Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  The chieftains stepped back a pace, in awe. It was Vansha they seemed to respond to, much as Kalkan had; and Alya could see him playing on that. Had he been leading Kalkan thus, too? An interesting question, maybe, if Alya hadn’t been so weary. There were other answers he wanted, too, gnawing at him despite his exhaustion. Maybe that was souring his view. He would be wiser to wait, maybe, and be more persuasive to their new friends.

  He clapped hand to sword, and his mailshirt rippled and rang. Rysha jerked awake; she had been asleep on her feet, literally. ‘I have that strength!’ he said, and let pride tinge his voice. That they would understand. ‘But I still need rest and food, if it can be found. So does this woman; for she also has arts that have served us well.’

  Chuen visibly came to a decision, and clapped his hands. ‘Well, you’ve served us well. You shall have ’em. And …’ He smacked his lips thoughtfully. ‘Come the morrow, we’ll bring you in sight of the palace, if no closer. You can watch the comings and goings, see if your girl’s among them. More of our folk are being sent to labour there, what with these new campaigns. I’ve occasion to pass word to our eyes and ears there. I’ll also ask them of her – and about Her.’

  There was no mistaking the emphasis. Alya caught his arm, and Chuen looked startled at the force of it. ‘You’ve heard something, haven’t you? Already.’

  ‘Nothing I’m sure enough of,’ he grunted. ‘There is this great lady or princess from far to the East … and others, maybe another …’

  ‘She is no princess,’ said Alya keenly, ‘though she should have been. Just a … a headman’s daughter.’

  Chuen looked away a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll put word out, ’s best I can. But so many clouds gather! The Ice busies itself, even as we do. That may affect our plan. Come eat!’

  The food was bad beyond belief, a thick coarse paste of boiled grains too long in store and half fermented, leavened with scraps of leathery smoked fish and rancid fat, and cold meltwater to drink. Yet it was obviously the very best these poor folk had put aside, and the newcomers ate with what grace they could. Rysha bore it best, and had scarcely wiped out her bowl and licked her bony fingers than she collapsed on the heap of rags and skins set out for them, in the little side-chamber. Vansha carefully made no complaint, not the slightest, yet somehow Alya was left in no doubt what he thought.

  He himself envied Rysha, fearing what sleep would summon from memory. Yet when he also sank down among the rags, what filled his mind was the falling of vast towers of stone, taller and fairer far than the grey bastions here, and voices rising in a wave to greet a roaring wash of flame. He woke in a sweat, to feel the world shivering beneath him.

  ‘The earth again!’ said Vansha softly, invisible in the blackness. ‘What a place!’

  ‘How long have we slept?’ demanded Alya, through gummy lips.

  ‘How should I know? I’m hardly awake myself. Long, I think. Almost long enough, even. Powers, I was ready to drop!’

  ‘I too.’ Alya groped around for the jar of meltwater, rinsed his mouth and his face. ‘And sick at heart. I could hardly string one word on another. You did better.’

  ‘Is that the water there? Oh, I remembered Savi’s father speechifying, that’s all. And mine, spinning a few words to console folk for a bad harvest or a family quarrel. Send them off happy, that’s the knack. Doesn’t have to mean anything much. But there was something I kept wanting to ask about—’

  ‘Me too. Many things, but one most of all. Apart from Savi.’

  Vansha, sloshing water in the darkness, sounded surprised. ‘What about her?’

  Alya was startled. ‘Well …’

  ‘What difference would any of it make?’

  Alya felt suddenly violently ashamed of himself, of his doubts, in the face of Vansha’s assurance. But he could not help remembering that glimpse, how strange she had looked in that rich-hued gown. ‘If she still … would want to be rescued?’

  Vansha’s tone was puzzled. ‘Why should that worry you? They stole her, we’ve come for her, we’ll take her. Or die trying. Either way, there the tale ends.’

  Alya sat back in the darkness. ‘Does it?’

  There was a dull creak, and light flooded across them. Blinding it seemed, though it was only a tiny grease-lamp guttering in the hand of a headman. ‘Heard your voices. Slept your fill? Good. Come eat again, then, and we will take you on your path. Dark approaches.’

  ‘Dark?’ demanded Rysha, sitting up, hawking and spitting. ‘How long’ve we slept?’

  ‘A night and most of the day following. And much has been in train, the while.’

  ‘I’ll say!’ She thrust a hand down her breeches and scratched vigorously. ‘We didn’t sleep alone, either. Well, I need food. And before that—’

  The headman shrugged at her question. ‘In the corner. Where else?’

  ‘Where else?’ grunted Vansha under his breath, as they went out. He too was scratching. ‘What’s one more stink among so many? The place is a wallowing sty!’

  ‘Is it their fault? At least they’re trying to climb out!’ Alya caught up with the headman. ‘You said much was happening. Among us, or the Ice?’

  ‘Both!’ grunted the headman. ‘Last night’s words blow across the town like sparks from a lee fire! Where they alight, they kindle, and men strain at their chains – aye, women and children too! The mood’s ugly. And all the more so, ’cause now they’re being hounded more fiercely than usual. Seems the Ice believes you came to spy upon this new assault they’re preparing, so they’re pushing ahead—’

  Alya caught his arm. ‘I meant to ask! You keep talking of new campaigns, assaults – against what?’

  ‘Against men!’ said Chuen, rolling out of a side-passage. ‘As ever. You’d know better than we what kingdoms there are out there. But it’s one o’ them the Ice means to drive against once more, and in force. They don’t say where, o’ course, save to their chiefs. But it’s no mere raid. They’ve been marshalling their forces from all over the Ice, for months past now, laying in great stores, arming, drilling. Even recruiting any thralls they think worthy – you can guess what that means!’ He spat contempt.

  Alya felt a terrible cold urgency. ‘Against the realms in the east, by the Sea? Or to the south and west? Or against others we don’t know of, further westward maybe?’

  Chuen rasped his bristly chin. ‘Oh, to the suth’ard, I’d guess; but that’s all I know. You heard any more, Tjan?’

  The other man shrugged. ‘Not much. A city with walls, I guess. A strong one, with those siege machines they’ve been building, special ones as come to bits again. So they can be floated downriver in barges, they say, an’ built again nearer the spot.’

  ‘Downriver!’ exclaimed Alya.

  Vansha nodded. ‘Wager you a grain to a loaf it’s Volmur!’

  ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer fat bastard!’ grunted Rysha. ‘We should worry or something? Let’s eat.’

  It was only plain boiled meal, with a little salted fat, but that actually tasted better than before; and there was even a draught of wine, thin and sour, but heartening. Alya found himself thinking more clearly. ‘Against Volmur first. But I guess that’s because they wish to strike further afield, the realms of the coast perhaps. His kingdom sits on their main path south. He could harry them sorely if he chose.’

  ‘If!’ said Rysha contemptuously. ‘If he grew his balls back, like!’

  ‘He might, if he saw them out in force. He’d know it would be him next, or his sons.’

  Vansha nodded. ‘He’s not a fool, whatever else. You see clearly, as usual, brother. But what difference does it make to us?’

  ‘I don’t know. If we could use it, somehow …Chuen, you say the revolt’s spreading. When will it strike?’

  Chuen looked stolid. ‘Soon. Very soon. No insult, young lords, but I will not say when. Few know, few tell. Especially if taken!’

  ‘But we must have our chance!’

  ‘Without us, how much of a chance,
my lords? Even you! Oh aye, you might ha’ gotten into that fell place, maybe – but out? And then away, with the eyes of the Ice upon you? But if those eyes are good and blackened, why, you’ve more of a chance, don’t you?’

  It was too sensible to contest. ‘So what have you in mind?’ demanded Vansha.

  Chuen grinned. ‘There’s supply caravans coming in all the time now, headin’ up to the great storehouses near the palace. We can borrow a cart here and there, make up one of our own. You go with it, break away, climb the hillside, get a good view over the palace. Watch the comings and goings, seek a way in.’

  ‘But won’t we be obvious outsiders?’

  ‘Had a mind to help you with that …’ grinned Chuen widely.

  The cause of the grin soon became apparent. Alya rubbed another layer of filthy grease on to his features, and submitted patiently while an old woman streaked him with heavy white face-paint. ‘What clan you want?’ she demanded. ‘Bear? Otter? Elk? Raven?’

  ‘Raven …’ echoed Alya softly, amazed there was such a thing; and she took it as an answer, seaming his cheeks with long white feather shapes. She held up a scrap of polished bronze, and he was startled at the lowering image that stared back at him, as blank and drained of humanity as any Ekwesh. He had feared his face would be too young, not hard enough; but what he saw there was gaunt and flinty. Less scarred than most, but Chuen thought that normal enough for a young man. Vansha looked worse, his handsome features dimmed and his scowl more obvious. Alya shook his head. ‘So little, to make us what we most hate! Remember what Oshur said? Any of us might be Aikiya’wahsa, indeed!’

  Rysha took to it better than either. Women were chattels to the Ekwesh, little better than domestic animals and seldom free to go about; but her lined bony face and raw-boned body looked mannish enough beneath the black leather armour. She seemed almost to relish wearing it. But though Chuen objected, she refastened a soiled scrap of black silk about her throat. ‘They’ll not see it, under the cloak; and it’s too bloody cold up here, earthfires or no!’

  Alya wondered, for he did not find it so, despite the occasional chill gusts. They soon ceased to care, though, as they sweated and toiled their way up from the lower slopes of the town. The carts Chuen had found for them were ancient, ramshackle contraptions, impossibly unwieldy. Alya had feared they would be conspicuous, till he saw others as bad or worse rattling and skidding across the uneven dirt roads. Only the caravans from outside looked at all well made, and the huge war engines that seemed to rear up like monsters behind walls. One, a great bow set upon a sloping bed and a heavy wagon, came rumbling out of a side-street, hauled by long ropes of straining thralls, with another flat cart behind to carry bolts twice the length of a man. Its huge wheels rode over the ruts and pits, but theirs could not. At every dip or rise they all had to put their shoulders to the sides and spokes, and it was no effort at all to do as the other caravan leaders did, and curse and flail at the sullen oxen that hauled them, and the ragged drivers who never raised their eyes or spoke. Nonetheless Alya let his lash fall on the cart timbers, when he could.

  Other warriors paid them little heed. At first Alya kept his hand on his sword, hidden below the cover of a cart. He had had practice enough in understanding their dialect, but doubted he could speak it himself. He soon found, though, that a wordless bellow or grunt was enough to clear folk out of the way – in case, he suspected, they were roped in to help. The Ekwesh stabbing spear Vansha twirled irritably in his hands may also have helped. Only when a band of horsemen came cantering down the open way, spraying filthy mud from their hooves, did they have to check; and even then an abusive-sounding shout turned them aside.

  ‘Well, you know what you’re about, Chuen!’ whispered Alya, as the wagons splashed and skidded on their way. ‘Nobody so much as looked twice.’

  ‘There’s too many such caravans!’ said the headman, pretending to be examining a rusty wheel boss. ‘But leave its shelter, and the tale will change! And in the upper reaches, here, we must be more careful than before. Here’s the homes of the chieftains, before whom common warriors are little better than slaves. And where strange things are done! Strange rites worked in the shadow of—’ He cocked his head at the slopes above. ‘See there!’

  The light was long and low now, the sun already stabbing down between the Ice-cliffs, the shadows deepening. Fires were being lit, and among the higher buildings here they sprang up around an open space of trodden soil, ringed not by a wall, but tall jagged standing stones, like teeth. At the back of it, low and sinister, was a squat building, little more than a long hut made of slabs of unhewn stone, with crude wooden doors stopping its single opening, smoky and rotten-looking. Even for this place it seemed impossibly primitive, surrounded by the harsh stone towers; and it looked old. The earth was bare, but moss and green lichen clouded the stones. Slime gleamed on its roof.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t stand and stare, man!’ hissed the headman. ‘Sidelong! Look sidelong! Even warriors’d hardly stare at the Mouth!’

  ‘Mouth?’ whispered Rysha. ‘Some mouth! What of? If that’s a mouth, where’s the throat, then?’

  Chuen shivered. ‘Not that kind of mouth. Like – a crevice, an opening. That speaks.’

  ‘An oracle, you mean?’ Alya was puzzled. ‘What would they want that for, with the voice of the Ice among them?’

  Chuen shivered angrily. ‘Don’t use that name! I told you, they do things there, the chieftains, the shamans. Rites, dancing, other things! Out in the circle, and in the House behind. And folks say that – something speaks to them. Some … things, don’t know what. Like through a crack in a wall, or something.’

  Alya felt a sudden shiver of recognition. ‘In a Wall?’

  ‘Yeah! That’s what I said, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I was being slow. And these rites, these dances – they dance in masks, don’t they?’

  ‘See for your bloody self!’ hissed Chuen. ‘But don’t be caught looking!’

  There were men gathering, men mostly taller than the warriors who bore spears and torches before them. And they were clad, not in thralls’ rags or black-and-white armour, but long, heavy-looking gowns of black or dull yellow, painted or broidered with designs in many glaring colours. Beast-heads, man-heads, white and red on black, black and red on yellow; but always faces, staring, leering as it seemed. They moved with deliberate and arrogant dignity, those men, as chiefs to solemn council; but when they met at the gate of the Mouth, pushing past their followers, they plunged into furious talk. A fierce low hubbub arose around the stones, enough to attract attention. But it was as Chuen had said; it attracted the opposite. For those who passed by averted their eyes, and even the followers moved hastily away and squatted in the shadow of the stones, as men who seek shelter from nearing thunder.

  It was a relief to get by at last, toiling all too slowly up the hill; and yet that vicious-looking circle, and the milling chieftains around it, seemed to draw Alya’s eyes back. Then, as they hauled and heaved, the hubbub faded quite suddenly, and he saw men staring up the hill, and pointing. For a moment Alya feared they had been discovered, until he looked ahead. A double line of torches was advancing down the slope, striding warriors flanking a single cloaked figure tall and burly even for a well-fed chieftain. He walked stooping, as with age, under his broad-brimmed hat. But Alya, pretending to be engrossed in heaving a wheel out of a rut, caught sight of a heavy, seamed cheek, streaked with white claw shapes, and above a blade of a nose, a flash of black eyes intent, preoccupied, that marked, surveyed and dismissed him, along with all else in the scene, in remote contempt.

  It was a frightening face; yet it alone did not cause the fear that washed through Alya then, but another, that bobbed at its belt like the severed head of an enemy. It was a little battered, no more; hardly disfigured, so there was no mistaking it, the intent, red-rimmed eyes, the crooked sky-beak. It was the mask of Raven. Not another like it, for Alya knew every line and mark upon it. It
was his own mask, that he had deemed lost in the turmoil of the rapids far below.

  Chuen’s massive hand fixed on his arm; but it took Vansha’s also to drag him down behind the cart again. ‘I told you, don’t stare!’ hissed the frantic headman. ‘You could ha’ doomed us all!’

  ‘That mask! Maybe I already have.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vansha, that’s mine! My father’s! They must have found it, somehow! I must get it back!’

  Vansha snorted. ‘Brother, sorry, I know how much it means to you – but surely—’

  Alya’s hand clamped on his arm. ‘Don’t you understand? That’s my mask! That’s me, almost! As good as! If their shamans try to find out about it, wear it, seek with it – and I guess they mean to! – then they’ll have me, all of me!’

  ‘What’re you babblin’ about?’ demanded Chuen, horrified.

  ‘I mean that the first thing they’ll come to’s the mind of its owner! And when they find it, they’ll be able to read my every thought, if nothing worse! See everything I see, hear every word, feel what I feel – all! And everything I have seen, ever. Every memory I have!’

  ‘Wait a bloody moment!’ breathed Chuen. ‘You’ve seen – you know—’

  ‘The plot! Every word! Every face! Everything, even in the last couple of days!’ Alya stared down at his shaking hands. ‘They might even be able to control me, to turn me against you …’

  Rysha stifled a cry. Vansha went white under the layer of grease. Concern, or fear? Alya felt almost wryly flattered.

  But Chuen slapped at his forehead in anguish. ‘I knew I should have friggin’ blindfolded you, all of you! But I guessed you’d stand around arguing like the fool outsiders you are – and there wasn’t time! Figured if you were no good to us, you wouldn’t be coming out again! And bloody sight better you never had!’ His hand clutched the hilt of a dagger beneath his rags. Rysha half rose, hesitated, hand to mouth; Vansha crouched motionless, as if in horror.