Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  What had been dammed up for so long broke in him, all the harder. He blamed himself, shook off the guilt, blamed himself again; he could not decide. The thought alone was enough. He slumped down and wept, endlessly it seemed. But when the convulsions no longer shook him, and his swollen eyes felt dry in their sockets, he sat up, and he dragged out the mask, and sought to don it as before. But it jarred agonisingly on his wounds, and though he got it on at last, its weight was blinding, and the long curved beak pulled his head down on his chest. There he let it hang, in bleak despair; there was no more he could do, not even this. And without realising it, he sank down into sleep.

  Yet in the extremity of grief and exhaustion, it was no ordinary sleep that enshrouded him; for he felt that he was falling once more, from some infinite height, but slowly. Perhaps he crossed the Wall again, all in that moment, without perceiving it; or perhaps his dreams bore him back to the memories of his great vision. Whatever the way of it, he was suddenly wheeling again in emptiness, borne up on winds of pain against implacable clouds. But now it was dark. Below him the cleft of fire, the toiling, scurrying shapes – and at its heart, something he could hardly make out, a wild and shimmering shape that dazzled the eye, unstable, shimmering in every hue as if shaped of purest light itself. Then, out of the barren whiteness beyond, a different wind blew up, a dark wind gusting like great wings that caught him and whirled him, struggling helplessly, back down upon the peaks of the Wall, into the shadow.

  ‘Help me!’ he screamed, and it came out as a wordless bird-screech, a lonely, tragic call that echoed off the bleak rock-faces in a confused clamour. ‘Help me! Help her! Whatever the price! Help her!’

  Desperately he fought, and only at the last moment turned his fall and swept past the sharp-edged peaks, their edges slicing the very air between. Momentarily he saw a flat bare land beneath the moon, a great crossroads, a tiny group of waggons ringed by horsemen. Then that too was gone, past, and away into blackness, into doubt and dark once more.

  His head sagged, and the great beak of the mask passed between his knees and touched the trodden floor. He whimpered with the pain. Thunder rolled in the distant mountains. The bird-mask fell open slowly, to reveal the shining human face within. Moonlight touched his eyes. He was awake. He fought with his last strength to raise himself, his masked head, his arms flung wide to the sinking moon that shone through the shattered wall. And he shouted, as a boy might shout for his father, yet more loudly; and all in the village were awakened by it. Some did not sleep again that night.

  ‘Father! Show me a path! Show me a way! Help me!’

  The moon touched the broken bricks, silvering the dust a moment, and was gone. Alya tore the tormenting mask from his head, leaned over to lay it down carefully, and fell, exhausted, upon the hard floor. He had not even the strength to reach his crumpled mat.

  He awoke, sharply, as the blackness was leached from the sky, to the everyday sound of steps outside. He would have crawled to the door, but thought better of it, and though it was slower and more painful, he pulled himself up to his hard-made window instead, where the stains on the stones were turning brown. There, hanging by his elbows, he saw the remaining villagers passing by. They were silent, grey-faced, neither chattering nor singing, but otherwise they were on their way to work in the fields, as they did every day.

  ‘Is that all?’ he shouted. ‘Is that all?’

  A woman darted out of the throng to leave him a bowl of corn mash, and quickly refill his pitcher from the well. ‘What would you?’ she whispered softly. ‘Life must go on, the seasons go around. And you of all of us can do least about it. Be still now, and we’ll take you out another day.’

  He sank back, defeated. He had no appetite for the food, nor for sitting on the step. There was nothing to see. The village was empty now, of even the voices of children; those still left had been taken out to the fields. The Citadel was a vale of silence and death, save for the harsh cry of carrion birds; for many bodies still lay in perilous places around the slopes, where none could reach them, and must wait till the bones fell. All that long day he sat in the near-dark, and felt as if he were one of them.

  Towards the end of the afternoon, as shadows grew long and the sun traced a circle of warmth upon the wall, he found himself bored and sleepy, nonetheless. His aching head weighed down with sleep, and he no longer bothered to brush away the flies that buzzed around his clotted bandage. His chin sank on his chest for a moment, as it seemed.

  Then he snapped upright again. Something had awoken him, he knew; strange sounds. It took him a moment to know it as music, for it was not like any he had ever heard, an airy ripple of plucked strings that sounded light and sweet at first. Then suddenly it took on an heroic skirl that sent a shiver down his spine. Its rhythms spoke of riding far and free, of running on his own two feet with the wind fresh in his face, and no burden of body or mind to hold him back. Again he hauled himself upright to the window, though it cost him skin in his haste. He saw, upon the inward path, two figures striding slowly down into the village, two ridiculously gaudy apparitions in this place of recent death.

  They wore the brightly patterned robes and tall hats that were the dress of wandering entertainers in this part of the world, perhaps more sombre than some. These were old men, one leaning upon a heavy staff wrapped with rough cloth, the other plucking at whatever the strange instrument was, so they would not be jugglers or tumblers, although they bore the usual bags for their gear. They seemed not at all surprised to find a settlement here, and looked about them with a casual air, so they had probably come this way before and learned its location. That mattered little enough now. They paused in the open space by the well, seemed about to raise their voices to summon an audience; so Alya hailed them.

  ‘Fathers! You are welcome enough, but you may save your songs!’

  ‘Who speaks?’ demanded the older; then, seeing Alya at the broken wall, he bowed deeply and elaborately. The player followed suit, though Alya caught a flash of a sardonic smile that made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Greeting, young lord!’ boomed the older man. ‘Are you now the gatekeeper of this hospitable village? You see before you two men of wisdom and learning, come straight from the court of King Volmur, their heads and hearts full of splendid ballads and ancient lore!’

  The other man struck his strings a great clamour. ‘Songs and tales of heroes and Powers and fair ladies, as performed before the King himself! Tales of magic and love and the slaying of fell beasts. Songs to stir the hearts and loins of all who hear! Songs of other lands and other times, before the grim advancing of the Ice. Songs of heroic deeds and dragonslaying, of forbidden loves, desperate quests and daring elopements, all for your delectation at the most reasonable of rates—’

  Alya held up a warning hand, and they must have read his face, for they fell silent. ‘Old fellows, I’d gladly hear your ballads. My heart longs to be reminded of such things. But save your voices. The village has lately suffered great loss, and at this moment stands empty. Save for the unburied dead; and me, a useless cripple.’

  ‘With the arms of a great warrior!’ observed the old man. He must once have been formidable enough himself, Alya realised. Beneath the shabby gown the bowed shoulders were broad, and the mottled hands that gripped the tall smooth staff were still long and muscular. To Alya’s eye his windblown white mane and beard looked venerable enough, but almost ludicrously long and thick, for in his race beards were rare; but what they did not hide of the old man’s face, the great hook nose and deepset dark eyes, was strong and commanding, though strangely pale of skin.

  ‘That’s so,’ agreed the other old man, though there was something less friendly in his level gaze – mockery, almost. Or a challenge. This one’s face was also oddly pale, and deeply chiselled with lines of age and what might be ill temper, or suffering; but it had once been handsome in its fashion. His hair and beard were shorter but just as thick, grey-black and white-streaked like an old wolf’s mane; and in his fl
ashing glance there was also something of the wolf. ‘A broken man is not weak, if all his strength flows into his remaining limbs – or into his heart and mind! He could still be a leader. Others have!’

  Alya glared. That was easy for him to say. Old as he was, he could stand staff-straight, his shoulders more massive than his fellow’s, his chest deep, his limbs robust.

  ‘A cripple may be many things,’ Alya agreed sarcastically, ‘if others will only let him! Not make him a burden, and an embarrassment. If they only listen to him, once in a while! But the troubles weighing on me now, kind fathers, they need a whole man to answer them. I might still lead, perhaps, if only I could find any men fit to follow!’

  He throttled down his rage. It was not, after all, their fault. ‘Two days ago this place was raided by the man-eaters of the Ice. Many were slain, many carried off. The rest cower in the fields and seek to pretend that nothing has happened. They will have little stomach for hero-tales, I warrant you – so, fathers, you must earn your dinners elsewhere.’

  ‘That is hard news,’ said the string player, more sympathetically than Alya would have expected. ‘I grieve for you and your friends. And I guess in these concerns, your deeds would be worthy of song, no doubt, themselves. But I admit it is a blow to us also. For beyond Volmur’s kingdom there are few large settlements left within easy reach, and jesters and singers were always kindly treated here. We counted on earning at least a bowl of food to see us on our way.’

  Alya smiled wearily. ‘Well, that at least I can provide, and without demanding a song. Take the bowl of corn that lies just inside the door there.’

  ‘Surely that is your meal,’ said the older man. ‘Your only one, I guess.’

  ‘It is,’ said Alya. ‘But I have no stomach for it. For drink, I can only offer you the gatehouse well, there. The raiders had no time to pollute it.’

  ‘Drink we carry,’ said the player cheerfully, fetching out the bowl, ‘of the finest! And for your courtesy, my lord, that we will share with you.’

  ‘Some lord!’ laughed Alya. ‘Lord of the half-dead!’ But he found his heart grow lighter, simply at having someone new to talk to, and especially these cheerful old fellows. He could imagine having such a grandfather; though his, it seemed, had been grim to the point of cruelty. ‘I am not even of this place, low and landless. In debt to them for the roof above my head—’ He stopped.

  ‘And also for the legs which will not bear you?’ demanded the old man, sitting on the well’s rim and slurping cheerfully at the corn. ‘I wonder which side now owes the most! But not all lords are born. Some earn their honour.’

  ‘I have no wish to be one,’ said Alya, firmly. ‘All that I desire is to be my own man, whole again, and together with she who is the half of my being, torn from me! That I want with all my soul, with every breath I breathe! Whole, together, free of all entanglements and mysteries. Free to live as folk should live!’

  ‘Nobody is ever altogether free of mysteries,’ growled the player, licking his massive fingers robustly as he finished the rest of the corn. ‘How else should life keep its savour? Ah, that’s better than all these town kickshaws, eh, brother? Plain, but sustaining!’

  ‘All the more so when given with a good heart!’ agreed the elder. ‘And we have something to share with you, now!’ He rummaged in the great purse at his side, and came out with a substantial wineskin. The player rinsed out the bowl at the well-bucket, and the elder man poured in a generous helping. He tasted it and smacked his lips at his fingers. ‘Mead,’ he said happily, ‘such as only kings can afford to brew!’

  The grizzled player chuckled, and brought the bowl over to Alya. ‘Indeed! This’ll set your soul to dancing again!’

  Alya had little taste for drink; but he did not want to refuse the old men the courtesy. If he did, they might start singing again.

  He received the bowl. It felt unusually heavy, as if the mead were thick, and in this grey light the honey liquor bubbled bright as molten gold, gold you could drink. Once, at home, Alya had tasted a little mead; but this was surely a stronger brew. Its fumes were a distillation of drowsy summer twilights, heavy with hot flower scents, poppy and honeysuckle, and the drugged buzzing of bees. He sipped at it gingerly, and a sunbeam seemed to shine warmth into the chilly pit of his belly.

  ‘Drink deep!’ urged the player, with a lopsided smile. ‘We have all that we require, and more. Song-makers seldom go short of the true mead!’

  And he struck another tune from his strange box of strings, solemn, noble, a rising phrase repeated in a higher pitch, as if climbing in stages to the skies.

  Alya needed no urging now. He tilted the bowl and his head together, and drank, swallow upon swallow. Half the bowl went down in that blissful instant, and he held it up, rejoicing.

  A thunderbolt seared through him.

  His flesh flamed and smoked. He smelled his very hair burning in wisps. Pain ate him from the inside out, as the small worm the larger. The drink burst through his gullet and burned his bones to falling ashes. It gushed out of him, every way it might, and flayed his skin off him as it ran. His scalp wrenched and tightened, so he could not even close his eyes, but must see his nails blench and blacken, burst into smoking smoulder and crumble away from his fingers as fire spurted from beneath them. His back erupted in agony that bowed him backward, halfway to a hoop, then flung him forward as his muscles convulsed. His very eyelashes smoked and blazed up like wicks. He retched, and light burst out of his open mouth and burned the cracking mud upon the walls. He coughed out horrible steam, his limbs twisted, his convulsing thighs locked in a vicious rictus.

  He sought to catch himself against the wall, managed it, staggered, sweating violently, and convulsed as another shock ran through him, top to toe, and another. He would have spilled his bowels, vomited himself dry, but he seemed to have nothing within him but light. Infinite needles snapped at his nerves, and he stamped with the breathtaking pain.

  The thunder underfoot shocked him. Cracks burst open, racing serpent-like across the stone floor and out beneath the wall. The cliff shivered, stones flew from the wall, the trees outside wavered in frenzy as amid the roar and rattle of scree the fragile lip of the cliff crashed down into emptiness. The broken wall sagged, slid and subsided outward on to the path, with almost a rattling sigh, as if his prison was glad to crumble.

  Alya was standing, free, on his own two legs.

  He found himself staring straight into the eyes of the player. There also fires danced, darker, warmer, deeper than the blaze that still crackled away within his spine and legs.

  The earth still shivered like a frightened horse, and new cracks raced across the path. Alya cried out in ecstatic delight, and raised the bowl still seething to his lips once more. With a sharp cry of warning the older man’s staff lashed out. It struck the bowl from Alya’s fingers. Slowly, as it seemed, it fell to the trodden earth and splashed the mead in a great viscous golden flood. The cracks drank it up in an instant, and vanished.

  ‘Earth’s strength returns to earth!’ said the old man, with grim satisfaction. ‘Another drop, and the ground could not have borne you, down to the very roots of stone. But now the fire will subside.’

  Alya felt it ebb, and with it a sudden waft of sheer shock. He sagged down upon his seat; but he felt firm muscle beneath him, not waste and numbness. The hand he thrust out to steady himself felt about to dig deep into the very wood. He saw almost to his surprise that he still had fingernails; but they were glass-smooth, with a golden sheen in them that was echoed in his skin. He flexed his fingers, felt the sheer force in them, and crinkled his toes in childish delight. And then, with a wild shout, he sprang to his feet, and the filthy bandage fell free from his head, without pain. His hair was loose, an untamed mane that flailed about his shoulders like a mantle, and beneath it he felt no wound.

  Then, remembering himself, he dropped to one knee before the strangers. Laughing hysterically, he bowed his head, would have prostrated himself and kissed the
ir feet, and beaten his brow on the earth. He was still a boy, and he wept. The player’s hand caught his shoulder and raised him.

  That touch sobered him swiftly. His own new strength he felt like a live thing apart from him, a mighty beast he rode. But for every ounce of it, in the clasp of those aged fingers he would have been less than a withered leaf.

  He looked at both the strangers in an awe that was all the keener for being suddenly calm. At first the older man had seemed the kinder. But now, if kindness was anywhere, it lay in the player’s quizzical glance. A faint smile curled the corners of the older man’s beard, and there was something strange behind it – not malice, exactly, but little short of it. It was the smile of the successful imp, the prankster whose prank has taken root, yet has a long way still to run.

  But Alya could not feel anything small or mean in what had been played upon him. It was more as if he had been sucked, somehow, into a much larger, much more lasting jest – though one at which he might not laugh.

  ‘I thank you!’ he gasped, although he was no longer short of breath. ‘I bless you, fathers! Whoever you are, from wherever you stem! But how?’

  ‘Hospitality should be repaid,’ said the player, mildly. And from one who has little, your gift was great. It was fitting that we also give as greatly as we can, in return. Yet every gift bears some burden with it, some manner of destiny. We may have given you more than enough for your taste.’

  ‘I will use it well!’ declared Alya, feeling the air sweet against his sweating skin.

  ‘Will you?’ asked the old man innocently. More than ever his venerable age looked assumed; and with deep unease Alya saw that the fabric about the staff-head had come a little unwound. A massive spear-point peeped through. ‘You will have every chance! And if you do not, then woe to you! Yet even so, this strength may not always serve you as you wish. For whatever a man may be given, he remains no more and no less what he is.’

  The player chuckled, more reassuringly. ‘Even so; all the old tales bear it out. A strong arm and a sharp sword are the least of things that make a hero; and a hero is not always the wisest thing to be. Stick to your word and your purpose, boy, for that is your best chance of coming through it all! And of giving us a new song to sing!’