Shadow Road

by A. E. Pennymaker

  The library inspired surprisingly mixed feelings.

  On the one hand, it was a library, with four whole stories of shelves, arranged in row upon row on the ground floor, and marching along stately balconies that wound upward toward a vaulted glass ceiling. Just the smell of the place was enough to make me grin like a schoolgirl: ink, paper, leather glue, and furniture polish, the scent of long hours spent learning.

  On closer inspection, the books on the shelves weren't just any old books, either. They were beautiful books that looked like they might have come from NaVarre's family estate. Leather-bound special editions, the kind with gilded illustration plates and velvety-smooth pages. There wasn't a single wadding-page copy to be found in the lot, although all the usual Southstreet novella writers were represented on the first floor – even Vignor Ladesky and his ridiculous Rosephyra Daguerre, Queen of the Wilds periodicals.

  I almost picked one up. Not for me. I imagined Arramy finding it on his desk... then I sighed, put Rosephyra and the Ogre King's Breakfast back on the shelf, and kept exploring. Arramy would just throw it in the nearest bin, and shout at Arriankaredes for allowing someone to get past him again.

  On the other hand, though, I kept stumbling into books I had in my personal collection at home. Books I read while curled up in my favorite chair by the hearth in my father's study, absorbed in another world while my father sat mere feet away, smoking his pipe, his nose in a periodical.

  I was in the middle of Tosarte's The Berrion Chronicles when the fire took everything. I found it. Not the exact copy I had, obviously, but the same version from Dartmarre Publishing Consortium with the lime-green leather binding and a gold-leaf lion prowling up the spine.

  My first reaction was delight, and I reached for it, pulling it from the shelf. But as I opened the cover, the words blurred together, and that frigid emptiness inside me unfurled, settling in a burning ache in my chest. I ran my fingers down the smooth surface of a page, my throat tight. I closed my eyes, but the memory still hung in front of me. Marking my place with a scrap of note paper from Father's desk; gathering my shawl around my shoulders; bending to kiss his cheek on my way up to bed.

  An odd, shuddering little sound crawled up out of my chest. I snapped the book shut and shoved it back into the gap it came from, my heart pounding.

  I couldn't bring myself to go near the Adventure section again. Instead, I found the Informationals and picked through it for something dense, wordy, and tedious for my bedside table. A particularly brick-like tome by the title A Thorough History of Roghuari Society in the Latter Half of the 100th Century fit that bill nicely. I signed it out and went back to the Director's office to help him translate Caraki identification cards.

  By that point I had been at the school for nearly a week. I knew where all of my things were, I was starting to figure out how to get where I needed to go without an escort, many of the students knew who I was and greeted me eagerly in the hallways. I could feel it: the warmth of that place was wearing through the flimsy bit of resistance I was trying to maintain. I had begun to hope. I could build a new life, here, have a place to call home, maybe do something that would make my father and Aunt Sapphine proud.

  What a fool I was.

  ~~~

  This morning I came awake in a blur, my body already sitting up before I opened my eyes, my heart racing, cries of pain and terror ringing in my ears.

  Then I jumped when a guinea hen let loose again outside my window, screaming her herald-song at the rising sun.

  That explained one part of my nightmare, at least.

  For a moment all I could do was drag air into my lungs, my chest aching, my shoulders stiff, as if I hadn't taken a full breath all night. Then I grimaced. I was sticky with sweat and my hair was soaked through. With a sigh I swung my legs over the side of the bed, shoved my feet into my unlaced boots, got up, and trudged out the door, not particularly caring who might see me in my nightdress.

  It seemed to help a little, walking; planting my feet on something dry, solid, and unmoving was proof that I wasn't stuck in the Galvania on its way to the ocean floor, or hiding from a huge, fiery bird that flew on burning wings, swooping down to annihilate anyone I looked at.

  The burning bird was the newest addition to my Fun with Dreams in the Dark program. In last night's episode, Captain Arramy had been eaten while trying to save everyone by killing me – because I had begged him to. But I hadn't died. I became the bird and went hunting for a faceless man with a white beard.

  I shuddered and kept going down the stairs to the courtyard.

  The faceless man. I wasn't sure what part of that was more disturbing, the fact that I routinely dreamt that my father had no face, or the fact that whenever I dreamt of him, I couldn't find him.

  Mrs. Fosspotter would have made me sit down at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on. She would have listened to every gruesome detail. Then, when we had both finished our cuppas, she would have read the strainings to see what it all meant.

  I didn't need bits of leaves on a napkin to tell me what those dreams were about. It was easy enough to decipher, if I dared try.

  I didn't dare. Clomping about in my untied boots on the deck of a warship – or more recently the cobblestones of a moonlit courtyard in the tropics – breathing slowly and counting things till the world made sense was far easier than facing the things in my head.

  But if I was clomping about, I was awake.

  Awake with nothing to do, which was proving to be another kind of battle. Without any distractions, I invariably began remembering, and remembering was worse than the nightmares. It was real. I couldn't wake up from it, either, and it was worse on land than it had been on the Stryka. Everywhere I went, I found things that my father would have enjoyed: food he would have wheedled a recipe from the cook for, people he would have loved to meet, sights he would have liked to see. It made it so much more difficult to keep from missing him, and if I let myself miss him, I would start breaking until there wasn't anything left of me.

  So, this morning I paced the length of the Dormitory courtyard, counting cobblestones while the stars blinked out and the sky began lightening in the east. I was still there when the sun came oozing over the island peaks, slowly shedding layers of molten gold into the mist of the Rimrocks, before rushing down into the bowl of the cove to gild the rooftops of Aethscaul.

  As if that was her cue, Ydara came out of the apartment closest to the outdoor kitchen, her lazuli-dipped tirna swaying and flowing around her ankles as she walked.

  I smiled a little. She always seemed like she had been transported from some long-ago era. Her simple Ronyran clothing was designed for function and freedom of movement in a hot climate. No corset, no blouse and bodice, no heavy skirts or under-ruffles, just that length of rippling linen wrapped around her twice and held in place with a woven-cord belt. Even the free end of the fabric had its uses: this morning she had it draped over her shoulders like a shawl. Instead of a hat or bonnet, she wore her mane of corkscrew curls pulled back in a brightly colored scarf. It all looked wonderfully comfortable in the broil of humidity that was already rising in the courtyard.

  A few of the Dormitory girls began coming out of their rooms, then, to help Ydara put food on the table.

  I sat under the baraboe tree at the other end of the courtyard, remembering mornings spent sitting in the kitchen at home while Cookie and Betts and Mrs. Rushwater all bustled about, frying onions and rolling pastry dough for a savory sausage pie, or whisking spices and egg yolks into scalded milk to make the filling for an arensconne. It had been a sort of dance. A reassuring dance that meant everything was as it should be.

  The breakfast dance on the Island was only similar in that there was a group of people preparing food. Everything else was different. Instead of a cast-iron stove tucked politely into the hearth of an indoor kitchen, these women tended an open fire in a big stone ring with a grate over it. Instead of shiny copper pots and pans, there were wooden bowls, slates,
baskets, and heavy cast-iron kettles.

  Ydara began by grilling the legs of some large bird, claws still attached, that she pulled out of a wooden vat full of a dark brown sauce. The meat hit the grate over the fire with a juicy hiss, and the smell of cooking poultry began drifting across the courtyard.

  There was hot Praidani tea, too, that one of the girls made in a huge clay urn and shoved directly into the fire. When she was done with that, she began pounding a pile of knobby rust-red roots to a pulp in a large wooden trough. Then she added eggs and flour, mixed the pulp into a sticky orange dough, shaped it into a bunch of rounds on a slate, and popped the slates, rounds and all, right into the fire next to the tea urn.

  I knew from experience that the rounds of dough would turn into loaves of dense, fragrant, cake-like bread the girls called llinfa.

  This breakfast dance was different and foreign to me, but it fit this place, and it was beginning to feel normal.

  After a few minutes of observing the food-making, I went back up to my room, pulled on my clothes, made a stab at taming my hair, washed my face, ignored the soot-eyed girl in the mirror, then went back down again for breakfast with Jinny, Grenna and Umelle. Then, as usual, Jinny, Umelle and I went out to stand on the corner with the rest of the girls bound for the School, waiting for Persha and the Gopher of Internal Disruption.

  The sunlight was as warm as it had been, the air as sweet. I had a place I belonged, and an important job to do, with people who were quickly turning into friends.

  There wasn't any hint that everything was about to change.

  45. Sharp Eyes

  20th of Nima, Continued

  Rhaina was waiting for me outside the Director's office.

  "Doctor Longalli needs ya in Med Ward B, soon as ya can," she said, bobbing awkwardly into a curtsy before setting off down the hallway.

  That stack of identity papers would have to wait.

  With a sigh, I went on into the Director's office, gathered my translation kit and set off through the back halls of the school to the hospital ward. When I got there, though, it took an effort to make myself go in. Biting my lip, I stood outside the double doors to the medical wing, hesitating. I had been through enough of these translation sessions to know what waited for me inside, and it hadn't gotten any easier with repetition.

  Don't be ridiculous, standing out here afraid of a headache when there are people in there who are still learning what freedom is. Right. Tear it off like a tacky plaster. Steeling my spine, I reached up and pushed the door open.

  The Doctor came bustling out of one of the treatment cubicles at the end of the aisle. Her relief was clear. "Oh good, you're here." She waved me in, then gestured toward the bed she had just come from. "This one won't let me near his dressings now that he's awake, and he's going to undo two surgeries by developing a septic infection. I'd rather not have to put him under every time I see him."

  "Name?" I asked as I approached the cubicle.

  "I have no idea. He's southern, though, I think."

  A stunningly handsome boy of about fifteen lay on the medical cot, both of his shins in casts. He smiled readily enough at the Doctor but went blank as a clam when he saw me behind her.

  "Hello," I tried in Lodesian. Then again in Ronyran. Nothing. Further south?

  When I tried Tradeslang, "Tazhir'ai, inamsa Miss Westerby," the boy's pretty doe-dark eyes flew wide. Then they welled with tears, and he buried his face in his blanket, muffling a sob. With a furious swipe at the wet on his cheeks, he sat up in spite of his broken legs, and held out his hand, fingers spread in a street greeting.

  "Inos Nikkorus."

  I touched my fingertips to his, and a glorious smile broke over his face. I didn't think I would ever get used to that look on another human's face, that realization that they weren't alone.

  I managed a smile in return and kept going in Tradeslang. "Hello, Nikkorus. This is a hospital. And this is Dr. Longalli." Then I started translating for the Doctor as she told him what she needed to do to treat him.

  Knowing the Director would appreciate the effort, I got out my notebook while the Doctor worked, and began asking Nikkorus where he was from, and what he remembered. He answered readily enough. He was from the Pardeshi region just north of the Caraki border. He came from a small farming compound that was overcome by the floods last year and had sold himself to a Friend in a barn outside Pordazh Kaskara so his father could build a new barn.

  He was put on the Blocks and bought by an extremely wealthy man. He didn't talk about what happened in the three years after he was bought, but he was sold again because he tried to run away and take one of the younger boys with him, and his master broke his legs. He was put in a cargo bin with other injured slaves, and the cargo bin was loaded onto a ship. He nearly died, but then the pirates came, and now here he was, talking to me.

  "They seem kind, here," he whispered. "Will they keep me? I know my legs are ruined, but —"

  I cleared my throat. "They don't 'keep' people, Nikkorus, you're free, now. You can stay because you want to.... but I think Doctor Longalli is ready to fix you up, now. Alright? We can talk some more tomorrow."

  Nikkorus took a breath. Then he simply nodded and ducked his head. "Thank you, Miss."

  I smiled, then got out of Dr. Longalli's way as she started redressing the wounds on his back.

  The next patient was a woman named Orra, who spoke a regional version of Lodesian I had never heard. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes of asking questions to figure out the different pronunciations and the syntax, but it didn't help much. She didn't know where she came from. She only knew that she had been a slave in a 'long house' somewhere that she was unable to describe in much detail other than to say there were lots of other girls there, and they made parts for machinery.

  Orra had been raised at the factory, kept in a stone hut with the other girls, until a few months ago the 'whipping man' came down the line when they were assembled for breakfast. He began picking girls at random. Ten of them. They had been sold sight unseen. Orra and these other girls were loaded into a cargo lorry that stank of death, and then they were driven over the hills for three days and part of a fourth night. She didn't know what direction they traveled to get to the sea, but on that fourth night they stopped in a place with lots of buildings. She could see them through the air grates when the cargo bin was lifted off the lorry, raised high by a crane, then lowered into the hold of a freighter.

  What color was the freighter? Blue.

  I wrote all of that down, but I could feel the beginnings of a headache blossoming behind my eyes as Dr. Longalli kept going around the ward, checking pulses and splints and adjusting bandages.

  I tried to shrug it off. I was doing something good, giving something back. Still, with every new face and story, something razor-sharp slid along my nerves. All of their stories had one big thing in common.

  There was a girl with a mangled hand who spoke a distorted mix of Ronyran and Lodesian. Another girl spoke Low Altyran with a thick accent and a heavily regionalized vocabulary that made her nearly unintelligible, even to the other people who spoke Low Altyran. A young woman taken from the streets of Arritagne spoke a pigeon of Tradeslang, Low Altyran, and Ronyran.

  None of them could read, none of them could write, all of them were very grateful, and all of them talked about being loaded onto a blue freighter. One of them even saw a man with white hair observing from the docks. It didn't take much to figure out who that white-haired man had been.

  By the time we had gone round most of the ward, the throb in my head had grown to a steady note of pain focused halfway between my right eye and ear.

  Char was one of the last patients who needed a translator. She was awake, and much calmer than she had been in the foyer, but there was still a subtle tension in her wiry muscles as Dr. Longalli whisked the curtains aside and the two of us stepped into the cubicle.

  "Hello," I said, smiling. "How are you today?"

  "Better," Char w
hispered. She eyed the Doctor, then glanced at me. "Can you get rid of this one? We need to talk without..." she paused to make a street hand motion that meant 'extra ears everywhere.'

  The Doctor didn't even blink when I switched my satchel strap from one shoulder to the other, the signal that meant I needed to stay behind. Calm and efficient, she finished checking Char's ankle, then walked out, moving down the aisle to the next patient.

  "Alright. No more extra ears," I murmured in Tettian, going to stand in the narrow space next to Char's cot. "What is it?"

  Char frowned slightly, watching the doorway before she looked up, searching my features. "You're her, aren't you. The missing daughter?"

  I froze.

  Char nodded a little, as if she wasn't surprised by my reaction. "Yah. I never forget a face..." Then she leaned forward, her voice low and fierce. "Look. You helped me, so I'm gonna help you. After the Blocks, I was kept in a shed with a bunch of other girls, locked up in cages like dogs... The guards, they didn't care what we saw or heard. One day, they got this message from their high-boss, one of those wanted papers with the drawings. The leader, he got really angry. Said he wasn't going to hunt for one measly girl, and they should let the Magis handle it, but the others didn't want to make the big boss man angry, so they left. The leader tossed the paper in the coal grate, but I've got sharp eyes... It was a picture of you."

  "How does that help me now?" I started to ask, only to gasp when she grabbed my arm and yanked me closer, her other hand clamping over my mouth.

  "I'm not done," she hissed, glaring at me. "One of the girls they brought in later, she was treated just like the rest of us. See? They kept her with us in the cages, locked her up with us in the bin. But this girl, she was different. There wasn't enough food or water for everyone, and she killed another girl over it. Snapped her neck like a twig, kept all the food for herself. I guess she thought she would survive, but she caught the fever just like the rest of us. She started going mad with it toward the end. Talked about being sent on some great mission for some great cause. She was a trained assassin, she wasn't meant to die like a gutterdog, on and on. Kept repeating 'the time is coming, the time is coming', and something about the purge already taking place, everything is going to change, no way to stop it. I thought it was just the fever, but... She kept saying the name from that wanted paper. Brenorra Warring, Brenorra Warring. She said she was sent to kill you."