The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

  “And you tossed Hercól aside with one hand,” put in Neeps. “You know what I think, Thasha? I think Erithusmé was speaking through you for a moment. I think, somewhere, your mother is still alive.”

  “Of course she is.”

  They all whirled. Straight across the enclosure, gazing in through the wall of crystal, stood Arunis, laughing. Counselor Vadu stood beside him, along with half a dozen birdwatchers—and Greysan Fulbreech. How Arunis had managed to hear them from such a distance was unclear, but he had replied by shouting at the top of his lungs.

  The four youths rushed from the sleeping chamber. The others were on their feet, facing the glass: all save Mr. Uskins, who shrank down into the shrubbery and wrapped his arms about his head.

  “Yes, Thasha, your mother Syrarys is very much alive,” said the mage. “She’s in the house of King Oshiram even now—his house, and his bed—making certain the upstart does not cause any trouble in the Crownless Lands, before our glorious return. Another safety precaution on the part of Sandor Ott. And Syrarys herself? Why, she is another tool the spymaster thinks he owns, like Fulbreech here. When in fact I had only loaned them to him, for as long as it profited me to do so. Listen, Thasha: Isiq’s wife was barren. She could no more have children than she could walk through walls. Syrarys gave birth to you, and tolerated you with effort, for ten long years. She told me a great deal about that effort. She dreamed of the day it would be over: with Admiral Isiq handed to Ott for torture, and you in the Mzithrinis’ hands, awaiting death.”

  “Your own death grows more certain with every word you speak,” said Hercól.

  Arunis turned to Vadu and raised his hands, as if presenting evidence of something they had already discussed. Vadu frowned at Hercól, and his head bobbed up and down. “That was an unwise remark,” he said. “I cannot release anyone whose stated intention is to commit murder. Especially when the declared victim is a guest of the city.”

  “I thought we were guests of the city,” said Chadfallow.

  “You’re here because you’re ill, Doctor,” said Fulbreech, smiling his handsome smile.

  “Correct,” said Vadu. “I suggest you all work in good faith with our specialists. If anyone can help you, it is they. Be glad you were brought here. Your shipmates”—he faltered, looking troubled—“may well come to envy you.”

  “Counselor,” said Hercól, “you are deceived. This sorcerer is the enemy not only of all the men of the Chathrand, but all men, all people in Alifros. Help him no more—for however it may seem, he is not helping you. Very soon he will attempt to steal the Nilstone. You must prevent that at all costs.”

  “Steal the Nilstone!” laughed Fulbreech. “Do you know why he says that, Counselor Vadu? Because that girl went mad and screamed it, on the way to this asylum. Steal that little bauble, the Shaggat’s toy—”

  Arunis shot an angry glance at Fulbreech. The youth drew back a step, clearly frightened.

  “He has no need to resort to theft,” said Vadu. “We have an understanding, Arunis and I. Come, sorcerer, you can see that they are well looked after. Let us go.”

  “Not without my idiot,” said the mage.

  Even as he spoke a door opened at the end of the hall, and several more birdwatchers appeared, this time leading a docile figure in chains. Thasha gasped: the figure was human. He was dressed, and of a rough, solid build like a farm laborer. He was also quite clearly deranged. His eyes fixed on nothing; his lips flexed and squirmed aimlessly. Both arms dangled at his sides, but his left hand twitched repeatedly, a sharp motion like the leap of a frog.

  “Are you certain you want it?” said Vadu. “Look at it, mage. It’s useless.”

  “Oh, I want him—it,” said Arunis. “If it is truly as they describe.”

  “We told you the truth,” said one of the birdwatchers, frightened and angry at once. “This one’s a special case, and needs special handling to keep it from harm. It walks upright, and lets itself be dressed. But it’s blind to danger. You’ll find it a burden, sir, you should leave it with us. It will swallow rocks, nails even. And it doesn’t see what’s in front of its nose. It sees something else. It would walk off a cliff, or into a fireplace. It lives in the mist, in the fog—and we’re attached to it, you see. It’s been here so long.”

  “Perfect,” said Arunis.

  “Twenty-eight years,” said another of the birdwatchers, his voice sour and upset. He was the only one of the dlömu who struck Thasha as cruel: a look somehow heightened by the bright gold tooth in his upper jaw. He gestured at the tarboys. “It was younger than them when we caught it. We raised it.”

  “With loving care, no doubt.” Fulbreech snickered.

  “It’s not fair to prance in here and snatch it,” the dlömu went on. “We’ve written books about this tol-chenni, Counselor. Why doesn’t he take one of the newer ones, they’re just as healthy, and—”

  “I will have this one, Vadu,” said Arunis. “Rid me of its handlers. Quickly.”

  As Vadu ushered the unhappy technicians from the corridor, Arunis stepped close to the glass. He glanced briefly at Druffle, his former slave; and at Uskins, who cowered deeper into the bushes when the mage caught his eye. His gaze rested longer on Hercól, and longer still on Pazel and Thasha. His eyes did not gloat. Despite the hunger that was always part of him, he appeared almost serene.

  “We haven’t really talked,” he said, “for months. Since that day on the bowsprit, Pathkendle—you recall? After that there were so few opportunities. I admit I wanted for conversation. I had Felthrup, of course—and you too, Uskins, after the captain assigned you to wait on me, and keep me under observation. You’re not likely to forget those chats, are you, Stukey?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Uskins in a whimper. “I was good.”

  “You may be here a long time,” said Arunis to the others. “For as long as Bali Adro continues to pay for this institution, this relic of its former glory. I do not think that we shall meet again; not in any form that you would recognize. So I wish to thank you. Of course, you will not understand it when I say so, but you were … necessary. This long, long struggle was necessary.”

  “You say that,” said Chadfallow, “and you mean necessary to some end you have dreamed up. Something violent and fantastically selfish.”

  “Yes,” said Arunis, clearly pleased. “So you do understand, a little. You think you have been fighting me, but it is not so. You have been fighting for me, as slaves fight in the ring for the glory of the gladiator. And so it has always been. These centuries of battle, of searching for the way the task could be done, of racing the others to the finishing line. Battling you and your ancestors, battling Duñarad and Suric Roquin, the Amber Kings, the Becturians, the selk. Battling Ramachni and Erithusmé the Great. All for my benefit, my distinction. And now the final step is come, and I am grateful.”

  The nine humans could only stare. Thasha knew that the driving lunacy of the being before her had reached some new and hideous threshold. He wasn’t lying, wasn’t playing a trick. He really was saying goodbye to something—to them, and something he had decided they stood for.

  “It’s not going to happen,” she said. “Do you hear me? What you think is going to happen—it won’t. No one is with you, except out of fear. You can’t turn your back without fear that someone will stab it. But we’re stronger. We have each other. You’re alone.”

  If Arunis heard her, he showed no sign. He raised his hands before his face as though framing a picture.

  “I will reward you,” he said. “When all else is gone, burned beyond ashes, burned back to heat and light, I will retain the image of your faces as I see them now. My enemies, who almost killed me. My final collaborators. I will remember you in the life to come.”

  “And I will help you remember, Master, if you wish,” said Fulbreech suddenly. His voice was soft, but anxious nonetheless. “I will be there with you, just as you told me. I will keep helping you, with my cleverness, my skills. Won’t I,
Master? I’ll help you all the way there, and beyond. Won’t I?”

  Arunis passed his eyes over Fulbreech, and said not a word. Taking the chain from Vadu, he led the tol-chenni down the corridor and out of sight. Fulbreech hurried after him. A door opened and closed.

  Vadu looked at the human prisoners. His head bobbed in agitation.

  “I should like to know why he insists on the company of lunatics,” he said.

  The sorcerer’s visit left them quiet. For Thasha the word collaborators had stirred some buried feeling, a blend of guilt and terror that her conscious mind could not explain. She had assumed that the mage and Syrarys were in league from the day her mother’s necklace, so long in Syrarys’ hands, had come to life and nearly strangled her. But it sickened and terrified her to think that both might have been involved with her family since before her birth.

  She was still mulling over these dismal thoughts when the dog sat up with a startled yip: the first sound it had made since its arrival. Voices followed: loud, angry dlömic voices, drawing nearer. Mr. Uskins squealed and darted for the bushes.

  Some argument or standoff was occurring within the Institute. Then all at once a crowd, almost a mob, burst into the corridor. The old birdwatchers were shoved aside as thirty or forty newcomers pressed up to the glass.

  They were rough-looking dlömu. Some carried clubs or staves; a few wore swords on their belts and one carried a burning torch. They stared and the humans stared back.

  “Very well, you’ve seen them,” said the leader of the birdwatchers, trying to reassert his authority. “Quite harmless, and under our care. It’s the Emperor’s will that this facility exists. You know that, citizens.”

  “The Emperor,” said one of the newcomers, “has no idea that they are here.”

  “And better that he never finds out,” said another. “We’d be pariahs, and you know it. They’d quarantine the city.”

  “Why should anyone wish to do that?” asked Hercól loudly.

  The dlömu showed extreme discomfort at the sound of his words. They drew back from the glass and fingered their weapons.

  “Men of Masalym,” said Chadfallow, “in my own country I have been an ambassador of sorts. I know how strange we seem to you, but you need not fear us. We are not tol-chenni. There are no tol-chenni where we come from—no dlömu either.” At this the mob grumbled in surprise and doubt. Chadfallow pressed on. “We’re simply people, like you. We’ve come from across the Ruling Sea, but we mean you no harm. All we wish is to go on our way again.”

  As on almost every occasion since the night of their arrival, his words were met with stony silence. But the frowns deepened. Some of the dlömu were looking at the iron door, as if to see how well it was secured.

  “Creatures!” shouted one of them suddenly, as if addressing very distant, or very stupid, listeners. “We know you do not come from the Court of the Lilac. We read history, and we read signs in the earthquakes. Tell us now: what is the price of forgiveness? Name it and be done.”

  “Forgiveness?” said Pazel. “For what?”

  “Name it I say,” the dlömu went on. “We will pay if we can. We are not a selfish people, and we do not deny the Old Sins, like some. You come when the world is dying, as we knew you would. But you cannot simply taunt us—we will not stand for that; we will send you back to the dark place; we will burn you and scatter you on the wind. Name the price of expiation. Name it, or beware.”

  Chadfallow moistened his lips. “Good people—”

  “A pay increase!” shouted Rain suddenly. “Fourteen percent is what I’m owed, I can prove it, I have records on the ship!” Druffle pulled the doctor away, whispering imprecations.

  The mob was not pleased by Rain’s outburst. The one who had spoken before pointed a finger through the glass. “Creatures!” he exclaimed again. “We will defend Masalym from all who come with curses. Think on that before you jest with us again.”

  Uskins popped up suddenly from the bushes, pointing at Dr. Rain. “Ignore him! Ignore him! He’s mad!” Then he bit his lips and squatted again.

  “We will come back and kill you,” said the dlömu quietly.

  They did not kill then and there, however: in fact, a dozen Masalym soldiers appeared moments later and drove them out, more cajoling than threatening. The birdwatchers stood in a nervous group, comparing notes and shaking their heads; then they too filed out, locking the outer door behind them. Only the dog remained.

  Thasha was terribly frustrated. If only they would talk—really talk, not just threaten and shout. Old sins? Whose sins, and why should they ask the first woken humans to come along in generations for forgiveness? The mysteries were too many, the answers too few.

  But there was one mystery she was not powerless to explore. She called her friends back into the sleeping chamber, and this time brought Hercól as well. Crowded as it was, she made them all sit on the beds. Once again she wished she had a door to close.

  “I told you I wanted no more secrets, and I meant it,” she said. “Hercól, you were friends for so long with my father. With the admiral, I mean.”

  “Admiral Isiq is your father, Thasha,” said Hercól, “and Clorisuela was your mother. Why would we lie about this?”

  Thasha considered him for a moment. “I don’t expect Chadfallow to level with me,” she said at last, “but I expect it of you, Hercól. I was born before you came to Etherhorde. I know that. But later, when you and Daddy became friends, did he ever say anything about Clorisuela … not being able to have children?”

  Hercól glared at Thasha. He looked tempted to stand and walk out of the room. But slowly his gaze softened, and at last he gave a heavy sigh. “Yes,” he said. “For several years, they tried for children in vain. Clorisuela would lose them quite early, along with a great deal of blood. Your father said it happened four times.”

  Thasha closed her eyes. “And then?”

  “They stopped trying, stopped daring to live as husband and wife.” Hercól drew a deep breath. “And yes, that was when he … obtained Syrarys.”

  “Bought her,” said Thasha.

  Hercól shook his head. “She was, as you were told, the Emperor’s gift. But that is not the end of the story, Thasha. Your mother knew nothing of Syrarys. But Clorisuela did come to Isiq once more, strangely hopeful. And even though the midwives had told her it would be dangerous, they tried again. You were the result.”

  “After four failures?” said Thasha, her eyes moist. “You believed him, when he told you that?”

  “I believe it to this day,” said Hercól.

  Everyone was still. Once again, Marila’s round cheeks were streaked with tears. Thasha swallowed. Finish this, she thought. Make him say it, while you can.

  “You told me what happened in the wagon. But there’s another moment I don’t remember. What did I say when we first stepped into that village? When we saw the tol-chenni, and learned what had happened to human beings?”

  “We were all in shock,” said Hercól quickly, “and we all said foolish things. I expect none of us recalls exactly what came out of your mouth.”

  “What does your nose tell you about that, Neeps?” said Thasha, smiling ruefully.

  Neeps fidgeted. “Sometimes I can’t tell.”

  “Well I can,” said Thasha. “You’re lying, Hercól. I think you remember exactly what I said.” She turned to Pazel. “And I’m certain you do. The last clear memory I have is how you stared at me. As if I’d just told you I’d killed a baby. I couldn’t very well demand honesty when we were all playing charades with Arunis and Fulbreech. But that’s over, and I want to hear the truth.”

  “Thasha—”

  “Now.”

  The others exchanged glances. They had all discussed it; she could see the awareness in their eyes. At last Hercól cleared his throat.

  “Let me,” said Pazel suddenly. He stood up from the bed and rubbed his face with one hand. She thought suddenly how old he looked, how loss and danger had bled the child o
ut of him, out of them all. He was young and old at once. He took her hands.

  “You said, I didn’t mean to. It was never supposed to happen. And then you asked if I believed you. That was all.”

  Thasha felt a coldness settle over her like sudden nightfall. She felt Pazel’s grip tighten, but the sensation was far away. Air, they were saying, give her air, take her to the window. She stumbled forward and leaned on the sill.

  For a moment she felt better—good enough to speak one of her father’s salty naval curses, and to hear them laugh with relief. Then she raised her eyes and looked out through the window.

  Masalym shimmered before her in the midday heat. But it was not the same place. The Lower City was bustling with life—humans, dlömu, smaller numbers of other beings she could not identify. Thousands went about their business, and the homes were solid and cheerful, flower boxes in the windows, fruit trees in the yards, carts pulled by dogs or donkeys rattling down the streets. Human children, dlömic children, milled together in a schoolyard. An old dlömic man sat by his old human wife, feeding birds in a square.

  Thasha blinked, and the shadows grew longer. Now the humans were pulling the carts: were chained to the carts, chained in work teams, chained to wooden posts in the square where the couple had sat a moment before. The dlömu’s faces were as hard as the leather whips they swung. A few humans were still well dressed: the ones carrying dlömic babies, or holding parasols over dlömic heads.

  Another blink, and it was midnight. The city was on fire. The dlömu ranged the streets in rival bands, charging one another, stabbing, slashing, cutting throats. Mobs raced from broken doorways with armfuls of stolen goods, prisoners at sword-point, dlömic girls in nightdresses, wailing. The humans scurried in terror, bent low to the earth. They wore rags, when they wore anything at all.

  Once more the scene changed. It was a bleak, ashen dawn. Masalym was a city nearly abandoned. The few dlömu to be seen were rebuilding as best they could. The human faces were gone entirely.

  “Never to return,” said Thasha aloud.