Shadowheart

by Tad Williams

  Something stirred in the depths of the shadows; even with an incomprehensible weight of water pressing down on him from all sides Barrick could feel it in his bones. Whatever it was, it had become restless. Awake, angry, it could pull down mountains.

  As panic rose, something else drifted up in him, too—not the voices of the Fireflower, which had become almost ordinary, but another voice, thin and quavering—a memory of Father Timoid, reciting the Erivor Mass, words that he had forgotten he knew.

  O Father of the Waters,

  Whose blood is the green water

  Whose beard is the white wave

  Who raised up the land

  Who is the master of the flood

  And the father of tears

  Who lifted Connord and Sharm

  From the mud

  Who lifted Ocsa and Frannac

  Out of the ocean wrack into sunlight

  So that the people could live

  And the grass could grow

  O Father of the Waters,

  Who calms the storm

  And guides the boats safe back to harbor

  Who sends his fish into the nets

  Of Glin’s children

  Who sends his winds to fill the sails

  Of Glin’s children’s boats

  Who lifts his hand

  To bring the waves gentle upon the shore

  We praise you.

  We praise you.

  We praise you.

  Give us your blessing

  As we give our thanks to you.

  And as the last oh-so-familiar word fell down into the blackness, the great shadow stirred again and slowly drifted backward into deeper dark. The presence that had, merely by existing, almost squeezed Barrick breathless began to recede from his thoughts, from his senses.

  Thank you, Great Lord. It was Saqri’s voice, and to his astonishment there was a teasing lilt to it, like a cheeky girl taxing a beloved older relative. Thank you for your help, both to bring us here and to send us a little farther on, where the air is not so damp . . .

  Send us? Barrick thought. Where? Hasn’t there been enough sending and coming and going . . . ?

  He and Saqri began slowly to rise. The green grew brighter, the streaks of light smearing into one general circle that glowed high above them like a burning jade sun.

  Barrick rose, and as he did the voices of the Fireflower woke again into what seemed a chorus of alarm and wonder, as though the darkness of the depths had made them somnolent, but the growing circle of light had wakened them.

  Above the green . . .

  Saved by the spawn of Moisture!

  No! Do not trust them . . . !

  And then the light widened overhead, swift as a brushfire sweeping across a hillside, brightness that expanded to swallow him up as he broke out of the green and into the dazzle, splashing and gasping for air. He discovered there not the unbroken sea as he had expected, an endless expanse of waves, but a jut of rocks and beyond that the dim shape of something he had not seen in so long that he almost could not recognize it, especially as the voices inside him grew to a singing crescendo.

  The Last Hour of the Ancestor . . . !

  We see it again! Praise to the honorable Children of Breeze!

  May they dwell in bliss!

  Jutting on the horizon like a mountain range whose peaks had been whittled into sharp points, blasted white by the sharp morning sun so that it seemed sculpted in ice, loomed Southmarch Castle, the only home Barrick had ever known. It no longer seemed familiar to him, but had instead become something beautiful and strange.

  It frightened him.

  Something boomed nearby, loud as thunder, catching him completely by surprise. It happened again but now he saw a plume of smoke on the shore. Cannons! Someone was firing at the castle.

  He stopped paddling for a moment in surprise and sank back down into the waters of the bay. Only then did Barrick realize his mouth was hanging open.

  Coughing and spitting and sputtering, he almost slipped back under the water again until he heard Saqri’s voice, so loud and firm that it was like a hand grabbing his collar.

  Swim, fool child. Swim to the shore.

  Shore? Even the closest part of the bay’s edge was too far away, and that was where the cannon was being fired!

  Not that part, Saqri told him. Tiring now, Barrick paddled and kicked himself in a tight circle to look around, but he could see no trace of her. He did see something else, however. Yes, she said. There. Swim.

  With his back to the land and his shoulder toward the castle, he could finally see it—another lump of stone that didn’t stretch as high above the waves as the castle mount but was washed by the same breezy, white capped bay waters. He had not seen it in so long that it took him a moment to recognize it, even after he made out the angular shape of the lodge at the top of the hilly island.

  M’Helan’s Rock!

  Barrick summoned his weary strength and began swimming.

  9

  The Thing with Claws

  “After many adventures and perils he was taken up at last as an unlawful beggar by the guards of the city and brought before the magistrates. Because the Orphan could show no such crippling injuries as he pretended, he was sent as a slave to the temple of Zuriyal ...”

  —from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”

  “THERE’S NONEED FOR YOU TO GO FARTHER, Captain,” Sledge Jasper told Vansen. “Truth is, some of these tunnels may be too small for you.”

  “We’ll see, Wardthane. Carry on, I’ll follow.”

  The other Funderlings, five more new-minted warders, looked from Vansen to Jasper in worried anticipation. They all carried gurodir, heavy stabbing-spears with broad iron spearheads and shafts of precious oak, a war weapon something like a boar spear. It had not been in common use among the small folk for a long time; now every single one that could be found in Funderling Town had been repaired and pressed into service, and more were being made. Even Vansen carried one, although he also kept his dagger and scabbarded sword for their comfort and familiarity.

  He waved his hand to pass leadership of the patrol to Jasper, then let the others file past him into the Moonless Reach. The most recent patrol through the caverns, led by one of Jasper’s most trusted men, had gone out that morning and not come back.

  As they stepped out of the broad main tunnel, which was illuminated by dim fungus-lights at irregular intervals, Vansen reached up to make sure he was wearing his coral lamp. He had discovered that the Funderlings did not always remember that he could not see as well as they could and he wanted to make sure he didn’t walk into any unexpected pits or low-hanging rocks.

  “You mark my words, Captain,” Jasper said quietly as they made their way across the middle of the great chamber, so full of man-high stone towers that it looked like a hall of frozen dancers, “it’ll be the fairy what done it, whatever’s gone wrong.”

  Vansen was confused. “What are you talking about? It’s the southerners we’re fighting, now—the autarch’s men.” Had the entire peace council with the Qar fallen on deaf ears?

  “Talking about that half-drow my men took with ’em. I don’t trust that langedy-leg fellow.”

  The “langedy-leg” fellow had been a Qar of sorts—one of the Funderling cousins known as “drows”—a scout named Spelter who was a bit taller and longer of limb than Sledge Jasper’s folk. Spelter and any of the other drows who were familiar with the tunnels of Midlan’s Mount from the last few weeks’ siege had been joining the Funderlings on their patrol. “What, you think he did something to them?”

  “He had a foul look,” said Jasper stubbornly, pulling off his helmet to wipe sweat from his bald head. It was beginning to get warm as they moved away from the tunnel that led up to Funderling Town. Up? Vansen wondered if that could be right. They were certainly above the Temple, but were they still below Funderling Town or just off to one side of it? He again found himself muddled by the wa
y the Funderlings underground world fit together.

  “But see now, Sledge,” he said, raising his voice a little higher so that the other warders would hear him, too. “I know you don’t trust them, but why would the Qar bother to stay and betray us? It would be so much easier for them simply to leave us to fight the autarch ...”

  He never had the chance to finish. Something hammered him hard in the back and knocked him forward so that he spilled Jasper and several of the warders like skittles. Vansen lost his spear and was feeling for it when something grabbed his collar and wrenched him another few paces across the stony cavern floor.

  “What . . . ?” He struggled to his knees, but before he could turn to see what had grabbed him, a nightmare shape lurched out of a dark place along the wall, a glowing obscenity that Vansen could not even understand, twice as big as a cart horse and with more legs than anything that large should have.

  “Perin’s Hammer!” he shouted in sudden fright, shoving himself upright and stumbling backward from the huge creature so quickly that he lost his balance and fell down again. All around him the Funderlings were also retreating, howling in dismay and amazement.

  It was a monstrous spider or insect, something Vansen could not recognize and would not be able to see at all except for its own green-blue glow. It lumbered toward them with frightening speed, its armored body making a noise like the creaking of bellows-leather; when he saw it whole, he wished he hadn’t. The indistinct outline had not only spiderish legs but claws like a crab’s and some kind of huge tail swaying above its broad back.

  “Have you fire?” a voice said from behind him. “They fear it a little. I chased one away with a torch, but that has long burned away.”

  Vansen put a large, round stone between himself and the creature, then took a swift glance backward. The light from his coral lamp fell onto a strange, long-jawed, bearded face—the Qar scout, Spelter. “No fire,” Vansen said. “Where is the rest of your company?”

  “Dead or lost.” Spelter spoke the language surprisingly well—one of the reasons he’d been chosen to travel with the Funderlings, no doubt. “We were separated hours ago when the first of these things came out of a tunnel and took the leader and two of the others. Crushed them with its claws. The rest scattered. I tried to get back to Ancestor’s Place, to our temple-camp, but found this thing between me and the way back.”

  “That was you who grabbed me, then?”

  “Yes. I heard your voices coming. I did not know exactly where it was waiting, and I was afraid to call because it hunted me, too.”

  The creaking, whistling monster abruptly tried to clamber up onto the boulder that shielded Vansen and the drow; the monster’s scent, musty and slightly fishy, filled Vansen’s nostrils. Its huge claws clacked above their heads as he and Spelter scrambled backward. Vansen thought for a moment that they might be able to make a run for the passage that had led them to the chamber, but the creature backed down off the rock and began making its slow way around the wide boulder again, searching almost blindly. Then it lurched forward again, astonishingly fast, this time scraping around the side of the rock where Vansen couldn’t see it; an instant later it scuttled back with a screeching Funderling warder in its claw. The little man struggled helplessly, and although his comrades stabbed at the monster with their heavy spears, the blows could not penetrate the thing’s armor. The Funderling was pulled into the dark region at the front of the head. Vansen heard a hideous crunching noise, and the screaming abruptly stopped.

  Sledge Jasper had managed to climb up on top of the boulder, where he was stabbing almost dementedly at the creature. It spread its claws and lifted its front section onto the rock, then the long, lumpy tail quivered as if in preparation for a strike. Vansen jumped up and caught at Jasper’s clothing, yanking backward so that the Funderling fell on top of him only inches ahead of a swipe from the deadly tail. Vansen could smell the venom, a sour, hard smell like hot metal. Some of it spattered onto Sledge Jasper, who screamed and began writhing on the floor as if he’d been burned. The Qar, Spelter, leaped to help him.

  Vansen stood. “We can’t let it keep us pinned down!” he shouted to the others. “Get out into the center of the cave!”

  He led the warders to a spot in the middle of a small forest of stone spikes. He grabbed at one with his hand and was able to break off the very tip, but decided that the spikes were thick enough to give some protection. He turned back to help Spelter drag Jasper into the center of the open space he’d chosen, then quickly set the terrified Funderlings into a tight-packed arrangement, spears pointing outward like the spines of a hedgehog.

  The monstrous, green-glowing thing came stilting toward them again but could not immediately pass between the stone spikes. It stopped short a few paces away from Vansen’s side. He leaped out and stabbed hard at the place he thought the thing should have eyes, but his gurodir only skimmed off hard plate. The tail lashed at him. He danced back out of its reach and his coral lamp fell off his head. Strangely, the monster’s glow dimmed, as though some inner light had guttered and almost failed. Vansen snatched up the headband and jumped back into the forest of stones, putting his back against the nearest Funderlings as he pulled his lamp into place. The creature was glowing brightly again. It was too big, too strong, too well armored. Vansen could see no way to defeat it.

  But what else could they do except fight? From what Spelter had said, this many-legged beast was not the only one of its kind, and even if they could hold it off, that would only bring more unsuspecting Funderlings out in search of them, no better armed against such a horror than they had been.

  What would be useful against this thing? Fire, likely—Spelter had said he drove one away with a torch. But what else? It seemed like nothing short of a rifle ball would pierce it and the Funderlings did not have such things. There was Chert’s bombard, the one that had devastated the attacking Qar, but they hadn’t brought one of those along on this expedition. Still, if they survived, it would be something to think about . . .

  So—spears and my sword, and a few rocks. If they couldn’t beat the creature with the long, strong gurodir spears, they certainly weren’t going to be able to kill it with a few small stones . . .

  A sudden idea came to him—an unlikely one, but Vansen was growing more desperate by the moment. The many-legged monster had tired of trying to butt its way through the stalagmites and was attempting to climb over them instead, and was slowly, awkwardly succeeding. The faces of Vansen’s Funderling allies were full of hopeless terror.

  “Spelter,” he called to the Qar scout. “How is he?”

  The langedy-legged man, as Jasper had called him, looked up. “He’s burned, but most of the venom is on his plate. ...” He jabbed at the armor with his finger where it lay in a heap beside Sledge Jasper, who was murmuring and twitching as if in a deep fever.

  “Leave him. One of the others can see to him.” Vansen told the drow scout what he wanted him to find. “I can’t see well enough, Spelter, but you can. Go, find it for us! We’ll keep the thing’s attention here.”

  Spelter went so quickly that he seemed to vanish like a ghost at dawn. Vansen turned back to the rest of the men, who were crouching as far back from the approaching beast as they could. “Spears up and jabbing!” he ordered. “If you can’t find something soft to jab at like a joint or an eye, just whack at the cursed thing as hard as you can! And shout!” He didn’t even know if the creature had ears, but he was leaving nothing to chance.

  The monster was almost upon them, teetering on a high spike of rock, legs flailing as it sought purchase to pull itself off the pinnacle. The shouts of Vansen and the Funderlings became louder, fueled by panic. The thing actually caught one of the warders in a sweeping claw, but with the Funderling in its grip it could not pull its claw-arm back. Two more warders leaped at it, prying at the crablike claw until the wounded man fell out onto the ground, gasping and coughing, bleeding in a wide band across his chest where his mail shirt had been crushed
against his flesh.

  The monster tipped and slid backward a little, then could not get up onto the pointed stone again. Heartened, the Funderlings redoubled their efforts, cracking on the beast’s armor so hard with the ends of their heavy spears that they made a noise like high-pitched thunder in the echoing cavern.

  Vansen had his spear in one hand and his sword in the other. Once he even managed to get his spear into the thing’s bizarre mouth, but could not drive it in more than a few inches, and although the monster shied back it did not seem badly hurt. Another moment he saw a black spot that he thought must be an eye on the side of the weird, flat head, but when he tried to reach it with his sword, the beast almost took his head off with a flailing leg and he had to retreat behind a stalagmite.

  Vansen was tiring and knew the Funderlings were tiring as well, but the monster did not seem to tire. They were running out of time.

  The creature took a few many-legged steps back to find another angle of attack, and as it did, it moved beyond the Funderlings’ reach. The clatter of spear on shell stopped, and in that moment of comparative quiet Vansen heard Spelter calling them: “Here! Here! Come now!”

  “Follow his voice,” he hissed to the warders, then bent down to scoop up the small but solid body of Sledge Jasper and toss him over his shoulder. “Go—now!”

  The Funderlings ran deeper into the cavern, away from the center where the stone pinnacles sprouted everywhere. Only a moment passed before the monster realized what they were doing and came legging after them.

  “Here!” shouted Spelter. He was standing near one of the sloping walls of the cavern, half-hidden behind a large, mostly rounded stone many times his size which looked to have been rolled there when the world was young by some god playing at bowls. “Here, help me!”

  Vansen got there last and carefully lowered the senseless Jasper to the ground. “It’s too big. We’ll never move it!”