Shadow (25 page)

‘No.'

He eyed off the dark space beneath the tower, where both Loup and Far Gaze had warned him not to go. Beyond the water Shadow was a silhouette tilted sideways. ‘I'm not letting him in,' Eric told Siel. He explained his phoney promise to get her rescued. She listened without comment.

He'd have known, even if she
had
thanked him, that she did not hold him and Shadow very far apart in her mind at all. He knew then that she would never love him, if that had even been possible before. She had not seemed like someone capable of love as he understood it, but the faint hope of it had been sweet. Faint as the hope had been, it was a strangely bitter loss.

Holding the groundman's head carefully above water he paddled through the arch beneath the tower, surprised by the strength of the whirlpool's downward pull. Swimming made pain flare in the wound where a groundman had stabbed him with its spear. There was a deep spot to the staircase's left, one of three visible from the steps by daylight, where water could be seen winding down in a funnel. He let the pull from it take him toward the stairs, fumbling ahead for the steps he couldn't see in the dark. His hand hit something hard. With Siel's help, he lifted the groundman up onto the floor.

It was the wind blowing over the water which Loup felt spoke a secret language it would be dangerous for him to hear. He heard mutterings about cold, about someone returning here, about danger coming through the skies fast as wind. Someone called his name and begged him to stay and listen, for a likely future needed to be discussed. But he was thinking of Siel, thinking of forcing her to kiss him while they'd rutted like animals back at the hilltop, right after he'd lied to her. Why should she have loved him?

Inside the tower, Stranger was awake and watching the staircase as they climbed to its middle floor. ‘Is Shadow out there?' she said.

Eric nodded. Siel, coming up the steps behind him, stared agog at Stranger without speaking.

‘No need to fetch your bow,' said Stranger, a hint of darkness across her face as she recognised the girl who'd fired at her more than once.

‘I'll explain when you've slept,' Eric told Siel. Without reply she staggered up the steps and collapsed on the first unoccupied bed she came to. Eric laid the groundman down in the one next to her.

It was within the hour that Shadow discovered he had been deceived. A cry rang out. Some of those sleeping stirred but were lulled back to their dreams by the soothing sound of waves. Eric was wide awake and not so fortunate as them.

When at last sleep found him, he was Shadow again.

7

It was confusing, more than anything greatly confusing. They knew of the lure he felt – he had told them! Their indifference … it was incomprehensible.

The thing drawing him here was the same as he'd felt coming from the drake in flight. Had it come from the drake itself, or some power it temporarily held? He didn't know. It gave him entirely new sensations – thirst, hunger, lust, desire – all of which had filled empty spaces inside him not known as empty until they were partly filled. Each of them told him urgently:
You are called here! Go!

He circled the tower as fast as he could for much of the night. He went so fast that winds rose from him, and a path was dug into the ground around the water, the water he could not cross. He howled as day broke then left that place, went back to the village where he'd killed the dogs. Its people mostly slept. He took a few apart but discovered – having forgotten – that this was a hollow thing which brought no joy or relief. Nothing would fill these empty spaces inside him. There were many empty spaces, things missing from him which he'd seen in others. Should not he have those things too? Memories, things connecting him to the world, to people, to places? There was nothing there!

Away south he went, desperate to see something new to remove his mind from pains and trials. There was that stupid god flying very low now, with a crowd of people pointing and staring. More people beyond them, an army spread in a long thin line with pikes and spears, keeping people from getting closer.

Among them he went, not wanting to shadow any in case they taught him more of the things he was missing, not killing any because it would be pointless. The god, however. Could he shadow the god?

He listened to soldiers' talk and learned the god's name was Nightmare. Nightmare was keeping the big stoneflesh giants from crossing over where the Wall had been. It was not an easy task, even for a god. One of the giants there was standing still, facing across into the southern half, and Nightmare flew about him, doing something with his hand that made the giant turn back the other way. Then Nightmare flew east with speed Shadow admired, but speed which he felt he could surpass.

He
could
shadow Nightmare, he believed. He had shadowed that dragon, back near the tower. That had been hard, maybe even dangerous, and a god would be more so. But he could do it.

And yet, if men would teach him bad things about himself, how much more would a god teach? No! He would not do it, not yet. Frustrated, he screamed again and every human head in sight turned at the sound. ‘I am Shadow,' he told them, and whether they understood him or not, there was not one set of ears from him to the horizon that did not hear.

SHAPERS IN THE QUIET

1

As patrols and even armies on full war march became more common deep in Aligned country, they spent longer periods in the quiet. One evening they came to one of those patches of glowing white crystals floating in the air, a way off the road. On sight of it Anfen made a hissing sound, grabbed Sharfy and flung both of them to the ground. They crept closer on their bellies, like men advancing under arrow fire on a battlefield. ‘Make no sound,' Anfen whispered.

The things looked a little like a glowing wasps' nest half the size of a man. Their light flickered quite beautifully, and Sharfy wanted to touch them badly.

They waited and watched for what might have been days of dream-like time. Time passed strangely in the quiet, and in a way seemed not to pass at all. Sharfy even slept. Then Anfen shook him and pointed off to their right, where something approached.

It was just about the only moving thing in the quiet that Sharfy had seen. It had no clear shape, was just a disturbance between them and the space behind it. It drifted toward the glowing diamond things, seeming to engulf some of them, slightly dimming their light. What may have been a hand in its midst could be seen closing over one of the diamond things, squeezing it until it was gone. It broke a second glowing diamond thing apart into tiny pieces, scattered them along the ground in a roughly circular shape, then one by one each little glowing broken piece's light went out. It moved on to a third, a fourth, and one by one devoured each of the beautiful floating objects.

Anfen took them out of the quiet, back into the world of harsh light where they lay among gravel and brambles. They heard the
thump-thump-thump
of an army marching in time, south along the Great Dividing Road. ‘How long were we gone?' Sharfy said.

‘There's no time in the quiet,' said Anfen. He dry-retched like someone dying.

‘What
is
the quiet? Come on, you can tell me. I asked you enough times.'

‘My redeemer can go there. People are not allowed. If we alter things there, it could change this world terribly.'

‘What were those glowing shapes?'

‘A spell.'

‘Huh?'

‘The glowing shape was a spell. That other thing we saw was called a shaper. Spells change reality. The quiet is like a hollow space behind a painting of our world. In this realm a spell looks instant – the mage gives an instruction, reality changes. In the quiet, outside time, shapers carry the instructions out.'

‘Shaper. Was it alive?'

‘In a sense. Not like other living things. Not even like elementals or ghosts. It was making a spell's effect become real. Weaving it into this reality. The glowing pieces are what a spell's instructions look like, to our eyes. To the shapers it is a language. It tells them what to do. That spell we just saw may have been cast long ago. Centuries, in this realm. Or maybe hours ago. Or maybe in the future. There's no knowing. It was not a very powerful spell.'

‘Huh? How you know?'

‘Because the glowing pieces were small. I have no name for them.'

They marched on. The castle came into view on the horizon like an enormous mountain of white ice. Sharfy said, ‘Boss, it's time we stopped for a rest. You're taking me to the place I'm going to die. That's pretty clear. Do I have to be exhausted when we get there?'

Anfen muttered reluctant assent then followed Sharfy some way off road, to what seemed an unmanned guard house. Inside they found chairs, some water but no food. Sharfy put his feet up and sighed. Anfen stood in the doorway, gazing out at the road, unconcerned about being seen.

Sharfy looked at the big purple scar around Anfen's neck, from which a blood drop slid like a lone tear. ‘Boss. How come you can take us there? To the quiet? You couldn't do that before. Something happened to you but you won't tell me what.'

‘We are not allowed there,' Anfen said. ‘We are not to interfere with the shapers. Even the dragon-youth had no way to get there. Some of the gods had the great Dragon's permission, and It showed them how. But they are nervous to go there. My redeemer is the only one who often goes. He took a grave risk, to let me pass back and forth at will.

‘My redeemer told me of a mage named Avridis. I knew him already. He allowed the foreign airs in. I knew that too. He must now be told what he did, and he must help undo it. He will be shown. Given a choice.' Anfen turned and looked at Sharfy with eyes that reminded him of an Inferno cultist's. ‘This is not a quest my redeemer gave me. Understand that. It is one I gave myself.'

‘And to me, huh?' said Sharfy.

‘And you. Be at peace. We have not far to go.'

2

Soon the castle was more than a distant shape. It loomed like a world in the sky, the Great Dividing Road running from its open jaws. Its head seemed to gaze directly at them as they came nearer. Sharfy was certain now that the great Dragon-god was no myth at all, that It alone could have built such a structure, and that it must be true what they said: It slept beneath the castle, deep belowground, and changed the world with Its dreams and thoughts. Those shapers, Sharfy wondered, they're part of It, maybe. Little thoughts It has. The quiet must be where It does Its dreaming. And maybe we can't go there in case we wake It up …

When the day came, finally, that they reached the castle's lawns, they stood quite plainly in open sight before the steps of the front gate. The castle's enormous mouth stretched wide to either side of them, wider than the Great Dividing Road. Though there were no beggars from the city today, the Road was a bustle of activity. Sharfy had never felt so visible, yet none of the castle army people paid them the least attention for an hour or more, until a commander in uniform and full chain-mail paused, glanced at Anfen's sword, and said, ‘With whom are you? Where is your uniform?'

Anfen slowly drew his sword. A glimmer of white light flickered up and down the blade. ‘Bring me Avridis,' he said.

The commander looked at him, not comprehending. ‘Answer my question.'

‘Bring me Avridis or be cut in half.'

The commander, stunned, laughed. ‘Who is this fool?' he asked no one in particular. Anfen made good on his promise with a flash of sparks as the sword did its work.

A ripple passed through the people nearby. The bustle of movement came to a gradual cease and heads turned. A silence drew out, broken abruptly as other men drew weapons and charged them.

Anfen looked sick, starved and weary, but moved as fast as Sharfy had seen any man move. Any who came at him were soon dead on the ground, their blood spilling over the Great Dividing Road.

An alarm sounded like the huge call of a deathly bird. Sharfy watched the sky uneasily, expecting a war mage, but none came. ‘Stay near me,' Anfen told him. Soon the pair of them were surrounded by a ring of heavily armed men. One half held up shields they crouched down behind, while the other poured arrow after arrow at them.

Anfen stood completely still in the midst of it as arrows rained down, but somehow none of them struck home. It was like a big invisible shield guarded them. Sharfy felt heat building from Anfen, then saw his armour was glowing faintly red, and growing hotter the longer the soldiers shot bolts at them. Soon the heat was painful.

Luckily the rain of arrows stopped. A huge litter of them lay on the Road's pavement. Someone shouted an order to charge. Anfen screamed a war cry to Valour and swung his blade overhead in a blurring wheel of death, and Sharfy watched with his mouth hanging open as those who charged were cut savagely down in a storm of blood, until none dared attack them any more. The rest ran.

‘Bring me Avridis,' Anfen yelled. ‘Bring him!' Then panting and haggard, he collapsed. He was drenched from head to foot in blood. The few castle troops who remained did not dare go near him even as he lay there.

The wailing alarm was answered by another which came from further away. Sharfy felt what seemed a million pairs of eyes peering down at them from the castle's windows, near and far.

He cleaned as much blood off himself as he could, then began wiping it from Anfen's face.

What seemed a long time later, there was movement at the gates above the steps. A group of men in full dyed-black plate – elite guard, Sharfy knew, having heard many stories of them – came out and stood in a new ring around Anfen, heavy double-sided axes as tall as they were planted handle first at their feet. These men would all be wearing enchanted gear, Sharfy knew. They would swing those huge heavy axes fast as whips. Their armour would be like trying to pierce a wall of stone. But he thought Anfen's sword would cut through it with ease.