Shadow Moon

by Chris Claremont

  Then, absurdly, the concept of drowning led to that of swimming. He was a rare Nelwyn, he liked the water. He wasn’t very graceful; he remembered Rool muttering that he had the style of a lame frog and more than once Bastian and Anele used him for fishing practice. He stopped worrying about all that was around him and simply accepted it. This cacophony was the medium through which he moved, sanity was a matter of relegating it to the background, where it could be ignored.

  Perhaps thinking of the brownies was what led him to them, for all of a sudden he was looking at them from a score of different directions and hearing their voices big as life.

  “Told you! Told you! Told you!” Franjean had worked himself into a state. They were both still in Elora’s tower and had taken refuge in the central tree of the garden there, as far from any stone surface as they could manage. “We never should have come and we of a certes never should have let him near this accursed place, especially when we had a clear road to freedom!”

  “What do you suggest,” was Rool’s weary retort, “that we knock him over the head and cart him away on our backs?”

  “He’s been eaten by a Demon and we’re stuck!”

  The brownie had it right and wrong. He wanted to tell Franjean so, but was aware of no physicality through which concept could be translated into speech. He couldn’t even throw the words into their thoughts because the consciousness he shared was wholly abhorrent to them; they would see any contact as an attack and any communication as a trick. He was as much the Demon now as he was an eagle when InSight allowed him to “ride” his soul with Anele’s, and the experience was as much a wonder.

  Then, as though his thought of the eagles had been a cue: “Blessed Maker,” Franjean cried, “we can’t even call the eagles for a pickup because of those damnable herons!”

  “Keep yelling as you are, you’re guaranteed to bring them back up here. Or worse.”

  “This is not what I would call an acceptable state of affairs.”

  “What do you want from me, Franjean?”

  Franjean made a very nasty face. “Absolutely nothing!” And humped himself to the far side of the trunk to find a bole of his own to perch on.

  The garden made no sense to Thorn. It was rich with growing things and was clearly tended by a loving, hardworking hand. But unlike every other aspect of the tower, it was surprisingly informal. It was a place to run barefoot and loll disreputably in the sun, in a setting where the very concept of play was anathema. He couldn’t explain the herons, either. Like Death Dogs, they blighted whatever they touched, yet there was no sense of any such taint, to the garden or the tree itself, else the brownies wouldn’t have taken refuge there.

  He yearned to call out to his companions, reassure them that he was all right, but in truth he wasn’t altogether sure that was so.

  He heard Elora’s name…

  …and found a pair of Daikini, portly of build, powerful of carriage, dressed for success, striding along a lower gallery. There was no sense of movement, it was as if some particle of him was aware of every simultaneous moment within the confines of the castle, allowing him the ability—through the Demon—to switch from one to the other, as though he was exchanging painted illuminations in a viewer.

  “You worry too much, my friend,” the one said.

  “I’m minister of state, it’s my job,” replied the other.

  “The King knows his business.”

  “So I believed, until those damnable Maizan were invited within the walls.”

  “Their warlord is a Prince in his own right, just the man to tame Anakerie. As allies, they’d secure our southern frontiers, you can’t deny that. And it’s only an escort party. I doubt the Red Lions have anything to fear from a few-score men. Even Thunder Riders.”

  “I shall be so thankful when this is over.”

  “Heard that more’n once, I’ll grant ye. Lot o’ work, lot o’ stress, but think o’ the reward. A new balance between the Realms.”

  “You think?”

  “I dream, ye don’t? Can’t go on the way they are, that’s certes enow. Been playing lapdog to the Veil Folk all my born days, as my father did in his, and his father and so on back to the dawn of the world. It’s our land as much as theirs, damn sinful of ’em not to share!”

  “Keep your voice down, you’re not making a guildhall speech.”

  “I’m trying to make a point, whyinhell aren’t ye listening?”

  “Because I’ve a demi-score of ambassadors in my face day in, day out, complaining that they share too much and all we Daikini want out of the bargain is more more more!”

  “Ye’ve seen my plans. With engines of steam, we can haul more goods, faster! We’ll gladly pay tariffs, provided,” the merchant said after a hesitation, “they’re reasonable.”

  The minister chuckled. “One man’s ‘reasonable’ is another’s tyranny. The tracks your trains run across permanently alter the face of the land….”

  “And roads, they don’t?”

  “Not as much, no. And there’s trouble there, as well; why else does most heavy traffic go by water?”

  “Another case—use my engines attached to paddles to drive boats.”

  “I can’t wait till you try persuading the Wyr Clans to accept that.”

  “They have powers, we have our wits—only they won’t allow us to proper use ’em! I tell ye, the day’s coming when that has to change. Whyinhell should we suffer for their fear?”

  “Because their fear could lead to our destruction.”

  “Mayhap that’s a risk it’s past time we took.”

  “She’s only a child, my friend. You demand too much of her.”

  “It’s that or drown, what’s to lose?”

  At the same time he heard a clutch of ambassadors in another part of the palace have much the same conversation, with the perspective reversed. They came to much the same conclusion, and Thorn’s heart turned cold as he heard a frantic outcry, shrieked at the top of already overstressed lungs.

  “I’ll kill the spavined little bitch!”

  Elora’s dressmaker, clothes in disarray and the makings of a spectacular bruise plumping one eye where she’d evidently caught him fair with her bare heel.

  Nobody liked her.

  Many feared her, all were proud to have her in residence, none wanted the slightest to do with her that wasn’t called for by official duties.

  He opened his eyes, grateful at last for a purely physical cause and effect.

  Stone beneath his cheek, but darkness began an arm’s stretch from where he lay, which was where he’d fallen. He was sore all over, but when he called on limbs to stir, they did so without complaint. The aches were little more than what came after a poor night’s sleep.

  He pushed himself up to see that the wall was still broken and that he lay amidst a scattered jumble of stone blocks. Some were freshly stained, but he decided not to investigate further. His clothes, what remained of them, were as fouled and he began to undress.

  “Well,” he said.

  Bargain offered, bargain kept.

  “What have you done?” he asked, trying to discern a being within the darkness.

  Given of myself.

  “I didn’t know Demons did such things.”

  Perhaps you don’t know so much.

  “Very likely. Thank you,” he said simply, because that was as much formality as he could muster. “I owe you more than my life.”

  The Demon said nothing.

  “Who are you?” Thorn wondered aloud. “What are you?”

  I am, it replied, with an air of puzzlement, as though these were questions it had never put to Itself. How I came to be, I…do not know. I have always been of this place.

  “I sensed that.” Bound to the stones when they were freestanding, and carried with them when quarried and cut to form the first foundation. No memory of who had ensnared it, or why,
or how long ago, save that it was of a time when none of the present races walked the world.

  “I must go,” Thorn said, but failed in his initial attempt to rise.

  You cannot.

  That denial got his dander up and himself to his feet, though he had to lean against a block for support.

  “I’m needed.”

  Here more than elsewhere.

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

  There is a debt. Honor demands a settlement.

  “I was wondering when we’d get around to that. If it’s freedom you’re after, I don’t think I can. The Bindings that hold you are beyond my power to loose.”

  Freedom, yes. But not for me.

  The darkness moved, initially revealing Thorn’s belt and pouches, which he gratefully pulled to him. He fished out a canteen, and splashed precious water on his face. Fresh clothes came to hand, a fashion inspired mostly by Rool. A shirt of heavy cotton, dyed a green so dark it was almost black, as useful for camouflage in the night as in the deep woods. Trousers of wool, buckskin boots that laced to the knee, designed for hard travel over rough country. Dark sweater, woven so tightly it was virtually waterproof even without his enchantments to help. Shearling vest, built with big pockets. The sweater and vest, he let lie for the moment, warm enough in shirt alone. He scarfed some food and a flask of water from the other pouch, but what he wanted most was his carryall and, especially, his sword. He assumed they were lost to him, either in the captain’s possession or the Princess’s, only to discover to his amazement that both lay by his side.

  “You have been busy,” he confessed to the Demon as he buckled on his belt and pouches. There was no reply. When he looked up, a woman lay before him.

  She floated at waist height, with night on every side. Tall and powerfully built, there was nothing gentle or elegant about her. Broad shoulders, long arms and legs, almost no hair to speak of, black as the darkness surrounding her, cropped close to the skull, like a day’s growth on a man with a heavy beard. Tribal tattoos on biceps and thigh, plus some scars. A nose that had been broken, set between wide-set eyes and high cheekbones that defined a strong, square jaw. She had the upturned eyes and gold-touched skin of one who hailed from the Spice Lands, and the tone of her musculature, plus the calluses on her hands, spoke of a woman who earned her way with a sword.

  She didn’t breathe, but she wasn’t dead.

  He ran a finger along his lower lip, stared reflectively at the faint sparkles that glittered against his skin. There was a smudge on the center of her forehead, as he knew there was on his, where the crystal blade had been thrust home.

  Same fate, same fight. And in her way, she’d won. She’d preserved her soul and her humanity, though it had cost her every other aspect of her Self.

  “Who was she?”

  Meat. As you are meat. Is there a difference?

  “To such as you, I suppose not.”

  She fled from those who would enslave her. They searched, they did not find.

  “You made sure of that, I suppose.”

  One slave to another.

  It surprised him to hear the Demon express itself in such terms. He didn’t think the creature could be so self-aware.

  “There’s an old saying, anyone fool enough to bargain with Demons is sure to be cursed as a result.”

  Bit late for that.

  He couldn’t help a chuckle.

  “What is it you want?”

  Freedom for my child.

  “Demons can have children?”

  We are what we are, it is you who name us. And define us by that name.

  “I stand corrected. I think.”

  You know so little.

  He had no counter for that, so all he did was nod silent agreement.

  To come to Be in this place is to be imprisoned as I was. That, I will not permit. For your life and freedom, I require the same for my child.

  His head shook of its own volition, eyes flashing from the body before him to the heart of the darkness beyond.

  “No,” he said. “I cannot. I will not. That is an abomination!”

  Does not the one gift balance the other?

  “She had a life and being all her own, you have no right to steal it!”

  Both life and being are gone, wherein is the harm in using what remains?

  “How can you possibly comprehend…? Even if that were true, there’s no way I’d be mad or desperate enough to loose a Demon from its prison. Your kind cause horror enough as it is.”

  Shall I then give voice then to what I know, “Peck”? Nowhere in this palace can you hide from me. I’ll hound you into the very arms of those who hunt you and laugh to watch you crack the bones of those you hold most dear.

  “Then do it, and be damned!”

  Such I am already, wizard, why else do I require your aid? You fear the worst, Drumheller, but what of hope?

  “I must be mad, to hear a Demon speak that word.”

  I offer you my greatest treasure, to shape and do with as you will. If there is a better way of living than we have ever known, teach it to my child.

  “I’ve never heard of one of you talking so. Why should you care? Why should it matter?”

  To Be. That is life. To be aware, that is…something more. I had no regard for those of your walking kind about me, until the Child came.

  “Your child?”

  No. The youngling in the tower. Alone, she was, and afraid, still more babe than girl, found burned and bruised and smoking in the yard whereon her aerie was built. She moved, she breathed, but in most ways she was as hollow within as this flesh-form here. Only Anakerie dared touch her; the others had too much fear. She would speak to none of them. She would speak to me.

  I was…special to her. She called me…friend. I knew the word but not the meaning. At first, I answered when she called because it amused me. She spoke from the heart, she knew of no other way. Better I had not listened, better I had opened stones beneath her to drop her to the eternal fire. But she spun a spell of words and brought light where none had ever shone. It was more than I could bear; to my shame and sorrow I fled from her.

  But having beheld the light, even if only for that moment, I cannot bear to keep my child in the dark.

  “I should have come sooner,” Thorn breathed. But his inner voice answered, without mercy, You didn’t know, did you, and you had grief enough of your own to cope with.

  Past his mind’s eye cascaded a series of images—courtesy of the Demon or his own imagination, he neither knew nor cared—of a child whose spirit was as radiant as her flame-blond hair, whose nature was to reach out to everything and everyone around her. Cast in blood and fire across the face of the globe, to a land of strangers. None to answer her call, none to take her outstretched hand, no longer a needing, growing girl but an object of veneration and fear. A talisman. Abandoned first by friends of the flesh, and then by one of the spirit.

  Yet, for all of that, she made a garden (he was certain it was her doing, to the bottom of his bones) of such peace that even Night Herons couldn’t befoul it. And here was a Demon, speaking of hopes and dreams; a creature more inclined to eat its young, bargaining to give that offspring a better life.

  The faintest of gleams on the floor caught his eye, a quick bend and reach brought Anakerie’s hair clip to his hand. Reflexively, he reached back for his own, though he could feel it was long gone. Lost in the mad scramble around Elora’s Aerie, or during his own seizure, he didn’t know. He lightly rubbed his thumb over the oval face, its designs chased by an earnest hand whose ambition out-leaped skill. Again, the twinned visage came to him, that had overlaid Anakerie’s face. A last gift, on their shared birthday, before their world shattered.

  The Princess loved few things more. So how, he wondered, had it come to be left behind?

  Instinct, again, prompting him to action. He gathered his hai
r at the base of his skull, more a matter of practicality than high style, and anchored it with Anakerie’s clip.

  “Perhaps there’s hope after all,” he whispered.

  Your answer, Thorn Drumheller.

  “If it’s within my power,” he told the Demon, “I’ll save your child.”

  To do what was necessary required that Thorn bind himself to the Demon, in much the same way that Anakerie had bound herself to him. In the process, while his sorcerous abilities expanded exponentially, his hold on them became increasingly more tenuous. There was no light to see by in his cell, but that didn’t seem to matter. Thorn couldn’t see himself, couldn’t see the woman he knew lay before him; all was darkness, as absolute as Creation must have been before the striking of the first celestial spark. He could hear breathing, his own, with a shiver to each intake and exhalation that had nothing to do with physical discomfort. Magic required an essential harmony of being, and hard as he worked, he couldn’t find it.

  With an effort that left his temples throbbing, he sharpened the focus of his InSight, closing every window he could find on the infinitely faceted world the Demon took for granted, until the darkness of the cell came alive. On one plane, darkness is simply the absence of light, but as a color black is the sum total of all the rest; the more that are combined, the darker they get.

  For Thorn, it was as if he was suddenly immersed in a great ocean and able to observe all its myriad elements, currents great and small moving through the deeps like rivers, demarked not simply by force and direction but temperature, each throwing off swirls and eddies that themselves formed strata in the water the way a vein of minerals might within a mountain. In the room, Thorn saw patterns of energy, all black, but the difference now was that one was black that had once been scarlet, another black that had once been a pale rose-edged teal. Memories in the fabric of the chamber’s substance of more colors, more frames of being, than he had names for. None of it was discernible straight on, of course—Fates forfend, he groused to himself even as he marveled at the sights, anything should come that simple—only as flashes at the farthest corner of his vision, like the streaks seen against the inside of his eyelids on a bright and sunlit day after he squeezed them tight shut.