Shadow Star

by Chris Claremont

  Of the Chengwei sorcerers, the less said the better. His eyes regarded images of their fate but his mind refused to record them—though he feared the scene would return to haunt him in nightmares. The clarity of the crystal had originally given the atrium a vaguely aquamarine quality; now that sapphire was liberally splashed with scarlet, and the screams of men had been replaced by those of the Palace itself. The lifeblood and agony of the slaughter were soaking into the body of the stone, altering not simply its color but the very nature of the building.

  Blessedly, Anakerie regained her senses with a warrior’s alacrity, her eyes clearing almost as soon as they were opened, brow immediately furrowing with concern as she realized their predicament.

  “This is not good,” she said, dryly making light of her statement of the obvious.

  “I’ve noticed” was his response in kind. Thorn had never felt so outright scared, he was overflowing with the awareness that at any moment his life might come to a violent and murderous end, yet he felt filled as well with a wild excitement. A heady acceptance of whatever fate came for him, coupled with the equal sureness that he would find some way for himself and Anakerie to survive. It was an altogether Daikini sentiment, one that would have sent the most madcap of Nelwyns reeling from him in horror.

  “What can we do?” Anakerie asked, pulling her body close to herself in preparation for making a move.

  “Only the obvious, I’m afraid—run for our lives!”

  “But Elora Danan—!”

  “She is lost to us.”

  It was as if saying those words finally made it so, bringing home her metamorphosis in a way that could not be denied. Thorn thought he would howl, would feel the kind of grief that accompanied the loss of a child—for that was what Elora had become for him, as much as his own offspring—but nothing happened.

  He heard a crackling that reminded him of the sound of thick slices of bacon frying in a pan, and felt a chill skirl about his heart as he realized what that meant. Even as his enchanted acorn transformed it into solid granite, the Resonator continued to draw power from the Palace around it, the two forces battling each other like a pair of sorcerers. Thorn had hoped for the best but understood the outcome was never in doubt. Powerful though it was, his own spell was finite. It had limits, where the Resonator had none. As he and Anakerie watched, solid granite became little more than a stony shell, which proceeded to flake off the device in sheets and chunks. Set free, the Resonator’s components came once more to life, the gears began to turn, the platters to spin.

  Thorn cast about wildly for something he could use to jam the gears, a pry bar of cold-cast iron would be best, the kind of tool that could be found in almost any Nelwyn household, whether forge or farm. Of course, in this place, there was nothing remotely resembling one. Not a bar of any kind, and especially not a piece of iron. Far too disruptive of any magical patterns and too aesthetically displeasing in the bargain. These sorcerers dealt in only the most noble of metals; they spared scant concern for something as base as common iron.

  That, Thorn thought uncharitably, is partly why they died. They designed and built the Resonator to function solely on their terms, forgetting that the world isn’t always so accommodating.

  Unfortunately, that revelation, however apt, wasn’t going to be Thorn’s salvation, either.

  That role, surprisingly, went to Elora Danan.

  He didn’t think so at the time. He thought she’d come at last to finish him as she spun lithely and lazily through the air, in utter and contemptuous defiance of the ongoing chaos, to a landing on the dais opposite him. He’d lost track of her with the first outburst of energy from the Resonator, part of him hoping she’d escaped its onslaught, a larger part wishing she’d fallen before them. A quick glance around the room revealed that the Deceiver and the Caliban had taken their own leave.

  “Elora Danan,” he demanded of her, because he had to have that answer above all, “what have you done?”

  “What I must, Peck” was her reply, with that same hateful smile, as if those four words would solve every riddle.

  Then, as lightly as she would a goblet of finest crystal to draw forth a chime, she extended a single claw and tapped it on the dais.

  Immediately, the floor beneath Thorn and Anakerie tilted, the pair of them buffeted by a savage riptide of raw sound that marked stone tearing from stone. They scrambled frantically to push themselves clear of the dais as the floor first groaned, then collapsed utterly under the terrible weight of the transformed step and the Resonator. This was a greater shock than the surrounding crystal could withstand and the end came with astonishing suddenness. The atrium was defined by a series of lancet arches around its perimeter, better than twenty feet tall, meant to help support the first gallery. The stress placed on the dais was uneven, the greater mass of stone concentrated on the side closest to Thorn and Anakerie. That in turn created a severe torque so that when the platform collapsed it did so in a vicious twisting motion, much like a crude screw, which opened great fissures across the floor itself to undermine the arches. To Thorn, it was painfully reminiscent of being on a frozen river when the ice decided to break. Where once had been solid and dependable footing, there was a whirling madhouse that bounced up and down upon the water in addition to spinning round in circles. This was much the same, as the foundation structure of the Palace shook from an increasingly powerful succession of hammerblows.

  By themselves, neither he nor Anakerie would have escaped. He lacked her rangy height and she, his strength. He managed to hook fingers over the edge of a tilting floe of crystal and with a heave no Daikini could have matched, pitch her to a ledge that remained secure amidst the chaos. Anakerie then used the length of her own body, treble and more the height of the tallest Nelwyn Thorn had ever seen, to lean back, catch hold, and yank him after.

  There was an opening in the wall. Without question or hesitation, they scrambled through just as the dais finally and completely gave way, plunging to the catacombs with the force of a mangonel stone. The impact couldn’t have been more devastating, shaking the entire Palace with such force that its towering spires visibly swayed against the skyline, and one actually snapped. Shock waves rippled past them on every side through the fabric of the building—floors, walls, ceilings, plus all the pillars and beams that supported them—in serried bands of color and intensity, deceptively beautiful until they struck the boundaries of the wall. Then they reacted just like water in a pool after striking an obstacle: the wavelets bounced back upon themselves, interacting quickly with reflections off other contacts, creating a vortex of increasingly antagonistic crosscurrents and countercurrents, complete with undertows and riptides.

  In the confined space of the Palace, limited by the size and form of the structure itself, these conflicting pulses of arcane energy quickly built to a frenzy. Had the building remained substantially intact, it could have absorbed the overload without significant stress; that was what it was designed to do. But many of those pathways had been blocked, adding to the chaos they were intended to relieve. The oscillations became corrosive, displacing first the delicately woven patterns that comprised the magical matrix of the Palace and then the physical bond of the crystal, setting in motion a cascading sequence of failures as inexorable as a line of falling dominoes.

  “Did I ever tell you, Drumheller,” Anakerie bellowed as they found themselves bounced along a corridor that twisted head over heels around them in rude defiance of the laws of common sense and nature together, “how much I hate magic!”

  By rights they should have been sent flying when the hallway upended itself. Yet their feet remained firmly fixed to the floor beneath them, even when every other sense told them they were running at right angles to the ground, and then upside down.

  “At the moment,” he had no trouble saying in reply, “I’m inclined to agree with you!”

  Lightning glanced off their bodies
but ripped gaping scars in the crystal, forcing them to take care in how they went since neither of their clothes offered more than scant protection from the broken shards. Colors were mashed and mangled, then cast forth in hues and formations neither had ever seen. Some were wondrous to behold, others struck at their senses harder than a ruffian’s cudgel. Thorn had no resources to spare for any kind of counterspell, and was glad of it, because in this pandemonium he had no idea what form those enchantments might take.

  They reached a final doorway, which needed the combined efforts of both of them to force it open from its warped and waxen frame. There, Anakerie put her legs to good use, scooping the Nelwyn into her arms and muscling through the gap to emerge from the victualers’ gate which Elora had used to enter the Palace. Anakerie stayed to the exact center of the bridge as she crossed the moat in record time, refusing to spare the slightest glance at the columns of spray erupting from below. If nothing was in them, why take the look? If something was, she preferred not to see. She heard a splash close behind her and trusted the hackles on the back of her neck as they suddenly rose stiff as spikes. That was all the goading she needed.

  Just before the end, with relative safety at hand, she was almost undone. The surface of the bridge was slick enough to begin with, creating one of those circumstances where bare feet weren’t that much of an improvement over shoes. Whatever came from the moat coated it like grease and as a surge of the sludge washed past, Anakerie’s legs went out from under her.

  She landed in a mess, for there wasn’t time to recover or properly brace for the impact, but decided that wasn’t so bad a thing as a set of nasty jaws closed with the steel snap of a beartrap right where her shoulder had been. Her own speed served her well at this point, for she kept on sliding, toward a mess of broken and abandoned carts at the far end of the bridge. Without losing her grip on Drumheller, Anakerie pulled her legs tight to her body and pivoted herself around so that she was approaching the land broadside. She didn’t know what was chasing them, or how close it was; from that sole glimpse when she fell she assumed it was big and nasty and far too close for comfort. In truth, she didn’t think they’d make it and was determined to shove Thorn clear the instant those terrible fangs closed about her.

  To her surprise, she felt dry land before the creature’s bite, and she didn’t waste the gift. Denying the protests of brutally overtaxed muscles, she dug her toes into the first line of cobblestones and, using the momentum of her slide as a springboard, thrust herself forward in a dive underneath the nearest wagon. She didn’t stop there, she hardly slowed, clasping Thorn to her with one hand and using the other plus both feet to propel her through the maze of smashed vehicles in a three-limbed lope.

  She didn’t emerge unscathed, the price she paid for bulling her way along a path better suited for Nelwyns than Daikini. A cracked singletree had torn a ragged scratch between her shoulder blades, adding to the ruination of her slip, and she was bleeding as well from her scalp. There were also bruises and scrapes aplenty. She didn’t care a whit. What mattered was reaching the far side of the barrier alive.

  To Anakerie, it was the sweetest triumph she’d won in years.

  They both laughed, though a little tentatively, exultant over their escape yet not quite ready to tempt fate any further with a dose of hubris. They were a mess, Anakerie so far beyond the local standards of decency she might as well be naked, while Thorn’s ceremonial robes had been reduced to a patchwork of rags. He shucked them, reducing his attire to waistcoat and tunic, trousers and boots, still too elegant an ensemble for Thorn’s tastes but it wasn’t as if there were an alternative handy. He was panting, as was she, and that realization prompted a fit of phlegmy coughs as the pumice he’d inhaled continued to irritate his bronchial passages and lungs.

  “I don’t believe it,” Anakerie said.

  “What?”

  “Look about you, Drumheller. Listen.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “That’s just the point. There’s hardly a sense of anything wrong.”

  He clambered to his feet, staring up at the layered spires and minarets of the Palace, proud and beautiful as always as they soared into the sky. A crowd was gathering at the edges of the plaza that surrounded the Palace, attracted by the sense of danger but also by the increasingly spectacular display of hues and textures flickering within the substance of those transparent walls. Some even applauded an especially violent collage, thinking this performance was being staged for their entertainment.

  They paid no attention when Thorn rounded on them.

  “You can’t stay,” he cried, furious at how hoarse his voice sounded. “This isn’t a show! Everyone within the Palace is dead, and that monstrosity with them! There’s no time left you! Take your loved ones and flee to safety! Get away from here, while you still can! Run!”

  He was cursed for his trouble, and mocked, but mostly ignored. He redoubled his efforts and succeeded only in drawing the attention of the guards who’d accompanied the Khan and been refused entry to the sacred precincts of the Palace. They immediately recognized both him and Anakerie—after all, how many Nelwyns could there be in Ch’ang-ja, not to mention round-eyed Princesses of Angwyn—and stepped forth to arrest them both.

  Once more, it was Anakerie who took the initiative, and, Thorn in her arms, she ducked down the nearest alleyway. That initial burst of speed gave them a decent head start. She continued on at a breakneck pace that made no concession to route or terrain and allowed not the slightest margin for error. When an obstacle threatened to block her path, Anakerie rounded it with a quick battlefield pivot, or scampered beneath it, or cleared it like a hurdle. They plunged into the midst of a troll’s warren of streets and houses, so haphazardly arranged that there was no way to make objective sense of the neighborhood. It seemed like each block had a different name, changing at every corner. Clearly, the residents knew how to get around for the lanes were crowded, but Thorn despaired of any outsider making sense of this mess. The buildings themselves were arranged as row houses, butted snug against one another with common walls but rarely with shared ones. Each building was separate, architecturally and structurally dissimilar to the ones on either side, sharing only a general sameness in height and width. The only element that was repeated were the magical fu dogs who guarded every doorway, carved and dramatically painted beasts whose fearsome aspect was intended to frighten away malevolent spirits and forces. The clutter of housing combined with the narrow and twisting layout of the streets to give the district a claustrophobic air and leave ground level almost perpetually in shadow. Thorn knew Anakerie possessed no MageSight—which allowed sorcerers such as he to see clearly in pitch-darkness—so he melded their perceptions slightly to allow her access to his. After all they’d been through, he didn’t want their saga to end in some rank back alley because of a pair of broken necks.

  He’d forgotten that blending abilities allowed them to share a modicum of thoughts as well, until her chuckling comment reminded him.

  “You don’t trust me, Drumheller? To find my way even in the dark?”

  “Why oh why,” he despaired, “is it my fate always to fall into the hands of Daikini who are patently and incurably mad?”

  “Opposites attract. You’re simply too blessed sane for words. You need a touch of madness to loosen you up!”

  “I like sanity. I like calm. I like peace—watch out for that clothesline!”

  She ducked, reflexively gathering him tight against her body, avoiding the obstruction with room to spare. Unfortunately, there was also a matron present who was busy filling it with the morning washing. That collision couldn’t be avoided, and the poor woman uttered a squawk of righteous alarm and indignation when this nearly naked outlander spun her twice around in a circle before resuming her flight without a missed step.

  Both Thorn and Anakerie spoke at once, and said the same thing.

  “I a
ssume you know which way to go.”

  “The harbor,” Thorn said with a laugh, which Anakerie echoed.

  “Downhill, then.”

  “You won’t get lost?”

  “That I cannot promise. The only layout I know of this town is from maps and none of them were ferociously detailed. Think we lost the guards?”

  “They’re not important. Even without them we can’t delay.”

  “What are you afraid of, Drumheller?”

  “That Palace is a volcano building its own lava dome.” In a rush, he told her the parable of the philosopher and the rice. Being the daughter of a King, Anakerie of course had heard it herself.

  “I thought your acorns and Elora’s claws took care of the Resonator,” she said.

  “That doesn’t matter; the pattern has already been established. The pulses will continue, and continue their geometric progression, regardless. The only thing the Resonator might have done was exert a measure of control.”

  “Not so good then, your destroying it, eh?”

  “I wondered about that myself before I threw the acorn. But the entire magical system of the Palace had already destabilized. And the wizards who knew best how to operate the device were dead.”

  “I assume that’s bad.”

  “The tremendous capacity of the Palace makes the situation all the more deadly, guaranteeing a monumental explosion of arcane energy.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You’ve seen volcanoes erupt, haven’t you, Keri?”

  “In Angwyn, more often than I care to remember. The other name for the Rampart Range that lines our coast is the Wall of Fire.”

  “Instead of lava, imagine a flash flood of raw, untamed magic, sweeping over a city whose very foundations are grounded in the stuff. Imagine what happens when that blast wave hits the chapter houses of the other magical orders—except that their mages, the ones folks will count on to save them from this disaster, they’re mostly dead already.”