The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

  For they had come to the very oak his father had climbed to impress him, the one he had carved a message in at eighty feet. The one Pazel had been too young to climb, and later hadn’t bothered to go looking for again.

  “What tree?” she said. “Pazel, you’re woolgathering.” She grabbed his elbow, started marching away. “Listen, I’ve been waiting to tell you what’s most important. Waiting until I knew you were all here, so that you’d remember it when you woke. It’s a warning, Pazel, a warning from your rat-friend. But you distracted me with questions. Credek, did I wait too long again?”

  “I’m already awake,” he said.

  “Oh, skies! You’re not. Listen close, Pazel. I’m not fooling anymore.”

  No, she was just avoiding his questions, ordering him about like a child. Suddenly he knew what he wanted, broke free, ran back to the oak with the lightning swiftness of dream-legs. He could climb that tree today, all right. It would be as easy as a flight of stairs beside the masts he’d climbed in Nelluroq storms.

  Except, of course, that Mother had to try and stop him. Screaming, howling for an audience, demanding that he hear. She hadn’t changed that much. “Go away, I’m not listening,” he shouted. He was already halfway up the tree.

  But so was Suthinia. Like a weasel, she sank her nails into the bark, and his trouser leg, begging, weeping, threatening, so very familiar. He climbed on. He was going to reach that branch, read his father’s message, find out whatever it was she didn’t want him to know. Meanwhile Suthinia was throwing everything she could at him. Felthrup. Arunis. Isiq in a tower, historians in a bar.

  “Not listening!” he shouted. “Ya ya ya!”

  It’s not for my sake, she was saying (YA YA GO AWAY) listen for your own, for Alifros (I HAD A DOG AND HER NAME WAS JILL) for that oath you swore in Simja (WHEN SHE RAN SHE DIDN’T STAND STILL) blame me all you want, but after you hear what I (SHE RAN AWAY) they’re coming, Pazel (ONE DAY) sending a ship to take the Chathrand (AND ALSO I RAN WITH HER) and the mucking Gods-damned Stone, they’ve never given up, Arunis, Macadra, all those carrion birds, they’re flocking toward you, don’t make my mistake, darling, don’t hide when the world needs you most.

  “Shhhhh.”

  He tried to kick his mother’s hand. But the claws had retracted, or vanished; her touch was light, her voice a gentle whisper. “Easy, easy. You’re going to wake up Neeps.”

  He was hugging the tree; it was hugging him back, and kissing him, begging him for silence.

  “Mother?”

  The lips froze against his cheek. Then came a voiceless, delicious laugh. It was Thasha, lying in the darkness beside him, while Neeps (five feet away) snored on like a mooring-line chafing against a dock. Her laughter faded back into kisses, dry quick kisses that barely required her to move.

  “Rin’s eyes,” he said, “I’m half Bali Adron.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I wonder if I have citizenship.”

  She paused, and he reached for her. She was fully dressed; indeed she had on her boots. “Goodbye,” she mumbled, kissing his hand. “I came to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “Hercól and I are going over the wall. Shhh!” Thasha touched his lips with a finger. “We’re all going to break out of here, Pazel. But it’s going to take some time to do it right.”

  “No,” he murmured, “wait.”

  “Listen before you say no. We’re not going to live here, are we? But what good will it do us to break out, into a city where we’re the only humans? We can’t do anything by day. Our only chance is to learn as much as we can about the city after sundown—on the darkest nights, like this one, cloudy nights with no moon—and then get out, somehow, to the mountains, or in a smaller boat.”

  “How are you getting out of the building?”

  “Don’t ask me that. Hercól wants you to be able to say you have no idea, in case anything goes wrong. It won’t, though. His plan’s a good one. It may take a few nights of doing this before we find a safe place to hide.”

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  She sighed deeply, and nuzzled against his cheek, and he knew she’d misunderstood. “No,” he said, “Thasha, something’s happened. I talked to my mother.”

  “You were dreaming.”

  “Yes, yes, of course I was dreaming. Oh, Gods, it’s still coming back. Felthrup, the Ravens, Pitfire! Thasha, we don’t have a few nights. We’ve got to get out of here now.”

  Suddenly Neeps woke with a start. “Thasha! Pazel! What’s the matter?” he whispered.

  “Everything, that’s what,” said Pazel. “Thasha, I need to talk to Hercól before you go anywhere.”

  Thasha was in no position to refuse, trying as she was to keep from waking still more sleepers. The three youths groped as quietly as they could from the bedchamber to the dining area, where Hercól was crouched in silence. He was not happy to see the tarboys emerge. But he listened as Pazel whispered the fantastic story of his dream.

  “It’s so weird that it has to be true,” he said. “Felthrup trailing Arunis to some sort of tavern, overhearing his plans, going back night after night, telling his story to a blary ghost, who tells my mother, who tells me? I couldn’t dream that up.”

  “It does have a certain mad air of truth,” said Hercól. “Something, after all, drove Felthrup to spend so long in that closet. But if it is a true message, then all the more reason for us to go as planned, Thasha. We cannot leave the others here to rot in this asylum, but we cannot just set them loose in a city of unknown dangers. Come, girl, it is barely two hours before dawn. Pazel, Neeps, go back to your beds and do not watch what happens next.”

  “Ha!” scoffed Neeps. “You take us with you.”

  “I will do nothing of the kind,” said Hercól, “and if you think a moment, you will realize how right I am to refuse. If something should happen to me and Thasha, who else stands any chance of finding a way forward? Chadfallow? Possibly, but we all know his limits. No, the burden will fall on you two, and Marila.”

  Suddenly Thasha started. “I heard wings, wings flapping!” she said. “Didn’t you hear them?”

  “No,” said the Tholjassan firmly.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” said Pazel to Hercól. “A way out of the city? And just for us, or for the whole crew?”

  “If we don’t go now,” said Hercól, “it won’t matter what I’m looking for.”

  “You’re lying,” said Neeps.

  Pazel heard the ring of conviction in his voice, and something inside him clicked. Neeps wasn’t always right when he thought he smelled a fib, but he was better at it than anyone else Pazel knew.

  “The Stone,” he said, looking at Hercól. “You’re going to try to sneak aboard, and take the Nilstone yourselves, tonight. Break it out of the Shaggat’s hand before someone else does. Hide it somewhere. Take it … take it—”

  “Beyond the reach of evil,” said Thasha, looking at her mentor. “He’s right, isn’t he? That’s what all this is about.”

  Hercól stared hard at Pazel. “Of all the irksome, interfering tarboys,” he whispered at last. “Yes, I mean to fulfill the oath I took upon the wolf-scar, and that means taking the Nilstone. But I had never meant to do so tonight. First I meant to scout the Lower City, and especially the quay: a failed attempt would only signal to Counselor Vadu that the Stone is worth guarding to the hilt. Of course he may already be doing so, but Fulbreech’s slip of the tongue suggests that Arunis has lied about the Stone, convinced Vadu that it is no more than a trifle. In such tiny errors lies our hope. We must pray that there is more jealousy among our foes: between Arunis and the sorceress, Macadra; among those who call themselves Ravens; among any of the warlords who appear to rule this once-great land.”

  “So what do you mean to do now?” asked Neeps.

  “Throttle you to start with, Undrabust, if you can’t lower your voice! Be silent, let me think!” Hercól shut his eyes, frowning with concentration. “In light of this �
�� message,” he said at last, “I will seek the Stone tonight. But you, Thasha, will not be going anywhere near the ship. You are to do exactly as we discussed: locate the safest, surest exit from Masalym. If we must run with the Stone to fulfill our oath, so be it.”

  “What sort of rubbishy plan is that?” hissed Pazel. “You’re going to send her off into this blary city alone? And try to storm the manger, unarmed, steal the Nilstone and make off with it by yourself?”

  “I will not be unarmed for long,” said Hercól. “Ildraquin lies just inside the magic wall, waiting for me. And neither of us will be going alone. Vadu’s seizure of the Chathrand did not catch quite everyone unprepared. It did not, for example, catch me. Or those with my training.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Thasha.

  Hercól looked up sharply. Pazel followed his gaze: twenty feet above them, on the roof of the main building, a figure crouched, one arm held out straight before him. A large, powerful bird was just lifting from his arm.

  “Oh, Pazel!” said Thasha. “That’s him! That’s Niriviel!”

  So it was: Niriviel, the beautiful, woken moon falcon, who had disappeared on the eve of the Chathrand’s plunge into the Nelluroq. A miracle, Pazel thought: that the bird had survived, and that it had found them. For a moment he did not care that the bird was a fanatical Arquali, and had always called them traitors.

  The falcon was gone in an instant. On the roof, the figure moved with cat-like silence to the corner. Suddenly its arm snapped toward them, and Hercól, standing straight, caught the end of a rope.

  “Time to kill,” whispered Sandor Ott from above.

  Stealing the Nilstone

  5 Modobrin 941

  Ensyl leaned back against the scabbard of Ildraquin, winded. The dust was going to make her sneeze. With a bit of string she’d found under Thasha’s bed she had just hoisted the weapon to the top of the cupboard in the stateroom. Not much of a hiding place, but it would be out of sight from the floor, and as long as the ship was on dry land there was no danger of it shifting. In any case it was better than leaving it inside the straw mattress in Bolutu’s cabin, where she had stashed it three nights ago, in desperate haste, just to keep Vadu from fishing it through the tiny hole he’d cut in Thasha’s wall.

  She had watched that deed from the inside, watched him slide his arm toward Hercól’s blade. She had charged, ready to hack the fingers from that hand, but then the wall itself had attacked Vadu, burned him, and she had danced sidelong into the shadows again, still unseen. When Vadu retreated she had dragged the sword to Bolutu’s chamber, then raced back by the ixchel’s secret paths to a vantage point on the quarterdeck.

  Like so many heads of cattle, the humans were being herded ashore. Far down the lightless avenue she could see them trudging in the chilly rain, soldiers on sicuñas pacing among them, dogs to either side watching for strays. Where were the tarboys, the young women, Hercól? She had not caught sight of any of her friends since well before the dlömic charge.

  But then Fiffengurt had appeared across the quay, supporting Lady Oggosk as he might his own mother. His true eye glanced back at his beloved Chathrand, searching for any sign of hope. Ensyl wanted to go to him, show herself, prove that the fight was not lost. If only, she thought, I had a swallow-suit. Pointless yearning. She would never again be trusted anywhere near such a treasure of the clan.

  Now, dust-coated, she sat atop the cupboard, elbows on knees, looking down at the chamber of her allies. Vast, safe, deserted. Alone at last. She didn’t dare laugh at the thought; laughter could too easily slide into tears.

  What had she just accomplished, wrestling his sword up here? What would she do next, clean the windows? The thought pounced on her suddenly: they were defeated, utterly crushed, stripped of their vessel and their freedom and any chance to determine their own fates.

  They? Who do you mean by they, Ensyl?

  I don’t mean they. I mean us.

  Your clan despised you, abandoned you—

  Not the clan, forget the clan, count me out of it, that broken thing, that lie.

  You just mean her.

  And what if she did? What if it had all been for Dri—for her beautiful, murdered mistress? Dri, who understood the life inside the ritual, who knew what clan could mean, ought to mean, the deeper us, the source in the heart, that chance of kinship no matter the bodies or the histories involved.

  Dri, killed because she loved out of turn.

  You hate Hercól Stanapeth, don’t you? The noblest soul on this ship, maybe, and you hate him. You think of them together and you could stab him through the heart.

  Ensyl tried desperately to still her mind. The guilty conscience exaggerates: that was something Dri herself used to say. When guilt would claim you, be cold. Accept the whole truth, but no more than that, or you will wander among phantoms alone.

  But wasn’t that exactly what she was doing? Her mistress had died. Her clan-brethren had fled, and not trusted her with the secret of where they had gone. Her human allies had been marched off down a dark road through the Lower City. All her pride in her choice of loyalties, and what was she left with for company? A bearskin rug. A black, stained sword.

  Then a door creaked, and Ensyl was herself again. Flat against the cabinet-top, hidden, one hand reaching for her knife.

  A slight scrabbling from below, and then a shrill, worried voice called out timidly, “Thasha? Hercól? Where is everyone?”

  Ensyl shouted with joy. “Felthrup, why, Felthrup, you—rat!”

  She was down to the floor in seconds, embracing the startled beast. He was glad to see her, too, but frightened and disoriented, and very thirsty. He knew nothing of the fight with Arunis or the seizure of the ship. He had been asleep, as they both soon realized, for three days.

  “Three days! How did you manage that?”

  “It was hard work,” he said, “but worth it. Oh, I pray it was worth it. Somehow I feel as though I’ve accomplished a great deed, only I cannot remember anything about it. But where are the others, Ensyl? Why is the ship so still?”

  Ensyl told him about the events he had slept through, and Felthrup ran in circles about her, in a paroxysm of remorse. “Fulbreech! I hate him! I will give him the sort of bite he can’t recover from! I knew it, I always knew—and yet when Lady Thasha needed me most I lay asleep in a closet, not twenty feet from that—that—androsuccubus, is that the word?”

  “I’m sure it is,” said Ensyl. “But you could not have helped her then. Let us go to work now, and perhaps we will find our revenge.”

  Then they both heard it: a faint cry, from beyond the doorway. “That’s an ixchel voice!” said Ensyl, and flew to the door. Reaching the knob was an easy leap; turning it, a whole-body effort. But she managed, and Felthrup nosed open the door, and both of them tumbled through.

  Counselor Vadu had made his men paint around the hole he had cut in the magic wall. Now a splotch of white enamel hung in the air at the center of the crossed passages, outlining the jagged rectangle. And beneath the hole, cradling her hand, stood Myett.

  They raced toward her; she watched them come. “The edges are sharp, like broken glass,” she said, displaying a long cut on her hand.

  “You dare not try to pass through it,” said Ensyl. “Counselor Vadu was branded by it, like a mule. What are you doing here, Myett? Did you not go after Taliktrum, as the clan supposed?”

  Myett just looked at her, wary and mistrustful, and Ensyl wished she hadn’t spoken.

  “Is there food in the stateroom?” asked Myett.

  Ensyl told her to wait in Bolutu’s chamber while she ran and gathered bread and biscuit crumbs and the last dlömic peach into a bundle. Then she ran back to where Felthrup waited, and the two of them stepped out through the wall and went to the veterinarian’s cabin. Myett ate and ate; Ensyl had rarely seen one of her people so famished. “The humans are gone,” she said between mouthfuls. “They’re being treated like kings, though—captive kings. Fattened up,
in a great pavilion across the city. And given new clothes, and baths, and nurses to scrub them and kill their fleas.”

  “You went there?”

  “I rode there, in a wagon with the invalids who could not walk. And back upon a dog-drawn coach. I could see them eating through a window in the pavilion, but I couldn’t get a bite. The dlömic giants don’t waste food like humans; they don’t drop it and throw it about. They’re giving heaps of it to their prisoners, but all the same—” She looked up, puzzled, at Ensyl and the rat. “I don’t think they have that much.”

  “We’re trapped, then,” said Felthrup, eating alongside Myett. “Unless they bring the crew back, and set us afloat upon the gulf.”

  “We’re trapped,” Ensyl agreed. “There are a hundred dlömu on the topdeck, at least five times that number surrounding the port. And by day there are the shipwrights, the dockworkers, inspectors going through every compartment and cabin. There will be no fighting our way out of the Jaws of Masalym, even if all the humans fought at our side. I doubt we could master the river-machines, the gates and shafts and spillways, without destroying the ship in our trial and error. No, there’s no escape by sea. If we leave this city, we do so without the Chathrand.”

  Myett did not look at her. Sullenly, she asked, “What does Lord Talag say?”

  Ensyl hesitated, and then Myett did look at her, with a certain gleam of understanding. “You missed the rendezvous on the orlop,” she said. “You were in the stateroom with your true friends. Of course.”

  “I was fighting the sorcerer,” said Ensyl. “Do you know where they went?”

  She nodded. “A safe place indeed. Even the dogs will not sniff them out. But Ensyl: I will not go there with you, nor tell you how to find it.”

  Ensyl was taken aback. “Sister,” she said, “everything has changed now. Perhaps you did not see them? Arunis is allied with the rulers of the city. They do his bidding, or much of it. We cannot quarrel among ourselves. Your lover accused me of treason, and it is true that I disobeyed him. But that is all beside the point. Doom is coming for us like a great wave, Myett. We must help one another to higher ground or be washed away.”