The Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams Page B

put down the stick he had been carving and leaned forward. Jiriki raised an expectant eyebrow.
    “You will only need to do one thing,” Simon said. “You must go with me to see the king and queen—the Herder and the Huntress.”
     
    After they had spoken to Nunuuika and Uammanaq, gaining the pair’s grudging acceptance of their proposal, Simon and Jiriki walked back in mountain twilight from the House of the Ancestor. The Sitha wore a faint smile.
    “You continue to surprise me, young Seoman. This is a bold stroke. I have no idea if it will help your friend, but it is a beginning, nevertheless.”
    “They would never have agreed if you hadn’t asked, Jiriki. Thank you.”
    The Sitha made a complicated gesture with his long fingers. “There is still a brittle respect between the Zida’ya and some of the Sunset Children—chiefly the Hernystiri and the Qanuc. Five desolate centuries cannot so easily overwhelm the millennia of grace. Still, things have changed. You mortals—Lingit’s children, as the trolls say—are in ascendancy. It is not my people’s world any longer.” His hand reached out, touching lightly on Simon’s arm as they walked. “There is also a bond between you and me, Seoman. I have not forgotten that.”
    Simon, trudging along at the side of an immortal, could think of no reply.
    “I ask only that you understand this: my kin and I are now very few. I owe you my life—twice, in fact, to my great distress—but my obligations to my people greatly outweigh even the value of my own continued existence. There are some things that cannot be wished away, young mortal. I hope for Binabik’s and Sludig’s survival, of course ... but I am Zida‘ya. I must take back the story of what happened on the dragon-mountain: the treachery of Utuk’ku’s minions and the passing of An’nai.”
    He stopped suddenly and turned to face Simon. In the violet-tinged evening shadows, with his hair blowing, he seemed a spirit of the wild mountains. For a moment, Simon perceived Jiriki’s immense age in his eyes, and felt he could almost grasp that great ungraspable: the vast duration of the prince’s race, the years of their history like grains of sand on a beach.
    “Things are not so easily ended, Seoman,” Jiriki said slowly, “even by my leaving. It is a very unmagical wisdom that tells me we shall meet again. The debts of the Zida’ya run deep and dark. They carry with them the stuff of myth. I owe you such a debt.” Jiriki again flexed his fingers in a peculiar sign, then reached into his thin shirt and produced a flat, circular object.
    “You have seen this before, Seoman,” he said. “It is my mirror—a scale of the Greater Worm, as its legend has it.”
    Simon took it from the Sitha’s outstretched palm, marveling at its surprising lightness. The carved frame was cool beneath his fingers. Once this mirror had shown him an image of Miriamele; another time, Jiriki had produced the forest-city of Enki-e-Shao’saye from its depths. Now, only Simon’s own somber reflection stared back, murky in the half-light.
    “I give it to you. It is has been a talisman of my family’s since Jenjiyana of the Nightingales tended fragrant gardens in the shade of Sení Anzi‘in. Away from me, it will no longer be anything but a looking glass.” Jiriki raised his hand. “No, that is not quite true. If you must speak with me, or have need of me—true need —tell the mirror. I will hear and know. ”Jiriki pointed a stern finger at the speechless Simon. “But do not think to summon me in a puff of smoke, as in one of your folk’s goblin stories. I have no such magical powers. I cannot even promise you I will be able to come. But if I hear of your need, I will do what is in my power to help. The Zida’ya are not totally without friends, even in this bold young world of mortals.”
    Simon’s mouth worked for a moment. “Thank you,” he said at last. The small gray glass suddenly seemed a thing of great