Shadow (32 page)

One of those strange instruments of flowing black metal was damaged. She went to it, moved suddenly by an impulse to tend it, as though it were a wounded creature found in the wild. She recognised this impulse to be caused by some magic, even as it touched her and used her for its purpose: the tower wished to be fixed. She did as it wished, washing the wound with water, holding the part broken off to the base until it stuck back on and began to mend itself.

Others of the moving structures had wounds too. Feeling a similar tenderness, she fixed them as best she could. A wave of warm pleasure rippled through her as the tower rewarded her for helping it. She felt invigorated.

But immediately she sensed something amiss in the airs. A thin trickle of red bled into the glimmering dark strands. Stranger rushed to the window, staring out and – there he was, a ripple of black movement in the sky. The sight was then obscured by the war mages circling the tower.

‘Dyan!' she yelled. ‘My darling! Come! Take me away!'

Dyan must have heard her. He flew like a dark lightning bolt among the war mages circling the tower.

7

The dragon's cry of challenge was a long whinnying note: a playful song-burst reverberating through the bodies of those watching at the tower's windows. As Dyan flew among the war mages there was a flash of light, a rain of white sparks. Five of the creatures fell dead with bodies grotesquely bent as though huge strong hands had tried to tie them in knots. Others still in the air burst into flame, with agonised shrieks no different from their usual cries.

The dragon flew higher, drawing some of the flock away from the tower. Dyan sang a long low fluttering note that sent shivers through those watching. In response to it a group of the war mages attacked one another in a frenzy of heat and light. In twos and threes they fell dead to the ground, some of them landing in the moat's waves where their bodies floated. Then the spell ended, and Dyan moved through them, graceful as a diver playing through the air. His scales glittered with playful colour. The surviving war mages – shed now of nearly half the number that began their pursuit – followed the dragon on their doomed chase as he took them further from the tower.

‘Better start being polite to Stranger,' Eric remarked at the top-floor window.

Far Gaze stood, panting from the exertions of shifting form.

‘What did you smell?' said Loup.

‘Death comes,' said Far Gaze. ‘We have nowhere to flee from it.'

Loup tore himself with some effort from the window. For him, to see the dragon's casting was an absolute joy. ‘What would we flee?'

‘Bad magic, bad airs come. The Pendulum has already swung back.' Far Gaze hung his head. ‘We should have let the Strategist go and call back his men from the Wall. How could I have been expected to trust him?'

‘He'd not have had time,' said Loup. He put a consoling hand on Far Gaze's shoulder. ‘Why you care so much about castle troops I'll not guess.'

‘We must get a message to Tauk the Strong. He rides this way.'

‘The airs won't come that far in,' said Loup, scratching his head.

‘I'll go meet your Mayor,' said Gorb. ‘How much time before the bad stuff gets here?'

‘No knowing,' said Far Gaze, thumping the wall in frustration. ‘If you're going, leave
now.
'

Meanwhile Aziel was clutching the drake's neck in terror. Eric crouched beside her. Case nuzzled his arm with a wet snout. ‘You've probably seen enough of this place, haven't you?' he asked Aziel.

She looked at him like he was as dangerous as any dragon. ‘You're not to touch me. They'll know. Ghost can visit me any time, and he'll tell—'

‘You're safe on that score,' he said. ‘Would you like to go home?'

‘Home?' She looked at him searchingly, then around at the others. They were quickly getting a store of goods together for Gorb to take with him. ‘How?' she whispered.

‘That's up to our drake. What do you say, Case? May we ride you? Will you take us north, to the castle?' The drake snorted and crawled before him with its neck lowered. ‘Aziel? Will you come?'

She hesitated. ‘You'll protect me?'

‘I am your humble servant,' he said with a bow.

‘It's been so long since someone told me that.'

‘Is Shadow still within that charm?'

‘Yes,' she said, touching the necklace embedded to her skin. Her voice went even quieter. ‘He – he doesn't
like
being in here. He wanted to get in so badly, but I think it was tricking him. Now he wants to be free. I think I can let him go—'

‘Don't!' he said. ‘Keep him there. We'll take him to the castle.'

‘Yes! Arch will know what to do with him!'

‘Hurry then, before the others see what we mean to do. Hop on.' Aziel took a seat on Case's back and Eric sat behind her. There was ample room for them.

‘It is inevitable that you will, at times on our journey, need to touch me,' said Aziel primly. ‘When we go through strong wind or rapidly up or down, we will be tossed around a little. You may at such times grasp me here, and here.' She demonstrated the permissible areas.

‘Go, Case,' Eric said. ‘To the window, quickly.'

The drake did as he asked it, hobbling toward the north-facing window. Siel saw them first.

‘Where are you going?' she said, jogging over. Case put his front feet up on the sill, poking his head out in the night air.

‘He must have been drunk, that first night,' Aziel mused. ‘He was so clumsy. He's much better at using his legs and wings now!'

‘Where are you going?' Siel repeated.

Eric looked back at her. ‘Blain told us what we were to do. I'm going to do it. We're going to the castle.'

‘And what in a dead god's ashen blazes do you think you're doing?' cried Loup, aghast.

‘I guess you could say we're off to see the wizard, Loup.' Eric smiled sadly at Siel. ‘I'm not Shadow,' he said. ‘But I'm sorry I look like him. Go, Case. Fly.'

‘Not without me, you don't!' Loup cried, clutching the drake's tail. ‘Not without me!'

‘Loup, I know where I have to go.'

‘Aye, I won't persuade you different. But you'll be dead in half a day, the both of you, unless I mind you. You haven't even packed supplies, you twit! What did you plan on eating? Rocks?' Shouldering the pack he'd been preparing for Gorb, Loup clambered up onto Case's back. There was only just enough room for him. The drake groaned at the new weight it was being asked to carry. ‘Don't you complain, you silly winged mule!' said Loup, slapping its rump. ‘You had an easy life the last few days, lazing and sleeping and eating. Time to fly. You're Shadow's drake, according to tales. Look the part, why don't you? Fly!'

The drake fell out into the night sky, and all three riders screamed till it turned the fall into a dive. Case's beating wings took them through buffeting gusts of cold wind.

‘Good boy!' said Loup, patting Case's rump. To Eric he said, ‘Now where the heck are we off to? And why?'

‘Well, I'll tell you, but I don't think you're going to like it.'

8

First Captain Tauvene yelled, ‘Hold!' until his throat and lungs filled with what felt like dirt. He had no idea if the men held or ran for he could not see a thing. Braziers had been lit all along the line but now they showed nothing. The strange chemical stink was incredible, like nothing else he'd smelled. His lungs clenched to reject it. He no longer had enough air to yell at all. He was coughing and crawling forward, disobeying his own order. His life, his past, his dreams had all burned down and he was now trying to breathe the ash. Hatred for Blain and lust to kill the Strategist kept him crawling forward. Bodies bumped into him from all sides.

Then everything changed and he went to a place that was not quite sleep.

He did not know how long he'd lain there. All was quiet in the visionless fog but for the sound of things rolling and twitching in the dirt here and there. He did not understand it – he could not breathe, but he was not dead. Then with no warning he felt his body being pulled in several directions, but the feeling was
good.
He felt the bones of his feet breaking, his hands and arms breaking, but oh how good it felt. Yes! he thought. The other men's moaning and screaming filtered through the murk like sounds below water. Redness filled his vision. Yes!

His body felt like it was held in infinitely strong hands, being kneaded and rolled between thick fingers. A sound came from his throat, at first Tauvene's own familiar voice in a vibrating wail, ‘
Ah-ah-ah
-
ah
-
ahhh,
' then something replaced it that was not a sound, but a new sense felt by a new organ. There were other senses too, not unlike touch, with which he felt the pulse and flow of time in the air. It was a current in one direction for the most part, but able to be moved against, and here and there possible to freeze or made so slow it was almost still. His bones kept breaking, stretching, breaking. His muscles clenched till they were tight and hard as stone.

When finally it ended he knew only that he had changed. He had become elegant, beautiful, glorious artwork.

That which had been First Captain Tauvene pulled itself upward. Things bumped against him in the rolling reddish fog with a
clack-clack
like wood striking wood. A rattle of thin needles shook about his head: his laughter, laughter made to release the intense pleasure of
being,
to boast of this incredible pleasure to all the world!
I feel! I sense, I am!
he said in the new language, and the same sentiment echoed all around in the sightless fog.

How he longed to see himself … there! Another like him! What beauty, what glory! The other watched him back with equal fascination, and both gave a rattle of many thin clattering needles about their manes, both expressing:
What beauty you have! Look at you! What beauty!

Giddy with delight the noble creatures moved out of the dispersing fog into the evening. Their movements were joy; the creaking sounds of their stiff bodies' graceful steps was incredible music.

There, that strange quailing creature! It was a man, as they had been so recently. That lovely noise it made! That which had been Tauvene reached for the man. His beautiful hand spun a strange and lovely crystalline web in the air, ensnaring the frightened soldier and bringing him closer.

He played the man's body as an instrument, making beautiful sounds of dramatic, powerful pitch. To stroke it this way, a note! To stroke it that way, a note! He drew those notes out through time made sluggish, so they were long indeed.

About him the rattling voices of his kind expressed admiration for the song he made. They crowded around to watch. If only the soft little creature
knew
of the beauty it had within it, the glorious beauty. Slowly that which had been Tauvene played the symphony out, addicted to the sounds that came, in harmony with other such songs playing here and there, as his kindred found more men who had not been changed. The feel of blood drenching its flanks and limbs in rivulets was a new ecstasy altogether.

And they found they loved the music of their spiked toes punching into the ground's hard surface, loved the wind through the grass, the wind swaying the branches of trees. They loved their movements, loved watching one another, loved long periods of silence and stillness. Everything had its joys.

They swarmed north with jagged strides.

SETTING OUT

1

The drake, and Eric, Loup and Aziel on its back, were all soon gone into a wad of cloud, swallowed by the night sky that had poured war mages down on them. Watching them go, Siel wondered what it was exactly that she felt, what it was that had brought these rare tears to her eyes.

She gathered her bow, her knife, stuffed a bag full of bread, meat and fruit, all of which had been blessed for preservation. The night outside the window was now eerily still, with only the occasional faint inhuman cry of war mages coming from widely different points in the distance. The dragon had annihilated and scattered the flock. Over the ground and floating on the water were many of their broken bodies, bent into twisted shapes as though they were in the midst of casting one last spell of death.

Far Gaze writhed on the floor, changing back yet again to his wolf form. It was taking much longer this time; his body was not appreciating so many fast shifts. Gorb headed for the steps with Bald – protesting – under one arm like a bundle.

‘Wait!' she called. ‘I'm coming with you.'

‘You sure?' said Gorb. ‘Dangerous, out there.'

‘I'm not being left here,' she said. ‘Not with that dragon-friend mage and three Hunters in the woods.'

‘And a Strategist,' said Gorb, rubbing his chin. ‘The wolf's going to smell our way for us I guess. Maybe you can ride his back. We better hurry and find that Mayor.'

Far Gaze stood shakily, the huge white wolf thin and mangy with patches of hair missing. He retched, staggered to the larder and gulped down several pieces of meat.

‘What do we do about her?' said Siel as they went down the steps past the lower floor. Stranger sat by the far window, anxiously watching the sky, where Dyan could no longer be seen. The upper half of her body hung out the window and she hadn't yet noticed them.

Gorb said, ‘Kill her or leave her. What do you fancy?'

‘She is a dragon-friend,' said Siel, reaching for an arrow.

Gorb sighed sadly. ‘More likely she just got used. It could've got anyone just as easy. Even you, if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

She felt a blush rise to her cheeks and wondered what Gorb knew, or had guessed, of her encounter with Dyan in the woods. She had been unable to bring herself to mention it to anyone. The sight of the dragon soaring through the flock of war mages had made her want to run from the window, and at the same time watch his every movement. And – although she could not even admit this to herself – part of her had wished for him to come down …