Shadowbridge

by Gregory Frost

  “Then,” she replied with bowed head, “I shall be no different from you.”

  She directed the soldiers to arrest the two spies she had identified. If there were more than that, she knew they would now flee for their lives.

  She left the advisers and retired to the tower to await her husband’s return and his answer. The execution of spies would come later. The guilt of those men meant far less to the fox-empress than the true heart of her husband.

  The kitsune let the image of her in her tower hover in the air a great long time before he drew another breath and relaxed, so that his audience knew the story had ended.

  “And what did he say?” asked Diverus. “What did her husband decide?”

  The fox glanced at Leodora, who was beaming. “That,” she answered, “is another tale.”

  “Just so,” the fox agreed, and bowed his head.

  “Beautifully told,” she said. “I know no one who could tell it better.”

  “Ma’am.” He bowed still deeper, his mouth curved in that slight smile that foxes wear. “We, all of us, have tales we could share with you if you care to hear them.”

  “I do,” she replied. “Truly. But it’s evening now, and we were advised not to be out after the sun set.”

  The fox shared a look with his fellows, and they all burst out laughing. But he said to her, “Quite right, you don’t want to be caught out.” More tittering accompanied the comment, though she couldn’t see what they found so amusing. “I think it’s best that you allow us to accompany you back to your accommodations, wherever they are. As a precaution against whatever it is you’re fearful of.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “It’s nothing. We can’t very well sit here playing once the sun goes down, and it’s just about to set, as you say.”

  She stood with the fox, Diverus at her side. The rest of the group folded around them like a shield, and they began to walk back through the park. “And what is the name of your abode?”

  “I think it’s called Eat This and Have a Cup of Tea.”

  “Ah, know it well, know it very well.” He glanced at some of the others of the group with another meaningful look.

  Leodora turned to the man beside her, intending to ask him…whatever it was, the question fell from her mind as she saw him. He was changing as they walked, no longer human. He had a great curling nose now, and his chin hung down as a beard might have on someone else. The man behind him was more grotesque still. His head had become part of his shoulders, flat-topped, and his torso funneled down into skinny legs and long-taloned feet, as if he were the child of a bird that had mated with a parsnip. He blinked back at her with round, inhuman eyes. The eyes all around her had changed: Some bulged, others had turned hard and black. Noses had reshaped, distorted, or vanished altogether. Likewise hair, which had disappeared or else sprouted in odd places, or transformed into feathers, reeds, seaweed. Only the fox, transformed before she’d met him, remained the same, although in the dark and among this company he looked more sinister and rapacious than before.

  As they all walked down the seemingly deserted thoroughfare, more shapes emerged from the shadows or rose up through the pavement to double their numbers.

  Diverus clutched her arm, all of his terror in his grip. He was staring behind them so intently that she looked back, too. A crowd had amassed, walking behind them, some thin and stalky, others squat and elvish, some slick and others furry. Two of the squat creatures held lanterns on long flexible poles and ran along the edges of the crowd to keep up. Behind the lights there were even more creatures, but in shadow, only now and then glimpsed between other bodies and in cast light. If anything they looked more grotesque than those nearby. It was a parade of monsters, and she and Diverus were their captives. Soter would say it was all her fault for not returning while daylight remained—that is, if he ever saw her again, he would. She wanted to speak to the kitsune, but he had drawn ahead to lead the parade. Two more lights on poles bobbed beside him.

  Something cold brushed her shoulder, and instinctively she pressed against Diverus, away from the source, as a towering ghost drifted past. His mismatched eyes regarded her with surprise, as though he recognized her. He wore odd clothing—a black jacket over a white shirt with another strip of material hanging from his throat. She wasn’t sure what manner of pants he wore because his legs faded below the knee into an ill-defined grayness. He floated past and toward the front.

  Then all at once the parade came to a stop. Beside Diverus the creatures stepped away, and there stood the fox. He grinned. “Well,” he said, “we’ve arrived.”

  Behind him lay the steps up to Eat This and Have a Cup of Tea. The fox waved them out of the parade. Holding hands, they moved toward the steps.

  “I couldn’t persuade you to come with us the rest of the way, could I?” the fox asked.

  “Rest of the way?”

  “To the end. The parade goes on to the very end.”

  “Of the span?”

  “Of time,” he said, as though surprised that she didn’t comprehend this already.

  “So, we…couldn’t come back.”

  “Quite impossible. But we should love your company. You know so many stories.”

  Diverus was edging to the steps and tugging her after him. He said, “She can’t. She has a performance tonight.”

  “Really?” the fox said.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she replied.

  “Oh, well.” He sounded sincerely regretful. “You’d best go on, then. But come again to the park and we’ll tell you another story. And you can share one of yours.”

  “That would be…I would like that.”

  “Good night, then, Leodora.” He made shooing gestures at them both, then turned and took his place at the front again. The parade moved off behind him. Some of the creatures watched her and Diverus as they passed. Others stared straight ahead as if this world did not exist; those in the very back somehow did both at once.

  “He said your name,” Diverus noted.

  “I’m sure I never told it to him.”

  “You wouldn’t really go to the park again, would you?”

  She made no answer. Gesturing toward the steps, she said instead, “We’re probably late.”

  They climbed up and, after removing their shoes, entered the building. The moment the door thudded closed behind them, the noise and bustle of the front room died. All those within—every single person—turned from their meals, drinks, overtures, and conversations to stare at the new, and unlikely, arrivals.

  Diverus and Leodora walked barefoot across the polished wood floor. With wide eyes upon her from every side, she felt as if she were still in the grotesque parade. The eyes tracked her closely as if expecting at any moment that she might transform. One man close by made signs in the air and threw some kind of dust at them that glittered as it sprinkled down, causing Diverus to sneeze violently, which in turn caused the man to dive for safety beneath his table. Leodora paused to brush the dust from her sleeve. When nothing happened, the man poked out his head, tittered nervously, and sat up facing his food, refusing to look at them. Diverus rubbed his nose. The crowd lost interest.

  The proprietor entered then. He carried a woven tray full of covered dishes. “Ah-ha,” he said, “there you two are. That Soter has taken to drink because he couldn’t find you. He was sure you were gobbled up by goblins.”

  Diverus glanced askance at Leodora, who asked, “Are we late?”

  “Not for my needs, no. You can see—they are all still eating. However, I am not of a nervous disposition.”

  “I understand. When is it we begin, then?”

  “Oh, anytime you like, although if you would wait perhaps until those who ordered this food have had their fill, you’ll be less likely to play to an empty garden.”

  “Of course.”

  “Grand.” He hurried off to serve the food, leaving behind lovely smells.

  The central courtyard was nearly deserted. Cu
t off from the street and the front room, the handful of patrons there did not react when the newcomers entered, apparently connecting them neither to the parade nor directly with the anticipated performance of puppetry.

  At a small table beside the booth Soter sat alone, his head on his arms. Candlelight floated in a bowl by his head, illuminating his slack expression, telling her everything she needed to know of his condition. He stared at nothing, but then sensed her and shifted. When he saw her he closed his eyes, licked his lips, and pushed himself upright, swaying slightly.

  “The vagabonds return,” he muttered.

  “We were collecting stories,” she said sharply. “The way I do on every span. You know that.”

  “The sun set long ago. You were even warned about it.”

  “Our performance wasn’t set to begin before this, and it looks as if it will have to go on without you.”

  “Nonsense.” He bowed his head as if tired of the argument. “What happened to you? You could have been consumed by the monsters that walk these streets at night, the parade—”

  “We joined the parade,” she interjected.

  “What? What happened?”

  “They ate us.” She had the satisfaction of seeing him dumbfounded. “The good thing that came of it is, I have a story to perform belonging to this span, that we’ve never heard before, and perhaps more to come. Wasn’t that worth it?”

  “My girl, my headstrong mad girl. You are your mother’s child, and like her you rattle the dark.”

  She gaped at those words. He had no way of knowing that Shumyzin had said the very same, and for an instant she stood in two places, atop the tower on Vijnagar and here, as if two moments had merged, folding over the events in between, as if to say that she had followed the correct path and reached the next clue, although toward what end she had no idea.

  “You rattle it long enough,” he went on, “and it’ll rattle you back.”

  “So I shouldn’t look for new tales?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying, be careful you don’t become a tale.” He poured his cup, but then pushed it at her. “Here, drink for stamina before we go on.” She picked it up. “And don’t worry about my condition. I could do my part roaring drunk, and you know it.”

  She sipped the wine and put the cup down. “I know you’ve tested the notion enough times.”

  He snorted, smiled. “I have, and even before yours. Now go get ready, and where’s Div—ah, there you are, boy. Get in the booth. I’ll go call us up an audience. You apply your skills, the both of you, to this story you risked your lives to get, and tomorrow night they’ll be murdering each other to get in. We’ll save Nikki Danjo’s ghost till then.” He drew himself to his feet.

  Leodora pushed into the booth with Diverus behind her.

  He picked up his lute. “We risked our lives?” he asked.

  She shrugged at him. “Maybe a little.”

  TWO

  Their performance of “The Emperor’s Tale” that night proved so afflated that it was to the audience as if two demigods had manifested inside the booth to render the story. Diverus plucked a delicate tune underneath Jax’s prologue, then switched to a small flute to represent the fox-empress, inventing a bittersweet theme for her on the spot. Even Leodora, in the midst of depicting the story, found her throat constricting with emotion. Every note was the perfect complement to the shadow figures on the screen. During an interlude, when she could glance back at him, she saw that his eyes were closed and his head was swaying as he played, as if while his body sat with her his spirit ventured into some other realm to bring back a music that no one had ever heard, yet all knew the instant it was played that it already lived in their bones, threaded through generations. Wherever he channeled it from, he was playing music that had formed the moment the story was first told—the music of the story’s origin. She knew, even before she took her bow afterward, that they would be weeping as they applauded. She made Diverus come out, too, with his flute, and presented him to them. The ovation doubled. “Kitsune Jax!” someone yelled, and coins rained upon them. If Soter had an opinion of the musician at that moment, he didn’t express it, but gestured, redundantly, to them both as if the audience needed instruction in where to direct their acclaim.

  The next morning, with a mist hanging over the span, she and Diverus went back to the park, but the kitsune and his brethren weren’t there. The benches on which the players had sat the day before were empty. No one played g today. The strangely cut and shaped flora seemed different, too, but Leodora couldn’t be sure if it was her imagination or if the topiary had been changed. She didn’t remember the one cut like a huge bird with a fan for a tail, nor the one that looked like a giant depiction of her Meersh the Bedeviler puppet—and surely she would have noticed that one if it had been there the previous afternoon. Who was it cut these bushes, anyway?

  People strolled through the park in leisurely fashion; some passing nearby stared at her curiously. Diverus noticed this first and pointed it out to her, and the two of them watched people watching her as they passed. Then one woman, rather than just watching, approached her. With her face hidden behind a small fan that she fluttered, the woman asked, “Would you sell me, young woman, some of your hair?”

  “My hair?” She self-consciously touched the fall of it at her neck. She wore it unbound today, enjoying the freedom of anonymity.

  “Enough to make a wig for me. I’ll pay you well.”

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  The woman made a slight bow of disappointment, then fluttered away.

  Diverus said, “They must never have seen hair like yours.”

  “But it’s just hair!”

  “To us. We might want to leave this park, though, before she finds someone who’s willing to take it from you.”

  “Take my hair?” Clearly she found the idea absurd.

  “In the underspan of Vijnagar, if someone liked what you had, they took it. If you disagreed with them, there was usually an argument, sometimes a fight. Sometimes a murder.”

  “You saw this?”

  “Not every day, no. Own nothing to feed someone’s envy and you’ll live a good long time. Otherwise, you have to be willing to fight.”

  “You had something to steal?” she asked, thinking that he wasn’t merely reciting but spoke from personal experience.

  “No,” he answered. “I had nothing, less than nothing, so I was left alone.”

  They continued to wander idly through the park, which appeared larger than possible. Beyond the benches and up a few steps the way was blocked by a stand of bamboo grown so thickly together that when they at last located a meandering path of small stones among the stems, they had to walk single-file along it, weaving through an increasingly impeditive forest, so dense that the clogged air hung motionless, while in branches overhead unseen birds chattered shrilly. The world became green, crepuscular, and claustrophobic.

  When it seemed the forest could be compressed no further and remain navigable, the bamboo began to thin, until they were catching glimpses of the world beyond it again. Soon only a single, random row of stems stood between them and the outside. The path ended at a few steps, leading down a slope to a circular pond. In the center of the pond, water trickled over an odd pile of stones that seemed to have been arranged to produce the most noise possible—the trickling and burbling drowned out even the birdsong they’d left behind. Orange fish with large sleepy eyes suggesting a jaded intelligence swam lazily near the edge of the pond and followed them as they walked around it. There were benches at intervals, but no one sat. This whole portion of the park stood deserted.

  The path led to a broad oval of sand, ringed by rocks. A solitary figure stood in the sand, his face hidden beneath a low conical hat. He held a small rake and, as Leodora and Diverus came upon him, he was carefully creating a series of crosshatches. The sand had been worked elsewhere into swirls and nautiloid patterns. In silence they watched him perform, and Leodora felt as if she
were watching the creator himself, making the world. He paused to consider what he’d done, standing idly with one foot on his thigh and his weight upon the rake. He seemed then like a statue, as if she had only imagined his movement. Quietly she and Diverus crept past him. If he was aware, he didn’t show it. He didn’t move at all. On the far side and bordered by short conical trees, a few steps led down from this strange plateau and across another area of exotically shaped bushes, and to a set of polished wooden trellises that served as gates. Beyond them, people moved past randomly, as if unaware of this enigmatic park.

  Exiting through the gates, the two found themselves on a secondary boulevard that paralleled the one they’d taken upon arriving on the span the day before. Looking back, they found that they had walked beneath the oddly canted central tower without noticing and viewed it now on the far side of where they’d begun, halfway to the end of the span. “Maybe the bamboo forest hid it,” suggested Diverus, as if reading her thoughts, but even to himself he sounded unconvinced. He added, “Maybe we want to walk back on the road instead.”

  “There certainly wasn’t anyone to ask for stories,” said Leodora.

  “I think it won’t be the same going back anyway.” She looked at him questioningly, and he explained, “I think it’ll have become another park.”

  What struck her as the most odd about his observation was that she both understood and agreed with him.

  This entire span seemed to be alive with elusive magic.

  They walked along the avenue toward the center tower, passing other pedestrians, fruit and vegetable stands, pedicabs, and shops. The shops on their right hid the park from view, and when they did catch a glimpse, all they saw was a stone wall.

  The two of them had only just entered the shadow under the middle tower’s swaybacked crossbeam when a procession cut across their path.

  It was nothing like the parade of monsters from the previous night. The people—for they all looked human this time—wore white garments: robes, pants, shirts, all white. Only one woman, near the front, wore color—a bright red scarf upon her head. In the middle, lying upon a board but held up above their heads on a series of poles, lay a body. It, too, was wrapped in white, from head to foot.