Cast a Bright Shadow

by Tanith Lee

  Nameless was in Kraagparia.

  Fourth Volume

  TOWER OF THE SUN WITH GOLDEN EYES

  Where does the sun fly, when here he dies?

  Where does the sun die, when here he rise?

  Graffito from the Copper Gate,

  Sham: Gech

  ONE

  Arok had trotted like a wolf over the ice plains. That time now was blurred and alien to him. Like the collision with the White Death that changed the world, though he could not forget it he pushed it to the depths of his mind. Somewhere eventually he had come on a stead of his own people.

  Old men and a crowd of women asked him for news of the Gullahammer and the Rukar war. Ashamed, he said the Borjiy Lionwolf had all the men besieging a city. Arok had been sent back, he told them, for a secret military reason. He was not by then naked. He had killed a deer, brought it down by means of a club he constructed from packed snow – a new skill, as was his durability. He said to the steaders that he had been set on and robbed by Ruk soldiers, renegades who had escaped the city, and so reduced to wearing a foul and uncured skin. There were no boys left at the stead. This depressed Arok. They too then must have died at Ru Karismi, like nine tenths of all the Jafn peoples. The steaders let him take a hnowa from them, to finish his journey.

  All along the north-eastern landboard, it was the same. Where he found a village or a stead – old men, women, now and then a sickly lad or youth who had wanted to go and fight but been kept at home. At least some male children remained, but children might die before they grew up. How long would it take to build the clans of the east again? Centuries? ‘They besiege the Ruk,’ declared Arok, and rode on.

  He came out on to the ice fields, going more northerly now, to Holas land.

  He thought of reaching the Holasan-garth, and of what then he would have to tell. For himself, Arok saw no advantage. He did not want to claim the Chaiord’s chair and rule a blighted people.

  So, he lingered along the shore. In the homespun clothes the first stead had also given him, he waded out on the ice edges. He fished from cracks and channels, while the hnowa, well fed with dormant grain before it began the trek, stood mildly chewing the cud. Their progress now was almost aimless.

  One early evening, Arok spotted a whaler village and, stuck in the ground outside, a post with the Holas emblem of a roaring seal.

  The village was quite deserted, it seemed. Everyone had gone, either with the Gullahammer or away to another village. Then, as the dusk closed in, he noticed a slip of light under one hut door. This was a fisher-hut, for a neglected net, stiff with ice, hung from its outer wall – as, here and there, on other huts about it.

  Arok sat on his hnowa, looking at the hut. He thought he would go in. It was one more delay to keep him from the garth and bad-news-telling.

  ‘What do you want?’

  She was youngish, the fishwife, but worn and uncomely. Nor was she civil, but by now Arok thought he probably had no look of a part-royal Jafn warrior.

  He said he would like a place by the fire for the night.

  She was doubtful. Then came the inevitable second question: ‘Are you from the war?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve a man there. They all went – to follow the golden man with red hair, the Borjiy. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Who, your husband or the Borjiy?’

  ‘Either …’ she faltered.

  ‘Both,’ Arok said angrily. ‘Now I’m coming in.’

  After he had pummelled the hnowa into the hut’s rear – the only stable on offer – Arok glimpsed someone else lying on a rag-bed in the corner. ‘Who?’

  The woman glanced uneasily, and said nothing. Arok decided this second person was also female, and feeble, and let it go. He sat by the fire, watching the smoke go up to the roof, where ancient kippers and ice-bass had been altered by it to leaves of purest bronze. She did not starve, the fishwife, though she had lost her man. She kept a wood store too, fuelled from some forest inland. She brought him beer.

  Outside the dark fell, and pooled in under the door – as the light did the other way. Arok grew heavy. He requested a kipper courteously. Without a word, the woman stretched up and pulled one from its hook. As she gave it to him, the figure on the rags stirred.

  ‘Oh … he is there … oh, he is dying there …’

  Startled, Arok sprung round. He glared at the rag-bed.

  ‘No trouble, sir,’ said the fishwife, ‘it’s only Saffi. She cries out sometimes.’

  ‘What’s she on about?’

  ‘She sees things that others don’t.’

  The hair bristled on Arok’s neck, even along his rough-hacked beard. Dying—

  ‘Is she your witch?’

  ‘No, fishers got her in their nets. She came up from the sea, eleven – twelve years since. Never right in her head. And she lives somewhere else in her dreams.’

  Arok got up and crossed over again to the rag-bed. He lifted a brand he had taken off the fire and held it up to examine the madwoman by its light.

  She was old, he thought. But, no, not so old. Her raddled face must have been fair once. Her hair was yellow as lampglow.

  Now her eyes met his; they were black. For a second he remembered Chillel … that passed. The madwoman stared up at him.

  Then she spoke clearly. ‘You are Athluan.’

  Arok really started now. He knew of Athluan, naturally, the Klow Chaiord who had perished in battle, or was murdered – father or guardian to That One.

  ‘I’m not Athluan.’

  ‘No,’ agreed the madwoman, ‘he’s dead. They die. Men die. But Nameless can never die. How could he—’

  ‘Nameless?’

  ‘My son’s name. But you know him too by another name – I’ve seen … I’ve seen all of it – Vashdran!’ cried the woman. She began to speak hoarsely in the Rukarian tongue.

  The fishwife said, ‘She knows foreign words – or it’s only nonsense.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Arok rapped. ‘I understand her.’ And he did. Since the White Death, he could speak and know like a native all these languages. But he shook. She was talking, this mad Saffi, of the Lionwolf. And she was talking of the city and the silent Sound, the White, the Salt—

  ‘He lived. He lived. Now – now must he die? He’s more than mortal – how can he die? It’s not for him, death – but power and glory everlasting—’

  Something caught in her throat. The madwoman choked, then dropped back. Her eyes shut. She murmured something even Arok could not hear, then slept.

  ‘She slumbers a lot,’ apologized the fishwife. ‘Outland woman!’

  All through the night, as the fishwife sat mending nets, Arok also sat by her fire. He could hear the sea murmur miles away. Once a piece of the ice cracked, but it was not a big crack, not urgent.

  He himself had not slept for countless days and nights, and eventually he thought he should. He asked the woman if it was a sleep night for her, but it was not. ‘Wake me, then, in two hours.’

  It seemed to him he always dreamed now, but the instant he regained consciousness the dreams were blanked from his brain. This had been since Ru Karismi.

  Not tonight, though.

  Arok dreamed a black dog-thing was snuffling round the perimeter of the hut. Dreaming, he ogled it, for it was a type of dog he had never seen. Then a corrit swooped down, a Jafn demon Arok had not come across for a great while – in fact not since leaving Jafn lands. This corrit was like a vicious coil of thin rope. It whipped about the neck of the dog-beast and tried to throttle it. But the dog put up its front paw – as a cat not a dog would do it – hooked in claws and peeled the corrit off. The dog then ate the corrit, with a revolting noise of teeth and corritish objection.

  ‘Wake!’

  I’m awake. Have I had my two hours?’

  ‘No. Something is sniffing about outside. It’s happened before, but now you’re here.’

  ‘I’m not your husband. I don’t have to see to it.’

  ‘You’re
a guest,’ said the fishwife, ‘and noble Jafn.’

  Arok shrugged and got up. He took a fish-gutting knife off the wall. He recalled the dream-dog exactly.

  Throwing open the door, there it was.

  What was it? It was not any sprite or demon he had ever seen or heard of. It had small pointed ears, and a dog’s longish muzzle. Its eyes were not doglike. It was covered in a thick silk fur, and had a fluidly thrashing tail at its back. Still eating – something invisible – it looked round at him and hissed.

  Arok flung the knife. It was not intended for throwing and turned over in the air, missing the dog, who took no notice.

  A moon was up, almost full.

  By its light, Arok now saw the other … thing.

  ‘Great God.’ Then the woman was there, crowding at his back. ‘Get in!’

  ‘No,’ she said, disobedient – no wonder her man had preferred warring to her. ‘I’ve seen these. Oh, wait – I have something put by for them, no trouble,’ she added. ‘I thought it was the bear that comes sometimes and scratches to get in, or I’d never have bothered you.’

  Arok stood aside, aghast.

  The fishwife came out by him, and tossed one of her smoked fishes to the monster dog. The other monster, over along the ice, would not come near, however.

  ‘That one’s caught a fish anyway,’ said the wife.

  It was true. Where the second apparition rooted about on a ruffle of the ice, it had dug up and now held a fish in its jaws.

  He might have thought it a brown cat if he had not got such a sure look at it. Its ears were tall and close together on its head, and though it had a cat’s face, the jaw was long and jutted out. Its legs were long and shaped like those of a hound, and it had a hound’s tail with a whitish tuft. The coat of it was smooth, even hairless. Dropping its fish, it barked a thin whistling bark, and Arok stepped back into the hut.

  ‘There,’ said the woman, also coming in. She shut the door. Glancing again at Arok now with motherly scorn, she said, ‘They do no harm.’

  Arok did not try to resume his sleep, did not want it now.

  She went on moronically mending her nets, and on the bed the Rukar woman slept in silence.

  When the sun came up, Arok went out and inspected the terrain.

  There were padmarks in the softer snow by the hut, the dog-thing’s pads, and smaller ones – the cat-thing’s.

  Arok patrolled the shore, brooding. Obviously the two animals were magical, perhaps sprites like those he had seen, in the Jafn manner, since childhood – and yet, after the White Death, seldom or never saw now. Something wiggled in his mind, a name. Gech, he thought, a Gech name. Dog-cat, Cat-dog … It was a kind of travesty of the other northern legend, known also in Olchibe, and perhaps among the Jafn certainly by now, of the lionwolf born from the mating of a lion and a wolf.

  There were wild lions here in the east, he knew, though you did not often come across them – and wolves all over. But dogs and cats were found everywhere.

  The names leapt out. He stood still and mouthed them.

  ‘Dog-cat: Drajjerchach. Cat-dog: Chachadraj.’

  And the madwoman on the rags said she was the mother of the Lionwolf. She raved, that was all, he thought.

  He went hunting, running on foot inland, with the bow that the first stead had given him.

  Near evening again, when he was coming back, a couple of hares over his shoulder, he reached the shore and paused to watch the sun going down. Here, where the coast turned slightly northwards, sunset splashed across most of the sea-facing ice fields, changing them to gilded brass.

  Arok became aware something was moving out beyond the rim of the ice. Its darkness broke the wide gleam of the sun abruptly.

  Seals perhaps were there, or a young whale strayed in too far to the ice-shelf? If it beached itself, became stranded, that would provide a few dinners.

  But the dark melted back into the horizon. And, anyway, he would hardly remain here much longer – even to put off telling his news among the Holas.

  Opening the hut door familiarly, Arok swore. The hares of his kill fell off on the floor. Then he had to move quickly to save them. ‘Get back – get away, you devil—’

  ‘Don’t use your boots on them, sir,’ said the woman.

  ‘I’ll use them on you, you scratchered bitch. What are you at? Are you the witch here – if not, you’ve no business meddling in magic.’

  The woman did not seem to fear Arok. She never had. She looked at him under her lids and went on with stirring a pot of broth over the fire.

  The drajjerchach dog-cat, having given up trying to grab the hares, had withdrawn to the fire, where it sat in a doglike position. Over in the corner, the hnowa showed no alarm, but hnowas were stupid beasts. The fishwife had found it some dormant grass, which it was champing contentedly. Then he saw the Rukar madwoman was sitting up on her rags. On her lap was the cat-dog chachadraj. She was stroking it.

  ‘I let them in sometimes,’ said the fishwife.

  ‘Abominations.’

  Her only reply was the stirring of the spoon in the broth.

  Arok gave up on it. He skinned and cleaned the hares, portioned them and handed them to the fishwife to cook.

  Very quickly everything seemed ordinary to him. With a little effort you could forget the two other things in the hut were anything but a dog and a cat.

  After they had eaten, the woman washed her hair in heated snow-water, then sat combing it dry, across the fire from him. The scent of this made him want her.

  ‘I’m sorry to say,’ Arok announced softly, ‘very many Jafn men died in the south.’ She said nothing. Arok said, ‘I think your man may be one of them.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’d never have come back anyway.’

  ‘Do you get lonely?’

  She looked at him then. ‘Are you asking?’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  She laughed. ‘And you a fine Jafn noble?’

  ‘No longer. There’s not much of us left. We need to make new ones.’

  ‘Is that all you want?’

  ‘You’ve got pretty hair.’

  Presently he said, into her hair, ‘What about the Rukar over there?’

  ‘She’s asleep. Look. Both her animals are snuggled up to her. She’s better when they’re here.’

  ‘I think you’re a damned witch after all—’

  In the morning she was still formally respectful. Arok liked that in her. He went out once more to hunt. He did not mind this life. Though he would never take to a boat to fish the open fluid sea, he believed he might learn casting methods with a net. But all this was simply a holiday, before he went on. The draj and chach had been gone by the time he had looked over again at the rag-bed.

  He took a seal that day. This was great luck. Hauling it back along the shore in the afternoon, Arok believed, although he had always been strong, that he had become stronger.

  He was about a mile from the village hut when the night came up in the east, out of the sea.

  Astounded, Arok watched the huge curve of shining blackness rising, pouring over, going down again deep into the ocean. It was several miles out, and had only just showed, he thought, the crest of its back – a whale, one of the great horned kind, yet of extraordinary size. But it was gone now.

  As Arok went on along the shore, he saw a man standing some way ahead of him, and next to him a woman, slender and vividly golden-haired. Arok checked, wondering who they were, for neither had a Jafn look. He was too far to read their faces, but their clothes, what he could see of them at that distance, looked fine. The man was dark-haired, or Arok thought so; then he was not sure, for next the man seemed blond – a sort of hot colour that was also cold. There seemed to be a blue streak over his nose and cheeks – a Faz in war-paint? Even a Faz, Arok thought, must be made much of now.

  Arok began to walk on steadily, and was somehow not surprised when the two figures dissolved before his eyes. They were sprites then – glers, maybe, taking huma
n form? Best be careful. However, he was quite glad he could see Jafn demons again.

  Reaching the hut he went in, leaving the dead seal outside for skinning.

  No uncanny animals called on them that night. The Rukar woman lay tossing and turning, crying out for a man she named Zeth. This disturbed Arok during his lovemaking with the fishwife, but not too badly. He had forgotten to tell her about the whale.

  Further south, in the towery of Thryfe’s frozen house, the oculum blazed and juddered in its web of ice, trying to alert the magician, failing to do so.

  Even the local constipation of time could not stop an oculum. A magic eye, it must see; a magical viewer, it must show what it had found.

  Over the surface of its globe, clouded by ice, shot lightnings. Something black and of a gigantic size rose within them. The oculum vibrated with frustrated power. A crack appeared, another, and another. The oculum ceased to vibrate. It disengaged from itself and flew apart in a shower of sparkling flinders.

  Thryfe opened his eyes. He saw in front of him the sweet sleeping face of Jemhara, and brushed back softly trails of her hair, kissing them—

  Something had disconnected the quiet of sleep. What had that been? Was the night finally over?

  Thryfe listened, at first indolently then intently. The absence of all sound, other than his breathing and hers, seemed appealing, then curious – suddenly wrong.

  He sat up. Jemhara stirred. ‘Sleep, love,’ he said to her, and the tenderness in his voice filled him all at once with astonishment, next repulsion—

  What was she doing here? What had happened?

  Clearly, he had spent a night with this woman. He could remember every act between them. And it had gone on here in his secret house. Himself with this cheap witch of Vuldir’s court – why? Sexual appetite Thryfe had, from his adolescence, been able to control: to use its energies for more important work. Well, he had given in this once. But why to her? There were women among the Magikoy willing to engage in sex, some beautiful and his equal. There had been royal women too, in the past, exquisite, nor fools, who had tried to gain his interest. All these women he had put aside, never wanting them, never wanting to spoil his feast of abstinence.