The Rival

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Amazing the tricks the mind played.

  Through the cracks in the stone, he could hear the river gurgling as it passed. The sound was exceptionally loud above. It sounded like a faint murmur in here. He crawled with his hands as far forward as they went; in his active imagination, he saw holes in the tunnel, holes that would send him plunging into the river below.

  But the only cave-ins he noted were tiny ones done by time. He suspected it wasn't even the stones that he was feeling, but the mortar used to hold the stones together. If indeed they had used mortar. He hadn't noticed when he crawled inside.

  The darkness was still complete. His eyes hadn't adjusted at all. He had heard somewhere that the Cardidas was a mile across at its narrowest point — the place at which the bridge had been built. He had no idea how far he crawled, or how long it would take to crawl a mile. He was also afraid the tunnel would narrow even more. Then he wouldn't be able to get through at all. He would get stuck, all by himself, in this place where no one had been in generations. Only the Rocaan and a few Elders knew where he was. If he never returned, would they consider him a failed Charge? Or would they send someone after him?

  He crawled even faster, scraping his hands on the marshy, pebbly surface. Water dripped somewhere ahead. He could hear it over the faint gurgle. He didn't know how water could drip in here, how it even got in, unless it built up.

  He didn't want to think about what was below his hands, what was growing in the moss.

  Most of all, he didn't want to think about all those Fey animals, sitting outside the Tabernacle, waiting for something, watching, a serious enough threat that the Rocaan seemed nervous. Con had never seen so many Fey. He hadn't even known there were that many Fey, although it made sense. He had heard that the Fey had conquered half the world. That had simply been a saying to him, an abstraction. But when he thought about it, it would take a lot of people to conquer that much space.

  And now they might be on Blue Isle.

  He didn't know what would happen to him when he reached the palace. He didn't know what he'd do after he informed the King.

  Con hadn't brought holy water, even though the Rocaan had told him to. There wasn't room for that, the torches, the map, and the bit of bread he'd been able to bring. Despite his thirst, he hadn't had a drink of water yet. That was for emergencies.

  He suspected he might have some under here.

  The air was stifling hot. The odd breeze he had felt before was gone. The only room inside this tunnel was on the sides. His back brushed the ceiling, and his hands and knees were scraping. The briny, mucky, stale odor was growing.

  Something landed in his hair. He brought his head down, and brushed his head, heard something plop, and then he continued forward. He was shaking.

  Maybe if he lay down for just a moment, lit a torch and saw where he was. Maybe then it would help.

  But he knew it wouldn't. It would just smoke up his air, and discourage him. He suspected he couldn't see a beginning or an end to the tunnel yet.

  The bridge was the longest in all of Blue Isle, and he was inside it.

  He heard a faint rumble, a growl almost. Then the ground beneath him started to shake. He stopped, breathing hard. The shaking was growing. Tiny rocks shook off the ceiling and sprinkled him.

  The rumble grew, and through it, he could make out individual sounds. Someone was marching overhead.

  A number of someones.

  A large number of someones, all in step, and together. Islanders never crossed the bridge like that.

  He was beneath the Fey.

  They were heading from the Tabernacle to the other side of Jahn.

  To the palace.

  He had to beat them.

  He started crossing faster, keeping pace with their footsteps, almost slithering across the damp ground. All the while he moved, he prayed softly under his breath, hoping the Holy One would take his message to God's Ear.

  "Let me get there first," he whispered. "Please. Let me get there first."

  FORTY-THREE

  Titus tried to go down the stairs, but the smoke was inky black and putrid. The fire had to be moving fast. He backed up, turned, and caught two Auds with his arms.

  "You can't go down there," he said.

  "But the catacombs — "

  He shook his head. He didn't want to think about the catacombs. He brought the boys back up the stairs. Fey were coming down the corridor, the human Fey, their faces streaked with smoke and blood. They didn't seem to care about the fire. They caught Danites, and the remaining Auds, and shoved them against the wall.

  Titus took his two charges and pulled them into the nearest room, bolting the door. They were in a Danite cell. A single bed stood near the window, and two chairs were beside a small table. He passed them, and pulled the tapestry back.

  The entire southern part of the city appeared to be under attack. Fey were going in and out of all the buildings. The animals were still there below, some feeding on dead bodies. A large cat had his paw on one of the Officiates and was gnawing at the man's innards.

  Smoke billowed out of the lower windows. The spilled candles must have lit the rugs on fire, and the wood trim throughout the Tabernacle caught. The entire building would be unsafe in a matter of moments.

  Something thudded at the door. The smallest Aud cringed. The other one looked at Titus, and then recognized him.

  "Holy Sir," he breathed.

  Titus felt ridiculous in his poor disguise. Still, he raised a hand to his lips to shush the boy.

  "What do we do?" the boy asked.

  They had no choice. If they remained in the room, it was certain death. The animals below, on the other hand, looked busy. And perhaps they were sated. He couldn't tell and he didn't want to speculate.

  He just knew they had to get out.

  He peered out the window again. The drop was too steep for him. "Tie the blankets together," he said.

  The boys looked at him as if he were crazy. Perhaps he was. But he could do nothing for his staff now, nothing for the Tabernacle. Porciluna was right. Titus had to save himself. He had the Secrets.

  The Auds yanked the blankets off the bed. Titus leaned over it to see if it was built into the wall.

  It was.

  He grabbed one end of a blanket and tied it onto the bed's wooden frame. There were only two blankets. The boys had tied them together. The make-shift ladder wouldn't be long enough to reach the bottom, but it would do.

  The thud at the door sounded again. Soon whatever it was outside would break in. Titus glanced at the boys. They looked terrified. He didn't know if it was better to send them down first or to go down first himself.

  He didn't even know if the blanket ladder would work. It might catch fire near the lower windows.

  The door thudded again, and then splintered.

  His decision was made. He grabbed the other end of the blanket and tossed it out the window.

  "Climb out," he said, "and hide as best you can. Don't call attention to yourself."

  "C-C-Climb, Holy Sir?" the first Aud asked.

  The splinters in the door grew wider. "Now!" he said.

  The boys scrambled onto the blanket. The Aud who hadn't hid, the one who looked older, climbed down first. The second Aud had just gone over the side of the window when the door shattered.

  "Holy Sir!" the Aud said.

  "Go!" Titus yelled.

  A Fey burst in. She was female, with a long, lean face, her eyes bright. She had her hands out. They actually had a second set of fingernails.

  Titus reached behind him and untied the blanket. It slid out the window. He prayed he hadn't hurt the boys, but he knew if he left it, the Fey would have followed the trail.

  It was the boys' only chance.

  But it destroyed his. He glanced out the window. The blanket was pooled at the bottom, but the boys were gone. The animals appeared to be eating nearby, and he saw no sign of chase.

  Then someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.
The woman was smiling at him. She had a drying drop of blood on the side of her nose. Several more Fey, men and women, had come into the room.

  "Do you know what I can do?" she asked in Islander, as she ran her finger down the side of his Aud's robe. "I can remove your skin, one layer at a time."

  A thin slice of the robe came off, curling onto the floor. The other Fey were watching, their eyes bright.

  They would hold him and kill him, and he would have no chance at all.

  Titus glanced up at her, letting all the fear he felt fill his face. Let her think he was going to give in. Let her relax for one moment.

  She laughed, and raised a come-hither glance to the other Fey.

  And Titus took advantage of that brief instant to launch himself backwards through the open window.

  It was his only chance.

  His feet hit the window ledge and thumped him against the stone side of the building, knocking the air from him. He was falling straight down, head first, and as he passed the lower level windows, he knew he didn't have time to right himself.

  The blanket was looming, but it wouldn't break his fall. Nothing would break his fall. He put his hands on top of his head, but it would do no good.

  In his last moments of life, he knew a horror so profound he couldn't even scream.

  He had not shared the Secrets.

  He would die, and Rocaanism would die with him.

  THE SEARCH

  FORTY-FOUR

  Rugad stepped through the open Circle Door. The smell of smoke had been strong in the clearing; it was even stronger here. Shadowlands' porous walls absorbed the smoke as they were designed to do, but they couldn't remove such a vast stench — at least not so quickly.

  Most of his troops were gone. Those that remained were Infantry, Red Caps, and a few Foot Soldiers. The rest had gone up Daisy Stream, to secure the villages along the stream bed. He counted on the Dream Riders to do most of that. After a few long nightmares, the Islanders upstream would awaken to an invasion force already in place. If they tried to fight, they would die.

  Wisdom predicted they would lose half the villages. Rugad thought that they would lose an eighth at most. Islanders were not warriors. If they held true to the behavior of their cousins to the south, a few would make a token resistance, and once they learned their precious holy water no longer worked, they would give in.

  Rugad would have his land, and people to tend it.

  But first, he had to deal with this place.

  He had only seen one devastated Shadowlands. When he was a boy, one of the Leaders, a kin to the Black Family, had made a Shadowlands in the middle of a Histle battlefield. The Histle were fierce fighters; despite their small nation — or perhaps because of it — the Histle had warriors equal to the Fey's Infantry. The battles, which should have taken a few days, had taken a few weeks. And a Histle commander had seen the Fey disappear into Shadowlands one night. He waited until they left in the morning, and then laid waste the tents inside.

  The devastation had been minor, compared with this.

  Ruined buildings still smoldered. The largest, a pile of ash near the Circle Door, obviously took the brunt of the attack. In all his years, Rugad had never seen a Shadowlands this big. But then, they were always built as temporary housing during a campaign. Never as permanent homes for a Fey troop.

  Until his son's failure. Until Rugar failed to take Blue Isle.

  Even then, with Jewel's marriage and the Fey royal children, these Fey should have left Shadowlands, and made homes outside. Their vast fear of the Islanders' poison was what made them failures in Rugad's eyes, not their thwarted invasion. In some ways, the invasion had been successful. The Black King's blood mixed with royal Islander blood, and the Islanders themselves had no idea how to fight Fey without their poison.

  But Rugad couldn't have Fey, as part of his troop, who had lived in fear for twenty years. He would never know if he could trust them, whether or not they would flee again.

  Besides, Fey did not live in peace unless ordered to by their ruler. Rugad had ordered the Fey on Galinas to live in peace. They needed to have children, needed to raise a new group of Infantry and magick users. And the oldest generation needed to retire. Fey had to learn calm as well as fury.

  And they had.

  But on Blue Isle, the Fey should have fought. They should have fought until their last dying breath. If they didn't have enough people to win a war, they should have fought a guerrilla campaign. They could have scared the Islanders into capitulation.

  Instead, the Fey gave up.

  Partly he blamed his son. Rugar was a great warrior whose Visions were always precise. His interpretations of them were often difficult. His last Vision had been of Jewel on this Isle. When he had told Rugad about it, Rugad had said that the Fey would not win until the Black King arrived.

  Rugar, his son, had refused to believe him.

  All the failures resulted from that moment, from Rugar's decision to dismiss his father.

  Rugad blinked. His eyes were raw from the smoky smell. He took a step in deeper, away from the smoldering ruins. Near the far wall of the Shadowlands, Red Caps were stacking bodies. Most of the Failures had no skin left — the Foot Soldiers had already gotten to them — but Rugad's Domestics could use the bones, and some of the Beast Riders might like the internal organs. Their animal hosts found such things delicacies.

  The Red Caps were already going to work. A dozen of them crowded the body stack, pouches beside them. The short, squat Caps were anathema to most Fey, but Rugad had a fondness for them. He had seen Fey armies without Red Caps, bodies rotting in the sun, all that blood and flesh gone to waste. Ever since then, he always made certain he had an abundance of Red Caps on his campaigns.

  Rugad clasped his hands behind his back and stepped deeper in the Shadowlands. He had left the Shadowlands standing because he believed his great-grandson had designed it. But standing inside it startled Rugad. The design bore his son's mark, Rugar's mark, in the perfect box-like shape, the unimaginative air, the additional space. Rugar rarely liked to make anything small.

  But he had been dead a long time. And still the Shadowlands stood. Perhaps his great-grandson had designed the Shadowlands on Rugar's model. Or perhaps the boy had found a way to save the Shadowlands when Rugar died. That had been tried several times, but never accomplished.

  If Rugad's great-grandson had achieved that, he was more powerful than Rugad had initially thought.

  The details didn't matter, though. What did matter was that this Shadowlands was somehow tied to his great-grandson. For that reason, Rugad had ordered his troop to leave the Shadowlands standing. Otherwise he would have had a Shaman with the troop and she would have shattered the Shadowlands from within.

  He was afraid, though, that if he did that, he would destroy the very person he had come to get.

  His great-grandson.

  And now, they told him, he had two. Odd that he had never Seen it. When the invasion was over, he would call his Shamans together, and see if their Visions matched his, or if they could add information to that story of two children.

  If so, he had to modify his plans.

  His plans were elaborate. He had deliberately waited until his great-grandson had reached full adulthood, the full extent of his powers, before coming to the Isle. The boy had been corrupted from birth; training him then or training him now would make no difference. Rugad made better use of the time consolidating his hold on Nye and the entire Galinas continent. That way, when he left, he was assured that, despite his grandsons' incompetence, the Fey would continue to rule Galinas.

  Rugad always knew he would conquer Blue Isle, and he knew the boy would be his. He had simply waited for the best time to come, the time when the Islanders had forgotten how to fight, when the Warders had discovered the best antidote to the poison, and when the boy had reached his maturity.

  When the boy realized that Rugad controlled the Isle, the boy would work with his great-grandfather. The
boy was brilliant. He would understand that he had no choice.

  Fey passed Rugad, some salvaging magick items. The Infantry were carrying out pouches that appeared to date from Rugar's invasion. A pile of pouches stood in one of the other corners of Shadowlands — ruined pouches. Several other Infantry were carrying Domestic tools, needles, cloth, and spinning wheels. He was glad they had had the foresight to remove the items for salvage before the destruction was complete.

  Only one building remained standing in Shadowlands. It was a small shack with no windows, in the very center of the devastation. Four Foot Soldiers stood guard around it.

  They had a prisoner.

  He had ordered that only one person be taken prisoner — his great-grandson. Yet he couldn't feel the presence of another Visionary here. It was odd, and he wasn't certain he liked odd.

  Odd always made him nervous.

  He strode toward the Foot Soldiers. The man in front of the door surprised him. Gelô led the Foot Soldier troop. He should have been with his soldiers on the trip up Daisy Stream. He certainly shouldn't have been guarding a small building in the center of Shadowlands.

  "Gelô," Rugad said. He kept his tone wary but courteous, so that Gelô knew he wasn't in trouble yet, but he could be.

  "We have a situation," Gelô said.

  "I am beginning to understand that," Rugad said.

  Gelô nodded to other Foot Soldiers, then grabbed Rugad's arm and stepped away from his post. "I have Solanda inside."

  "Solanda!" Rugad had forgotten about her. She was Rugar's pet Shape-Shifter. Rugad had sent her along on the trip to Blue Isle without a second thought.

  He did, however, expect her to be dead.

  He waited.

  Gelô swallowed. "She claims she raised your family on Blue Isle."

  "And you believe her? She's a Shifter. They don't raise children."

  "No." Gelô lowered his voice. "But Double confirms her story."