Dark the Dreamer's Shadow

by Jennifer Bresnick

  “Carefully, if you must,” she said, helping him to move against the wall, stuffing his pillow behind the small of his back to support him. “There wasn’t enough to heal you wholly. You will still bleed to death if you strain yourself.”

  “I want to get out of here,” he said when he had caught his breath. “How did you leave?”

  “I climbed. Very far.”

  “Did you tell anyone where I am? Is help coming?”

  “No,” Faidal said, not meeting his eye.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “There is trouble on the surface,” she said. “Niheba is in an uproar, and there are riots. They are looking for me. I think I am probably safer down here, to be honest.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “I think you are. They cannot touch you here. They are confused about you, and they don’t know what to do. You have red iron in you. It will keep you safe until we can figure out what to do. You need more time to heal.”

  “Never mind that,” Arran said, making an enormous effort to clamber to his feet, stymied by the slippery walls that gave his sweaty palms no purchase. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  “Stop, please,” she begged, trying to keep him still as he battled to get his feet to stay under him. “You don’t understand. Just sit down.”

  His efforts were getting him nowhere, and he sank back down to the floor without much resistance. “Fine. But only because you owe me an explanation,” he panted.

  “Like I said, they are confused,” she told him, handing him the water skin and watching with more than a little smugness on her face as he gulped from it. The medicine she had given him might have closed the wound, but it didn’t seem to have replaced his lost blood or made up for the days and days he had been lying motionless on the cold, hard ground.

  “They wanted me and the gemstones,” he said after he had slaked his thirst, and she nodded.

  “I don’t know what they have done with the stones. That is a concern.”

  “You said I was safe here. Why would I be?”

  “Because there’s red iron in you,” she explained again. “From your pendant. I gave it to you before I brought you here.”

  “About that,” he said sharply. “What on earth made you think coming here was a good idea?”

  “Because I knew the Siheldi had the ability to prevent your death. Or at least I hoped they did. It was the only chance you had.”

  “It doesn’t seem like a very good one.”

  “But it was the only one. Do you see this?” she asked, stroking the lining of the prison with her fingertips. “It is called bezhaka. Sorcerers use it to make their words more powerful. Like the bell of a horn that throws the sound far across the room, yes?”

  “All right,” he said, glancing at the walls.

  “They need your breath to make the sound,” she said. “And the stone will amplify it. The gemstones – the ones you carried here – I think they are…” she paused, waving her hand in the air as she searched for the right word. “A compass? Perhaps more like a tuning ring.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “For music,” she said. “You don’t know anything about music?”

  “Not really.”

  “You strike it on a surface and it makes a pure note to guide a singer. I suppose it is not a thing that has gotten up to Paderborn yet.”

  “You don’t have to say it like that,” Arran told her, a little offended by the condescending tone of her voice. “It probably has. I just don’t know about it.”

  “Maybe,” she said doubtfully.

  “So what will these gems be making me sing?”

  “I don’t know. But somehow I don’t think the Siheldi intend it to be a beautiful song.”

  “Why do they need me, though? If the gems are the key, can’t they use anyone? Can’t they use you, or any human they find off the street?”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, looking at the ground again. “I think they have had you marked out from the very beginning. I think a lot of people have. You are something special to them, Arran.”

  “Then why didn’t you let me die?” he said dully, the words bringing back the form of his despairing mother to his thoughts.

  “Because there will be a war either way,” she said. “Tiaraku is not content with ruling the seas, and he wants more than Niheba. From what I saw when I was on the island, the fight may already have begun.

  “The neneckt are very strong, Arran, and we are not very nice. Your people think there are rules to combat, but we don’t follow them. I think we would win if we fought you. And I don’t think that’s a world anyone wants to live in.”

  “Isn’t that a matter for King Malveisin?”

  “I don’t put much faith in kings,” Faidal said. “Do you?”

  “I’ve never really had a reason to think about it.”

  “Niheba is nothing but a pot of coins to the men in Paderborn,” said Faidal. “And the neneckt are nothing but foreign devils who are only useful to keep the pot stocked. Malveisin underestimates us. You all do. It will be your downfall.”

  “I think that’s probably true,” he said, putting a hand to his sore stomach to try to quiet the pain as he shifted to a more comfortable position. He had certainly changed his opinions about the sea people as his dealings with them became more complicated, and the opinion hadn’t changed for the better. “But what am I supposed to do about it from here?”

  “Nothing. I think we need to find those gemstones and get out. There are people on the surface – people like Rodnei, and others – who have a better understanding of the situation. Maybe they know how the Divided are involved, too.”

  “The Divided? I thought they were just an old nanny’s tale.”

  “They aren’t. Your friend Bartolo is one of them. And he knows more about the Siheldi than he ever bothered to tell me. People in the city were saying that he has disappeared, which means Tiaraku can’t have been pleased with him for letting you out of his sight. That’s a good thing. It means Tiaraku wants you alive, too.”

  “Seems to be more and more evidence for slitting my throat,” Arran said.

  “No. It means there is something you can accomplish that’s important. It could be important to us, too.”

  “Us?” he said incredulously. Which ‘us’ do you mean, exactly?”

  Faidal was quiet for a long time. “I know you can’t trust me.”

  “Damn right. You are a liar and a would-be murderer, not to mention a kidnapper and a thief.”

  “But I’ve saved your life. More than once. I came back here for you even though I could have run and left you far behind. I’ve told you everything I know, and I’m going to try to get you out of here. What more can I do to prove myself to you?”

  She looked sincere, but a neneckt could look like anything. He didn’t like thinking of her that way, and it was true that she had, in fact, kept him alive against all the odds. That had to count for something. But for how much? She had never told him a truth that didn’t have another lie behind it. He couldn’t be sure she wasn’t still lying to him now.

  “Tell me your name,” he said after thinking for a while.

  “What?”

  “Your real name. That means everything to your kind, doesn’t it? Like a blood oath. Then I’ll trust you.”

  “I’m not going to tell you my name,” she said dismissively, but she looked a little frightened.

  “How can I believe you when I don’t even know who you are?”

  “I’m this,” she said, gesturing to herself. “I really am.”

  “Prove it.”

  “I – I can’t,” she said, on the edge of tears as he refused to relent. “Please don’t make me. Please.”

  “I’m not going to make you,” he said. “Then it wouldn’t mean anything. It’s up to you. But that is the price of my trust. I think it’s only fair.”

  “You have no idea what’s fair. You don’t know what you’re asking.
”

  “I’m asking you for a truth you can’t lie your way out of.”

  “No. I won’t. You won’t take that from me. Not again. Not after they – I won’t do that again.”

  Arran shrugged. “Fine. Then don’t expect me to believe another word you say. If I’m safe down here, then here is where I’ll stay.”

  “I’m the one who told you that, too, you idiot,” she snapped. “You’ll believe that, but not the rest of it?”

  “Yes,” Arran said, trying not to show that she had caught him out a bit.

  “I should have let you choke,” she muttered, turning away.

  “Would have been fine with me.”

  She spat something at him in the neneckt language, which sounded like water steaming over piping hot coals. He didn’t understand the words, but the sentiment was clear enough as she turned her back to him and hunkered over like she had been shot with a poison dart.

  Arran just shook his head and leaned back against the wall, trying to get comfortable before closing his eyes again. He wasn’t going to get anything else out of her now that he had made her angry, so he figured he might as well try to sleep. He wondered if he would ever stop being tired.

  The vibration that rang through his skull as the prison’s lid opened again jolted him out of a doze, and the sudden movement of his muscles produced a searing ache in his chest that made the wound feel fresh again as he hissed in pain.

  Come, said the voice of the Siheldi, stern but distant, making him crane his head upward as it refused to approach the lantern light. Now.

  Arran looked at Faidal for a moment. “No?” he said.

  You will obey, the spirit commanded, but it came no closer.

  “I think I’m fine where I am, thank you.”

  “Don’t make it angry,” Faidal whispered.

  “Why? What’s it going to do?”

  “Stop feeding us? Stop letting me into the storeroom?”

  “What’s in the storeroom?” Arran asked.

  “Human things. The lantern and the blankets and the water skins. Things that you need to survive down here.”

  “The Siheldi can carry objects?”

  “Apparently,” Faidal said. “Either that or –”

  “What?” he prompted when she suddenly paused, thinking.

  “Or the Divided are much more involved and much more powerful than we knew.”

  “The Divided brought supplies down here?”

  “There was – the items were arranged in a strange manner,” Faidal explained. “Like a face. A blinded face. I don’t know why the Siheldi would have done that on their own.”

  Do you want to find out? the spirit said. I will tell you. I will tell you what the Warden of the Divided has said. He will betray his people, and it will be glorious. I will tell you, but you must come.

  “No,” Arran repeated. “My curiosity has gotten me into enough trouble. I’m staying here.”

  “I’ll come,” Faidal said, standing up. A ladder made of knotted rope instantly dropped down into the pit, and she grasped the bottom rung to pull herself skyward.

  “Are you mad?” Arran said.

  “I’ve been up and down before. They haven’t hurt me,” she replied.

  “Because they wanted you to fix me. Now they don’t need you anymore. Stay put.”

  “I’ll do as I please,” she retorted. “It’s kept you alive so far, hasn’t it?”

  “And I’d like to stay that way. It’s stupid to go out there.”

  “It’s stupid to stay here with you.”

  “Faidal –”

  “That’s not my name,” she snapped.

  “Well you won’t tell me your real one!”

  She growled at him, deep in her throat like a dog getting ready to bite, and he closed his mouth. She was going to do whatever she wanted. She was going to do it just to spite him, because he had pushed her.

  “Fine,” he said. “You’re insane, but I guess that’s your business.”

  “Getting you out of this place is my business,” Faidal said over her shoulder as she started to shimmy up the ladder. “Every time I have left this ditch, I have come back in a better position to get you to the surface. I’d be insane if I stopped trying.”

  In a moment, her feet had disappeared over the lip of the pit. Arran wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of being alone again, but neither was he prepared to indulge his inquisitiveness.

  It would take something more than a hint at information to get him to budge from what seemed like the safest place he could be – and the blood-curdling shriek of pain and terror that suddenly echoed above him was good enough.

  He sat up as straight as he could, alert and wide awake, as the scream faded. He had heard the Siheldi calling to each other in the darkness, and it didn’t sound like that. It sounded like it had to be Faidal.

  They must be killing her, he thought as another cry pierced the blackness, followed soon by the triumphant howls of the Siheldi themselves. It was stupid that she had trusted them, but that wasn’t what he wanted. He had told her to stay. He had tried – no, he hadn’t tried. But he didn’t want her to die like that. He didn’t think anyone should.

  “Arran! Please!” Faidal screamed, the sound of his name distorted by the winding tunnels. “Please!”

  It was a trick. It had to be. They knew they couldn’t get him out of his refuge on their own. Faidal was helping them. Faidal was lying again. It had to be a trick.

  “Oh, gods, please,” she cried, as if they were tearing her body in two, and Arran couldn’t help himself.

  “You stupid bastard,” he said through gritted teeth as he crawled over to the ladder and grasped the swinging rope, the runners and rungs not taut enough to climb without significant effort. “You idiot, stupid – ow,” he gasped, as the force required to pull himself up sent shocks through his middle. “Don’t do this. You’re so stupid.”

  Ropes and rigging had never posed an impossible challenge for him, however, and slowly, achingly slowly, he managed to put aside the pain and climb. It wasn’t that high, but it felt like forever, and he was desperately trying to suck in enough breath to sustain him by the time he collapsed onto the solid ground.

  “Faidal? Where are you?” he called, cursing at himself for forgetting to swing the lantern over his wrist before he made his ascent. It was as black as a piece of coal rolled in a bucket of pitch, and he didn’t know where any of the tunnels led. “Tell me where you are.”

  Another helpless scream ripped through the corridor, and he stumbled forward towards the sound. The ground was as smooth and level as the best of Paderborn’s stonework, but that didn’t make it any easier to move quickly. He couldn’t run – he was trying to, but there wasn’t enough air; there wasn’t enough blood left in him as he shuffled forward with his hand pressed against one wall to guide him and to hold him upright.

  It didn’t do him much good to rely on the pressure when the wall suddenly dropped away, and he barely had time to gasp in surprise before he was tumbling forward, thrown off balance and unable to keep himself standing on his own. There was a space where everything was painful knocking and bumping against his head and knees and elbows and bruising shoulders as he rolled down a slope, eventually coming to a halt as the floor evened out again.

  “Shitting hell,” he hissed as he grasped at a throbbing, twisted wrist. He didn’t know where he was. He felt a sense of wide open space, as if he had tumbled into a vast cavern, but he didn’t know if his battered mind was playing yet another trick.

  The screaming was silenced. Everything was silence, and as he slowly pushed himself to his knees, and then to his feet, his wrist forgotten as the familiar agony in his gut took hold, the only sound he could hear was the ragged raking of his breath as he tried and tried to catch it.

  “Faidal?” he whispered. The sound bounced and skipped off the walls around him – not around him, he realized, but very far away. His head hurt.

  “Arran, is that you?” the
neneckt responded faintly.

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t,” she said, her voice stretched with pain. “Don’t come closer. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have – just don’t come closer.”

  “I don’t know which direction would be closer.”

  “Then don’t move at all.”

  “All right,” he said uncertainly. “What have they done?”

  “Just stay right there. Don’t cross into the circle,” Faidal told him, but Arran was starting to get used to the acoustics of the strange place, and thought he could pick out which way to go. He took a hesitant step, sweeping his foot carefully for obstacles before putting it down, and Faidal cried out again.

  “Don’t! She can –”

  The neneckt may have finished the thought, but Arran never heard it. He didn’t know exactly what it was that came whistling towards the back of his head, only that he turned around to face it just in time for it to slam into his temple, knocking him backwards and down to the ground, his skull bouncing hard off the stone, an explosion of false light consuming his vision until a half a heartbeat later he was as dead to the world as he ever had been.

  ***

  Jairus waited quietly, if not calmly, in front of the Warden’s desk as his superior finished writing his letter. It was warm in the room, bordering on stuffy, and he didn’t want to be waiting in idle discomfort for so long that the Warden might mistake his honest perspiration for the scent of fear.

  He knew the Warden did it on purpose. Few of the Divided had anyone to write to, and most preferred to pay a sighted scribe to take a dictation when necessary. But the Warden had a perfectly legible hand – or at least that’s what he told his subordinates – and he was always working on something. He could be scribbling nonsense, for all anyone knew, just to make himself seem that much more mysterious and powerful, keeping his supplicants off balance as they waited to speak their piece or take their reprimands.

  Jairus wondered if any of the other Divided thought like that, or if his lack of devotion just made him more than ordinarily cynical. He could not bring himself to be a true believer, not even after witnessing the Warden’s very real powers of sorcery on more than one occasion. He had seen a Siheldi summoned from the thin air and trapped in a circle of blood, where the Warden had conversed with it as easily as the ancient prophets of the Namarja claimed to speak with the angels.