Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  Alya slumped back against the bricks. ‘And that’s why we must press on! We mustn’t lose the scent, not now – they’re so far ahead already. And now – three bloody days, says Asquan! Or more! But Tseshya thinks he’ll be all right tomorrow—’

  ‘Only because he’s scared of you,’ said Vansha. ‘Scared you’ll leave him behind here, with the witches. Small wonder, the way you’re behaving.’

  ‘I’m be—’ Alya shrugged. ‘You know why, none better. Anything could be happening to her.’

  ‘It could,’ said Vansha, grimly. ‘Think I don’t remember that, brother?’

  ‘Did you – last night?’

  ‘That was nothing! I’m not made of stone, it’s been a long time. But her I loved before you ever came between us! That I do not forget!’

  ‘Whatever else! Better you remember it’s me she loves!’

  Vansha shifted painfully. ‘If we were not oath-brothers—’

  ‘You could strike me down for that? Brother, you already did!’

  The air simmered between them a moment, and then Alya folded his arms. ‘I’m sorry! That’s done now. Rescuing her is more important, and our brotherhood. I must be tired.’

  Vansha shook his head. ‘It’s far more than that. You’ve changed, brother. For the best, I thought; but now I wonder. The change is not stopping. You no longer look like a boy.’

  Alya stared at him, half in laughter; but Asquan, coming to tend Vansha, overheard, and nodded. ‘We’ve all remarked on it. You’ve filled out; you look far stronger, and your face … Not much older, a year or two, but grimmer. I wonder …’ He lifted off the dressing he had bound over Vansha’s deeper cuts, and clicked his tongue. ‘The swelling eases, and more splinters come into sight. Filthy weapons, cane spears …’ Vansha yelped as he plucked out a couple, but sat back relieved. ‘There, it will drain better now.’ He pressed freshly pounded herbs under the cloth pad. ‘My lord Alya … forgive me that I suggest this, but even the friendlier Powers have been known to play strange tricks on men, for reasons no doubt good to them. I wonder if your mysterious wanderers in fact gave you anything extra in that vast strength of yours. Or have they simply caused you to use what you already had, that much faster? Could that inner fire really be burning up your life?’

  Alya sat back, thunderstruck. But he was startled to find how little he cared. ‘I don’t believe that! You don’t look so young yourself, Vansha. What we’ve been through would age anyone! But if that really is their price, so be it! If I can only live a shorter life, so long as it’s with Savi I don’t care!’

  ‘Then you are still young,’ remarked Asquan calmly.

  None of them spoke for a few minutes. The wounded woman whimpered upon her bed. Condensing mist dripped slowly from the roof.

  Vansha said, almost casually, ‘If you’re so nervous …’

  ‘I’m not nervous!’

  ‘Chafing at the bit, then. Could you not at least try to spy out our way again?’

  Alya growled. ‘I’ve said already, man: I dare not! Not now I know what’s about out there. His taunts were true, that Ice-wolf we slew. The Choosers of the Slain. We’d be fools to draw their attention. Chosen fools!’

  ‘They were with the war-band, he said, protecting it. They may be far away now.’

  ‘Maybe. But this is all the realm of the Ice.’ Alya shivered. ‘Those creatures, those minds … If I could only find some other way, believe me!’ He clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘I’m afire with impatience! What use is a Seer who can no longer see? I’m sorry now I wounded the woman so! She at least has power …’

  He stopped suddenly, thinking hard. Then without another word to Vansha he sprang up, and padded over to where the woman lay. She groaned and shivered as Rysha bathed her injured shoulder and jaw, but she was conscious and staring up at him as he knelt beside her.

  ‘Now you know we are not Ekwesh,’ he said. ‘Or their kind. And I know also what you are. Where did you get that mask?’

  ‘From – father,’ she mumbled, her voice shivering even more than her jaw wound and her fever could account for. She was terrified, as she had not been a moment since. Of him; not of what he might do, simply of what he was. Had suffering heightened her own sight, as it did for him? And what then could she read? ‘He … from his. And forefathers, deep into years. It would have been … my son’s, my son’s son.’

  ‘But you learned to use it. All too well. Woman, you must know much that passes, in this land.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Much,’ he repeated. ‘Tell the others all you can. For now, you need only tell me one thing. Is there some place around here, some pool or island, where the black swans bathe?’

  The woman almost started up in her fright, but the pain she caused herself, too fierce for a scream, made her sag back with a hissing gasp, pawing feebly at her bandage. Rysha protested, but Alya held her back. ‘I need to know, woman,’ he said, implacably.

  She rolled away from him on to her good shoulder, huddling into herself. He reached out to turn her back, but her voice stopped him. ‘There may be such a place. Where the rivers flow apart, north and west, two days’ walk, a few hours’ ride. A thousand strides short of the ford there. Where the other flow curves around tall rocks, a high bluff. A river island, a heap of sand, little more. I know nothing sure; and I did not tell you. Leave me be!’

  Rysha glared at him. He shrugged, and rose to his feet, thinking hard. Was he really no longer a boy? He still felt like one. He did not want to grow older and more cynical, weakening his love for Savi, maybe even making him too ready to accept the possibility he might lose her. Even in thinking that he was already losing hope! He needed heartening, as badly as any of them. The risk would be well worth it. Had he truly changed? Then let him make full use of it!

  ‘My Lord Asquan!’ he said, at last. ‘If they really need time to recover, I must leave them in your charge. I cannot waste it. I must go off for a day or two!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘On my own! For something only I can do. No, don’t ask! I couldn’t explain. A gamble, but it’s worth taking. A throw that might win us much – or everything!’

  The others, hearing this, were gathering round, questioning, protesting, and Alya was surprised at how nervous they sounded; but he shook his head. ‘I leave them all to your command, until Vansha recovers. Wait four – no, five days, longer only if you must. If I haven’t returned by then, follow the road north. Either I’ll meet you along the way, or—’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll be careful, of course. And leave the women safe, whatever!’

  ‘Will you have enough food?’ demanded Kalkan. ‘At least take your cloak!’

  Alya shrugged ruefully. ‘Hunger and cold …’

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ croaked Vansha, sitting up in his blankets, his hair plastered about his forehead with the sweat of a breaking fever. ‘Wait till I can come, at least—’

  ‘Only I can do this. Anyone else would be in far greater danger, and endanger me, maybe. No, go on and find Savi. Keep your head, listen to Asquan. And never, never give up!’

  Alya gathered up his gear and sword, with cold ripples of excitement surging through his spine, blazing highest in his old wound, as if goading him to action. The others were wishing him all kinds of luck, but though he nodded softly and smiled at them all, he hardly heard.

  It must be near noon, surely. He strode to the door and opened it, as casually as he could. He found himself looking out over the green canestalks once more, woven with only faint wisps of mist; and through them, a pale sun glittering faintly upon the river. He picked up his saddle and, deep in thought, he went out without looking back.

  He did not know it, but Kalkan, at Vansha’s suggestion, shadowed him some part of the way. The old lord returned to the farm hut that evening, puzzled. ‘Lost him among those damned canes, eventually. Can’t stay close without giving yourself away! But it was a funny thing. Took stuff from his saddlebags, and went down to the riverbank first, gatherin
g something. Couldn’t see what!’

  ‘Sand,’ said Vansha unhappily. ‘For the Trail. As dangerous as any he can walk in this world.’

  Even as they spoke, Alya sat in a small stony clearing some way to the north and east, not far from the river, just south of the great fork of which the woman had spoken. The ride had been long, but he had enjoyed it, and the walk thereafter, for he had left the horse a good hour back, tethered among sparse grass. It felt good to be on his own, surprisingly so. Strength seemed to burgeon in his limbs, till he felt he no longer needed the horse, but should be able to race to the hidden horizon in a few long strides. It felt so right that he found himself wondering if this was truly why he had been given his strength, to do great deeds all on his own, without others to help or hinder – and without endangering them, either.

  But I was only a boy! I didn’t imagine what I could do. I thought I needed the villagers; and when Vansha volunteered, I was glad not to be on my own. Then I thought I needed the help of a king, proper warriors, troops of horse … I was only a boy. If they wanted me to do this on my own, why didn’t they give me confidence, understanding, knowledge? And they should have left me the power that was rightfully mine …

  So he had landed himself, instead, with this strange band of misfits, the hopeless and homeless and reckless. As he should have expected, for who else would follow such a chase? Strong fighters, he had no doubt of that now; yet they had hardly had to do any fighting, so far. He and Asquan had done most. If anything, he felt they had held him back, so that Savi was far from him now, and facing whatever her fate must be. Now, with a single bold move, he might discover something of what lay ahead. He might find whether he still needed them or not. He might even discover some sign of Savi. And maybe, though it was a remote hope, achieve a thing still greater. But to do it he must turn the hunt back against the hunter, the minds that sought him into his prey.

  The cane was growing thinner here, and no more than a hundred paces ahead the bluffs the woman had mentioned reared high above it, against the sunset sky. He could not see the river, but he heard the water lapping among the rushes, a lulling, peaceful note that was good for his mind to fasten on, as he let the sand whisper through his fingers in the serpentine patterns he could not forget, and the words trickle as softly from his lips. After a while, without taking his eyes from the pattern, he reached for the mask; and then, rising and setting it upon his head, he began to dance.

  Slowly; for though he trod the Path, he was aiming not at any soaring frenzy, but at control. Till now he had been desperate to fulfil his father’s wish, to win past the Wall and into the realm beyond it; but he guessed now that that would only have been one step among many. If his way was still barred, he could explore others he had only touched upon by chance. To direct his thought, for one; to fasten on a goal, a mind …

  His feet scuffed the stones, but did not turn aside. Already the black glass rose behind his eyes, and he glided across its mirroring surface, seeking, searching. Blood led him, and the smell of smoke, the stench of burning roofs and bodies beneath; for that also was deeply graven in his memory. And the blood, on black feathers.

  He was looking, suddenly, through other eyes. He was circling above what had been a place of conflict, once, and now held only bones and broken weapons, already sinking into the land and being absorbed. The spurting blood that had drenched the field had already fed three summers’ worth of the brown tundra grass, and soon those who passed, if any, would see no trace at all. But she felt it, as she had then, fouling her armour, her clothes, even her hair and mouth. The blood on her was always fresh.

  To wash it off – a picture came into her mind, of whispering rush beds, rattling cane-brakes, the swift currents beneath the bluffs, and the deep lonely pool its constant eddies had carved in the shelter of the small sandbar. She did not stop to wonder how she remembered it; there had been so many places, so many times. She turned in the heights, and came diving down the curve of the sky, towards the river.

  The water was chill, and that very chill strengthened Alya’s still exalted state. Beneath the surface he lay now, among the reeds below the shadow of the bluff, and he waited. Himself he suppressed, his thoughts, his desires, losing himself in the urge to be cooled and cleansed. The brush of the water on his skin seemed only to intensify her longing, through the faint unconscious thread that still joined them, bearing little more than instinct and sensation. What came back to him was uproar, violent, heady, confusing. Greatly daring, he sent that also back to her, magnifying and redoubling itself, dulling her awareness and heightening her longing for rest and quiet. But that intensity cut both ways; the shock of cool water upon breastdown was breathtaking, and when it changed suddenly to bare skin he almost fainted. Floating half hidden as before, he pulled himself around the sand-spit, and saw.

  He was closer to her than he expected, far closer. She floated like any human girl, barely at arm’s length, and in the mellow evening light she blazed upon the waters, ivory skin set in a golden aureole of hair. He had not known it would be this one, the least like his own love, yet to him the most potent of all in her beauty. The shock of the sight also passed back and forth between them, and for a minute they were stunned, seer and seen, by its intensity.

  That Alya had not expected. It almost unmanned him, but perhaps it also saved him. For one long moment the girl lay rapt, transfixed by the sheer redoubled radiance of her own loveliness in his eyes, like an image thrown between paired mirrors. That gave him the moment he needed to pounce. Not on her, but upon the cloak that she had laid down to drain away the slathered blood into the clean sand.

  He landed full in its centre, and his knees dug deep into the black silken lining, with all his weight. She doubled up violently in the water, drowning her terrible cry. He had the cloak then, bundled up with his belt. She thrashed in desperation, rose and hurled herself at him.

  She was as tall as he, perhaps taller. Her hands went for his eyes, his throat, her knees for his belly and his groin, with the heedless ferocity of some Ice-spawned predator. He met the blows, though they bruised him; her strength in this shape was only mortal, or at least no greater than his. He caught her wrists, and threw her down upon the sand; and pinning her down, he bound her at wrist and ankle with the heavy straps from his saddlebags, and her mouth with a length of clean cloth. Then, because she was what she was, he murmured words of keeping and binding over them. They should work; it was in her thoughts he read them. Then he rose, wincing, and looked at his prize.

  The link was shattered, but glory still coursed in his blood. It fuelled deep and disturbing desires, and he struggled against the urges it awoke, knowing such beauty was an art natural to her, deeper than anything in her human aspect. Whatever shape she chose, she would have scorned to seem anything less than lovely; and the same cold pride flowed out of her now, bound and helpless as she was. She did not struggle, but fixed him with eyes that might have flayed any man less well protected.

  Gingerly he stroked the wet tangles of hair back out of them; but she still did and said nothing, though he could see her arms strain against the straps. His hand brushed down her cheek and throat, hovered a moment at her breast. But she was not Savi, and he was not Vansha; and knowing her for what she was killed all true desire.

  He dragged her up the narrow strip of sand, beneath the edge of the reeds. ‘I regret I must do this to you. I have no choice. I cannot simply bend your mind to my will, and I must seek knowledge, at whatever cost.’

  The eyes spoke: I will tell you nothing, save of death.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I will not harm you for that. But force me, and I will subdue you, if I must. You might never escape this trap, save at the cost of this flesh you wear. Will you suffer what you have done to so many others? Then lie still.’

  He splashed ashore to find his tunic and jerkin, which he had left dry, and covered her with them. Still she made no move.

  ‘You see, I know something of you,’ he said. ‘I
have touched your sisters’ minds, and yours also, a little. You are a Chooser of the Slain, a lesser Power, under the dominion of the Lords of the Ice. Your thought is less cold and cruel than theirs, perhaps. Yet you are their slave and soldier, nonetheless, speeding over land and sea at their command. You are the living banner and command of their armies, flying above them, seen or unseen. Like this.’

  He had the cloak unbound in an instant, flinching slightly at its living touch; and before it could move, he had wrapped it around his own shoulders. The girl went rigid before him, her back bowing, belly and thigh muscles standing taut as cables. The cloak fought him like an enraged bird, beating and thrashing as he strove to hold it across his shoulders. Without the undying flame he might never even have held it. It beat him to his knees; but then, thrashing forward, it touched the mask he still wore.

  The girl cried out. The transition was abrupt. Suddenly the cloak was clinging, not thrashing, melting against his arms with almost seductive warmth. The mask was no longer a weight upon his head, but as close as skin, its beaked forepart no longer black before his eyes but bright red. His body rippled around him like water, and he knew instinctively all that he must do.

  Without a look back at the bound girl he sprinted down the sandbar into the water, and hurled himself forward as he had seen the others do, as he saw in her mind. Suddenly the air was enfolded in his cloaked embrace. There was no pain, no transition, yet the feeling was intensely physical, his whole body hurled into one vast effort. He felt his feet trail briefly across the water. Then he beat vast wings, and he was soaring high into the evening air.

  The fires raged now in his arms, and he laughed aloud at the seething tingle, the intoxicating surge. This was power, this was escape; this was pursuit no longer dogged and grim, but swift and sure as the winds that bore him. For this, surely, he was given that great measure of strength. Would they bar him from riding the minds of others? Then he would ride upon their own black wings.