Shadowmarch

by Tad Williams

  He was angry with himself, although he still believed he had been right to insist they catch the fairy folk outside the city. It had proved almost impossible to overcome the Twilight People without the superiority of numbers—or even apparent superiority, since everything to do with the fairy folk was slippery and hard to calculate. Already Vansen was plotting in the lulls between fighting what to do next time, how to take the advantage of surprise and concealment away from the shadow-people and their weird magicks, but all the time he had been doing it he knew that there might be no next time, that more than this battle might have been lost. With Tyne Aldritch dead, all was in disarray, and Tyne’s second-in-command, the stolid, unimaginative Droy of Eastlake would not have been able to salvage things even if he had lived. In fact, it had been Droy’s pig-headedness that had made the loss so desperate. By the time he had arrived with the weary foot troops, their torches making a fiery snake along the downs as they hurried to support the mounted knights, Vansen had sent one of the scouts to him to tell him that it was useless now, that Tyne had fallen and the best thing Droy’s foot soldiers could do was to try to flank the Twilight folk and beat them to the deserted city, or, failing that, to fall back into the hills so that his army might eventually be able to provide the other half of a pincer with Brone’s defensive force. Instead, the Count of Eastlake had ignored Vansen’s message as the cowardly advice of a commoner, a jumped-up sentry in Droy Nikomede’s estimation, and had plunged his weary soldiers into battle. Within moments, half of them had become completely disoriented by the mists and the strange noises and shadows—Lord Nikomede and the others had learned nothing from the first fight, it seemed—and had been cut down by archers they could not even see. Their own arrows seemed to do as much damage to the survivors among Tyne’s knights as to the enemy.

  A disaster. Worse, a mockery. This is how we defended Southmarch—with battle plans out of some player’s comedy, with bravery sacrificed by blockheaded generalship.

  Doiney tugged at the hem of Vansen’s surcoat, startling him out of his reverie. “Shadows, Captain. Over there. Coming near, I think.”

  Vansen squinted. It was a little easier to see now that the sun was coming back, but not much. The mists were thinner, little more than what would be expected on these meadows at this hour of the day, but they still made the world an eerie and untrustworthy place. Something was indeed moving up the small rise toward the pile of stone they defended, a moving clot of shadowy shapes.

  An arrow snapped past. Vansen jumped down from the prominence on which he had been crouching. The horses, herded together into a crack at the base of the outcrop because for the moment they were useless, whinnied in fear. No more arrows came. That was one small solace.

  “Up!” Vansen shouted as half a dozen strange figures came charging out of the mist, eyes bright and faces as pale as masks. One ran on all fours like a beast, although he seemed to have been arrested in the middle of some transformation, with stripes of bushy for sprouting unevenly down his back and sides and his face misshapen, as though someone had pushed a human face out from within, making half a muzzle out of nose and mouth Seven hours ago this sort of thing had sickened Ferras Vansen, made him feel lost, as though the world he knew had suddenly fallen away beneath his feet Now it was only another reason to want to kill them, kill them all, these horrid, unnatural creatures that had themselves destroyed so many of his fellows.

  “To me!” he shouted and helped Mayne Calough to his feet, the knight’s armor grating against stone as he dragged his aching body erect. “To me! Keep your backs together!”

  The bright-eyed things were almost on them now, teeth bared as though they would not waste such sweet work on their swords. As he had at least a dozen times already, Vansen let his deeper thoughts go away so he could concentrate on the business of staying alive a little while longer.

  Lord Calough and his squire were dead, or at least the knight was dead and the squire was clearly dying, with a great streaming gash beneath the point of his jaw. The hands with which the youth tried to hold in his own blood were all red, but his face had gone parchment-pale beneath the dirt and the blood was pumping more slowly now. The squire stared off into the misty morning sky, his bubbling prayers slipping down into silence though his lips still moved Vansen wished there was something he could do to help the boy Perhaps, though, this was the most merciful way Who knew what would happen to the rest of them when the shadow folk came again? Only Vansen knew even a little of the way a man’s own thoughts could betray him under the dark magicks of faerie.

  Calough lay on top of the milk-skinned warrior he had destroyed—a woman, although Vansen thought that meant no less honor, for the fairy women fought like demons, too—but the knight’s own breastplate had been torn open like a bite taken from an apple and his guts were out Three fairy corpses had rolled down the rock and lay tumbled together at its base in the meadow. The other attackers had retreated into the murk, but only to get reinforcements.Vansen felt sure. It had been hours since he had seen any other mortals Something was going on to the east of their outcrop, where the mist still lay thick on the ground, but the discord of music and screams didn’t sound like any kind of fighting he knew.

  It sounded like the fairies were singing sweetly-sour temple harmonies as they killed the wounded, that was what it sounded like.

  “Get down, Captain,” Doiney whispered from his perch behind some rocks at the crown of the outcrop. “They still have arrows left and they’re probably gathering up those they’ve already shot, too. You’ll get a shaft in the eye.”

  FerrasVansen was about to take this good advice when he saw something moving across the sloping meadow, not coming toward them but passing from left to right in front of them. It was a mounted man, or at least a mounted creature of some sort, a dark figure on a black horse. Vansen crouched, but despite the superstitious fear that surprised him into shivers—he had thought there was nothing left in him that was still alive enough to be frightened—he couldn’t take his eyes off the apparition that sailed past them through the swirling ground fog. Fear turned to astonishment as the figure moved into a shaft of weak sunlight and he could see it clearly.

  “By Perin Skyhammer, it is the prince himself Barrick! Prince Barrick, stop!” Too late Vansen realized that he had just directed the attention of any ransomers to the greatest prize on the field, but the shadow folk had not seemed very interested in keeping any of their mortal enemies alive, no matter their station.

  “Get down!” Doiney yanked at his leg, but Vansen paid no attention. The mysterious figure that looked so much like the prince sailed by on a black horse, passing scarcely a dozen yards from where Vansen watched, stunned. He shouted again, but Barrick Eddon or his supernatural double did not even turn to look at him. The familiar face was distant, distracted, eyes fixed firmly on the northwestern hills despite the intervening mists.

  “By all the gods and their mothers,” said Vansen, “he’s riding in the wrong direction—straight toward the Shadowline.” He remembered Briony and his promise to her, but Doiney was tugging at him again, reminding him that he had other duties as well. “It’s the prince,” he told the leader of the scouts. “He’s riding away to the west. He must be confused—he’s heading straight for the shadowlands. Come with me, we have to catch him.”

  “It’s just a will-o’-the-wisp,” said Doiney, mouth stretched in a panicky scowl. “A fairy trick. There are men here somewhere who need our help, and if there aren’t, we need to go east, try to get back to the keep.”

  “I can’t. I promised.” Vansen scrambled down the rock to where his horse was hidden. “Come with me, Gar I don’t want to leave you here.”

  Doiney and one of the other scouts, who had poked his head up now to see what was happening, both shook their heads, wide-eyed Doiney made the pass-evil. “No.You’ll be killed or worse. We need your sword, Captain. Stay with us.”

  He could only bear to look at their weary, frightened faces for a moment. “I c
an’t.” But which vow was more important, the one he had made to the princess, or the one he had made to old Donal Murroy when he had sworn to make the royal guard his own family and himself those guardsmen’s dutiful father? He had little hope that the scouts would find the other survivors, but at least they had a chance of making a run toward the east, although he knew their chances were considerably lessened without him: he was the best swordsman among them and the only one in full armor.

  He hesitated once more, but Briony Eddon’s face was in his thoughts, shaming him, haunting him like a ghost. “I can’t,” he said at last, and led his horse out onto the foggy grass. He swung up into the saddle then spurred away. Barrick, or the thing that looked like him, had disappeared, but the marks of the horse’s hoofprints were still fresh.

  “Don’t leave us, Captain!” cried one of the scouts, but Vansen was headed northwest and couldn’t turn back. He wished he could put his hands over his ears.

  *

  “But why?” Opal could barely hold back the tears, but her anger made it a little easier. “Have you lost your wits? First you go off with that girl, then this? Why should you go outside the castle gates with a stranger? And now, of all times?” She gestured at Flint. The child was silent on the bed, only the faintest motion of his narrow chest showing that he lived. “He’s so ill!”

  “I do not think he is ill, my dear one, I think he is exhausted. He will be well again, I promise you.” But Chert didn’t know whether he actually believed that. He was tired himself, very tired, having snatched only a few hours’ sleep after returning from the keep above. “The boy is the reason I have to go—the boy and you. I wish you could see this Gil fellow. I don’t want to believe him, dear Opal, but I do.” He lifted the nnrror and examined it again. Hard to believe so much madness could surround such a small, unexceptional object. “Terrible things hang in the balance, he says. I wish you could see him, then you would understand why I believe him.”

  “But why can’t I see him? Why can’t he come here?”

  “I’m not sure,” he had to admit. “He said he couldn’t come too close to the Shining Man. That is why the boy went instead.”

  “But it’s all mad!” Opal’s anger seemed to have won. “Who is this person? How does he know Flint? Why would he send our son to do such a dangerous thing, and by what right? And what does one of the big folk know about the Mysteries, anyway?”

  Chert flinched a little under the volley of questions. “I don’t know, but he’s more than just one of the big folk.” Gil’s calm, empty stare had remained in his thoughts. “There’s something wrong with him, I think, but it’s hard to explain. He’s just . . .” Chert shook his head. That was his problem. He had spent much of the last days in places where words meant little or nothing, but Opal had not. It saddened him, felt like a breach between them. He hoped he would survive this strange time so that he could patch it up again. He missed his good wife even though she was standing right in front of him. “I must do this, Opal.”

  “So you say. Then what are you doing here at all, you cruel, stubborn old blindmole? Do you think you’re doing me a kindness, coming back to tell me you’re off to risk your life again after you’ve just returned? Worrying me to death with these mad stories?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Not a kindness, but I couldn’t go away again without telling you why.” He walked across the bedroom and picked up his pack. “And I wanted some tools, also. Just in case.” He didn’t tell her that what he really wanted was his chipping knife, sharp-honed and the closest thing to a weapon they had in the house other than Opal’s cookware. He couldn’t quite imagine asking her for her best carving knife—it seemed as though that might be the last blow on a quivery rockface.

  Opal had stamped out to the front room, fighting tears again. Chert kneeled beside the boy. He felt his cool forehead and looked again to make sure Flints chest was still moving. He kissed him on the cheek and said quietly,”I love you, lad.” It was the first time he had said it aloud, or even admitted it.

  He kissed Opal, too, although she could barely force herself to hold still for it, and quickly turned her face away, but not before he tasted her tears on his lips.

  “I’ll come back, old girl.”

  “Yes,” she said bitterly. “You probably will.”

  But as he went out the door, he heard her add quietly, “You’d better.”

  Chert made a few wrong turns on his way back, since this time he didn’t have the girl Willow to guide him. The big folk dashing here and there around the castle seemed even more distracted than might seem warranted with siege preparations still going on, and at first he thought it a little strange that no one bothered to question a lone Funderling wandering through the grounds. Then he remembered that today was Winter’s Eve, the day before Orphan’s Day, one of the most important holidays on the big folks’ calendar. Despite the fear of war they seemed to be preparing for a feast and other entertainments: Chert saw more than a few groups of courtiers in costumes even more elaborate than usual, and a trio of young girls that seemed to be dressed as geese or ducks.

  The man named Gil was sitting as still as a statue in a patch of weak morning sunlight in the garden when Chert found the place at last. Chert couldn’t help wondering if the stranger had waited on that bench all the night long, ignoring winter chill and the soaking dew.

  Gil looked at him as if hours had not passed, as if they had only left off their conversation moments earlier. “Now we will go,” he said, and stood, showing no stiffness. Indeed, he was weirdly graceful, displaying such economy of movement that what at first sight appeared slow and awkward soon began to seem more subtle, movement without wasted effort, so that even his most mundane acts might have been the carefully planned steps of an elaborate dance.

  “Hold a moment.” Chert glanced around, but the garden seemed to be one of the few spots in the castle empty of people preparing for either siege or feast. “We can’t just walk out the Basilisk Gate, you know. The castle is at war. The guards won’t let us. Not to mention that the causeway is down. You say we must reach the city on the other side—we would have to find a boat and the bay is dangerous today. Some say a storm is coming.”

  Gil regarded him. “What does this mean?”

  Chert let out a snort of exasperation. “It means you haven’t thought this part out very carefully, is what it means. We’ll have to find some other way. You can’t fly, can you? I didn’t think so. Then you’ll have to come back with me to Funderling Town. There are tunnels—old roads, secret roads— that lead under the bay. They’re not used much anymore even by us. We can go that way, or at least it’s worth a try.”

  Gil continued to look at him, then sat down. “I cannot go down into Funderling Town, as you call it. It is too close to the deep places—to the thing you call the Shining Man. I . . . I cannot go there.”

  “Then we have hit bedrock with no tools.” Chert wished again that Chaven had not vanished. Cryptic strangers and magical mirrors! The Mysteries coming to life! The portly physician would have had something useful to say—he always did . . .”Ah,” Chert said.”Ah.Wait a moment.” He considered. “The girl told me you have been living in the castle stronghold. That is beneath the ground.”

  Gil nodded his head slowly. “That is not so deep, I think. I feel it only a little.”

  “I know a way that also does not go too deep, at least not at first. When we are far away from the Shining Man, if that is what you really fear, we can go deeper. Follow me.”

  As he led the stranger across the inner keep, certain now for the first time of where he was going, he tried to plan what he would say to Chaven’s housekeeper or to the manservant—what was that suspicious old man’s name? Harry? Could he convince them of some errand so they would allow him to go through the house unsupervised? He didn’t think any of them knew about the tunnel and the door off the cellar hallway.

  He was still scheming when they reached the stubby observatory-tower, but the tale he had cobbl
ed together—an important sample of stone Chaven had been testing for him, but which Chert now urgently needed back—was to remain unused. Nobody answered to his knock. The door was bolted, although Chert jiggled it to make sure. A layer of dirt on the threshold had been damped by the mist and drizzle into a muddy film naked of footprints, as though nobody had gone in or out for several days. He shook the handle again but the door was latched tight. It seemed that in Chaven’s long absence the servants had closed up the house.

  With sinking heart he began to explain to Gil, but realized that the odd man saw nothing that needed explaining. Chert looked up to the second-floor window and its wooden balcony. Perhaps the shutters there were less securely guarded.

  “Can you climb?” he asked. Gil gave him that now-familiar, annoyingly expressionless gaze. “Never mind. I’ll do it.The Elders know I’ve been getting enough practice at it lately.”