Shadowplay

  Because of her, fikuyin is not the first of the demigods I have met. When I was barely old enough to carry a sword I fought with my mistress at Dawnwood against Barumbanogatir, a fearsome bastard of old Twilight—the one you sunlanders call Sveros the Evening Sky. Giant Barumbanogatir killed three hundred of my lady’s finest warriors before she brought him down at last with a spear through his great shield and into his throat. After that we fought other wars for the People, against the Dreamless and the treacherous mountain Drows, struggling and dying to keep our people safe even as the people themselves shunned us—even as all but Queen Saqri treated us like vicious animals to be tied at the edge of camp but never to be allowed any closer.

  You see, only Saqri of the Ancient Song recognized us for what we were—the sharp sword in the People’s sheath, which even when it is not drawn gives others pause, makes them think and weigh their lusts against their fears. Yasammez is of the queen’s own family, and Saqri honored her as one of the oldest and purest of the High Ones still living. Queen Saqri knew that my mistress had been given in long life and in courage what the king and queen and their ancestors had surrendered in return for the gift of the Fireflower, the boon of the last god to our ruling family.

  A boon that has now become a curse . . .

  Ferras Vansen could feel thousands of years of confusing, dangerous history swirling like deep black waters just behind the fairy’s words. He wanted to ask what the Fireflower was, but Gyir for once was speaking so openly that Vansen feared to distract him.

  My lady Yasammez had been fighting for the People long centuries before ever I was born. At the dreadful, infamous battle of Shivering Plain, during one of the last of the wars of the gods, she destroyed the earthly form ofUrekh, no god’s bastard but a true god himself, who wore the pelt of a magical wolf as his invulnerable armor. For that alone she would be remembered and celebrated until time’s candle gutters out, but it is not whyy I speak of that battle. Thai was the same day of which I told yon be fore, where Jikuyin delayed his coming, hoping to manipulate the results to his own advantage, and instead was struck down by Kernios himself, blinded and nearly killed.

  Vansen remembered the story of Jukuyin riding late onto the field with his Widowmakers, then realizing he had bought more trouble than he could afford, since Perin, Kernios, and the gods called the Surazemai were winning and the rest of the gods and Qar were already in flight. Kernios hurt him, you said.

  Indeed. Black Earth wounded Jikuyin so gravely that he would never heal. But now, for some reason, the demigod is digging his way into the very throne room of Black Earth—the one your kind call Kernios.

  So what is Jikuyin going to do?

  Make right what was done to him, somehow. Perhaps the god’s mighty spear Earthstar lies behind that gate, or perhaps Jikuyin seeks a more subtle prize. But if he does manage to open that doorway into Kernios’ earthly realm, I can feel that Jikuyin will gain in power—gain immeasurably. His long-ago defeat cast him down into weakness—what you see before you is scarcely a shadow of what he was on the day he rode out onto Shivering Plain—but he is one of the last living bastards of the true gods. If he gains that strength back he will be the most powerful thing that walks on the green world.

  But we can’t do anything to stop him, Vansen said. Can we?

  I fear we must, said Gyir.

  Are you telling me it is up to us to defend all the world? Vansen turned to Barrick to see if the boy understood Gyir’s riddling words, but the prince only stared back at him balefully, still struggling for breath.

  Of course—but also to save our own lives. Great magicks—the oldest, most powerful magicks—need blood and essences—what your kind call the souls of people or animals—to succeed. They need sacrifices. The word came like the tip of a dagger, cold and sharp, almost painless at first. Especially the sacrifice of those who are themselves powerful in some way.

  What are you talking about? But Vansen had already guessed.

  I suspect now that we have not been worked to death like the other poor creatures poisoned by the gateway to the gods’ realm because Jikuyin needs one of us—most likely me, since I am of the Encauled—or perhaps even all of us to unlock the way into Kernios’ throne room. He needs our blood. He needs our souls.

  ONE thing you had to say lor Ferras Vansen, Barrick decided. The guard captain never stopped . .. trying. If his stolid normality and his rude health hail not: already been sufficient reasons to hate him, then his relentless willingness to keep pushing and fighting—as if life were a game and there would be some ultimate tally, some adding-up of accounts—would have more than sufficed. Barrick had always thought optimism was another name for stupidity.

  But the dark-eyed girl would admire him, he realized with a pang.

  “So what do we do?” Vansen asked Gyir quietly, speaking aloud so the prince could hear. The man was also thoughtful. Barrick wanted to hit him with something. “Surely we cannot simply wait for them to ... to burn us on some barbarous altar.”

  “You might want to consider the small matter of a mad demigod and all the demons and beasts who serve him and who would happily tear us to shreds,” Barrick pointed out with more pleasure than one would normally expect to accompany such a sentence. He was tempted to help Gyir and the soldier anyway, just so they could discover the futility of all such scheming. He supposed it wasn’t entirely their fault. They had not felt, as he had, the true strength of this place, the horrific, overwhelming power that remained in Greatdeeps even if the god himself was gone—if he was truly gone. Whatever made Barrick sensitive also clearly made him wise: he alone seemed to understand the pointlessness of all this discussion.

  But would she think it was pointless? Barrick knew she wouldn’t, and that made him feel ashamed again. Shame or certain death, he thought—what splendid choices I am always given.

  Of course, said Gyir. We would befools if we thought our chances anything but bad. However, we have no choice. As I told you, I have something here which must be carried to the House of the People at any cost, so we must resist Jikuyin and his plans.

  “It’s all very well to talk,” Barrick said. “But what can actually be done? What hope do we have?”

  There must be no more talking in spoken words, Gyir told him, even if it causes you pain. I will speak to both of you, and I will translate what each of you say to me, back and forth. It will be slow, but even though I do not feel anyone spying on us, if we are going to talk about what we might do, I can no longer risk being wrong.

  Very well, Barrick said. But what point is there in talking about fighting Jikuyin, anyway? He’s a giant—a kind of god!

  Gyir slowly nodded. Pointless? Likely. It will take preparation and luck, and even so we will probably gain nothing but a violent death—but at least the death will be of our own choosing, and that is worth more than a little. However, first I must find the serpentine, and think of a way to lay my hands on it.

  The what? Barrick did not recognize the idea that went with the snaky word-picture—a trail of fire, a sudden expansion like a pig’s bladder loo full of air. What do you mean?

  Gyir paused for a moment as if listening. / spoke of it before. The burning black sand, the Fire of Kupilas.Ah, Ferras Vansen reminds me that your people call it “gun-flour.”

  Gun-flour? How would we get our hands on such stuff, locked in this cell? demanded Barrick. Might as well ask for a bombard or a troop of musketeers while we’re at it—we won’t get any of them.

  They are using the swift-burning serpentine in the earth below us every day, Gyir told him. They pack it into the cracks and speed their digging that way, by smashing apart the stones. It is here in Greatdeeps, somewhere. We have only to find it, and steal some.

  And then fly away like birds, said Barrick. How will we do any of those things? We are prisoners, don’t you realize? Prisoners!

  Gyir shook his head. No, child. You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

  32. Remembering Simmikin

/>   The renegade gods Zmeos the Horned One and Zuriyal the Merciless (who was his sister and wife) were banished to the same Unbeing which had swallowed Sveros, father of all, and for a while peace reigned on heavenly

  Xandos. Mesiya, the wife of Kernios, left him to shepherd the moon in the place of dead Khors, and Kernios generously took Zoria to be his wife, caring little what dishonor she had suffered.

  —from The Beginnings of Things The Book of the Trigon

  IT WAS ODD, BRIONY REFLECTED, how much traveling with a troop of players was like going on a royal progress. In each town you stopped for a night and entertained the locals to keep them sweet, pretending as though you had never been in a more delightful place until they were safely behind you, then complaining about the take and the poor quality of local food and lodgings.

  The main difference between this journey and her father’s occasional jaunts through the March Kingdoms was that as part of the king’s progress you stood a smaller chance of having stale vegetables thrown at you if the local citizens didn’t like the way you spoke your piece. That, and the royal faction brought along enough armed guards that no one cheated anyone too obviously.

  Tonight, this thought occurred to her with some force. Although the hour was long past midnight, instead of sharing a comfortable hayloft or even a spare tavern room, they were making their way along a rutted roadway through southernmost Kertewall in a drenching rain. It had turned out that the keeper of Hallia Fair’s biggest tavern, which they had just left, was also the brother of the local reeve, and when he had claimed that the Makewell troop had cheated him on the takings from the night’s performance—although Pedder Makewell s sister Estir swore it was the other way around-they got no support from the reeve and his men, and in fact were stripped of an even larger pile of coin than the innkeeper had claimed in the first place. Thus, here they were, poor and hungry again despite an evening’s hard work, soaking wet in the middle of the night as they trudged off in search of a town more congenial to the playmaking arts.

  Briony was walking in the cold rain because the giant Dowan Birch was unwell and she had given him her place in the wagon. She did not mind doing so—he was a kind person, and even when he wasn’t ill walking made his oversized feet ache—but she wished this adventure could have begun in a friendlier month of the year, like Heptamene or Oktaniene, with their bonny, balmy nights.

  “Zoria, give me strength,” she murmured under her breath.

  Finn Teodoros lifted the shutter and leaned his head out the tiny window of the wagon. “How are you faring, young Tim?” It amused the poet to call her by her boy’s name, and he did so as often as possible.

  “Miserable. Miserable and wet.”

  “Ah, well. The price we must pay for the gifts the gods grant us.”

  “What gifts are those?”

  “Art. Freedom. Masculine virtue. Those sorts of things.”

  Pleased with himself beyond any reason, the fat playwright pulled the shutter down just before she could hit him with a gob of mud.

  In this most extraordinary of times, traveling with the players had begun to seem almost ordinary. It had been almost half a month since Briony had come upon them, and possibly longer—it was hard to keep track without the machineries of court etiquette to remind her of things like what day it was. Eimene, the year’s first month, had become Dimene, although it was hard to tell the difference: there had been little snow in this dark, muddy year, which was a small blessing, but the rains continued to fall and the wind continued to blow, frigid and unkind. Despite all that had happened since Orphanstide, Briony was not used to living out of doors and doubted she ever would be.

  They had made their way roughly south, following the CJreat Kertish Road along the Silverside border, back and forth across the edge of Kerte-wall, stopping in every town big enough to have a place to perform and enough money in the citizen’s pockets to make it worthwhile. That said, on every stop some people paid with vegetables or other foodstuffs, and in many of the smaller villages there were no coins at all in the box at the end of the night, but a few small loaves set on Estir Makewell’s wooden trunk (which served as the company’s turnstile gate) along with enough dried peas and parsnips to provide the players with a meal of soup and bread after they had finished performing. Although the spiritual instruction of The Orphan Boy in Heaven was popular, and scenes from the Theomachy (the war of Perin and his brothers against the bad, old gods) were always a favorite, what the villagers liked best were the violent history plays, especially The Bandit-King of Torvio and Hewney’s infamous Xarpedon, where Pedder Makewell always provided such a monstrous, entertaining death for the title character. Briony, who had seen too much of the true heart’s essence of late, was still not entirely comfortable with watching Makewell or Nevin Hewney staggering about spouting pig’s blood from a hidden bladder, but the spectators could not seem to get enough of it. Although they reacted with anger and outrage over the death of a hero or an innocent, especially if it was well-staged, they yelped with glee when the wicked, horned god Zmeos was pierced with Kernios’ spear, and they laughed uproariously as Milios the Bandit-King coughed out his life after having been mauled by a bear, moaning, “What claws! What foul, treacherous claws!”

  The rainswept roads of Kertewall and southern Silverside were surprisingly busy, with peddlers’ carts bumping in the rutted tracks and unbound peasants, whole families or even small companies, heading south to seek work for the coming spring. Briony, who had long since recovered from wounds and burns got in Dan-Mozan’s house, and from her worst starving days lost in the forest, was feeling stronger and healthier than she had in a long time. For one thing, the pleasure of getting up each day and putting on boy’s clothes did not dim, although she could have wished them a deal cleaner and less lousy. It was not that she loved the clothes themselves or wished to be a boy, although she had always envied her brothers their ease of movement and expression, but she mightily loved the freedom of wearing nothing more confining than a loose tunic and rough hose. She could stand, sit, bend over, and on those few occasions where she was allowed to, even ride the company’s hard-working horse without having to give thought to propriety or practicality. Why had no one hack in Southmarch been able to understand that?

  Thinking of the old days at Southmarch and the almost daily battle with Rose and Moina over what she should wear made her feel homesick, but although she missed the two girls very much, not to mention Mcrolanna, Chaven, and many others, it was as nothing compared to how she ached every time she thought of Barrick.

  Had she really seen him in Idite’s looking glass, or had it just been her pained heart creating a phantom of what it wished to see? What had the demigoddess Lisiya meant when she had said, “There are stranger things afoot with you and your brother than even I can guess”? That it hadn’t just been a dream or Briony’s feverish imagination, but somehow the truth? But Briony knew she was no Onirai—the gods chose their oracles early in life. In any case, the Barrick she saw had been a prisoner—shackled and miserable. It was almost better to think she had not truly seen him, even though that vision proved him alive, than to think of him so wretched, so ... alone.

  That was the nub of it, of course: she and her brother were both alone, and in a way that only twins could be, who had scarcely been separated their entire lives before this, and certainly never in such fearful conditions. If it was a true vision, had he seen her too? Did he mourn for her as she did for him, or was he still such a prisoner of anger and discomfort that he spared hardly a thought for his loving sister?

  And what, she suddenly thought, has happened to Ferras Vansen, charged with my brother’s safety? She had to fight through a flare of anger at the thought he had let her poor, crippled brother be captured. After all, who was to say that the guard captain had not saved Barrick from something worse? Or that he hadn’t given up his own life trying to protect the prince?

  That last thought brought a shockingly powerful pang of remorse—even of fe
ar: Vansen dead and her brother alone? She could not in that moment say which would be the worse result.

  I must pray for them, she told herself. She saw Vansen in her mind’s eye, tall but not overbearing, his hair the color of a walnut husk, his face either carefully expressionless or open and wounded like that of a puzzled child’s. Who was he to stay in her thoughts so? Others far more important were also lost, like her brother and father, and Shaso and Kendrick were dead. Why should she think of Vansen? He was a guardsman, a nobody—a failure, to be absolutely fair, since he had lost half his troop or more the first time he had been given a responsibility. What female weakness or pity or even the Three defend her from her own foolishness!—desire had made her give him a second chance, she wondered, and especially with the care of the most precious thing she could have given him to protect?