Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  At the bottom she pushed off over loose rock, and was down. She unclipped; the smoke of houses, sweet wood-fire smell mixed with fouler odors of more precious things burning, blew across her face, making her choke and cough.

  If Shkai’ra had found Lixand, but not in time to come back to the army, they’d be at one or the other meeting place—now, not tomorrow noon, she knew. Shkai’ra wouldn’t wait. The Marble Palace steps began at the head of the Avenue of Statuary, according to the map.

  There was fighting in the woods, screaming, but not much; a stream of warriors flowed into the city itself, whooping, howling, faces twisted with loot-hunger. She’d memorized the route; past the Arboretum Gate, along Charity Road, right, then left, all the way along the Avenue of Statuary.

  The fires were thickest to the south; she angled north, out of the trees into underbrush. Trampled dirt with the sickening odor of blood gave way to cobblestones. She dodged a group of Tor Enchians tossing a small girl from one to another, laughing, while a man, her father perhaps, watched, struggling against their blows, shouting, crying, going down on his knees. Another child ran, though no one was chasing her, screaming “Mother! Father!”, her formality strange in the chaos. It’s always the children who suffer most. Megan knew. For an instant she was five years old again, in the riots in F’talezon, breathing furnace-hot air. The smell was the same; what race the residents were made no difference, it seemed, to that.

  The smoke was thick enough now to make the streets dark as at dusk. Flames cut the old brick of a wall like knives, only a few houses and yards away; the air singed, full of sparks and burning flakes of ash. She pulled her tunic up over her head, covering her nose and mouth against the rancid smoke, and ran. Someone screamed close by—long, long shrieks one after the other, high over the thunder of fire.

  An Arkan boy Lixand’s age with a toy sword stood in the door of a house, the picture of defiance, with a Yeoli woman in front of him; his stand was useless, the house already on fire from behind. He lunged with both hands, trying to hold the sword straight; the Yeoli stepped aside, hit him in the back of the head with the edge of her shield, kicked him out of the way and stepped into the house.

  Right, then left—then a blank wall where the street should continue, a building in the way. A bloody building—in more ways than one; smears of grey mixed with the blood, the stink of bile, piss, shit and blood cutting even the smoke; a body lay with blond head broken open in a splatter pattern.

  She hesitated, thinking she’d got turned around. The fire was there, she couldn’t go back or get trapped by it. Up. Look from the fikken roof. She yanked out her climbing claws rather than take the gloves off, clambered up the new brick wall, over the circles carved under the eaves and over the edge. My map’s out of date, dammit. This was just built, and now it’s burning. The tiles were warm through her gloves and she could near them cracking in the neat, the sound like bones in a dog’s teeth. She felt the hairs on the inside of her nose crinkle as she breathed. Four or five houses down a roof fell in, loosing whip-tongues of flame to roar up into the sky.

  No sack, you said, Chevenga. I remember your eyes, so honest. No sack.

  The house behind her, blazing curtains waving out of broken upper windows, bricks bulging outward, crumbling, ready to fall at any moment. She slid over the peak of the roof to the other side, snatched at the map, the roaring fire-wind trying to tug her off the roof, into the fire, or pull the breath out of her lungs. Stopping to read a map in the middle of the bottom furnace of Halya, shit, shit, shit ...

  The street twisted the other way from what her map showed, but the one beyond looked right. Wind tore the paper almost in half; she grabbed it and flattened against the tiles. There—the Avenue of Statuary.

  Fishguts. Everyone’s here. Of course, where else? This was where the good stuff was. Yeolis and Lakans and Enchians ran back and forth carrying gold-leafed chairs, paintings, bundles of bright satin clothing, jewel boxes. They danced in the fountains with gold chains and baubles and sparkly stones dangling over their grimed oily armor, carried huge glass vases out of the houses just to smash them, made bonfires of books just to see something valuable destroyed, stupid assholes, waving their arms in the air like savages at a fire altar. A crowd of warriors laughed and danced and sang around a cart with a huge cask on it, filling cups from the casks. A dozen Arkans, Aitzas by the few waist-long strands of their hair not hacked off, were harnessed to the cart like horses, with blinders and bits in their mouths even, their faces dead with shock. The cobbles shone red with wine and blood.

  Statues. A bronze horse being pulled down by a motley group of mercenaries, beating on it just to hear the hollow boom, a marble form hacked off at the ankles, leaving sandalled feet on the plinth amidst scattered shards. Glass everywhere, not enough left to tell what it was, jagged shelled pieces sparkling in the flames. Another bronze, a winged lion rampant, holding a sun-disk, too big to shift ...

  There—the head of the street lay in line with the great Eagle. The buildings marked as the University seemed to huddle behind the statues and chestnut trees on either side. Avoiding the fighting, dancing, fucking crowd in the middle of the street, Megan slipped around a hedge and across a trampled lawn. Almost in its middle, an Arkan scholar lay face-down as if to pray to the Eagle, a book under one hand, shattered spectacles lying in a puddle of blood.

  At the head of the avenue, a building on the left set back from the street, in a garden, seemed untouched, grey columns rising to where the glass dome reflected the fire across the street. On the right a colonnade ran to a small round bell-tower; a tall bearded Aenir beat the oak door in with an axe. The bell-tower blazed, dark sooty limestone starting to glow and crack, flames biting out of the windows, mortar flung out like ballista shot as stones shifted and cracked.

  Megan had time to scan the square and the steps to the Marble Palace, as the tower started to lean as if bowing to the opposite building. No sign of Shkai’ra, or anyone who could be Lixand. The tower screamed as it teetered, like a person dying. She dived for shelter against the bronze lion, crouched and heard what seemed like the sky falling.

  The impact jolted her up, dropped her again, like an earthquake; she raised her ringing head out of her arms and blinked at the mound of rubble, smashed burning trees, the dust almost burning too, across the meeting-place.

  Second, her mind thought dully. Also, the place he’d go if he got free from the kidnappers in the confusion. The Temonen manor. Megan kneeled behind the statue, wiped soot and dust out of her eyes, read the map again. Left from the square, left again onto Faith street, right onto Fidelity ...

  Left. A row of pines blazed; one cracked in half with a noise like Shkai’ra’s shot-pistol, spraying burning tar and needles across the street, boiling oily turpentine strong enough to make her eyes water. Faith Street. A crowd in the way, someone still able to fight back; three or four ancient solas, helmetless, their beautifully-kept antique weapons unsteady in liver-spotted hands, trying to defend what their sons couldn’t.

  Fidelity Street. A white marble wall with painted scenes of domestic tranquility, the paint bubbling and peeling in the heat. The Temonen family seal; her agent had included it in his letter. It hung from broken open gates, banging against the wall. A lace-gloved hand trailed out of the fountain. A closed carriage lay on its side. Formal gardens, perfectly manicured, now trampled, the geraniums broken, a sprawled body by the carriage. Koru ... how can so much destruction be done in so little time?

  The manor house wasn’t burning, yet.

  “Shkai’ra! Lixand!”

  From one of the thick-grown flowerbeds came the sound of someone making love or raping, cries of pain or pleasure, she couldn’t tell. The heat was enough to dry the tears on her face. Tears. Koru-forsaken, Goddess-damned tears. One of the walls of a manor down the street started to fall outward, stately-slow. Her ears were too full to hear. Bricks didn’t bum but it smelled as if they did, fire-wind blowing the smell across her face.


  She stepped through the manor’s huge fancy-carven door, hearing things smash upstairs. She ducked back as an inner door burst open to the sound of screams and a keening laugh.

  Two blue-painted barbarians from Goddess knew where dragged a fessas by his ankles, pulling as if he were a wishbone. They held him head-down over the balcony for a moment before letting him drop onto the pavement, brain splattering. She waited until they went back in to where their fellows were still looting and drinking, crossed the hall and through the door on the other side.

  Glass doors led into the private gardens, flanked by the lesser wings of the house. Over a yew hedge she could see a sudden crest of flame spring up: the stable.

  She trotted along the wing. “Rasas! Lixand! Rasas! Shkai’ra!” It was almost quiet, the fire-roar muffled by the estate wall and the brown searing trees between. Ashes choked the fish-pool, golden and spotted carp gulping at a surface slimed with black. Beyond that a sunken, walled patch of lawn lay smooth and green-clipped as if waiting for a game of krukat, surrounded by overturned chairs and satin-clad corpses, wine-glasses smashed, a harp rammed over one lord’s long-haired head, steel bass strings driven into the face, rose-petals scattered under it. A last battle of two hundred thousand’s being fought on the plains around their Empire’s heart, she thought, and they throw a party.

  Two or three black and gold dressed boys lay strewn on the lawn, a youth of sixteen or so cradling another in his arms.

  “Rasas!” she bellowed in her ship-captain’s voice. She’d check the dead ones after she’d called; even the thought brought sickness. “Rasas!” A child’s yelp of recognition came from behind a stone bench carved with griffin arms, across the sunken lawn.

  “Rasas?” She stepped forward, sudden hope bringing blood pounding into her head.

  A dancing boy with a thin strip of blond mane on a shaven head scrambled out from behind the stone bench, ran toward her. Behind him there was a shout and three of the blue savages came running from the stable, after him, pointing. They were all red-haired, two carrying bundles of javelins, one a squat giant two meters tall with a mace as thick as her leg, topped with what looked like a small boat’s stone anchor. Their leather kilts flapped against their thighs as they ran; they were naked otherwise, except for the wolves’ teeth wound into their shaggy manes. Clotted grey dripped from the giant’s mace. “Yi-yi-yiyiyiyi,” they shrilled in exhilaration, as if they’d started a grouse up out of underbrush.

  The kneeling youth didn’t move, as if he didn’t care to save his own life. A spear thumped through his back, was yanked out, a blue foot braced on his neck. He slowly slumped forward, across the child’s corpse he’d been cradling, and both lay still.

  “Rasas!” She vaulted down into the dance area and ran toward the fleeing boy. No wonder they were after him: he was covered in jewelry. One of the blue-skins raised her javelin to throw, checked, flipped the weapon around. “Down!” The blue-skin loosed the spear, butt first—not to soil her goods with blood, grub-eating bitch, that satin’s worth ten silver claws—“DOWN!” The boy looked back over his shoulder instead; her heart clenched but he tucked, rolled on his shoulder as the spear thudded into the grass next to him, ashwood gouging a hand-span deep.

  He dove behind her. “Help me, please, you know him, help me too!” The blue-skins stood at the rim of the dance lawn, standing, looking at her, considering. She lifted her gloved hands, shook her head, felt the boy grip her ankle with a shaking hand. “No,” she said. “This one’s mine.”

  They said something she didn’t understand, except for the gestures, the levelled spear. Koru, I can’t fight off all three of them. “Don’t be afraid of what you see,” she hissed to the boy in Arkan, quickly. “It’s just to scare them.” She took a quick breath, summoned her manrauq-demon. The boy tore his hand away from her ankle, shrieked and curled into a ball. One breath, two ... hold ... hold ... tearing pain and a green flare behind her eyes. The image steadied, giggled and pawed. They cringed back a step; the spearman threw, saw his spear go through the thing and into the grass behind, heard it hiss. They ran screaming.

  Megan let the image go, tested her headache, her fatigue. I have to sit down. Now.

  The boy was still curled up, whimpering, “Tikas, matron, Tikas, Rasas—it’s Hayel, it’s Hayel. Tikas.” Megan knelt beside him, put a gloved hand on his shoulder.

  “Rasas? Lixand?”

  He jerked away from her, blue eyes staring—blue eyes!?

  “Where’d it go? Where is it?”

  “Gone,” she said. “You aren’t Rasas! I saved you because I thought you were him. Is he one of these dead ones?”

  “No! He’s gone, he got kidnapped, ages ago! I’m his best friend, we pretended we were brothers! Who are you?”

  “His mother. You mean he’s not in the house?” The boy shook his head. “He never came back?” He nodded.

  In the city. Somewhere. What will I do, run through the streets of a city of a million dying people, shouting my son’s and my love’s names? I haven’t a hope in Halya of finding him. Or outside? I’ll never know. Chevenga. You said no sack. I should have killed you. Maybe I still will.

  “Strip off the satin and jewels, they make you a prize. Hide. This should settle in a day or two.” She rubbed her hands across her face, looked up at the sky, darkened with smoke, as if it were evening. No; it was getting on to evening. If Shkai’ra is alive, with Lixand, they’ll come here. Sova would, too. Uncertainty; always, uncertainty. Best I stay.

  The boy stared, mouth wide open. “His mother!?”

  She looked down to where he sat on the grass. “Dah, his mother. He was taken from me by an Arkan, eight years ago.” Several screams came from the main house. “Look, if you want you can hang around with me for a bit. I’ll make sure nobody parts your ... hair or decides to rape you to death.” He may be Arkan, but he’s just a boy, a little younger than my Lixand. And his best friend. Grief and fear came back roaring; she shook them away. The child needed her. “And you can tell me about my son, sometime.”

  The boy stood up, and pressed closer, as if sheltering behind her. “He’s my best friend and I’m his. He’s the nicest person in the world, except maybe Tikas, but then Tikas uses the whip. He has black eyes like onyxes and a profile like a line of clear flame.” Some poet’s line, she thought. Poet child-raper. “He’s really good at dancing, he does solos now. Master’s thinking of entering him in the City Diadem boys’ dance ...”

  As if that will ever happen, now. “What’s your name?” she said, putting an arm around his shoulders, steering him away from the slaughtered party-goers. She had the urge to save someone.

  “Ardas,” he whispered. “Slave of House Temonen. They’re all dead. I hope he isn’t. He’s the nicest person in all Arko and I miss him.”

  “Well, Ardas, you aren’t a slave anymore, and I hope my son isn’t dead as well. I miss him, too.” With effort she smiled at the boy. “I think we’d better find an unburned outbuilding, the gardener’s or groom’s house, and defend it from all comers, hey? I have a daughter who’ll be showing up here, soon as the fighting’s done.” The boy silently nodded, eyes wide with fear, and followed, sticking close, as if to a parent.

  They camped in the gardener’s house, a cottage with a false tower built onto one corner. When Sova came, bone-bruised so badly she couldn’t walk, only ride, Megan left the two of them to see that the cottage didn’t get torched, and went up-cliff to collect all their things back at the camp. The lefaeti were all held by Alliance, now; saying briskly it was official business got her winched up, and back down. Her headache faded, hunger grew.

  It was pitch dark by the time she got back to the cottage, seeing her way by firelight. Even with the lake right there, flinging buckets would be like spitting into a furnace. Yet the fires stayed scattered, the whole City had not gone up, so far; in the great pit, there was little wind. The pony walked docilely with her. Thirstyliedown, like all animals, accepting things as they came. Sova had
got a blackrock fire going, brewing tea and re-heating stew from yesterday, filling the room with mouth-watering smells. Though she should be lying down.

  “Zhymata, part of a century of Yeolis took over the main house. We should be pretty safe.”

  “All right. Thank you, Sovee.”

  You said no sack, Chevenga, Imperturbable, Infallible. I want to see you again. Tomorrow, Gold-bottom. Maybe I’ll kill you, and let your minions kill me. Maybe I’ll just tear some gold off you with my claws, you lying bastard ... She stored away the anger.

  The boy was wearing one of her tunics now, belted in at the waist, his jewels all hidden inside somewhere. She turned to him. “Well, Ardas, my son’s best friend, what are we going to do with you?”

  His blue eyes went wide, blinking, white all around. “I ... I thought I was yours now.”

  “I don’t keep slaves. As far as I’m concerned, everything you had, jewels and all, is yours.” That didn’t make the boy’s eyes any less wide.

  “Zhymata.” Sova’s voice, switching to Zak, held a touch of reproach. “He’s only, what, eight, nine? And cut loose, everyone responsible for him dead. He’s never been anything but a slave. He told me. We can’t just send him out onto the street.”

  Megan looked up from where she’d sat to pull off her boots. What kind of person does she think I am? “Of course not.” She switched back to Arkan, turned to the boy. “I was thinking of finding a good orphanage, once things settle down.”