Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  Two down. She sent power along the lines to all the hooks. Softly, gently, Chevenga’s short sword and her own knives began to glow a yellow brighter than the torches. She drew in a few sobbing breaths, leaking them into the hum. It was like lifting her own weight straight up.

  Don’t be stupid, Megan, you’ve done more things with the manrauq. Before you overstrained yourself fighting Karibal ... Wrong thought, wrong thought. She eased herself up again very gently on one knee so her hold on the glowing weapons wouldn’t break, and split off another piece of herself, reaching for the second dagger Chevenga’s left hand had drawn, so both his blades glowed.

  His face gleamed with sweat, black headband solid as a tentacle wrapped across his brow. The crazy embarrassing position suddenly looked chosen, supernatural, a man inverted by choice like a bat, hanging for some greater purpose like the twelfth card in a Seer’s deck. Laughing, gold teeth flashing in the unnatural yellow light, a cheery, rippling, tearing stream of it, crazing the air with terror, sending ice down even her spine.

  “Who do you think you are fighting?” he said, voice death-low. “When you are fighting me, you are fighting all the world, and all its denizens.” The timing couldn’t be better, she thought, if we’d rehearsed for a year. They stood as if his laughter, his words, had driven nails through the top of their heads, the one supposedly helpless, holding four in terror. She felt a laugh inside and choked it back; later. Then, no. She giggled, shrill in the night, one short, high chuckle that wouldn’t let them pinpoint where she was. Slowly, she cocked her next knife back. I can’t do anything difficult. Just nice, easy throws. Wait for them, juggle all the bits of self, concentrating on everything, and nothing. Watch him, stay in harmony with him. Save concentration for throwing. It was still four to two, and one of the good side hung in a trap.

  She floated in a sea of bits of herself, treading water, treading power, feeling it all around her. She could only use it in trickles. She reached and the warmth flowed in to fill all the spaces that people could not touch. She watched from a clear distance away in her mind, knew the next move would be perfect as if practiced a thousand thousand times. Her hand trembled no longer. She was at center at last, drawing in, drawing in to a tighter and tighter point, like the smooth scent of brandy, the calm of a shark swimming.

  “Fuck it to Hayel!” One was brave. His voice sounded small and desperate against the hum, as against sea-waves crashing in an endless roar. “We’ve got Snefenkas strung up for our taking! Think of the reward we’d get!” Two went on staring out into the woods; the other two spun their spears around to strike with the points, to kill.

  “Come on, then.” He grinned at them. “You’ll have an easier time with me than with my ... friends.” One faltered, hung back, then stepped forward, reluctantly. Megan’s hum felt somehow outside of her too, now, shaking the bones of her skull like the drone of a wasp caught and stinging in the eardrum.

  Now they were stabbing, not clubbing, harder to turn for one without his feet on the ground. Hang on. Hang on, Invincible, Immortal. Time, Koru, time ... “Ya-a-a-ahai!” An Arkan triumph-cry, as spear-head scraped across sword-edge, off-line, angle wrong shit shit shit, jabbed to a halt in flesh. His left arm, near the armpit. The dagger slipped out of Chevenga’s fingers, to fall orange in the grass and fade out like an ember spat out of a fire. “Hah? Ya-hah!” The Arkan twisted the spear in the wound, hard, worked it back and forth a few times, then yanked it out tearing loose a spray of blood, and a gasp from between Chevenga’s bared teeth. His eyes still stared, but had turned pain-frenzied; she saw him seize control of his breathing by will. Do something. NOW.

  “See! He can bleed!” The Arkan spoke, turning, raising his head to look at his own bloodstained weapon. His throat, clear—her dagger was there, glowing like a chip of sun. He went down, not dead, but strangling around the metal in his throat, heels drumming with a dull, hollow sound. In the knife-glare his blood was like lava, brighter than Arkan red armor.

  Chevenga spoke Megan’s thought, deathly-hoarse even as she thought it; this was like the harmony she had with Shkai’ra, somehow. “And you can die.” Despite his own blood half-coating his face, he smiled again, beckoning with his sword, gold-teeth flashing through crimson, a sight out of a nightmare. The two with torches stood, shifting, yearning to flee, afraid to flee; the third held his spear half-raised country-boy Arkan face frozen in a flash-instant of terror. Her detachment was slipping, starting to tear like a too-often washed shirt. She struggled to hold onto bits and pieces as they were sucked out of her with the ebbing of the manrauq.

  Chevenga’s voice went on, a black gravelly droning in the soul, explaining as if to slow-witted children; in her weakness it seemed unreal, a voice in a bad dream. “Half of you are dead, without even knowing what you face. If all of you go, I get away. If one of you goes for help, he’ll be alone in the dark woods. If two of you go then one will be left here, with me. If all three of you stay ...” He let the words trail off.

  My cue. Now, to make them break and run. She flung the knife and felt her control slip as it left her fingers, the blade clattering off the armor of the spearman, dull, dead metal. She wasted no strength making it glow. So natural a thing, to miss; only too human.

  That’s it, shit! They’ll see through it all, stop being afraid, and he’s rat-bait ... It failed; I failed. First I decide to save him, then can’t. She hissed air through her teeth, clung to what she still had—the bright, fierce glare of the knives. The bone-rattling hum, seemingly rising out of the ground itself, cut off, letting the silence of the woods around them crash on their ears.

  But Chevenga flung his sword. The Arkan below him had turned his head toward Megan, trying to see where the knife had come from; now the short Yeoli blade blazed like the enchanted ones in ballads as it buried itself in his neck, a golden lightning bolt flung from the Hanged One.

  The two remaining Arkans hesitated a moment longer, gripping their torches, mouths working, looked at each other, and then ran as if the Dark Lord himself drooled on their heels.

  It’s over. We did it. For a moment Megan couldn’t believe. She leaped up, staggered, and let all her brightnesses die, leaving only the light of torches half-foundering in the brush. My head feels peeled open. It wasn’t much but lights, but for how long? She wanted to throw up. Why not? She did, into the brush. As the Arkans’ yells faded, silence thickened; she felt her blood thunder in her head. Over, she thought vaguely, bending to gather up the dagger lying in the grass.

  “Megan.” The same voice that had seemed to echo doom through her skull now came small and weak with fatigue and pain, human. Koru, you fool, he’s wounded. “I can’t cut myself down. I don’t carry as many sharp edges as you . . “A short sword and two daggers, all he had ... he’d thrown his last blade. She heard distant alarm-yells. Not over. She felt near fainting, shook it off. Find strength somehow ...

  A sound came from him like a sob ... no, she thought giddily, it’s too fast. Slowly it came to her: he was laughing.

  She looked up at him, still swinging gently, his face dripping with sweat and blood mixed, right fist pressed into left arm to stanch the flow, helplessly giggling, eyes closed and gold teeth bared, each panting gout of laughter louder than the one before.

  You think this is funny, she hissed inwardly. That it’s a big joke that my head feels like Jade Button Third Rank is sticking his knitting needles into my temples, I’m so spent all I want to do is fall over but I still have to rescue you, Invincible, Imperturbable, Gold-bottom, up there dangling in the breeze bleeding like a stuck pig ... A chuckle burst up out of her chest, turned into a guffaw. Madness is catching. “I should leave you up there like a side of beef!” No help, it just made him laugh harder. She headed for the tree, feeling her second wind.

  “Wait, there’s rocks under me ... forget it, there’s no time, just cut me loose.” Arkan yells grew more numerous; soon they’d come in crowds. She doused the torches on the ground—too easy to find us that
way—hauled herself up the tree on her claws. Its bark was smooth enough to slide out on the limb without too much snagging; Bowed by his weight, it bent more still under hers. She looked down at the soles of his boots in starlight, saw the faint glearn of his eyes and grinning teeth, as he bent his head to look up at her. “Shit. Those pig-sucking bastards are too cheap even to have a spare loop of rope to let you down easy. Hold on, Chevenga, I’ll climb down.”

  She went hand over hand down the rope, hooked her legs around his body, while he hooked his free one around hers, then sawed through the rope until just a strand or two were intact. “We’d better not get caught,” he chuckled, “in such a compromising position.”

  “If you won’t tell I won’t,” she gasped. “Now shut the fuck up!” She caught the knife in her teeth, grabbed the rope with both hands, felt torn in two—Koru!—as it broke, slamming both their weights onto her arms. Koru it’s no heavier than wet sail but Koru shit I’m losing it ... He was still giggling as he slid down her body, curling to break his fall, but it cut off in a gasp of pain when he hit ground. Her own weight alone felt feather-light.

  “I’m clear,” he rasped. Praying she wouldn’t break an ankle, she dropped, taking only bruises. The Arkans were coming fast now, breaking through the underbrush. One of the dead, not so dead, still kicking, he’ll tell ... She tore out the man’s throat with her claws and grabbed up those of her knives she could find fast enough, while Chevenga staggered to his feet. Claw up any corpse in my way, a bit, just to give them something else to talk about ... Leaning together the two fled.

  He wouldn’t let go his wound to lean an arm on her, probably wisely, she knew, so she steadied him by hanging onto his belt. And he started laughing again. Not that it mattered; they were making as much or more noise crashing through the bush. “Dotyi mind me,” he chuckled. “I just have a seasoned appreciation for the basic ironies of life. Or else I’m going into shock, hee hee hee ha ha ...” Koru help me with this fish-gutted lunatic, she thought. Talking too much; that was one of the signs of shock, she remembered.

  The Arkan yells fell behind, stopping at the clearing. She pulled him to a halt by a rock.”Here, sit down,” she said. “I’ll bind it up. You lose strength to hold it shut, you’re in trouble.” He fought, weakly, saying, “No, dammit, I can run. Don’t give me this shit that I’m incapacitated.” That would mean she was in command. Forestall me, will you? “If I stand still I’ll get cold and stiffen up, I might not be able to get up again, I know, dammit, I’ve been wounded a few times before!”

  “Shut up, Gold-bottom!” She pinned him with her knee, grabbing a sash she’d tucked in her belt, felt him go still.

  “Gold-bottom?” His voice broke into a giggle-fit. Under it he was trembling now, she could feel; she had his arm half-wrapped already, pulling the sash tight as she could under his other fist, knotting it. “Gold-bottom?” She hauled him up, half-carried him, laughter and shivers both growing worse. “I’d better go straight to Kaninjer,” he managed to gasp, as they neared camp.

  “Nooooo,” she spat back. “Actually we’re going dancing.” What did I say that for? He’s going to drop dead on me, she thought, still killing himself.

  A snapping voice out of the dark: the sentry, a Lakan, was challenging them. “P-p-password?” Chevenga’s teeth were chattering now. “Sh-shit, I c-can’t remember the ky-ky-kyashin password, and I made it up—sentry, it’s m-m-me! You know—G-g-gold-bottom! Let us in be-f-fore I k-kyashin freeze to d-death!” Megan dug the word up out of her memory, spoke it. Still suspicious, the guard let them show themselves, immediately changed to cringingly kowtowing.

  At his tent a small crowd of guards and squires enveloped him, taking his weight—thank Koru—asking if she was all right as well. She heard Haian-accented Yeoli, giving orders: Kaninjer. “The report’s up to him,” she said, to the hard-faced command-council types who wanted answers. “He’s superior officer.” It’s chain-of-command policy, I have to pass the buck, ohhhh well.

  Shaking off their hands she staggered back to her tent, headache pounding from the base of her skull all the way up over the top of her head and around behind her eyes, and vaguely heard Sova’s voice. “Zhymata, you’ve got blood on you, are you all right? Zhymata, lie down. You’re manrauqed out, I can tell.” She just let the Thane-girl tend her.

  I’ve got stronger again, she thought. The manrauq-pain this morning was no worse than a medium hangover.

  He’ll count it strange—and suspicious—if I don’t visit him, after that. Megan grunted, pushed up from her bedroll, paused, and tucked her seers’ card case into her pouch.

  As she and Sova ate breakfast, she waved down a passing Yeoli officer. “Are we still fighting today?”

  “As far as I know,” she answered, puzzled. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

  “Oh, rumors, you know.” The woman shrugged and went. I guess he’s going to hill-top it, Megan thought. The gong-signal to set ranks came just as she was heading to the semanakraseye’s tent; he was long gone when she got there. From camp, alone, she watched the battle as best she could, seeing mostly a dustcloud.

  It was over before noon, and word came back that the rest of the day was leisure time, but they’d march tomorrow. We won, Megan translated inwardly, but bed down early.

  It took a good half-hour to talk and elbow her way through the scribes, messengers, officials, squires and hangers-on who always surrounded the semanakraseye’s tent after a battle. Inside she heard the same Haian voice she remembered from last night, speaking in both Yeoli and Enchian, actually somewhat raised. “He’s wounded, he nids quiet, can’t this ell wait? Chivinga, lie down!” But someone obviously said something to someone, for suddenly people were actually being civil, even respectful, and ushered her in.

  They’d set up a bed in the office portion of the tent, next to the desk; as soon as everyone else had left he sat up, folding back the covers at his waist, smiling. The wounded arm was in a sling; on the outside of the good one, that he extended to her, bruises showed purple-blue, from blocking spears. His cheeks were a little pale, and his eyes looked slightly groggy; now the battle was over they’d gotten a sedative into him, it seemed, though he was fighting it. She had a sudden memory-flash of his face in flickering flamelight, an upside-down death’s head shrouded in blood, and could barely reconcile the two images.

  “I don’t know if I thanked you well enough last night,” he said, reaching for her hand. “You saved my life.” He kissed the backs of her fingers, and pressed them to his brow, for long enough to make her shift uneasily. Formal gratitude, Yeoli-style; the longer it lasted, the greater the degree.

  His brow was warm on her knuckles. It gave her chicken-skin inside. Don’t thank me, she wanted to say. I might have to kill you. Finally, after long enough that he’d take it for shyness, she pulled her hand away.

  “You’re welcome. It could just as easily have been the other way around. And I missed the most important knife cast. So forget it. I hope you don’t think I meant half the things I said on the way back; my mouth runs away with me at times like that.”

  He waved it off. “Can’t remember a thing. Well ... except something about something ... gold.” Megan chuckled. “I hope I didn’t say anything inappropriate.”

  “No, not at all. So tell me, O Infallible: what did your command council have to say about what transpired last night?”

  There was something wonderfully satisfying in seeing someone who had all those use-names look so sheepish. “To be honest,” he said, “I’ve kept them too busy this morning, and Kaninjer’s kept them too far away ever since to say anything. I’m not nursing any hope that they’ll forget, though.” He shrugged, the typical Yeoli double-shrug, the shoulders and then the good arm. “What can I say? They’ll tell me, ‘You should be more careful.’ I will say, ‘Yes, I admit it. I will.’ Some will leap on that and say, ‘You young idiot, why didn’t you listen to us sooner?’ in the hope that will make me listen to them more next time. Others will
keep an awkward silence, trying not to make me feel like an idiot. Others will worry that it’ll shake my confidence, while still others will worry that I’ll go haring off on some even more dangerous stunt just to prove my Infallibility. And I’ll just keep going the same way I have all along, except I’ll check for traps.”

  Megan raised one brow, drawing the leather card case out of her belt. “I’m glad I’m not in a position where I’d have to try to out-stubborn you.” He laughed. “Let me show you something.”

  Megan unlaced the card case. She made no claims to be a seer—most such tended to cringe at the thought of handing their cards around—but carried them just to practice. She shuffled through the twelfth card, pulled it out and laid it in his hand.

  “The Hanged One. A very powerful card. And very symbolic.” In some witches’ decks, the figure was shown hanged by his neck, as if being executed; with most, though, including Megan’s, he was pictured hanging upside down by one ankle, from a tree-branch.

  Chevenga burst out laughing. “What does that augur? Danger? A wound? Salvation by magic? A scolding command council?”

  She grinned, and let her voice take on the cadence of the fortune-teller. “Fulfillment, moral or physical sacrifice, the period of respite between significant events. The approach of new life forces. A period of indecision. Change, if willing sacrifice is made.”

  “Well,” he said; laughing, “I wasn’t willing to step in the snare, if I’d had the choice. Here’s the period of respite, whether I like it or not. I don’t know where the indecision was ...”

  My face is stone, Megan intoned to herself. Don’t let him see where the indecision was.

  “Change,” he went on, “that remains to be seen, I guess. Or maybe the meaning’s different if instead of turning up the Hanged One, you are the Hanged One.” He handed the card back, and she tucked it away. “Well, thank you again. I owe you.”