A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Callous? Say brave and not even then plumb the depths of courage that rode behind her.

  Jenn gripped Lila’s hands in hers, held tight.

  If, for the briefest moment, a head rested on her shoulder?

  It’d be their secret.

  The dead of night, they called it on patrol, when eyelids grew heavy and bodies ached with the effort to stay upright, let alone alert.

  Riding a kruar across a slanted roof—of damp and moss-slimed tile, no less, so even those sure feet slipped, especially when lunging for ill-fated pigeons—was the best remedy Bannan could recall offhand. He refused to give any credit to the “nap” Glammis had imposed.

  Though he’d very much like to know what had happened to Jenn, during that time. She’d different clothing and had lost her boots, but the change he sensed was far deeper and profound. He’d have tried his gift, if he wasn’t hanging on for dear life. Of all the times for them to be caught up in one of Lila’s schemes . . .

  Not that there was, in his experience, a good time for that. Unless beer was involved. Jenn had seen for herself. Lila was a force of—imagination failed him. A force, she was. As for her being a truedreamer?

  Ancestors Skinned and Gutted. He’d be doing more with his eyes closed, that’s what he’d be doing. Or in the dark. Especially that. The dark would be fine.

  Recognizing where they were, Bannan bent over the kruar’s neck. “We must cross this canal, my friend. Down to the next bridge.”

  ~We need no bridge.~ With some scorn.

  Heart’s Blood. The truthseer tightened his grip, hoping Jenn and Lila—and the toad—did the same as the body beneath him ran for the roof’s edge, pulled in like a spring, then soared—

  —over walkways and canal and, yes, several trees, to land like a feather on a roof on the other side.

  ~Across.~ Pride, that was.

  And deserved. After a glance to be sure the second kruar, and riders, had joined them, Bannan gave his mount a firm pat. “Well done!”

  A snarl answered, but he was used to that.

  The truthseer looked down, then ahead. “The end of this row, if you please.”

  Hopefully with no more doomed pigeons.

  Once on the walkway, shadows shifted and flowed around them, drawn by coils of thickening mist. The night cooled, Bannan told himself, and refused to look deeper in case he was wrong and something was curious. Bad enough small disks of light dotted the darkness of the canal. Turtles—nyim, Jenn called them—watched, no doubt hopeful he could be fooled twice.

  The meeting place of the shadow lords might be a grand manor, but it sat amid rows of warehouses sure to be noisy and bustling by day. An odd choice for a group who traded in magic and valued secrecy, unless it wasn’t from people they chose to hide.

  Disquieting notion, that the Shadow Sect who claimed to serve the turn-born conducted their affairs beyond the edge, where none could reach them.

  Not their business. “Do we have a plan?” Bannan asked his sister as he dismounted.

  Lila grinned. “Go in; get him.” She slipped from the kruar’s back, landing lightly.

  The truthseer rolled his eyes. “That is not a plan.” It was, however, what he’d expected. “See what I had to put up with as a child?” he complained to Jenn as he helped her down.

  “If you wish, the little cousin will ask the yling to scout ahead,” the miller’s daughter proposed calmly.

  “What is a—” Lila stopped, eyes almost crossed as she stared at the tiny creature now hovering in front of her nose, light sparkling in his hair and glinting from the tip of the spear.

  “Poisoned, that,” Bannan said proudly. “Did in my guard.”

  “Explaining how you managed before I arrived,” Lila countered. She stretched out her hand.

  With an offended trill, the yling dove back into Bannan’s hair.

  Jenn took a few steps, then stopped, looking around. Mist wrapped her shoulders and stroked her arms. “How much farther?”

  They joined her. “Past the next building, there’s a servants’ staircase,” Lila pointed. “Once at street level, we cross the canal and it’s but a few blocks to the river.”

  “The river.” Jenn looked into the distance. “Is it the Mila?”

  He understood the longing in her voice. Another name from her map, so close. “No. The Sarra,” Bannan informed her. “Here it’s split in two, but joins again beyond the city to flow into the Clairr at Essa. That goes south, along the border, to meet the Mila.”

  She glanced back, her face alight with wonder. “Then to Avyo where all rivers blend with the Kotor and go to the Sweet Sea!”

  “I suggest the manor first,” Lila commented dryly and Jenn nodded, growing serious again.

  He hadn’t told his sister about the edge. And wouldn’t, Bannan decided, until he knew Lila could remember beyond it.

  They took the route Lila’d discovered while following Glammis, to improve their chance of an encounter. When it was time to leave the walkway, the kruar agreed to wait near the canal, there being, apparently, good hunting in the bushes lining the wall above it.

  And being still within the edge.

  The little cousin, as the only one of them who could understand the yling, came with them, tucked under Jenn’s arm. The truthseer, catching Lila giving it another close look, couldn’t help himself. “They make eggs. Best you’ve ever eaten.”

  The toad, noticed, stretched out a leg, clawed foot flexing.

  His sister made a face.

  “Would I lie?”

  “Whenever you could get away with it, brother mine,” she commented, then stopped where a thick growth of vines tumbled to their feet. With one hand, she swept the greenery to the side, revealing a rise of stone stairs, cleaner than most and well lit. “We’re here.”

  With no way to see what—or who—lay at the top. After climbing the first couple of steps, Bannan stopped and turned to Jenn. “A good time for our small friend to take a look.”

  She nodded and looked down at the toad. “Ask for us, if you would, little cousin.”

  Patpat.

  Though he was familiar with the yling by now, Bannan couldn’t be sure if he saw it or a leaf held aloft by a breeze. Save there was no breeze and the leaf kept rising, following the stairs.

  To stop, midair, then tumble back and down, now leaf, now yling.

  To land in Jenn’s hair, not his.

  Her dear face flashed disappointment, then acceptance, and he knew what she’d say before the words left her lips. “I—we—can go no further.”

  Lila gave the stairs a suspicious look, shifting that look to Jenn. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Bannan said huskily. The yling chose to show Jenn the edge and, this time, to stay within its magic. He couldn’t blame the tiny creature. The truthseer opened his arms and Jenn put down the toad to run into them, holding him as tightly as he held her. “Take care, Dearest Heart,” he begged, lips to her ear. “Wait for me at the Keepers’ house. We’re almost done. Think of that. We’ll be home, in Marrowdell, tomorrow.”

  “I won’t leave without you,” she replied, her voice no steadier. “I won’t!”

  It was a promise, and magic, and if he didn’t come back—

  He would, Bannan vowed, just as firmly. They moved apart, and he couldn’t smile. “However far we are apart,” he prayed.

  “Keep Us Close,” Jenn answered.

  Words he felt, warm along his neck.

  Then she went to the bottom stair, the vines a wall behind her, and stood waiting.

  “If you’re done, little brother?” Lila inquired with unexpected patience. When he nodded, she turned and began to climb.

  “Wait.” Bannan had marked the stair the yling refused to pass. “Let me go first.”

  “Says the man without his sword.”
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  Bish’s hung at his hip, but his sister wasn’t wrong. The weapon was small and unfamiliar; he’d likely stab himself before an enemy. Not that he hoped to draw the thing. “Wait, Lila.”

  She shook her head, annoyed, but stopped.

  Bannan eased by her and looked back at Jenn. Against the dark green, half in shadow, toad under her arm, her golden hair and the pale skin of her shoulders and face shone in the lamplight—or had their own glow—

  She seemed more dream than real.

  Heart’s Blood. Swallowing, he turned and took not one, but several steps in haste, going past where the yling had been, making sure, before he stopped and turned once more.

  Lila frowned up at him. “Before dawn, if you please?”

  Not a vine or leaf had moved.

  But there was no one else below.

  ~The edge, elder sister. The edge!~

  “Hush,” Jenn said soothingly, though her heart—what felt like her heart—fluttered in her chest and her stomach—for surely nothing else could churn like that—tried to climb into her throat.

  The edge? She could feel it for herself, this close.

  The yling had bounced back, pretending to hit a glass wall. But it wasn’t a wall, it was another world, to her untouchable.

  Unreal.

  Bannan passed into it, looked back. Looked for her. He couldn’t see her, though she lifted a hand and waved, just a little. Because you did, when someone tried to find you.

  You waved.

  Lila glanced back. “What’s this about?”

  Jenn made herself smile. “Saying good-bye.”

  “Ancestors Limp and Lovelorn. I’ll get him back to you.” Shaking her head, Bannan’s sister bounded up the stairs, following her brother.

  Through the edge.

  In that other, unreachable, world, Lila took Bannan’s arm and pulled him with her the rest of the way. Out of sight.

  Leaving Jenn Nalynn, alone, at the bottom of the stairs.

  Though she’d wakened him, on seeing her face, Leott made Jenn sit while he boiled water for tea over an ordinary flame. While the tea brewed, he rummaged under his cot for a small tin box from which he produced dry-looking biscuits for them and a fat worm for the toad who accepted the gift with a gulp.

  After they’d sat and sipped and devoured what were—somewhat to Jenn’s surprise, as she’d planned to eat anything he provided without comment—delicious and satisfying treats, she told the artisan of the night’s events as frankly as she would Wainn. Leott listened, eyes hooded with thought, the lion on his shoulders pacing back and forth, until she reached the staircase that led beyond the edge.

  “They’ve gone where I cannot,” Jenn finished, tired enough her voice quivered despite her best effort to be stalwart, that being, she’d decided, what she would be until “they”—being everyone, from Bannan and his sister to Herer and his clockwork—returned safely.

  Though it was impossible not to think about swords and blood and traps of magic, not to mention outright war.

  Laughable now, her dire warning to Bannan of the dangers of Endshere’s homely inn, had she been at all inclined to laugh.

  “The shadow lords, is it?” Leott murmured, unsurprised. “A whisper from any of them’s worth all the shouting in either House.”

  While not saying much for the government of Mellynne, Jenn thought, it did bode well for Emon’s mission and Rhoth. “Where they meet—” she began, then hesitated.

  “More tea?” As he poured, Leott gave her a keen look. “You understand why the sect meets outside the Shadow District, don’t you?”

  She’d thought of little else, riding back here. To evade the turn-born seemed the obvious reason, though she couldn’t see the point. Mistress Sand and the rest had no interest outside the edge and absolute power within, when they agreed to use it. Whatever the shadow lords might decide in secret would fail if it went against the Keepers’ smallest whim. Still, like her and Peggs sneaking to the privy for a conversation their father and aunt couldn’t overhear, there was something to be said for privacy.

  But privacy wasn’t the most important thing about leaving the edge.

  “They remember what others forget,” she said quietly. “They know that makes them special. Meeting outside lets them prove it.”

  Leott clapped, startling the now-dozing toad. “It’s a test,” he agreed. “One all who would rise with the sect must pass.”

  Jenn stared into her cup. “Has anyone ever—” it wasn’t quite cheating “—found a way not to forget?” When he didn’t answer, she looked up.

  He’d stood and walked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenn said at once. “I didn’t mean to—” what might she have done? “—offer offense.”

  The lion’s face looked from his shoulder at her. “You could never offend me, Dear Heart. Your presence is a gift from the Source.” But Leott didn’t turn around, busy, as Jenn rose to join him, his fingers traveling the worn spines of books.

  At her approach, he glanced at her with a reassuring smile. “I don’t know how to keep memories the Source wishes lost. However, somewhere in here,” he stroked a volume, “are stories of those blessed by the Source to remember.”

  Like Bannan, receiving the mark from the moth. The sei, Jenn thought suddenly, had that power.

  Did she? If she did, she frowned inwardly, how did she use it?

  “You worry,” he perceived. “Is it of being forgotten by this Lila?”

  “I worry about Lila,” Jenn corrected, and sighed. “Though she’d not thank me for it. Winter in Marrowdell isn’t like here. Our rivers freeze; our roads are choked with snow. She won’t see her sons again till spring. Ancestors Witness, it’s not right, a family being so divided. If only I could take her with us.”

  The lion opened its jaws in a silent roar as Leott twisted to face her.

  “Not that I can, or would even try,” Jenn added, before the toad or kruar could add their own objections. “Bannan and I will leave tomorrow—” Ancestors Witness, it must be nigh dawn. “—today, I mean. Lila will know he’s with them.”

  The lion hadn’t relaxed. “Remember, Dear Heart. You and Bannan must be seen to leave as you came, both of you, and no one else. The sect will be watching.”

  Good, she thought. Let them prove to themselves Bannan Larmensu was a Keeper. Let them continue to believe only a Keeper could pass between worlds.

  Both worlds would be safer for it.

  So when at last Jenn Nalynn returned to the house the Shadow Sect had prepared for their magical visitors, the kruar again seeking their rooftops, she smiled at Appin as though he were an ally and friend, and thanked him for the bed.

  Not that she’d sleep, until Bannan was safe and back with her.

  Moonlight gilded the cobblestones, stars twinkled above, and Jenn had vanished from his sight as if erased from the world. Sick inside, Bannan stumbled more than ran behind Lila along now-deserted roadways until they reached the alley that was her goal.

  Once within that cover, she stopped and he did and where was his courage, that he couldn’t ask what she remembered—

  Lila punched him in the shoulder. “Smarten up, little brother. You look like your Jenn’s died instead of taking our very good advice.”

  He hugged her then, he couldn’t help it, and laughed like a fool. Though startled, Lila patted him on the back instead of objecting.

  “I should have known. I should have,” he gasped when she’d had enough and, not gently, shoved him away.

  “Yes, to whatever and all of it,” his sister agreed absently, looking down the alley. It was more a small road, wide enough for a cart, and doors broke the walls on either side. “Come.”

  They surprised a cat as Lila led the way to a small wooden door within a pair of larger ones meant to receive goods; proof the manor had been a warehouse
once, like the other buildings along the greater canals.

  Implying there hadn’t always been a need for the shadow lords to meet here. Or shadow lords at all. Marrowdell’s crags bore the scars of the last time the edge had been disturbed and worlds convulsed.

  At that moment, what had happened elsewhere along the edge? Bannan wondered suddenly. Here, the other world met this one above the ground, not within it. Had the sky torn open?

  “Ancestors Witness, you’d think they could afford better locks,” Lila murmured, having made short work of the one on the door. “This leads into the servants’ corridors,” she reminded him. “We’ll start looking for Glammis where he took you—”

  “Heart’s Blood!” Bannan said abruptly. “The barge!”

  She swore in understanding. Abandoning the door, they ran to the iron gate at the alley’s end, scrambling up and over.

  The Straight loomed before them, stroked by moonlight. Barges lined the bank on which they stood, tarped and quiet, waiting for dawn. Barges as far as his eyes could see, tied by the embargo with Rhoth.

  Except for a new gap, where the barge of Glammis Lurgan had moored.

  “We’re too late. He’s gone.”

  Lila went to the edge. “And not planning to come back, by what he’s left behind.”

  Bannan joined her, looking into the water. Bodies bumped restlessly against the stone, tangled in lines. “It’s my fault,” he said grimly. “I had us follow the moths.”

  “There are always consequences, little brother.” Lila looked up at the building behind them. Light outlined closed curtains and slipped by shutters; windows on the lowest level were bricked closed. “If your Jenn hadn’t summoned us, Emon wouldn’t be in there,” a tip of her head “hauling Ordo’s arse from the fire. Nor,” grimly, “would you have exposed Bish in time.”

  All well and good, but of one thing he was certain. “Glammis must be dealt with, Lila. He’s a threat to Werfol—”

  “No.”

  If Glammis had heard that denial, he’d not sleep again, nor believe there was any place in all of Rhoth where he could hide.

  “Now,” Lila said in a completely different tone, “what say we find a decent vantage point and wait for my dear husband?” She pointed to where a pair of crows paced the wide sill of the rightmost window, heads bobbing with each step.