Shadow Star

by Chris Claremont

  Within his study, that left himself, Thorn, Elora, the brownies, Khory, Tyrrel, and Luc-Jon.

  Elora’s eyes flashed across the quartet who’d formed the Colonel’s scouting party.

  “What are you planning?” she demanded of Thorn.

  “You said it yourself, child. Our fairy allies cannot stay.”

  “But if the Caliban’s waiting to ambush them—?” She paused. “What am I missing?” she wanted to know.

  “What’re you askin’ him for?” screeched Franjean, sorely tempted to pop a marzipan cherry Elora’s way, only to think better of it and take as big a bite out of the sweet as he could manage—an impressive achievement considering he needed both hands just to hold it.

  “Sorcerers don’t know everything,” commented Rool.

  “Only brownies!” finished Franjean triumphantly.

  “So what is it the Chengwei are playing with?” Elora inquired of them, figuring to teach them a modest lesson in humility. She should have known better.

  “A nasty,” said Franjean, with a flick of his elegant cuffs to show his contempt.

  “There’s eloquence for you.”

  “What more needs knowin’? It’s a bad thing, it’s coming our way, we should go somewhere else.”

  “By way,” finished Rool, “of yon World Gate.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “World Gate,” Rool repeated, motioning toward the scribe’s tower with his chin. “Over there.”

  Elora sank to a chair and laid her head on crossed forearms atop the table before lifting one fist and lightly pounding it on the back of her head.

  “Elora?” asked Luc-Jon in concern.

  She ignored him, repeating the phrase “I’m an idiot,” over and over, in tandem with her fist, until Luc-Jon caught her hand.

  She looked sideways at him.

  “I thought you knew,” he confessed lamely. “I mean, it’s na’ common knowledge but when you were talkin’ about the sacred circles an’ power an’ such, I assumed…” His voice trailed off as she turned a gimlet eye to the Nelwyn.

  “Can we do that?” Elora asked Thorn.

  “By rights, no. There is no longer a Magus Point here. This Gate is dead, as is its counterpart in Sandeni, as the one atop Tyrrel’s Tor is dying.”

  “So there’s nothing to be done,” said the Colonel, and something in his tone caught Elora’s attention, brought her head up.

  “You were considering evacuating more than just Tyrrel and his people,” she told him.

  DeGuerin nodded. “The civilians, the refugees, have no place here,” he explained. “And I’ll not leave our women and children to suffer at Chengwei hands.”

  “Why leave anyone?”

  “Each day we can hold this position, Elora Danan, is one more day for Sandeni to prepare its defenses. One more for the weather to close, for the first of the winter storms. Each Chengwei we kill, or who dies along the road, is one less to threaten our homes.”

  “Even if you die?”

  “We’re professional soldiers. That’s part of the contract. These others, though, they’re who we signed on to protect. They should have no part in this.” He considered something, looked to Thorn. “Forgive me, Drumheller, but you said the World Gate in Sandeni was also dead?”

  “I did, didn’t I.”

  “But by your own words, that was how you reached the Circle of the Spirit, through that World Gate.”

  “Yes. We, and the Deceiver both.”

  “How? Magic?”

  Thorn didn’t answer him directly but looked instead to the brownies.

  “What’s the status of that Gate now?” he asked them.

  “Dead as ever,” Franjean told him. “From the moment you passed through.”

  “Was it magic, Drumheller?” DeGuerin asked again, applying a veneer of command to his words to make sure this time he got a response. “Did you cast a spell?”

  Thorn uttered a snort of sardonic amusement. “Not me,” he said. “Not possible, though there are records of sorcerers who’ve tried over the ages. To create a World Gate or reenergize one whose time had passed. There mostly, they were working in places that still possessed a residue of power. Sometimes it worked, most often not. For here, or Sandeni, I doubt I have the proper skills, or the strength. And even if it were possible for me, that level of arcane manipulation would stand out like the brightest of beacons. It would bring the Caliban down on us for certain and very likely provoke the Chengwei into unleashing their device.”

  He smiled and the expression sent a minor chill curling about the base of Elora’s spine.

  “However,” he finished, “we may have an alternative.”

  “What makes you think I can do any better, Drumheller?” Elora challenged, unaware that she’d placed her back flat against the wall.

  “Faith. And”—with a smile—“a hearty dollop of blind desperation. It’s you or no one, Elora Danan.”

  “Work it out amongst yourselves, how best to go about this,” the Colonel ordered them, all business and in a hurry. “If it can be done, I want you ready by midnight; I want the evacuation complete by dawn. If not, I need to know before I set people’s hopes to rise.”

  “One thing, Colonel,” interjected Tyrrel.

  “Highness?”

  “Beyond the Veil, there can be no steel, no cold iron. For the Daikini who accompany us, that likely means no weapons of any kind and only what possessions can be carried on folks’ backs.”

  “Their lives will be in your hands then, milord.”

  “Aye. Make that clear.”

  “No small thing, to ask Daikini to walk beyond the Veil,” Luc-Jon muttered, “when legend has it that those who do are ne’er seen again.”

  “Aye, that’s us,” grumbled Franjean back at him, “monsters all.”

  “Given the history between our two races, especially out here on the Frontier,” the young man said, “ ’tis a lot to ask, and a lot to take on faith.”

  “That’s what this war is all about, in a way,” Thorn said gently, stating what was for him a primal truth. “On the one hand, those who would impose order by blood and blade and fire, according to their lights. On the other, those who have faith in the community of beings.”

  Elora sank down on her haunches, letting her knees fold until she rested on the floor.

  “The Gate may be too old,” she worried. “It may not want to remember what it used to be.”

  “Only one true way to find out,” the Nelwyn told her. “But if you lack faith in yourself, Elora Danan, how can you expect to truly inspire others? You’ll have to lead them, you realize, along with Tyrrel.”

  “Aren’t you coming with?”

  Thorn shook his head, savoring his latest mouthful of stew. “Someone has to provide the Chengwei device with a decent adversary.”

  “That’s madness; you’re talking suicide! I won’t allow it!”

  Thorn laughed with genuine delight. “I haven’t heard that tone from you in a good while.”

  “If you stay—!”

  “You will do as you’re told!” The Nelwyn hadn’t moved from his seat. There was nothing at all imposing about him, almost lost in a chair designed for someone twice his height and girth and more, using a chunk of bread to mop up the juices left in his bowl. He was as worn as his clothes, more ragamuffin than man, and not much more impressive after a wash. His hair was tousled and, like his beard, in need of a trim. Yet when he spoke, he gathered about himself an air of authority that fit him as naturally and well as any Monarch’s crown. Elora Danan might be the Sacred Princess spoken of in prophecy but in every way Thorn Drumheller was her equal. When he knew he was in the right, his was the will that proved unbreakable.

  “Who else but you, Elora,” he continued in that same outwardly conversational manner, laying out h
is sequence of truths as Colonel DeGuerin would the day’s regimental duty schedule, “can calm the fears of the Daikini you’ll be leading? As well as those of whomsoever of the Veil Folk you encounter as you go? Tyrrel is Monarch of Lesser Faery, his sway over the elves of Greater Faery is a matter of courtesy alone. The brownies will accompany you, as will…”

  Before Thorn could finish, Luc-Jon broke in, stepping forward and stiffening to a relaxed form of attention, one hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “I ask your pardon, Magister,” he said, using the formal term address for sorcerers of Thorn’s rank, “but I’ll be staying at the fort.” He stated his reasons for Elora’s benefit, Thorn understood without being told. “This is my home, y’see, and these my friends and comrades in arms. The closest I have t’ family, closer’n blood kin I’ve known. The Colonel himself gave me a commission an’ I’ve managed to earn the trust an’ regard of my troops. An’ my master.” His eyes flickered around the room, touching briefly on every other face present before returning to Elora. “Funny thing is, I think they’d understand my goin’, they’d na’ think it the act of a coward. Which is why I haveta stay. I’m sorry,” he finished but he couldn’t hold his gaze on Elora’s eyes, which were suddenly bright with tears she stubbornly refused to shed.

  “All right then,” Thorn said. “Khory will accompany the withdrawal.”

  “No!” Elora snapped, the intensity of her emotions pushing her from her huddle against the wall to stand before her mentor.

  “I’ll be fine, Drumheller, I can take care of myself, I don’t need a minder.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  “The hell you say. Who watches your back then?”

  “As targets go, I’m not so easy, believe me.”

  “Remember our oath, Nelwyn, and the spell we cast?”

  “Every moment.”

  “If you die, Drumheller—!”

  He shook his head, still radiating such insufferable calm that Elora wanted to hit him. “If the dragons must be lost,” he said, “for this generation or for all time, then so be it. On the other hand, I can think of no one who can better take their place than you.

  “We can’t all stay, Elora Danan, we can’t all go. Keeping you safe is paramount.”

  “He’s right,” Khory said with a quiet finality of her own.

  Elora ran a hand through her close-cropped hair but it didn’t make her feel any better. What she really wanted was to wind long ringlets around her fingers.

  “Have you ever wished you could turn back the clock, Thorn?” she wondered aloud. “Wished you could go back and start over, with the foreknowledge to sidestep the original mistakes that led you to this damnable place?”

  “Unfortunately, there are always new mistakes to be made.”

  “I suppose. But I still can wish…”

  * * *

  —

  The scribe wasn’t thrilled by the disruption of his home, any more than the refugees when they were told how much they’d have to leave behind. Among the troopers waiting with their families, the mood was mixed, passion given full rein or hidden behind stoic masks, kisses and embraces that looked like they’d never end, tears. The overarching sensibility was of finality; for these households, it was a last farewell. This was the only miracle they’d be allowed.

  Elora kept increasingly to herself as the witching hour approached. She couldn’t bear the looks in people’s eyes: awe and wonder that she could do this, resentment that she couldn’t do more. She couldn’t decide what was worse, the hope she saw in those who’d given up any chance of escape, or the grief from those about to be forever parted.

  The Master Scribe’s library tower had been cleared of its contents, the books removed under Luc-Jon’s direction. Some went to a subcellar of the house to be locked away, while others were parceled out to a trusted selection of those who’d be going through the Gate, to carry them to the Athenæum, the great University library of Sandeni. What was left went into Elora’s traveling pouches, among them the massive Malevoiy text. They were the most important works in the scribe’s collection, and by extension the most dangerous—either in and of themselves or as the objects of another’s desire. Elora refused to lay that burden on anyone else’s shoulders. She would care for them, and assume the risk of doing so, herself.

  The only access to the tower and its World Gate was, sadly, through the house itself and that route, too, had to be cleared of furniture and breakables. The scribe himself hadn’t wanted to leave. This was his home, had been for twoscore years and change, he wasn’t about to abandon it for anything. Until Colonel DeGuerin had a quiet word with him. The scribe still wasn’t happy, but he’d do as he was told.

  When the time came, Elora asked to be left alone in the tower. She started at the topmost level, right beneath the skylight, noting again how perspectives conspired to make the tower seem more like the deepest of wells. Even with her MageSight, she had to strain to see the floor below.

  At a relaxed, steady pace, Elora followed the circular ramp down to the bottom, allowing her right hand to trail along the wall from time to time. Her booted feet raised a faint skrunch sound as she strode from the base of the ramp to the center of the floor, and canted her head back for a view of the skylight. When she looked up instead of down, the distance didn’t appear anywhere near so extreme.

  She took in a slow, deep breath, let it out, and watched the cloud of frost hang briefly in the air. Cold was an abstract to her, as was heat. She was aware of both sensations yet was far more resistant to them than most folks from either side of the Veil. The perpetual chill outdoors that had its origin in the magic the Deceiver had employed against Angwyn and now tainted even the heights of summer meant little to her; she was as comfortable in a shift as in a sweater and would survive long after those around her had frozen to death.

  She rubbed the palms of her hands on the thighs of her trousers, mainly because of nerves. That prompted a wry smile: unique she may be but in so many ways she remained refreshingly normal. She scrubbed her fingers through her brush-cut hair and her smile grew into a teenager’s grin at the reminder of how the sight of her scandalized the proper ladies of the fort. Even those women among Colonel DeGuerin’s command didn’t wear their hair so short, and precious few men, either. Elora missed the opportunity to style long hair, but only a little. She liked the way she looked. It made her feel wild and untamed.

  To business, she told herself, and knelt into a crouch, one knee up, one down, to place both hands flat on the dirt floor.

  There was no response but that was to be expected in so old and quiescent a Gate. Asleep so long, its power would be hard to wake and most likely as cranky as a sleeping bear when it did.

  Elora sounded a low clear note from the bottom of her vocal register, allowing her perceptions to pace the sound as it bounced off the circular walls and faded up toward the skylight. She called forth her own memories of passing through World Gates, transposed them into words, and cast them forth. She allowed the song to find its own rhyme and meter, and her body to follow. She was drawn to her feet and that act of rising was much the same as pumping the handle of a well for with her came the first stirrings of the power of this ancient place.

  She described a series of circles with her body, one arm and the opposite leg outstretched as if in a fencing lunge, moving so smoothly and easily over the floor she might have been wearing skates on ice. She made contact with the wall, her pace quickening, becoming recognizable now as a dance to match her song.

  She returned to the center, pirouetting along the same axis as the ramp that wound its way down the wall. She turned outward from it in a growing spiral and in her wake a trail formed in the dirt that flashed with tiny bursts of silver, as if the young woman were leaving pieces of herself behind. She sounded that same deep note again and this time the tone didn’t fade. The walls picked up the resonance and
answered in kind, filling the tower with a reverberation of such power it was felt more than heard, to the core of Elora’s being. She couldn’t help her expression of delight, the concentration on her face yielding slightly to wonder and awe at the majesty she was drawing forth. She had to consciously and continuously remind herself not to get carried away by the glamour of the moment. Bears were majestic, too, but only a suicide chose to wake one in hibernation. This wasn’t the quickfire power she was used to but that didn’t make it any the less formidable once aroused.

  She wondered as well if, once aroused, it would be so eager to return to sleep?

  The act was necessary, the cause just, but she hadn’t really given serious thought to the possible consequences.

  She shook her head, reminded of the interlocking wheels that were the symbols of the Great Realms. Nothing happened in a vacuum was what Thorn had always tried to teach her. Every choice has its repercussions, and rarely where you expect. But there was also her experience in Sandeni to act as precedent. If he was right and she was the key to open these Gates, they would slip shut once more after she passed along her way.

  A final sweeping turn brought her to the foot of the ramp and she didn’t need a look to reveal the design she’d inscribed on the floor. It was a perfect match for the sigil she and Thorn had used in Sandeni. Anyone looking down from the topmost tier of the tower would perceive the ramp as descending forever, with such precision that it looked as though it had been laid out by architect and engineer.

  However, Elora’s song wasn’t done. It gained strength as she climbed and she flushed with passion. She no longer left sparkles in her wake, but a trail of incandescence, the way a blinding radiance will leave an afterimage across the mind’s eye. The air hummed with energy, making the hackles stand to attention on her neck and igniting a brush fire of tingles over every inch of her body. The sensations were too exquisite to be endured and she wanted to tear off her clothes, to become one with the forces she was unleashing.

  Propriety and self-preservation combined to save her as she reached the very apex of the helical ramp. A cry welled within her but she wasn’t the one to give it voice. The tower spoke, with a shout like a thunderclap, sharp like a body blow, that initial explosion setting off a perpetual series of growling afterbursts. Elora staggered and nearly fell, dazed by the tumult, and she understood in that instant all the old stories about gods and giants striking at each other with their great and terrible hammers.