The River of Shadows (76 page)

It was only a thin vine, reaching down from a crack in the wall, and its tendrils began to break as soon as he seized it. But for a moment it stopped him. He gulped a breath, furious. A ridiculous death. Not even in the fight. And damn his stupidity, he was carrying
lead
! Mr. Fiffengurt’s blackjack was still there in his breeches, sewn into its special pocket. He couldn’t spare either hand to cast it away.

Then he saw a dark streak below the surface. It was a dlömu, shooting toward him. A moment later Ibjen rose, treading water in a frenzy.

“This water’s unnatural!” he cried. “Even I can barely swim!”

“The vine’s going to break,” Pazel shouted.

Ibjen turned in place, splashing desperately to hold still. “We’ll swim back together,” he said.

Pazel shook his head. “I’m not strong enough. I’ll have to go around the tower, downstream.”

But there was no more hope in that idea than in Ibjen’s. Even if he managed to keep his head above water, the river would simply peel him away from the wall once he rounded the curve.

“
You
can still make it,” he shouted to Ibjen. “Go on! Take care of Neeps and Thasha!”

Ibjen was staring at him strangely. “I failed the prince,” he said, just audible over the water’s roar.

“Ibjen, the vine—”

“I broke my oath to him. And to my mother. I’m paying now, like Vadu did.”

Ibjen’s eyes, like those of the woman in Vasparhaven, were jet-black. In
nuhzat
again. Was he aware of things around him, or in a different world altogether?

“Pazel,” he shouted suddenly, “you’re going to have to climb that wall.”

“Climb? You’re mad! Sorry, I—”

The vine snapped like a shoelace. Pazel clawed at the stone, but already the current was whirling him on. He felt Ibjen seize him by the shoulders. “Down, then,” gasped the boy. “Hold your breath. Are you ready?”

Before Pazel could say
No!
the boy pushed him under. Kicking hard, he drove them both down the side of the wall. Descent was swift and easy; it was staying up that had been close to impossible. But with every inch they dropped there was less water, more black air, and now Pazel could feel the roaring cyclone, tearing along the side of the tower. It would lift them, bear them away like leaves. But Ibjen fought on, kicking with astonishing determination and strength, clawing at the water with his free arm, down and down.

And suddenly Pazel saw his goal. The river had undercut the tower’s foundation; two or three of the mammoth stones had been torn completely away, and dim moonlight shone through the gap. It was a way through the wall, into the center of the ruin.

But they would never make it. They were sliding past the gap already, and now the River of Shadows had replaced the Ansyndra almost entirely: the water felt as thin as spray. Beneath his feet, Pazel caught another glimpse of that vast windy cavern, winding away into eternity. There were walls, doors, windows. Lights in some of them. He saw a mountainscape at sunset; he saw two children with their noses pressed to glass, watching their struggle. He saw himself and Ibjen vanishing into that maelstrom, forever.

Then, from somewhere, Ibjen found even greater strength. His limbs were a blur; his teeth were gritted, and with another blast of clarity Pazel found some last reserve of his own strength. For two or three yards, no more, they managed to move upstream. And just when Pazel knew that he could go no farther, Ibjen shoved him bodily into the gap.

Pazel clung to the stone, found purchase, dragged himself forward. The wind fought him terribly, wild surges of air tried to pull him back into the river. Howling inside, limbs straining beyond any effort in his life, he gained another inch, another foot, then turned and reached for Ibjen—

The dlömic boy was a speck, whirling away down the tunnel. A black leaf, a shade in a river of shades—dwindling, dissolving, gone.

“Hercól,” said Ramachni, “can you leap over the pit?”

Thasha was aghast at the strain in his voice. The two mages were fighting to the death, and Arunis, it seemed, was the stronger. The edge of the pit was now just inches from their toes.

“Not that far, Master,” answered Hercól.

“Never mind, then, I will—”

Ramachni broke off, and his eyes opened. Then Thasha heard it: a whirling, whistling sound. Five feet above their heads, blades had appeared: long, heavy scimitar-blades, parallel to the ground, spinning at unholy speed. Thasha could not count them: maybe a dozen, maybe more. Everyone crouched down, horrified. To reach for one of those blades would be to lose a hand. And now, as she had known that they would, the blades began to descend.

“Well,” said Ramachni, “he has certainly mastered the Stone.”

His limbs were rigid, and his small body shook, and Thasha knew that he was trying to arrest both the blades and the advance of the pit. And yet the blades were still lowering, very gradually. “You had best get to your knees,” said Ramachni.

They got to their knees, but the blades kept coming. They were almost invisible with speed, and through them Thasha saw Arunis gesturing at something beneath his feet, and then—

“Look out!”

Several large fragments of the staircase were moving toward them. Not quickly, not with aim or force; it was as if Arunis had reached the limits of the horrors he could control at once. The first stone dropped motionless before it had traveled halfway; two others fell and slid along the ground, toppling at last into the pit. Then a larger fragment rose, wobbling, teetering, like a stage magician’s clumsy prop. Above, they heard Arunis groan with effort.

The stone flew at them—flew directly at
her
, Thasha realized. She raised her arms—but there was Hercól, pushing in front of her, absorbing the blow. The chunk of stone must have weighed more than he did, and it struck him dead-on. The top edge nicked one of the whirling blades; fragments of stone and steel flew among them; there were cries and sick sounds of impact. And before they knew what harm had come to whom, the blades dropped lower still.

Hercól was unconscious, the stone upon his arm, Ildraquin loose in his hand. Lunja was bleeding from her mouth. Earth crumbled into the pit, a little here, a little there. Among the crouched and bleeding bodies Thasha could no longer see Ramachni. But then she heard his voice in her mind.

I cannot stop him, Mistress. If you would help me, do it now
.

Mistress? Help him? What could she do? He was mistaken; Arunis had fooled him like he had fooled everyone else at one point or another. She was not Erithusmé and never had been. She was a mortal girl in a trap. Weepy, weak, besotted with a boy who might already be dead, caught up in a fight that was never her own. Why had they lavished their love on her, their efforts, their belief? She heard the Mother Prohibitor’s voice from her old, detested school, and knew that the ancient woman had, after all, known her better than she’d known herself.
Failure is not an accident. Not a thug who grabs you in an alley. It is an assignation in a darkened house. It is a choice
.

They were all pressed flat. Thasha suddenly found Neda gripping her hand, saw that she and Cayer Vispek had reached for others as well. They were praying, praying in Mzithrini. Why hadn’t she studied the language harder? Pazel would laugh. It was a farewell, wasn’t it? Something about knowledge in the last hour, peace when the fight was done.

Some of them had been cut; a mist of blood haloed the blades. Neda turned her head to Thasha. “I am glad to die with you, warrior,” she said. “I am glad you loved him, while you could.”

Something in Neda’s voice changed Thasha forever. There was no sign of daybreak, yet she was flooded with light, with certainty. She knew who she was, and who she had been; and she knew that Arunis had been right to fear her. She could have swept him away like dust from her hands. She could have seized the Stone before he lifted a finger, pounded his body a mile into the earth, hurled him into the clouds and let him fall. She could feel the edges of that power, almost taste it on her tongue. It had slumbered inside her, untapped for years, laid away like firewood against the winter, this winter, this moment of need.

Thasha’s eyes streamed with tears. All that power was waiting, but not for her. Yes, she had been Erithusmé. And Thasha Isiq—that girl had been an invention, a disguise, a hiding place when the sorceress stood cornered by her foes, expecting to be killed. Cornered (it must have been) very close to the big house on Maj Hill, in Etherhorde, where lived one admiral’s wife, Clorisuela Isiq, longing for children she could never have. Thasha could picture the bargain:
a daughter born sound and healthy, in exchange for one chamber of her mind in which to hide my soul
. A pact between mage and mother, both desperate in their way. Had they known, even then, that they were creating a hollow shell, a child whom Erithusmé would slowly replace?

But like most desperate schemes, this one had failed. For the shell had
wanted
her life, wanted to breathe and dance and learn and love, and Erithusmé had been powerless to stop her. Year by year the mortal girl’s mind had grown stronger, bolder, and the great mage had retreated. As with the Waking Spell, Erithusmé had misjudged the riotous strength of life, its habit of mutiny, its defiance. Thasha’s mind called out to Ramachni, vicious with despair.
If only I had withered, died inside, the way you wanted. Then you’d have your champion, then you’d win
.

He answered fiercely:
No, Thasha! That was never the plan!

But of course it was. Erithusmé would have had a new body, just as Arunis had once seized the body of a prison guard. And the whole, pointless shadow-play of Thasha’s life, from her first breath in the midwife’s hands to her shudder of joy in Pazel’s arms—would have been expunged, spat out, blackened and unmade.

I’m so sorry, Ramachni. I can die for this fight. I can’t go back and not have lived
.

Thasha, you have felt her power; it is yours and yours alone, if only you—

No!

She blotted out his voice—and that other voice, that woman’s. They were trying to take everything from her. Past, future, lovers, life. Worse, they were trying to make her renounce it. Maybe she could wish that her soul had died, leaving her body for Erithusmé. But she hadn’t. She was here, a woken animal called
human
, and she would live until those blades struck her down.

“Hold fast!” cried Vispek suddenly. “Neda and I are going to stand up. Our bodies may stop the blades, or deflect them—”

“No!” cried the others, trying to restrain them.

“Do not interfere! There is no other—”

“Wait, Cayer,” said Ramachni.

Atop the wall, behind Arunis and the idiot, a third figure appeared. It was Pazel, crawling up from the inside of the wall, rising unsteadily to his feet. Stealth in his movements, Fiffengurt’s blackjack in his hand; and just as Thasha felt the first nick of the whirling blades he stepped forward and struck the idiot a crushing blow to the head.

The blades were gone. The pit was gone. On the wall, the idiot crumpled, and the Nilstone slipped from his fingers. Arunis whirled and lunged at Pazel, lifted him by the neck—then tossed him down again as he saw his prize rolling slowly, inexorably, toward the edge of the wall.

Thasha gasped: her despair was gone as well. Everything had slowed except her mind, her hammering heart. She saw Arunis diving for the Nilstone; saw her hand groping along Hercól’s twisted arm, saw the mage seize the Stone and topple with it over the wall, saw herself sprint forward to meet him, weightless, almost laughing. She saw his lips move, his hands blackening where they gripped the Stone; saw a dark hole open in the river and something leap like a fish into the sky; saw the perfection in herself as she swung Ildraquin and severed Arunis’ head from his body before he struck the ground.

A Fighting Chance

When they gathered around her she said nothing. Daybreak was nearing after all; the sky over the tower glowed, lamplight through musky wine. The corpse of the mage looked like any other. The Nilstone looked like a hole in the world, lying there on the grass between her knees. She could feel its draw, its invitation. Once before it had been her servant, and it would be so again. For a price.

Hercól was helped to her side; he bent down stiffly and kissed her on the brow. The others murmured, praised her deed. All save Pazel, who was still atop the wall, shooting glances at her, then looking quickly away.

Ramachni came next. His tongue flicked her arm like a tiny paintbrush. “Dearest,” he said, “can you have believed that I would join any scheme to make you wither and die?”

She gave him no answer, not even a glance.

“Mind you,” he said, “what I
did
agree to gave me no joy. And the only person in all this world who could have persuaded me was you. I think you understand, now. We were minutes from death. Arunis had killed nearly everyone who opposed him, and wounded us terribly. His foul servants had chased us over land and sea, and cornered us at last in Etherhorde—on Maj Hill, to be exact. They were moving door to door, sniffing like bloodhounds, and he was there among them at the height of his powers. We had to think quickly, Mistress, and our options were few.”

Pazel touched his throat, wincing. He could still feel Arunis’ fingers, dry and cruel as talons, and knew the mage had been on the point of snapping his neck. He sat down carefully atop the wall. They had done it, they had killed him. He had stopped believing the moment would come.

The first to reach him was Ensyl. She ran to his side, lifted his hand with effort, kissed his palm. He managed a brief, bone-weary smile. Ensyl ran across the wall and looked down.

“An inner staircase! So that’s how you managed the climb. But Pazel, where is Ibjen? Did he drown?”

Pazel shook his head. “The River took him. He could be anywhere, in any world. The same thing would have happened to me if he hadn’t pushed me through that gap.”

Ensyl was silent a moment, then looked over her shoulder again. “You have killed the idiot,” she said.

Pazel looked at the pale, twisted body. In death so very human. A prisoner, with a prisoner’s filth and hair.

“Diadrelu said we’d all be killers before the end,” he said. “I was always afraid she was right.”

“In a strange way, the idiot helped you do it, by knocking you into the river,” said Ensyl. “I wonder if some part of him wanted it. To be a
tol-chenni
is surely a fate worse than death.”

Pazel shuddered. He looked down at Neeps, crouching at Thasha’s side. They would cure him. They had to. It was impossible even to consider that they might fail.

“Admiral Isiq was away at sea,” said Ramachni, “and the servants gone for the night. Clorisuela was alone. You bargained quickly, Mistress. You offered her a child: the one she could never have by natural means. But your power had limits. You could induce Clorisuela’s body to form a new child in her womb, but you could not give that child a soul, as Nature does in her omnipotence. The only soul you had to offer was your own.

“But Clorisuela wanted nothing to do with creating such a creature—an infant with a mind twelve centuries old—and no entreaties on your part would move her. She said that it was perhaps time for your long life to end. ‘And if not,’ she said, ‘if you truly wish to hide within a daughter of mine, then you must
become
her. Change your own soul, and make it like that of a newborn. Hide your memories and your feelings and your magic away not just from others,
but from her as well, entirely
. Give her sixteen natural years—and one more after that to learn the truth. And finally, when those years have passed: let your memories and mind return to her only if she wants them—purely, and with no compulsion, and no regrets.’ Those were Clorisuela’s terms. And you, Mistress, called them just, and agreed.”

Thasha stared into the blackness of the Stone. She was dimly aware that Neeps was beside her. His bruised hand on her shoulder, his lemon-smell, his appalled face turned to Ramachni. She saw Neda come and bend down beside her and whisper a short prayer. She felt Pazel’s eyes on her again.

“What was your part in this accord?” Hercól asked Ramachni.

“I pledged to watch over the girl as best I could,” said the mage, “and to help when the time came for her to learn the truth. Yet even as I spoke my promise, Arunis attacked, and our spell of protection around the house buckled at his first assault. The timbers shook; the fire died in the hearth. We could wait no longer. Your eyes, Mistress, fell on Isiq’s old mariner’s clock, and in a matter of seconds you cast a flawless spell. When you opened the clock face, I saw my escape path: a tunnel back to the world I’d left so long ago, to become your student. That clock has ever since been my secret door into Alifros.

“The house shook again, and you turned to me for the last time. ‘Ramachni Fremken, the path to the future is dark, but I think I see you waiting for me upon it, far ahead through war and ruin, in a glade that is sunlit yet.’

“Then you vanished, and Clorisuela gasped and placed a hand upon her stomach. ‘It is done,’ she said, ‘there is a child within me.’ Hearing that, I took my leave.”

“Then it’s true,” said Neeps, putting his arms around her. “Clorisuela
was
your mother. Do you hear me? Thasha?”

She leaned against him in silence. Her hand was still tight on Ildraquin. The sorcerer’s blood was still drying on its blade.

“Why is the girl so solemn?” murmured Neda, stanching a wound on the Turach’s arm. “We have recovered the Nilstone, and killed the greatest enemy of North and South alike. This is victory, is it not?”

Lunja glanced at Thasha. One of her silver eyes was bruised and bloodshot. “It is a victory,” she said, “but not the last one, I think.”

“There ain’t
never
a final victory,” said the old Turach with feeling. “Not till you hang your sword over the mantel, anyway, and settle down to fat. And even then the fight can come looking for you. Remember the Great Peace, Miss Neda?”

The sworn enemies looked at each other. It seemed that either might have laughed, but neither did. “Anyway,” said the Turach, “don’t mind the Isiq girl. She’s just snipped a hairy daisy. The first one’s always a shock.”

Cayer Vispek sat on the grass nearby, bare to the waist. Myett, behind him, was digging splinters from his wounded back. “No,” she said, “it is not yet time to celebrate. Arunis lies dead, but he has left us with the burden of the Stone. And from what I have seen, the wicked are drawn to it, like flies to a feast.”

“There is something else,” said Cayer Vispek. “The dark thing that jumped from the river, and shot away into the sky. What was it? Arunis was looking that way even as he fell—even in the moment of his death. I have an idea that he was smiling.”

The old Turach bent over, spat blood into the grass. “He ain’t smiling now,” he said.

“I kept my promise,” said Ramachni. “I guarded you in secret. But when Sandor Ott killed Clorisuela, I realized that the Isiqs were entangled far more deeply in the fate of Alifros than I had suspected. I was a fool not to have seen it: your choice of them, Mistress, had not been random at all. We knew Arunis wanted the Nilstone, but you saw so much further. How he was using the Shaggat, using Sandor Ott, using the very Empire of Arqual. And given such an enemy, you saw that no fortress in Alifros would ever be sufficient to guard the Nilstone. When you returned you would have to finish the great task of your life. You would have to take the Nilstone beyond this world.

“I did not know all that you intended, or how it was to be done. The
Chathrand
was a part of it: your old vessel, delivered with great reluctance into the hands of that Trading Family, so long ago. And of course this new being, this Thasha Isiq, would prove essential. So I sought help from the few I trusted: the Mother Prohibitor of the Lorg School; and the deposed Empress of Arqual, valiant Maisa, whose strength and goodness reminded me so much of your own.”

“And Maisa,” added Hercól, “gave me into your service, Ramachni. At last! At last I know whom I have been guarding, teaching, scolding all these years.” He looked at Thasha, and though his voice held love and even humor, there was caution as well. “I might have sparred with you more gently, mage, if I had known my peril.”

Ramachni sighed and bowed his head. “
That
, Mistress, is the story of your birth. By which I mean your rebirth, of course.” He looked up at her with his piercing eyes. “But I think I am only confirming what you know. For surely you have called your memories back? Are you not yourself once more, Erithusmé?”

He did not see it; perhaps he did not dare. But Hercól should have understood, if he had seen her strike Arunis down. It was no magic, no wizard’s spell. The calm, the focus, the timing of her sprint and swing. Not a step but as he’d taught her. No tools at her command but his own.

They were patient with her—she still had not moved or spoken—and she knew that for a time she must be patient with their unseeing. Cayer Vispek lugged the body of the sorcerer from her sight. Neda carried off the gory head. Hercól took Ildraquin from her hand and carefully rolled the Nilstone away. It left behind a trail of scalded grass.

Neeps scrambled up to the top of the wall. “Come on, you,” he said. “No more larking about up here.”

“I’m dizzy,” said Pazel.

“Then slide on your bum, one step at a time.” Neeps glanced down at Thasha and lowered his voice. “You need to talk with her, mate. She’s not doing well. In fact I’m not sure she’s all there.”

Pazel looked at Thasha for a long time. “I wonder,” he said at last.

Neeps extended a hand to help Pazel up. But just then Ramachni appeared, scurrying up the last steps, nimble again. He sat down on the stone before the tarboys and bared his teeth.

“A fine night’s work,” he said. “Thanks to you we are still on the path we chose together, so long ago. And it is clear to me now that you will let no fear or pain turn you from it. Hold your heads high, dearest friends.”

“Ramachni,” said Ensyl, “what was the thing that leaped from the river? Was it what Arunis was seeking before we attacked?”

“Yes,” said Pazel, before Ramachni could answer. “It was the Swarm. All along he’s wanted to release it. And he managed to, with the help of the Nilstone, just before he died.”

Ramachni’s black eyes closed a moment. “I thought,” he said, “to give you some time to savor this victory, to regain your feet, as it were. But I will not deceive you. Pazel is quite correct. The Swarm of Night has entered Alifros. Only a tiny piece of it, a little clot of darkness. But it does not belong in this world. It exists to guard the borders of the world of the dead, to stop the deceased from returning. Death makes it grow stronger, larger, and to death it will be drawn. But it was never meant to enter the living world, and I fear it will destroy any life it touches. Plants, or animals, or woken souls.”

“Like the Nilstone?” said Ensyl.

“More or less,” said Ramachni. “But don’t you see the danger? The Swarm both kills and feeds on death. The more it kills, the larger it will grow; the larger it grows, the more it will be able to kill, until at last it becomes a black wildfire no power can contain. Arunis may have perished, but his dream of a dead world is closer than ever to coming true.”

The others just looked at him, too exhausted to respond. Pazel was only dimly aware of his aching bruises, his trickling wounds. And the deeper aching of his mind: that he was numb to as well. Neeps sank to his knees with a deep sigh. Ensyl placed her palms on Pazel’s leg and leaned into them, arms outstretched, like a runner propping herself up at the end of a race. But it wasn’t the end, not yet.

Ramachni looked from one to another. “Death has gained an advantage,” he said at last. “But take heart, for we have gained two. Arunis is gone, and Erithusmé has returned. The one you called Thasha has made her choice, and opened herself to the mage’s memories and powers.”

“She told you that?” asked Neeps.

“No, she has not spoken. I simply cannot account for our deliverance in any other way.” He looked down at the young woman slumped on the grass. “In the days ahead she will show you the meaning of magic. And you who care for her must give as well. Give her your faith, and your aid. Without my mistress we cannot prevail—that is true beyond all doubt. But with her we stand a fighting chance.”

“I don’t have any more fight in me, Ramachni,” said Neeps.

“Then sleep,” said Ramachni, “and fear no evil tonight. Dream of your Marila, and the child you will one day hold.”

“Ramachni,” said Pazel, “I saw the Swarm in the temple of Vasparhaven, in a
nuhzat
dream. It was huge, like a cyclone. How long do we have before it grows so large?”

“That will depend on how much death it finds to feed on.”

Ensyl looked down on the bloody earth. “And that, perhaps, is why Arunis has labored so long to plunge this world into war.”

A silence. Neeps and Pazel were struggling to do as Ramachni wanted, to hold up their chins, to have faith. Ramachni for his part was watching Thasha intently, as though waiting for a sign. “Death will feed the Swarm, and war and hatred will feed Death,” he said at last. “But there is another force in Alifros, a healing force, and it falls like rain upon the wildfire.” He turned and fixed his black eyes on Pazel. “Get to your feet now, lad,” he said.

She sat in the grass and watched them descending. Ramachni scrambling ahead, then Neeps with Ensyl on his shoulder. Pazel took his time, but still she dropped her eyes after a moment, because the fool was seeking them, rather than a safe path down the broken stairs. That would be Pazel. He’d pass alive through the Nine Pits, and in the end still trip on his shoelaces. If he had any.

Cayer Vispek sang her a praise-song in Mzithrini, and Neda knelt and said that they were sisters, that their love for Pazel had made them so, that Thasha’s children would have a godmother when they came. Thasha kept her eyes on the grass. There is hope downriver, Ramachni was saying; there is a place no evil has ever touched. Echoing words he hadn’t read, giving her and the others a direction, a way out if they could find it. She felt the touch of his paw, the searing love he had for her, frozen in a being who could never love the way she thought of it, the senseless joys, the private laughter, the smell of sweat and cedarwood and the tree’s rough bark against her back.