Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  Rasas didn’t know what to do, but Mannas said, “Let’s just talk,” and started. They talked about fighting and the Mezem and grown-ups, and Mannas showed Rasas all his scars and told him all sorts of war stories, about fighting the Lakans and how he’d had to save his best friend when one of the wood-cutters they were raiding pulled out a hidden bow. When Rasas told his stories, Mannas took him under his arm, just to hug him. The barbarian’s arm was as warm as Tikas’s, but thicker and harder. Though he didn’t want to cry in front of Mannas because he was a famous gladiator even if he was base-born, Mannas said he didn’t mind and wouldn’t think any less of Rasas for it; so Rasas did, and felt better after than he ever had before in his life that he could remember.

  Then Mannas said, “Where you from?”

  “Arko,” Rasas answered.

  “No, you naht.”

  “Yes, I am.” All the time they’d talked the barbarian hadn’t minded him talking back, but just argued as if he was a grown-up too, so he felt safe contradicting him.

  “You cahn’t be,” Mannas said. “Arkahns all hanve blue eyes. Yourrhs are blahck.”

  Nowadays, he couldn’t remember what they’d said after that. It was a blur, of things about ... when he’d been little, all his made-up stories and places and the made-up dream-tongue that he’d got in trouble for long ago. Every time he’d talked in it or mentioned it they beat him, until he’d stopped, except in his head. Gradually he’d forgotten the words.

  No, he thought. I mustn’t think about it. It’s too good. It hurts too much. He never came back. He won fifty fights, and went away to Yeoli-land. I’m going to cry.

  Tikas ...

  No. I can’t call him. He’s got important things to do. The matron was asleep. He tried to push Mannas’s smile away out of his head with the governor’s smothering hand. Mannas had dark eyes too, and I thought ... but I was never his son like I liked to pretend, or else he would’ve taken me away with him, to live with his wife and my brothers and sisters—Ardas, he would have taken Ardas too—in his big house in Yeoli-land. He saw the governor open his mouth instead, his glass eyes creasing, at the highest instant of his Noble Passion.

  * * *

  VI

  Megan felt all blood drain out of her face as she gripped his hands.

  No gold, no simpering attendants, no priceless furnishings ... that lamp was an expensive item, actually; she’d thought it was plunder.

  “Oh, shit,” Shkai’ra muttered under her breath, in Fehinnan. Fishhook just purred louder, and rubbed her head into his cheek.

  Chevenga, Megan thought. We’ve been talking to fucking Chevenga. The Invincible. The Immortal. Just sitting with us like a bar-friend. And I’m holding his hands. Semanakraseye na ... that other word must be his military title, First General First. He Whose Bottom Is ... oh my Goddess, no. It’s not funny.

  Now, she saw the seal-ring on his finger, even that not particularly fancy, carved out of white stone, nephrite. Everyone thought someone else told us ... His hands, naZak big, buried hers, hard, weapon-callused, but the grip much gentler than she would have expected. They let go to take Shkai’ra’s next, then scratched Fishhook behind the ears.

  At least stop doing your best imitation of a brook trout, Megan, she told herself, and cleared her throat. “Um, my profoundest apologies, for impertinence, Woyvode—ah, I should say, Se-ma-na-k—” Shit! I fucking blew it. After all that practice ... No, dammit, try again. “Se-ma-na-kra-se-ye. We meant no lack of respect.” She offered him her best bow, from kneeling. If it wasn’t enough, they’d find out damn soon. Stop acting like a first on board, she told herself tartly. The man has to take his pants down to shit like everyone else.

  “No, no, not at all,” the semanakraseye said, smiling. “I didn’t think you did. No offense taken. I’m not one for ceremony, more than the bare necessities of it.” He answered Megan’s bow with a finger-touch to his temple, as if they were two sentries changing places.

  Shkai’ra sat back on her heels. “Well, that’s a relief. Places I’ve been, you had to wiggle forward like a lizard to the throne, beating your head on the ground, or else die horribly.”

  “Like where I come from,” Megan added.

  “Ah. I understand.” He was soft-spoken, so much so that sometimes she had to concentrate to catch all his words; very strange, in a politician. “You’re Zak. And ... Kommanzr. You came by way of Brahvniki.”

  “Chevenga ...” A man stuck his head in the door, and rattled off a question in rapid-fire Yeoli, with rapid-fire gestures. Does everyone call him by his name to his face, too? The semanakraseye answered in the same fast Yeoli, words and hands, and the man saluted and was gone, the first of a stream of people.

  “By way of Brahvniki, yes,” said Megan, using the hand-sign to be polite; that earned a smile. “We stopped there to get news out of the Benai, and horses for your army.”

  “Why do you want to join?” He didn’t ask particularly sternly; at the same time his eyes, deep-set and large and dark brown, looked at her in a way she wouldn’t have wanted to lie to.

  “Because as far as I could see, you have a good chance of reaching the City Itself. Good enough for the Benaiat Ivahn to lend you money. I trust his judgment.”

  “Benaiat Ivahn? Lend me money?” Chevenga’s eyes creased, confused. “He never did that. Where did you hear it?”

  What? Megan ran back over the memory; yes, Ivahn had told her, plain. Wait one fish-gutted minute. Someone’s trying to spread cow-manure here, and I don’t think it’s Ivahn.

  It’s for Ivahn’s sake. She remembered how it had been in strictest confidence. He’s figuring I might be a loose-lipped type who’s heard a rumor, and doesn’t want to give anything away. She’d never seen confusion faked so well.

  She raised one eyebrow, lowered her voice to a whisper. “I have considerable financial dealings with the Benaiat, and we are also dear friends. We spoke of other things too, for instance a certain fifteen-year-old visitor to the city who had to be administered the remedy to a certain affliction contracted the night before in a certain establishment whose name is suggestive of a certain small long-bodied creature, entangled! . .”

  Chevenga broke out laughing, his two gold teeth, no, three, there was another on the lowers, flashing. “He told you that? Did he tell you what happened when we were there?—no, never mind, I don’t want to know. He certainly must trust your judgment. I should tell you, he didn’t lend money to me—Yeoli law forbids me to own anything—just to my people, agented by me. So when I said he didn’t, I spoke truth.” Tricky, Megan thought, nodding. But most wouldn’t bother to explain it afterwards. Every now and then, she’d noticed, he’d fall into an ancient-school Yeoli style of speaking, even in Enchian, almost ritually formal about matters of truth and choice.

  “So what do you want to get into Arko for?” He must have a report from Ikal, she knew, and was asking for answers he already knew, wanting to hear them drugless.

  “My son. He was sold into slavery, and I’ve recently discovered he is there. I thought I’d have a better chance of finding him in the forefront rather than the aftermath.”

  “Aftermath? Of what?” The puzzlement in his eyes seemed utterly genuine.

  “The sack of Arko.”

  Another interruption came then, giving Megan time to worry. Maybe after the business is over, he trusts me and I’m signed on, I can make friends with him. I’d like to. Koru, Ivahn was right, I did like him right off. But it’s too soon. Careful of your mouth, Megan.

  The interruption ended. “I mean to conquer Arko,” Chevenga said casually. “I don’t mean to sack it.”

  He doesn’t mean to sack Arko, she thought. No embellishments, no explanations, just “I don’t mean to sack it,” those big brown eyes shining with sincerity. Alllll right. They tortured him, he won’t sack them. And I’m the queen of Shamballah. Either that, or he’s more principled than I have ever known any one human to be ... if he even can control this motley host when they ge
t to the City. The standing order, apparently, was no looting, all spoils to be divided in an orderly and fair fashion; she’d heard the tale on the way here, that he’d had people executed for stealing as little as a skin of wine. And yet that might also mean that the army, having been held back for so long, would feel all the more that destroying the City Itself was its just reward.

  Yet maybe he could finesse it somehow; if he was so decided, he must have a plan. If so, she wouldn’t have to outstrip a plundering, raping and burning army to find Lixand: there’d be margin for error. She worked her dry mouth, took a sip of scalding-hot tea.

  Chevenga called an order in Yeoli to outside, and the interruptions stopped. “Before I go on, tell me, did the truth-drugging go all right? I’ve got rules about it: they should have sworn silence beforehand, told you they’d ask you nothing personal that wasn’t relevant, and stuck to that.”

  Checking up on the underlings. “Yes, they did all that,” Megan answered. “May I ask why you’re being so careful? I didn’t think you’d have to, the position you’re in now.”

  “To set ... an example. Because of this war, my people have discovered truth-drug. You’ll see it all through our courts, in two or three years; I’m trying to demonstrate ways of being careful with its power. I suffered myself, by the way Arkans use it; when I was there they’d haul me in every month or so for Yeola-e’s military secrets. I always prided myself on keeping things, even details, in my head.”

  Megan recoiled inwardly, her own memory of the drug so recent. To hear what’s going to cause your country’s enslavement, kill your people by the thousand, coming out of your own mouth that way. ... It would be as bad as anything on a Mahid table, or worse. His torture scars, she realized, he’d got in Arko, not occupied Yeola-e.

  “So. You offer more services than your knife-arm, Megan, I understand. What can you do, that might be useful to us? I want to see the trick with light.”

  Shkai’ra began a laugh, hid it with a cough and one hand; he flashed her a bemused glance. “Tricks, you haven’t seen tricks until you move to F’talezon,” she said. “Show him, love.”

  Pull in to the center, look inside me and reach for the manrauq. She took hold of the brightness she saw in her mind and brought it out with her, watching it bloom golden between her hands, pulling her palms apart slowly so that the light thinned to a twisting coil writhing between them. She held it for a second only, to save her strength. The next “trick” would be a lot harder.

  The semanakraseye blinked and shook his head as if to get water out of his eyes, then leaned forward, elbows on knees; the gaze she’d thought intense before was nothing to this. Hah, she thought, catching her breath by the tail; the mental exertion of manrauq was as hard as any physical. I, Megan Whitlock, have impressed the Invincible, Infallible, Imperturbable Fourth Chevenga.

  “Can you cast it? How far? How much can you make? Is it hot? I forgot to feel. Can you do other things?” Like Fehinnan crossbow bolts the questions flew. Suddenly, under the studied calm of command, she could imagine him on the edge of a circus ring, a boy with huge brown thrilled eyes.

  “The light I can only throw when it’s tied to something, like a knife,” she said, forcing torn-cloth raggedness out of her voice. “Especially if I’ve touched it. My own knives are sensitive to me and would glow. It’s not hot. I have to be seeing them to maintain it. And yes, I can do other things.” He took it all in like a briefing on an armed unit’s strengths.

  “You said you can do assassin and thief-work: I take it that means you are good at moving unseen in the dark?” By the glint in his eyes, he was already making plans. She chortled inwardly. “What other things can you do?”

  Breathe deep, calm. You’ve done it before. “Something a bit more elaborate. I can make people see what I imagine.”

  “Anything?”

  “Within reason.”

  “Could you make someone see—a dimas?” A quick study, Ivahn said that ... “A large, ugly, hairy, scaly, blood-thirsty dimas. From an Arkan’s nightmares. As horrible as you can imagine!”

  You don’t know how horrible I can imagine. She centered again. My hands are shaking—wrong thought. Think of power flowing, a sea breaking on you as if you were the shore, hear the sound of the wind in your veins ... She pulled in, crushing outside thought and stretching as if she could soak up the power-sea through her skin. She put one hand on the ground in front of her, then the other, and saw in her mind the boar’s bristles sprout from her skin as it changed to a greenish, leathery hide; heard the crack as her back ripped open, muscles tearing free. Her lower jaw creaked as the bone stretched and grew, extending foot-long fangs as she raised her head to the ceiling, and grew, and grew. She could feel the steel quills rattle and quiver on her back as her tail coiled around behind her, barbed end twitching. Her talons scraped the floor, black and silver; her greenish hide wept tears of blood. From her throat, the silvery laughter of a child, under eyes gone yellow corner to corner ... The demon I am is very female. She strained to rise, hold the image, the sound, the thought. It shimmered, tottered like a tower built too high, and collapsed as she did, face in her hands, shaking. How long did I hold it? A breath? Maybe two? I have to learn to sustain it longer. Megan blinked back tears of pain.

  But the Invincible, the Imperturbable, was leaning back on his arms, his eyes showing white all around.

  “That was ... that was ...” He took a deep breath, shook his head hard, curls dancing. “Fabulous!”

  Shkai’ra gave a laugh, half shudder. “She tried it out on me once. I woke up, stretched, turned over to kiss her good morning and ... that ... thing was on the pillow beside me. I swear, I didn’t touch the ground until I was ten meters out of the tent, running bare-ass into a rainstorm with the horses running in front of me—and I was catching up.”

  “How long could you make it last,” Chevenga said, eyes gleaming, “in ideal conditions?”

  “About two very slow breaths, perhaps a count of twenty, especially if the image is less complex,” Megan swallowed a couple of times and controlled her shaking hands, feeling pale. Don’t throw up. Her vision was greying. Don’t pass out.

  “Not that a moment of that couldn’t do wonders, in the dark, with people already nervous ... Megan, are you all right?”

  Megan used the Yeoli gesture so she wouldn’t have to nod, felt Shkai’ra’s arm around her shoulders. “Yes. Just don’t ask me to run any broken-field races. It costs, that’s all. Like anything worth doing.” The headache was there, but she expected that.

  “Yes.” His smile flashed, approving. “Maybe you should lie down for a bit, just rest. You needn’t demonstrate more.” She stayed sitting. “Those nails of yours ... how did you come by them?”

  How does he know it isn’t just silver paint? It hadn’t been mentioned in the truth-drugging. Then she remembered: his manrauq, the sense for weapons. “They’re steel: I had them transmuted, by a fellow Zak. So I’d never be unarmed, you see. Not without price: I have to drink a fish-gutted big cup of fish-oil every day to keep me healthy.”

  “Tell me: how much are you two asking?”

  Ah. The magic words. Megan opened her mouth to charge him all the market would bear, and heard herself say, “I really don’t care. The standard will do.” Fik the money, it’s not important. The merchant in her screeched. “As long as I get a chance to find my son.” Shkai’ra stared at her in mock surprise, winked as Megan gave her a corner-of-the-eye glare.

  “It’s for him you are in it,” Chevenga said. “And you’ve got money elsewhere.” Neither of these were questions. “I understand.” His thinking look, that she could already recognize, came, with the slight cocking of the head. “You said your son was in the City Itself?”

  “Dah.”

  “What does he look like? I used to live there, I might have seen him. Do you know who he’d be with?”

  “I used to live there,” he says, as if he just moved in because he preferred the climate. “He’d be nine,
almost ten, eyes like mine, pale blond hair, though that might have darkened—more likely shaved, as a slave. Aitzas family Temonen. Their estate is on Fidelity Street, which is in the south end of the noble quarter, near the Fountain of Infinity.”

  “Temonen.” He studied her eyes. “Temonen. What was the lord’s first name?”

  “Nuninibas.”

  “Nuninibas Temonen, yes. I got invited to his parties, but never went, though I had a friend who did.” He was wearing an ebony arm-ring on his right arm; now he absently touched it with one tender finger. “The family’s prospering; they were notorious parties. Which means at least they won’t have sold him off to pay debts.”

  Megan closed her eyes for a second, thinking of how long it had taken to get all her information by proxy. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I wish I could tell you more. If they have sold him, you can track him starting from there. It may also be that Nuninibas will see the writing on the wall and get his household out before we even arrive.” Before we arrive, not if, she thought. He’s certain of himself as a Ryadn; that’s why the rest of the army is. “Even so there are ways to track him. I’ll lend you help, if it comes to that.” So many mercenary employers say farewell and to Halya with you the moment the fight’s over, she thought, your problem if you didn’t get what you came for. No wonder people are loyal to him. Then: or else he’s trying to get more out of us with promises.