A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Not that she truly cared about clothes at the moment. Ancestors Despondent and Despairing. She’d left Bannan behind. How could she have been so—so absentminded!?

  The Verge. It sang through her. Songs of magic. Of wonders! Foolish, foolish to let the new and strange claim her attention, and now Bannan—

  Jenn folded her hands just so, careful of the knuckle with the long scratch, prepared to sit on the stone as long as necessary. She’d done harm enough moving around. Those lost would stay lost, Uncle Horst had impressed upon all the children of Marrowdell, unless they stayed to be found.

  She hoped she was the one lost and alone. If she couldn’t sense where Bannan was, she supposed that made him a bit lost too, but surely he was with Wisp and Scourge. And the little cousin, not to be forgotten, as well as the yling.

  Not that she could guess what use a yling, however brave, might be, nor why the tiny thing had climbed into Bannan’s hair in the first place and crossed with them.

  Though the man did have lovely hair. Thick, with waves Hettie envied. Soft to the touch—

  This was no time to daydream about Bannan’s hair, Jenn scolded herself, then sighed, a little. She’d been proud to think herself his protector. A splendid job she was doing of that. So much for being an all-powerful turn-born. Really, she wondered, how did they ever get anything done in the Verge, if they would disagree with something so simple as “please find my love” or “bring us back together?”

  “Aren’t you the lovely one?”

  Jenn jumped, then looked around wildly. A voice! And not an inner one such as Mistress Sand’s or a toad’s, nor was it a breeze in her ear; this was, in fact, a real voice. A voice needed someone to speak it—

  She was alone in the meadow.

  Alone and uneasier by the moment, whether at the overbold compliment or the voice itself, that being rather dry and dusty-seeming. Though perhaps the speaker didn’t have the chance to speak very often. Didn’t Master Jupp regularly need to clear his throat before any sound would come out?

  “Can’t you talk?” the voice said, its tone become one of pity.

  “Of course I can.” Problem was, what would be safe to say to such a strange voice? “Where are you?”

  “Where are you, Lovely One?”

  She cared even less for the flattery the second time. “My name’s Jenn.” Something told her to give it nothing more. “I’m here waiting for my friends.” There. Now the voice knew she wasn’t alone.

  Though she was.

  “‘Friends.’” It said the word oddly, as if it had an unfamiliar taste. “Won’t you, Lovely Jenn, be my friend?”

  Friends, Jenn knew full well, were important. Aunt Sybb said true poverty was being friendless; though she’d add it wasn’t easy to tell a true friend from false, then frequently go on to comment darkly on friendship being a poor gauge of trust. Their Poppa would remind his daughters, quietly and in private, that their aunt had lost friends during the exile and some of those, she’d loved dearly.

  Thinking of Aunt Sybb and her family stiffened Jenn’s spine. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  Rustlerustle.

  Heart’s Blood!

  She would not be afraid. She would not. Now she had “who.”

  Where was he?

  Jenn pushed aside her dread, determined to find this sneak. This was her magic and the turn-born could not deny her.

  There!

  Too close for comfort. Much too close. Moving very slowly, she looked over her shoulder into the water of the fountain.

  And into great yellow eyes.

  “Got you!” exulted the voice.

  The kruar’s naked sides shuddered, shedding pieces of wood and dust; he blew noisily. Unimpressed, that meant. ~Old fool.~

  The dragon, having made himself visible, stalked back and forth, violence in his eyes. ~I’m the fool?~ His claws shredded the ground. ~You were to wait in ambush!~

  ~For you to scare him off?~

  Letting the powerful beings bicker, not that he could stop them, Bannan settled his pack and tucked the house toad under one arm, where it seemed content. Done, he stood in the middle of the clearing and raised his forefinger.

  Scourge’s head lowered and turned to fix him with an abashed-looking eye. Wisp halted, claws deep in brown fuzz that, on too-close inspection, appeared to bleed.

  “Where’s Jenn?” Spoken, Bannan thought proudly, like a man both calm and collected. A man with priorities. Someone sensible.

  ~Where you were told to go.~ As if all this—all of it!—was his fault?

  The truthseer abandoned calm. “Bloody idiots, the pair of you! Where’s that?” He shook a fist under the dragon’s long and deadly snout. “Is she there? Do you know? Is she safe?” He turned to Scourge. “And what were you after? That foul voice? Ancestors Misbegotten and Malicious, what was that?!” He was shouting. Who wouldn’t be shouting! “You used me as bait AGAIN!”

  ~You haven’t been eaten yet,~ Wisp pointed out smugly.

  Scourge lifted his head, a noble curve to his neck. ~Tasty!~

  Ancestors Witness, he’d give anything to tie their tails together. Was that within a turn-born’s magic? He’d be delighted to request the favor, when next he had the chance.

  Hoping for that chance, Bannan emphasized each word. “Take me to Jenn. Now.”

  ~ ‘Now?’~ Scourge.

  ~We’re hunting!~ Wisp.

  Though one pair was red and somewhat beady, the other whorls of wild purple, their eyes gave him the same astonished look.

  Maybe he could find a way to ram them down each other’s throats! As Bannan drew breath for another, likely useless, shout, the toad shifted under his arm. ~Elder brother, General, forgive my intrusion, but I too must go. The man you hunt seeks Jenn Nalynn. I am her protector!~

  “‘Man?’” Bannan heard himself as if from a distance. As Captain Ash, he’d felt the same exceptional clarity when his patrol entered the darkness close to their enemy, or when an interrogation drove past lies to some horrible truth. It washed away every emotion, leaving only focus and deadly will, and he was grateful—oh, yes—for that now. “Another man. Here,” he stated grimly. “What is he? Another truthseer?”

  The house toad, after a courteous hesitation for others to answer, launched itself into its own without breath or pause. ~Do you not know of the Lost One, truthseer? Who lived in your house and brought the mirror and was named Crumlin Tralee before he crossed at the cataract using magic he stole, and thought dead then though now, according to the efflet, isn’t dead and never was and seeks our turn-born for her magic? How they know I cannot say, but I will protect—~

  ~Peace, little cousin.~ The dragon padded forward until the heat from his breath stirred Bannan’s hair. ~What we hunt was once a man. What he is now?~ Somehow Wisp put the feel of a careless shrug into the words. ~A threat. One whose strength we don’t know and the turn-born deny. Whatever he is, I will end.~

  “I know the name.” Bannan heard himself say. Crumlin. The man who’d led Great Gran and her family, those other families, to Marrowdell. Who’d been left behind.

  Lost.

  Heart’s Blood. The mirror. Great Gran had meant it as a kindness; he’d seen the truth in her wrinkled face. “Why didn’t you tell us?” Beyond betrayal, this. Or was it? Ancestors Witness, he was nose-to-snout with a dragon. But not any dragon. “You claim to value honor and duty,” Bannan said harshly. “You’ve betrayed both!”

  Wisp’s long head turned so Bannan gazed into one wild eye and he spoke next as a breeze, hot and fetid and intimate. “Tell Jenn Nalynn a villager from Marrowdell has been lost in the Verge—trapped here—most of his life. Tell her I intend to eat his heart before he can so much as think to do her harm. What would she do, Bannan Larmensu? What will you?” The dragon moved back, jaws agape. “Now that you’ve a name and know our prey was onc
e of your flesh, what does your honor and duty demand? Does it differ from mine?”

  Bannan held to his dark focus, made himself hear what Wisp told him, forced himself to think. No innocent settler, this Crumlin Tralee, nor charlatan selling tokens in the market. The mirror—the rest of it—was proof they faced what was exceedingly rare in Rhoth, a true wielder of magic. More than that, a wielder who’d come to Marrowdell for his own purpose, like those who’d almost destroyed the valley.

  As for the mirror? Bespelled to return or by unfortunate chance, it had given Crumlin a window into Marrowdell, to see the magic that was Jenn Nalynn. Yes, she’d destroyed it, but would she have, knowing the truth about its owner?

  Would he?

  Let alone how best to deal with Crumlin in the Verge, other than by the dragon’s clear preference. “What is he now?” Bannan asked grimly. “Could he return to our world?”

  ~To survive in this one, who knows what he’s become?~ Wisp balanced on his good legs and spread his wings. ~Well?~

  “We’re not your bait,” Bannan snapped, then curled his arm more securely under the toad. “We find Jenn. We cross into Channen. And hope Crumlin Tralee has the wisdom to leave us alone, having seen who hunts him.”

  Those hunters regarded him, waiting for the rest.

  “If he doesn’t,” the truthseer said at last, sure and cold, “we’ll revisit the question of who eats his heart.”

  Scourge began to purr.

  “You haven’t ‘got me,’” Jenn informed the eyes, being quite firm about it. “I found you.”

  A blink. Rustlerustle. The voice, still disembodied and seemingly from everywhere at once, chuckled as if she’d surprised it, but it was an uncomfortable sound, as though laughter was more foreign to the voice than speech. “Say we’ve found one another, Lovely Jenn. I’d prefer we not argue. About this. About anything.”

  She’d argue about not arguing, but that seemed pointless. Jenn stared into the water, but the eyes sat within the sky’s many-colored reflection, as if they rode those heights.

  She glanced skyward, to be sure she wasn’t looking at a reflection, but there were only the myriad colors of the Verge, a rock or two floating high, and the black plumes of the trees surrounding her.

  Plumes filled with watching ylings. They clung to the tips by one hand or two and weren’t at all like the ylings she was used to in Marrowdell. These wore black feathers instead of petals or leaves and more than a few held shields that looked disturbingly like the fine silver scales along Wisp’s back. There were tiny swords that might have been teeth and those without swords carried spears twice the length of their bodies.

  “I—”

  A hard cold grasp jerked her back toward the fountain! She looked down, horrified to find a metal band clamped around her arm from wrist to elbow. From it depended a chain, a chain that ended at the surface of the water.

  While within the water, the eyes, once slit, had dilated and become round, like black pits. “Got you!” Another jerk on the chain.

  Her free hand scrabbled over stone, unable to find a crack or crevice to grip, and her upper body was already at the fountain’s edge. Another pull and she’d be over. Jenn pressed her knees against the outer wall, trying to use her own weight for leverage.

  Freeze! she wished the water, but the expectation that had built it wouldn’t be denied. BEGONE! she wished the eyes, but they weren’t really here and didn’t obey.

  “Help!” she shouted. “Help me!”

  “I am helping,” crooned the voice. “And soon you’ll help me, Lovely Jenn. Come closer. Come.”

  “Bannan! Wisp!”

  Jenn felt herself slipping. Felt the lines of an unseen net fall around her, taking her breath, taking her. She made herself turn-born and it made no difference.

  The hunter laughed.

  Bannan fell more than stepped into the open, losing both his balance and grip on the toad. The toad landed without difficulty, being used to flying through the air. The truthseer caught himself. “You couldn’t—” he sputtered.

  “Bannan! Wisp!”

  “Jenn!”

  Heart’s Blood. She lay facedown over the edge of a stone-rimmed fountain, struggling! Bannan broke into a run . . .

  Even as the toad hopped as quickly as it could and the yling flew from his hair and up, spear raised . . .

  As Scourge plunged by him, joined by two other kruar out of nowhere, their crests intact and glittering like swords. The three roared and snarled as one . . .

  Hair like flame, ylings dropped from above, converging on the fountain . . .

  All to be tossed aside by the dragon.

  Who got there first.

  ~MINE THE DEATH!~ Wisp roared as he hurled himself at what dared attack the girl, permitting nothing to get in his way.

  Were those CHAINS?

  He crashed sidelong into the fountain, jaws snapping at the metal. It gave, as did most of the bones in one leg and wing, the turn-borns’ cursed creation being nothing like honest stone. Heedless, he pushed Jenn back and away, only then to feel the bindings of a net.

  For something weaker. For something younger and foolish. For something that wasn’t a lord among dragons!

  Wisp sent breezes to rip the netting to shreds, snarling in fury. With his good wing, he spiraled up a bodylength, then two.

  Then turned midair to plummet down at the eyes.

  Instinct tried to stop him, warn him, make him flinch. The fountain was floored by the turn-borns’ making and impenetrable. He couldn’t pass through it.

  Her enemy was there!

  ~DEATH!~ Wisp roared, oblivious to fear.

  TWELVE

  DEAFENED BY THE dragon’s roar, Jenn scrambled back to the fountain. Wisp was overhead now; somehow he turned, and she knew, to the core of her being, he was going after the eyes.

  She couldn’t stop him, not in time.

  She gripped the stone, laced with turn-born magic, and wished. LET HIM PASS!

  Denial . . . denial . . . the fountain was old, reworked, the voice of its magic distant, almost bored. Yet strong. Too strong.

  A moth landed near her hand, or did she only think of a moth? Did she only imagine blue around her and the peace of that room?

  Did she feel as large as a mountain? Or was she a speck . . .

  Whatever Jenn imagined, just as Wisp, claws outstretched and jaws agape, hit the water of the fountain, with all her heart she wanted him safe.

  Her hands sank through dust as the stone crumbled away.

  The wind of the dragon’s passing knocked her backward, but she saw Wisp go into the ground as if it were sky.

  She’d done it.

  Bannan caught Jenn in his arms as she staggered back, as the fountain collapsed, and the dragon, maddened and magnificent, drove himself into the earth with a roar like thunder. For moments afterward, he held her steady, or she, him. It didn’t matter which, so long as they were together and holding, nor did it matter where.

  What had she done? The fountain was the turn-borns’, twin to the one in his farmyard, yet Jenn had destroyed it with a touch.

  How—? That he’d seen for himself. Felt as well. The moth’s writing had writhed on his neck, coming alive as Jenn Nalynn, for the briefest of moments, somehow became larger than the meadow.

  Perhaps the world.

  Ancestors Simple and Sane. He could fear such power. Likely should. Except that it filled the woman he loved and trusted with all his heart, so Bannan gave her a squeeze and chuckled. “You couldn’t wait till I refilled the flasks?”

  Jenn lifted her face to him. Though her eyes were huge and purpled with magic, she’d the beginnings of an adorable frown. “You’re worried about—?”

  Bannan interrupted with a kiss he’d meant to be light, but became hungry and nigh on fierce. She responded in kind, for they’d
come too close to losing one another and this was but the beginning of their journey, and he felt as though he drowned in glory—

  ~There is water, truthseer, elder sister.~

  They broke apart, gasping and giddy, to stare at the little cousin at their feet. Jenn’s toad, Bannan thought, his heart pounding, best learn when not to comment or he’d stuff him in his pack again.

  “Bannan, look!”

  He followed her pointing finger in time to watch the fountain unfold like a flower where it had been, as it had been.

  Water sparkled, reflecting the sky.

  ~Old fool.~ Scourge dipped his muzzle in the fountain, blowing bubbles. Not done, he stepped into it. Water lapped to his knees, no higher.

  “I can’t find him,” Jenn said hopelessly.

  “Wisp won’t give up this chase,” Bannan replied, thinking he knew what she meant.

  “Him.” She held up her slender left arm, encased in a dark metal band. Three links of chain hung from it and she caught those in her free hand to silence their rattle.

  Ancestors Defiled and Disgraced! Such rage flooded him at the sight of the thing, Bannan knew himself as capable as the dragon of tearing out Crumlin’s heart.

  If not of eating it.

  “Let me see,” he said, or tried to say. Jenn nodded, standing still while he examined every part of it once, then again, searching in vain for a release mechanism or weakness. In his own world, he’d have guessed it iron, cold forged. Crude work or careless. The surface bore the marks as if shaped by a hammer, but fit her arm like a second skin.

  Bannan stroked the back of her hand. “I see no way to remove it.” Other than by whatever magic had bound her. Heart’s Blood. If the dragon killed Crumlin, would the cursed band be fixed in place or disappear? He could come to loath all things magic.