Shadow Star

by Chris Claremont

  When the carts rolled off to the Palace, she made sure she was aboard. Luc-Jon she told to return to Saltai’s schooner with the brownies, in case she ran into trouble. It was a caravan of decent size. The Palace larder must have been fairly depleted, and Elora positioned herself about midway down the line. That would give any guards enough time to be bored by the procession of drones trudging back and forth beneath burdens almost as large as they were.

  The carts weren’t allowed in the Palace itself and for a terrible moment Elora feared that its own servants would carry the supplies the rest of the way. It turned out that horses and mules couldn’t be driven across the moat, their steel shoes and the steel bands around the cart wheels evidently set up unacceptable resonance patterns in the crystal matrices of the drawbridge. Also, it was said the nature of the moat itself had a tendency to drive dumb animals, and the occasional Daikini, quite mad.

  It was a disconcerting walk, that Elora readily confessed. The bridge was translucent, presenting a vague and distorted view of the moat below. Worse, though it appeared to be a kind of liquid, the substance that filled the moat was in no way water. Even so, something appeared to live down there. Elora saw ripples on the surface when there wasn’t a breath of moving air and from the distortion patterns concluded that it was a creature of size. More than that, she preferred to do without.

  The interior of the Palace was dark, at least down where the menials plied their various trades. The surfaces were all crystal and should have been as clear as the bridge outside, yet some property had rendered them opaque, which made sense on a purely practical basis, allowing the staff to move about more easily. Elsewhere in the Palace, Elora was sure this consideration was not applied. The sorcerers would depend on their own MageSight to guide them and the servants would have been touched by a minor spell to grant them a facsimile of the same talent, so they could go about their own tasks. Anyone else would be dazzled by the prismatic effects of light passing through the myriad layers and facets and weights and colors of crystal that comprised the Palace, and if they had any sensitivity to magic at all be equally disoriented by all the energies it generated. There was little need, she realized, for defensive wards or even an abundance of guards; the building itself was its own ideal champion.

  She quickly found the domestic quarters and from there pilfered the robes of a scullery maid. In an ordinary household, these would be the most ragged and plain of apparel, as befit someone whose duties required her to spend most of her workday on hands and knees, scrubbing floors. Those, however, were in buildings of stone and wood. In the Crystal Palace, the job was more akin to polishing fine jewelry, from the inside. Though the cut of the garments was serviceable, the material was silk, of a quality that would have brought a fair price in Sandeni. Trousers with padded knees, soft-soled slippers. A short tunic that fell to her hips, with a stand-up collar that enclosed her entire neck. It buttoned at the throat and then along the line of her right collarbone and on down the seam beneath her right arm. Elora grabbed a scarf as well, wrapping it about her head and face in the fashion she’d seen among a number of the servant classes. That was primarily to hide her outrageously short hair; the color of her skin was covered by a coat of makeup. Nothing about her disguise would withstand intense scrutiny; her gamble was it wouldn’t come to that.

  Equipment in hand, as though she were late for work, Elora scurried through a labyrinth of service passages, letting instinct guide her footsteps. She emerged into an upper gallery and immediately unlimbered her wash gear, dampening her chamois cloths and beginning to polish the gleaming floor. Her first goal was to establish herself as an innocuous part of the landscape, as transparent in her way as the crystal she so diligently cleaned.

  She’d guessed right at the market. The sudden inrush of goods was in preparation for a formal celebration of some kind that very evening. The lords of this palace wanted it shown to best advantage, so the scrubwomen had been marshaled during daylight hours, when they normally plied their trade, after most of the other residents had gone to bed.

  The gallery overlooked a spectacular atrium, a fan-shaped box five floors in height, short walls parallel, the long ones opening out from the entrance toward a shimmering curtain that closed off the head of the room, to hide from view whatever was contained there.

  Elora dearly yearned to play the tourist. The images she snared with her occasional sideward glances were as enticing as chocolate. She was enfolded in an ever-changing riot of light and color, the radiance of the sun twisting and bending again and again through an infinite series of refractions as it passed through all the crystal shapes and surfaces that comprised the Palace. She saw rainbows dance beneath her hands, prismed into hues of such subtlety and life they would make a painter weep because while his palette might replicate the tone, paint was too tangible a medium even to hint at the texture.

  There were sounds as well; the crystal fabric of the Palace played with the aural spectrum as well as the visual. It was clear to her now why the air about the Palace remained supernally still, regardless of the weather over the city as a whole. The slightest breeze, even the faint in- and outrush of breath from those within its wall, struck a chord in the crystal, so that a faint background hum was ever present. Elora supposed the sorcerers in this particular order got used to it over time but it made her edgy.

  It reminded her of the Malevoiy.

  Thunderstruck, she forgot her role, dropping onto her heels and resting too long in that shocked huddle, fortunate when the moment passed that no one had taken notice. There was too much independence in that stance for a slavey.

  She withdrew a step into herself and cast a look into the vault of memories she’d gained from Khory, of that last series of battles with the Malevoiy. They were the oldest of the elven races, it was they who pioneered the use of crystal as a raw material in construction. The gemstones they preferred were dark, possessing the power to imprison the light that shone on it. That was why their world was one of Shadow, an echo of their own nature. All the beauty of life, all its potential, the Malevoiy reserved unto themselves. What Elora had seen in their Realm were the few pitiful remnants of those extraordinary constructions, their fearsome luster dulled by the passage of an inconceivable amount of time.

  She shook her head and enjoyed the latest dance of color through the floor, appreciating how the film of her washwater created another layer of refraction. Then her eyes narrowed, concentration focused, and she stepped farther back into memory, returning herself almost physically to Giles Horvath’s library and hoping as she did that her recollections remained true. In her mind’s eye she rolled a ladder down a line of shelves, not even sure of what she sought until, of their own volition, her hands plucked a modest volume into view. As expected, it was a grimoire, a book of spells and incantations. Nothing of great power or notoriety; it was essentially a primer.

  It taught sorcerers how to manipulate the world’s spectrum of radiant energy, primarily light. And how to trap it.

  Each time a beam passed through crystal, a few candelas of energy remained behind. Hardly enough to notice, but in a structure of such size and complexity, the cumulative effect had to be staggering. She didn’t bother considering what such tremendous power might be used for; where sorcerers were concerned the answer could be anything.

  A trill of sensation through the fabric of the crystal broke Elora from her reverie. It was a gossamer feeling, the analogy that came to her was of the faintest possible pebbling of grit marring an otherwise immaculate surface. Yet when she stroked her fingertips across the crystal, all felt normal.

  Hackles rose on the back of her neck. Every alarm she was born with, or which she’d learned over time, was poised to sound, so much so that it was an actual physical effort to force herself to move at a scrubwoman’s deliberate, soul-weary pace and meticulous precision.

  She left the gallery, following the directions imparted to her by the brownie
s, wondering now if they’d truly been as cunning as they thought. Or as undetected. Perhaps someone decided to let them go, in hopes of snaring a bigger catch later on? Or maybe, from Elora’s standpoint, it was just bad timing?

  She threaded her way through a maze of subordinate corridors, up some flights of stairs, across a final gallery to a sumptuous suite of apartments of the kind generally reserved for Princes. En route, she passed some members of the order but none took any notice.

  Getting in is always easier, she reminded herself. Be it trouble or the villain’s stronghold.

  This, of course, she knew, was both.

  It was here that she found Thorn Drumheller.

  His greeting was precisely what she’d expected.

  “Elora Danan,” he squawked as she stepped across the threshold, “are you bloody insane?”

  “Glad to see you, too, old duffer.”

  “You must leave, at once!”

  “To what point, after all the trouble the order’s gone through to make me so welcome?” She stretched another set of kinks out of her back, feeling a sudden rush of sympathy for the women who had to spend their working lives on hands and knees. “Thorn, I felt the Caliban. It tried its best to hide but its signature is as distinctive as my own.”

  On impulse, she turned to the doorway and peered deep into the structure of the Palace. Pellucid though the crystal was, the overlapping layers combined with the energies coursing through its structure tended to blur perceptions, casting a form of mist over anything more than a couple of walls or floors away. Elora couldn’t properly see the Caliban, she had no real sense of his presence. However, she found a point close to the central gallery, at the junction of a number of main and secondary hallways where the fog grew exceptionally thick. It was a fair distance removed from Thorn’s apartment; a fugitive would easily be misled into believing she had a clear run to freedom. Thing was, every possible route intersected one of the corridors leading out of that junction, and there were convenient stairs for the Caliban as well, if she chose to descend to the cellars.

  “I’m all for a game of hare and hounds, Drumheller,” she told him, raising her hand to the distant Caliban in a chirpy wave, “but I do require at least halfway-decent odds.”

  “Why did you come?” He still sounded exasperated.

  She didn’t dignify the question with anything more than a pitying glance. There were no windows to the apartment, hardly necessary when the walls themselves were transparent. Thorn could see the world outside while that same fog effect that hid the Caliban also served to mask him from exterior view. There was no hearth but according to Thorn no need for one. As Elora herself could feel, the climate within the Palace was quite comfortable, and altogether independent of the weather outside. The structure was as hermetically sealed as a greenhouse.

  Without a knock, the door opened. No one of significance, Elora spotted that right off, little more in fact than a messenger conveying the Vicar-General’s invitation to dinner. She gave him the kind of look she’d perfected throughout her childhood, that had made her the bane and terror of servants and nobility alike in Angwyn. It was the purest distillation of royal hauteur and it stopped the poor man dead in his tracks as though he’d unwittingly taken a turn into the den of a basilisk.

  With offhand grace, Elora accepted, and thanked him as well for the gown servants presented on the Vicar-General’s behalf. The herald began to explain that the servants would remain to care for Elora’s needs and prepare her for the evening, but she demurred, informing him that while the offer was greatly appreciated she would see to her own requirements.

  When she and Thorn were once more alone, Elora suggested a bath. Thorn had long since yielded her the field; sometimes she could prove as unstoppable as an avalanche, and just about as devastating to those unfortunate enough to be in her vicinity.

  The tub was deluxe, big enough for her to share.

  “You used this?” she asked of Thorn and when he nodded of course, said, “Next best thing to swimming in a pond.”

  “Fine for a float,” he conceded. “Not really for exercise.”

  “I got everyone safely to Sandeni,” she told him.

  “I know.”

  “Want to tell me of the device they’re building downstairs?”

  “You’ll see it soon enough. It’s finished, that’s the reason for tonight’s gala. The Vicar-General wants to show it off.”

  “What does it do?”

  “What every despot worth the name seems to want most these days, conquer the world.”

  “Cute.”

  “This weapon may do the trick.”

  Elora dunked herself, staying underwater till her lungs burned. But she didn’t resurface. Instead, she extended her awareness to the medium that surrounded her, and by extension to the ocean far beyond. There was little character to the bath; the water had been washed through so many filters, both physical and magical, in an attempt to remove every conceivable impurity, that almost nothing remained of its essential arcane energies. It could sustain life, but possessed virtually none of its own. She drew on that first aspect, taking what oxygen she needed through the pores of her skin, allowing herself to become as porous as a sieve for as long as she remained submerged. It was a relaxing interlude.

  She resurfaced finally with a shake of the head and a spout of water from nostrils and mouth to ask of Drumheller, “What happened at Tregare, Thorn? What did the Chengwei do?”

  “More to the point, child, what did you do?”

  “You heard?”

  “By courier, by scrying pool, by every means of communication possible through methods both temporal and arcane.”

  “I wanted to send a message.”

  “That, you did.”

  “They were my friends, Thorn!” She held up a hand before he could speak. “I know about war, I’m not that great a child any longer, I’ve seen my share of slaughter. And”—her voice caught just a little—“been a part of it. Death I accept, but the defenders at Tregare didn’t deserve to be planted like scarecrows.”

  “The Chengwei don’t understand your restraint.”

  “From all I’ve seen, they don’t much understand restraint of any kind. Or acknowledge it.”

  “True. The fact still remains.”

  “You’ve seen what firedrakes can do. I know how they feel, right to the essence of their being. I could only trust them on a tight leash, with specific and absolute limits. Believe me, with them, there are lines you don’t want crossed. Taking a life is one of them. It’s a lesson the Chengwei could profit from.”

  “You called, and cousins to demons answered. You spoke, they obeyed. The Chengwei are impressed.”

  “As well they should be.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  The biggest of grins split her face, stripping her mien of every scrap of maturity and presenting Elora once more at her true age, radiating an innocence she felt was constantly slipping through her fingers no matter how tightly she tried to hold fast to it.

  “After Tregare, if I showed up at your front door and strolled in as if I owned the place, what would you assume?”

  “Another object lesson?”

  She smiled like a predator.

  “A fair analysis, I’ll grant you,” Drumheller conceded. “The Vicar-General probably sent runners to the other orders, to bring in reinforcements.”

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Have a care, girl. You’re sounding too dangerously cocky by half. These are serious people, and this, very serious business.”

  She dunked herself again, and surfaced like a dolphin, flooding the room with her splash. The sole exception, hardly a surprise, was Drumheller, who remained dry as old toast.

  When she spoke, though, resting her chin on crossed arms on the side of the tub, levity had been banished from voice and m
anner.

  “What’s your part in it?” she asked and while on the surface her voice sounded quite companionable, in keeping with the established mood, there was an undertone to it that reminded Thorn of Anakerie.

  “They don’t know what they’re dealing with,” he told her. “They have a demon by the tail and they think they are its masters.”

  “So your goal is to stop them?”

  There was a silence before he replied, with a single word, “No.”

  Elora didn’t look at him. She heard his answer, she refused to see it in his eyes.

  “Can we beat the Deceiver?” she asked suddenly.

  “In battle, you mean? You and I?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “If we asked for help?”

  “Elora, I’m sorry. This whole city of sorcerers is no match for her. She ensorcelled the Monarchs of the Twelve Great Realms. In mortal combat, she slew a dragon!”

  “I slew them all,” Elora said, in barely a whisper. “I slew them all.” Then, at last, she faced him. “So. Magic can’t defeat the Deceiver. We know she possesses attributes of demons, she has no corporeal existence of her own, she needs a host to live and function in our world. That’s why she claimed Mohdri, that’s why she wants me. For all intents and purposes, she may well be composed of magic. And here are the Chengwei with a device that destabilizes magic. And here are you, helping them perfect it.”

  “The Deceiver is the enemy, Elora. This weapon may make the difference against her.”

  “How can that be? You just said this whole city of sorcerers is no match for her.”

  “They are Daikini. That fact, and the arrogance that walks with it, may prove their undoing. They work only with Daikini tools, see only with Daikini eyes; the magic they wield is that which comes most easily and naturally to Daikini. Even Bavmorda understood there was more to the world than that. If we can take the foundation they have laid and expand it to include the forces and powers of the other Great Realms, then we may have something.”