The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

  The cool air brought flashes of hope. Sometimes bad luck was a whale that devoured you. Sometimes you crawled out of its belly and fought on.

  The dlömu ashore did not notice Pazel at first, and by the time they did, they could think of nothing to do about him. Humans were not to leave the ship, but this youth’s only wish seemed to be to get back inside. They might have scolded him, but they were under orders not to speak to the crew except in emergencies, and so held their tongues. The decision, as it happened, cost lives.

  Pazel had climbed about eighty feet when, on the lower gun deck, Fulbreech stepped out of the pump room and quickly closed the door behind him. For the last time in his life he put on his old, false face. He was ready with a laugh and a self-effacing story about ducking into the chamber to collect himself, after some ugly work in sickbay—but no one had seen him, the passage was still deserted. Once again he opened the pump room door.

  Arunis swept into the passage, his great mace raised before him. Fulbreech thought again how ghastly he had become. Once the mage had been stout; today he was a skeletal, staring creature, large of build but wasted within his dark, enveloping coat, the old white scarf twined about a dry and scrawny neck. And yet there was power in those hands that gripped the cruel weapon like a plaything, and his eyes still gleamed with appetite.

  He was marching aft at a swift pace. “The Stone is in the manger yet,” he said, more to himself than to Fulbreech, who was half running to keep up. “I will not have to touch it. I will take it, of course. No one will dare to cross me. The Turachs will flee their posts, and those who do not flee I will burn. I will claim the Stone tonight, and it will know me for its master, the shaper of worlds, the next ascendant to the Vault of the Skies. The Stone brings death only to weaker souls. All the same I will not touch it. Why should I touch it, before I know that I can?”

  “You should cross the ship by the orlop deck, Master,” said Fulbreech, touching his sleeve.

  “We cross here,” said Arunis.

  “On the lower gun deck? As you will, Master. You may be lucky here as well.”

  Sorcerer and servant hurried on, past the gunners’ cabins and the armory. Finally the passage ended and they stepped out into the central compartment. Moonlight filtered dimly through the gunports, and the glass planks overhead. The long rows of cannon gleamed blue-black in the shadows. Arunis hesitated, glaring.

  “Empty,” he said.

  “As I say, Master, you’re fortunate tonight. Stanapeth and Bolutu may be huddled with Lady Oggosk, but in general the ship is asleep.”

  “It is not asleep,” snapped Arunis, shooting him a furious look. “Scores of men are awake, whether they dare to stir from their chambers or not. I can feel them, crouched and frightened. Why should they be frightened? What has been happening this last hour, Fulbreech?”

  “This last hour? Nothing, Master. I told you, I was with the girl. Pathkendle and his friends retired early. Bolutu spoke with someone dispatched by Prince Olik, who delivered the awful news.”

  Arunis began to walk quickly down the row of cannon. “Delivered it to him, not the entire crew. I begin to wonder if you’ve kept up appearances, Fulbreech. Does Sandor Ott still consider you his agent, or has he seen through your mask?”

  “He relies on me utterly, sir,” said Fulbreech, with a hint of pride. “It was he who sent me in pursuit of Thasha to begin with, as you know.”

  “Then what is the great Arquali spy telling you?”

  “Master, he knows nothing of Olik’s plan to take the Nilstone.”

  “Sandor Ott is awake, fool! Rose is awake! I smelled their nervous brains the moment I stepped from my chambers! Why are they nervous, Fulbreech? What are they waiting for?”

  “Your death, sorcerer. These many years—but no longer.”

  It was Hercól. The swordsman rose from a crouch between two gun carriages. With a gliding step he moved to block their way, Ildraquin loose in his hand, murder in his eyes.

  The sorcerer’s face convulsed with rage. “My death,” he managed to scoff, but there was fear in the spiteful voice.

  “I think,” said Hercól, “that you have taken an interest in this blade, since last we met. Certainly your creature here saw fit to question Thasha about it—in the most unassuming way, of course.”

  “You must satisfy his curiosity, Stanapeth,” said a second voice.

  Arunis and Fulbreech whirled. Sandor Ott had appeared behind them, a Turach sword in hand, wearing his savage smile.

  Arunis turned and seized Fulbreech by the throat. “Maggot! Your death shall be the first of many!”

  “Snap his neck and you’re doing him a mercy,” laughed Ott. “My own punishment for traitors would take several minutes just to describe. But you’ve got it wrong, Arunis. I was the one he betrayed, not you.”

  Arunis turned Ott a look of hateful suspicion. All the same he let go of Fulbreech. The youth fell to the floor, wheezing in agony. Arunis kicked him flat, then held him still beneath his boot.

  From the corner of a bruised eye, Fulbreech saw Ott draw something from his belt: a short, cylindrical device of wood and iron. The old spy raised an eyebrow at him. “Remember this, do you, lad?”

  Fulbreech did remember. The thing was a pistol: a sort of handheld cannon, the first of its kind in all the world. It was clumsy, inaccurate, fragile and useless without a match. But on Simja, Ott had shown him how the device could fire a lead sphere through an armored chest. Fulbreech had thought: The Empire that could build such a thing cannot be opposed. That’s the winning side, my side. And until he’d met Arunis, he’d been right.

  Ott began to circle the pair, slowly, casually. “Well, Stanapeth,” he said, gesturing at Fulbreech, “you promised this would be worth my time, and I’m happy to admit you spoke the truth. A traitor in the Secret Fist! If we were in Etherhorde I’d be submitting my resignation at Magad’s knee. But why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “For the same reason I told almost no one,” said Hercól, starting to circle as well. “Because this mage has been listening to our thoughts. He cannot probe below the surface, maybe, but when our minds turn to killing and betrayal, the surface is enough. It was all I could do to keep myself from brooding on Fulbreech, and thus giving everything away. And of course there were appearances to maintain in front of the Simjan himself.”

  Arunis turned where he stood. He looked suddenly like a cornered animal, his gaunt lips drawn back from his teeth.

  “Deceiving the deceivers,” said Ott. “You always were the best in your class.”

  “We had a strong incentive to succeed,” said Hercól.

  “We?” said Ott.

  “Yes,” said another voice in the shadows, “we.”

  It was Bolutu. He walked up quickly in the moonlight on Hercól’s left. He looked at Arunis, and his face, usually so placid, was transformed by rage. “Twenty years have I given to your downfall. Twenty years—and two hundred. I lost my family, my whole world. The only friends left to me were my shipmates, those who had sailed North with me, and them too I watched you hunt down and kill. You are depravity incarnate, mage. But you have not managed to kill us all.”

  “Then let us amend that,” said Arunis, and leaped at him.

  “Ah-ah-ah!”

  The voice was Lady Oggosk’s. Arunis was suddenly floundering, as though he had collided with an invisible curtain, or a net. There was the old woman, hobbling around the edge of the tonnage hatch, leaning heavily on her walking stick. At her feet slithered the Red River cat, Sniraga, all her fur on end.

  “I warned you, sorcerer,” she said, “that if you boarded the Chathrand she would be your tomb. Do you remember that day, in the Straits of Simja? Do you remember how you laughed?”

  “I am laughing still,” said Arunis.

  “Liar,” she cackled, “you’re scared to death, and well you should be. I have done little witchcraft since we met—very little these past forty years, truth be told, and I’ll do little more in the ti
me I’ve left. But I saved my strength for tonight, and that’s more than you can say. Your power’s been squandered of late, hasn’t it? Dream-journeys, thought-spying, healing the cracks in the Shaggat’s arm. Above all, burrowing like a ferret into weakened minds, and then throwing them at the Nilstone to see how fast it would kill them. What did those experiments teach you, eh? Were you going to claim the Stone at last?”

  Arunis let the mace fall from his hands. He struggled: it was as if cottony walls enclosed him, tightening the more he fought. “The witch’s web,” he sneered. “A charm for island pranksters, for tripping the town drunk when he steals eggs from your henhouse. The most primitive magic in Alifros!”

  “So primitive I doubt you’ve bothered to learn a counter-spell,” said Oggosk.

  “Witless hag. This charm will not hold me.”

  Oggosk kept her blue eyes fixed on the sorcerer. “Not for long, no,” she said. “But long enough. And when I wish to—”

  She pinched two fingers together. Arunis ducked his head and hissed, as though the walls had just closed tighter.

  “—I’ll bind your arms to your sides, for just half a minute, maybe: plenty of time for one of these men to step forward and harvest your head. Fight on, bastard! Give me a reason to do it now! Do you really need proof that I can?”

  “Old woman,” growled Arunis through clenched teeth, “I am going to roast you to slow death, over a pit of coals and fire-weirds. Release me. You do not know whom you are toying with.”

  “Neither do you.”

  This time the voice was Thasha’s, from the ladderway behind the spymaster. Out she stepped, armed and armored, and the hatred in her eyes made Ott himself look up with respect. Ensyl rode upon her shoulder. Behind her came Captain Rose.

  Fulbreech lifted his head to gaze at Thasha. A small sound of terror escaped him.

  “Yes, Greysan,” said Thasha, “I know who you are.”

  “But you’re wrong, girl,” said Arunis. For the first time a gleam of craftiness returned to his eye. “You see, I know all of you, quite well. But you still do not know one another.”

  He kicked at Fulbreech. “You, for instance, may have known what this worm had in mind for you from the start. But do you know what he did to your father?”

  Thasha’s hand tightened on her sword-hilt. She looked at Lady Oggosk. Now, her eyes seemed to say.

  “Do you know that your suitor here delivered him personally to Sandor Ott? And that this diseased old spy, this abomination, tortured your father to madness in a dungeon under Simjalla City?”

  “Kill him, Hercól,” said Thasha quietly.

  “And the noble Tholjassan!” cried Arunis. “The one you’ve always trusted, worshipped, adored. The first man whose touch you ever dreamed of, isn’t that so?”

  “Bind his tongue, witch!” said Rose. Oggosk glared at him sidelong, as if to say, How much do you think I can manage?

  “He told you how he served Ott for years, but did he ever elaborate? Did he mention how he doted on your father’s torturer, like every lackey in the Secret Fist, like Dastu and Fulbreech himself? Did he name the deeds that made him Ott’s right-hand man? Did he confess who really killed the children of Empress Maisa?”

  Rose, Bolutu and even Ensyl looked shocked. Hercól’s face was grim. Thasha’s, however, did not change. She merely stepped close to her old mentor and touched his arm. “Yes,” she said, “he told me. And I love him. Will you end this now, Hercól?”

  “Arunis,” said Hercól, his voice tight but steady, “you are defeated, and in seconds you will be dead. Once before I urged you to turn back to your true path—the path you swore to follow when your Gifts were bestowed. You responded by trying to kill us, yet again. Now there is but one thing you can do to save your life, and only if you do it this very moment, without delay or deceit.” Hercól looked at Bolutu. “Tell him,” he said.

  “You must cast the Spell of Abdication,” said Bolutu.

  “Ha!” cried Arunis. “To save my life! That is very droll. Cast the Final Charm, the Last Command, the spell that reduces mage to mortal, with no possibility of ever using magic again. Cripple myself, and then surrender! A kindly offer from a failed dlömic mage and a reformed assassin. How can I refuse?”

  “Very well,” said Hercól. “Madam.”

  Oggosk threw her scrawny arms upward. “Saikra!” she shrieked. The spell-word crackled through the deck. Arunis twisted backward one painful step toward the gunports. There he froze, arms flat against his chest, writhing only in face and fingertips. He appeared to be trying to speak, but his lips were clumsy, quivering. Oggosk, straining, gestured with one claw-like hand at Hercól.

  “Do it!” she snapped. “A swift, clean stroke!”

  Hercól raised Ildraquin and started forward.

  Arunis’ eyes swiveled to stare at Thasha. With immense effort, he said, “Y-your mother lives.”

  Thasha showed no response for an instant; then her calm shattered like a vase hurled at a wall. “Stop! Please!” she cried, leaping forward to grab Hercól’s arm.

  “Do not stop!” bellowed Rose. “The duchess is tiring! Kill him!”

  “Clorisuela is dead, Thasha Isiq,” said Ott. “I can guarantee that. I’m sorry.”

  “Clorisuela was b-barren,” said Arunis, leering now. “Ask Ch-ch-chadfallow.”

  “Chadfallow?” said Thasha.

  If Arunis was breaking free of Oggosk’s spell, it was happening from the head down: already he spoke more easily. “The d-doctor c-couldn’t help her. Isiq gave up, and w-went looking elsewhere. Can you guess who he found?”

  “Thasha,” said Hercól, “your mother’s name was Clorisuela Isiq.” But Thasha still held his sword-arm.

  “Your mother’s name is Syrarys,” said the mage. “Isiq began to bed her years before his wife was killed. Ott arranged everything. He needed Isiq to have a daughter, after all. For Treaty purposes.”

  “Lies, Thasha, lies,” said Hercól.

  “Isiq paid for her rooms in the banking district. He had her two or three times a week—as often as Ott himself could stay out of her bed.”

  Thasha was weeping. Ott shouted at Hercól: “Do it now, Stanapeth, or step aside.” He had pulled a box of matches from his coat.

  Hercól freed his sword-arm from Thasha’s grasp.

  “The whore was your mother, that’s a certainty,” said Arunis. “The question is, who was your father?”

  Then came a madman’s shout from beyond the ship. Like an apparition, Pazel flung himself in through the gunport. He knocked the sorcerer from his feet, landed on his chest and struck him a blow to the face that might have broken a weaker man’s jaw.

  “No! No! Idiot!” screamed Oggosk.

  Pain flashed through the mage’s contorted features—and then he gasped, and his limbs moved naturally, free from Oggosk’s spell.

  His first act was to shout a spell of his own: a terrible spell. The black mace rose and flew at Thasha. At the same time, two cannon swiveled on their frames like batons. The first blocked Hercól’s killing blow with Ildraquin. The second flailed at Sandor Ott. But the old spy was too quick: he leaped over the gun, pistol in one hand, a burning match in the other, and as he came down there was a deafening noise (a cannon, raised three octaves), and Arunis screamed aloud.

  But the mage was far from slain. His second act was to throw Pazel upward, with such violence that nails popped in the ceiling-planks where he struck. Pazel thought his back must be broken, yet somehow he did not lose consciousness: his determination to kill Arunis, before he could strike again, with hands or spells or lies, was simply too great. But as he crashed to the floor Arunis shouted again, and darkness engulfed them all.

  It was a tangible darkness, like ink poured in water. Pazel vanished into it, and found himself in a bedlam of howling, whirling bodies. Fists and feet struck at random. He heard Rose shout, “I have him!” and felt several thunderous blows shake the deck. Then the captain roared in agony, and a body lunged ne
ar Pazel, and something crashed onto the boards of the scaffold outside. Even as Pazel groped in the direction of the noise there came two similar crashes. Then Pazel found the edge of the gunport and thrust his head out.

  The mage-darkness stopped at the window: beyond it, plain moonlight resumed. Pazel saw Hercól and Sandor Ott hurling themselves down the scaffolding like a pair of acrobats. Thirty feet below, something dangled over a rail: a body, it appeared, kicking feebly, perhaps even dying. When Pazel looked back into the ship the magical darkness was gone. Rose was supporting Oggosk; one of them was bleeding fast. But where was Thasha?

  “No!” cried Hercól suddenly. Pazel looked and saw him holding Arunis’ empty black coat. “Trickery, illusion! Find him before he escapes!”

  Pazel dived back into the ship. Rose, leaning heavily on a cannon, waved a bloody arm toward the center of the compartment. “That way! They’re chasing him! Run, run, damn your soul!”

  Pazel ran. In a moment he caught sight of Bolutu, rounding the capstan, sprinting with his sword drawn. Up ahead it was brighter: moonlight was flooding down the tonnage shaft. The great foremast timber still lay there, propped at an angle—and suddenly, as his eyes traveled its length, Pazel saw Thasha, scaling the timber as fast as she could. Above her, much higher, climbed Arunis.

  “Bolutu, this way!”

  Pazel put on a burst of speed. He reached the tonnage hatch and climbed out onto the scaffold and then the mast. Up he went, much faster than Thasha: climbing was perhaps the only physical activity in which he outdid her.

  Past the upper gun deck, the main deck, the topdeck where they had all stood and worked together a few short hours ago. Then cries rang out from the shore. Pazel glanced up—and thanked the Gods.

  Fifty or sixty dlömu, mostly fighting men in uniform, had just stormed onto the quay. They were arguing, some quite heatedly. Several were fitting arrows to bows.

  From the topdeck, Bolutu cried out: “Shoot him down, brothers! Shoot him, for the love of Alifros!” Seconds later Fiffengurt’s voice joined Bolutu’s, urging much the same.