Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘All this way!’ she wheezed sourly. ‘And back in the dungeon again!’

  ‘Like my stinking little hut,’ agreed Alya, feeling the fires in his heart burn down to mere embers. ‘It closes in about me. Chuen, is there no light?’

  ‘It comes.’ There was a crackle in the dark. A small tongue of blue flame grew, and turned a glaring yellow, making a horrible vision of Chuen’s heavy features. He raised the rough torch high. ‘You tall sirs will need to stoop. The way is roundabout, for we had to dig as soil and stone allowed, and the trembling earth. It has not been easy.’

  The torch showed them an uneven roof, some of it planks and beams like the underside of a floor, some a rough jumble of props and timbers, all stained with soot and grease. Chuen beckoned them on, and indeed they had to duck, for the height changed suddenly. Vansha almost stunned himself on a timber, with an impact that showered moist earth around him. ‘Have a bloody care!’ hissed Chuen. ‘We are well into the town now. They’ll be more alert than ever!’

  Vansha stifled his curses. Alya looked at the beam where his head had hit. ‘So much soot … Chuen, these workings are old!’

  The big man grinned, exposing worn teeth. ‘Older than they seem, even. For we scrape off the lampblack for the grease, now and then. Older than I, they are; and I am an elder, having reached my forty springs, or near, as not so many survive to. Tales do not tell when they began; but they speak of a small folk, an elder race enslaved here, who began them. Our miners extend them yet, when they’ve a little strength to spare.’

  ‘Duergar!’ exclaimed Alya, so surprised he almost struck himself on the next beam. ‘But they have not lived in ten centuries, that anyone knows of!’

  ‘If ever!’ grinned Vansha. ‘What a louse-ridden warren!’

  ‘What a feat!’ snapped Alya. ‘All this time! Among so much suffering, so little hope, they’ve been scratching and scraping away … Just to have somewhere, some way to get about that the Ice cannot control.’ He slowly shook his head. ‘The spirit of men …’

  ‘Of woman, most like!’ said Rysha scornfully. ‘You can be sure there’s a woman’s hand behind this somewhere!’

  ‘Truth,’ said Chuen sardonically. ‘There is. Behind the Ice itself – Cold-Hag, Frost-Witch, Iceheart and Winter’s Bitch! There’re others, but she’s the head of all, since she threw down her lord Taoune a long age past, he who rules naught now but the Dead. And this here, this den, this sink of human refuse, this is her domain! Taounehtar Death’s-Daughter, Lady of the Northlights, Queen of the Ice-Walls, Mistress of the Northwind. And the crow that pecks the eyes out of cold corpses!’ He snarled, so fiercely the torch guttered. ‘So bright, so fair! The snow on her breath, the ice in her breast, between her thighs the blackness eternal and the cold of the stars themselves, a chasm even Taoune her consort couldn’t fill. She’d wrap the whole world in there, and she could!’ He sniggered. ‘Or a girl, they say now. With an icicle for a prick, I doubt not!’

  Alya shook his head. ‘A girl? What girl?’

  Chuen’s face was a glistening leer in the guttering light. ‘A whole pack of ’em! Up at the palace there; we get word, one way an’ another. Seems the Witch hankers after new fun these days. She’d take human form now and again – of a sort. But now she really works at it. Something to do with the new campaigns, they say – but I reckon it’s just …’ He gestured with a finger. ‘Filthy whiteskin bitch! Only not your natural way, trust Her. Collecting pretty girls, she is. Up to all kinds of high jinks. Sweet stuff – high-borns and princesses, even, they say. Wouldn’t mind a sniff or two at that, eh?’ He nudged Alya’s ribs and chuckled. ‘Who knows? We may get a chance!’ His face hardened. ‘’Cause if she’s in the body, she’s vulnerable!’

  Alya looked at the others, but Vansha would not meet his eyes. Rysha’s eyes gleamed with malicious amusement. ‘Are you so sure of … all that?’ he demanded.

  ‘What? If she can shaft, she can bleed. Stands to reason!’ Chuen licked his lips. ‘Anyhow, it’s a better chance at her than we’ve had in all the years I’ve been alive. Better than slaving and starving till you drop.’

  Rysha sneered at him. ‘Starving? You’re in little danger!’

  Chuen returned the glare. ‘’Cause I’m at the top of the heap, see? That’s a sign, round here. See a man with meat on him, he’s boss. But I swinked and strove for that, when other men just lay down and croaked! Done things I’m not proud of, things I don’t even like t’think about. But then, so’s every man an’ woman you’ll ever see here. Just to survive. Stolen, killed, betrayed. Sold our bodies and our souls for the next scrap of food, to last that little day, just that bloody hour longer!’ He nodded, grimly. ‘And when it’s my turn comes, I get boiled down for me grease, same as any other! This belly o’ mine, it’s just held in trust, like. See, bitch?’

  Alya raised a hand. ‘She didn’t mean to offend, Chuen. We’re worried, that’s all. We seek to rescue someone. A girl. From the palace.’

  Chuen stared. ‘From … ? I see. Well, there’s plenty there that … that just labour and serve. But you came all this way, bursting in here, just for one girl?’ He shot a glance at them, as if weighing up their sanity. ‘Here? Just for one …’

  ‘Because she’s ours,’ said Vansha.

  ‘Think of it in your own way,’ Alya suggested. ‘Because we had nothing to lose. Because nothing else seemed worthwhile, without her.’

  Chuen cocked his head. ‘Guess I do see. Thought it might be vengeance, with what the oldster said. Worth tossing your lives out for that, maybe. But us, we just want to stir up a little slice o’ storm here, and do a bolt for it under the smoke. And if that don’t come off, why then we can make ’em smart, and be little worse off, alive or dead. We’re just desperate, that’s all. Yet all the same it’s been hard to whip folk to the striking point. ’Cause they’re so flaming feared!’

  ‘Of this Ice-woman? Or of her warriors?’

  ‘Both. And with good cause.’ Chuen steadied himself against a rough pillar as a faint thrill seemed to course through their feet, a vibration which shivered all the way up to their groins and guts, as if fear was sent to them from outside. ‘Feel that? There’ll be more in a moment, harder.’

  Vansha blinked. ‘What is it? Earthfires?’

  ‘Sure. Seen ’em? Whole reason this place’s here. Too hot for the Ice, even; so what it can’t put out, it puts to work. But there’s many among the commons scared silly ’cause they still think it’s some old-time dragon. Might as well be, mind you, if the Ice has the knack of whipping up the earthfires. Maybe they could send the whole place up in smoke. But there’s enough ready to risk that, now.’

  Chuen stopped, before a heavy blank door that blocked the way completely. ‘And now that you’re here, there’ll be more! A sign, a gleam of hope – that’s what you are to us!’ He squinted at them, in the dimness, and the brutality of long despair was etched into his voice. ‘So that’s what you’ll keep right on being, if you’ve any wits. Be that hope, and we’ll aid you. Fail us – and, well, you’ll find you’ve come a long long way for bugger all, right? Right!’

  He turned and thumped on the door, a swift pattering rhythm. It was hauled back on to blackness. Pale hands reached out and hauled them inside.

  Alya caught Vansha’s shoulder as he bridled. ‘Easy, brother! He’s not used to mincing his words, that’s all! Nothing he ask’s beyond reason, amongst so many perils.’

  The earth shuddered like something live beneath their feet. Stones and soil pattered and slithered down between the timbers. ‘All right!’ said Vansha. ‘I’ll do all you want, so long as it doesn’t take me from my search.’

  ‘Wisely spoke, young sir,’ said Chuen, without turning. ‘It won’t. Just let ’em see the men that got in here by the Dead Stair, that’s all.’ Rysha snorted, and Chuen looked puzzled. The dim shapes around them hurried them on.

  Alya noticed that the air was growing colder, with a heavy tinge of damp, and the earthen smell changin
g to one less clean.

  ‘Nitre and human stench,’ hissed Rysha. ‘Back in the dungeons, like I said.’

  ‘And sulphur,’ said Alya thoughtfully. ‘The earthfires, no doubt.’

  ‘Breath of Hella!’ exclaimed Vansha, and spat. ‘It stinks like a whole army, down here!’

  Chuen’s outthrust arm stopped him. ‘Well it may, young sir. Well it may!’

  He held up his torch, and touched another, angled on the wall, so it billowed into flame. Another awoke, and another, dazzling lights in the dark; and with them, out of utter silence, a tense rumbling roar. The torches flared back into the distance, one by one. They were still in a tunnel, but it was a wider one and straighter, and some of it sheathed and floored with stone, though in many places repaired or supported with props and timbers. It stretched out straight before them, lined with hundreds of the torches; and every one glinted on intent eyes.

  Chuen stood behind them, among six or seven other men of his stamp, burly and well-fed. But along the passageway crowded figures of another kind. They looked up from under bent brows, as if looking up was their natural way. Alya could see little else of them save outlines – hunched shoulders, ragged garments, makeshift hoods or hats, or simply spiky hair bound in rags. Here and there the torchlight showed something more, leathery faces expressionless, unreadable; and they were silent, always silent. Loose sandal soles flopped and slapped on the stone, but no word was spoken. There must be several hundred of them, squashed in shoulder to shoulder along the walls; but they did not look like an army, though here and there light gleamed on a chipped obsidian dagger or caught the curve of a stone-headed axe. They did not look like anything.

  ‘So these are your sizzling firebrands!’ said Vansha drily.

  ‘No,’ Chuen answered, no less calmly. ‘Just their captains. Don’t mistake their look; you learn that early here, or never, and only headmen lose it. They’re eager to hear you, believe me! Just go among them, follow the passage, answer what they ask; most will understand. Then we’ve food and rest for you!’

  ‘At the far end, naturally!’ said Vansha.

  ‘There,’ agreed Chuen stolidly, without argument or aggression. ‘Well, sirs?’

  Alya hesitated, desperately weary, unable to think what to say to these featureless faces. It had seemed so easy, dragging people off on a hopeless quest, from dungeons no less hopeless, or from the subtler prison of an empty existence. But he had seen too many of them die, too recently. Their deaths had hardly sunk in yet, Asquan’s especially. Was he to send all these folk to their deaths as well? He knew how little hope he could truly give them.

  Vansha suddenly pushed past him. ‘Allow me, brother!’ he whispered, and stood tall in the torchlight, throwing his arms wide, so that his stained cloak fell away from his dully gleaming mail. There was a collective whispering rumble in the passage. And indeed he looked every bit the hero, thought Alya; every bit the man to follow. Vansha bowed deep to the assembly of eyes, and then, glancing back at the others, he led the way into the crowd.

  They clustered in around the three, as they pushed through. Hands seized theirs, plucked at their cloaks and mail and swordhilts, or simply touched them as if to be sure they were not some kind of vision. And the voices around them asked the same questions over and over again, and they gave the same answers.

  ‘From outside, for truth? From where?’

  ‘From the south. Volmur’s realm. Many weeks’ journey.’

  ‘Why’d you come?’

  Vansha’s constant answer echoed Chuen. ‘For rescue. And revenge!’

  ‘You really came in through the River Gate? For truth?’

  ‘Up the Dead Stair?’

  Alya nodded soberly. ‘Yes! Wet, dangerous; some were killed. But, as you see, we’re here!’

  ‘You’re warriors, heroes! Could we do it?’ demanded others, and again they echoed him, crowding around in the corridor till it filled with smoke and the stink of filthy humanity. ‘Could we? Just us? For truth?’

  For truth, for truth; always for truth.

  ‘Enough of you could!’ barked Vansha, with clenched fist. ‘Enough determined folk could force a way!’

  ‘And then you’d have the current on your side, if you could find boats!’ added Alya. ‘Or take them! The guard was strong enough for us, but there’s many more of you!’

  ‘But wouldn’t it be quicker just climbing up the far side of the vale, where it’s lower?’ objected Rysha. ‘Make a break across the Ice, like! It’s not that far!’

  ‘Wouldn’t be, but for the Ice!’ snorted Chuen.

  ‘Aye,’ growled other voices. ‘Wards this place like a whole pack o’ hounds!’

  ‘It’s been tried!’ said others. ‘They didn’t make it. Saw some heads. Can’t be done. The cold, by night; and the watchers.’

  ‘Can do your actual climb, easy!’ added one younger man in the crowd. ‘But can’t walk on the friggin’ Ice, once you’re there! Dead smooth, that bit, save where the road goes – and they watch it! You fall, you go slow, and every breath you’re breathing ice crystals, every step sucks the heat from your marrow. Got to go around, further back, maybe!’

  ‘Fat chance!’ sneered another, hard-faced and harsh-voiced. ‘There’s fuckin’ ribs ‘n’ cracks ’n’ crevasses, might hide you awhile sure, but that’d take you a week or more to get by! You wouldn’t live so long up there. Not even if you took a cow with you!’ A certain amount of harsh laughter broke out among the crowd.

  ‘A cow?’ asked Alya, puzzled. ‘I’d have thought that’d be a bit of a handicap, wouldn’t it?’

  More laughter. Behind him Chuen coughed. ‘That’s a kind of a way of speaking some folks have around here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ sneered someone else in the crowd. ‘Way of speakin’. Want t’know what it means? It’s when a couple of big strong lads want t’get out, across the Ice. And they take another with ’em. Not so strong, somebody who’s glad to get the chance o’ taggin’ along – lad or a girl, like. Maybe one they’re lookin’ after already, if you take my meanin’. Only there’s no food out on the Ice; and you can’t hardly carry enough. An’ food’s all that keeps your blood flowing. So …’

  Alya swallowed. ‘You mean—’

  ‘Aye. They’re the cow, see? Rations, like. On the hoof!’ More harsh laughter.

  ‘The human spirit!’ said Rysha mockingly.

  ‘No!’ said Alya fiercely. ‘The spirit of the Ice!’

  ‘That’s right!’ barked Chuen, unexpectedly, radiating fierce anger. ‘Looks down on all humans, because it can make some sink down t’that. And worse! And that’s why it don’t do t’be making a mock of it, man! Else what’s the point of escape?’

  The laughter faded under the heat of his anger. ‘That’s right,’ Chuen nodded. ‘You just stand back an’ let these lords through. They’re an example t’us all!’

  ‘Some died!’ said other voices. ‘They said it!’

  Vansha nodded. ‘There was a price to pay. Folk died. But lives are cheap coin, when they’re hostage to the Ice. And at least they died free.’

  Did they? whispered Alya’s doubts. Or were they held in thrall by the power I was given – as I may be?

  But that was enough to silence the doubters, it seemed. From then on the questions were more hopeful, the touching almost reverent; and when they reached the end of that long corridor Chuen let out a long hissing sigh, and rubbed his hands. So did the other headmen, grimly cheerful. ‘That’s what was wanted, young sir! Oh, don’t take the ill things said amiss. Hope don’t leap in the spirit, not any more. There’s been too much done! But they heard you, they did.’

  ‘That is so!’ put in one of the others, with a fierce flash of teeth. ‘Many years, many times, we have stood on the brink, only to slink back. Too much fear, too little hope.’ He whipped out his black dagger and cut at the air. ‘Now we may spring! Tonight, even! While they busy themselves with their arming!’

  A lean old man nodded sombrely, tugging his st
raggly white whiskers. ‘Enough of lingering! Enough of hanging back like whipped curs! No better time! No hotter blood! Hungry to be spilt! Now!’

  Chuen and the rest growled, but not in agreement. ‘Spilt, maybe, but not wasted!’ snapped one.

  ‘Aye. We’re ready, but we still must pick the moment! A day, at the least, maybe two.’

  Chuen nodded. ‘Won’t hurt us to hold hard.’

  ‘Nor us to rest!’ grinned Vansha, and winked at Alya. ‘Now, we wouldn’t mind that food; and we have our own ends to consider. We need to track down this girl we seek.’

  The older headman leered. ‘She young, she fair? Most like she’s at the palace, then, if she yet lives. Hundreds o’ young things go there. Just as She likes ’em!’ He cackled nastily. ‘Best get yours away fast, right enough, little lad!’

  ‘I’ve cause to believe she’s there, indeed,’ put in Alya.

  They looked at him. ‘Cause?’

  ‘I have … I had ways. I … saw her.’

  ‘You’re a Farseer?’ demanded Chuen. The old man drew breath suddenly.

  ‘I am a Seer, as we call it. Though my training was not brought to the full.’

  ‘What’s amiss with that?’ demanded Vansha. The others were looking doubtfully at one another, and here and there a hand even strayed to dagger or axe.

  Chuen bit his lip. ‘Here only the Ekwesh have Farseers! It’s not a good name to us. Though I’ll allow that legend tells of some among the thralls, once.’

  ‘That is so!’ rumbled a fat headman, his bald head dented by an appalling scar. ‘Farseers and shamans could see things uncanny, it’s said. But even they ended up here, for all that. And even those as weren’t picked out and slain, the stories say their Sight grew dim and failed ’em, so hard the Ice oppressed their spirits!’

  ‘I could believe that!’ said Alya feelingly, seeing the doubters relax. ‘In any event, I can do little now. The … means of my Seeing were lost in the river.’

  ‘But he can still fight!’ exclaimed Vansha, glaring around as if trying to fascinate them all. ‘He has strength beyond human! Enough to pull down this roof around us all, if he chose! The Powers bestowed it on him, those who love life and hate the Ice! The Powers, in person!’