Shadow Star

by Chris Claremont

  Thorn hadn’t moved from where he’d sat the night, but had busied himself rooting through the traveling pouch Anakerie had got from Elora Danan, building a small but impressive collection on the deck before him. It was clear, though, that what he sought wasn’t to be found.

  “East, Maulroon,” he told the Master Trader, in a husk of a voice. “Under all the canvas your ship will carry.”

  “To?”

  “Where this all began, my dear friend. To the upper reaches of the river Freen, past Tir Asleen to the Sawtooth Range.”

  “Damme, you say!”

  “We have five days to reach the gates of Nockmaar.”

  “Then we’re done, because that can’t be done. Not by this ship nor any other. Blessed bones, Nelwyn, y’re talkin’ about sailin’ a fair ways ’round the bloody world! We’ve a whole ocean t’ cross, don’t ’cha’ know.”

  “As I told you, Maulroon: you tend to your ship, I’ll provide the wind.”

  “Y’ll need a gale, Drumheller. The sticks”—meaning the masts—“won’t hold.”

  “They will,” Thorn spoke with flat assurance, though Anakerie knew the cost to him in strength and endurance would be murderous. Her twin must have picked up on her apprehension because he spoke next.

  “I believe I can be of help,” he said. “The Wyrrn have ways through the water, as the brownies and Nelwyns do through the earth.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Thorn said, and pulled a shallow ceramic plate from the traveling pouch. He set it on the capstan and tipped some clean water into it, just enough to cover the base entirely. Next, he set his little paper boat right in the middle. A pass with fingers over the plate rendered the surface of the water smooth as glass. Then he blew on the boat.

  It didn’t move. It wasn’t supposed to. But no sooner had the mage finished that exhalation than the sails began to flap under the pressure of a rising breeze. Maulroon barked orders, keeping it simple at the start, to allow the crew to remember what it was like to be sailors. He didn’t raise anywhere near the volume of sail Thorn requested, and wouldn’t until he’d satisfied himself fully in his assessment of vessel, crew, and especially the weather. He was too good a sailor to take anything for granted, especially when it came gift-wrapped in sorcery.

  “A fair wind, Maulroon,” Thorn told him, “and a fair sea.”

  The Master Trader stared at Drumheller, as if seeing him for the first time. Knowing your friend was a mage was one thing; actually watching him wield a significant measure of that power was another altogether, and not entirely comfortable.

  “Even with the lad’s help,” Maulroon said, “we’re still talkin’ days.”

  “I know. I’ll not fail you.”

  “Drumheller—!”

  “Get me there, Maulroon, that’s all I ask.” His tone, though, held more of the peremptory command all I require of you, and Maulroon nearly bridled under it. Then Thorn seemed to step back within himself, hands clenching once, twice, as he took a deep and cleansing breath. “Please,” he said after a time, in the voice Maulroon knew and trusted, and that made all the difference.

  As the Master Trader shouted his commands, the schooner increasing its speed markedly with every new stitch of canvas that was flown, Anakerie knelt beside Thorn to look him in the eye, no matter how determined he was to avoid her.

  “You stick to sorcery, Drumheller,” she told him in that quiet, implacable way of hers, “leave the leading and motivation of troops to me, yes?”

  “There’s too much to do, Anakerie,” he said, allowing a fraction of his weariness to seep into his voice, “and so very little time.”

  “Delegate, then. Hallmark of a leader, knowing which responsibility’s yours and which can be fobbed off on staff.”

  “That’s not my role.”

  “Look about, Peck. If not you, then who?” She smiled, mischievously mixing amusement and irony. “Center stage is yours alone, Drumheller, where no Nelwyn’s ever been. Might as well make the best of it; who knows when such an opportunity will come again?”

  He made a rude face and ruder gesture at the thought, which made the Angwyn Princess laugh outright.

  “Tell me what you need, Peck,” she told him, her matter-of-fact tone belied by the fleeting caress of her thumb across the knob of his jaw and the way she cupped his head, as though she were about to pull him into a kiss. “I’ll do my best for you.”

  With the voyage properly under way, the first order of business was to set the ship to rights. Gear and passengers had to be properly stowed, which for much of the morning meant rigging stalls for the horses in the hold and then lowering them into place, making sure as this was done that the animals didn’t panic. The bulk of that responsibility landed square on the brownies’ shoulders, and they were constantly leaping from animal to animal, using cajolery on some, a calming draught for others, muttering all manner of dark imprecations as they levered precious cubes of sugar and a carrot or three into the horses’ mouths.

  A shelter was constructed for Thorn on the afterdeck, once he made it plain that he wasn’t stirring from the spot until landfall. Despite the stiff and constant following wind, the air around his spot remained supernally still, allowing him to work and write in relative ease.

  When Anakerie returned from below, bearing the midday meal on a tray for both Thorn and Maulroon, he was once more rooting through Elora’s traveling pouch, his expression speaking most eloquently of his frustration and dismay. From a chest in the captain’s cabin, Anakerie had scrounged more practical attire to replace the rags she was wearing when she came aboard. Loose trousers of duck canvas hung over soft-soled seaboots whose leather had been treated with oils and a minor enchantment to repel water and keep the feet warm and dry in the most wretched of weather. Above the waist, she wore a layering of shirts that offered ease of movement with protection from the sun and other elements. She’d bound her dark hair into a thick braid but still muttered at how easily it got in the way.

  “I’m thinking,” she told Maulroon, though her voice was pitched for Thorn to hear, “of taking a leaf from Elora Danan’s book.”

  “What’cha say there?” Maulroon sounded scandalized. “Cutting it? Tha’ short?” Precious few men wore their hair so, and no women worth the name.

  “Save a lot of trouble.”

  “Cause a lot more in a different direction, I’m thinkin’.”

  “I suppose.” She ladled some stew into a bowl and held it out to Thorn. He nodded acknowledgment of the dish and indicated that she set it aside.

  “Not find what you’re looking for?” Anakerie asked politely, refusing to take the hint.

  He sighed, accepting that this distraction wouldn’t go away until it had its way with him, and plucked the bowl from her hand, almost dropping it that selfsame instant. He set it quickly down and flicked his hand up and down, blowing on singed fingers and trying to recall a quick healing charm.

  “It’s hot!” he squawked in outrage, belatedly noticing that she was wearing a glove.

  “Fresh from the cookpot, yes. Good, too. That Luc-Jon, he’s a lad of hidden talents.”

  “Have to be, out on the Frontier.” He took a cautious sip and nodded. “Very good,” he said. And then he sighed again, because Anakerie hadn’t shifted position or taken her eyes off his and wouldn’t until she got her answer. They’d come to know each other so well, so quickly, it was driving him mad.

  He told her what transpired in the Realm of the Dragons, of what Elora had done, and of the wards that safeguarded the egg.

  “It’s not there,” she said, and he shook his head.

  “She wore two pouches, remember,” he replied. “I was just hoping in this instance fate had cast a favorable glance our way.”

  “She has it, then?”

  “So I would assume.”

  “I only saw the one pouch, Thorn. He
r right hip was bare.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she hid it; the pouch and the egg are just as lost to us.”

  “I wonder how we’d know?”

  “Know what?”

  “When the dreams went out of the world? I don’t feel any different but then, I suppose I wouldn’t. That would take imagination. The ability to dream.”

  “Stop, Anakerie. I hate metaphysics and philosophy, they make my head hurt.”

  “You’re the sorcerer, Peck. Aren’t they supposed to be your stock-in-trade, the keystones of power?”

  “And stop laughing at me as well. I’m a farmer. I like what I can hold in my hand. Magic is a tool, just like my plow, although it can occasionally be as stubborn as the pig who used to pull it.”

  “So what’re you going to do, Thorn?”

  “About the egg, nothing. About Elora and the Deceiver, whatever I have to. Those plans at least, I’ve set in motion. Now if you’ll excuse me, Highness, I’ll finish this delicious meal—my compliments to the cook, by the way—and continue with my work.”

  Now it was Anakerie’s turn to feel bedeviled by the insights they shared, because she knew him to be as adamant in this decision as she’d been earlier. He needed his solitude, and from her especially, to complete his task. She didn’t like it but she conceded him the field and withdrew.

  Their last thought as they parted was the same, it was of Elora Danan and there was longing in them both. Despite all that had happened, they wished her well.

  * * *

  —

  The Sacred Princess Elora Danan, now champion of the Malevoiy, stormed across the face of the world.

  She stood at the base of the Stairs to Heaven, on what had once been highlands some twenty-five leagues west of Ch’ang-ja and which were now a fairly spectacular coast, with old-growth forest growing thick as fur right to the edge of a sheer cliff. Powerful combers hammered at the rock, sending up continuous explosions of spray, as if the sacrifice of this portion of Chengwei land had merely made the ocean hungry for more.

  Elora perched right on the edge of the precipice, feet apart, a madcap grin splitting her features, daring all the elements to do their worst, the air to sweep her over the brink, the land to give way beneath her, the sea to rear up and wash her away. None of those things happened, and she told herself it was because none of those Realms dared test their strength against hers.

  In her argent incarnation, appearances to the contrary, her skin remained flesh. Only its color had changed. Here, the transformation was complete. She gleamed because she was as hard to the touch as a beetle’s carapace, a sable so pure and absolute it was the quintessence of darkness; she cast no shadow because she was one. Nothing that lived could do her harm; by contrast, she could deal death with an ease and in a multitude of ways that once would have seemed terrifying to her. She stroked a finger across the surface of a granite boulder and giggled as without the slightest effort her claw gouged a furrow as deep as her knuckle. The hardest steel would cut as easily and as for whatever lay beneath—she hugged herself in anticipation of the blood, of the fear in her victims’ eyes, of the taste of the souls she yearned to claim.

  One life topped the list, and she could hardly wait.

  She thought of ensorcelled Angwyn and couldn’t repress her delight at the thought of raising a fountain of raw magma right in the heart of that frozen city, of transforming the whole of what had been her Citadel to fire.

  She reached out with her thoughts to open the familiar path to the World’s core, so that she could ride the flows and currents of its molten substance to her destination…

  …but the earth denied her.

  She raged, she snarled, she threatened, she cursed, she struck out with every ounce of strength and power at her command, and did no more than create a modest excavation on the cliff top. Never once did she ask, that thought never occurred to her, which made her that much easier to ignore.

  She demanded power from the Malevoiy, only to learn they had precious little to offer beyond what had already been granted. Of all the Great Realms, they stood closest to the Circle of the Spirit, with only the barest corporeal presence on the Daikini side of the Veil. They had been able to grant Elora Danan a measure of their aspect, their physical attributes, and their strength but anything more had to come from her. Since she possessed no magic, she had no power to command.

  In short order, she discovered that all the secret ways once open to Elora Danan had been locked tight. She responded with threats of bloody vengeance but they sounded hollow even to her ears.

  Her rage and frustration made her so blind she was unaware of the Caliban’s presence until it loomed beside her, features perpetually shrouded by the wide brim of its hat, with its decorative ring of chiming bells. This close, it seemed wider to Elora than the tree trunks around them, and some of those when hollowed would make a decent house. Her own height was decent, yet it made her feel small. She didn’t like that and thought of testing her claws against him. He caught her fantasy and approved, giving her a distinct sense that it was a struggle he longed for, a victory that was assured, and she found herself taking a reflexive step away at the image of her own soul mounted on that damnable brim.

  The Caliban didn’t say a word, it merely set off through the trees at its normal, deliberate pace. There was no clear trail that Elora could see, yet the Caliban walked unhindered and she wondered if the forest moved itself aside to offer clear passage. She didn’t much like the creature, she’d rather find her own path, yet she found herself drawn after it, quickening her own steps until she walked a body length behind.

  Like it or not, she was compelled to trust the creature.

  To pass the time, she considered how best to slay her enemies. And made sure to place the Caliban second on her list.

  * * *

  —

  Maulroon and Ryn exchanged glances, then notes as they leaned over the chart table in the captain’s day cabin.

  “Y’re sure,” Maulroon challenged.

  Ryn shrugged. “You have your instruments, Master Trader. I know what my relatives tell me.”

  “Is there a problem?” Anakerie asked them both.

  “Depends on how y’ define the term,” Maulroon said. “We both agree, y’r brother an’ me, we jus’ dinna care for the result.” They didn’t like it at all.

  Maulroon spun the chart to face her, so she could clearly see the line of their course that he’d just marked in place. This was the second full day since leaving Ch’ang-ja. Given a steady wind, the best they might hope for was to have traveled perhaps two hundred leagues, six hundred miles. According to their position, they’d done three times that and more.

  “We’ll hold to Thorn’s schedule, then?”

  “Wi’ time to spare, an’ all stays well.” Maulroon made a quick sign to ward off malefic spirits and forces. “What happens after is anyone’s guess.”

  “What’s he been doing aft, Keri?” asked her brother. “Sending messages” was her thoughtful reply. “Drawing schematics.”

  “Of what?”

  “I suspect he’s having his relatives build a weapon to use against the Deceiver.”

  “That isn’t good?” Ryn asked, picking up on her tone.

  “Ask the sorcerers of Ch’ang-ja; it’s their design.”

  “Bloody hells,” exclaimed Maulroon, flailing arms and body and wishing for something to hit. “He canna be tha’ daft!”

  “Driven,” she corrected, before assuring both men, “and determined.”

  “Can’t be done,” Maulroon snapped, making a captain’s instant decision. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Try to stop him then, Maulroon. I’ve argued till my voice broke, I might as well be talking to a rock. He believes it may be the only way, and his ultimate dictum is, would you rather see the Deceiver define the world to be?”


  “Does winning matter when it leaves y’ wi’out a world to enjoy?”

  “Is there an alternative, when losing means the transformation of that world into Hell?”

  She turned from the table.

  “Whereaway, Princess?” Maulroon called after her, and she replied without looking back.

  “My voice may be broken, Master Trader, but I can still make myself heard.”

  * * *

  —

  “What d’you think happened with the Caliban?” she asked Drumheller on deck. She lay a little outside his bubble of protection, so she could feel the wind across her body as she stretched full length to bask in the sun. They’d be turning north come nightfall, toward the latitudes where the Deceiver’s unnatural winter held sway; she wanted to store as many memories of warmth as she could embrace. “From its actions at Tregare and the infiltration of Sandeni, we all assumed it was working for the Chengwei.”

  “So did they” was his laconic response. “Obviously, they were betrayed.”

  “That was what Elora said in the atrium, remember: the last such moment of change, when the world threw off the yoke of the Malevoiy, was defined by an act of blood and betrayal.”

  “Yes?” His patience was exaggerated, which meant he had none at all. Anakerie acted like she didn’t notice, but was merely musing to herself.

  “That’s been the shape of the world ever since, a state of perpetual conflict between the Great Realms themselves, between lesser Domains within the Realms. How often have we been told we are hunters, we are killers, it is merely obedience to our nature? What established that nature, Drumheller? A war that came to a conclusion, but not a proper end. That concluded with a breach of faith and honor.

  “We’re paying the price, like all the generations before us, for Eamon Asana’s arrogance. And,” she said, acting on a sudden inspiration, “his weakness.”

  “How so, weak?” Thorn was properly intrigued, so much so that he set down his pen and looked toward her. “His solution saved countless lives.”