(Shadowmarch #2) Shadowplay

by Tad Williams

  “I…I wish to better myself, sir. As do most men.”

  Tolly leaned forward, smiling as though he had finally found something worth hunting, or trapping, or killing. “Ah, but is that so? I think most men are cattle, poet. I think they hope to be ignored by the wolves, and when one of their fellows is taken they all move closer together and start hoping again. Men of ambition are the wolves—we must feed on the cattle in order to survive, and it makes us cleverer than they. What do you think, Tinwright? Is that a, what do you call it, a metaphor? Is it a good metaphor?”

  Puzzled, Tinwright almost shook his head in confusion, but realized it might be mistaken as a denial of Hendon Tolly’s words. Did the guardian fancy himself a poet? What would that mean for Tinwright? “Yes, Lord, of course, it is a metaphor. A very good one, I daresay.”

  “Hah.” Tolly toyed with the grip of his sword. Other than the royal guardsmen, he was the only one in the room with a visible weapon. Tinwright had heard enough stories about his facility with it that he had to struggle not to stare as Tolly caressed the hilt. “I have a commission for you,” the guardian of Southmarch said at last. “I heard your song about Caylor and thought it quite good work, so I have decided to put you to honest labor.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Matt Tinwright could not have listed a group of words he had less expected to hear.

  “A commission, fool—unless you think you are too good to take such work. But I hear otherwise.” Tolly gave him that blank, contemplative stare again. “In fact, I hear much of your time is spent making up to your betters.”

  This made Tinwright think uncomfortably about Elan M’Cory again. Was the talk of commission just a ruse? Was Tolly just playing some abstract, cruel game with him before having him killed? Still, he did not dare to behave as anything other than an innocent man. “I would be delighted, Lord. I have never received a greater honor.”

  His new patron smiled. “Not true. In fact, I hear you were given an important task by a highborn lady. Isn’t that true?”

  Tinwright knew he must look like a rabbit staring at a swaying serpent. “I don’t catch your meaning, my lord.”

  Tolly settled back in the chair, grinning. “Surely you have not forgotten your poem in praise of our beloved Princess Briony?”

  “Oh! Oh, no, sir. No, but…but I confess my heart has not been in it of late…”

  “Since her disappearance. Yes, a feeling we all share. Poor Briony. Brave girl!” Tolly did not even bother to feign sorrow. “We all wait for news of her.” He leaned forward. Havemore had reappeared beside his chair and was rattling his papers officiously. “Now, listen closely, Tinwright. I find it a good idea to keep a man of your talents occupied, so I wish you to prepare an epic for me, for a special occasion. My brother Caradon is coming and will be here the first day of the Kerneia—Caradon, Duke of Summerfield? You do know the name?”

  Tinwright realized he had been staring openmouthed, still not certain he would survive this interview. “Yes, of course, sir. Your older brother. A splendid man…!”

  Hendon cut off the paean with a wave of his hand. “I want something special in honor of his visit, and the Tolly family’s…stewardship of Southmarch. You will provide a poem, something in a fitting style. You are to make your verses on the fall of Sveros.”

  “Sveros, the god of the evening sky?” said Tinwright, amazed. He could not imagine either of the Tolly brothers as lovers of religious poetry.

  “What other? I would like the story of his tyrannical rule—and of how he was deposed by three brothers.”

  It was the myth of the Trigon, of course, Perin and his brothers Erivor and Kernios destroying their cruel father. “If that is what you want, Lord…of course!”

  “I find it highly appropriate, you see.” Tolly grinned again, showing his teeth and reminding the poet that this man was a wolf even among other wolves. “Three brothers, one of them dead—because Kernios was killed, of course, before he came back to life—who must overthrow an old, useless king.” He flicked a finger. “Get to work, then. Keep yourself busy. We would not want such a gifted fellow as you to fall into idleness. That breeds danger for young men.”

  Three brothers, one dead, overthrow the king, Tinwright thought as he bowed to his new patron. Surely that’s the Tollys taking Olin’s throne. He wants me to write a celebration of himself stealing the throne of Southmarch!

  But even as this idea roiled in his guts, another one crept in. He’s as much as said he’ll kill me if I cause him any trouble—if I go near Elan. Clever Zosim, protector of fools like me, what can I do?

  “You will perform it at the feast on the first night of Kerneia,” Tolly said. “Now you may go.”

  Before going back to his rooms Tinwright stumbled into the garden so he could be alone as he threw up into a box hedge.

  “What are you doing, woman?” Brone tried to get up, grimaced in pain, and slumped back down into his chair.

  “Don’t speak to me that way. You will refer to me as ‘Your Grace.’”

  “We’re alone now. Isn’t that why you sent the priestess away?”

  “Not so you could insult me or treat me like a chambermaid. We have a problem, Brone, and by that I mean you and I.”

  “But what were you thinking? You have kept the secret for years, and now it seems that everyone in the castle must know.”

  “Don’t exaggerate.” Merolanna looked around the small room. “It’s bad enough you stay seated when a lady is in the room, but have you not even a chair to offer me? You are nearly as rude as Havemore.”

  “That miserable, treacherous whoreson…” He growled in frustration. “There is a stool on the other side of the desk. Forgive me, Merolanna. It really is agony to stand. My gout…”

  “Yes, your gout. Always it has been something—your age, your duties. Always something.” She found the stool and pulled it out, settling herself gingerly on its small seat, her dress spreading around her like the tail of a bedraggled pheasant. “Well. Now is the time when you can make no more excuses, Brone. The fairies are across the bay. Olin and the twins are gone and their throne is in terrible danger—the Eddons are your own kin, remember, however distant.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that I have failed my family and my king, woman,” Brone growled. “That is the song I sing myself to sleep with every night.” He didn’t seem anywhere near as bleary as he had only a short time ago.

  “Then listen now. The Tollys have their hands around the throat of the kingdom. And somehow—somehow, though I don’t pretend to understand it—my child is involved. Our child.”

  “I cannot believe you told Barrick and Briony.”

  She scowled. “I am not a fool. I said the father was dead.”

  He looked at her and his face softened. “Merolanna, I did my best. I never turned my back on you.”

  “Too little and too late, always.”

  “I offered to marry you. I begged you…!”

  “After your own wife was dead. By then I had grown quite used to widowhood, thank you. Twenty years after I was foolish enough to fall in love with you. Too late, Avin, too late.”

  “You were the wife of the king’s brother. What was I to do, demand he give you a bill of divorce?”

  “And I was older than you, too. But I recall that neither of those things stopped you when you wanted my favors.” She paused, took a ragged breath. “Enough of this. It is also too late for fighting this way. We are old, Brone, and we have made terrible mistakes. Let us do what we can now to repair some of them, because the stakes are bigger than our own happiness.”

  “What do you want me to do, Merolanna? You see me—old, sick, cut off from power. What do you want me to do?”

  “Find Chaven. Find this moon-stone. And help me to cross the bay so I can meet these fairy folk and ask them what they did with my son.”

  “Do you mean it? You are mad. But mad or not, I can’t help you.”

  She dragged herself to her feet. “You coward! Everyt
hing you worked for your entire life is being stolen by the Tollys, and you sit there, doing nothing…!” She leaned across the table and raised her hand as though she would strike him. Brone reached up and caught at it, folding his immense paw around hers.

  “Calm yourself, Merolanna,” he said. “You do not know as much as you think you do. Do you know what happened to Nynor?”

  “Yes, of course! They pushed him out so they could give his honors and duties to your lickspittle factor, Havemore! Nynor’s gone back to his house in the country.”

  “No, curse it, he’s dead. Hendon’s men killed him and threw his body in the ocean.”

  For a moment the duchess faltered and if Brone had not been holding her hand, she might have fallen. She pulled away and sat down. “Nynor is dead?” she said at last. “Steffens Nynor?”

  “Murdered, yes. He was talking against the Tollys and he spoke to someone he shouldn’t have. Word got back to Hendon. Berkan Hood dragged Nynor out of his bed in the middle of the night and murdered him.” Brone clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. “I heard it myself from someone who was there. They cut that good old man into pieces and smuggled his body out of the castle in a grain barrel. They can’t quite get away yet with slaughtering their enemies without even a mock trial. Not quite.”

  “Oh, by all the gods, is that true? Killed him?” Merolanna abruptly began to cry. “Poor Steffens! The Tollys are demons—we are surrounded by demons!” She made the sign of the Three, then wiped at her face with her sleeve and tried to compose herself. “But that is all the more reason you must help me, Avin! There are things going on that…”

  “No.” He shook his head again. “There are certainly things going on, and you don’t know all of them, Merolanna.” He looked around again. The guards were still not back, but he dropped his voice even lower. “Please, understand me, Your Grace—I have worked hard to convince Hendon and his party that I am no threat so I could put plans of my own into motion. I cannot afford for them to suspect otherwise. I will do what I can to find Chaven, because that would not seem unusual—the physician and I knew each other well. But I can do nothing else. I will not risk the small chance we have of saving Olin’s throne. Everything is balanced on a knife-edge.”

  The duchess stared at him for a long time. “So that is your defense, is it?” She smiled a little, but her words had a bitter edge. “That you are already hard at work on other, more important things? Well and good. But I will discover this moon-piece myself if I must, and find out what happened to my child—our child—even if I have to pull this castle down stone by stone to do it.”

  “You are no spy, Merolanna,” Brone told her gently.

  “No. But I am a mother.” She reached a trembling hand up to touch her face. “Sweet Zoria, I must be a terrible mess. You’ve made me cry, Brone. I’ll have to repair myself before I go talk to Utta.” She gazed around the cluttered room, slowly and wearily now, energy mostly spent. “Look at this. We sit at the center of the capital of all the March Kingdoms but you do not even have a glass for an old woman to fix her face. How can it be so hard to find a simple mirror?”

  PART THREE

  MACHINES

  25

  The Gray Man

  The Firstborn were as large as mountains and as small as gems in the private earth. They came from all parts, choosing to side with either the children of Moisture or the children of Breeze, because the wounds would not close themselves and in the rising storm the only songs that could be heard were of blood and answers. Thus came the War in Heaven.

  The children of Moisture first drew a ring around the house of Silvergleam, which had as many rooms as the number of times the People have drawn breath.

  —from One Hundred Considerations

  out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

  HE HIT ME.

  Barrick’s anger had shrunk to a cold, hard thing inside his chest but it was not going away. He was glad: it gave him life, of a sort—better angry than empty. He stared at Ferras Vansen, who was chewing a piece of stale bread. The rest of the prisoners, quickly sorted into winners and losers after the goblin guards had thrown the bowl of slops into the middle of the cell, were nursing either their meals or their wounds. Some of the smaller ones were so thin and undernourished that it was clear they had given up competing for food and were just waiting to die. But Barrick did not care about such hapless creatures.

  He had no right!

  Stop. Gyir pushed Barrick’s hand with the heel of bread in it. Eat. He brought you food.

  But he hit me!

  I would have hit you myself if I had been closer. You were acting like a nestling—no, not even that. No child of the People would be so foolish. This is a dangerous place—how dangerous we do not even know yet. There is no time to waste on such tricks. A percussive thump jarred the floor of the cell like a giant hammer falling in the depths of the earth below them. Barrick had heard the thunderous noise, like a cannon firing, many times since being captured; the other prisoners did not even look up.

  Gyir pulled a chunk from his own loaf, one of the largest pieces any of the prisoners had secured, and slipped the rest into his cloak. What you don’t eat, save. We may need it later.

  Why? Barrick asked, making the thought as bitter as he could. You don’t even eat, do you? Besides, this is a god who has captured us. What can we do?

  No, I said Jikuyin was a demigod, not a god. Trust me, there is a world of difference. What can we do? Wait and watch—and, especially, think. They have taken our weapons but not our wits. The fairy hesitated for a moment, as if he had something more to say. Then, to Barrick’s astonishment, Gyir’s face peeled away from the bone, rolling up from his chin to just below his eyes.

  No, that wasn’t it, the prince realized after a boggled moment. The featureless skin between what would have been the chin and nose on an ordinary man had folded back, flexible as a horse’s upper lip, exposing even paler flesh beneath, shiny with damp, and a small, almost circular mouth. Vansen was staring now, too. Ignoring them both, Gyir pushed a piece of bread into the toothy hole. Bones and muscles worked beneath the second layer of skin—his jaw was clearly hinged in a different way than theirs—as he chewed, then swallowed. The fairy stared back at his two companions as if daring them to speak.

  Yes, your question is answered now, Gyir said at last. He seemed almost angry. This is how one of the Encauled eats. It is not pretty,

  But how do you breathe? Barrick asked. You keep it…your mouth…covered all the time.

  Gyir brushed his lank, dark hair back from the side of his head. There are slits here behind my ears, like a fish’s gills. When necessary, I can close them. The next thought was a curious, wordless burst of something Barrick could not at first grasp. That way, I do not drown when it rains hard, he finished. The wordless sensation had been a laugh, Barrick realized, although not a happy one.

  Gyir ate the rest of his piece of bread, then the flap of skin folded back down again, curling just beneath his chin like the skin of a drum, leaving him smooth as ivory once more beneath the red eyes. So, he said. Your curiosity has been satisfied. That is what it means to be born with the Caul. Now perhaps we can go back to thinking about what is truly important. Gyir rose and stretched. Several of the other prisoners scuttled away, but he ignored them. I feel stronger than I did—I think the power of our enemy’s voice has affected me, somehow—but I could not directly challenge a force like Jikuyin on my best day. Still, if he is as careless as he has been in the past, we have a chance.

  “What do you mean?” Vansen said aloud.

  Do not use your voices, Gyir ordered. I will interpret between the two of you when necessary.

  Barrick scowled. Only a day before it had been him alone to whom Gyir would speak, but now the soldier was included in everything. What good was suffering as Barrick had suffered if it did not make him special?

  The immortals, for all their power, always had one weakness, Gyir said. They do not change and they d
o not learn. Jikuyin is fearsome but he was always a fool—one who thought himself greater than he was. Gyir spread his fingers in an unfamiliar gesture, something that smacked of ritual. He took the side of the Onyenai—our side, I can call it, because my folk also fought with the Onyenai—in one of the last great battles of gods, monsters, and men. But Jikuyin did not attack when he should have, thinking perhaps to let both sides damage themselves to his own betterment. Even then, he was ambitious.

  When he did come to the field with his legion of Widowmakers, it was too late. The Onyenai had been defeated, but the Surazemai—Perin and his brothers and their allies—were still strong. Jikuyin was trapped and could not retreat. In his foolish pride, he attacked great Kernios himself, killing one of the Earthfather’s sons, the demigod Annon. But Kernios in his rage was far beyond Jikuyin. One cast of his great spear Earthstar shattered Jikuyin’s shield, broke his helmet, and destroyed his face. He would have died then but his Widowmakers, seeing that there would be no spoils for them, managed to drag their wounded lord from the field. Many thought him dead afterward, but the People have always said that no one knew Jikuyin’s true fate. We were right to be cautious.

  So what does he want? Barrick could make little sense of the story itself, which seemed like a confused shadow-version of what Father Timoid had taught them about the gods. Why take us prisoner? What does he mean to do with us?

  Gyir lifted his hand, his eyes suddenly grown tensely alert in his featureless face. Say no more. Someone is coming.

  Creatures of various sorts had been passing in and out of the huge prison cavern for hours—guards leading individual captives and groups away or bringing them back, the limping, overburdened goblins with their buckets of food. A few times the Longskulls had even showed up with ragged bands of new prisoners, but this was the first time Gyir had appeared to take any notice. Barrick felt his heart speed.

  The heavy bronze door of the cell swung open and a squadron of the bristling, apelike guards came in, their menacing appearance and heavy clubs quickly clearing a space as prisoners hurried to get out of their way—even those still bickering over food went still and shrank back against the walls. Silence fell over the chamber. Was the giant demigod himself coming? Barrick suddenly found it hard to breathe. Would the monster even fit through the massive cell doors without getting down on his hands and knees?