Shadow Blizzard

by Alexey Pehov

  The outcome of all this was that I polished off the wine, and I felt just fine, without a care in the world. Until I awoke with a hangover.…

  * * *

  By the end of the second day my stomach had stopped rumbling in fury, but the hunger pains hadn’t gone away. Nothing had changed. The corpses hadn’t gone away, either.

  “Well, what are looking at, you brutes?”

  Naturally, I didn’t get any answer. Nobody even hissed. I was simply ignored in the most insolent manner you could possibly imagine. I would have fired my crossbow at the vile creatures, but I didn’t have any more bolts. The only thing I could do was fling the empty bottle at the crowd. It somersaulted in the air a few times and smashed into one of the dead men, demolishing half of his rotten head. The dead man wasn’t bothered in the least by this strange circumstance and he just stood there.

  “Having fun?”

  The voice that rang out in the hall came as such a shock that I jumped.

  He was standing in the shadow of a column and I could only see the vague outline of the dark silhouette with massive wings. The golden eyes were watching me with veiled mockery. The Messenger wasn’t paying any attention to the walking dead, and they were ignoring him.

  “Something of the kind.”

  I tried hard to sound calm, but the treacherous squeak in my voice gave me away.

  The servant of the Master! The Messenger! Here! In the hall! Right in front of me!

  My mouth went dry, my palms started to sweat, and my spine dissolved. Now I knew beyond any doubt who had herded the corpses in here and why.

  “I have a proposition for you,” said the Messenger.

  “What is it?” I asked, finding enough courage not to faint.

  “You’ve come a long way through the Palaces of Bone, thief. Not many can boast of that. How annoying to end up trapped, and by these stupid monsters. Tell me, are you planning to stay long?”

  “Until I get bored.”

  I didn’t know what the Messenger and his Master had cooked up, but they weren’t going to frighten me. There was no way I could be any more frightened than I already was.

  “Mmmm? I think you’re already bored. Or am I wrong?”

  I didn’t answer, and I thought I saw the Messenger smile.

  “All right, Harold. Let’s stop playing games and get down to business.”

  “What business is that, Messenger?”

  “Oh! I see you know my name!” he said, and chuckled again. “Did you just guess, or were you eavesdropping when you were wandering round my Master’s property? How is your wound, by the way? You took off to the Primordial World—I see they still heal people as well as ever there!”

  Once again I didn’t answer, and once again he pretended not to notice.

  “I’ve been sent by the Master. Sent to offer you a way out of this trap. Are you interested, or should I leave?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Good. Abandon the Commission, forget about the Rainbow Horn, and you will be rewarded.”

  “How? Are you going to rip my belly open again?”

  “Oh, don’t be so touchy! If I wanted to, I’d have killed you by now. How much did the king offer you? Fifty thousand? How would you like an offer of, say, three hundred thousand? Not enough? Perhaps you prefer the sound of eight hundred thousand? Name your price, thief.”

  Uh-huh, sure. I might get the gold, but only if he left it on my coffin. So I wasn’t going for any deals that came from lads like him.

  “I’m perfectly happy with the price offered by the king. A Commission…”

  The Messenger snorted loudly to express his contempt.

  “A Commission? What are you, some kind of nobleman? Since when do thieves keep their word?”

  Why did everyone take such a liking to the word “thief”? First those shadows in the world of Chaos, and now him! I had my own professional principles. And I wasn’t insane, so I had no intention of violating a Commission. It was more than my life was worth.

  “Ah … so you’re afraid of violating the Commission and upsetting your beloved Sagot?” he said, apparently reading my thoughts. “You men are too much in awe of those you call the gods. Don’t worry, thief. The gods are nothing but a gang of good-for-nothing layabouts, and they are all subservient to the Master. There’s no need to be afraid, no one will punish you for violating the Commission. The Master will make sure of that, as soon as you agree.”

  The gods were subservient to the Master? Well, that was news!

  “I don’t need money,” I muttered. “You can’t stop hunger with gold.”

  “I forgot to mention that if you accept the proposition, you will be taken anywhere you please. Or perhaps you simply don’t need money at all? You have enough emeralds in your bag to buy a small country, and the title to go with it. What else could you want? Or perhaps you do want something else? Tell me, and if it lies within the Master’s power, you shall have it. You must agree that’s a fair price. You can have anything you like, all you have to do is forget about the Rainbow Horn.”

  “Immortality?” I blurted out at random.

  “Immortality? Perhaps…” He gave me a suspicious glance.

  “Who is the Master? Why doesn’t he want the Rainbow Horn to leave Hrad Spein?” I asked, deciding to stop beating about the bush and get down to basics.

  “All right, we have plenty of time and the Master said I could answer a few questions. Not in a hurry to get anywhere, are you?”

  The golden eyes glittered, but I didn’t bother to answer.

  “My lord is the Master of this world. He created Siala from a shadow of the Primordial World, he is—”

  “A Dancer in the Shadows!” I blurted out.

  “Now I see that your question about immortality really was just a test. You have found out a great deal.… Unfortunately.”

  A test? But I hadn’t been trying to test him. I’d just said it.

  “Correct, thief. A very long time ago the Master was a Dancer in the Shadows and he created this world. I see you already know much more than we assumed. But that’s not surprising; after all, you’re a Dancer in the Shadows, too.”

  I started.

  “Don’t try to deny it, thief. You are a Dancer, otherwise I wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  Well, I was no fool. Why would I put my head in the noose? If it was to my advantage to be a Dancer, then I’d be one. If he called me an ass, I wouldn’t have objected.

  “All right then. You’re a Dancer, and that’s the only reason why you’re being offered a choice. There’s no point in killing you anyway: Until you reach one of the Great Houses, you’re immortal anyway. You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “The Master’s first children. The Fallen Ones.”

  I realized he was talking about the bird-bears and I nodded.

  “They were the firstborn, and the Master gave them powers almost equal to his own. They took this gift and tried to become the new Masters of the world. They decided to play the Game. So then the Fallen Ones were cast down and imprisoned in the heart of the Palaces of Bone.”

  “I still haven’t heard what the Rainbow Horn has to do with all this.”

  The Messenger sighed.

  “The Master couldn’t destroy his firstborn, and he simply plunged them into sleep. But one not so very fine day the Second Race, those you are accustomed to calling ogres, accidentally awoke the evil slumbering in Hrad Spein. And that was when the ogres created the Rainbow Horn. It was created a lot earlier than is usually thought. The artifact restrained the Fallen Ones, it prevented them from escaping and taking possession of the primordial power of this world. All they could do then was wait for the chains to break. The Rainbow Horn was not made just to neutralize the Kronk-a-Mor, the primary magic: Its other purpose—not to let the Fallen Ones into Siala—was far more important. The ogres paid dearly for their curiosity. They created an artifact and sa
ved the world, but the price was the death of their own race. That is why the creatures you call ogres are no more than animals now. In saving the world, they lost their reason and fell under the power of the primary magic. As long as the Rainbow Horn remains here, the Fallen Ones will not be able to escape into the world of Siala.”

  “The Rainbow Horn hasn’t been in Hrad Spein for all that long. Not for all the thousands of years you’ve been talking about.”

  “True. While it was with the elves, everything was well, and if not for a certain party opposed to the Master, nothing would have happened. But I’m not going to tell you everything. Just remember what happened when the Order tried to use the artifact to stop the Nameless One.”

  “I remember that very well, the renegade magician said he was told what to do by the Master!”

  “Are you blind, Harold? The Master has nothing to do with it. At least, not the Master of Siala.”

  I was left with my jaw hanging open again.

  “Surprised? Every world has its own Master, and the Dancers constantly play the Game. While one tries to save his own world, another tries to change it for the worse. The Game is the struggle to test a world’s right to life.”

  “And whose plaything is the Nameless One?”

  “It’s not good to know too much. So, what is your answer?”

  “Your Master serves evil, Messenger!”

  And that was when he laughed. It was jolly, genuine laughter. He laughed and he laughed, on and on without stopping. He laughed until the very echo was weary of repeating his laughter.

  “What is evil, thief? Enlighten me! What is good? Who can determine what either of them is? Where is the elusive boundary between good and evil?”

  “Your Master tried to kill me and my friends!”

  “And that is evil?” he asked with a mocking chuckle. “So evil is different for everyone? If a man wants to kill you, that is evil. If the same man gives you a gold piece, saves your life, and kills someone else, is that good? Answer me, thief.”

  I didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t really expecting an answer.

  “An orc kills a woodcutter and, of course, from the viewpoint of the man’s family, a terrible evil has been committed. But from the viewpoint of the orc, his act was one of great goodness; he has saved the sacred trees from the depredations of man. You see, thief, evil becomes good and good becomes evil, as soon as you look at them from the opposite bank of the river of Life! They tried to kill you, but you were lucky, as lucky as the darkness! The Master started wondering who you really were after our dear Lafresa’s spell failed. And after you found your way into his house, survived my blow, and prevented the bonds of the Key from being broken, everything fell into place. A Dancer in the Shadows does not kill another Dancer.”

  “Lafresa and her people seem to have forgotten about that, though.”

  “She acts on her own responsibility. The Master did not have time to warn her.”

  Or he didn’t want to. In any case, I didn’t believe a single word of the story about the Rainbow Horn.

  “We’ve settled the matter of the attempts on your life. What else can you call evil?”

  “The Master released the demons from the darkness.”

  “What of it? You have no understanding of the Game; you cannot understand why the demons were needed. Or what part they will play in this story.”

  “Then explain it to me!”

  “Oh no, Harold! I promise that you will have good reason to remember the demons, and you will understand why the Master was right to release them and to bring the Horse of Shadows to Avendoom.”

  “If he brought it, then why did he try to take it back in such a hurry?”

  “The Horse had done its job, and another Master—”

  “Are you trying to tell me there’s a whole crowd of Masters wandering around Siala?” I exclaimed, without realizing that I’d interrupted him.

  “Oh come now! There is only one Master, but there is also the one who plays the Game.”

  “Why does he do that?”

  “Why? Such is the Game.”

  “The Game?” I echoed.

  “What are you so surprised about? Life is boring for those who create worlds, and sometimes they play Games. That’s all there is to it. And it’s not for you to go complaining about demons. As I recall, if not for a certain unknown scroll discovered by chance, they would still be scampering around Avendoom. You see, you also have taken part in the Game. And now it is continuing, and the Rainbow Horn is the trump card. The Master is trying to prevent its return to the world.”

  “So this is all just a stupid game to them?”

  “Stupid? It is the Game that keeps the world alive.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “You don’t have to. I am only talking to you because I was ordered to.”

  “All right!” I said, getting more and more furious. “Surely you won’t try to deny that the Nameless One appeared thanks to your Master?”

  “I will not,” the Messenger replied calmly.

  “And you won’t deny that the Nameless One is evil?”

  Once again the hall echoed to the Messenger’s laughter.

  “Evil? I thought we had finished with that subject, Dancer! For you, perhaps, he is evil.… After all, he wishes to overthrow your king and destroy the kingdom.… History is written by the victors, thief! That’s the way it has always been. Somehow everyone seems to have forgotten one small detail—that Stalkon’s dynasty wiped out the entire family of the person they now call the Nameless One! All of them! Is that not evil? And is his desire to take revenge not good?”

  “It is not good. It is vengeance.”

  “Perhaps so,” he admitted. “Perhaps so. But this world needs the Nameless One. He holds you in check, stops you getting out of hand, getting above yourselves.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When the Fallen Ones and the ogres lived in Siala, and the Game had not yet begun, the Master tried not to interfere in the affairs of the world, but later the younger races appeared, including you men. Everything changed. You are worse than little children. You have to be directed, given a goal to achieve. Otherwise, left to your own devices, you would make such a mess of things that the Game would come to an end without having unfolded. Without a goal to pursue, you wreck everything your eye falls on. The day will come when you destroy this world. And the Master would not like that to happen, so he gives you many goals. The Nameless One, for instance.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You are a Dancer only in the blood. In order to understand, you have to become one in the spirit, you have to pass through the Great Houses, but for you, that is all still to come. What would happen if the Nameless One did not threaten Valiostr from the north?”

  “Everybody would have a happy life,” I muttered.

  “I doubt it. Perhaps that might have been possible six hundred years ago, when the kingdom was not yet so strong, but now, when your army is the most powerful in all the Northern Lands, I doubt it very much. Without a constant threat from the north, you would turn your attention to the south. War with Miranueh. How many thousands of dead would be left on the battlefields? And then the orcs. They have always been a thorn in your side, and you would wipe them out. Thousands of thousands of lives lost yet again. And what do we get as a result, Harold? If not for the Nameless One, who is like a sword suspended over Valiostr, the whole north of Siala would have drowned in blood. And the Nameless One is not the only force restraining men.”

  “Leave all that verbiage to the philosophers, Messenger!” I said, getting angry. “Once the sorcerer reaches Valiostr, everything will happen just as you said, only after the fall of the kingdom, it will be the orcs who do it.”

  “You do not understand the purpose of the Game, Dancer.”

  “I couldn’t give a damn for these games! How can someone decide everything for everyone else?”

  “It is his world, do not forget that.” />
  “So if it’s his world, he’s allowed to destroy the alliance between the dark and light elves in order to save the orcs?” I objected, remembering my recent dream.

  “This world needs the orcs, and the Master does not want them to disappear because of your whim.”

  “Another restraining force?”

  “Not only,” the Messenger replied evasively, and asked, “So what answer will you give me? Do you agree to forget about the Rainbow Horn?”

  I said nothing, thinking very hard, then came out with: “And what will happen if I don’t agree?”

  “Why, nothing!”

  “Nothing?” I couldn’t believe my ears.

  “What did you expect? That I would try to frighten you? Nothing will happen! You will sit there until you die of hunger. Of course, you will be reborn in the House of Love . . after a while, when everybody has forgotten all about the Horn. Do you think that artifact is so very important to the Master? Everything you see around you, all your friends, the entire world—it is all just one big Game that you will never understand. If the Horn stays here, the Master will win. If you take the Horn, the master will still win anyway, although it may be ten times more difficult. Even if the Gray Ones do nothing, even if the balance is disrupted, even if the Fallen Ones break out and destroy Siala, the Game will simply move on to the next turn of the spiral. Nothing depends on you. It is simpler if the Horn remains untouched. It is easier to win the Game, that is all there is to it.”

  I didn’t like anything about our conversation, all these stories about the Fallen Ones, other Masters, some stupid Game. I didn’t believe the Messenger.

  “Why don’t these Fallen Ones take what’s lying under their very noses?”

  “Question time is over now, I need your answer.”

  “Since nothing depends on me, my answer is no.”

  The golden eyes studied me closely. Eventually, after a long silence, the Messenger said, “Well, the Master knew that would be your answer. That is a pity, thief. But in that case I would like to make a deal with you.”