night raiment and wave the scepter of corruption.”
“Be clear. Do you really imply the end of the world is at hand?”
“Of course not. But the end of your house, your kingdom, your foul little race and all its issue—that is indeed on time’s nearest horizon.”
“And one man shall cause this?”
“No, no. What are those things on the side of your head? Does nothing you hear reach your brain? One shall benefit from it.”
“At what cost?” William asked skeptically. “Other than the cost of being like you?”
“The cost is light. Your wife. Your daughters.”
“What?”
“They will die anyway. You might as well profit from their slaughter.”
“Enough!” William roared. He turned to leave, then suddenly spun on his heel.
“Someone attempted to murder my wife. Was this why? This tainted prophecy of a future even you admit you cannot truly see?”
“Did I admit that?”
“You did. Answer me, Qexqaneh. This prophecy of yours. Do others know it?”
The Kept panted for a few moments, and the air seemed to warm. “When you wretched slave beasts stood on the bones of my kin,” he grated at last, “when you burned every beautiful thing and believed that you—you lowly worms—finally owned the world, I told you then what would happen. My words began the new era, this age you name Everon. They are remembered in many places.”
“So the attempt on my wife?”
“I do not know. Coincidences happen, and your race is fond of murder. It’s what made you such entertaining slaves. But she will die, and your daughters, too.”
“You do not know that,” William said. “You cannot. You speak only to deceive me.”
“As you wish it, so it is,” Qexqaneh said.
“Enough of this. I was mistaken to come here.”
“Yes,” Qexqaneh agreed. “Yes, you were. You do not have the iron in you that your ancestors did. They would not have hesitated. Good-bye, mayfly.”
William left then, returning to the halls above, but laughter walked behind him like a thousand-legged worm. He did not sleep that night, but went to Alis Berrye.
He had her room lit with tapers, and she played on the lute and sang lighthearted songs until the sun rose.
10
Lost
Aspar white opened his eyes to a vaulted stone ceiling and a distant, singsong litany. Fever crawled like centipedes beneath his skin, and when he tried to move, his limbs felt like rotting fern fronds.
He lay still, listening to the strange song and to his old-man breath, rasping, puzzling at the air above him, interrogating his mute memories.
He was better than he had been, he remembered that. He’d been fevered, his mind fettered with pain.
What had happened? Where was he now?
With an effort, he turned his head from side to side. He lay on a hard wooden bed with stone walls around him on three sides, a low curved ceiling above. It was almost like a tomb, except a slit of a window in the wall above his head let in air from the outside. It smelled like late spring. Looking over his feet, he saw the niche opened into a much larger space—the hall of a castle or, judging by the weird language of the singing, a church.
By inches he tried to sit up. His legs throbbed with agony, but an inspection showed them both still there, to his relief. But by the time he had lifted his head halfway to sitting, it was spinning so badly he surrendered to a supine position. He fought down his gorge, and sweat broke out thickly on his brow.