Shadowplay

by Laura Lam

  His head jerked back at that. “How much quicker did your arm heal?”

  “Two weeks or so.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” He sounded hurt.

  “I wanted to pretend it was not that odd. That I was not that odd.” My voice caught, surprising me.

  “You’re not odd. This, what you can do… it’s beautiful.” He came close, and wrapped me in his arms. “You’re beautiful.”

  My breath hitched in my throat.

  Our lips met. I pushed him against the glowing glass, the stubble of his chin scratching mine. I rested a hand on the Penglass, the cool blue light bathing us as we kissed, careless of who might see.

  20

  HIDDEN MESSAGES

  “Sometimes, I wish séances were real. That I could reach through the veil and speak to those I have wronged. I wish I could apologize to my wife. I’d apologize to Taliesin’s lover, who I stole away because I could rather than out of any real affection. So many men and women I have wronged, reduced to ghosts and shades. They surround me, but I can never let them know I regret what I have cost them, both the living and the dead.”

  Jasper Maske’s personal diary.

  We clasped hands about the round table, me with no small amount of trepidation.

  With Cyan here, sharing skin-to-skin contact, who knew what could happen? Dread prickled the back of my mind. Cyan’s gaze flicked to mine as she sensed my unease.

  We had studied nearly nonstop the last few days. The mornings were for magic, and the afternoons and evenings for séances. Maske gave us many lectures on the history and the importance of séances.

  “The atmosphere must be just so,” he had said the previous night at the dinner table. “Dark enough so that if one of us needs to sneak about, we’ll be able to, but not so dark that nothing can be seen. Props are useful, especially in superstitious households. I’ve kept a record of almost every house I’ve been to, writing down the names, appearances, and dispositions of each member. Many of my clients are repeat business, so I tailor my approach. I’ll teach you several variants, but only practice, time, and intuition will help you discover which approach is the correct one for you and those you hold the séance for.

  “A séance is very different from stage magic. In a magic show, most of the audience doesn’t believe you’re really doing magic. But with a séance it’s entirely different. Some are complete cynics, others are not sure, and others believe or desperately want to believe.” He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “And you’ll have enemies and allies both at the same table. They are also active participants. It’s not one volunteer called up to the stage from the audience. Each person in turn may be asked to divulge something personal. Each will have loved and lost.

  “I view séances differently from my magic performances, though in the last fifteen years, they have not exactly warred for my attention. Though I am aiming to deceive people at a séance, sometimes I feel as though I help them. Grown men have wept like broken-hearted babes at my table when they think they have made contact with a long-dead loved one. They’ve felt like they’ve been able to say goodbye, even if, deep down, perhaps they know they have not.”

  Tonight, Maske was the same somber-faced man I had seen on my first night at the Kymri Theatre.

  “Show me what you’ve learned,” he said. We had studied, and now was the test. If we performed well, we would start performing séances next week, beginning small with merchant and tradesmen families, and working up to nobles as our reputations grew. I was glad to learn the skill – if magic shows proved not to support us, between séances and street magic, we would never starve. That comforted me. I had spent several days on the street just after I ran away from my old life as Iphigenia Laurus. I had been hungry and scared, terrified that I would have to return home.

  In my new home, the curtains of the parlor were drawn, and candlelight flickered, casting long shadows along the walls. The Vestige crystal ball rested on the table before us. Alder script had been drawn on the dark tablecloth in chalk.

  Maske was our subject, and so Cyan led the séance. During our practice sessions this morning, I learned that for séances, I was also better suited to being an assistant, sneaking behind dust curtains and folding myself into small spaces. I could not speak the lies with the same assurance that Cyan or Drystan could. I did not know what that said about them or me.

  “We welcome you to our sacred circle, Jasper Maske,” Cyan intoned. Her face was covered with black gauze, a bride of darkness. She wore a dark Elladan dress, wasp-waisted in a corset. Only her hands were bare, decorated in swirling designs of silver paint, her nails black as night.

  “Tonight we call the spirits to peek their heads up from the currents of the River Styx, to whisper the words they wish they could have told us in life. I have known a heartache that few others have possessed. Through this grief, I may pull back the veil and pass along the messages of the dead, Jasper Maske. Close your eyes and imagine who has passed that you wish to speak with. For we have all known, loved, and lost.”

  Maske concentrated. Cyan’s brow crinkled as she spied on his mind. Drystan opened his eyes. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.

  “Someone comes to me through the mists of the otherworld…” Cyan shuddered, her head falling forward on her chest. I felt a humming deep within my chest.

  Whispers in Alder echoed in the room. “She hears us, too. She hears us, too. She hears us, too.”

  Cyan’s head rose, and my spine turned to ice. Though I could not see her face through the veil, I knew that it was not Cyan.

  Before I could break the circle, her veiled head turned to mine. The gauze faded to mist, drifting from her face. Her eyes glowed the bright blue of Penglass, and the crystal ball on the table blazed the same hue.

  Maske and Drystan had frozen, as though time had stopped. Cyan, or whoever she now was, began to mutter under her breath in Alder, far too quick for me to understand. Like Maske when he had spoken during the séance the first night I joined him, her voice seemed to echo with three tones at once. The last word ended in a scream and she tilted her head to the ceiling. Her hand gripped mine so tightly I feared she would break my fingers. I heard sobbing, and it took me a moment to realize it was me.

  Cyan broke her handhold with Maske, her free hand moving toward me. I sat, paralyzed in fear. Her fingertips rested on my forehead and I jerked with the force of the vision.

  Cyan and I were side by side. I knew it was her, though her body was different. A severe widow’s peak topped her new, heart-shaped face. Her lips were small and thin, her hair a cap of feathers banded brown and gray. Her tawny, yellow eyes blinked at me once. She was far shorter than the Cyan I knew, thin and bird-boned, her skin a dark olive.

  And then there were the wings.

  They rose behind her, impossibly large, all faun and chestnut and charcoal. She flapped them, buffeting me with gusts of air.

  I looked down at my own shimmering limbs, knowing that I was Anisa. My wings rose behind me as well, as insubstantial as a wish compared to Cyan’s.

  We stood on the edge of a cliff made of white stone. Venglass sprawled down to the crescent of a bay. Ships with purple and red sails drifted on the water. We were not in Ellada. The air was too warm and humid, close as a lover’s touch. Between the Venglass, tall tropical trees twisted toward the cerulean sky. The wind carried the scent of hyacinth, dark, loamy soil, sea salt, and an unfamiliar spice. I guessed that we were in Linde – Linde as it was when Alder and Chimaera lived side by side with humans.

  “Matla,” my mouth said in a voice that was not my own. Cyan, I tried to say. Are you there? But my mouth would not form the words. I was only a passenger in this body. As she spoke, my sense of self, as Micah Grey, faded. “Why are we here?” Anisa asked. “Why bring me half a world away?”

  “Someone will die here, unless we stop it. And this is what we must do, at all costs. The alternative does not bear thinking about.”

  “Who will t
hey kill? Who is killing?”

  Matla, the owlish woman with Cyan hiding behind her eyes, shook her head. “Not all is clear to me. Not yet. But the steady dripping of blood on Venglass haunts me.”

  The memory of my murdered ward haunted me as well. The phantom memory filled my nose with the iron tang of blood. My newest ward was safe now, at home with Relean.

  “Come,” Matla said, spreading her wings. “We haven’t much time.” And she dived off the edge of the white cliffs. I brought my own wings to life and dived after her, cutting through the thick, warm air as though it were water.

  As we flew toward the Venglass Domes of Sila, I wished Matla had told me more. I had nothing to protect myself but the small dagger in its sheath at my hip and an Acha in the pocket of my robe. I was weary from our long flight, for though we took the portal from Ellada to Linde, it had been on the other side of the tropical island.

  A few inhabitants of Sila looked up as we passed. The Chimaera here were more aquatic than those from the mountains of the Ven, with fish scales that glistened in the light, the beaded skin of lizards, or the moist hides of salamanders. Paths lined with colored stones wound through the cobalt Venglass. An open market released the scent of sizzling meats and spices, and the sounds of goats bleating and the laughter and haggling of Chimaera, Alder, and humans alike rose to us.

  The jovial atmosphere of the market warred with the absolute dread and fear Matla emanated as she darted through the air, bringing us over the town and into the dark jungle. We landed on the branch of a breadfruit tree, tucking our wings to our backs as we climbed down the trunk.

  We pushed our way through the undergrowth, not speaking, spurred on by an undeniable sense of urgency. My hand never strayed far from the hilt at my hip.

  We came to a small Venglass dome, incongruous in the middle of the jungle. There were no nearby growths. Matla glanced over her shoulder at me, blinking owlishly. She held a finger to her lips and set her hand on the glass and it lit. She drew the glyph for opening, and it did, the glass melting away to a hole large enough to admit us.

  Underneath Anisa, the part of me that was still Micah Grey tried to memorize that glyph, but it drifted away.

  Matla entered, drawing her long, thin Acha. The part of me that was Micah recognized it as an Eclipse. It cast a light that only the two of us could see, and broadcast a subtle illusion, so that someone glancing down the hallway might not see us at first. She held her curved scimitar in her other hand. I drew my own weapon. It was dark, but Matla could see in the gloom, so I followed the whisper of her footsteps.

  We went deeper and deeper into the earth. It was hard for both of us, who preferred wide, open skies. I wondered again why I was here, why Matla had asked me and not a stronger fighter or someone higher in the ranks of the Chimaera.

  Far off, we heard agonized cries, as if something or someone was being tortured. My wings shivered. I did not want to be here.

  We entered a room. Two Alder loomed over a creature strapped to a table. Engrossed as they were in their grim task, they had not yet seen us.

  Matla crouched into a fighting stance, a hand still holding the Acha. She brandished her curved sword, and the light glanced off the bright green poison at the tip. My blood ran cold, for I wondered how she possessed Vitriol, the only poison that could kill an Alder.

  She launched herself into the room, at the last second giving an avian shriek.

  The Alder turned from their charge on the table, raising the surgical instruments in their hands. Matla swiped one of the Alder through with her scimitar, and he dropped, the wounds smoking. The other whirled, skittering back from the table. They fought, the Alder just barely holding back Matla’s furious attack. Matla shrieked like a banshee.

  “Get the boy!” she cried at me. “The boy must be saved!”

  I broke from my paralysis, moving to untie the bonds holding the creature on the table. For I was not sure if I could call the thing a boy.

  He had the flat face of a snake and reptilian eyes. His body glistened dark green in the light. His eyes were the brilliant emerald of a cat or a snake. He was hairless and naked, and two jet black horns sprouted from his forehead. How could Matla have brought me here to save a demon?

  He panted in pain. Red blood splattered his skin from where they had cut him. It looked as though they were planning to implant something into his torso. It rested on the table next to the surgical instruments, dark green, speckled with intricate blue and black designs. Other cuts on his head were sewn shut. I put the object in the pocket of my trousers.

  I untied his bonds, keeping an eye on the fight between Matla and the other Alder. I stepped over the corpse of the first one. I knew what group these two belonged to. How could I not? They were Kashura. And they wanted to kill us all.

  The Alder made a mad swipe and grazed Matla’s wing. She screamed in pain and rage. Leaving the boy, I took my little knife, darting in from behind. He twisted away, but I managed to leave a long gash along his ribs. Matla recovered and stabbed him in the arm, grimacing in triumph. He would die, now, from the poison. No matter what.

  But Alder, our makers, are a strong and strange folk. His eyes blazed with disgust, his lips curling. With a move too swift to follow, he grabbed the weapon from Matla’s hand and plunged it into her stomach.

  I cried out as though I was wounded. I launched myself at him, stabbing my little knife into his throat. I did not stab as deeply as I would like, but I hit his jugular. Blood poured and he dropped the scimitar. I grabbed it, letting my knife fall to the floor. Wasting no time, I plunged it into his chest. He fell.

  “You’re too late,” he whispered to us in his three-toned voice before he died. “All has already been set in motion.”

  I ignored him, bending over Matla. She sucked in wet, sticky gasps.

  “You’ll be alright,” I said, though I knew I lied. Tears streamed down my face as I ripped off a strip of my shirt and held it to the gaping, smoking wound in her stomach. Vitriol could slay Alder, and it could kill us just as easily. Underneath Anisa’s consciousness, the me that was Micah railed against the walls of her mind like a moth in a lampshade, wondering if Cyan was alright.

  “Save the boy,” Matla whispered. “Raise him with your other charge. Raise him to be good, and kind, or all is lost.”

  I heard a great shuddering gasp from the table. The strange, horned creature jerked and went still. I did not know if he was unconscious or dead.

  Matla groaned in pain. “He must be good, or all is lost. All is lost and we are all doomed.” She coughed, a wet burbling in her throat. I clutched her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” she managed. “It’s mine. I can only hope I did some good, and there’s some chance to save the rest of us… or we’re all dead… we’re all dead and lost…”

  As Matla’s life slipped away, the strange medical room deep within the Venglass began to dissolve. I rested my hand on Matla’s cheek.

  And then I was gone, thrown from the Phantom Damselfly’s ancient life and back into my own.

  Cyan fell from her chair and lay jerking on the floor, clutching her stomach. She was choking out “or we’re all dead, we’re all dead and lost” in Alder, which she didn’t speak as far as I knew. Maske went to her, peering at her expanded pupils. He turned her on her side so she would not choke on her own tongue.

  I swayed in my seat, the edges of my vision darkening.

  “Micah,” Drystan said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “What’s wrong?” He shook my shoulders gently.

  “The Alder wanted to kill us all. All the Chimaera. And I think they did. When they left, I don’t think they took us with them…”

  Dimly, I realized I was babbling and should guard my tongue.

  Maske ran to get the medic bag. With Drystan’s help, I stumbled to where Cyan still writhed on the floor as Maske returned.

  “You’re alright, Cyan,” I sa
id. “It wasn’t real. Only a memory. A very old memory.” I meant to send that to her as thoughts, but Drystan and Maske’s gaping faces told me I spoke aloud. So much for guarding my tongue. My secrets scattered about the room.

  Too late now. I steeled myself. “Matla?” I asked.

  An eye rolled toward me.

  “Are you Cyan or are you Matla?”

  “I do not know,” she moaned, not realizing she still spoke Alder. “I don’t know,” she repeated in Elladan.

  Her words struck such a fear into me. What if we had lost Cyan and now Matla somehow possessed her?

  “Cyan. You are Cyan,” I said, more firmly than I felt. “You were born in Temne. Your mother is a contortionist and your father is a juggler. You were raised among circus folk and you told fortunes. You love a boy who is a sailor. You see more than most.”

  She inhaled. “Yes. Cyan. I am Cyan.” She muttered to herself in Temri, and the fluent outpouring of her mother tongue reassured me. Matla was gone, dead thousands of years.

  Maske returned. “What is going on? Cyan, was it some sort of fit?”

  With a sigh, she said, “I had a vision.”

  His brow furrowed.

  “I’m not lying.” The truth spilled out of her. Let the chips fall where they may.

  “A vision,” he said, slowly, as if he was not sure he heard her correctly.

  “You deserve to know,” she said. “There’s more. If I concentrate, I can sometimes tell what others are thinking.”

  He didn’t believe her.

  She shifted. “Think of your fondest memory. Hold it close. Imagine every detail.”

  Maske harrumphed in consternation, but he closed his eyes.

  A long moment passed. Cyan grew paler.

  “You’re not imagining your fondest memory at all,” Cyan admonished. “You’re wondering if the screws you bought will fit the mechanism of the–”

  “Enough!” he cried, shaken. “A lucky guess.”

  Cyan smiled weakly. Focusing on Maske, her father, even if he did not know it, seemed to bring her further to herself. “Then try again. Think of your favorite memory.”