Shadow of the Seer

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘Shouldn’t we go now?’ demanded Vansha. ‘Enough’ll be happening by the time we get near! We don’t want to find the streets blocked.’

  ‘We’d go by the rooftops,’ grinned Alya. But he too was growing impatient. ‘You’re right, though. No fighting unless we have to. Reach the palace and slip inside. Chuen, we must thank you and leave you!’

  ‘Thank me?’ Chuen grinned. ‘Maybe you guess how much we owe to you, young sirs, and you, lady. I’m loath to let you go. But we must move soon ourselves! Our task’s to clear the roads out of the town, when the Ekwesh start to barricade them, and you can wager that’ll be happening soon! If you came with us—’ He chuckled, the kindliest sound Alya had heard from him. ‘But you won’t, of course. That’s not what heroes do. Still, if you find yourselves among us as we escape … well, feel free to come along!’

  ‘As you escape …’ grinned Alya. ‘May you do so, headman, and find a better life indeed. Rysha, are you ready? I can get us to the palace, but we’re going to need you once we’re in.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Rysha stolidly. ‘I’m not coming.’

  Vansha gaped. ‘What? Why, you flyblown bitch, you’ll come or—’

  Alya silenced him with a lifted hand. ‘Why not, Rysha? Are you scared?’

  ‘I bloody well am,’ she said; but evenly. ‘Aren’t you? But it’s not that. I’m not going. I stay here, with the others. Fight or die, this is where I belong.’

  Even Chuen looked startled. She laughed, harshly enough; and yet it sounded different from before. ‘You ought to understand, boy. Remember? When I said I’d have broken my oath lightly enough – if there’d ever been anywhere to go to. I didn’t understand then, either. I thought I was looking for good places. I wasn’t.’

  She waved a hand out towards the town. This is what I sought. Nobody can look down on me here. Nobody can crap all over me for what I’ve done or how I look, or who I choose to rub myself up against. You heard Chuen. Everyone here’s done things as bad, like, or worse. I’m nothing special. I don’t stink any worse. I’m not wearing fetters among you, any more. This is my level, this.’

  ‘The gutter!’ sneered Vansha.

  ‘Lower,’ she said, still evenly. ‘To become a gutter, a sink for others’ filth. And yet look at them! So low, yet they’re still defiant, still hungering to rise. Well, that’s the folk I belong with. If they can rise, then maybe so can I. Funny, isn’t it? Asquan, he found what he needed here; and so have I.’

  ‘But we seek what we need, Rysha!’ protested Alya. ‘And you did swear to help us to the end, didn’t you?’

  Rysha’s lined face twisted. ‘Some might say I have, already. You’ve seen your ladylove, and one way or another, the end is here. Yet I do mean to help.’

  ‘How? We need your craft!’

  ‘I don’t have any craft, boy. Not as you have, anyhow. Not within. See this!’ And she unknotted the dark rag from her neck, loosing a stray curl of her matted hair. ‘Look close – aye, closer, I won’t bite!’ She rolled something in her fingers, freeing it gradually.

  ‘A bit of twig?’ exclaimed Alya, puzzled. It looked old and dry and half decayed, though it gleamed with grease from her hair.

  She smirked. ‘Even a twig may stem from a great forest! The one that once carpeted the land before the Ice came, they say. Tall trees, that cast long shadows, maybe far beneath where we stand now; and within them dwelt the Lord of the Forest, that men once called Inch’an, or Ljyest in your tongue, or Tapiau. Quite a scholard, aren’t I? But those names, they were handed down in my family. Some ancestor of mine once served that Lord a good turn, somehow. I don’t know how; all the stories sounded made up, to me. But he got given a gift that the Forest’s said to give, in tales; a talisman. No more than a branch, but within it … shadow. The deepest night in the darkest dell, that never sun could pierce; and bearing it he could pass unseen, and shape sights within it to his will. My line kept that branch, though it was broken, divided, lessened in power; and though fate and the Ice ground us down, yet always we survived, because of the darkness in our hand.’

  She shrugged. ‘Much good it did us, at the end! There might be other fragments; but I’ve no living kin I know of, or care to. My father was the last, who whored me out each night to feed his drinking. I took this from him, and he died. Nobody ever took it from me, not though they stripped and raped me. They thought it just one more scrap of dirt. And so it was, and it crumbles fast. It deserves a better fortune at the last; and for that I give it you! I guess you’d suit the Giver well enough. Bind it in your hair as I did, and where there’s shadow to build on it’ll follow your will. Shapes – they’re harder, need time. Best left.’

  Alya rolled the little fragment in his fingers. It smelt of her stale hair. ‘A great gift, Rysha, and I thank you. But it could save your life in all this! I cannot take it.’

  ‘It’s given,’ said the woman curtly. ‘Me, now, I’ll skulk in shadow no more. Neither another’s shadow nor another’s light. What I have, I’ll make for myself.’

  Vansha shook his head, uncomprehending. Alya saw what he had always seen, the bleak lined face, the hard hands that had stolen sleeping lives – more, he guessed, than any would ever know. But he caught those hands in his own, nonetheless. ‘Rysha, I hope you do! As much as anything I hope for myself.’

  ‘Then you’re a fool; but I knew that. A shame I’ll not set eyes on this poppet of yours, to see if she were worth the trouble; but then I might’ve got jealous. Now get off with you. And give her a good one for me!’

  Vansha looked at her sourly, but Alya chuckled with the rest. Chuen boosted him out over the rim of the gully on to the stony slope, and as he pulled Vansha after him, he saw them wave briefly, before ducking down once again. And that was the last he ever saw of Rysha the murderess, and of Chuen the headman; and whether they perished like so many amid the tumult of that day, or escaped at last into whatever semblance of freedom and a new life the outer lands could offer, no Chronicles or legends record.

  Vansha did not look back. ‘Give her one … The dirty bitch! How you could laugh, I don’t know. Glad to be shot of her fell company, at long last!’

  Alya was fastening the twig among his hair. ‘She’s an odd creature. But if half she says of her past is true, that’s no surprise. Or she may simply have made it up to explain the kind of creature she is.’

  Vansha looked askance at him. ‘What’s this? The wise Seer knows all?’

  ‘Tries to, maybe; since I’ve begun to look into other minds. It needn’t excuse anything. Those Ekwesh last night – pure evil, whatever one could understand. Whatever was decent there once, it’s withered or been leached away. You can do that with folk, I guess. But not with her. At least, not now.’

  Vansha was silent awhile, as they slipped and slithered from boulder to boulder, keeping an eye on the town and the growing uproar. ‘And Savi? What do you understand about her?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her for more than an instant! And that in visions. We couldn’t speak, not in words.’

  ‘You know what I mean!’ exclaimed Vansha fiercely. ‘She and this weird Ice-witch … Would Savi, of all people …’

  Alya fought down his ill-formed concern. ‘How would I know? But I know her, and you do too. I trust her heart!’

  ‘She has a good heart,’ said Vansha; and then, moodily, ‘Too good. She’s just a child. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, yet.’

  ‘If that was ever true—’ Alya skidded on the stones, and had to fight for balance. ‘Do you think it will be now? After what she’s been through?’

  Vansha’s voice tautened with anger. ‘Yes! I keep on thinking about that. What she must have seen and felt … And we couldn’t do a thing to shield her! Not one louse-ridden thing!’

  ‘Unless we’d somehow rescued her right at the start. Just the two of us.’

  Vansha sighed. ‘If I’d known then what I know about us now, you and I, I might just have ventured it. No; I suppose we’d al
l have died, nonetheless. But Savi! If they’ve hurt her, changed her …’ His hand went to his sword.

  ‘We’ll find out. Maybe she can be healed, if hurt. Changed back.’

  Vansha nodded. ‘Maybe, yes. That’s true. With time. The sooner we start, the better. Look there!’

  They were down at rooftop level by now, with tall outcrops to shelter them, and they could look into the streets of the lower town. ‘Like a river in spate!’ exclaimed Vansha, awed.

  ‘Or the salmon spawning!’ breathed Alya.

  And indeed it was like both, a rolling press of bodies that surged this way and that, and here and there exploded into frenzied fighting and death. There was no solid line of battle, only scattered groups striking against one another amid the throng. While the bands of Ekwesh held their disciplined shieldwall, the thralls piled up and died against it; but they were hurled forward by weight of numbers, unable even to fall, crushed back against their slayers. Then sooner or later the shield wall would break, and the howling mob roll over them. Alya saw men torn apart by clusters of bare hands, and their ragged limbs hurled in the air and scattered every way, like chaff.

  ‘If that spreads to the upper town—’

  Vansha was up and running, drawing his sword, and Alya at his heels. Then, they would never get through. Safe or not, their one chance was now.

  As they clattered down into the first small side-streets of the upper town, they found them almost empty, save for drifting clouds of smoke. Guards had left their posts, called or fled, and only a few thralls were wandering about uncertainly. At the sight of two apparent Ekwesh running with drawn swords, they wisely fled. Alya slowed a little, and Vansha nodded. There might be more running, soon; and it was as well not to rush too sharply around corners.

  They confirmed that almost at once. There were Ekwesh there, a dozen or so of them with draught-oxen hauling one of the great war-machines into position, to fire down the straight slope of the street into the town. They rounded on the newcomers, then relaxed as they saw armour of their own kind. Alya pushed past them with a growl, and they made way for what looked like a chieftain; but one of them shouted something at Vansha as he passed, and when he made no answer, seized his arm. Vansha was about to cut him down. But Alya, with a roar of anger, smacked the warrior across the face so hard he spun around and fell in the mire, then grabbed Vansha, kicked him and hurried him on as if on some urgent errand, ignoring the others.

  ‘That’s how they run things here!’ he whispered to Vansha, who did not seem too grateful.

  ‘Really had to boot me in the arse, did you?’

  ‘Sorry. In character. But that’s how we’ll play it next time. No fighting unless we have to.’

  ‘Something tells me that won’t be long!’

  Vansha was right, for as they crossed the slimy stones around the base of one of the stark towers, they ran straight into a running fight, a press of warriors driving back a much larger mass of thralls, who had no weapons but the stones they tore from the ground. The fight swirled around them before they could react, and there was no way past either side; so they turned and struck at the startled Ekwesh. They were not warriors for nothing; they rounded on the newcomers almost as quickly, but Alya felled two of them with great slashing blows, Vansha cut the arm from another, and then the thralls were at the gap and swarming over them. In minutes some twenty warriors lay dead on the street, and the slaves were snatching up their arms.

  ‘We’re with Chuen!’ panted Vansha, as they showed signs of turning on him in the frenzy of revolt. He brandished his bloody sword. ‘Are you with us? To the palace!’

  The cheer was more like a maniac’s howl, but they followed. The next band of Ekwesh, a patrol of six, took one look at the mob and ran. Some thralls streamed after them, beyond recall, but enough remained to clear their way, and others, seeing a force with some purpose, fell in with them, in swiftly growing numbers.

  ‘This is a howling mob!’ gasped Alya as they ran. ‘Not an army!’

  ‘They’ll serve!’ panted Vansha.

  ‘But I wanted to slip into the palace!’

  ‘There’ll still be guards! See!’

  There were guards, indeed, though no more than usual; at their stations, or pacing with an anxious air about the almost deserted square. There was no holding back the mob, though. At the mere sight of their armour, the maddened thralls streamed across the cobbles of the square and up the stairs, and poured out on to the white marble court with appalling speed. The guards were taken by surprise. One, at the far station, ran to wind his horn, but fell under a pelting rain of stones. A pitched battle broke out, and Alya slapped Vansha’s shoulder and pointed. A group of women who had been standing on the steps were trying to reach the palace, and in danger of being cut off. Brandishing his sword, he began working around to them, with Vansha following. Out of the mêlée a thrall ran at them with a captured spear, but Vansha seized the shaft and knocked the wielder spinning, while Alya ushered the frightened women towards the huge palace doors. They were closing swiftly, but Alya hurled himself into the gap and forced them back, while Vansha chivvied the shrieking women inside. Then they ducked after them, and slammed the doors back against their own crazed allies.

  The great valves closed with a dull boom that echoed massively in the building; so did the rattle and clank of the huge bars that frightened servants thrust home. Alya and Vansha fell back against the doors, panting, hardly feeling the blows that rained against the metal outside. They were inside. It was as simple as that; and as daunting. For never in their lives had either young man been inside such a place as this; and cunning and subtle minds had shaped it to impress even the strongest of mere men.

  Tall antechamber; outreaching hall; walls painted and hung; column after column blazing with shifting light, filling the air with jewelled flashes; vast arching roof and soaring dome with patterns of mighty stars, Alya and Vansha saw it all as Savi had done, but with different eyes. Alya had looked not only upon the majestic mountain-walls of the Ice, but into the minds of its brutal followers; and both had fought the guardian dead that stood fearful sentinel at its gates.

  They knew how little use the Ice had for such display as this, for the sweet scents of the air and the faint song of music, save to show how fully it understood the aspirations of men, and how bitterly it scorned them. Any man, any woman might long to dwell in such a vision of grace and majesty, to have such servants scurrying to serve them, to command the forces that governed the shifting hues of the columns and the powers unguessed-at that Alya sensed lurking here. It had been created for that purpose; to house regal humanity, or something in its guise, in the greatest height of luxury and dignity – but also to mock it.

  Awesome as this was, against the infinitely wider dome of the wintry sky, jewelled with the stars, hung with the rippling curtains of the Northlights and the fierce strong music of the winds; against the glaciers it covered, with their draperies of crystalline snow and their luminescent caverns; against an immortal beauty, this whole vast place seemed cheap and foolish, hardly distinguishable from the meanest hut or barrack vomited out by the town below. And they themselves, their purpose and all they cared about, seemed for that moment as mean.

  But Alya became aware that the servants and the few other warriors within the antechamber were beginning to look at them curiously. He drew himself upright, slapped his sword back and launched a glare of such searing contempt that they turned hastily away. He snapped his fingers, as he had seen the chieftains do to their escort, and Vansha caught his meaning glance, and came to his side. Together they strode off, as men who have immediate purpose, and no man sought to stop them.

  ‘I hope you know where you’re going!’ mouthed Vansha.

  ‘I do,’ said Alya grimly. ‘And I know it won’t all be that easy. There are sentinels, there will be more. And there’s worse, a lot worse! And too much light. If we don’t move swiftly, they’ll be after us.’

  Whether from Savi’s mind or anoth
er, he had a clear picture of this place, and the ways he might take. Rooms surrounded it, corridors and tunnels pervaded it like great bloodless veins, quarters for servants, reserves of armouries and stores, cellars of food and fine wines, all that the denizen of this place might live as human lords did. To understand them, and in doing so to overcome them. To overawe any that came here, as some traitors must do, with the ultimate majesty and power of the Ice. To make its victory seem so certain that becoming its vassal or spy would seem the only sensible course.

  It probably was, Alya thought; but sense alone had its limitations. Better to blaze like a torch, sometimes, than waste whatever was left, trying to endure the unendurable.

  Along the halls they strode, and Alya ducked behind one of the great hangings, showing a city with towers crumbling before the pure white wall of an advancing glacier. There was a door hidden there, a plain servants’ door that led to a stair, rough and unadorned, and at its foot, another, heavier door. They paused a moment, listening; and then Alya pulled it open. The dimly lit passage was open; but from a small room to one side a sentinel sprang to his feet with levelled spear, and challenged. Vansha was prepared; he lunged through and parried the spearblow. In the open, with surprise on his side, he would have struck the man down at once; but in the passage his blow scarred the wall, the spear lunged again, and they collided, swaying, and sprang apart, hacking at one another with short blows. This was no time for fair fight; Alya, cursing the noise and the delay, would have joined in, but he could not get through the door as the two swayed back and forth.

  Then suddenly Vansha was hurled back, pinned against the wall by the spearblade stabbing between left breast and swordarm, and the guard grabbed quickly for the dagger at his belt. But Vansha threw his sword from left hand to right, and thrust. The guard choked horribly on a cry, and fell on the flagstones.