Shadowfell

by Juliet Marillier

  ‘Go on.’ Flint’s tone was soft as a breath.

  ‘She was . . . not herself any more. She stumbled out of the bed, and she cried – Grandmother never cried – and she called for me, but I couldn’t come out because that man was still there, and there were Enforcers outside the cottage, I had to stay where I was until everyone had gone . . .’ I was back there, huddled in the secret place behind the wall, my eye glued to the tiny crack, hardly daring to breathe lest they found me and did it to me too. You must stay still as a stone, Neryn, she had warned me. No matter how long it takes. No matter what happens to me. No matter what they do. ‘After they changed her, she didn’t understand what had happened. She no longer had the wit to comprehend even the simplest things. She . . . she couldn’t do anything for herself any more. She’d been so strong before, so wise . . .’

  Flint put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You saw this?’ he asked quietly. ‘When they came, when this man did his work, you were there?’

  I nodded. Now that I had finally begun this story, now that I had managed to frame its first words, the truth spilled out of me like water from a broken dam. ‘I was hiding. They came quickly; there was no time for Grandmother and me to get away. Father was off working in another settlement, and Farral . . . The boys had taken their makeshift weapons and run out to mount a defence. Grandmother knew they wanted her. She made me hide, bade me be silent no matter what happened. She knew they would not fire the cottage; they would have other plans for her. It was . . .’ I drew a shuddering breath. ‘Watching the mind-scraping . . . it made me feel dirty. Sullied. It filled me up with fury. I stood there a long time, all the hours of night, watching her and hearing the noises from outside, in the settlement. The sound of my world breaking in pieces. In the morning, when the men accepted that the charm had failed and went away, I felt as if I were a hundred years old.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I crept out of my hiding place. I cleaned Grandmother up, fed her, sat by her until she fell asleep. I went to the door and looked out, and all around there was burning, and the dead lying in their blood, hacked and broken. I went out to find Farral. He was still alive, pinned by a spear. I hadn’t the strength to free him. I stayed by him while he died. There were a few women and girls left in the settlement, and one or two very old men. When Father got back, we buried the dead. Nobody stayed at Corbie’s Wood. Father and I gathered a few possessions and moved up the hill to an old deserted croft. Father took what work he could find; I looked after Grandmother. Two seasons, she lived. Once she was gone, there was no reason for us to stay. Besides, we had a . . . a warning, and Father decided it wasn’t safe for us to be in one place for too long. We buried Grandmother up on the hill, and we left.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Flint said.

  Suddenly I was furious with him. How dare he? I pulled away from him, letting loose a tirade of angry words. ‘Sorry? What use is being sorry? I know that in your heart you are not the king’s man, but when you’re at court, or riding out with your troop, you do his bidding. How are you any better than those wretches who put a spear through Farral’s chest and destroyed all I held dear?’

  After a moment Flint said, ‘I am no better, Neryn. That is why we cannot be friends. Believe me, if you knew all there is to know of me, you would shun me as you would a plague.’

  I fought for self-control. Putting that night into words at last had left me wretched and shattered. If I had not been so close to tears, I would not have shouted at him the way I had. Now I was ashamed. ‘That isn’t true,’ I whispered, wiping my eyes. ‘I’m sorry I spoke as I did. I hate the things you have to do. But I know that deep down you are a good man. I see it in your eyes. If you were bad, you would not have been so kind to me.’

  A wintry smile curved Flint’s lips. ‘Kind? That’s not a word folk use when speaking of me.’

  ‘Have you forgotten how long you looked after me? You did everything for me. If you were frustrated or angry that I was so slow to recover, I never saw the least sign of it. What was that but kindness?’ Seeing the look on his face, bitter, self-mocking, I added, ‘Is it so hard to believe I see some good in you?’

  ‘I could lie to you,’ Flint said, ‘but I think you would know if I did. Where you are concerned, I seem to have lost the skill of telling convincing untruths. If Alban were a different place, Neryn, you and I would be friends. Perhaps more than friends. But this is the realm we live in, the time we are born to. There is no place here for softness. Let folk in too close and you offer them up as weapons for your own destruction.’

  After a little, I said, ‘We are close, Flint. If we weren’t, I would never have come with you after you found me that last time. If we weren’t, you would never had found the patience to stay with me while I was sick.’

  ‘You misinterpret my motives. I wanted to assist you in your journey because I believed you had something of value to offer. You needed to be strong enough to get there. I helped you. That was all.’ He moved to set another log on the fire, though it was already well supplied. Now I could no longer see his face.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘I think we are friends, not in some impossible Alban of the future, but now, in this sad, scarred realm we were both born to. You said I’d loathe you if I knew the truth. Why not tell me this unpalatable truth and let me make my own decision?’

  ‘It makes no difference what you think. When we reach Shadowfell, you will stay and I will leave.’

  ‘You’re going back to Summerfort?’

  ‘Back to the king. That is what I do, Neryn. I do things that would make you weep. I do things that would make you sick. I do things that would make you as angry as you were that day at Corbie’s Wood when you found your brother dying. I am not a fit friend for anyone.’

  After that there was nothing more to say, and the two of us settled to sleep on opposite sides of the fire. I was a long time awake, listening to the night sounds and trying to untangle our conversation. I was glad I had told Grandmother’s story at last, though the memory of that night still made my stomach churn and my heart pound with rage. I murmured a silent prayer for her, and another for Mara and her man-child Garret. I vowed that if I did reach Shadowfell, I would do all in my power to make sure nobody ever performed mind-scraping again. It was an evil practice, corrupt, wrong. Someone, somewhere, must surely have the power to stop it. If not, Alban was doomed.

  Restless, I rolled over to catch the firelight glinting in Flint’s open eyes as he lay quite still, watching me.

  ‘Cold?’ he murmured.

  It was always cold these days, with the wind coming straight down from the mountain snow. The nights held a chill to freeze us to the bone.

  ‘I’m warm enough.’ I already had my cloak and both blankets; I did not want him to give me his cloak as well. To build the fire higher would be too risky. ‘I can’t sleep. My mind is turning in circles.’

  He rolled onto his back, staring up at the dark sky. The firelight played on the tall stones that surrounded our resting place, making shapes I imagined as creatures of ancient story. ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ Flint said. ‘We should reach our destination in two or three days. And when I need to leave you, I will find somewhere safe for you to shelter. I told you.’

  ‘You keep telling me I will be safe.’ My voice sounded small in the dark. ‘But what about you?’

  A silence. ‘You fear I will be killed by my own kind and not come back for you?’ he asked.

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

  In the quiet that followed, a bird called out somewhere above us, its harsh cry cutting through the cold air of the autumn night. Perhaps there were stealthy footsteps somewhere beyond the rocks that sheltered us; perhaps my imagination conjured them. Flint put a finger to his lips and we waited. After some time, a time when every breath I took seemed one risk too many, he nodded to me, indicating all was safe, and I breathed more easily.

  ‘Only a creature passing,’ Flint whispered. ‘M
en will not come here by night. Close your eyes, Neryn. You need rest.’

  I swallowed. ‘For a long time after that night at Corbie’s Wood I was afraid to sleep,’ I told him. ‘Afraid of what my dreams might bring, and how they might change me. Even now, sometimes I lie awake remembering, and feeling the terror she felt to wake up and be a husk of herself.’

  ‘Close your eyes,’ Flint said again. ‘Think of good things. Playing with your brother. Skipping pebbles. Chanting Stanie Mon. Think of the time when the ones you loved were still alive and well, and how much they taught you. Think about how much of them you carry with you, inside.’

  Tears welled behind my eyes. Too often, when I thought of them, I saw only that they had left me, each in turn: Mother, Farral, Grandmother, Father. Left me to walk on alone.

  ‘You’re strong, Neryn. You’re as strong as the rocks and the mountains. As strong as the oaks with their roots deep in the ground. You look as fragile as a mountain flower, but looks can be deceptive. If I haven’t been prepared to leave you on your own, it’s not because I think you weak and incapable. It’s . . .’

  ‘What?’ His words had caught me off guard; they set a confusion in me. I wondered what kind of man he really was, deep down.

  His voice came to me as the merest whisper. ‘Because, if I see you defeated, then I think I will see Alban defeated, and if that happens none of us can go on. To guard you is to guard the heart of this land of ours. Sleep now, Neryn. Tonight, at least, your dreams will be good ones.’

  With that speech he succeeded in silencing me completely. I hardly understood what he meant. And yet his words felt like a warm light on a grey and joyless pathway; they were balm to my heart. ‘Goodnight, Flint,’ I murmured, and settled to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The going was steep next day, the paths treacherous as we made our way over bare fells high above the valley. Flint had said he wanted to be off on his solitary mission by midday, but when the sun was at its peak and he started looking for a sheltered place to leave me, there was neither cave nor crevice to be found, only barren open country. We walked on for a while longer, with Flint growing more and more edgy. At last we saw a stand of pines, the only green in the bleak grey of the fells. But when we reached the trees, which stood by a gushing beck, Flint was dissatisfied with the cover they offered. We stopped nonetheless to eat and to fill our water skins. As we sat on the rocks by the stream, a flock of crows flew overhead, cawing. I watched them pass and settle on a lone pine a hundred paces or so to our north along the ridge. Something flickered beneath the tree. A creature? A man? I froze, a warning on my lips.

  Now all was still beneath the pine. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what it was that had caught my gaze. Not a man. Not a wandering sheep or errant goat. No, what I had seen was a discolouration of the land, a slice of darkness that lay behind the solitary tree, barely discernable to the eye. Here, then gone. Here again. A shadow. A mark. An opening.

  ‘Flint,’ I said, ‘I think there may be some kind of cave down there, near the pine. It’s hard to see. There are rocks partly concealed, and within them a narrow opening.’

  I had risen to my feet, shading my eyes against the cloud-veiled sun. Flint came to stand beside me.

  ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘We should go and look,’ I said.

  ‘If you say so.’ Clearly he thought me deluded, but when we had packed up our meagre repast we headed that way, side by side on the pebbly slope. We passed the lone pine and there before us was an outcrop that had been quite invisible from our vantage point under the trees.

  ‘Odd,’ Flint observed. ‘I’d have sworn there was nothing here but bare hillside. I don’t see any entry.’

  ‘It might be concealed,’ I said, remembering Howling Rock and wondering if I had stumbled on another of the Good Folk’s secret meeting places. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, and tried to sense the way. To the left, maybe, and lower down.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Shh.’ I opened my eyes to meet his bemused gaze. ‘Let’s try around that side.’

  And there it was, an opening partly screened by the withered fronds of a creeping plant that had surrendered to the cold, and marked by a pair of white stones. Flint eyed these, perhaps recognising, as I did, that the stones were an ancient sign. ‘How could you know this was here?’ he asked, then added, ‘No need to answer that. It’s ideal. I’ll make a fire for you, then I’d best be on my way.’

  ‘Is that wise? A fire, I mean?’

  ‘Weighing the fact that someone might see it against the likelihood of your getting so cold you’ll be ill again, I think we’ll chance it.’

  Inside, the cave was dim, dry and inhabited by nothing bigger than a bat or fieldmouse. Its shadowy depths seemed to stretch deep into the hillside. I unpacked what we would need while Flint went back up to the band of trees to fetch firewood. When it was stacked to his satisfaction, he headed off on his solitary mission, assuring me he would return by nightfall.

  I tended to the fire, draped garments and blankets to dry, assembled the makings of a hot meal. Only then did I go to stand by the lone tree and look out to the north.

  The land lay before me in folds of grey, purple and blue, under a sky heavy with cloud. Not so far ahead arose the foothills of a snow-capped mountain range. I wondered where among those peaks lay Shadowfell. Scanning the terrain, I felt my heart still. There, jutting from a rocky hillside, stood a rough column of stone. Atop its considerable height was a formation resembling the clenched fingers of a huge hand. Giant’s Fist. It was just as Grandmother had described it. Find Giant’s Fist, she had said, and you will find Shadowfell.

  Flint had been right, then: from here, it was at most two days’ walk. All of a sudden, two days seemed endless. How could I wait so long? I wanted to leap, to gallop, to fly, to be there today, right now, between one breath and the next.

  But those hills looked so bare and bleak. Could people really live there? Where could they grow food? Where could they shelter? When the snows came in earnest, there would be no way in or out. I shivered, imagining myself reaching Shadowfell only to find that the rebel movement did not exist, that Flint had been mistaken, that it was nothing but a wild story born out of desperate, impossible hope.

  The ridge we had been following did not lead to those hills; we’d need to descend into the valley and walk some distance along it before we climbed again. The valley floor looked empty of human settlement. This was mountain country, inhabited by wolf and eagle. Folk did not run sheep or cattle in such terrain. Stands of pine softened the hillsides here and there, but there was little fodder for grazing animals. Surely the Enforcers would not come so far along the valley. Not unless they were heading for Shadowfell.

  I must put that possibility from my mind. Let myself dwell on everything that could go wrong and the dream might start to slip away. As I returned to the cave I wondered where Silver and Daw and their band were now. With Flint gone, I half-expected a clan of northern Good Folk to emerge from the shadows of this uncanny place. But nobody came.

  The fire was lit. The water skins were full. The clothes were drying and the bedding was unpacked. There was nothing for me to do but sit and wait. I had promised to stay inside the cave, out of sight. I had already broken that promise by going out to look along the valley. I should lie down and rest awhile. But the knowledge that Shadowfell was so close filled me with the need for action, and it was hard to be still.

  I stared into the flames of my little fire, remembering all those who had helped me, all who had shared their wisdom. I thought of the ghost warriors by Hiddenwater, lifting their voices in the old song. We all wanted Alban to be free. We all wanted justice and peace. But I had so much to learn. From what the Good Folk had told me, I had barely begun my journey.

  I thought of Flint. Let him be safe. Let him come back before dark.

  The day seemed endless. I sat, I stood, I paced. Once or twice I went out to the tree again to gaze towa
rd Giant’s Fist. I was almost there; Shadowfell was almost within my reach. But all I felt was doubt. What if I reached the rebel headquarters, offered to help and then could not learn how to harness my canny gift? What if there was nobody who could teach me to be a Caller? I had called the stanie mon, no doubt of that. But that had been a fluke. I had guessed at how to summon his help, and it was just lucky for me that my verses had worked. I might not be so fortunate next time. And what of the mysterious virtues? Perhaps I was doomed never to learn the wise use of my gift. Perhaps I would never be a Caller.

  Eventually I lay down and closed my eyes. I did not want to sleep. I feared my dreams. But the cave felt empty without Flint; it felt wrong. Stupid to think thus, as if his presence alone could bring sound sleep and peace of mind. An Enforcer. A rebel. How could a man be both and stay in his right mind?

  Something moved outside, close to the cave mouth. I sat bolt upright, my skin prickling. A shifting. A subtle change in the light. I rose silently to my feet, heart pounding, gaze fixed on that patch of brightness. Nothing to be seen beyond the ragged strands of foliage that screened the entry. But someone was there; I felt it.

  Flint had left me a knife. I had not thought I would need it. It lay next to my bag in the sheath I had made long ago for another weapon. One step toward it; another step, praying that I could reach it without making any sound. A shadow passed the cave entry, then as quickly was gone. Whoever was out there, he was swift and silent.

  I backed further into the cave, the knife held up before me, its point not quite steady. I had never killed anyone. I did not know if I could. I waited.

  Time passed and nothing stirred. Perhaps I’d imagined the whole thing; perhaps I had been closer to sleep than I’d realised, half-dreaming. Still I did not move. In my mind I counted slowly up to fifty. I could hear nothing out there, see nothing. I slipped the knife into my belt, feeling rather foolish, and crept back to the fireside.