Shadow Dancers

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Dana’s lashes fluttered and opened. Her green eyes rolled independently for a moment, and then squinting with effort, focused. “Ah,” she croaked. “Would you take advantage of me, Andrion?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But not as whoever drugged you would have. Is that not what happened?”

  Groaning, she stretched. Her limbs did not seem to function as efficiently as she could have wished; to Andrion’s regret her face furrowed again. Much as his own was furrowed, with resentful puzzlement.

  Tembujin twitched and swore some muffled oath in his own language. With a glance at him, Dana said, “We found evidence of Chrysais’s sorcery. But Eldrafel caught us. He is—he is so infuriatingly smug! No reprimand, no questions, only a cup of elder wine.” She grimaced. “We saw the herb garden later. The wine was tainted.”

  “Dana,” rasped Tembujin, “countered with herbs of her own. Most unpleasant effects, I must say.”

  “That was the bryony. An emetic,” she added to Andrion. “Then antithora and nettle as antidotes.”

  Andrion grimaced in sympathy. “He poisoned you?”

  “Oddly enough, no. I think we were given a small dose of valerian and opium, enough to make us sleep like babes until tomorrow.” She added grimly, “Eldrafel drank the same wine, but I venture to say was not affected. He must be accustomed to such infernal brews.”

  Andrion did not like that. But then, there was very little here that he did like. The innocence of the child Gard was an anomaly, the neglected loose stitch in an overwrought tapestry. “It is most encouraging,” he said, “that despite Eldrafel’s smugness he wished to put a stop to your curiosity. He and Chrysais have something to hide.”

  “Indeed,” Dana said dryly, and went on to tell of the tapestry and its many images. “I do not think it can be destroyed by conventional means. I do not know if its destruction would break the enchantments it pictures.”

  “Ah,” said Andrion, enlightened. He told the tale of his own discoveries and concluded, “No wonder I have been thinking of tapestries. And I heard Solifrax singing in my necklace. Am I touched by a tendril of your Sight, Dana?”

  “I am so sorry,” she returned, quite serious.

  “Why?” asked Tembujin. “Convenient, is it not, to have an extra sense?”

  “It is not a courier service,” Dana said scathingly.

  Tembujin raised his hand, warding her glare. “All right, all right. I do not understand your Sight, I could not see the blue light in the tower, but that does not make me weak!”

  “It makes you a valuable companion,” said Andrion.

  Dana added, “The one die in this game that cannot be loaded.”

  “I would rather not play this game at all,” Tembujin retorted. Then, in afterthought, “But I have been enspelled—when Sarasvati cut my hair and gave it to my stepmother the witch.”

  “That spell was directed at you,” said Dana.

  “And produced the most gratifying results,” Andrion added with a quick vulpine grin.

  Tembujin growled a cordially explicit insult.

  “I think you cannot sense,” Dana went on, ignoring the exchange, “how shall I put it—nonspecific sorceries.”

  Andrion’s thought veered in another direction. “The tapestry bore images of pigs, and I found Niarkos and his men acting like pigs; it bore images of Ilanit and Bonifacio …” The idea spun from his grasp.

  And into Dana’s. “Unsettling, that Chrysais does not seem to need a specific, like a lock of hair, to work her sorceries. Or perhaps I should say Eldrafel needs none. I believe him to be the more powerful of the two; more control.” She added between her teeth, “Of course, stealing the shield would of itself weaken Ilanit. And Sabazel.”

  Andrion asked himself for the hundredth time, what reassurance can I offer in the face of such malignant strength? If only I could learn the rules of this game. He laid his hand on Dana’s arm; yes, flesh still warmed flesh, cleanly and without pretense. And more. His ears, he realized, were buzzing faintly, as if bees swarmed just beyond the boundary of his senses. Dana nodded and shrugged resignedly.

  “But why Bonifacio?” asked Tembujin. He stood and rescued what looked like a small sapling from the floor, pulled out his dagger and began shaving the bark from it. “What is the point of enspelling a goose like Bonifacio?”

  “Because he has the keeping of the imperial diadem,” Andrion snarled. He told them of his realization about Rowan’s identity. “The loss of the diadem would affect my land as the loss of the shield affects Sabazel.”

  Tembujin’s knife scraped stubbornly. “Khalingu’s teeth! I saw both Rowan and Rue but did not catch the resemblance. All you northerners look alike.”

  Dana turned and tweaked his tail of hair. “Khalingu indeed! We have not told Andrion that Rue has Sumitra’s ruby!”

  “Ah?” Andrion exhaled. A torrent of hot blood rushed and roiled just behind his ears.

  “Eldrafel,” Tembujin said, fending Dana off and relieving her of several long black hairs, “did not even try to pretend the ruby was not Sumitra’s. She is here, Andrion, just as surely as Solifrax and the shield.”

  For a moment he was giddy with her nearness. No wonder he heard her song—how she filled him! And how light was Dana’s scrutiny; remote, polite … He cleared his throat. “Good. Then we shall be able to retrieve them all at once.” He bolted to his feet as decisively as if he had some kind of plan. The faint murmuring in his mind intensified, becoming a sublime harmony. His necklace tickled his throat.

  Tembujin pulled several of Dana’s hairs from her head and began plaiting the blond with the black. “Perhaps you two seers will sneer at me for asking such, but why is it that Chrysais and Eldrafel can have the sword and yet Andrion is not enspelled?”

  “As we said of the shield and the diadem,” returned Dana, rubbing her scalp, “Solifrax does not belong to Andrion. Its beneficent magic is a gift of the gods, a legacy he has earned to supplement his own power, but it is not his own.”

  “Perhaps,” Andrion said, waiving the problem of whose power supplemented whom’s, “it is simply not to their purpose to enspell us now. Any more than we are already enspelled.” As though in reproof, his necklace sank sharp teeth into his flesh; he gasped aloud and fumbled at it, but it was cool to his hand.

  “They call us,” Dana said. “Now.”

  Tembujin, blissfully deaf, tied the plaited hair to either end of the yew branch, bending it into a facsimile of a small Khazyari bow. He plucked it. “Primitive,” he stated, “but if I can find some arrows …” The bowstring sang, adding a quick grace note to the music swelling about them.

  “Come,” said Andrion. “We are summoned.”

  Tembujin looked at him quizzically. “All right. Fine.”

  Andrion stepped between the guards at the door with a graceful bow; as they saluted, Tembujin and Dana quickly cracked their heads together. Just as quickly the unconscious soldiers were concealed in the room.

  The evening sunlight was like molten bronze. The sun burned just on the horizon, pouring its glory with an almost audible clangor against the blue-black clouds still thronging the east. Sea birds spiraled like pen strokes across a dark but clear sky. The city, the harbor, the statues of Taurmenios were as bright and crisp as gold-leafed miniatures. Sumitra had such a picture, Andrion thought, of her father’s palace in the Mohan. Orocastria seemed just as remote, and the quarter moon was so far away as to be merely an idea.

  The mountain of Zind Taurmeni blended into the even more massive peaks of storm clouds, but distant Mount Tenebrio was now clearly defined. Its flattened crown dented the arch of the indigo sky. Andrion pointed it out to Dana and Tembujin, adding, “Gard says an ancient shrine is there, and beyond, another port, Akrotiri.” Another port, he thought, and barely heard Dana mutter, “The rites of Taurmenios Tenebrae. His shrine, is it?”

  The cool, clean wind shimmered with music and impatience. Definitely the zamtak, Andrion told himself, igniting the voices of the sw
ord and shield. He had no doubt that Sumitra was resourceful enough to learn such a skill. He glanced up at the far buttress-like wing of the palace. It was still oddly undefined.

  “It shifts as you look at it, hiding,” Dana said.

  “No,” said Tembujin. “It is a slab of rock with windows—narrow windows, like a cell.”

  Andrion clapped him upon the shoulder, almost cheerful. “A spell is upon it then. Something is hidden there. Come.”

  Rolling his eyes, Tembujin settled his bow upon his shoulder and started toward a corridor that looked as if it might lead toward their goal.

  “By the way,” Andrion asked Dana in diffident aside, “what were you dreaming, to smile so peacefully in your sleep?”

  Her mouth softened in a brief unguarded smile. “Of you, and Sabazel, and the full moon.”

  “Ah,” he replied lamely, but she had already settled her dagger in its sheath and strode after Tembujin.

  The palace was as silent as if abandoned. Andrion glanced down into the arena. Although his eyes were dazzled by sunlight diffused through cloud and damp, he could see figures crawling along the shaded galleries, gathering for yet another ceremony; they huddled in darkness untouched by the rich light streaming above them. God-ridden people, he thought. Like beasts of burden, moving stolidly from task to task, from rite to rite, believing, no doubt, that their rites are what turn the natural cycles of the world. How innocent. How arrogant.

  The three plunged into the corridor. Within moments they were lost. And yet the music was like a guiding thread, now fading, now swelling, and warily they moved on.

  This, Andrion thought, is the oldest part of the building. Bulwarks of stone thrust aside the gay paints, the graceful colonnades of the facade. A tangle of squat tunnels ran down into a darkness hardly disturbed, let alone dispelled, by guttering torches. Here was eternal twilight disdainful of the gold and enamel filigree of the outer palace. A distant drip of water played counterpoint to the echo of their footsteps.

  Some of the black openings they passed were storerooms, redolent of grain, wine, and oil, with lintels well worn by centuries of feet. Other doorways had not been passed for ages, the dust undisturbed. Andrion’s curious glance showed small alcoves, one-time shrines, perhaps, holding votive offerings barely discernible beneath crusted dirt and cobwebs. Tiny leering gargoyles, not bulls. The air was dank, stained with some ancient evil, and his flesh prickled. God-ridden indeed, by deities much darker than his own.

  The music thrilled on. They followed into a huge underground area, probably natural cavern, its ceiling upheld by irregular rows of rough-hewn pillars. Giant vases, some cracked and empty, others filled with oil were ranged among them. An eddying miasma was evidence that some of the slaves whose duties brought them here were ignorant of the clever indoor plumbing available to their masters upstairs.

  The music faded for a moment. Through it Andrion heard a shuffle and a moan. No, Sumitra could not be here, in this dark and dirty place. He leaped toward the sound.

  Two figures huddled under a dying torch. One man, one woman, crouching as though the approaching footsteps were those of pursuing tormentors.

  Andrion recognized them both, and scowled. Jemail was bent forward in a pained arc, his naked back laced with oozing red stripes. When he recognized his erstwhile prisoners he looked quickly away, resentment stiffening his body. Rue did not move. Her hand that had been mopping ineffectually at Jemail’s back remained frozen in midair. Her huge dark eyes were stricken, dull with pain and despair, revealing nothing of the woman beneath. Blood smeared her face, and for a crazed moment Andrion thought she had been feasting on Jemail’s wounds.

  But no. He bent closer, not wanting to help these people, knowing he was honor bound to help any sufferer. And he saw the red glint in Rue’s nose, like a drop of crimson blood reflecting the flickering light; the hollow of her nostril had been pierced by the ruby stud, in savage imitation of Sumitra.

  “Who did this to you?” Andrion demanded.

  With a sigh of reluctant sympathy Dana tore one last flounce from her garment and began peering into the surrounding storage vases. Tembujin scrabbled through what seemed to be a pile of wooden poles. The water dripped in maddening cadence.

  “Who?” As if he had to ask.

  “Queen Chrysais ordered me whipped,” snapped Jemail to a moldy patch on the wall, “for letting your companions disturb her private chamber.”

  The man’s cap was missing; presumably he had been demoted as well. Andrion sighed. Unfair, yes, but soldiers were usually treated less with fairness than with expediency. He was to be an example to the others, no doubt. Andrion hoped that the guards from whom they had escaped moments before would not suffer any worse fate than Jemail had. As if hundreds had not died at my behest seven years ago, he reminded himself harshly.

  Dana appeared at his side, her cloth reeking with sour wine. “Vinegar, to cleanse the wounds,” she said from the side of her mouth. Rue flinched at her touch, her pale skin becoming almost green; with a grim, self-mocking smile, Dana persevered, not gently but quite thoroughly.

  “I suppose,” Rue hissed to Andrion, “you will want the jewel back.”

  “Did you steal it?” he returned.

  “No. She gave it to me, for my service.”

  Dana vented a short, skeptical laugh, and turned her attentions to Jemail. He, at least, glanced at her with grudging appreciation.

  Tembujin bent beside Andrion, several dusty arrows tucked into his belt. “All sorts of useful things down here,” he said to Andrion, “besides being a good place to lick one’s wounds and hide until a storm blows over.” And to Rue, “What kind of service? Sumitra would not reward you for betraying her. And my wife.”

  Rue seemed almost to have forgotten Valeria’s existence. She gulped and asked faintly, “Is the lady well?”

  “She is, now,” replied Tembujin. “I suppose you are not to blame for the death of our child or of our bodyguard.”

  “Or of Lyris,” Dana said through her teeth.

  A tremor of guilt moved in Rue’s face and then faded. “I serve the lord Eldrafel,” she said, repeating a catechism. “I promised Sumitra nothing; why should I not have her ruby? It was Chrysais who thought I had earned it by telling Sumitra her husband had come.” She shut her mouth with a snap of finality.

  Sumi knows I am here? She plays to summon me? “Where is she?” Andrion asked. Rue looked sullenly past him.

  Dana finished with Jemail. “The woman is a slave,” she said scornfully. “A puppet. Leave her what shred of dignity you can, her loyalty, and settle the score with the master who manipulates her.” She cleaned her hands of dirt and blood, and of animosity toward Rue, and threw the rag away. Her lips were clamped tightly shut, as if she had swallowed something slimy and struggled to keep it down.

  “But I am no slave. And I will not be treated as such.” Jemail pulled himself to his feet and stood at shaky attention. “I will take you to your lady wife, my lord, if you will accept my service freely given.”

  “Traitor,” Rue said, flat, into her lap.

  “Treachery,” Andrion told her, “is in the definition. No doubt your brother Rowan, gnawing his treacheries in Sardis, justifies his betrayal of me by believing he serves someone greater.”

  Rue shuddered, her head bending, her shoulders contracting until she was curled into a ball. Protecting her soft belly, Andrion told himself. “Keep the jewel,” he said to her spiny shell. “You have paid for it.” And to Jemail he said, “I accept your service, Captain, with thanks.”

  They walked away, following Jemail’s lead, leaving Rue stiff and silent. The labyrinthine corridors closed around them, twisting this way and that like a rat shaken by a cat. The air, what air there was, was cold and damp and stifling. You could hide a body here, Andrion thought; in only days it would molder into an indistinct blotch of fungus, its humanity consumed. And he thought, Sabazians burn their dead, purifying the worldly flesh … He shook himself. Really, t
his oppressive place produced the most morbid fancies!

  After what seemed like years they came to a staircase. At its top was a closed door. Jemail signaled them to wait and slipped through. Andrion peeked out and was relieved to see that it was the same evening; the sun had set, leaving the sky appropriately blood-tinted.

  “Is Rue enspelled to her treachery, do you think?” Tembujin asked Dana.

  Dana snorted. “You saw her face as Eldrafel played with her. It was not as she had dreamed, to be so blatantly used by the one she craves. I would say the spell that holds her is much more subtle, that of the heart.”

  “I wager,” Andrion said half to himself, “that it was Chrysais’s jealousy that earned Rue her punishment, not the ruby.” His sister’s cruelty was unsettling. So was the obsession with Eldrafel which spawned it. That disturbingly elegant figure lurked behind everything, no doubt, greedy for power.

  Jemail returned and waved them onto another terrace. This was shabbier than the one from which they had started, edged with neglected myrtle bushes. Glancing over his shoulder, Andrion could just see beyond the intervening rooftops the terrace and lotus pool outside their chambers, shrouded in the gathering dusk. Sumi, then, could well have seen him from here. His mind drifted like a lotus petal on the smooth cascade of her music.

  The body of a guard, his neck twisted at a bizarre angle, sprawled outside another doorway. As relieved as Andrion was to find a guard somewhere in this strangely deserted place, he still had to say, “Jemail, you did not have to kill him.”

  The hawk-nosed Minran hoisted the corpse’s spear. “It would never do to have one of my mates report that I now serve you.”

  Easy to catch someone by surprise, when you are a friend. But it was too late to be squeamish now; they were inside the corridor. Tembujin’s head went up, listening. “I hear it!” he exclaimed.

  Before the words were quite out of his mouth, the music stopped. And yet its resonance still hung on the air, echoing in the ear or in the mind; it did not matter. Andrion told Jemail to watch the outer door. Before him were three barred cells. Unerringly he went to the farthest one and placed his hand on the wood. It was warm to his touch, vibrating through his entire body.