Shadowplay

  “I don’t know what that fairy’s done to you, Highness, what kind of spell he’s put on you, but I’m not giving him back his sword. He may pretend friendship, but he’ll likely kill us if we give him a chance. Don’t you remember what he and his kind did to the men of Southmarch at Kolkan’s Field? Don’t you remember Tyne Aldritch, crushed into ... into bloody suet?”

  The prince stared at him. “We will talk more of this,” Barrick said, and mounted his horse. The faceless man Clyir, with an agility that Vansen carefully noted—he was recovering very swiftly indeed from wounds that Would have killed an ordinary man—swung himself up behind the prince.

  Vansen pulled himself up into his own saddle. Unlike Barrick’s strange black horse, Vansen’s mount was beginning to look a little the worse for wear, despite the long pause for rest. It shuddered restively as Skurn climbed the saddle blanket with beak and talons and hopped forward to a perch on the beast’s neck. Pleased with himself, the black bird looked around like a child about to be given a treat.

  Mortal horses weren’t meant for this place, Vansen thought. No more than mortal men.

  Although a dragging succession of hours had passed, and Vansen himself had slept long enough to feel heavy in his wits, his head was foggy as the tangled forest into which Barrick and Gyir now rode.

  “Where be they going, Master?” Skurn asked, agitated. “Us must turn back! Didn’t uns listen? Don’t uns see that this be all Jack Chain’s land round about?”

  “How should I know?” Vansen had no command of the situation, and the addition of the fairy-warrior to their party had made things worse, if anything. Gyir, the murderer of Prince Barrick’s people, a proven enemy, now seemed to have become the prince’s confidant, while Ferras Vansen, the captain of the royal guard, a man who had already risked his life for Bar rick’s sake, had become some kind of foe. “Why do you ask me, bird? Can’t you understand that Gyir thing?”

  The raven groomed himself nervously. Up close he was quite repulsive, scaly skin visible in many places, what feathers remained matted with the gods only knew what. “Not us, Master. That be a trick of the High Ones, to talk so, without voices, not such as old Skurn. Us knows nothing of what they are saying or where they think they go.”

  “Well, then, that makes two of us.”

  The remains of the ancient road stayed wide and relatively flat beneath them, but now the trees had grown thick again around them, shutting out anything but the briefest glimpses of the gray sky, as though they traveled down a long tunnel. Birds and other creatures Vansen could not identify hooted and whistled in the shadows; it was hard not to feel their approach was being heralded, as though he were back on one of the Eddons’ royal progresses with the trumpeters and criers running ahead, calling the com-mon folk to come out, come out, a king’s son was passing, But Vansen could not help feeling that those who waited in this place did not wish them well.

  His sense of danger, of being visible to some hostile, lurking force, grew stronger as the day of riding wore on. The unfamiliar bird and animal sounds died away, but Vansen found the silence even more foreboding, Bar-rick and the faceless man ignored him, no doubt deep in unspoken conversation, and even Skurn had fallen quiet, but Ferras Vansen’s patience had become so thin that every time the little creature moved and he caught a whiff of its putrid scent, he had to steel himself not to simply sweep it off onto the ground.

  “This was once a great road, Highness, just as the bird said,” he called at last, and then wished he hadn’t: the echoes died almost immediately in the thick growth on either side of the road, but even the absence of an echo made the noise seem more stark, more exceptional. He could imagine an entire gallery of shadowy watchers leaning forward to listen. He spurred his horse forward so that he could speak more quietly. “This is the old North-march Road, not simply a forest path. If we follow it long enough we will arrive at something—perhaps the raven’s Jack Chain—but it will not be something we’ll like. Can’t you feel that?”

  The prince turned his cool stare on him. Barrick’s hair was stuck to his forehead in damp red ringlets. “We know, Captain. We are looking for another road, one that crosses this one. If we ride overland through this tangled forest, we will come to grief.”

  “But it is only a short way to Northmarch, and that is where Jack Chain has his hall!” squealed Skurn, hopping up and down, which made Vansen’s horse snort and prance so that he had to tighten his grip on the reins. “Even if we are lucky and One-Eye bes far away, and there be no Night Men about, still Jack-Rovers and Longskulls there be all around here, as well as the Follower-folk who remember not sunlanders nor nothing even of the High Ones! They will capture us, poor old Skurn. They will kill us!”

  “They will certainly hear us if we stop to argue every few paces,” Bar-rick said harshly. “I did not bring you here, Vansen, and I certainly did not bring that . . . bird. If you wish to find your own way, you may do so.”

  “I cannot leave you, Highness.”

  “Yes, you can. I have told you to do it but you do not: listen. You say you are my liegeman, but you will not obey the simplest order. Go away, Captain Vansen,”

  1 le hung his head, hoping to hide both the shame and rage. “I cannot, Prince Barrick.”

  “Then do as you wish. But do it silently.”

  They had been riding for what seemed like most of a day when an astonishing thing happened, something that alarmed not only Vansen, but the raven, too, and even Gyir the Storm Lantern.

  The sky began to grow dark.

  It crept up on them slowly, and at first Ferras Vansen thought it no more than the ceaseless movement of gray cloud overhead, the blanket of mist which thickened and even sometimes thinned without ever diminishing much, and which gave the light of these lands its only real variety. But as he found himself squinting at trees beside the wide road, Vansen suddenly realized he could not doubt the truth any longer.

  The twilight was dying. The sky was turning black.

  “What’s going on?” Vansen reined up. “Prince Barrick, ask your fairy what this means!”

  Gyir was looking up between the trees, but not as though searching for something with his eyes—it was an odd, blind gaze, as though he were smelling rather than staring.

  “He says it is smoke.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  Skurn was clinging to the horse’s neck, beak tucked under a wing, mumbling to himself.

  “What does he mean, smoke?” Vansen demanded of the raven. “Smoke from what? Do you know what’s happening here, bird? Why is it getting dark?”

  “Crooked’s curse has come at last, must be. Must be!” The black bird moaned and bobbed its head. “If the Night Men catch us or don’t, it matters not. The queen will die and the Great Pig will swallow us all down to blackness!”

  He could get nothing more out of him—the raven only croaked in terror. “I do not understand!” Vansen cried. “Where is the smoke coming from? Has the forest caught fire?”

  “Gyir says no,”Barrick said slowly, and now even he sounded uneasy, “ll is from fire someone has made—he says it stinks of metal and flesh.” The prince turned to look at silent Gyir, whose eyes were little more than red slits in his blank mask of a face. “He says it is the smoke of many small fires ... or one very big one.”

  Chasing the Jackals

  Twilight had been jealous from the first of his brother’s gleaming songs, and when Daystar lost the depth of his music and flew away, Twilight climbed into his brother’s place among the Firstborn.

  He made children with both Breeze and Moisture.

  From the womb of Breeze came the brothers Whitefire and Silvergleam, and Judgment their sister. From the womb of Moisture came Thunder,

  Ocean, and Black Earth, and though their mothers were twinned, from the very first these six children could not find harmony among themselves.

  —from One Hundred Considerations out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

  EVEN THE WEAK MORNING
LIGHT seeping in from the high, small windows was enough to tell Briony that she was not in her own paneled chamber in the royal residence. In fact, she was surrounded by white plastered walls and dark-skinned women in loose, soft dresses, all busy making beds or darning clothes, and talking in a quiet, musical language Briony could not understand. For a long moment she could only stare, dumbfounded, wondering what had happened.

  The truth did not wait long, though: as she rolled over and sat up, clutch ing the blanket close around the flimsy nightclothes she had somehow ac quired, memories began to leak back.

  “Good morning, Bri-oh-nee-zisaya!’ Briony turned to find a s slender middle-aged woman standing beside the bed. The woman smiled, showing a flash of unusual color. “Did you sleep well?”

  Of course. Shaso had brought her to this place in the back alloys of whatever this Marrinswalk town was called . . . Lander’s something . . . ? They had taken refuge in the house of one of Shaso’s Tuani countrymen, and this was the gold-toothed mistress of the house.

  “Yes. Yes, thank you, very well.” Suddenly she felt shy, knowing she had been lying here sleeping, perhaps snoring, while these dark, delicate women worked quietly around her. “Is ... I would like to speak to Shaso.” She remembered the reverence with which the women had spoken of him, as though Princess Briony should be his servant instead of the other way around, something that irritated her more than she liked to admit. “Lord Shaso. Can you take me to him?”

  “He will know you are waking and will be expecting you,” the older woman said, smiling again. Briony could count half a dozen other women in the large room, and she seemed to recall there had been even more the previous night. “Let us help you dress.”

  It all went swiftly and even enjoyably, the women’s talk mostly incomprehensible, a continuous dove-soft murmur that even in the waxing morning light made Briony feel sleepy again. It was so odd, these women and their foreign rooms and ways, their foreign tongue, as if the entire house had been lifted out of the sandy streets of some distant southern city by a mischievous god or goddess and spun through the air to land here in the middle of cold, muddy, winter’s-end Eion. Somebody was definitely on the wrong continent.

  The older woman, guessing correctly that Briony had forgotten her name, politely reintroduced herself as Idite. She didn’t put Briony back into the Skimmer girl’s tattered dress, but clothed her in a beautiful billowing robe of some pale pink fabric so thin she could easily see the light through it, so thin that she had to wear an underdress of a thicker, more clinging white cloth, with sleeves long enough to reach her fingertips. The Tuani women lifted her hair up and pinned it, cooing and giggling at its yellowness, then set a circlet of pearls on her head. Idite brought Briony a mirror, a small, precious thing in the shape of a lotus leaf, so she could see the result of all their work. She found it both charming and disturbing to discover herself so transfigured by a few articles of clothing and jewelry, turned so easily into a soft, pretty creature (yes, she actually looked pretty, even she had to admit it) of the kind she suspected all the men of Southmarch had always hoped she would become. It was hard not to bristle a bit, But the transformation was an act of kindness, not domination, so she smiled and thanked Idite and the others, then smiled some more as they complimented her at length, haltingly in her own tongue and fluently in their own.

  “Come,” the mistress of the house said at last. “Now you shall go to see the Dan-Heza and my good husband.”

  Idite and one of the younger women, a shy, slender creature not much older than Briony herself, with a nervous smile so fixed that it was painful to see, led her out of the women’s quarters. The passageway turned so many times that it made the house seem even larger, but they emerged at last into what had to be the front room, although instead of looking out toward the front of the house all the furniture faced doors opening onto the rainy courtyard. Shaso stood there waiting beside three chairs, two empty, one occupied by a small, bald man in a simple white robe who looked to be a little more than Briony’s father’s age, with skin a half-shade lighter than Shaso’s. The man’s short fingers were covered with splendid, glittering rings.

  “Thank you, Idite, my flower,” he said; unlike his wife’s, his words were scarcely accented. “You may go now.”

  Idite and the girl made courtesies and withdrew, even as the small man lifted himself from his chair and bowed in turn to Briony. “I am Effir dan-Mozan,” he said. “Welcome to my house, Princess. You do us honor.”

  Briony nodded and seated herself in the chair he indicated. “Thank you. Everyone has been very kind to me.”

  Shaso cleared his throat. “I am sorry I left you so suddenly, Highness, but I had much to talk about with Effir.”

  “I had no idea there were such places in Marrinswalk!” Briony could not help laughing a little at her own surprise.

  “If by ‘such places’ you mean Tuani hadami—houses of our people—you will find them in quite a few places, even here in the north. Even, I think, in your own city.”

  “In Southmarch? Truly?”

  “Oh, yes—but this is rude, expecting a guest to make conversation when she has not even been fed. Forgive me.” He raised a little bell from the arm of his chair and rang it. The bearded man who had opened the gate the night before suddenly appeared from behind a curtained doorway. He was even younger than she had thought then, perhaps only a year or two older than Briony herself. “Tal, would you please bring food and gawa for our guests—and for me, too. I was up early this morning and I am beginning to feel the need for a little something.”

  The young man bowed and went out, but not before giving Briony a long, unreadable look.

  “My nephew Talibo,” explained Dan-Mozan. “A good lad, although a little too enamored of these northern towns and northern ways. Still, he is a fast learner and perhaps these new ideas he so values will bring something useful to the House of Mozan. Now, let me ask, my child, was everything to your satisfaction? Did the women verily treat you well? Lord Shaso asked that you be given every kindness—not that you would have been less than an honored guest in any case.”

  “Yes, thank you, Lord Dan-Mozan. They all were very kind.”

  He chuckled with pleasure. “Oh, no, Princess, I am no lord. Only a merchant.’ Please call me Effir, and it will be to my ears as sweet honey on the tongue. I am glad you were treated well. A guest is a holy thing.” He looked up as Talibo came back through the door leading an older man who seemed to be a servant, both of them bearing large trays. The food had obviously been prepared earlier and only waited her arrival. The youth and the older servant arranged the bowls and platters carefully on the wide, low table, putting out unleavened bread, fruit, bits of cold spicy fish, vinegar-soaked mushrooms, and other savories Briony did not recognize. Tal then poured a dark, steaming liquid from a pot into three cups. When Briony had finished filling a shallow bowl with things to eat, she followed the lead of Shaso and Effir dan-Mozan, curling her legs under her and placing the bowl on her lap. She took a careful sip of the hot liquid, expecting it to be tea, which she had learned to drink from her great-aunt Merolanna, but it was something much stranger, bitter as death, and it was all she could do not to spit it out.

  “You do not like the gawa, eh?” Dan-Mozan smiled, not hiding his amusement very well. “Too hot?”

  “Too . .. too bitter.”

  “Ah, then you must add cream and honey. I often do myself, especially in the evening, after a meal.”‘He gestured to a smaller tray with two small pitchers on it. “May I do it for you?”

  Briony wasn’t sure she wanted it any way at all, but she nodded, just to be polite.

  “Having you in my house is a privilege even greater than it is a surprise,”

  DAN-Mozan said as he directed young Tal, with grimaces and flapping hands, through the delicate task of putting things in L3riony’s gawa cup. “Lord Shaso has told me something of what happened. Please be certain that you are welcome here as long as you need to stay, and that
nothing of . . .” He paused, then looked at his nephew, who had finished with Briony’s gawa and was waiting expectantly. “You may go now, Tal,” he said, a litde coolly.”We have things to talk about.”

  “She is staying?” Tal remembered himself and shut his mouth in a tight line, but the question clearly annoyed his uncle.

  “Yes. She is a companion of Lord Shaso’s, and more important, she is our guest—my guest. Now go. You and I will speak later.”

  “Yes, Uncle.” Tal bowed, stole another quick look at Briony, then went out.

  Dan-Mozan sighed, spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. “As I said, a good lad, but he has swallowed too many new ideas too quickly, like a naughty child given a whole bowl of sweetmeats. It has disturbed his constitution and he has forgotten how to behave.”