Shadow Chaser

by Alexey Pehov

  Run? Who from? And warn who? When he heard the warrior’s order, Kli-Kli’s face clouded over in fright.

  “I’m not going to leave you!”

  “Go on, jester,” I said. My voice certainly didn’t sound any better than Eel’s. “Warn everyone who needs to know and we’ll have a glass of carrot juice together.…”

  My throat was so dry, I could have drunk the entire Cold Sea dry, even though it is so salty.

  “Try to stay alive, Dancer!” Kli-Kli gave me one last glance and disappeared from my field of view.

  “Where has he gone to? Ah, yes, of course. He’s gone running off somewhere to warn someone. He moved so fast, he must really want that juice. Well, good luck to him. And all the best…”

  The Garrakian wasn’t allowed to get to his feet. Some men surrounded him, knocked the sword out of his hands, and hit him on the back of his head. Eel fell down onto the ground and stopped moving. I tried to get up, but my arms and legs wouldn’t obey me and I closed my eyes to let these bad men know I was too well brought up to talk with people like them.

  A thousand devils of darkness! We smashed into a house that was standing in the wrong place! Why couldn’t it have gotten out of the way? Darkness! That wasn’t what I should be thinking about.

  “Is this one alive?” asked someone standing over me.

  “Aha! But he’s out cold,” someone else said, and gave me a kick under the ribs.

  I knew they were bad men.

  “You halfwit. You let the shortass get away.”

  “Well, how much trouble can a goblin cause?”

  “He can cause us a whole wagonload.”

  “Shall I send the lads after him?”

  “Ha! Now you think about it. There’s no way you can catch him, we’ll never find him in the alleys now. No more talk. Load these two before the guards turn up and a crowd gathers.”

  They tossed me onto a hard surface. Someone swore, a door slammed, the floor jerked and creaked. It seemed like I was in a carriage. But why had they dumped me into it like that? The lads could at least have invited me to take a drive with them. I’m so polite and obliging, surely they didn’t think I would refuse to get into the carriage?

  I heard someone groan close to my ear. Eel?

  I had to open my eyes to satisfy my curiosity. I discovered that I was lying on the floor of a carriage beside the unconscious Eel. The other people in the carriage were the lads with crossbows who five minutes earlier had been trying to shoot down Harold and his companions.

  The orcs have a wonderful saying: “Curiosity led the goblin into the maze.” One of the bad lads noticed that I had opened my eyes and exclaimed, “Hey, this one’s come round.”

  I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t done anything of the sort, and I had a name, but somehow my tongue wouldn’t obey me.

  “Then knock him out again,” someone advised the crossbowman indifferently.

  The last thing I saw before I plunged into nothingness was the bludgeon descending on my head.

  5

  CONVERSATIONS IN THE DARK

  I walked along a wide, dark corridor with walls of rough-hewn stone, covered with either moss or lichen. There was practically no light at all and I had to keep my hand on the wall in order not to miss a sudden turn.

  The ceiling danced up and down like an earthworm trying to fly. Three times I hit the top of my head against it, but then after I took a few more steps I could stretch my hand up as far as I could reach without feeling any obstacle—there was nothing but empty darkness and a slight draft.

  A thousand questions came swarming into my mind. How had I gotten here? Where was I walking to? Why? What was I looking for in the darkness of this underground cellar? And was it really a cellar?

  That didn’t seem very likely, especially bearing in mind that every twenty-five paces my hand ran into a metal door with a small barred window in it. Twenty paces of crude stone and moss under my fingers, then they felt cold metal, dewed with the underground dampness. And then another twenty paces of stone. It all gave me the impression that I was on the lowest level of some immense prison.

  The corridor seemed endless. Sometimes I heard groans and muttering from behind the doors, but mostly all there was behind them was a deafening silence. Who were the inmates of those underground cells? Prisoners, madmen, or the souls of people barred for all eternity from taking the path into the light or the darkness? I had no answer to these questions, and no real desire to find out who was actually in those cells.

  As I walked past yet another door, I heard insane, cackling laughter from behind it. It took me by surprise, and I sprang away, recoiling to the opposite wall, and starting to walk faster in order to leave the insane prisoner behind as quickly as possible. But the sound of that laughter came after me along the walls and the ceiling, beating me on the back and forcing me to hurry on my way.

  After three eternities, when I had completely lost count of my steps, I thought I caught a faint scent of the sea.

  Yes, that was what the Port City in Avendoom smelled like, when the wind was blowing from the direction of the docks. It was the smell of salt and seaweed, of drops of seawater thrown into the air by waves crashing against the pier, the smell of the seagulls who meet the fishing boats in the evening. The smell of a cool freshness, the smell of fish, the smell of the sea breeze and freedom.

  The inky blackness receded slowly, dreadfully slowly, revealing the ghostly outlines of the corridor. There was a timid beam of daylight shining down from somewhere up above.

  I stopped and raised my head to look at the small spot of blue sky that I could see through a little window in the ceiling far beyond my reach. A ray of sunlight fell on my face and I involuntarily narrowed my eyes. I could hear a loud, regular sighing, as if a weary giant were resting somewhere nearby after a long day of hard work. The sea was somewhere close, and the sound of breaking waves was very clear.

  The sea? But how was that possible? How could there be any sea here? Where was I then? And most important of all, how had I got here?

  I certainly wasn’t going to find any answers loitering, so I said good-bye to the light, dove back into the unwelcoming gloom, and walked on along the corridor. It took a long time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and once I almost lost my footing and took a tumble. I stopped and stretched out my right foot, feeling at the floor.

  Just as I thought.

  Steps.

  Unfortunately, they led downward, into a blackness that was even darker and more impenetrable (if that was actually possible). I stood there, wondering what I should do next.

  Going down into the lower vaults of the prison was not a very attractive option. Sagot only knew what I might run into down there. And I could wander around in the dark for a very, very long time. There were only two things I could do: go back to the very beginning of my journey, or walk down the steps and look for a stairway leading up.

  The first choice was actually more rational than the second, but I simply couldn’t face the long and tiring journey back. Which meant I could only go on. I gathered myself and started walking down slowly. I didn’t have an oil lamp, or a torch, let alone a magical light, and I had to grope my way along. On the way down, I kept one hand on the wall and counted the steps. There were sixty-four of them, steep and well worn. They led me into another corridor that was the twin brother of the first. The same inky-black darkness, the same cold, musty, damp air that sent shivers down my spine. The same walls of crude stone covered with rough moss or lichen, the same metal doors with barred openings. But there was just one difference, which I noticed when I started counting my steps. The doors in the wall were set a hundred yards apart instead of twenty.

  It was a lot colder here than in the upper corridor and after a while I started shivering, without really noticing it. In the darkness I had to walk slowly; I was afraid of running into an unexpected obstacle or simply falling into a pit. When I had walked past seven doors on my right, the walls changed. The coars
e stonework and the moss disappeared, giving way to solid basalt. Whoever the builders were, they had cut the rest of the corridor straight through the rock. I began to suspect that I had ended up in a prison built by gnomes or dwarves.

  Far ahead in the darkness I caught a brief blink of light, like a tiny glowworm. I stopped, pressed myself back against the wall, and started gazing into the distance. The little light blinked again. From the look of it, it was probably the flame of an oil lamp that wasn’t quite burning properly yet. The light was swaying gently from side to side in time with someone’s steps and slowly moving away from me.

  I didn’t stop to think. A light meant rational beings, even if they might not be very kindly disposed toward unexpected visitors. I had to avoid getting too close to the unknown individual carrying the lantern, remain inconspicuous, and hope that my inadvertent guide would lead me out of this strange, confusing, and mysterious prison.

  I dashed forward, ignoring the danger of stumbling over some unexpected obstacle and breaking my legs. Catching up with the stranger proved quite easy—he was plodding along with all the speed of an ogre gorged on human flesh.

  As I ran, I passed a staircase leading upward (that was where the lantern-carrier had come from), but decided not to take it, because I didn’t want to go stumbling through the dark again. When I got close to the man ahead of me, I could see from the hunched back, the shuffling walk, the wrinkled, trembling hand clutching the lantern, and the gray hair that he was definitely very old. He was dressed in old, tattered, dirty-gray rags. But I would have bet my last gold piece that some time long, long ago those rags had been a magnificent doublet.

  The massive bunch of keys hanging on his worn belt jangled ominously in time to his shuffling gait. One hand was holding a bowl or a plate. The other was trembling slightly as it held the lantern out at arm’s length, so that his shadow, enlarged several times over, danced on the wall.

  I crept along several steps behind the old man, trying to keep two yards outside the boundary of the light. He shuffled his feet, groaning and swearing under his breath. Once he gave a hoarse cough. I was afraid he might fall to pieces as he moved, without ever reaching the place where his trek was supposed to take him. But, fortunately for me, the corridor suddenly came to an end and the jailer, as I had begun to think of him, halted with a grunt beside the final door. He put the bowl and the lantern down on the floor and took the bunch of keys off his belt.

  Mumbling cantankerously, he sorted through the keys, until eventually he settled on one and tried it in the lock, but it didn’t work. The jailer cursed the darkness and the father who had begotten him and started jangling the bunch again, looking for a key that would fit better.

  At this point it dawned on me that when the old man started walking back, I would be right in his path, if I didn’t make a run for that staircase in a hurry. But running in pitch-darkness without making a noise when I couldn’t see the walls or the steps was a rather difficult proposition. The old man might be a slow walker, but even if he didn’t follow closely enough to see me, he was bound to hear me.

  He kept fiddling with the keys, and I tried desperately to think of a way out of this unpleasant situation. I could always smash the old man across the head, but then what guarantee was there that I would find the way back up without him? The new stairway could quite easily lead me into a new labyrinth where I would wander until the end of time. So attacking him was out.

  There was no place along his route where I could hide—the lantern lit up the corridor from side to side, and no matter how hard I tried to squeeze back against the wall, a blind mole would be able to spot me. But opposite the door where the old man was standing, there was the doorway of another cell.

  And I do mean doorway, because there was no door, just a pitch-black opening leading into a cell that had to be empty.The door was lying on the floor of the corridor, with its hinges torn off, formidable dents in its steel surface, and the bars on its window twisted and skewed.

  I didn’t know who they’d been keeping in that cell, but when I saw what the prisoner had done to the door, I didn’t envy the guards when the creature broke out. And it was definitely a creature! No human being could possibly have made dents like that in a five-inch-thick sheet of steel (unless he’d spent three hundred years constantly hammering his thick head against it).

  The old man finally found a key, picked the lantern up off the floor to examine his find in brighter light, clicked his tongue in satisfaction, and started playing with the lock. I slipped past him just two steps away and ducked into the dark cell.

  The old man stopped trying to turn the key and sniffed the air rapidly, like a hunting dog that has caught the scent of a fox. But right then I wasn’t concerned about the old man’s eccentricities. I almost jumped straight back out into the corridor, because the empty cell stank as if an army of gnomes had been puking in it for the last ten years.

  I covered my nose with the sleeve of my jacket and tried to breathe through my mouth. It wasn’t easy, because the smell was so bad that my eyes started watering. And while I stoically struggled against the stench, the old man stood as still as a statue beside the door that he was trying to unlock.

  Eventually the jailer took another long sniff at the air and shook his head as if he was driving away some delusion. Oh, come on, granddad! There’s no way you can smell me through this stench! Not even if you have the nose of an imperial dog!

  The old man started struggling with the stubborn lock again. Meanwhile I tried to keep the remains of my breakfast in my stomach. If I ever got out of these subterranean vaults, I’d have to throw away my stinking clothes and climb into a hot bath for a month.

  The lock finally surrendered with a clang and the old man gave a triumphant laugh. There was a creak of rusty, unoiled hinges. He picked up the bowl and walked into the cell, lighting his way with the lantern.

  I heard a faint clanking of chains.

  “Woken up, have you?” the old man wheezed in a hoarse voice. “I expect you’re hungry after three days, eh?”

  The answer was silence. A chain clanked again, as if the prisoner had moved.

  “Ah, you’re so proud!” The old man laughed. “Well, well! Here’s some water for you. I’m sorry, I forgot the bread, left it in the watch house. But don’t you worry, my beauties, I will definitely bring it on my next round. In a couple of days.”

  He gave an evil laugh.

  I glanced out of my hiding place, hoping to see what was happening in the opposite cell, but all I could make out was the dim glow of the lantern and the old man’s back.

  “Well, I’m off. Enjoy your stay. And drink your water. Of course, it’s not peacock in mushroom sauce or strawberries and cream, but it’s very tasty all the same!”

  The old man walked out of the cell and the door creaked as it started to close.

  “Stop!” Ah, so one of the prisoners was a woman. It was a clear, resonant voice, one used to giving orders.

  “Well, I never!” the old man exclaimed in surprise, and stopped. “She spoke. What do you want?”

  “Take off the chain.”

  “And is there anything else you’d like?”

  “Do as I say and you’ll get a thousand gold pieces.”

  “Don’t abase yourself in front of him, Leta!” another woman said in a harsh voice.

  “A thousand? Oho, that’s a lot!” the old man croaked, and the door of the cell started creaking again.

  “Five thousand!” I could hear a note of despair in Leta’s voice.

  The door kept on closing.

  “Ten! Ten thousand!”

  The door slammed with a crash, and I shuddered. That crash seemed to bring the sky tumbling down onto the earth. The bunch of keys jangled again, and I moved away from the wall beside the doorway, where I had been all this time, and retreated deeper into the cell, away from the light.

  From my new position I would be able to see the old man’s face—and I simply had to see the face of a ma
n who could refuse ten thousand gold pieces in such a simple, offhand manner.

  The key grated in the lock and the old man hung the bunch on his belt and turned toward me. What I saw frightened me.

  Very badly.

  The last time I had been so frightened was that night when I climbed into the Forbidden Territory and met the charming and hungry jolly weeper.

  The old man had parchment-yellow skin, a straight, sharp nose, bloodless blue lips, a dirty, unkempt beard, and his eyes … His eyes terrified me so much that my knees started shaking. The old fogey had cold, agate eyes without any sign of pupils or an iris. How can you call two opaque pits of darkness eyes?

  They were deader than stone, colder than ice, more indifferent than eternity.

  Such things simply shouldn’t exist in our world.

  I couldn’t withstand that gaze, and I staggered backward.

  All the universal laws of misery united to place a piece of rubbish under my feet. And you don’t need to be a genius to guess that the garbage made a deafening clang. To me it sounded loud enough to be heard on the other side of Siala.

  The old man, as was only to be expected, froze on the spot and stared with those dead black eyes straight at the spot where I was hiding.

  I couldn’t think of anything better to do than to pretend I was a log or a lump of stone. In other words, I tried not to move, or even to breathe.

  The old man drew in air through his nose and I prayed to Sagot that he wouldn’t catch my scent. This jailer with two pools of blackness instead of eyes frightened me so badly, I could have wet my drawers.

  The old man shifted the lantern from his right hand to his left and took out a weapon. What it resembled most of all was … Well, what can a large human shinbone sharpened at one end resemble? Only a sharpened bone, nothing else.

  In the light of the lantern the bone looked yellow, except that its sharp end, which was shaped just like the point of a spear, was a dirty, rusty color—the color of dried blood. The old man grinned and I caught a glimpse of yellow stumps of rotten teeth. He took a firmer grip on his strange weapon, raised his lantern, and moved in my direction.