to a voice that was entirely alien, speaking a tongue as
remote as the Age of Might, as the distant and unattainable
constellations.
I WOULD KNOW WHY, said a young man’s tortured voice.
YOU CAN FIND THE TRUTH, another voice said – softer, more familiar.
AND THE FINDING WILL MAKE THE PAST. . . UNCHANGEABLE.
I followed the familiar voice of the
druidess L’Indasha Yman, my shoulder brushing against
stone and a cool liquid draft of air rushing into my face,
telling me I had found a passage … to somewhere else.
The voices were ahead of me now, ahead and behind,
contained, I suppose, by the narrow corridor. Some shouted
at me, some whispered, some vexed me with accents
curious and thoughts fragmentary. . . .
. . . SE THE FOR DRYHTNES NAMAN DEATHES THOLDE . . .
. . . HERE ON THE PLAINS, WHERE THE WIND ERASES THOUGHT. . .
. . . OUR MEDSIYN IS A STON THAT IS NO STON, AND A THYNG IN
KENDE AND NOT DIVERSE THYNGES, OF WHOM ALL METALLES BETH
MADE . . .
. . . YOUR ONE TRUE LOVE’S A SAILING SHIP . . .
. . . DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE . . .
I stopped. In the last of the voices, somewhere behind me in
the corridor, the old words had sounded. I forgot them all –
the druidess, the erasing wind of the plains, the medicine
and bawdy songs – and turned about.
In the midst of a long recounting of herb lore I discovered
that voice again . . . the bard’s intonation masking the
accents of Coastlund. I followed the northern vowels, the
rhythmic sound of the verse. . . .
And I was in another chamber, for the echo swirled
around me and over me, and I felt cold air from all quarters,
and a warmth at a great distance to my left. The voice
continued, louder and unbroken by noise and distraction,
and it finished and repeated itself as an echo resounds upon
echo.
I held my breath, fumbled for pen and ink, then
remembering the monster, sniffed the air for acid and heat.
It was indeed Arion’s “Song of the Rending,” echoing
over the years unto this cavern and unto my listening.
So I waited. Through the old narrations of the sins of
the Kingpriest, through the poet’s account of the numerous
decrees of perfection and the Edict of Thought Control. I
waited as the song recounted the glittering domes and spires
of Istar, the swelling of moons and the stars’ convergence,
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes.
I listened as hail and fire tumbled to earth in a downpour of
blood, igniting the trees and the grass, and the mountains
were burning, and the sea became blood, and above and
below us the heavens were scattered, and locusts and
scorpions wandered the face of the planet. . . .
I waited as the voice echoed down the generations, from
one century to the next to the third since the Cataclysm,
awaiting those lines, not letting myself hope that they would
be different from the ones in the leather book in my pack, so
that when the lines came, they were like light itself.
DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT OF THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS
FIREBRAND OF BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF HYLO,
THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY.
FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BUM IN HIS PASSAGE,
AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED
ARMIES
THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND,
A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS
NAME.
I sat on the cold stone floor and laughed and cried
quietly, exultantly. I waited there an hour, perhaps two, as
the “Song of the Rending” ended and began again. I
wondered briefly if this were the echo of Arion himself, if I