(Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay

by Tad Williams

  Things always change, she told him, that is the nature of things… but she was fading now, weary and in need of that deeper blackness that was her sleep, and which might last days. A last bubble of dark amusement drifted up to him. Things always change, but never for the better. Are we not the People, and is that not the substance of all our story?

  Then her thoughts were gone and he stood alone with her silent, coolly slumbering shell. The beetles shifted on the walls again, a quiet unfurling and resettling of wings that rippled sunset-colored lightning all around the chamber until they too settled down to sleep once more.

  They were back.

  The dark men, the faceless men, once more pursued him through burning halls, sliding in and out of the rippling shadows as though they were nothing but shadows themselves. Was it a nightmare? Another fever dream? Why couldn’t he wake up?

  Where am I? The tapestries curled and smoked. Southmarch. He knew the look of its corridors as completely as he knew the sound and feel of his own blood rushing through his veins. So had all the rest been a dream? Those endless hours in the dripping forest behind the Shadowline? Gyir and Vansen, and that bellowing, one-eyed giant—had they all been fever-fancy?

  He ran, gasping and clumsy, and the faceless men in black oozed behind him like something that had been melted and poured, losing bodily form as they flowed around corners and snaked along the walls in sideways drips and smears only to regain shape once more, a dozen shapes, and spring out after him, heads following his every movement, fingers spreading and reaching. But even as he ran for his life, even as the tapestries flamed and now even the roofbeams began to smolder, he felt his thoughts float free, light and insubstantial as the flakes of ash swirling around him on hot winds.

  Who am I? What am I?

  He was coming apart, fragmenting like a kori-doll on an Eril’s Night bonfire, his limbs flailing but useless, his head a thing of straw, dry tinder, full of sparks.

  Who am I? What am I?

  Something to hold—he needed something cool as a stone, thick and hard as bone, something real to keep himself from falling into flaming pieces. He ran and it was as though he grew smaller with every step. He was losing himself, all that made him up charring, disappearing. The rush and thump of the faceless men’s pursuit echoed in his head as if he were listening to his own blood coursing through the gutters of his body, his own filthy, corrupted blood.

  I’m like Father—worse. It burns in me—it burns me up!

  And it hurt like the most dreadful thing he could imagine, like needles under his skin, like white-hot metal in his marrow, and it shifted with every movement, driving bolts of pain from joint to joint, rushing up into his head like fire exploding from a cannon’s barrel. He wanted only to get away from it, but how? How could you run away from your own blood?

  Briony. If Southmarch itself was no longer his home, if its passageways were full of fire and angry shadows and the galleries hung with leering, alien faces, his sister was something different. She would help him. She would hold him, remember him, know him. She would tell him his name—he missed it so much!—and put her cool hand on his head, and then he would sleep. If only he could find Briony the faceless men would not find him—they would give up and scuttle, slide, ooze back into the shadows, at least for a while. Briony. His twin. Where was she?

  “Briony!” he shouted, then he screamed it: “Briony! Help me!”

  Stumbling then, and falling; a bolt of pain shooting through him as he struck his injured arm—how could this be a dream when it felt so real? He scrabbled to lift himself from the hot stone, arm aching worse than even the burning of the skin on his hands. He could not stop, could not rest, not until he found his sister. If he stopped he would die, he knew that beyond doubt. The shadow-men would eat him from within.

  He stood, even in this dream world forced to cradle his throbbing, aching arm, that thing he carried through his life like a sickly child, loving it and hating it. He looked around. A vast, empty room stretched away on all sides, dark but for a few slanting columns of light falling down from the high windows—the Portrait Hall, and it was empty but for him, he could feel it. The faceless men had not caught him yet, but he could smell smoke and sense the growing murmur of their pursuit. He could not stop here.

  A picture hung before him, one he had seen before but seldom paid much attention to—some ancient queen whose name he could not remember. Briony would know. She always knew things like that, his beloved show-off sister. But there was something about the woman’s eyes, her cloud of hair, that caught his attention…

  The sound of his pursuers rose until it seemed they were just beyond the Portrait Hall door, but he stood transfixed, because it was not the face of some ancient Eddon pictured there, some long-dead queen of Southmarch, but his own, his features haggard with fear and terror.

  A mirror, he thought. It’s been a mirror all this time. How often had he passed through this place and its ranks of frowning dead without realizing that here, in the center of the hall, hung a mirror?

  Or is it a portrait…of me…? He stared into the hunted, haunted eyes of the sweating red-haired boy. The boy gazed back. Then the mirror began to dim as if clouds were forming on its surface, as if even from this distance he fogged it with his own hot, fretful breath.

  The clouds dimmed and then dissolved. Now it was Briony who looked back at him. She wore a strange hooded white dress he had never seen before, something a Zorian sister would likelier wear than would a princess, but he knew her face better than his own—much better. She was unhappy, quietly but deeply, a look he had never seen so much as he had since first they had word their father had been betrayed and made a prisoner.

  “Briony!” he shouted now, “I’m here!”

  He could not reach her, and he knew that she was not hearing his words, but he thought she could at least feel him. It was glory to see her, cruelty to have so little of her. Even so, just the sight of her utterly familiar and perfect Briony-face reminded him of who he was: Barrick. He was Barrick Eddon, whatever might have happened to him, wherever he might be. Even if he had been dreaming this—even if he was dying and it had all been some strange illusion the gods had set for him on the doorstep of the next world—he had remembered who he was.

  “Briony,” he said, but more quietly now as the clouds covered the face in the mirror. For a moment, just before it disappeared, he thought he saw a different face, a stranger’s face, astoundingly, a girl whose black hair was streaked with a red like his own. He could not understand what was happening—to go from that most familiar of all faces to one he had never seen before…!

  “Why are you in my dreams?” she said in surprise, and her words pattered in his head like cooling rain. Then the black-haired girl was gone too, and so was almost everything else—the faceless men gone, the Portrait Hall gone, the flames of the terrible conflagration grown as transparent as wet parchment and the castle itself going, going…

  As the terror lost its grip a little he was startled, frightened, confused, and even excited by the memory of that new face—seeing it had felt like cold water in a parched mouth—but he let it go for the moment so he could cling instead to what was more important: Briony had touched him, somehow, across all the cold world and more, and that great goodness had kept him in the world during a moment when he would otherwise have chosen to leave. He was still footless and confused by the dream he was in, but he understood that he had chosen to remain for now on the near side of Immon’s fateful gate, however wretched and painful living might be.

  Like a man fighting upward from the bottom of deep water, Barrick Eddon began to thrash his despairing way back toward the light.

  Vansen had just finished making a space for the prince and wrapping him in his own tattered, stained wool guardsman’s cloak when Barrick’s feverish murmuring quieted and the boy’s body, which had been as tight as a bowstring, suddenly went limp. Even as horror flooded through Vansen…

  I lost the prince! I let him d
ie!

  …The boy’s eyes snapped open. For a moment they rolled wildly, fixing on nothing, as if he tried to stare right through the stone of the long, low cavern cell in search of freedom. Then the young prince narrowed his gaze on Ferras Vansen. The soldier thought that the boy was going to say something to him—thank him, perhaps, for carrying him all this way, or curse him for the same reason, or perhaps just ask what day it was. Instead, the prince’s eyes abruptly welled with tears.

  Sobbing, snuffling, Barrick thrashed his way out of both the cloak and Vansen’s restraining grasp, then crawled across the floor to an empty spot near the adjoining wall where he huddled with his face in his hands, weeping unrestrainedly. Several of the other prisoners turned to watch him, the expressions on their inhuman faces varying from mild interest to uncomprehending blankness. Vansen clambered to his feet to follow the prince.

  I suspect he will not thank you. Gyir’s voice in his head was still a novelty, and not an entirely pleasant one—like a stranger making himself at home in your house without permission. Let the boy grieve.

  “Grieve for what? We’re alive. There’s still hope.” Vansen spoke aloud—he didn’t know the trick of talking without words and did not care to learn. Already this place, this shadowland, was doing its best to take away all that made him who he was. He was not going to help speed the process.

  Grieve for all he has realized he is losing. The same thing to which you also cling so tightly—his old idea of who he was.

  “What do you…? Get out of my head, fairy!”

  I do not dig into your thoughts, sunlander. Vansen could feel the irritation—no, it was something deeper—in Gyir’s words. The featureless face showed no more emotion at this moment than the prow of a boat, but the words came with pulses of anger, as though each thought hummed like an apple wasp. Even as diminished as I am, I cannot help knowing a little of your strongest feelings, Gyir said, speaking ideas that Vansen somehow understood as words. Any more than if you were sick or frightened someone could avoid smelling the stink in your sweat. Another wave of contempt came from him. And in truth I can do that as well, much to my sorrow. You sunlanders all smell like corruption and death.

  Struck by curiosity, Vansen ignored the insult. “How is it I can understand you at all? I couldn’t before.”

  I did not know you could until just now. In other, less dangerous circumstances, it would be quite an interesting puzzle to consider.

  Vansen watched Prince Barrick as the boy’s sobbing grew weaker. A few of the smaller prisoners that had been driven off by Barrick’s sudden move had edged back into the area surrounding him, but they seemed to be regarding him with more fear than interest. “Will any harm come to him there?”

  Gyir briefly turned his yellow eyes toward Barrick. I think not. Most of those in this room are afraid of me. They are right to be, even crippled as I am.

  Vansen saw that the fairy spoke the truth: even in this large underground prison chamber, stuffed to overcrowding with scores of creatures of at least a dozen different types and sizes, some of which appeared quite fierce, the three of them were being given a great deal of room to themselves. “But they’re not afraid of you enough to let you go.”

  The nearly faceless creature watched Vansen for a long moment, as though considering his existence for the first time. You too can speak to me without speaking aloud, Ferras Vansen. It was not his own name Vansen sensed in Gyir’s wordless speech so much as his face. It was unutterably strange to see himself both so clearly and so strangely, even to see his face suddenly pull into a scowl of frightened disgust—as if someone had put a looking glass inside his thoughts.

  “Stop! I want nothing to do with such…black magic.”

  You would refuse to stop talking aloud, even if it means that you are endangering the boy—your prince? We will never find a way to escape if half our conversation is spoken out loud. There are still folk in this land who understand the sunlander tongue, as the raven did. I do not doubt Jikuyin has a few among his slaves.

  Ferras Vansen thought for a long time, then nodded, although the very idea of sharing the substance of himself with the faceless, inhuman creature made him feel queasy and terrified. “Well, then. Show me.”

  It is simple, man of the hills. All you need to do is think that you are speaking the words—hear yourself speaking but keep the sounds locked inside you. I will guide you.

  Strangely, the fairy was right—it was simple. Once he found the proper trick of imagining himself talking in just the right way, he discovered that Gyir could hear what he said as clearly as if he had formed it with air and tongue and lips. Had it been the power of the godling Jikuyin’s voice that had unlocked this skill? But then why had Barrick Eddon been able to do it from the first?

  Why can I suddenly understand you? he asked the fairy. And what can we do to escape this place?

  If I knew already how we might free ourselves, Gyir said with an undercurrent of something that felt a little like scorn, or perhaps was the bitter tang of self-dislike, I would not be conversing about the boy’s mood and how you gained the gift of true speech, but beginning to make a plan. Now Vansen could feel the fairy’s anger clearly, as a man in water would feel another man thrashing helplessly close by. I dislike being a prisoner, too—perhaps more than you do. We will talk later about escape.

  Then, with a considered effort that Vansen could feel like a gust of cooling air, Gyir swept away his own fury. For now, we must try to understand better why we are being held, he said, and it was as if the moment of rage had never happened. That is our first step—it will set the direction for all others. The fairy paused for a long time then, and Vansen felt the silence in a way he never had before. As for what has made you able to understand me, Gyir said at last, I said it was interesting because it seems to hint at an answer to a question my people have long debated—at least those in the Deep Libraries to whom such tasks are given. This came as a blur of ideas Vansen could only barely riddle out, and he was certain he was missing most of what the fairy intended. There is little we can do at this moment except…

  Interesting? I don’t understand you? He looked to Barrick again, who had recovered himself a little. The boy’s eyes were red and his cheeks still wet, but he seemed to be listening to Vansen’s conversation with Gyir. I don’t understand, he repeated.

  Ah, but you do, and that is the crux. Gyir, who had been crouching, finally sat down and pushed his back against the sooty, rough-carved stone wall. Look around you. Do you see these creatures? Drows and bokkles and all manner of things even less savory? These are the Common Ones—all creatures of our lands, some even related to my folk, but they are not the trueblood People. Vansen could feel the emphasis with which Gyir spoke the word, as if it were a thing of power, something to conjure with. Most especially, they are not High Ones. Among the Twilight folk, only those called the High Ones have the gift of speaking with their hearts, as we say it—the True Speech, which cannot lie, the speech we are using now.

  So why should I be able to do it? Vansen asked. He was fearful of what the answer might be—some taint in his family, some witchy blood, another mark of shame laid on his quiet, hard-working, abashed people.

  Some say that all the sunlanders once could speak with us this way—that they, or at least some of them, were of the same great branch as the People, that they cameofthe People and not just after them. Perhaps Jikuyin merely thrust the gift of True Speech upon you, somehow—his kind, the Old Ones, are grandchildren of the Formless and have many powers that are unknown. But also it may simply be that when he spoke to you the power of his voice cleared the channels of your heart as a great flood may scour clean riverbeds long filled with silt. It is possible he only gave back to you that which is the birthright of your kind.

  But…but Prince Barrick… Vansen turned and saw the boy staring back at him with something in his eyes that looked almost like hatred. Shaken, it took him a moment to remember what he had been saying and to form the words in
his mind. Prince Barrick could speak to you already, and understand you, long before we met this thing you call Jikuyin. Vansen could not approach the complexity of images which Gyir used when he “spoke” their captor’s name, but he felt certain just his horrified memory of the ogre’s massive, ravaged face would be enough.

  Prince Barrick is different, Gyir said abruptly, otherwise he would have been dead long ago and you would not have followed him here. That is all I may say.

  “Don’t talk about me.” The boy wiped angrily at his eyes. “Don’t.”

  Why can’t I hear him—Barrick—in my head? asked Vansen.

  It could be in time you will, Gyir replied. Or it could be that both of you can only speak with me.

  Vansen wanted to go to the prince, to bring him back to sit with them, but something in the boy’s expression kept him seated where he was. Why are we here in this mine or prison or whatever it is? Why aren’t we dead? And what is the monster who’s captured us? Does he have any weaknesses? You said he was one of the Old Ones, a god or a god’s bastard.

  Gyir looked at him for a few moments before answering. As to why we are not dead, I cannot say, Ferras Vansen, but it is clear that Jikuyin wants slaves more than he wants corpses. The fairy looked as though he was almost asleep, red eyes only half open. What he wants them for, I do not know, but this place has an old, grim reputation. As to what he is, I told you—a grandchild of the Formless.

  This means nothing to me. I have never heard of such a god.

  You have, but among your people the true lore is almost lost. Even here, in our own land, the stories have become children’s tales. You remember the raven’s little tale of Crooked and his great-grandmother, Emptiness? There were bones of truth buried in it, but the flesh was corrupt. The truth at its core is that the Formless begat both Emptiness and Light, and those two in turn begat gods and monsters. The One in Chains is such a one—a small monster, not a god but a demigod. Still, he is a great power.