The River of Shadows cv-3

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “We’re going to stop it,” whispered Pazel, “before he changes. We will, Ibjen. We have to.”

  Ibjen said nothing for a time. Then he asked, “What does it do, your Master-Word? The one you haven’t spoken yet?”

  “I don’t know,” said Pazel. “Ramachni told me it would blind to give new sight. What that means even he couldn’t guess.”

  “Blindness?” said Ibjen. “Blindness, from a kind of magic that you say runs out of control?” The dlomic boy looked terrified. “You must never speak that word, Pazel. Try to forget it, and soon, before you utter it one day in your sleep.”

  Pazel shook his head. He trusted Ramachni. His two previous words had shaken the fabric of the world around him, but done no lasting damage. Ramachni had assured him of that, just before repeating his promise to return. But in his mind Pazel still heard Arunis back at Bramian, gloating, saying that the mage had abandoned them, vanished into the safety of his own world. And now Neeps “Look there!” whispered Ibjen, pointing. “Something does live on the Tongue. Or dares to crawl on it, anyway.” Far down the black slope, Pazel caught a glimpse of reddish fur, vanishing behind a bulge in the lava. “A marmot, or a weasel,” said Ibjen. “I suppose trolls don’t bother with weasels.”

  Their hour was over. They crept away from the edge of the lava flow, then stood and walked back toward the clearing. But as they drew near Pazel felt a sudden, horrible sensation in his mind: the same sensation, in fact, as two days before: the power of the eguar was being summoned again.

  He dashed to the clearing. Everyone was awake, afoot, rigid with alarm. Counselor Vadu had drawn his knife. His head was twitching almost uncontrollably; his soldiers had massed behind him, steeled for a fight. Ildraquin in hand, Hercol glared at the counselor. Vadu’s own face was screwed up in a strange mixture of bravado and pain.

  Floating in the air before him were Ensyl and Myett. The two women’s backs were together; they revolved slowly as though hanging from a thread. Vadu’s free hand was raised, his fingers cupped as though squeezing something tight between them.

  “No!” Pazel cried.

  Vadu whirled and the women cried out in pain, in the ixchel voices only Pazel himself could hear. “Stay where you are, Pathkendle!” cried the counselor. “And you, Hercol Stanapeth: where are your lectures now? Have you realized that you should have left them on the far side of the Nelluroq? Or will you try again to order us about in our own country?”

  Hercol gestured for Pazel to be still.

  “You should have taken this Blade when you mastered me on the plain,” said Vadu, his voice made staccato by the twitches of his head. “It called out to you; it would have abandoned me, and served you in my stead.”

  “That Blade serves no one,” said Hercol, “except perhaps the beast from whose corpse it was fashioned.”

  “Be that as it may, I am now in command,” said Vadu, “and I will not let this mission fail through cowardice. Don’t you realize that I can fight off the trolls, if they should come?”

  “Are you sure?” asked Cayer Vispek. “There is almost nothing left of that knife. Look at it, Counselor: it has shrunk in a matter of days.”

  “We will cross the Black Tongue now,” said Vadu, as though the other had not said a word, “and overtake the mage before he reaches his goal, and slay him, and then the Nilstone shall be ours.”

  “Ours,” said Bolutu, “or yours? Vadu, Vadu, you are not the man who came to us on the plain! That man understood the very dangers you are surrendering to!”

  “The only danger is inaction,” said Vadu. “We will go, in prudent silence. These two I will hold until we reach the shores of the Ansyndra; and then we shall see.”

  “Fight him!”

  The voice was Ensyl’s, and it was torn from her throat. Vadu bared his teeth and the ixchel women cried out again. Pazel saw that Neda was looking Hercol in the eye.

  “We can kill this fool,” she said in Mzithrini. “We have him on three sides, and those little seizures will not help his fighting. Whatever his power, we will be too quick for him to stop.”

  “Do nothing, I beg you,” replied Hercol in the same tongue. “We could kill him, yes, but not before he kills his prisoners.”

  “There’s no other way,” said Jalantri. “They’re warriors. They’re prepared.”

  “I am not prepared!” shouted Hercol. And looking at his tortured face Pazel knew he was remembering another moment, another ixchel woman facing death and urging him not to give in.

  Staring hard at Vadu, Hercol sheathed his sword. “I would pity you, if you would but speak the truth, as you did when I briefly set you free. Indeed, I should have taken the knife-for your sake. Lead on, man of the Platazcra. But harm those women and no blade will protect you.”

  “They will be harmed only if you are foolish,” said Vadu.

  Fighting his twitches, he reached out and closed his hand around the waists of the ixchel women. Quietly the party moved down the path. At length they came to the edge of the black, smooth lava flow. Hercol stopped and pointed to the right.

  In a low murmur, he said, “The eastern part of the Tongue is still shadowed by the mountain. Will you at least permit us to walk there, and not in the bright sun?”

  Vadu nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, if it will strengthen your spine. Only say nothing, and plant your feet lightly, and make no sound until we are well among the trees on the far side.”

  Hercol looked at the others. “Check all that you carry. You soldiers especially: do not let your scabbards knock against the ground.”

  “I was about to say as much,” said Vadu.

  “If we should have to run,” asked Hercol, “what will happen to Ensyl and Myett?”

  “I will not run,” said Vadu.

  Hercol’s look was withering. Then he stepped out onto the lava. Vadu came second, his prisoners against his chest. The rest of the party followed gingerly. Within the first few steps Pazel knew that the going would be harder than he had supposed. Though smooth, the surface was anything but even. It was like a candle melted down the side of jug, one liquid trail hardened atop another. And twisting through them all were the shafts of the fumaroles. Was it better to walk, or crouch down and creep? Many times he was tempted to jump, as he would from stone to stone at a river crossing. But he dared not risk making a noise.

  The flames were sudden and unpredictable: one moment there would be a black, dark fumarole, the next a geyser of twisting flames. Gas, searingly hot and reeking of sulphur, issued from others in bursts and wheezes. There was absolutely nothing one might call a trail.

  Yet the going grew easier the farther they went. It did help to be able to see, Pazel reflected, although he supposed Hercol would have waited for the moonlight. So far no one had made a sound. Even the dogs, marvels of perception that they were, understood what was required, and crept along with mincing steps.

  The sky was beautiful, cloudless. Far overhead, a few vultures drifted. On the lava bed they were the only things that moved.

  The shadow of the mountain was shrinking toward them, but they could always, Pazel supposed, move closer to the mountain.

  Thasha and Neeps were descending on his left; Neda and her brother sfvantskors on his right. All of them watching the ground; it was the only safe way to proceed. And yet, Pazel thought, and yet He raised his eyes-and fought down the urge to cry aloud. About three yards from Neeps, a tiny face was watching them from a hole in the lava. It was hideous, part human, buck-toothed, squinting, red. The face was attached to a hairy body about the size and shape of a gopher. The creature had hair everywhere except on that face, and the hands-they were hands, not paws-that gripped the edges of the scalding rock.

  It vanished down the tube. Pazel was so shocked that he nearly missed a step. The others looked at him in alarm. No one else had seen the creature. He pointed at the hole, then gestured wildly (squinting eyes, fingers for teeth). Was it the same sort of creature he and Ibjen had glimpsed? Was it dangerous, or did
its silence mean that it, too, had learned to remain unnoticed by the trolls?

  There were more vultures now, and they circled lower over the Tongue. The others in the party glanced at them, frowning. Pazel realized that they had quickened their pace.

  Less than a mile to go. The dogs gazed ahead, clearly wishing they could run. Each man and woman moving precisely, silently. A Masalym soldier lost his balance, and a Turach caught his arm. The dlomu mouthed a silent thank you; the Turach smiled, and then everyone stopped dead.

  Hercol had flung his arms wide, a violent gesture. At first Pazel did not understand. Then someone gasped and, turning, he saw that they were surrounded. From inside every hole and behind every bulge and hardened bubble, the red-faced creatures stared at them with their strange squinting faces, like old men who had lost their glasses. A hundred, perhaps many more. Yards deep they stood, eight or ten together in the larger tunnels. Not one of them moved a muscle.

  Vadu’s mouth was agape. The dogs’ hair stood on end, but they did not growl.

  “Warriors,” said Hercol with monumental slowness. “Be ready with your weapons, but do not attack first. We are going on.” And with Ildraquin’s tip hovering just before his knees, he stepped forward.

  The creatures bristled, and bared their white rodents’ teeth. Hercol took another step. The creatures directly before him hissed, and shrank into their holes. But those on the sides only tensed and twitched, as though ready to spring.

  Then Vadu laughed. He held his knife at arm’s length, and over the tiny nub of bone the ghost-blade flickered. Suddenly a great shrieking hiss went up from all the creatures, and they whirled about and disappeared into their holes. A brief sound of scurrying rose from the depths. Then nothing more. The travelers looked at one another in shock.

  “I told you I had power to keep us safe,” said Vadu.

  “Let us go on,” said Hercol.

  “Counselor Vadu?” said Pazel suddenly. He startled everyone, beginning with himself, but he knew what he was doing. “Let the ixchel go. We’ve come too far to turn back anyway.”

  Vadu glanced down at Myett and Ensyl, clutched against his chest. He laughed again. “It is not enough that I obeyed a human, for a time. Now I am to take orders from a human underling, a servant boy!”

  Pazel swallowed. “I think-”

  “That is open to question.”

  “-you’re going to need that knife for something else.”

  Vadu started. His head wobbled as he looked at the holes, the massing vultures, the distance yet to walk. Then, with a jerky motion, he thrust the two ixchel into Pazel’s hands. “I release them,” he said. The women gasped suddenly.

  “Quiet!” said Pazel, in their own language. “Don’t shout! You were enchanted. You’re free now, but we’re not safe.”

  Both ixchel began to shake. Her eyes closed, Myett whispered, “Who did this to us?”

  Pazel was about to answer when he noticed that Vadu was still staring at his knife. The look of rapture on his face made Pazel think suddenly of the Shaggat, gazing with adoration at the Nilstone that had almost killed him. Vadu raised the knife above his head, and as he did so his hand cleared the shadow of the mountain. Sunlight touched the last, minuscule bone-shard upon the hilt-and with a slight quaking of the air, the shard was gone.

  Vadu lowered his arm. “It is over,” he said. “I released them, and the Blade released me. That was its final act. The end was closer than I dared hope.” He rubbed his face, his neck: the twitching had finally ceased. Joy welled suddenly in the counselor’s eyes. Before anyone realized his intention he turned and flung the hilt across the lava flow with all his might. “I am free!” he cried, and with that all bedlam erupted.

  Fire burst from holes far and near. A roaring filled the earth. A dog howled, and from the larger tunnels the flame-trolls began to emerge: first their long fingers, ash-white and clawed; then their mighty arms; then their heads, large and powerful as the heads of horses, but with the spreading jaws of wolves. They were hairless, and the flames of the depths licked over them, as though their very pores exuded some combustible oil. Their eyes wept fire; the spittle in their mouths was fire. The first to emerge was nearly nine feet tall.

  It made to leap but Hercol moved first, and before Pazel knew what had happened the troll was waving the stumps of its hacked-off limbs, and its foul blood was spattering them all.

  “Run!” thundered Hercol. “Turachs, sfvantskors, to the vanguard! Men of Masalym, stand with me behind!”

  No one questioned his orders now. The party charged for the forest with weapons drawn. Pazel ran with Thasha at his side, and Neeps just behind. He bore his sword in one hand, Myett and Ensyl in the other, curled to his chest. They were ahead of the trolls, that was clear. The creatures were bursting forth in greater numbers, but always a step or two behind. As though their footfalls were guiding them, waking them. And he remembered suddenly running along a hollow log back in Ormael: a log that housed a great, drowsy hive of bees. He had felt them stirring under his feet, but had gotten away without a sting.

  Then he saw the red-faced creatures, swarming out of the fumaroles dead ahead. They squealed piercingly, and the trolls rose in answer, cutting off the party from the trees.

  The sfvantskors met them first, slashing at the flaming arms, the spitting heads. The Turachs did their part as well, hacking and stabbing alongside their old enemies. Three or four trolls died before they could escape the tunnels.

  But right and left the creatures were gaining their feet and leaping to the attack. Suddenly all was carnage, terrible and blindingly swift. Cayer Vispek jumped over a troll’s groping hand, then killed it-killed it-with a savage kick to the head. A Turach drove his blade straight into flaming jaws. The dogs killed the rodent-beasts with swift efficiency, shaking them, flinging the carcasses away. But their muzzles were burning; Big Skip’s shirt was burning; a dying troll spat flame in Vadu’s face. On Pazel’s right a dlomic soldier beheaded a troll just rising from the earth, and a second troll caught his arm and wrenched him, headfirst, into the fumarole. He never managed a scream.

  “On! On! Stop for nothing!” Hercol was bellowing. And somehow they did go on, right through the fire, over the twitching bodies, the arms still reaching from the earth. They ran with the red-faced creatures dragging from their ankles; they ran not knowing which of them, what part of them, was burning.

  “Pazel, stay with us! Protect them!” Thasha shouted, waving at the ixchel. He ran with her on one side, Neeps on the other. Together, as though maddened by danger, they charged a huge troll with broken fangs. The beast lunged at Thasha; she parried with her sword and stabbed it through the hand with her knife, and turned her head before its fire-spittle could scald her in the face. Neeps managed only to graze the creature before it raked him with the claws of its free hand, sending him sprawling. The troll snapped at him, tore out a mouthful of hair. Then Pazel and Thasha lunged together. His sword pierced its chest; Thasha’s tore its belly open. It toppled sideways, dying; the three of them were past it-and then Pazel felt it sink those teeth into his calf.

  He fell flat atop the ixchel; the troll’s claws were shredding his pack and clothes, seeking his flesh; then from the corner of his eye he saw Neeps make a desperate upward thrust, and blood from the troll’s severed throat washed down his leg.

  The corpse fell burning atop him; Thasha and Neeps somehow moved it in a matter of seconds, and to their clear amazement Pazel leaped up and ran at their side. But the burning followed him, enveloped him; and still more trolls slavered at their heels. He felt that his run was an extended fall down a black cliff, faster and faster, his feet somehow staying under him just enough to fend him off the lava, and then suddenly he was on thinner lava, crumbled lava, then earth, then leaves, and the hooting, howling pursuit went on into the forest, and he smashed through vines and palms and thorns and flowers and brush, his arm over the ixchel’s faces, his own flesh torn, and then Praise Rin and His host there was the rive
r, a blessed short muddy bank and then in, down, the fire in his clothes hissing out, the ixchel coughing and choking as he lifted them clear, trod water, kicked out into the water among the other survivors, while on the banks behind them twenty or thirty flame-trolls stood screaming their hate, and fighting over the corpses already roasting in their grasp.

  The Ansyndra here was wide and shallow; they bobbed along with it gently, the dlomu helping the humans stay afloat, until they rounded a long bend and left the creatures behind. Then they dragged themselves ashore. Three of the eight Masalym soldiers were gone, and one Turach also. Two dogs limped onto the sand, and a third, nearly hairless, came whimpering from the forest.

  “Sit down!” said Thasha to Pazel, catching him by the arm. “We’ve got to take care of that leg. Damn it all, the packs, our medicine kit, our food-”

  “How did we do it?” Pazel gasped. “How did we get away?”

  “Hercol,” she said, “and Vadu. I know it looked like there were trolls everywhere, but most of them were behind us. They held them all back. Vadu can fight, by Rin.”

  “Hush, Thasha,” said Neeps, looking past her shoulder.

  The surviving dlomic warriors were laying Vadu in the grass. He was hideously burned, his face unrecognizable, the lids barely moving over the silver eyes. His hands were so blistered and torn it was hard to tell where one finger ended and the next began. “I don’t think he can move,” whispered Neeps. “They floated him downstream like a log.”

  But Vadu could move, for he was raising one hand, weakly beckoning. It was Hercol he wanted. The swordsman drew close and knelt at his shoulder.

  “Now I pay,” said Vadu, his voice faint and rasping. “For all my folly, and a life of borrowed strength.”

  “You have been paying for years, son of Masalym,” said Hercol.

  Vadu shook his ruined head. “Not everyone who touched a Blade surrendered to it. I gave myself to the eguar, and lost my sanity, my soul. You alone had no fear to say so, to my face. Human, warrior human. I look at you and see the man I should have been.”