The Shadow of Elysium (Shadow Campaigns) (2 page)

The girl sleeps almost all the time. I wonder if she is sick.

The north road is more heavily trafficked than the mountain passes, and we see other wagons or riders once or twice a day. When they are coming from the north, where we are bound, Voryil hails them and asks about conditions on the road.

“Mud,” they say. Always mud.

When southerners think of Murnsk, they picture snowy fields, trees hung with icicles, hungry wolves prowling through silent forests, and rivers frozen solid. But even Murnsk has its summer, however briefly, and we are in the height of it. To either side of the road, the dark green of pine needles has been joined by the brighter emerald of new leaves, while huge, brooding oaks and white birches shed ragged bands of bark. There are flowers everywhere, explosions of blue and red and purple wherever the trees let through a little light, lining the edges of the road as neatly as if they’d been planted there.

With the flowers come the insects, fat droning bees and clouds of butterflies that pass over the wagon like flashing, multicolored jewels. Somewhat less welcome are the biting midges that swarm over exposed skin. With my hands manacled, I cannot even slap at them, so I cover myself with my blanket in spite of the heat of the sun. The girl acquires painful-looking welts on her face and hands but does not seem to notice.

We make very slow progress. The thaw has turned the road into a sea of mud, orange, sticky stuff that clings to the wagon wheels and the legs of the horses. Usually there is solid ground a few inches down, and we can splash along, but the muddy surface conceals deep chuckholes and pools that could swallow a wagon whole. The guards, well versed in this kind of travel, ride ahead and probe the ground with long sticks, steering the vehicles around the worst obstacles. Even so, hardly a day goes by without an hour or two spent dragging a stuck wagon wheel out of a rut.

There are towns along the road, usually where it crosses one of the small west-flowing rivers at a ford or a wooden bridge. The guards stop to buy food, now that the hunting is scarcer, but the wagons never halt until we’re well beyond the crossing. I don’t know if the priest doesn’t trust the townsfolk, or if he is worried a view of some kind of civilization might tempt his prisoners into rashness.

Every day, as the sun sets, the girl opens her eyes and raises her head. She still seems dazed, but she is awake enough to stumble along with the guards when they unchain her legs and take her off the cart to attend to her call of nature. When she returns, they feed her, spooning a thick, creamy broth directly into her mouth. Afterward, she falls asleep again.

I get bread and dried meat, the latter tooth-breakingly tough unless I soak it in my tin cup of water. I watch for a chance to escape, but my hope burns lower now. There are more guards, more miles between us, and iron and steel securing me instead of hemp.

***

Tullo still comes to me, though less frequently. He glances briefly at the sleeping girl, and I wonder if he would rather have her servicing him instead, but he raises no complaint when I bend to my task. The shot of spirit he offers me afterward sets fire to my stomach, but the extra bread is welcome.

***

One night, a fortnight after I was put in irons, something is different. The guards unchain the girl as usual and lead her stumbling into the twilight, laughing at some crude joke. But when they return her, no food is forthcoming for either of us, and she does not return to her sleep. She sits, blinking, against the wall of the wagon, and at last her eyes seem to focus on me.

“Hello?” I say. “Can you understand me?”

She blinks again, swallows, and shakes her head. She has a southerner’s complexion, so I switch from my native Murnskai to Hamveltai. I speak Vordanai as well, though my accent and pronunciation for all the southern languages is atrocious; I learned them from books and snatches of conversations with my father.

“Hello?”

Her eyes widen. When she speaks, her voice is a croak, as though it had not been used for a long time.

“Hello,” she says. “You . . . you can understand me?”

“If you speak slowly,” I say.

“Who are you?” She looks around, still shaking her head as though in a fog. “Where am I?”

“My name is Abraham. I don’t know where we are, exactly. Somewhere on the north road.”

“The north road?”

I wonder how far they have carried her, in her dazed state. “North of the Worldshearts. On the way to Elysium.”

“Murnsk,” she says. There is fear on her face. “I’m in Murnsk?”

I nod. “What’s your name?”

“Alex. Or—” She hesitates, then shakes her head. “Just Alex.”

“Do you know what you’re doing here?”

“I—”

There’s a
clack
as someone unlocks the rear gate of the wagon. Alex stops. A moment later, a robed figure climbs up onto the wagon bed with us. At first I think it is the priest, but his robes are not red but utterly black. He face is obscured by a mask, a layer of thin cloth set all over with faceted chips of black glass. They glitter in the light of the outriders’ torches, shifting liquidly as he moves.

“Good evening,” he says, in Hamveltai. “I see you’re awake, Alex.”

She has pulled herself away from him, as far as her chains will allow. Her eyes are full of hate. The masked man smiles, black glass shifting and gleaming. He turns to me.

“And you. I am told you can understand this tongue?”

I nod, stiffly.

“Good,” he says. “That will save me the trouble of explaining everything twice. My job is to prepare you as best I can for your new lives. Both of you bear demons.” He catches my expression and sighs. “Please don’t attempt to deny it. Even if your use of sorcery were not well documented, this close I can
feel
them. I have a demon of my own, you see. My name is Hunter, and I serve the Priests of the Black.”

“My father told me there were no more Priests of the Black,” I object.

“Your father thought there were no more demons, either,” Hunter says. This isn’t true, but I let it pass. “These days we work in secret, but as long as there are supernatural forces loose to continue to corrupt humanity, our task will never end.”

“Why,” Alex says in her scratchy, damaged voice, and coughs. “Why not kill us? If we’re
corrupted
.”

“That is, you might say, the heart of the matter.” Hunter puts two fingers in the air, like a scholar lecturing a class. “A demon can enter a human in two ways. Either the human can speak the demon’s true name and summon it, or it can make its way to the world on its own and attach itself to some unwary soul, often in childhood. Once it has a host, the demon remains with them for life.”

I will hide him.
I remember my father’s hand, fumbling awkwardly with his pen.
They will not have my boy.

“Each demon,” Hunter continues, “is a singular being. Many are similar, of course, but each is ultimately unique, with its own unique name. They cannot die—if the host is killed, the demon simply waits for its next chance. We still do not understand exactly under what circumstances they emerge into the world on their own, but we
do
know that once a particular demon is attached to a human, that demon will not emerge elsewhere.

“Our holy order, therefore, fights the forces of darkness in two ways. First, we strive to eradicate knowledge of the true names of demons wherever they may be found. Second, when a demon does find a human host, we bring that host to Elysium, where the demon can be contained. Imprisoned, if you like. We ensure that the hosts live long lives, to keep the creatures from taking a new victim for as long as possible.”

“So we’re going to be locked up for the rest of our lives,” I say.

“Yes. And when you die, I’m afraid you are already damned. The
Wisdoms
are quite clear on the subject. But in case you are inspired to attempt anything . . . foolish, let me make two points. First, if you did somehow manage to win your way free, there is nowhere you could go that I could not track you. That is the power of
my
demon. Once it has your taste, it will never let you go. Second . . .” Hunter smiles again, light gleaming in new patterns on his face. “We take great pains to keep you
alive
, but we need not keep you
whole
. A man can live for a long time without hands, or without feet. Or without a tongue. Do you understand?”

I nod, feeling dazed. Alex, who seems to be getting stronger by the minute, sits up a little straighter and says, “If you have a demon, then you’re damned as well, aren’t you? Why would you help do this to us?”

“Because the more of you I lock away, the fewer innocents will suffer eternal torment. I am
Ignahta Sempria
, Penitent Damned. Though my own soul is condemned to hellfire, I do what I can for the good of others.” Hunter shrugs. “You’re both young. Someday you might aspire to join our ranks, if you work diligently and pass the tests. I suggest you spend the next few weeks contemplating what is the best use you can make of your lives, if you’re guaranteed damnation in the hereafter.”

He turns, in a swirl of black, and hops down from the wagon. Two guards arrive shortly thereafter, with our delayed meal. I can lift the bread to my mouth with my linked hands, but Alex is forced to sit and let them spoon-feed her soup, as carefully as a mother tending to a child.

Within minutes, she is asleep again, slumped against the side of the wagon. I chew the stone-hard dried meat and watch her, thoughtfully.

The second time I used my demon, I was fifteen, and just beginning to realize I was in love.

His name was Peter Alivayani, and he was a novice of the Red, sent to Nestevyo to assist our resident priest. In one sense, Peter was the worst possible choice for my affections. In another, my feelings for him were inevitable.

The position of the priest in Nestevyo was a strange one. There was no man more respected, for reverence for the Church ran strong among the villagers. Holy Murnsk had never suffered from the schisms and conflicts that afflicted lesser nations like Vordan, leading them into heresy and disregard of spiritual matters. There was one Church, the Sworn Church of Elysium, and its red- and white-robed priests were the gatekeepers of salvation.

But in spite of this respect, or perhaps in part because of it, the priest was and would always be an outsider. He was not from the village, or any of the villages around the Sallonaik. Elysium’s domain was vast, and a stroke of some functionary’s pen had sent us a man from the western shore, along the Borel Sea, whose accent grated harshly on the ears of the natives.

He was a Priest of the White. When I first arrived in the village, there were two priests, one of the White and one of the Red. The former’s attention was fixed on spiritual matters, while the latter tended to the material needs of the Church—the collection of tithes, the maintenance of Church property, and so on. When I was fourteen, the Priest of the Red completed his term of service and returned to Elysium, and for a time we had only Father Orrelly. He was an old man by then, white haired and bent backed, but with a fine strong voice and an eye for sinful behavior all the village children had learned to mind.

In place of his departed companion, Elysium sent us Peter. He was a novice of the Red, a priest-in-training, and this was his first posting. Managing the business of a remote church like ours was considered good experience for a boy—he was my age—and in the meantime Father Orrelly would continue his spiritual education.

Like his teacher, he was not a part of the village. He assisted Father Orrelly with services, helped the villagers with a bit of basic medicine, and studied books in the stone-walled house attached to the back of the church. The other boys and girls in the village gave him a wide berth, and the adults ignored him. But while Father Orrelly had had years to get used to his solitary life, I think it must have grated on Peter to live in a place where he had no one to talk to except a half-deaf old man. That would explain why he was wandering the day he found me reading in the clearing.

***

As I’d grown up, my relations with the village children had worsened. I was no longer a novelty to be shunned, but a stranger in their midst, and by tormenting me whenever they could they strengthened the bonds of their own community through a mutual enemy. The boys would taunt me when I crossed the village, and if there were no adults about they might push me or hit me to get me to run so they could give chase. The girls made their disdain clear with elaborate gestures, walking around me in wide circles so they wouldn’t have to breath the same air I did, or averting their eyes if they were forced to talk to me.

I didn’t mind, much. I had never had the company of other children, so I did not miss it, though I did not enjoy being pummeled, either. I kept to myself, and unless my father needed me for some errand I stayed away from the village, out in the woods along the rocky shore of the Sallonaik. There was a clearing where a giant old pine had toppled and made a space, and I would bring my books there to read.

My father’s library had expanded over the years. The peddlers who were the town’s main contact with the outside world usually had a worn volume or two on their carts, and they were more likely than most to need my father’s skills. I worked for them too, sometimes, copying out letters and bills, quill scratching eagerly in the knowledge that some new book would soon be mine for the reading. So in addition to the
Wisdoms
and the bare few histories my father had brought with us, I had read whatever had fallen into my lap: biographies of famous kings, romances of the Borelgai court, religious treatises, and descriptions of journeys to strange lands.

The day Peter found me, it was the last of these that I was enjoying. It was
Heart of Khandar
, the story of the Vordanai explorer Merric’s doomed attempt to follow the Tsel to its source, beyond the Great Desol. This was the third time I’d read it, and while my Vordanai was still weak, I was able to puzzle through some words that had eluded me before, so I turned each page with a fresh pleasure. I was so absorbed in the task that I didn’t notice when a shadow fell over me.

“Is that interesting?” the intruder said, eventually.

I shot up like a startled cat, terrified the village boys had invaded my hiding place. Peter was sitting on the fallen log, watching me with his chin in his hands. I recognized him, vaguely, from Sunday service, but we had never spoken before. He was taller than me, with wispy blond hair that stood out from his head like a dandelion puff. He wore the robe of his office, a shapeless gray thing with a red stripe near the collar to mark the order of the Church he aspired to join.

For a moment I said nothing, trying to slow the beating of my heart, clutching the book to my chest. Peter frowned.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did I scare you?”

“No,” I said. “No, I just . . . didn’t expect anyone to find me here.”

“I imagine not,” he said. “We’re pretty deep in the woods.”

His Murnskai had a different accent than the villagers’ did, a hint of a lilt that I learned later was the mark of the far north, of Elysium. It made him sound like he was always half laughing. I looked at him, still suspicious, and said nothing.

“Do you come here often?” he said, gently, with the air of someone patiently taming a wild animal.

I nodded. “The light is good here, during the day. If it doesn’t rain.”

“I like it,” Peter said, looking around. “It’s peaceful. Nothing ever bothers you? The other boys told me there were wolves in these woods.”

I sighed. “They’re just trying to frighten you. The villagers shot out all the large animals around here ages ago. Sometimes you can hear wolves at night, but they’re up in the hills.”

“That’s good to know.” He looked down at the book again. “So. Is it interesting?”

“Fairly.” I shrugged, for some reason wanting to play it cool. “Captain Merric takes his men up the Tsel, fighting crocodiles and natives and never really sure where he’s going. Only he gets the blue fever and dies, and his men have to go back without ever finding the source. Only ten out of thirty made it back to Ashe-Katarion.”

“You know how it ends?”

“I’ve read it before. We haven’t got that many books, so I read them over a lot.” I flushed a bit, embarrassed. None of the villagers have any books at all, of course, but I thought that a novice from Elysium must find my pretensions at literacy pathetic.

“I used to read a lot,” Peter said with a sigh. “The Great Library at Elysium has thousands of books.
Thousands
. Some of them are as old as Karis the Savior. None of the novices are allowed in there, though. Here, Father Orrelly only has the
Wisdoms
, and he barely takes it down from the shelf anymore. He knows it by heart.”

“I read the
Wisdoms
, too.”

“I bet Captain Merric and Khandar are more interesting, though.”

I wasn’t sure if I should answer that truthfully—he was a priest, after all, or would be—but the look of longing on his face was such that I couldn’t help but nod. Then, moved by an uncharacteristically generous impulse and the odd, fluttering feeling that was just beginning to take root behind by breastbone, I said, “You could borrow this. If you promised to bring it back.”

For a moment Peter lit up, but then his face fell. “I can’t. If Father Orrelly found it, he’d scold me, and he might take it away.”

“Then come back here tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll bring this for you to read, and something else for me.”

“Really?”

I nodded, feeling like a prince dispensing spectacular munificence. Peter’s smile made me feel warm, and slightly buoyant, as though I might float away into the midsummer sky.

***

That was how we met, and how we started spending every sunny day reading in the clearing. At first we always sat in silence, reading, but eventually we began to talk a little as well. Peter told me about his life at Elysium, where he’d grown up from a very young age. Classes with the other novices, theology and languages and sums. Endless chores, rebuilding decaying sections of the crumbling, ancient fortress-city. Meeting boys from everywhere in the world that knew the Savior’s grace, Vordanai and Old Coasters and Deslandai.

In return, I showed him my life in Nestevyo, the paths through the woods with which I’d grown so familiar. I knew where the old mother fox lived with her kits, and a place where there was a hollow tree so big we could both fit inside it together, pressed tight and giggling. In the end, I even agreed to take him to the tidal pools, which I hadn’t returned to since that horrible day six years before.

Perhaps I should not have done that. Those pools have been nothing but evil luck for me.

***

Sagamet had lived another four years, then died from what my father said was probably a trouble with his heart. I had sat by my dog’s side, listening to his labored breathing, and in the back of my mind I’d wondered if I could help him, if I could still call up that
cold
feeling of the demon under my skin. But I’d promised my father, never again. We buried Sagamet in the stony soil in back of the house, and I’d cried myself to sleep. Going back to the tidal pools made me think of him again, and my eyes were unexpectedly misty as I led the way through the woods to the rocky shore where the natural basins could be found. Peter followed close behind me.

At his request, we bypassed a few of the shallower pools, where I’d once gone to look for fish and strange artifacts. Instead, I took him to a deeper basin, twenty feet across and full to a substantial depth even at low tide. Getting down to it involved a scramble over a series of ledges of protruding shale, edged with unexpectedly sharp points of rock. My hands were scraped and twinging by the time we reached the water’s edge.

I looked at the water dubiously. It was clear enough that I could see the bottom, and there was nothing more dangerous than a couple of trapped fish. Certainly no salverre. But it was too deep to pick the fish out with our hands, and we hadn’t brought poles or spears. Peter knelt and trailed his hand in the water.

“Brr. Not exactly a bath, but it’s warmer than the stream.”

Then, to my astonishment, he shed his robe in a heap. Underneath he had only an undershirt and breeches, and he was soon out of these as well. Before I could say a word, he backed up a few paces for a running start, paused, and jumped out over the water with a yell. He hit with his knees pulled up to his chest, creating a gigantic splash that flicked spray across my face.

I stared. We didn’t swim in Nestevyo. The Sallonaik was deep, dark, and
cold
, and the villagers who took boats out onto it treated it with an almost superstitious dread. There were worse things than salverre in there, lurking in the depths. I had never been in water deeper than my shins, and watching Peter stroke easily across the tidal pool was as startling as if he’d casually started to fly.

He reached the other side, took hold of the rock, and looked back at me. “Well? Aren’t you coming in? It’s not
that
cold.’

“I don’t . . .” I shook my head. “I can’t . . . I mean, I don’t know how to . . .”

“You don’t know how to swim?” Peter pushed off from the wall and dove under the surface, skinny pale legs kicking for a moment in the air. I watched with mounting horror until he popped back up with a gasp right in front of me. “It’s shallow enough to stand here. Come on, I’ll show you.”

“I’ll just . . . watch,” I mumbled.

“Come
on
,” Peter said. “It’s only water.”

Whether it was his mocking smile or the heat of the summer day that convinced me, I couldn’t say. Eventually, though, after much prodding, I left my own clothes in a pile beside his and slid gingerly into the pool. It
was
cold, but not as cold as the lake; the sun on the rocks had warmed it a little. I had a moment of panic when my feet slipped on the slimy bottom, and Peter caught my hand to steady me.

“Try putting your head under,” he said. “Getting your hair wet feels good.” His dandelion-puff hair hung heavily around his head in thick blond masses.

It took a lot of coaxing, but eventually I managed that. Peter took my hands and convinced me to take my feet off the bottom, kicking so frantically that I beat the water to a froth. He laughed and laughed, and I ducked my face in the water to hide my flushing cheeks. After an hour or so, he had me doing a reasonable dog paddle. I even, breathless with my own daring, followed him out into the center of the pool to tread water over an abyss perhaps eight feet deep.

“Where did you learn to do this?” I said while we were resting.

“At Elysium.”

“I thought Elysium was up the side of a mountain, next to a river of ice that never melts. Wouldn’t you freeze?”

Peter nodded. “There are places where water wells up out the ground, too hot to touch. That’s why Saint Ligamenti built the first fortress there. He was fleeing into the mountains, his men were all freezing to death, and God showed him where there was a spring warmed by an eternal flame. Nowadays it’s all pipes and valves and things. The water goes into these big cisterns to cool, and you can swim in them.” He winked. “If you’re smart enough to get away from the barracks without the priests finding you.”

I laughed. “I thought it was all books and chores.”

“There’s plenty of that, too.” He pushed off the wall, grinning. “Come on. Let’s try to touch the bottom.”

***

When the sun started to slip toward the horizon and the cold waters of the Sallonaik began trickling over the lip of rock separating the pool from the lake, we reluctantly decided it was time to go back to the village. Peter scrambled back onto the rock where we’d left our clothes, and held out a hand to pull me up. We stood for a moment, dripping and shivering but thoroughly happy. It occurred to me, the thought springing from nowhere, that I would like nothing more in the world than for Peter to kiss me.