Quantum Shadows

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Is Tammuz around?”

  “He’s rejuvenating himself on the Sands of Time, recalling his distant past as shepherd. He feels better doing that every so often.” Ishtaraath gave the smallest of headshakes. “It’s still masochistic.”

  “Some find it necessary,” replied Corvyn mildly.

  “The Sands are expansive enough to accommodate such necessity and the bodies of those who fail.”

  “The Dunes offer a certain form of immortality, or at least longevity.”

  “I tend to prefer greater certainty.” Ishtaraath turned toward the archway. “You might as well come into the garden, Corvyn.”

  “Since it’s an invitation…” He smiled and followed her.

  The two seated themselves at a table in an alcove surrounded by Damascus roses and clustered bellflowers, a rather odd combination to Corvyn, but the blue of the bellflower suited Ishtaraath, since it matched the color of her eyes, and the shade of the fabric of her jacket and trousers. Despite the white sunlight streaming through the skylights, the garden was cool, and the fragrant air gave the impression of being blue, the blue of long-lost Earth-Eden.

  Ishtaraath tapped her long fingernails on the gold impermite of the table. “You would not have come here, on foot, no less, aerial spirit, unless you had a matter of import to discuss.”

  Corvyn nodded. “An interesting thing happened last night…” He went on to describe the trident and the power behind it, then watched for her reaction, but saw only the slightest of frowns.

  “Have you any idea who dispatched it?” she asked. “The trident’s not a formal symbol from any of the Decalivre Houses. Even Shiva doesn’t use it symbolically.”

  Corvyn did not mention that symbols didn’t have to be mentioned symbolically to be representative … or effective. The trident also represented three points, so to speak, and that trinity did exist elsewhere among the Houses of the Decalivre, in more than a few Houses. “Any of the Ten have the power to do that. Even a few heads of the larger villages of belief might have been able to. I can’t see any reason for any of them to do it, though. Whoever did was powerful enough to remove any aura. I have my doubts that it was DeNoir, though.” He was not about to explain that his doubts were a certainty.

  “But it did penetrate your considerable defenses, it appears,” she added.

  Corvyn waited, then said, “This morning, when I sought future pivots, the aether showed me two images, a dark-haired singer and an older fair-haired poetess. The singer was male.”

  “Both wordsmiths, but opposites of a sort. Designed to appeal to you.” She paused. “You know, you’ve recited a few lines of verse, but never shown me any in written form.”

  He smiled and recited:

  “At the sight of Ishtaraath in green light

  The words of the poets take flight.”

  “Flattery, yet.”

  “But based on what I’ve seen.”

  “Most men would say, ‘based on truth.’”

  “I’m not most men, as you know, and the word ‘truth’ has moralistic overtones that I dislike.”

  “You’ve mentioned that occasionally.”

  “More than I should have.” After the briefest of pauses, he went on. “Neither has any link to the trident, either. Not that I could detect.”

  “That is disturbing. Do you know in which House the two reside?”

  “There was no indication of that.”

  “What did the aether tell you?”

  “They’re about the same. The aether never equates powers.” Corvyn smiled. “You know about them already, don’t you? What about the mirror?”

  “You’re rather difficult to deceive.”

  “Difficult, but not impossible, as you well know. The mirror?”

  Ishtaraath frowned. “Their light balances are identical.”

  “You told me that wasn’t possible. There’s always a difference in illumination between individuals, even identical twins.”

  “Don’t be dense, Corvyn.”

  “You think Jaweau? Their illuminations overlit?”

  “That’s more likely, although Zijuan might do something like that to keep the other hegemons off-balance. DeNoir couldn’t care less, and that would be counter to everything the Maid stands for. They won’t be in Los Santos, whether or not Jaweau is behind either of them. Whoever it is will let them test their mettle away from him.”

  “Him?” Corvyn raised his eyebrows.

  “Do you really think the Maid would stoop to something like this? With a trident, especially?”

  “Why would any of the Ten want change?”

  “Why indeed?”

  Corvyn could have used the irony in her voice as a concealment, so heavy was it that it could have curdled light. “I see.”

  “I believe you do.”

  “Will you inform Lucian?”

  “No. I’ll leave that to you, if indeed you prefer to.”

  Corvyn laughed, a sound more like the soft croak of the raven he sometimes was.

  “I thought not. What will you do in the meantime?”

  “I haven’t visited the Houses of the other nine recently. And I might visit a village or two.” Far better to run to than from. He glanced at the nearest Damascus rose, before his eyes shifted to the blue of the bellflowers.

  “You find the garden intriguing, and you shouldn’t,” declared Ishtaraath.

  “Why not?”

  “I’d think you’d be more attracted to shiny and bright things, things that would glitter in the shadows of your eyrie. Or is your eyrie that dim once within the shadows?”

  “Words also glitter, and not always in the best of ways. That might be one reason why, although I am attracted to brightness, glitter lost its enticement long ago.” He stood, as there was little more to be said, and Ishtaraath had long since lost any interest in wordplay for the sake of wordplay. We tend to refine ourselves to our essences, for better or worse.

  And that was a tendency against which he had struggled for far too many years. “Until I return.”

  She nodded. “Until you return.”

  Living life, be not so proud,

  the raven’s flight is not loud.

  3

  The following morning found Corvyn at the rear of his eyrie, completing a last check of the items in the two cases laid out on the bench in his spotless workroom. Each container was no thicker than a spread handspan. One contained what garments he would need and a spare pair of boots. The other contained items that he hoped he would not need, but could prove useful if he did. Then he looked up at the slender dark man who stood by the door.

  “I will be gone for some time. You and Muninn know what to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Corvyn lifted the cases and took them from the workroom to the adjoining bay, where he slipped them into the concealed spaces in the fenders of the rear wheel of the electrobike, then sealed them in place. Finally, he adjusted his black hat, an uncommon but not unheard-of stedora, and sealed his riding jacket. Then he mounted the electrobike and eased it out of the bay it shared with the seldom-used electrovan, glancing back to make certain the doors slid together to reveal nothing but blank gray stone before turning onto the alleyway heading south.

  The two sweepermen at the end of the block did not even look up as he glided past. Two blocks later, he turned the electrobike west on the Via Excellentia, after first checking to make certain the dubious individuals he had encountered the previous day had not returned. There were no other darknesses lurking in the early-morning light of the alley on the far side of the via. Early as it was, he expected few other vehicles or electrobikes, and he saw but a handful, and only a few sweepers on the walks and streets attending to their chores. The sullen windowfronts awaited the opening of the lightpipes, when the shops would be ready to beguile shoppers.

  The Via Excellentia stretched westward before him, seemingly for milles and milles, narrowing to a white line merging with the endless shops, none of them more than th
ree levels, establishments renowned enough that purchasers had been known to come from far Varanasi or even from the distant headwaters of the River of the Unknown. Some items in his tool case had been purchased in certain of those shops, though not by Corvyn himself.

  Although he traveled at a slightly more than moderate speed, almost an hour elapsed before the last of the shops was behind him, and he passed the twin gray pillars marking the western boundary of the city of Helios proper. The gray stone pavement here turned to white, although the lands of the Skeptics stretched all the way south to the waters of Lake Lethe, and hundreds of milles to the northwest, bordered on the west by the River of the Sun and on the east by the Ragged Mountains, and farther south by the River Acheron. While it would have been far faster to simply follow the other white stone-paved road south along the river part of the way to Los Santos, and then go back upstream along the River Sanctus to Marcion, that route would not suit his purposes. Nor would it allow him to discover how much of a threat the power behind the tridents posed. Was that power merely attempting to enshrine a new faith? Or was it attempting to conquer all other faiths … which the long history of humanity indicated would inevitably result in terror, chaos, and catastrophe?

  Corvyn had a vague sense of foreboding, but just feeling that offered neither insights … nor proof. Only by visiting the cities of the Decalivre could he obtain either. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the road before him.

  Ahead, still milles away, stretching even farther into the distance, were low hills, most of which were devoted to vineyards. Between Helios and the hills were tilled fields, pastures, and orchards, with dwellings and other utilitarian structures set alongside lanes, far more randomly than was the case around Los Santos, or in those cities of the Decalivre situated to the north or northeast of Helios, with, of course, the exception of Aethena.

  He rode past almond orchards, orange and lemon orchards, fields with crops in various stages of growth—seasons on Heaven were largely in name because the temperature and precipitation seldom varied that much over the year in any given locale. In Limbo, below the Edge of Heaven, and in the high reaches of the Celestial Mountains to the north, the same definitely could not be said. But in terms of mildness of climate the vast plateau of Heaven was relatively blessed. If a thoroughly boring climate can be considered a blessing, reflected Corvyn, even as he recognized that such boredom differed in each of the lands controlled by the different hegemons or the chiefs of towns or villages of belief.

  By midmorning he reached the base of the hills, occasionally passing lorries and omnibuses. He saw only a handful of electrobikes, most heading in toward Helios, and exactly one pedal-pushed bike.

  By midafternoon, he was definitely tired of the almost predictable repetition of climbing past lovely, east-facing vineyards to reach a low rise, then descending past woodlots and west-facing terraced fields into fertile bottomland, over a bridge, past more crop-filled bottomland, and then once more climbing past vineyards to another rise, slightly higher than the previous one. This ascent and descent pattern continued until, late in the afternoon, when the sun hung just above the hills generally behind Corvyn, he came to a flattened and paved area on the north side of the road. A waist-high gray stone wall surrounded the pavement, and beyond the wall for a good mille, there were only meadows, because the ridgetop where he paused was the highest point on the road between Helios and Marcion, and the pavement dated back almost to immediately after the Fall.

  Corvyn nodded as he guided his bike off the road and onto the paved area, stopping just short of the wall, and stepping off the bike. He set the bike on its stand and stepped toward the wall. Then he looked back in the direction of Helios, not that he saw anything but the hills. The air was still a trace warmer than he would have liked, with a dusty smell. As he turned to look westward, toward the soon-to-set sun, two women appeared near the north end of the pavement and walked toward him.

  They were anything but simple hikers or followers of the Maid. That, Corvyn could sense, despite their walking sticks and light khaki hiking clothes. He waited until they stopped several meters away.

  The tall blond woman surveyed the electrobike, then Corvyn. “You trust yourself to that? One such as you?”

  Corvyn took her words as those of courtesy, not of knowledge. “It’s not a matter of trust,” he replied equitably. The Lances of Heaven would have turned upon him if he carried the cargo held in the hidden spaces of the electrobike into the skies, just as they had swept the skies of all mechanical fliers or even biotech creations much larger than a human being, unfailingly and invariably, over the eons since the Pearls of Heaven were first strung. “Have you come all the way from the Celestial Mountains? Or elsewhere?”

  The blond woman only smiled.

  “Where is Asgard these days?” Not that he was unaware that currently there were two villages of belief that claimed that name.

  “Where we come from matters little,” responded the second woman.

  “Still seeking Valhalla?” he asked with gentle irony. “Or merely valiant warriors disenchanted with their villages of belief or those desperate to leave Limbo?”

  The blond woman studied Corvyn, and her fingers tightened around the walking staff that was far more than most eyes could see. But she did not speak.

  His eyes turned to her companion. “And you, Kara?”

  Both looked back at him, their deep blue eyes as hard and cold as sparkling lapis.

  “That time is past,” he lied, knowing that such time had never fully passed and that it never would … even after another Fall. “Along with rings of fire … and bronze armor.” Except that their sun-bronzed skin had been enhanced so that it functioned like armor for the two warrior maids who still clung to an almost vanished faith.

  “You think so?”

  “I hope so, Brynhyld.”

  Abruptly, she nodded to her companion, and the two stepped back, then continued walking southward, eventually toward the Edge of Heaven, he supposed, and the descent into Limbo. They would easily reach the trees to the south of the road before the white sun set.

  Corvyn took his time surveying the vistas in all directions before getting back on the electrobike and continuing westward and downhill into the vale immediately below the viewing area, where he stopped at the Ridgetop Inn. He had lost count of the changes in name and décor that the inn had endured, but the present incarnation—that of a mountain villa—was pleasant enough and far more to his liking than had been the chalet-filled small village that preceded it.

  A stocky man, with short blond curly hair and a swarthy complexion, walked out from the receiving chamber to meet Corvyn. “Haven’t seen a bike like that before. Not one built that sturdy. Must draw a lot of power.”

  “Not so much as you’d think. It’s ancient, but it does what’s necessary. That’s true of a lot that’s ancient.”

  “You here for the night?”

  “Assuming you have room.”

  “Plenty right now.”

  Corvyn withdrew the Helios card from his inner jacket pocket and extended it. The name on the card was C. O. Poe—one of several names and cards, all legitimate, insofar as all could draw on Corvyn’s considerable credit balance, and all of which were linked to his biometrics, as were all cards in Heaven, although theoretically and in practice, in most cases, no individual possessed more than one card or one identity. He carried only the one, of course, because scanners would have detected the presence of a second, and that would have caused definite complications.

  The innkeeper glanced at it, then at Corvyn. “Maitre Poe. Looks like you all right. Biometrics match, too. For the night will be twenty. My name’s Jared. Jared Hansen. Use my name on the inn-net if you need anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  After a moment, during which he passed a scanner over the card, the innkeeper asked, “Where are you headed?”

  “Where the road takes me. Marcion for a beginning. Have you heard any news fro
m there?”

  “Nothing that’s not netwide.”

  “I saw a pair of Valkyries walking the ridgetop toward Limbo. That’s a long trek.”

  “If they’re Valkyries, they’ve got time.”

  “You see many?”

  “Every so often some traveler sees some. I can’t say I have.”

  Most likely because you don’t look. “How long have you had the place here?” Corvyn knew it had been less than ten years, because that was the last time he had stopped at the inn, and old Samaha had been running it. While Corvyn hadn’t cared for the chalet style, he had liked Samaha.

  “A little over eight years. Samaha was my uncle. No one else in the family wanted the place. They all liked home.”

  “Where is home?” If he had to wager on it, Corvyn would have bet it wasn’t Helios. Samaha had never said where he’d come from, and Corvyn had never felt the need to ask.

  “Nauvoo.”

  That did surprise Corvyn, given that the inhabitants of the overlarge village of belief that claimed that name and had sought to be a full House of the Decalivre—and failed—seldom ventured beyond their lands, not since the time of the pogrom of the missionaries, when all the cities of the Decalivre—and the Lances of Heaven—had forcefully reinforced the point that beliefs were restricted to their lands. Not only that, but innkeeper Hansen didn’t have the always-cheerful smile that so many Saints had, even if he did have the blond hair. But then, neither had Samaha. “Why did you want the place, then?”

  That question brought a rueful smile. “Let’s say that Nauvoo didn’t have the same attraction for me and my partner. He and I felt a change was for the best.”

  “But Helios was a bit too different?”

  “You might say that. Ridgetop suits us fine. Your room is sixteen. Bottom level on the far end.”

  “Is the café still open?”

  “Open now, until midnight. Open at dawn.”

  Corvyn nodded.

  He rode the bike the hundred meters or so to just before the door to his room, then stopped and got off, looking up into the deep rose sky of early twilight. He could just make out the five visible Pearls of Heaven evenly spaced out across the sky, each a silvered pink, just half of the ten circling the world beyond the shields. They’d shine a brighter silver once true night fell.