One's Own Shadow (The Siúil Book 2)

by Randall P. Fitzgerald

  “You were in Fásachbaile.”

  “Goddess, now the elfling wants to talk.” The Drow threw up her hands and turned to walk away.

  “I only want your name.” Óraithe’s voice cracked when she said it.

  The satyr woman was talking to the old man again, she seemed insistent. The Drow turned and paced back to Óraithe, looking her over with a curious expression.

  “What would you do with it? Knit it into cloth and use it to wipe your tears?”

  “We are ready.” The satyr woman interjected, turning the Drow’s attention away. The two of them walked away, making for the main door to the yard.

  “They have killed the guards.” The satyr knelt in front of her and put a hand to her shoulder. “We are, neither of us, free, but we can leave this place.” He paused, looking around the yard. “I doubt if we should cross again. But should we, I pray you grant me a swift death.” He clapped his hand on her shoulder and honked a coarse laugh before standing and walking away.

  Óraithe stood where she had been left, not sure of what to do. The rest of the yard would become curious soon enough, but what would that mean? Would they riot? Barricade themselves in their prison? Would they flee? The only horses she had ever heard were those that came with supplies or changes of guard, and those were ridden back out again.

  A shout at the far side of the yard snapped her back to the world and Óraithe ran for the doors that led back to the keep. They were standing wide open and so she ran through, taking the time to push them closed and bar them. There were enough men to break the doors and she would need time to gather supplies. Fighting for them would waste energy and she knew there was little outside the walls of the prison to sustain her.

  There was the sound of doors to her right when she entered the room that let out into the yard. Óraithe did not know the prison well, but it must have been the satyr and his rescuers. She followed the noise through a series of dank, putrid smelling cells. There was nothing that could block the images of her time in one from flashing through her mind, but Óraithe pushed past them to an antechamber.

  The door to her left had been left open and a cold night breeze blew through it. It led outside she reasoned, and so she went right. A long hallway. She rushed to the end of it and flung open the heavy wooden door to find herself in a barracks. She could just make out the shape of bodies in beds and she froze solid for a second. There was no sound, not even the light noise of breathing. Óraithe could scarcely believe so many would have been taken in their beds.

  She moved to one and knelt next to it, squinting in the dark. There was a dark pool at the edge of the simple wooden bed. She stood. There must be a pack, she thought, and went to look for one. The first bed had nothing of use, but the second bore fruit. A pack and a folded blanket with a sheet. They would be enough. She stuffed the cloth into the pack and slung it over her shoulder, retreating to test the other hall.

  A lit room with a body in the doorway beckoned her inside and so she went, immediately regretting the decision. There were a pair of bodies inside and blood soaked the floor. The body in the far corner looked as though it had been mauled, but only above the neck. She held back a rising knot in her stomach and saw to gathering food.

  Óraithe could not help but stuff her mouth as she packed. She would need as much as she could stand to make it across the sands. There was a town to the east, she knew. It was miles and miles away. Two weeks walk, at least. It could be abandoned for all she knew, but it sat along a bay. She could fish, rest.

  Her pack filled with skins of wine and cheese and bread and dried meats, she made ready. A knife was stuck into the counter, so she took it. The leather on the back of the soldiers would make usable foot coverings. The White Wastes were said to be almost entirely sand, but even sand would scrape away at her feet given enough time. She cut away a pair of rectangles from the back of one of the dead men and pushed them into her pack. She pulled free a few leather straps and stowed them as well.

  She flung the pack around her shoulders. It was lighter than she expected. The weight made her nervous. She drew a deep breath and walked to the antechamber. The door still stood open and the wind came in. It was cold and dry. As she stepped out into the light of the Eyes, she nearly broke down. Óraithe bit hard on the inside of her cheek and slapped herself across the face. Wistfulness would not serve her here. She forced herself to remember. All the faces, all the pain.

  With her sense about her, Óraithe ran as fast as she could away from the remains of the keep that had been her prison. She could hear shouts coming from the yard behind her. The prisoners were beginning to understand that there was no guard to watch them. Her mind raced with second thoughts. Was there enough food? Or drink? What if there had been horses? Should she have checked more thoroughly? She bit at her cheek again and kept running.

  The keep fell into the distance, becoming a shadow and then a speck against the edge of the horizon and then nothing. She stopped running when it was far gone behind her and sat in the sand. A cold wind blew past her and Óraithe fell to her side, laughing. It was all she could do and so she laughed more and louder until it turned to a scream. She plunged her fist into the sand, screaming.

  “Why? Why? Why? Why?!” She screamed at the night and as the sound echoed off, she fell to her hands, coughing.

  No answer would come back. It was just as well. The question was worthless, meaningless. Breathing heavy, she pushed herself to her feet and looked to the sky to orient herself. She pulled the pack back onto her shoulders and began again. It was quiet. Quiet like she had never known.

  Faces began to creep into her mind again. Faces she had not thought of in a very long time. Teas, Scaa, Bonn. Her world had become so small in the world Briste had made for her. No, she had let it become small.

  Óraithe breathed deep. For the first time in so long, it was not stale or fetid. She was alive. Alive and walking east.

  R

  Rianaire

  Méid walked into the main hall of the inn where Rianaire was taking breakfast with Inney and Síocháin. Rianaire motioned her to a seat as she approached.

  “Sit, sit.”

  Méid did as she asked and looked down at the plate in front of her. Rianaire could tell she was still not entirely convinced by the discussion they’d had the night before. Rianaire lifted a forkful of eggs to her mouth and bit. She began.

  “I am sorry to say I will not be able to join you immediately as I yet have matters which need my attention. More Binsemen.” She groaned. “It’s exhausting. Still, everything you should need will be waiting for you.”

  Méid shifted. “I… I do not fully understand how the Binse should work. How I work within it? It was told so differently in school.”

  Rianaire pointed with her fork and made a sound of agreement, mouth still full. She swallowed. “Mm, yes. In my mother’s time, we’d have made tender love and you’d have professed your undying need to serve my will and on and on it would have gone. As I understand it, the lack of such an oath is what drove Spárálaí to his ridiculous coup and eventual death.” She looked vacantly at the plate. “More’s the pity I found him as late as I did. Still!” She looked up, smiling. “It was my mistake trusting the old and the angry.”

  Síocháin piped up. “The point.”

  “Yes!” Rianaire laughed. “Yes, the point. My Binse are handed a writ. My will, as it were. Not something shared over lusty embrace and bad wine, but something that I am explicit about. A way I wish things to be run. I choose people suited to it and leave them be.”

  “So that she might drink and debauch,” Síocháin said plainly.

  “Very much so. All the more reason to find talented sorts.”

  Méid looked to Síocháin and back to Rianaire. “What if I fail in my tasks? What if I need your advice or do not understand something?”

  Rianaire put a hand to Méid’s thigh. “Y
ou will do well. We need armaments made and you have full authority to demand it and the knowledge to ensure they will stand against the hippocamps. And I will always be available to you should you need me.”

  Méid pulled a deep breath. “I will do my best.”

  “There was never any doubt.”

  The door to the main hall opened, letting in a cold, brisk wind. Rianaire looked up to see the driver there. He nodded and so she wiped her mouth and stood.

  “We must be away, then. To the coast.”

  Méid pushed her chair back and walked beside Rianaire to the door.

  “You need not fret, Méid. What I’ve tasked you with is no more difficult than what you’ve done here. And there will be far fewer who disagree with your requests this way.”

  “Again, I… thank you. I know it is an honor.”

  Rianaire stopped at the door and hugged Méid tight. The broad woman squeaked in surprise.

  “I know this is a burden to you. I know there is pain in leaving your home. But you will help so many. If there were another for the job, I’d have taken them first. But the list had only one name.” She pulled away and smiled at Méid. “Travel safe. Our people need you.”

  “And you, Rianaire. Be safe.”

  “Hah.” Rianaire turned and left the inn. “If only it were so simple.”

  Síocháin and Inney joined her in the carriage and the doors were shut.

  “Will she truly be alright?” Inney asked, her elven mask in place.

  “She will. She will do better than I hope. It is the sort she is.” Rianaire poked at Inney with her bare foot, having slipped her shoes off. “Enough with that mask. It doesn’t suit you.”

  The half-elf was still nervous showing her milky grey skin outside of private quarters. It pained Rianaire to see her that way, especially now that she had begun to learn the great effort behind it. Controlling the Gift so precisely was exhausting.

  “The windows…” Inney protested.

  “Are no more likely to turn to monsters and kill you than anyone on the street.”

  She sighed and let down her mask.

  “Beautiful. Isn’t she just?” Rianaire looked to Síocháin.

  “She is. Very.” Síocháin added. Her flat affect made it almost comical.

  “See? Síocháin agrees.”

  Inney blushed ever so slightly, and turned her face to the carriage wall. “You’re horrible. The both of you.”

  “I should hope so. Imagine how boring we might be were we not. But, no. Méid. Her character will not allow her to disappoint. She makes the problems of others her own. Indeed, she’d likely run Spéirbaile better than me.” Rianaire snorted a laugh. “But then, I’ve grown accustomed to the lifestyle, I’m afraid.”

  Inney laughed, in spite of herself.

  “Now. Let us enjoy a very long ride on very long roads.” Rianaire sighed. “I very much intend to do something about these damned dirt paths we call a system of transport. Something more permanent.”

  It was late in the third day of riding that they made it to Casúr. Rianaire insisted that they be dropped at the edge of the bustling port town and immediately made her way south, toward the bay with Síocháin and Inney along with her.

  She had not quite decided where they would stay, but there was no want of options as the town played host to bustling trade even as Bais settled in and their things could be sent for easily enough. She knew for certain, however, that she wanted no part of a conversation with the city’s Regent, Glae. An unbearable man, to say the least. An oily, weaselly sort that she imagined would take deep pleasure in the smell of an uncleaned arse if it were to gain him some status. Balding and short and stubby eared. She shook her arms and shivered just having pictured him.

  “Síocháin.” She perked at the sound of her name, so much as she ever perked, anyway. “There are suitable inns by the water here. There’s one I remember— painted a balmy green— run by that one-eyed old man. Do you remember it?”

  “Well enough, yes.”

  “I seem to recall Glae hating the place and the owner both. If you would, go and see to a room for us there. I have business at the docks and I doubt I could survive being forced to be still again so soon. Inney will surely keep me safe.”

  “Just as well,” Síocháin said with a small shrug. “I would rather the smell of a warm bath and clean linen than butchered fish and bay water. Don’t be too long.” With that, she turned away from them, heading off with purpose to see to their lodgings.

  Rianaire began to walk again, Inney keeping pace at her side. “She never could stand the smell of docks. I expect she will complain at least a bit before we’re done with our work here.”

  “What work is that?”

  “My Binse of Coin is here. Or, ought to be. What do you think of Casúr, what little you’ve seen of it?”

  Inney’s lips tightened just slightly. “I lived here once. At the west side of the city. Above a tavern.”

  The west was the poorer area. Little surprise she’d have lived there. A half-elf was of little use to anyone so close to the Blackwood. Traders either were disgusted by them or unwilling to risk losing trade to those who were. It could be especially costly if the few Drow who did business there caught wind. Most considered sleeping with elves to be a form of mental illness at best and traitorous at worst.

  “But you left?”

  “I was made to leave, yes.”

  “Made to?”

  Inney hesitated more than a moment. “Some… some people thought that I seemed strange. And I allowed myself to be noticed more than I ought have. It did not take long for mysterious happenings to be blamed on me. First missing fruit or stolen money, soon enough missing people or curious deaths.”

  “And were you to blame for any of them?”

  “Some.” Inney looked up at her, a half-frown on her false face.

  “I’d have been disappointed if you’d said none.” Rianaire chuckled. “Still, were we all held guilty of the imaginings of the busy minded, there’d be a monster behind every smile. They seem to yearn like no other for a life more interesting than they’re brave enough to actually live.” She put a hand on Inney’s back. “What intrigues me, though, is that you say you allowed yourself to be noticed.”

  “There…” Inney pulled in a deep breath. “It was the first time I thought I could find love. This face did not smile then. A desert elf. He was young and small. The son of a livestock man. I nearly killed him before I’d known him a week. He stuck to me as… as I stick to you, I suppose. I abused him with words as best I could but he would be at the tavern door every morning when I went for food. He followed me and wrote terrible poems and flowery letters. For three full seasons, every moment he could spare, until I finally spoke to him kindly. It was only a few weeks later that guards began showing themselves at the tavern, questioning anyone they could find who might know me.”

  Inney stopped in the street and looked down at the ground, the smile on the mask she made for herself forced into place.

  “He came to me in the night. Beaten and bruised, frantic. He asked me what I had done. Why had he been taken? I asked what he told them. He said there was nothing he could.” She drew another breath and let out an exhausted sigh. “He begged to know my secret. He swore he would understand, he said. And so I showed him. I showed him my face and he screamed. A girlish, terrified scream. And I put a dull knife in his neck to stop anyone from hearing it.”

  Inney looked up at the sky, silent. Rianaire moved around behind her and wrapped Inney up in her arms. The narrow side street was empty and quiet, if only for the moment. Rianaire kissed Inney on the cheek and smiled.

  “If you’d told me he was still alive after such a reaction, I’d have had him put to the gallows myself. The Fires are the only place for such a creature.”

  Inney laughed. “It was a truly terrib
le sound.”

  “I should expect so. A tiny boy writing bad poems? I took you for better than that, love.”

  “I was young and foolish.”

  “Young and hungry for the feel of a cock in you, more like.”

  She laughed again and Rianaire grabbed her at the shoulders.

  “Come,” Rianaire said. “It’s late, but if we can be done here all the sooner, we can fill that empty void in your loins.”

  “I’d have been better off if I’d lied, wouldn’t I?” The complaint was a playful one. “So who is this man?”

  They resumed their walk as Rianaire answered. “He oversees the docks. I doubt he is near the water this late, but I don’t intend to knock on each and every door until we’ve found him. And I’ll not ask Glae. Fetid little shite of a man. Like to beg for some favor with his opening breath.”

  The area around the docks was still busy with activity, though only in small clusters. An elderly man was looking over some papers, comparing them against a series of boxes. Rianaire approached him. He turned at the sound of them and bowed his head slightly.

  “What’s a couple o’ girls in finery doin’ ‘round the docks?”

  “Tola. He runs the docks as I understand it.”

  “Aye, he does. Not been here since half noon, I don’t reckon. Lives up the north side o’ town.”

  Rianaire huffed. “Well, I was more out for the walk than anything. My thanks.”

  “Sure enough. Pleasure’s mine.”

  He turned back to his boxes and Rianaire turned to leave with Inney. The sun was low on the horizon, lighting the boardwalk around the bay orange and purple.

  “Do you miss Casúr?” Rianaire asked, looking out over the bay.

  “Only a fool would. For all my whimsy about the past, that’s something built of what my mind wishes it had been. Or what my mind wishes it could have been. I know the place of a half-Drow in the world outside my whims. Or what it should be.”

  “So you feel you are an aberration?”

  “No,” Inney said quietly. “I feel I am due to wake up. In a dank tavern with a pike’s point dug into my neck.”