Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  The tailboard fell with a crash, the cover was thrown back. A guard sprang up, and jerked a thumb. ‘Out!’ he said harshly. ‘All you!’ He kicked the nearest girl and dragged her out by her hair, the others hastily sliding after her. Savi, looking down for her footing, saw neat cobbles slick with black water, pooling between them, mirroring …

  The cobbles hurt her feet, but she hardly noticed.

  She looked up, up, devouring the vision she had only glimpsed from below, and that from a distance greater than she guessed. She stood now at the apex of a low hill, an outcrop at the high end of the little vale; but higher still towered the shape that crowned it. To the height of the surrounding snows it rose, with a glittering, bitter beauty that mirrored their own, less remote perhaps, but scarcely less chill, an eerie, inhuman loveliness. So in the tales of her lost childhood the palaces might appear; so to mere mortals a legend might take shape, out of words and fine-spun glass.

  Liquid, almost, it looked; liquid and live, as if it had frozen suddenly in the process of becoming something else, and might any moment flow and change again. It had a tall roof, high-gabled, and beneath that rows of pillars and colonnades any lordly hall might have envied, but it was not regular or foursquare as human buildings are made. Rather, it seemed a single flowing shape in which no part could be detached from a whole that scarcely seemed solid, more like an instant of existence. All of its massive substance was translucent, and about it, within it, light coursed, all shades, all hues in constant change.

  The smoky scarlet of the town below it took and split apart, shattering it with all the cleaner fire of a brilliant gem, scattering it from facet to facet of its endless surfaces. But there were other lights too, shimmering glows that coursed across its tall roof and danced about the rooftree, burned at the gable like lanterns or sank slowly down the walls in a wash of blue like a summer twilight. Behind the columns an inner wall welled deep green as an ice-island in winter seas, then faded swiftly to the grey skies above it, with racing snowclouds. Savi had seen neither, yet somehow she knew what she was being shown, captured there like the tints in smoky quartz. There were no windows, and she guessed it would need none, this luminescent form; but there were high doors gaping blackly, above wide steps of gleaming white stone that gave on to a court of what looked like the same stuff, extending almost to their feet here. And out of the doors, down the steps and across the court beneath, figures were hurrying. Towards them.

  A hand sought Savi’s, and on the other side the princess’s bony fingers entwined with hers. This was new; this was strange.

  Some of the newcomers wore robes, of a fashion she had not seen. Those around them bore arms, the short spears and swords of the raider men; and the same black kilts and jerkins. But though they were all of the Aikiya’wahsa kind and caste of face, with the swarthy red-brown skin and heavy, muscular build, not a single one of them was a man.

  Doubling swiftly across the cobbles, the armed guards gathered around the little knot of captives, their spears held at port. But then the robed women caught them up, and at a word the spears relaxed. A thickset older woman in a fine blue robe moved unhurriedly forward, others fluttering in her wake; and Savi guessed this must be their chieftain, maybe even the one who had ordered them taken. She tripped slowly along the ragged line, looking the captives up and down, and then she snapped a couple of words to the wagon guards. They ducked their heads and turned away hastily, as if glad to, and the stinking cart that had been their cell these past weeks rattled off into the dark.

  Savi had no time to feel any relief. The woman turned back to the palace, and the female guards closed in behind the captives and prodded the girls along with their shields, their faces as harsh and unreadable as any of the men’s. The court and the steps were so shiny even their bare feet slipped, weary as they were. One girl fell to her knees, and a spearshaft slapped her to her feet.

  Then the air seemed to fill with a thunderous yawning roar, and the stairs shook beneath them. The girls screamed; some staggered, others sought to flee in panic and fell sprawling, almost pulling Savi and the rest off their feet.

  ‘Silence, fools!’ snapped the woman in tones as harsh as the raiders, and the guards laughed raucously. ‘Keep feet, or lose them! Happens all times here! Grow used to it!’

  Savi and the princess exchanged swift glances. To grow used to anything they would have to be alive.

  The doors loomed vast above them, like caverns in the Ice, and yet the air was warm, clement almost. Their footsteps echoed startlingly as they were hurried through, and across a dark forecourt beyond, to where a still vaster arch opened up. And at its entrance the coarse-voiced woman Savi had assumed must be the chieftain ducked her head, bowed low as any servant, and stepped aside.

  The woman who stood waiting within was yet another contrast, as tall as the princess and as thin, with a curious cast of face, and a look like chalky water in her eyes, as if she were going blind. Her robe was finer than the other’s, pale grey but glossy and shot with iridescent lights, as if river pearls could be spun for thread; and her hair showed only a few black strands among much the same shade of grey. Silver clasped the robe, fastened her hair, twisted through the fine jewelled fillet about her brow, and she leaned on a short staff of what looked like clear glass.

  To Savi her step spoke of power, her manner radiated command. This was a much worthier mistress for such a hall, a queen of this strange realm. She could almost imagine her some creature beyond the mortal, some legendary enchantress or demi-power. Her image shone clear in the dark floor as she stalked slowly towards them; and she too looked the new arrivals up and down, one by one. Those calcareous eyes seemed to see with little difficulty, and in her clawed hands there was strength. One girl’s rags she tore at, letting her breasts fall free. Another’s chin she tilted back, pulled back her lips to examine her teeth. She lingered when she reached the princess, fingering what was left of her fine fabrics, examining her hands, caressing her tangled hair, and when the princess haughtily shook her off, the old woman nodded as if in deep approval.

  Then when she came to Savi she stopped dead. Her staff tapped the sword that still hung at Savi’s waist, and her thin eyebrows raised in a silent, severe question.

  ‘The chieftain gave it to me,’ stammered Savi. Her throat seemed very dry. ‘After the guards raped some of the others, murdered one. Gave me it, so I could protect the others.’

  The voice was like withered leaves, on a breath of dried flowers. ‘Why you, child?’

  ‘Because … because I killed the guard who did it.’

  ‘Mmmmmh.’ It was almost a sigh. The claw touched her chin, tilted her head this way and that, slid her filthy cape off one shoulder and bared one breast. Her claw touched the nipple. ‘You have not given suck. What age have you, child?’

  ‘Fifteen … my lady.’ She found the right title in the princess’s tales. She wondered if she should bow; and decided she was damned if she would. She felt a flush of anger, and realised it must show. But to her astonishment she was simply patted on the head, and the old woman moved along to the next girl. Her, too, she half stripped, and one or two more; and at the end of the line she clicked her fingers. There was a rattle as of spearblades, some of the girls squealed in terror; but only the foul chains and waistbands fell at their feet, in pieces, and they staggered to catch their balance. Savi, rubbing gratefully at her chafed waist, half expected to see the vile things squirm.

  Instead there was another deep tremor in the earth, somewhere between a sound and a sensation, rising through their feet to shiver almost ecstatically through their bodies. It was a terrifying feeling, as if one were shaken in a vast hand, and Savi herself could not hold back from squealing and ducking, as if the roof might collapse.

  The old woman smiled thinly. ‘You will learn to tolerate that. Nothing but natural forces, I assure you; and held well in check.’ She sniffed her contempt. ‘Down there in the town they will tell you it is the ancient dragon Tugarin, son of
Zamai, that stirs and bellows in his chains; but in all my life I have never seen him. If ever he lived, he is long dead. Here in the palace you must learn clearer thinking. The Great Ice, in whose grasp and upon whose sufferance we all live, lies heavy, infinitely heavy, upon the stone that is the bones of the earth. It forces up the fires beneath, by which we fragile fleshly creatures are kept warm and lit. A tremor or two is small pain to pay for that! Give thanks to the Ice that tolerates us, unworthy as we are, and banish your fears. Our lives are all in the gift of its august masters, whom we live to serve, for as long as they alone please. Go now, and see for yourselves!’ Nodding slowly, she turned away, to the depths of the hall, and bowed as deeply as the other.

  The shields pushed them forward again, out into the hall and across the pale floor, covered with designs Savi hardly noticed. Her eyes were fixed on the back of the great chamber, where the light was sinking now to a deepening twilit blue, so that she almost expected to see stars come out between the line of massive pillars. Instead, as if out of infinite distances, a single arching streak of white light shot across the blue; and with it the shields vanished from their backs. Savi and the others turned in astonishment, to see the young women guards face down upon the mirror floor, their heads in their hands, eyes covered.

  And then the air burst into light above their heads.

  Some of the captives had seen the Northlights before; for they came far south in those days, the heralds and banners of the conquering Ice. But here, beneath the vaulted roof, rippling out over their cowering heads, they were terrifying, like shimmering curtains of flameless fire flung across the hall, their greenish glow turning faces livid and dead. Still more terrifying, because the very air crackled and spat with the forces at play, and the girls could feel their hair ripple and rise in otherworldly breezes, their skins prickle. The women guards wailed in awe and terror as their spearpoints danced and shimmered with answering glows.

  For a moment only the Lights blossomed there, first green, then blue, one colour and another coursing through them. Then their flicker slowed, and they sank down like steam condensing, drew in towards the line of pillars and the steps that led up to them. Suddenly they were gone; and between the middle pillars hovered a deeper glow, a single spinning core of rainbow colours fading to white, a vortex high above the steps. The crackle rose to a singing, agonising note, and within the vortex something took shape, spinning swiftly at first and then slowing, stilling, floating in the void. A form, a human form, framed in a great plume of pale gold streaming out into the void, billowed by that same unseen wind.

  The singing note vanished beyond the edge of hearing. A wind, a real wind filled the hall, rushing and singing, blowing their hair this way and that, plucking at their clothes. Its note seemed to change, to rise and fall; and suddenly it took a tone and timbre, and voiced words.

  I am Taounehtar.

  I am the mistress of this place, and of all the realm about you, and of all whom it holds in thrall.

  And you have been brought here to serve me.

  Down to the steps sank the last bright corona, still shimmering, dazzling, swelling. The glassy pillars caught the light unbearably. Everyone averted their eyes, barely in time. A brilliant flash shone through hands, eyelids, everything, picking out the bones beneath the skin. But then the wind died, the air was instantly hushed. The sense of presence was so strong that Savi simply had to lower her hands and look.

  There upon the stair stood a young woman, and about her, writhing and rippling still, the pale aureole of white gold that was her hair. Such a colour Savi had never seen, and she clapped her hands to her mouth and almost laughed with the sheer beauty of the sight. Quite naked the woman stood, her flesh pale against the deep glow of wall and pillar, and astonishingly fair; yet she seemed wholly unconscious of her nakedness, her stance curiously graceless, clumsy, almost, casting about her with eyes tightly shut. She gulped in air, her breasts heaving as if she were struggling to speak; but her speech, when it came, was still the voice of the wind.

  You are to teach me how to be as one of you.

  You will teach me how to be a living woman –

  The last word was almost a gasp. She staggered suddenly, this vision, her limbs sprawling this way and that, and fell heavily on the black steps. Savi heard her head strike them, quite hard; but she did not cry out or even seem to understand. She curled up like a newborn, shivering visibly; and Savi was astonished to see flakes of frost fall from her bare skin.

  Suddenly stirred, greatly daring, Savi stepped forward hesitantly and, slipping the filthy cloak from around her own shoulders, draped it around the shaking figure on the steps. It slipped off, and instinctively Savi stooped to lift her a little and tuck it in. She felt light, this woman; almost fragile. Her face was blank, unlined; but as Savi touched her it crumpled suddenly into a mask of pain and trouble. The eyelids flew open. The eyes within were utterly void and dark; yet they fixed Savi in a gaze of almost physical force. Her mouth fell open, and she screamed, loudly, like a baby; again, and again.

  Savi turned to shout at the servants, still grovelling at the far end of the hall; but they came running, their slippers slapping on the glassy floor, and gathered around the writhing girl. One tore away the cloak, and slipping off her own smooth robe wrapped it around her, but the girl cast that away, struggling, and they had to seize her limbs as if she were in a fit, leaving Savi holding her tossing head. She retched and tried to vomit, but her stomach was empty; she seemed to lose control of her body with little more result, and her beautiful lips champed with bloody foam as she bit her tongue. Savi wiped it with a fold of the robe, trying to place it between her teeth to prevent worse, and yelped as her own finger was bitten hard; but she found herself stroking that beautiful hair and murmuring words of calm, as she might to a child, as she had to Alya.

  Suddenly, alarmingly, she saw that the eyes were no longer empty. That gaze was fastened on her with frightening, angry intensity. The lips spat out the robe, and hissed in voiceless fury. A hand pulled free, came up and slapped her open-fingered with such force she was sent sprawling back on the floor, her face bruised and burning, the lining of her cheek cut against her teeth. ‘You!’ demanded the voice, and it was no longer that of the wind, but low and clear and forceful. ‘How dare you?’

  ‘I was only trying to—’ wailed Savi; but her face hurt so much that her anger overflowed the words.

  She struck back. The pale cheek cracked like a whip, and the rattle of spears was instant. She was thrown on her face, and cold points jabbed into her back.

  The golden-haired woman sat up on the stair, clutching her bleeding mouth, and whimpered, ‘Made … bite …’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Savi protested. ‘I was trying to stop you doing it! You were flailing about and – and—’

  The woman looked at her askance a moment, and then at the others who were still holding her legs and one arm. ‘So,’ she said, and waved the spears back. ‘Not … easy. Cannot …’ She waved a hand, vaguely.

  Savi guessed that was as much apology as she could expect – more than usual, to judge by the astonished faces of the serving women. ‘Come!’ said the woman slowly, beckoning to Savi. ‘Help. Head … it hurts.’

  Savi was startled to see slow tears roll down that lovely face. She wiped them away, and took the woman’s hand, but she still could not get up. At last Savi had to pull her arm about her own shoulders and more or less hoist her to her feet. Her skin felt soft and warm, more like a child’s than an adult’s, and with the same bready smell. She leaned her head on Savi’s shoulder a moment.

  ‘This shape – not often. Worse … than before. Less … self. More truly … human. Not enough. I forget. Forget what … all does. Cannot will them.’ It was a strange speech, fighting for words, yet still a voice of command, the tones of one accustomed to obedience. ‘Anger … in head. Becomes … fire in blood.’ She paused, breathing deeply, still leaning on Savi. ‘And fear. I struck … fear.’

  S
avi nodded. ‘I do that, sometimes. I understand.’

  Startlingly, the young woman rolled her head round and smiled, a cold, crooked quirk of her full lips. ‘Indeed? Maybe … more human … than I thought. But, to be human … must lose much … of self. That … you … not know.’

  ‘No?’ said Savi softly. ‘Half of myself I lost. When you had me brought here.’

  ‘So?’ The woman looked at her again. ‘You … hate?’

  Not like someone who knows too little of a tongue, thought Savi. She used words that sounded old and learned. Someone who knows too much, and must fight to say deep things simply. ‘Perhaps,’ she answered quietly.

  ‘Perhaps …’ the other echoed. Then she gasped, and stumbled, clutching still at Savi’s shoulder, sinking to one knee. She shook her head, desperately, and tears rushed down her expressionless face, great racking sobs shook her slender frame. The other girls sidled closer, astonished, apprehensive. Whatever any one of them had feared or dreaded, it was not this. Yet the princess reached out to take the young woman’s other hand, almost comfortingly, and the others gathered round, tentatively touching that beautiful, eerie hair.

  The young woman’s voice was a bleak husk, hollow with fear.

  ‘I do this … I must. No other … can trust. All alone. Time since … I was as I am. Now … what? Self, memories … dream. Far away … fleeing. All I could do, all I am. Torn from me. Only … shred …’ She was weeping now, open-mouthed, inelegantly, clawing at the robe her horrified servants were still trying to wrap around her. ‘Hurts! Beast in trap! Alone. Alone … again. Never so. Help. Cannot. You … hate. You … help … me?’

  It was pathetic, and to Savi at that moment the gulf between the eerie vision and this lovely, stumbling child-woman seemed truly infinite.

  Impulsively she hugged her. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘We’ll help you, somehow. I’ll help you.’