Shadow Dancers

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Chrysais’s lower lip thrust itself out. “I see nothing amusing. I have gone to a great deal of trouble to gain this artifact, and it will not perform!”

  “Now, now,” Eldrafel whispered. He tweaked one of her curls and pulled the sardonyx figure from her bosom. It was a tiny statue of himself. In its place he left an open-mouthed kiss. Chrysais’s eyelids fluttered, an addict savoring her favorite drug, and she tightened her grasp upon him.

  He slipped through her fingers, left the bed and reached into a giant vase, one of two guarding a small stairway mounting into the darkest corner of the room. From it he pulled another bundle. “Look,” he announced. “See what Captain Jemail found among the sea wrack upon the shore! He actually had enough wit to bring it to me.” Eldrafel plucked the cloth away. It was Solifrax, the snakeskin sheath shining in tiny ripples of light as though it had never tasted saltwater.

  With a squeal of excitement Chrysais leaped up. “I knew he brought it with him. He kept reaching for its hilt at his belt. But I did not think it wise to ask.”

  “No, not wise at all. Not yet.” Eldrafel drew the sword. The crystalline blade gleamed with reflected lamplight. He considered it a moment and queried softly of himself, “Why this roughness on the steel, I wonder, like a drop of acid leaving an etched trail?”

  Chrysais approached. He pirouetted, avoiding her outstretched hands. He grinned, flourished the sword, and playfully menaced her, tickling her throat and lifting her skirts with the blade.

  Her breast heaved. “Let me see it. Let me touch it. The blood of Bellasteros flows in my veins, and it will wake to me!”

  Eldrafel tossed Solifrax onto the bed.

  She snatched it up. It gleamed with reflected light, not its own. Its metal was cold, ice cold, and her hot breath fogged it but did not warm it. It seemed to turn in her hands, its keen edge biting her fingertips. With a curse she dropped the blade and sat, a huddle of flounces and jewels and rage, sucking her injured fingers.

  Eldrafel snickered. “It tastes your blood and finds it tainted.” He dressed, picked up the sword, sheathed it. He laid it against the shield, listening closely, probing them both with his hands, eyes narrowed. Nothing. With a shrug he wrapped them together in the cloth and turned toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” wailed Chrysais. “We have been so long separated, my love!”

  Eldrafel glanced at her over his shoulder, not quite focusing on her. “Only a moment, dearest. I want to leave these with someone who can perhaps stir them to life, and our service.”

  “The little brown dove?” Chrysais sneered.

  His eyes focused. “He followed her—despite his better judgment, I daresay. He must be besotted with his own wife.” And that, too, amused him. “She was most distressed when I took the shield from her this morning. She will be even more distressed to find that it now has a companion.” His mirrored gaze at last touched his wife’s flushed face, drawing the blood from her cheeks. “Surely you can amuse yourself until I return.”

  “Indeed,” she said with a sigh. “I believe so.”

  The door shut behind Eldrafel. Chrysais rose, straightened her garments, lifted several skeins of yarn from a basket on a nearby table. The threads lay smooth on her palm, black and gold, purple and red. With her fingertip she twisted and tangled them. Her lips parted with the assurance of power, and her eyes lit with a slow, hot flame. She started up the stairway, toward a door concealed in onyx shadow.

  The strands of yarn moved by themselves, coiling up her arms like hunting cobras.

  *

  One wing of the palace clambered up to and then stopped dead at a mighty buttress of rock. In some remote time passages had been cut into the living stone, leading to tiny chambers with even tinier windows which overlooked the city and the harbor.

  In the largest of the rough-hewn rooms Sumitra stared at the tray of food. She had tried to eat, for the sake of the child, at least, but the poppy-seed cakes and goat cheese stuck in her throat, gritty as the ashes that drifted in the window and covered everything with a fine pall.

  She left the oil lamp on the table and peered once again out the window. The night was dark. Only a few lights glinted in the city, and the sea was invisible, just a suggestion of shimmering movement in the corner of the eye. A dim moon and even dimmer stars barely broke the expanse of a sky that hung heavy over the island, a black drape threatening to fall and smother all life upon it.

  Sumitra shook away her qualm. She should be grateful; they had come at last to land, two—no three—nights ago now. Barely able to walk, she had been guided by Eldrafel’s surprisingly strong arms to an ox cart and carried away like the bundle of trade goods she evidently was. She did not even know the name of this land, but she had her suspicions. Rhodope, perhaps, although that was an ally of Sardis; perhaps distant Minras itself.

  If so, Andrion’s sister Chrysais was here, and might help. Or might not. Sumi had seen enough palace intrigue in her girlhood to be wary of relatives.

  She had seen … Her mind crawled, haunted by the image of a Sardian galley approaching the harbor mouth. She had watched from the narrow balcony outside her cell, her hands clasped in hope, and then in terror as the ship was taken aback and spun away down the coast, to disappear so quickly around the jagged base of the mountain that she wondered if she had hallucinated it.

  No, she had seen a ship. Logically, it had carried only an embassy—she was but a wife, after all, not an important asset of the Empire… .

  The bar across the door behind her slid back. She turned. Eldrafel stood in the opening, bearing an irregularly shaped bundle, smiling.

  During their long journey—a month on that cursed ship—she had grown to hate his smile. It was so attractive that one tended not to notice it touched his lips only and was never reflected in his eyes. His eyes indulged in a different humor entirely, taunting her with innocuous questions but demanding nothing. She would have felt less uneasy if he had demanded something.

  Stiffly, she asked, “Did you bring it back?”

  “You have appointed yourself guardian of the shield belonging to your husband’s mistress? How touching.”

  Sumitra felt her cheeks grow hot. Uncanny, how the man could find a scab and pick at it. Even if he were not quite correct; it was Ilanit’s shield, not Dana’s, not yet. And Dana was hardly Andrion’s—well, she was his lover, but only at certain times. He had known Dana all his life… . Sumi could only hope that in the dimness Eldrafel would not notice her blush. But he did, and his smile broadened. He threw down the bundle and left. Why did he return the shield? Because it would not shine for him?

  Better to hate him than be frightened by him, Sumitra concluded. She bent to retrieve the package and started back. The shield, yes, and something else. Her hands, suddenly cold, fumbled at the wrappings.

  She crouched over Solifrax. Trembling, she drew it and stroked the blade marred by Andrion’s blood as if it were Andrion’s living flesh. He had come after her. He had been on that ship. No one else would have his sword, no one could have taken it from him, except by …

  Her mind veered. She pursued the thought, horrible as it was, and forced herself to contemplate it. She saw Andrion drowned, saw him transfixed by leaf-bladed spears, saw him slaughtered like a sacrificed bullock at Eldrafel’s feet.

  Tears welled in her eyes and dropped onto Solifrax. The blade hissed, turning each droplet into a multicolored cloud. Was it trying to reassure her? Andrion had come after her, drawn by a proud anger at the theft of his woman, drawn by love… . She sniffed, wiped her eyes, and stroked the sword again. It sighed contentedly under her hand, not unlike Andrion himself. Sparks floated from its tip and danced across the surface of the shield. The many-pointed star twinkled. Sword and shield together chimed, not in unison, but in a chord, faint but resonant.

  Sumitra hastily sheathed the sword and covered the shield. She glanced toward the door. Its blank face stared back at her.

  She laid the weapons carefully do
wn, fitting the concave side of the sword against the rim of the shield. It was a perfect fit. That was a bit discomforting, in and of itself, but she tightened her lips, raised her chin and said quietly to them both, “Well, I would serve Ilanit and Dana and little Astra rather than Eldrafel any day. That I cannot doubt.”

  And neither would she doubt that Andrion was still alive and close at hand, and would in time come to her. Alone, or with an army, or with only Tembujin—and yes, Dana would come for her shield.

  Sumitra seated herself with the zamtak and began to sing one of Andrion’s favorite airs, a simple melody garlanded with all the pleasant clichés of the language of love. “Green grew the willows along the sea strand/ Bright shone the sun as we lay hand in hand …”

  As she played she thought the shield and the sword hummed along; when she stopped, they stopped. Even though she was not quite sure what she was hearing, she continued to sing.

  A tentative breeze curled in the window, lifted the mellifluous sounds of the zamtak and voice and bore them away into the night.

  Eldrafel stood outside the door, pressed against it as if pressed against the body of a woman, sensing what passed inside with more than just his ears. His eyes smiled.

  Chapter Seven

  In a starless, moonless night Dana walked the streets of Sardis. And yet it was not Sardis at all, but an insubstantial ghost city, all shade, no color. Wraiths plucked at her garments. The wind, foul with irex and sorcery, whined feebly at her back.

  The great ziggurat of Harus was a stack of stone as tortured as that looming over Orocastria, heaped above the forecourt of Ashtar’s temple. But the temple was not there; an empty courtyard scattered with the blood red blooms of amaranth lay open to the expressionless sky.

  Amaranth. Love lies bleeding. Dana shuddered and turned away. There, at her feet, lay a pile of feathers. A falcon, pierced with a spear, its wings splayed and broken, its talons clutching at nothing. “Harus,” she hissed. “I no longer wish you harm.”

  A light glinted atop the ziggurat. Another answered, winking beyond the runnel of darkness that was the street. The sound of wheels echoed down the wind. The distant flickering shapes of fiery chariots appeared in the avenue, speeding toward the temple compound. Spectral drivers lashed spectral horses, reins rattling in their bony fingers. Hoof and wheel crushed the thronging phantoms beneath them.

  Dana’s heart beat against her breastbone. She leaped onto the great stones that had once been Harus’s ziggurat and scrambled upward. The two rivers of Sardis glided beneath her, dark and slick; the sky was height upon height of black cloud. The light atop the mound shone on, hard and bright.

  Gasping and then spitting out the foul taste in her mouth, she heaved herself over the topmost stone and sprawled beside the high altar. The rock was garlanded with dried and brittle flowers. In their midst was the imperial diadem, glowing bravely with a clear light. Where that light fell the garlands were whole, wreaths of dewy fresh jasmine and asphodel.

  The chariots rumbled straight up the sides of the ruined ziggurat. With a cry Dana threw herself forward and grasped at the diadem.

  Her hand touched it. It flared, encompassing her in its gleam. She was in Patros’s study. The governor-general bent over his desk, pen scratching purposefully. Beside him Kleothera sat sewing a bit of embroidery depicting the sea lapping a jagged island, smoke coiling from a conical mountain. Beside her was a cradle. Little Declan giggled, chasing his toes, green eyes sparkling.

  A howling gust of wind threw the cradle down. Dana lunged for the child, but he was gone, engulfed by shadow. The diadem slipped from her fingers and rolled away, bounced down the side of the mound, disappeared. Storm clouds churned the sky. The chariots hurtled over the rim of stone and came straight at Dana, implacable.

  With a hoarse scream of horror and denial she fell, skimming over the rough rocks without touching them, into the amethyst and blue depths of the sea. Fish cavorted around her, octopi wrapped her arms with muscular tentacles. A hollow drumming in her head became a voice, a male voice. “Dana! Wake up!”

  Male hands held her and she quailed. There were the sea creatures swimming across the wall and ceiling of the room, suspended in the peculiar hazy light of Minras. The voice insisted, “It is but a dream!”

  “Is it?” she replied. “Is it?” But whether it was nightmare or waking vision did not matter. She trembled, her skin marble cold. “Andrion, I know my father’s name. I know my sons. I know you. And I dream of Sardis, not of Sabazel.”

  The face looking at her was Tembujin’s. One side of his mouth tucked itself tight. “Andrion has gone scouting. Will I do?”

  She wrenched her thought into control. She sighed, “You have always done very nicely.”

  The air in the room stirred with the elusive odor of rot. No wonder the Minrans scented their rooms, their water, themselves, with rare and exotic fragrances. But Tembujin, even as he chafed in a Minran kilt, bore his familiar aroma of wood smoke and grass. Dana allowed herself a moment to rest against his sleek shoulder. Only a moment, just long enough to catch her breath and let the ice water in her veins become blood again.

  “You would have preferred another name for our son Zefric?” Tembujin hazarded.

  Her face cracked, sloughing off the horror, revealing a crooked smile. “He is your child,” she said, “not mine. That is not what I meant.”

  “I know that is not what you meant,” Tembujin returned softly. He did not need to add. Will my recognizing your meaning change it?

  With a quick, dry caress Dana put his arms aside and rose.

  *

  The hawk-nosed guard who had escorted them from the beach stood beside the door, not before it, in an ambiguous position. Andrion shrugged the short Rexian purple cloak over his shoulder and settled the linen kilt about his hips. At least his own belt, although water-stained, was presentable, and his necklace gleamed at his throat. He stepped out, pretending he was not off-balance without the weight of Solifrax at his thigh.

  The guard clattered to alertness, his spear stabbing toward the sky, his disgruntled gaze roaming everywhere but to Andrion.

  This would never do. Why, the man was no older than Andrion himself. “What is your name?” Andrion asked him.

  The man stared, accustomed to being treated as another frescoed wall.

  “Your name, soldier.”

  “Jemail. Sir.”

  “I am addressed as ‘my lord.’” Andrion folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels, the benign disciplinarian. “And what is your rank?”

  “Captain. My lord.”

  “And your orders?”

  The man boggled. Andrion drew himself up to his full height, drew out his most deliberate voice. “Your orders, Captain Jemail.”

  “To—to watch your movements and those of your companions, and to report them back to—” Jemail stopped short.

  Andrion leaned toward him and whispered conspiritorially, “King Eldrafel? Queen Chrysais?”

  The man looked slightly ill.

  “Never fear, Jemail, I will do nothing that you cannot safely report. Carry on.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The color returned to Jemail’s swarthy face and he saluted smartly. Andrion wandered away across a terrace garden, his features as bland as possible. Not for nothing had he spent many hours of his childhood sitting before Bellasteros, inspecting the legions.

  But unfortunately not a Sardian legion was in sight. No sword, no shield, no Sumitra. A legion would not help. Wits, man, Andrion ordered himself, use your wits!

  In the haze the city before him was only a suggestion sketched in light and shadow, the harbor turgid pea green, the huge statues of Taurmenios brass, not gold. Three triremes lay at anchor like giant water beetles. Whether this was the terrace from which he had watched Eldrafel dancing the night before he could not tell. This place was a hallucination.

  He could have sworn on Solifrax itself that the night wind had teased him with the evocative music of Sumi�
�s voice and zamtak. “Bright shone the sun as we lay hand in hand/ I gave him my song/ Yes, I gave him my song/ It shall be with him wherever he goes.”

  Indeed, Andrion thought. But no wind stirred this morning. A shallow pool, the water as taut as a membrane, reflected a pewter sky. Flowering water plants barely creased the surface. Lotus, Andrion realized. Blue lotus. His neck prickled. The bull and the lotus, Dana had said. Her vision had been quite correct. And yesterday she had sensed something amiss with the diadem.

  Restlessly he turned and paced back across the flagstones, ignoring Jemail’s fixed gaze. Bees droned about a row of tall plants whose wide green leaves nodded despite the stillness of the air. The stillness before a storm. He touched a glossy black berry and it fell into his hand.

  “Do not eat that!” said a voice just behind him.

  Andrion turned. “I do not intend to. It is nightshade, is it not?”

  A fresh-faced boy watched him. “Yes, it is. Poison.”

  “In a large enough dose,” returned Andrion. He threw the berry away.

  “Are you my uncle Andrion, the emperor?” the child asked, peering upward from a thicket of chestnut hair. Evidently an emperor should not be standing around by himself, but should have an entourage of pennons and elephants, at the least.

  “I am,” Andrion replied, “if you are the son of Chrysais and Gath.”

  “My name is Gard,” the boy announced. “Yes, I am the queen’s son. And Gath’s, too, but I do not remember him.”

  Andrion started to offer some sympathy when he realized what Gard had said. “You do not remember him?”

  “He died when I was just a baby,” the boy patiently explained, as if to a backward student. “Before the time appointed for his death ritual.”

  Andrion did not like the sound of that; it reminded him too much of the legends of ancient Sardis and Sabazel both, the hero-king Daimion sacrificed by the hero-queen Mari… . The child had probably been frightened by some old tale.