Shade and Sorceress

by Catherine Egan

  ~

  Swarn sat against the wall in the Hall of the Ancients, breathing hard. The carved head of a dragon faced her from its grotto in the opposite wall. Her right arm hung useless at her side. Its strength would come back in time, but for now the Mancers had crippled her and she was defenseless. The pain of it was searing.

  “She is on her way,” said the Oracle, sitting comfortably on her eight folded legs and looking very serene. “They will not find her. Nia draws her on.”

  Swarn did not answer. Letting Eliza go had been wrong, foolish. She had endangered the worlds. Eliza was taking a weapon to Nia and Swarn had helped her. She couldn’t explain what had come over her in the mountains. Looking Rea’s daughter in the eyes, she had not been able to make a third attempt on her life. And yet, of course, in allowing her to go to Nia, she was letting her go to her death in any case. It would have been more merciful to strike her down quickly. What would Rea have wanted her to do? But if Rea were alive, the girl would never be in such a desperate, hopeless position.

  “You idiot witch,” said the King of the Faeries, limping into the hall, his face tight with pain. “Have you completely lost your mind? And do you know, I was just swarmed by the Faithful, who insist this girl’s destiny must be fulfilled and blah blah blah. The Faithful, for the Ancients’ sakes!”

  “Her destiny will be fulfilled,” said the Oracle, rolling her eyes back, “whether we wish it or not.”

  “Well, she’s gotten away, thanks to your people. It was only out of respect for you that I didn’t Curse them all. Some of us believe in free will, by the way. You could have stopped them if you’d spoken to them.”

  “I speak when asked,” said the Oracle.

  “Brilliant. Swarn suddenly decides to shoot her arrows at the Mancers and slaughter their dragons, which will no doubt do wonders for our inter-world relations, and then your people interfere when I’m trying to do the thing I thought we’d all agreed on. I’m not sure what side the two of you think you’re on, but when Nia comes back and decides it’s to be war and bloodshed all over again I suspect you’ll both wish you’d handled this matter a little differently.”

  “You’re very quick to make accusations,” said Swarn bitterly. “She would be no trouble to us at all were it not for you and your lack of judgment.”

  “That was hundreds of years ago!” the King of the Faeries spat, cutting her off.

  “I have more reason than anyone to hate Nia,” said Swarn, trying to get to her feet and then slumping back against the wall, wincing with pain. Like her arm, her legs had been twisted about and nearly torn from her body by the Mancers’ swift-moving barriers. “We have all made mistakes...”

  “I am disturbed,” said the Oracle.

  “Well, I didn’t want to be the one to say so,” snarled the King, bending to examine his bleeding foot.

  “The Sorceress has been growing stronger ever since she was imprisoned.”

  Swarn looked up sharply, and the King of the Faeries turned very white.

  “How is that possible?”

  “I do not know,” said the Oracle. “But her power has nearly doubled.”

  The King of the Faeries stared at her. “And it’s only just occurred to you to mention this now? I’ve half a mind to chop your hairy legs off, you deformed imbecile!”

  “I did not know it before now,” said the Oracle. “When the girl roared, I felt Nia’s presence, as did you. I felt the change in her. I have been meditating on that roar and have found her power much increased. Far beyond what it was when first we fought her.”

  “You’ve been meditating while Swarn shoots Mancers and I’m getting stabbed in the foot. A proud day for us all, don’t you think?” The King removed his sandal. The wound went almost through to the sole of his foot and blood welled up out of it, shining like liquid gold. “Blasted dragon claw – it won’t heal.”

  “I have herbs for that,” said Swarn. “I can take you back to the Marsh...”

  “I’m not going to your stinking Marsh. The Faeries will take care of it when I get back to my Kingdom. And I am going back, right now, unless the two of you have something more to say. You realize that, doubling power and the book aside, if Nia gets her hands on that dragon claw she’ll be able to cut her way right out of her Mancer-built prison?”

  “The girl would have to give it to her with pure, whole-hearted willingness,” said Swarn. “Nia may have some hold over her, but she still killed the girl’s mother. She won’t be able to give it to her, even if she wants to trade it for her father’s life. There will be too much anger in her.”

  “You sound very sure of that,” said the King angrily.

  “Who comes?” cried the Oracle suddenly, startling them both.

  The air trembled, the wall parted, and Kyreth stepped into the Hall, his robe billowing around him and his eyes white-hot. He spoke a formal greeting in the Language of First Days and the other three responded in kind, braced for his next move. He approached Swarn. The Oracle and the King of the Faeries stepped aside. Swarn raised her head but could not stand.

  “If you’ve come to kill me,” she said, “I am defenseless.”

  “I have not come to kill you,” said Kyreth. His voice boomed in the vast Hall. “Now is not the time for us to be enemies. First I bring some comfort. Rest assured that the barriers holding our common enemy are most powerful and complex. Even with the Book of Barriers, even with all her power, she will not quickly or easily free herself from the prison we have made for her. I have sent my Emissariae to intercept the girl on her journey. That is the first priority. But if she enters Nia’s realm then we must work together to free her. Without her, the Shang Sorceress’s line will be at an end.”

  “And if Nia frees herself?” said the Oracle.

  “Unlikely, but we must be prepared for this possibility too. She would wreak great havoc in our world, but you know that she would eventually find her way back to yours, in spite of any Magic you may have used to bar her. I have come to ask your help and offer ours in return. She is no match for all our powers combined.”

  “Mancers and Faeries as allies,” said the King of the Faeries, as if he’d just taken a bite of something stale. “It is not a notion I love.”

  “Don’t be childish,” said Swarn wearily. “It is only due to them she has not returned already.” She looked up at Kyreth. “I will fight with you when called,” she said, “as will all the dragons of the cliffs of Batt.”

  “And I,” said the Oracle, “and my people, the Faithful.”

  Kyreth looked patiently at the King of the Faeries, who heaved a great sigh.

  “I too,” he said reluctantly, “and all the Faeries of Tian Xia.”

  “That is good,” said Kyreth somberly. He bent close to Swarn and with one swift yank tore the barrier star from around her neck. “We are agreed, then.”

  ~

  Eliza and Charlie flew over the archipelago, stopping twice to rest on small, uninhabited islands. Here Charlie could easily catch fish and so they did not touch their supplies of food. By early afternoon they were in sight of the mainland of the Republic. Its edges crumbled into thickly wooded islands on the ocean side and further inland the coast reared up into the Karbek mountains, the longest mountain range in all of Di Shang.

  They rested on a stony beach a few hours before continuing north along the coastline. When they stopped for food, Charlie became whatever animal was best suited to hunt there and Eliza ate and drank from the supplies Nell had given her, mainly tins of food she had found in her family’s cupboards. Never again would she leave food behind in a panic, as she had done in the Ravening Forest of Tian Xia. Never again would she take things like sleep and water for granted. She drank in the sight of her own world gladly, the leafy green trees, the bright sea and cloudy blue sky, even the rugged, stony mountains. She smiled to see birds of prey circling over the water and squirrels foraging around the roots of trees. This was a world that welcomed life, nourished it, she thought. No m
atter where she had been born, this was where she belonged.

  The following day they flew west across the mountains and made their camp for the night in the forest almost a hundred miles north of Kalla. Most of the cities in the Republic were clustered along the two great rivers, the Arnox and the Noxoni. Here, north of the Arnox, the land was wild and virtually uninhabited.

  “Why do you always fly as a gryphon?” Eliza asked. “Why nary be a dragon or a winged unicorn? If you can be anything at all?”

  They were warming themselves by the fire in a small clearing in the trees. Somebody had built a fire here before, perhaps hunters, for a pit had been dug out and surrounded by stones. Wood was easy to come by in the forest, and soon they had a roaring blaze to keep them warm. Eliza was glad of the leather jacket Nell had packed for her, but it was a jacket for cool winter evenings in Holburg and was sadly insufficient for the real cold of the north.

  “Lah, I cannay be something that doesnay exist, and winged unicorns are extinct,” answered Charlie. “But some shapes just fit better, aye. They feel right, they feel like me, so I use them often, like the gryphon. I’m clumsy and slow as a dragon, but when I’m a gryphon I’m the best flyer in the sky. Same with being Charlie, aye. When I’m with you, it just feels natural. I can slide right into it. Other shapes I cannay wait to get out of.”

  “I wonder why that is. Do you know any other Shades?”

  “They must exist. I didnay know what I was until a wizard called me that once, a long time ago. But most beings, even very powerful ones, cannay recognize a Shade. I was surprised that Swarn did, aye, but it seems she’s met one before, praps. And since Shades are nay particularly powerful, outside of being able to change shape, I spec we dinnay have the power to recognize each other.”

  “So you dinnay have parents, or anything like that?”

  “I couldnay tell you. I was tempted to snoop round the Mancer Library while I was there, since they must have something about Shades, but it seemed risky, aye.”

  “If we come back from this we should try to find out.”

  Charlie seemed uncomfortable then and shrugged. “It doesnay matter, lah,” he said rather gruffly, and so Eliza let it drop. It was Charlie’s watch and her turn to sleep. She moved a bit closer to the fire, watching the flames dance upwards. Deep at the core of the fire she saw tongues of greenish flame, like the fire of Swarn’s dragons, and flickers of white, like the space in the Vindensphere that had pulled her into the Arctic. The fire only warmed her skin. She felt chilled deep down, inside her bones, and she wasn’t sure if it was due to the raw northern air or the cold dread that had for so many days now been her constant companion. The Mancers would be looking for her, and while her whole hot heart tugged her on towards her father, some icy, frightened part of her almost wished for them to find her.

  She woke with a start, with the sense that she’d been deeply asleep for quite some time. The fire hissed and scattered. Charlie was kicking at the embers to put it out. She scrambled to her feet.

  “Quiet,” he whispered. “Get back to the trees.”

  She glimpsed dark shapes overhead and ran for the trees. Something landed in front of her – something hideous, with big black wings and an oily, muscular body. Pale, hairless skin was stretched too tight over its skull, and its hinged jaw opened wide to reveal a black mouth full of jagged yellow teeth, many of them rotten and broken.

  “Charlie!” she shrieked. The thing rolled its head around at her, neck tendons bulging, and made an ugly croaking sound. Within seconds the clearing was full of the creatures hopping about on their wiry legs, wings contracting and expanding.

  “These are the Cra,” said Charlie, at Eliza’s side. He sounded relieved.

  “They’re nay from this world,” whimpered Eliza. “Why are they here?”

  “They’ve crossed over, aye. They serve the Sorceress.”

  Behind them the Cra were heaping leaves over the dying fire and the one that had landed in front of Eliza seemed to be urging them in among the trees.

  “They’re helping us,” said Charlie. “For her, I mean. Mancers must be passing this way. Come on.”

  Eliza followed Charlie and the Cra in among the trees. She huddled there among the hunched, grimacing creatures, her heart pounding. Their small eyes flashed in the dark. Their name, the Cra, was familiar to her from awful stories told by children in small towns and the cross old widows who liked to frighten them.

  “They’re horrible-looking,” she whispered to Charlie.

  “They’re horrible through and through,” he replied. “Do you know why they cross over?”

  “You said they serve the Sorceress.”

  “They know if she gets free she’ll be a powerful ally. But they cross over because they feed on human infants, aye. The separation of the worlds was a rotten deal for them. Their natural prey was suddenly gone.”

  “They eat babies?”

  “Yes. And until we get to the Arctic, they’re going to be your best friends.”

  Eliza and Charlie hid among the trees with the Cra for a few hours. Every now and then one of the Cra would come or go. At dawn the Cra took to the sky all together. Charlie and Eliza followed, Charlie in his gryphon form and Eliza on his back. Most of the Cra peeled off in different directions, as scouts and decoys, while one of them led Charlie and Eliza northwards.

  And so the final leg of their journey was made easy. The Cra came and went, leading them across the stark beauty of the Arctic islands. They rested by sparse, frozen trees that shone in the sun and cracked in the wind. The Cra brought Eliza furs to wear, for the cold was simply unendurable in her jeans and leather coat, and they brought seal fat and large Arctic fish for her to eat. There was plenty of warning when Eliza and Charlie needed to keep out of sight. They did not see the Mancers at all.

  This far north, the night was brief. The sun seemed to rise again almost as soon as it had set. They flew over a grey sea churning with ice floes and reached an island with hills and valleys and plains of ice. Here the Cra built a shelter for Eliza and Charlie to sleep in. When they woke the Cra were gone.

  “She must be nearby,” said Charlie, after they had eaten the seal fat left for them. “We should go on foot today, aye.”

  So they walked. Eliza brought with her only her satchel with the Book of Barriers in it, and she carried her staff in her hand. She had the strange sensation of seeing something she had only ever seen before in dreams. The endless white landscape was so familiar.

  The tiger came loping towards them out of the whiteness. It locked eyes with Eliza, then turned to lead them. Eliza saw that Charlie was very pale and looking around restlessly.

  “You dinnay need to come any further,” she said to him. “You’ve done more than enough, aye. I’ll tell her it was you that brought me here.”

  “Nay, I’ll come with you,” said Charlie. “I have a feeling though...she’s nay going to be too happy with me.”

  As he spoke, there was a shimmer in the air and everything changed. They stepped into a large, brightly lit room that looked as if it had just been ransacked. Elegant sandals and silky bits of women’s underclothes were scattered about, paintings stood propped against the walls, and a giant iguana was crawling around eating bonbons that had been dropped all over the carpet. In the middle of the room, the most beautiful woman Eliza had ever seen was lying on a divan dressed in red silk pajamas, eating ice cream from a little dish and watching tv. Her red-gold hair was piled up on her head and her luminous, slanted eyes were a vivid green flecked with gold. Around her neck she wore a gold pendant and a vial full of some bright liquid. When she saw Eliza step through the wall she tossed aside the ice-cream dish and the tiny silver spoon – both disappeared in mid-air before hitting the ground – and leaped to her feet, crying, “Eliza! I’m so glad you’ve come!”

  ~ Chapter 17 ~

  Bedraggled and surprised in her damp, smelly furs, Eliza stood before the Sorceress. The blissful warmth of the room enveloped her. Cha
rlie had vanished.

  “You look like your father,” said Nia in lightly accented Kallanese, looking her up and down. “That’s a shame. I much prefer to have a good-looking nemesis. Now, your father is handsome enough as men go, but somehow, on you...well, lots of people grow into their looks. I personally have known some very ugly children to become quite lovely adults, and vice versa too. Except of course,” here Nia laughed lightly, “you won’t have time for that. Pity.”

  Eliza barely heard what the Sorceress was saying. She had the strange, dizzying sensation of having arrived home, of having known this woman all her life. It was an unsettling feeling and she pushed it aside, gripping her staff.

  “Where’s my da?” she demanded. She had hoped to keep her voice steady, but it squeaked a bit.

  Nia laughed again. She had a very pretty laugh. “All business!” she exclaimed. “Just like your mother. Don’t you even want a bath?” She snapped her fingers and the television became a bathtub full of steaming water and scented bubbles. “Doesn’t that look tempting, after your long journey? Now, where is the Shade?”

  They both looked around. Nia spotted him first, a tiny spider hiding where the wall met the floor. “There he is. He made a mistake dragging you off to Tian Xia as if my time was irrelevant. Although I’m dying to ask you about it – it’s been ages since I’ve been home.”

  The spider made a mad dash up the wall and Nia pinned him with a glance. “Stop right there,” she said sweetly.

  And then he wasn’t a spider anymore, or anything really. He looked like a distorted reflection in beveled glass or a shadow falling across a rippled puddle. He changed from dark to light to smoky grey, rippling and flickering and thinning to nothing but a long slender wisp, longer than Eliza, then darkening and thickening as if he were going to take shape, but he didn’t. In the struggling formless play of light and dark there was a sorrow and a loneliness older than time, and the sounds Eliza had heard when Foss had helped her Listen to his thoughts came back to her.