The River of Shadows cv-3 Read online

  He heard their muttering, vile and explicit (how often they forgot about his horde of languages). What they needed, how exactly they wanted her to touch them, who they imagined she already was “Pathkendle.”

  Pazel jumped. It was Hercol who had whispered. The Tholjassan lay with his eyes open, looking at him intently, and Pazel blushed, wondering how much Hercol had guessed of his thoughts.

  “I wasn’t-”

  Hercol put a finger to his lips. Then, after a long, listening moment, he rose to his feet, beckoning Pazel to do the same. Pazel stood, balancing carefully among the sleepers. Hercol moved swiftly down the beach toward the gulf. Pazel followed reluctantly. Two steps away from the fire and he was cold.

  The moon suddenly brightened, and looking back Pazel saw it emerging from behind the twisted snag of Narybir Tower. Hercol walked in the foam, through the rainbow threads of surf. “Do as I do,” he whispered. “Stay deep enough to hide your tracks. I don’t want them waking and following us.”

  He started west, and Pazel splashed along behind. “You’re taking me to read that memorial, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “No need,” said Hercol. “I told a lie back there, lad. I could read the inscription well enough. It is in their Imperial Common, and even in written form it resembles Arquali. But the message is somewhat terrible.”

  “What does it say?”

  Hercol paused in his march. He spoke without looking back at Pazel. Here two hundred traitors were thrown chained into the sea. Here the Chaldryl Resistance met its demise. We are Bali Adro, the Limitless; in time we will conquer the sun.

  Pazel felt the words like a blow to the chest. “Oh Rin,” was all he could say.

  “I thought it best to spare the others,” said Hercol. “They have heard enough bad news tonight. Come on, then, lad.”

  With that he stepped out of the surf and began to climb the beach again.

  “But where are we going?” asked Pazel, hurrying after him. “Did you find a village, like the one across the inlet?”

  “Nothing of the kind. Ibjen spoke the truth: this place is abandoned.”

  “Then what are we doing out here?”

  “Spying,” said Hercol. “Now hold your tongue.”

  They crossed the beach and mounted to the dunes, which were tall and crowned with brush and cast black shadows. It was perhaps the strangest walk of Pazel’s life: naked, freezing, the enormous crabs darting suddenly across their path, lifting armored claws. Spying on whom? Bolutu had claimed that there were still other peoples, neither dlomic nor human, in his beloved South. Was that what lay ahead?

  They threaded a path through the dunes, Hercol now and then bending to pluck some small twig or shell from the ground, which he would examine and then toss aside. In this way they slogged a mile or more. It was hard going, but the exertion lessened the cold.

  “Hercol,” Pazel asked, “what’s the matter with Thasha? Do you know?”

  Hercol stopped long enough to take a single breath. “I cannot say,” he answered at last, “nor have I ever known just what ails her, since the day Empress Maisa sent me to Etherhorde, to keep watch over her family. But I think we must expect her condition to grow worse before it improves. Worse, or at the very least more intense. Ramachni, Oggosk, Arunis himself-every practitioner of magic she has ever encountered-has taken an interest in Thasha, and that cannot be coincidental. And now, when we face a deluge of magic, Thasha herself has begun to change.”

  “She’s changing, all right. But into what?”

  “I will not voice my guesses until I can trust them further,” said Hercol. “Yet of one thing I am certain: Thasha faces a trial that will demand all her strength. And as her friend, Pazel-her irreplaceable friend-it may demand just as much from you.”

  He marched on, and Pazel, brooding grimly on his words, struggled to keep up. At last they came to a point where they could hear the Nelluroq booming distantly on their right. Before them stood the tallest dune they had yet seen, a great hill of sand crowned with sea oats and brush.

  “When we reach the summit you must move only as I do,” said Hercol. “Flat as snakes we must crawl, and slowly, slowly through the underbrush.”

  It was a long, awkward climb. Halfway to the top, Hercol stopped for a moment and pointed silently to the south. Pazel turned, and felt a thrill of wonder: low on the horizon hung a pale blue light, smaller than the moon, but larger than any star.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “A legend of the South proved true,” said Hercol. “The Polar Candle, the Little Moon of Alifros. North of the Ruling Sea it cannot be glimpsed, not ever. Bolutu tells me that many in the South think it has power over their lives and fates. Come, we are almost there.”

  At the dune’s flat summit, the roots of shrubs and sea oats bound the sand into a fibrous mat. Hercol wriggled forward, keeping his head well below the height of the grass. Pazel imitated him, cursing inwardly as burrs and thorns began to pierce his skin. There were crawling, biting insects too, and many small burrows from which came scurrying sounds. He would have been miserable, Pazel thought, even fully clothed.

  The dune was wide, but they crossed it at last. And suddenly they were lying, side by side, looking down upon a wide sand basin. It was about the size of the village square across the inlet, and ringed on all sides by dunes, except for a narrow gap on the north side leading down to the sea.

  In the center of the basin a fire was crackling, somewhat larger and brighter than their own. And beside the fire three figures crouched.

  “They’re human!” Pazel whispered.

  “Yes,” said Hercol.

  “Not, not the-”

  “Not tol-chenni, no. Be very still, Pazel, and watch.”

  They were roasting a small animal on a spit. They wore tattered clothes-but they were clothes, not scraps and rags like the tol-chenni. Indeed the three figures had an encampment of sorts: crates stacked up like building blocks, a makeshift tent of rough fabric, jugs and amphorae squatting in the sand. And the figures were armed: swords, daggers, some kind of club. All three looked strong and capable.

  Two were men. The figure on the left, turning the spit, might have been forty: he had a severe face and black hair streaked with gray that fell in curls to his shoulders. Across from him crouched a younger and much larger man, big as any Turach. His eyes were shut and his hands folded before him; he might well have been speaking a prayer. The third figure, whose back was to them, was a young woman.

  “Then it’s not true,” Pazel hissed. “The mind-plague, it hasn’t wiped everyone out! Hercol, maybe it never struck anywhere but the village. And if they’re wrong about the plague, they could be wrong about the two hundred years!”

  “Gently, lad,” said Hercol.

  But Pazel, clutching suddenly at hope, was not to be calmed. “Maybe the village was quarantined-way off the mainland, see? — because everyone there went mad together, dlomu and humans alike.”

  “Come,” said Hercol. “The humans become idiots, and the dlomu at the same time fall victim to a shared delusion about the cause?”

  “Why not? It’s more likely than what they claim, isn’t it?”

  “Watch the girl, Pazel.”

  Pazel looked: she was lifting a blackened kettle from the embers. Turning, she filled three cups beside her with steaming drink. Pazel saw her silhouette against the fire, and thought his heart would stop.

  “Neda,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Hercol.

  “Aya Rin,” said Pazel. “Hercol, she looks exactly like my sister Neda.”

  “Perhaps she is.”

  Pazel gazed helplessly at the swordsman. He could not speak for fear. It wasn’t the villagers, or Thasha, or half the human race who had gone mad. It was just him, Pazel. Actually mad: he would shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he’d be in sickbay, feverish, his tenth day without water; or still tied up in that cave on Bramian. That was the only explanation.

  “Whe
n one of the men turns away,” said Hercol, “try to catch a glimpse of his neck.”

  “You never met my sister. You couldn’t know what she looks like. I think I’m crazy, Hercol.”

  “Enough of that. I’ve looked at her portrait a hundred times. It hung for years in Dr. Chadfallow’s study in Etherhorde, alongside your mother’s and your own. It hangs in his cabin now. But that portrait must be ten years old. I could not be sure it was her, until you saw for yourself.”

  “But how in the blary howling Pits could she be here?”

  “Look! There’s an answer for you, or the beginning of one.”

  The older man was reaching for something on his right. He leaned forward, and his long hair fell away from his neck. The firelight showed a black tattoo, a pattern of strokes and diamonds.

  “Lord Rin above,” said Pazel. “They’re Mzithrinis.”

  So they were: three citizens of the Mzithrin Pentarchy, the enemy state, the rival power that had fought the Empire of Arqual to one blood-soaked draw after another, for centuries. Dr. Chadfallow had always claimed that he’d placed Neda in the hands of a Mzithrini diplomat, to save her from becoming a slave or concubine of the invading Arqualis. It could have happened, Pazel thought: she might have taken on their customs, their beliefs. In five years she might have become almost anyone.

  “What should we do?” he whispered.

  “I brought you here that you might help me decide,” said Hercol. “They are Mzithrini, to be sure. Which means that they, like us, have somehow crossed the Ruling Sea. But they are not common sailors. Those tattoos declare holy orders. They are sfvantskors, warrior-priests. And if they choose to attack us, they will win.”

  “Neda won’t attack me.”

  “Pazel, if she has taken the Last Oath and become a true sfvantskor, she will do whatever her leader commands. In some parts of the Mzithrin the newly sworn are told to leap one by one into a covered pit. Most find the bottom filled with rose petals, but one lands on razor-sharp stakes. The rest honor his sacrifice with prayers, and taste his blood for discipline.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “No worse than what a Turach endures. Those three, however, may have a special reason to detest us: the loss of their ship. The men were aboard the Jistrolloq when it drew alongside us in Simja. I dare say your sister was as well.”

  “She spoke to me,” said Pazel suddenly. “A sfvantskor girl in a mask whispered to me in the shrine-she told me to turn away from evil, as if one could-Hercol, how can they be alive? We sank the Jistrolloq months ago, in the middle of the Ruling Sea.”

  “Months,” said Hercol, “or two hundred years?”

  Pazel froze, then lowered his face, grinding his forehead into the sand.

  “If we decide to speak to them,” said Hercol, “let us take care not to speak of that. So far it has been a secret among the two of us, Thasha and Bolutu. Let it remain so, for now.”

  “It’s not true, anyway,” said Pazel. “That part can’t be true.”

  “Why not?” said Hercol.

  “Because if two hundred years have passed, then the whole conspiracy’s failed. And the war must be long over, if it ever came to war.”

  “Certainly,” said Hercol.

  “And your Empress Maisa is dead, and everyone we cared about, everyone who knew our mucking names.”

  “Catastrophes are only unthinkable until they occur. You Ormalis should know that.”

  “I’ll tell you why, then,” said Pazel. “Because if it’s true then I really will go mad. Barking blary mad.”

  Hercol’s hand slipped under his jaw. Gently, but with an iron strength, he lifted Pazel’s chin. His eyes were sharp and wary in the moonlight.

  “Please,” he said, “don’t.”

  The Mzithrinis could smell the rabbit crackling on the spit. It was all they could do not to pluck the carcass from the fire and devour it, raw though it surely was on the inside. They had come ashore ravenous, and found only crabs. They had lived for four days now on crabs-to be precise, on the legs and eyestalks of crabs: the bodies of the creatures had proven so toxic that their leader, Cayer Vispek, had nearly died, his throat swollen until he battled to breathe. When he recovered he cited the Old Faith proverb about the glutton who choked on the wishbone of a stolen goose, and the younger sfvantskor laughed.

  They had laughed again when he showed them the rabbit, and asked if they would not rather wait for morning. Then it was Jalantri’s turn to quote the scripture, as he scrambled from the tent: “And should the morning never come, how now, my soul?”

  Their master smiled, but only faintly: one did not make light of the soul. It was man’s claim on eternity, his gift from the omnipotence that some called Rin or God or the Gods, but which Mzithrinis would never presume to shackle with a name.

  Jalantri had scurried like a boy to build the fire. Neda had skinned and gutted the rabbit, while Cayer Vispek walked out to the beach to touch the Nelluroq, and whisper quietly to the five hundred brethren who had perished there.

  By the time he had returned the rabbit was sizzling. Now, sipping their brackish tea, they felt as though the smell were already nourishing them, the appetizer to the feast.

  Jalantri saw the intruder first. A youth, standing in the brush on the high eastern dune, looking down with the moonlight behind him. “Vrutch,” he swore. “I thought we’d driven them off.”

  Cayer Vispek stopped turning the spit. “He’s the first one to come upon us from the east,” he said. “How peculiar. The land ends in just a few miles that way. Perhaps he smelled the rabbit.”

  Neda glanced up at the boy and shrugged. “He can’t have any of mine,” she said.

  Jalantri’s big chest rumbled with laughter. But their leader stilled him with a hand. The youth had started toward them, slide-stepping down the dune. They rose, tensing. Not one of the witless humans had ever tried to approach them, even in stealth. This one had to know he was being observed, yet on he came. The shadow of the dune hid his features. But there could be no doubt: he was deliberately approaching. They scanned the basin on every side: no companions. Neda drew her dagger. Jalantri pulled a burning stick from the fire and strode forward, waving it.

  “Ya! Away!” he shouted, in a voice for scaring dogs. The youth paused. Then he took a deep breath and continued toward them.

  Cayer Vispek bent and picked up a fist-sized stone from the fire ring. “I am going to kill this one,” he informed them rather sadly. “If they lose their fear they will give us no peace. Don’t help; it will be easier if he doesn’t run.”

  Neda squinted at the figure, intuition gathering inside her like a storm. Then the Cayer walked past Jalantri and waited, turned slightly away from the youth, the stone loose in his hand. He was a deadly shot. The rabbit might have been no closer when he crushed its skull.

  The youth reached the foot of the dune. He stepped from its shadow, and Cayer Vispek whirled and threw the stone with all his might. And Neda screamed.

  Sound flies faster than any arm-and Pazel lived because the Cayer’s mind was faster yet. He skewed the stone with his fingertips as he released it, and the shot went wide. As the youth flinched and ducked Neda ran forward, crying his name.

  “Stop!” roared a voice from the dune-top. A second figure, a grown man, was flying down its shadowed face. “Harm that boy and I swear I’ll send you to meet your faceless Gods! Damn you, Pazel, I should never have agreed-”

  The youth looked at Neda. He was more ashamed than afraid, standing before her without a stitch of clothing. A different body, but the same fierce, awkward frown. She had seen that look ten years ago, him standing in a tiled basin, and Neda, the older sister, approaching with a sponge.

  The hug she gave him was pure instinct, as were the tears she shed in a single, toothy sob. But before he could return the embrace she released him and stepped back, glaring through her tears. A sfvantskor could not put her arms around him. A sister could not do otherwise.

  The Orfuin C
lub

  Who has sown the dark waters in sorghum and rye?

  Who has whispered to gravestones and heard their reply?

  In the deluge of autumn, who has danced and stayed dry?

  Let him gaze on the River, and sigh.

  — Anonymous Hymn, VASPARHAVEN

  “Arunis, what do you fear?”

  The speaker was a short, round-faced, potbellied man with thick glasses, dressed in clothes the color of autumn wheat. In both hands he cradled a large cup of tea, the steam of which billowed white in the chilly breeze on the terrace. On the table before him a red marble paperweight held down one sheet of parchment. At the man’s feet squirmed a small creature, something like an armadillo, except that it lacked any obvious head, and instead of limbs, two feathery antennae and countless tentacle-like feet emerged from its shell. The creature was foraging for insects; as it moved in the torchlight it became invisible, transparent and darkly opaque by turns.

  “I fear that one of us will expire before the woman arrives,” said a second figure-a tall, gaunt man in a black coat and white scarf, ravenous of mouth and eye, who stood near the doorway letting into the club, orange firelight on his left cheek, cold and darkness on his right. “Otherwise, nothing at all. I have no time for fear. Besides, there is no safer house than yours, Orfuin. Safety is your gift to all comers.”

  The doorway was framed by leafy vines, within which a keen observer might glimpse movement, and now and then a tiny form of man or woman, running along a stem, or peering from a half-hidden window the size of a stamp. From within the club came music-accordion, fiddle, flute-and the drowsy chatter of the patrons. It was always late at the Orfuin Club; by daylight the tavern’s many entrances could not be found.

  “Safety from the world without,” corrected the potbellied man, “but if you bring your own doom within these walls, you can hardly expect them to protect you. What is that thing in your hand, wizard?”

  “A product of a sorcery beyond my knowledge,” said Arunis, displaying the shiny, slightly irregular metal cube. “Ceallrai, it is called, or mintan, batori, pile. The lamp you keep on the table on the third floor draws its fire from some source within the metal. It is a feeble sorcery and does not last. This one is dead; the goat-faced creature who wipes your tables gave it to me.”