Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  They did not break, as living men might well have, but they gave back, freeing Vansha, and then the other two. Then together, though Darzhan was wounded and gasping, Alya and the other closed in with Asquan, driving the shadows between them to the edge. The boat rocked, almost tipped. Vansha tried to drag Kalkan back from the side, but the old lord retched and vomited a great gout of clotted blood down his breast. He struggled to his knees and waved them on, with an incoherent roar; and then sagged against the thwart. But there was little left to do; the last boarders were driven over the bow in a welter of splashes, and Alya kicked their listing craft away into the rain. Darzhan, still screaming, began hacking at the fallen; Asquan heaved them overboard, while the others ran back to Kalkan. He lay there, held half on his side by the spearshaft sticking out from his back; but he still lived.

  The old warrior shot Alya a wide grin. ‘Thanks for hoicking me out of the dark, boy!’ he wheezed, quite cheerfully. ‘Doubt I’d have lasted many more weeks. Kept going longer out here. And better. Still say no woman’s worth all this, mind you.’

  They raised him up, but there was all too clearly nothing to be done. He struggled up on one elbow, looking at the spearshaft. ‘Least it’s one of ours, not a rusty ripper like theirs! Ach, a louse-ridden place to pop off, here. Me! Here! Me that could’ve been a bloody king! But better than fat-arse Volmur’s shitpit. And they won’t stick their bloody strings on me – not me! That’s f’sure! Hey, you old bugger!’ he gurgled at Asquan, who was hastily tipping the last body overside. ‘You won’t need to do that f’me!’

  Kalkan supported himself on Vansha’s arm, and reached out to jog Tseshya’s shoulder, making him yell with pain. ‘Hey, scrivener! Looks like you’ve had your last disputation, an’ all!’

  Tseshya grimaced weakly. ‘Not … dead … yet!’ Alya was appalled to see the scholar’s leg was a welling mass of blood, where some great artery had been cut, beyond all staunching.

  Kalkan glared at him with grim satisfaction. ‘That’s not ink you’re spilling, boy! Five minutes, and you might as well have wiped your arse on all those old scrolls, for all the good they’ll do you. Care to join me?’

  The old man lifted his moustache in a lopsided grinning wink to Vansha, as if about to show him a special trick. Then he seized the broken spear that still transfixed him, and with a massive, twisting wrench he hauled it out. Blood and bile and innards spilled down his mail, and he fell face down on to the planks.

  Tseshya, his face the colour of pale parchment, gave back in horror, and clutched in agony at his leg, and then at his temples, as if his head pained him still more. ‘Plain as Qualian’s precepts!’ he muttered, and bent down, as if to duck his face in the river; but with a sudden convulsive heave on the gunwale he thrust himself right over. Rysha, shaking violently, made a half-hearted move to stop him. Nobody else did. He slipped easily into the water, without a splash, and vanished, leaving only a few bubbles and a barely visible thread of blood.

  Asquan, clutching his side and wheezing with effort, came limping up, thrusting Darzhan and Chiansha aside, thumping Alya in the chest. ‘What’re you gaping at? Get back and scull, you stupid bastard!’

  Alya, dazed and horrified, ran astern, staggering and slipping in the blood. The rain was slackening now, and the mist much lower and more straggling. He could see now that they must have entered some wide pool, a lakelet almost, where the sentinel boat had been moored and the current was slack; but they were drifting back out of it now, and into the mouth of the river again. And that way two dark shapes were converging out of the mist, fighting their way up the current. He snatched up the scull once again.

  ‘One more effort, and we’ll make it!’ shouted Asquan. ‘Come on, boy!’

  Alya felt weary as he had not felt for an age, as it seemed, another life. He seized the oar and bore down on it, and again, and again, while Vansha and Chiansha dug in their paddles, frantically swinging the unwieldy craft about. Darzhan crouched over his spear, muttering insistently and looking around for another attack; but Rysha and Asquan took up paddles at the bow, and the old boat groaned and creaked back across the pool. Slowly, as it seemed, they gathered momentum; and in Alya’s arms the fire took hold once again, and the boat leaped onward.

  The mists were sinking all across the river now. He could see a hazy line that must be the nearer bank; but ahead of him, nothing. He looked up, and the great crevice loomed impossibly close, almost over them already. A brief glimpse of the sky was left him, and the weeping rainclouds; then its blackness closed around them like the jaw of a hunting beast, and the roar and tumult of the enclosed river shook the air.

  Darzhan sprang to his feet, staring in fascinated horror at the mass overhead, and began backing down the boat, as if he could somehow avoid being taken underneath. Even when he tripped over Kalkan’s body he did not tear his eyes away; and when he reached the stern he looked around wildly, threw down his spear and tried to seize the oar from Alya.

  ‘Don’t you hear?’ the tall man screamed, slavering and wrestling with him for the heavy shaft. ‘Hear what it’s shouting? Get us out of this place! We’ll die here, and join their stinking sentinels – forever! Get us out! It’s shouting—’ Vansha tried to pull him back, and was knocked sprawling. The big soldier began to rave words that made no sense, and his spittle flew in Alya’s eyes. They thrashed back and forth, the broken platform creaking under their struggling feet.

  From out of the mists behind came a flight of arrows, aimed no doubt at the echoing voice. None struck, but Darzhan swatted at them as if they were insects. Then he snatched up the broken spear.

  ‘Turn the boat about! Don’t you hear it? Get us out—’ There was a noise like an axe splitting wood, and he lurched forward suddenly, choking. The madman stared at Alya, wide-eyed and reproachful as a baby; then the dull sound came again, and he staggered, tipping the gunwale dangerously deep. Vansha seized Darzhan’s shoulder and thrust hard once more before Alya could shout. The front of the tall man’s mailshirt burst, and he gaped down at the dripping point. He gasped, a reproachful question, ‘Don’t – hear—’

  ‘Vansha!’ snarled Alya.

  Vansha’s boot thrust the flailing man off the blade, and over the stern, arms outflung, screaming into the water.

  ‘He was going to kill you! He’d have had us overturned! Or caught!’

  And indeed, in that moment the dying mist seemed to darken as the twin shadows slid alongside, too close on either flank to turn; and along their sides, defined by gleams of spray-dulled metal, the files of spearmen tensed to spring.

  Rysha leaped first, to her feet, arms above her head; and Alya remembered they were no longer under the sun. It was as if blackness dropped a veil about them, and where Rysha had stood, a vicious rock outcrop took shape, jagged and deadly, so lifelike that he almost flung up the scull to fend it off. Dimly, through the pulsing blackness, he saw the spearpoints veer sharply away. He could have cheered.

  But then he heard the first crash, the hollow splintering, and felt the oar judder violently in his hand. No screams, no shouts; but more smashes on either side. Something struck the bow and whirled past; and it was only then Alya understood what Darzhan had been trying to tell them. ‘Rysha!’ he yelled, though the river’s tumult drowned out his hope. ‘Lift the dark! Lift—’

  The dim cavern light sprang up around him again. Rysha was on her knees, coughing. Asquan was already in the bow, striking out with a paddle. It stuck an instant, as if uncertain; then the barge was hurled contemptuously past its pursuers, bucking and bouncing on the foaming water of the rapids. A fantail of spray threw Asquan back and drenched Rysha, who was crawling astern, moaning. Another rock loomed up, Alya steered wide and the water picked them up again, hurling the groaning boat into a more open channel.

  The thunder of the rapids was appalling, and he saw rather than heard what Vansha yelled in his face. ‘We must turn to shore!’

  Of the boats that had pursued them there was no sign among th
e boiling water; but that was no longer their main fear. Alya had expected to find some kind of landing stage or jetty, but among the great weirs and channels of worn boulders they had passed, there could be none. Now they all saw it together, the spit of black sand outthrust by some quirk of the channel, and beyond it a mirror-calm pool. That was hope, and he heaved at the scull with all his strength.

  The boat boomed and jarred. The floor timbers were stove in amidships, splintered on some tooth of the roaring beast they rode. The boat whirled broadside to the water and rocked sharply; the scull snagged, then bent and snapped violently under Alya’s hands. He was hurled down into the bottom of the boat as it rocked free – right on to the heaving current. It slapped the hull hard once, almost overturned it and threw it forward. Alya had a momentary vision of the faintly glimmering roof high above; then the disintegrating boat struck hard in a deafening smash of timbers, and the roof seemed to shatter and fall in on him. It struck agony into his head and breast, and he fell into the dark.

  ‘What is it, Savi?’

  The Princess Ulie was staring at her with her odd wide eyes.

  ‘Do you feel cold?’ demanded the other young woman, still stranger of face, still nameless. ‘You shivered.’

  Savi almost laughed. Here, among walls of perpetual ice, cold was what she surely ought to feel, yet never did. ‘No … no. It was as if I heard something, something … unhappy. I don’t know what!’

  ‘One hears so much here,’ said the other, rising and walking to the balustrade. ‘Noises, voices – I cannot make sense of it, it makes my head ache when I try. Do you still hear it?’

  Savi sat listening an instant, then slumped back among the cushions. ‘No. Voices, maybe. Screaming. I felt afraid.’

  The princess smiled faintly. ‘Still? You, of all of us …’

  ‘Are you distressed?’ demanded the other girl, quickly. In pain?’

  ‘No!’ said Savi, quickly. ‘No, not at all, just … It seemed far off. In the town, I guess. Perhaps it reminded me of something. It was strange. Like that great black swan.’

  And all my memories seem so far off …

  ‘We will go in,’ said the nameless girl, with a decisive toss of her golden hair. ‘Where such crude things cannot disturb us. The swan … I demanded some answers over that, but I have had none. Strange … Princess, that will be all for now, you may retire. This afternoon we shall discuss deportment once again. Do you find me an apt pupil?’

  The princess made her an elaborate courtesy, flicking her gown to one side with a smooth sweep of the arm. ‘You know I do, lady. You gain every day in grace.’

  The courtesy was returned, much less fluidly. ‘And lose in other things I should remember. But be that as it must. Fetch me some of the village girls for later, to tell me more of their life. Savi shall rest meanwhile, or divert her mind, perhaps, to keep it clear for me. I need clarity, who find so much obscure. Walk with me, girl.’

  It was strange being called girl, by someone no older than herself; and try as she would, Savi could no longer think of this creature with hair like the sun and skin like the moon as anything else. She even walked like a young girl, gawky and uncertain; the princess’s instruction had not yet rid her of that. Savi herself had picked up the manner more easily, and now reined in her brisk stride, so that she could wear the gorgeous gowns she was given with a becoming grace. And she followed all the other instruction as quickly, or quicker; for the golden girl would increasingly keep Savi at her side, at first to help and care for her when her body betrayed her.

  It often had, in the first few weeks. The girl had some memories of human shape; but she could hardly remember how to walk, and tumbled continually on the glittering floors. What normal humans learned in childhood she could not yet do, at least naturally; it seemed she had to force her mind to fasten on each separate thing. Every step, every breath was a conscious effort; and at the first reverse she forgot all the rest, losing control of voice, arms, hands, innards and all else, falling in an ungainly heap like any toddling infant.

  And at first she seemed to have no normal sense of pain, or ability to heal. She was soon covered in bruises and burns, and had even broken a leg, before Savi persuaded her that pain had some value. Then she developed it suddenly, and cried and raged like a child; and tore off all her clothes because they hurt her unendurably as well, and everything did. She even broke her splints, and screamed in surprise at the result.

  And at that scream, all those who served her ran away – not merely out of reach, but fleeing in blind terror. Savi, though, had lingered. She remembered her promise, and in truth she saw little immediate to fear. She alone seemed to perceive that the nameless girl’s wrath was chiefly childish tantrum, born of helplessness and fear and random feelings she had not yet learned to control. So Savi treated her like a child indeed, soothing yet firm, and brought her back to calm, and to submit to having her leg set by a healer once again, and being washed down and dressed. At last she ate and slept, still like a child; and her injuries began to disappear with unusual swiftness.

  It seemed to Savi as if only now the body could attend to its natural processes, without interference from the mind within. As if that strange personality was trying to control everything, instead of letting the body learn its own ways, as an infant’s does. When the girl woke, Savi spoke to her of that. To her surprise the girl hung on her every word, and would not let her go away, even for a moment. From then on Savi became, in truth, her nurse.

  It was no easy task, for this beautiful creature had the petulant moods of a child. She enjoyed the fear she could inspire, and unleashed it on all her servants; but Savi never found it hard to turn aside, or even chide. The girl would take reproof from her, as she would from nobody else, even the princess. And slowly she seemed to become more controlled, more restrained; and that was as well for all. The other women of the palace, from the withered chatelaine downwards, were pathetically grateful, and almost as much in awe of Savi as of their mistress. Yet even at her most infantile the girl never lost sight of her purpose, the purpose that had sent her raiders to tear Savi and the rest from their homes. She wanted their lives.

  ‘Every moment. Every second. Not merely to know it, but to live it. I must understand what makes you what you are. How you meet every chance and change that comes, in your different ways, from palace to hovel! I must be at ease in any company, able to assume any mantle. Teach me, all of you, and you will live well, and when your use to me is done you will come to no harm. But hold nothing back!’

  She had a long way to go. Even now, as they walked slowly down the long balcony that crowned the palace, she suddenly trod on the hem of her dress, leaned heavily on Savi and flushed scarlet with anger at the sound of tearing material.

  ‘You’re trying too hard!’ laughed Savi. ‘One foot after another, you don’t have to think about it, see! Don’t bother trying to look so elegant, for now. The princess is taking you too far, too fast. Learn to swing your bum naturally, like we poor peasant girls! That’s what the men will notice.’

  The fine-cut features twisted in disgust, and the girl made a childish vomiting noise and stuck out her tongue.

  ‘Don’t think the princess would approve of that, either!’ grinned Savi.

  ‘Men!’ exclaimed the girl savagely.

  ‘Yes, that’s something we still haven’t quite covered yet,’ admitted Savi thoughtfully. ‘Or the other way round, if you see what I mean – no, of course you don’t.’

  ‘I know all about that,’ said the girl haughtily.

  Savi shook her head. ‘No, my lovely lass, you don’t. Not by experience. And that’s the only way, whatever you’ve stuffed your head with. Believe me!’

  She had spent hours enquiring into the matter with Savi already, very strange hours. It had rapidly become clear that the girl knew practically everything about the mechanics of mating and child-bearing, every working detail of a living body – everything, in fact, except what it was actually about. She
had loftily told Savi all manner of fascinating things, a great deal more, in fact, than Savi had ever wanted to know. Many things she was determined to forget; and one or two, a little ashamedly, she was equally determined to remember. But the girl in turn had listened astonished and appalled to Savi expounding the human view of it, to the concepts of attraction and emotion, of pairing and companionship, of the bearing and raising of children; and where the sheer sweaty fun found its place amid all this. There had been one question, for some reason, that the girl never actually raised; but now, after a thoughtful pause, she caught Savi by the arm.

  ‘So you hinted. But do you know? By this … experience?’

  Savi stopped in her tracks. ‘Yes. Yes, I do!’ Feelings and memories she had struggled to stifle came flooding back. ‘What it is to be loved … well, not wholly. We had so little chance. There was a boy … he and I … But he’s probably dead now!’ she flared in sudden bitterness. ‘Your butchers … when they took me … my father, and him …’ She wrenched her arm free. ‘What am I doing with you? What am I doing?’

  ‘What I command,’ said the girl quietly. ‘But you have not spoken of this before. It was long ago, as you think of things, was it not? Can you not forget? People seem to forget so readily!’

  ‘It was just a few weeks!’ exploded Savi. ‘I should … I should hurl you down that wall, not paddle along at your side like a lapdog!’

  ‘It would avail you nothing,’ said the girl calmly, leaning back against the rail. ‘You cannot kill me, or hinder me. But I did not think you hated me. You stroked my hair and said kind words to me, when first you saw me.’

  Savi shook her head impatiently, dashing away tears. ‘I do! Or … Oh, I hate … what you really are. Or were. Whatever’s behind you. It hates me, doesn’t it? Along with everything else alive. But you … you’re not it, not wholly.’

  ‘That is true.’

  ‘It would be like … hating a girl because she was kin to someone evil. Without knowing what she really was, in herself.’