In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  “Not you—” Clovermead made herself stop. Her fists were clenched as tightly as her mother’s. Their stances were mirror images. “Sorrel, would you excuse us for a moment? I’d like to talk to my mother in private.”

  “Of course,” said Sorrel. “I will be down in the stables when you are finished.” Then he snapped his fingers. “Ah! I almost forgot. My little sister, Mullein, is Shaman-Mother now, and she gave me a message to pass along to the two of you. She said, ‘Ursus has just found out the location of something he is missing. He sent the bald bear-priest to find it. Do not let him take it. If he gets it, do not let him keep it. Bring it back to Chandlefort.’”

  “The bald bear-priest? That must be Lucifer Snuff.” Clovermead shivered at the thought of Lord Ursus’ cruel lieutenant, who had been so strangely merciful to her when last they’d met on the Tansy Steppes. “I must say, that’s remarkably unhelpful. Mullein didn’t know what Snuff was looking for? Where it was? Or what we were supposed to do with the thing when we brought it back to Chandlefort?”

  “What do you expect from prophecy?” asked Sorrel. “If it helps, Mullein was very apologetic. She would have been more specific if she could have been.” He bowed to Lady Cindertallow. “Good-bye, Milady. Good-bye, Clovermead.” Swiftly he left the room.

  “You’re going to let yourself die!” said Clovermead once his footsteps had disappeared down the hall. “You and your blasted Yellowjackets are going to have some sort of gallant last stand, and you’ll run at the bear-priests’ swords, hoping to die. Mother, in Our Lady’s name, don’t do this! I don’t want you to be all noble and say you’re dying to give me and the others a chance. I want you alive and with me.” It felt hard to breathe. She was choking; water pressed into her lungs.

  “I’m quite attached to life, Clovermead,” said Lady Cindertallow. “I don’t yearn for death. I just don’t see an alternative.”

  “Think again!”

  “I have,” said Lady Cindertallow, and now there was an edge of fear in her voice. “I’ve tried to come up with a way out, ever since we first defeated Lord Ursus’ army. I knew he’d be back, and I can’t escape the numbers. He has to be fought, but there aren’t enough soldiers in Linstock to defeat him. So let some die, and others escape. That way you can live and fight next year.”

  “How? Do you have a plan for that? A prophecy?” Clovermead asked. Lady Cindertallow shook her head. “So you’ve just put off the end for a year. And meanwhile you’re dead.” Tears filled Clovermead’s eyes, but she blinked them away angrily. “It’s not worth doing. I want you to live. I didn’t have a mother for twelve years, and I don’t want to lose you again. Mother, don’t do this to me.” Lady Cindertallow reached out to her daughter—and Clovermead slipped out of her grasp. “Do you think I’ll be happy with a hug or a kiss? I want you with me, forever and ever.”

  “We all die, Clovermead. Have you forgotten?”

  “You’re not old yet. I mean, you’re forty if you’re a day—”

  “Thirty-nine,” said Lady Cindertallow. Her hand ran through her faded hair and touched her spectacles. “Youth is cruel. ‘Forty if you’re a day’ will echo in my ears for as long as I live!” Her smile drained away. “If you have any better ideas, I would be glad to hear them.” She waited a moment. “Well?”

  “I need more than five seconds,” said Clovermead. “I need—” She sneezed. “I need for this cold to be over. I’m trying to come up with ideas, and all I can think about is how clogged my nose is. I wish it were clear, so I could think properly, but I don’t suppose I’d come up with anything very clever. You’ve had years to think about it, and if you couldn’t come up with a better solution, how can I?” Tears ran down her cheeks. “I don’t know how to save you.”

  “Sometimes it’s impossible to save everyone.” Lady Cindertallow took her own handkerchief from her desk, stepped forward, and dried Clovermead’s cheeks. “No fault of yours, Clovermead.” She shuddered, and she hugged Clovermead, as much for her own comfort as for her daughter’s. Her bones shook from terror, and Clovermead awkwardly enfolded her mother in her arms. Her cheeks were wet again.

  Lady Cindertallow composed herself, straightened her back, and stepped away from her daughter. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “I won’t stop thinking,” said Clovermead. “I’ll try to find a way out. And, and, I won’t stay away from Chandlefort. I’ll come back—”

  “Not into the town.” Lady Cindertallow’s voice was a lash. “Do what you like outside, but don’t come inside the walls. The prophecy—”

  “Blast prophecy! This is why I didn’t want to know anything! You start jumping at shadows, and you do stupid things, and you end up doing what you’re trying to avoid. You’re not even trying to avoid it. You’re just trying to be clever and noble all at once, and you can’t keep me away.”

  “No. I can’t. But I beg you not to return.”

  Clovermead was silent.

  “At least think. Don’t come back without a good reason.”

  “I won’t be a fool, Mother,” said Clovermead at last.

  “I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with that,” said Lady Cindertallow.

  “I’m afraid so.” Clovermead frowned. “You never did say what prophecy was said at your birth. You said you didn’t like the sound of it.”

  “I still don’t.”

  Clovermead waited a long moment.

  “I don’t wish to share it with you, Clovermead.”

  “That bad?” asked Clovermead. Lady Cindertallow nodded, and Clovermead groaned. “Ugh. Can you at least tell me if there are any more prophecies about me? I don’t want to know what they say, but I want to know if they’re out there.”

  “Nothing else,” said Lady Cindertallow. She smiled faintly. “You’ve heard the worst already.”

  “I’m glad,” said Clovermead. She hesitated a moment. “Mother, I’d like to spend a few hours with Sorrel. I know we need to start getting the townsmen ready to leave, and I want to spend as much time as I can with you, but I haven’t seen him in three years. He’ll ride off to Silverfalls tomorrow morning. Can you spare me until then?”

  “Of course. Clovermead, I’m sorry to send him from you.” Lady Cindertallow shrugged helplessly. “I must use every tool that comes to hand. Go, go—but I’ll expect you for breakfast. I’ll have instructions for you and Lord Wickward.”

  “Thank you, Mother. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She kissed her mother on the cheek, and dashed out of the room.

  As she jogged from the Castle, she saw Waxmelt in the Training Grounds showing a line of new recruits to the Servants’ Regiment how to hold their shields properly. He adjusted their grips fussily, like a mother hen, stepped away from them, and slashed at their shields with a wooden sword. Waxmelt shook his head in exasperation as a recruit dropped his shield, and then he patiently explained what the boy had done wrong.

  “I want you alive too,” Clovermead whispered to herself. “You and Mother. I’ll make sure you’re both safe.”

  She skidded to a halt at the stables. Sorrel was currying Brown Barley, and the mare neighed happily. Sorrel looked up, and his eyes smiled at Clovermead. “Hello,” he said. He put down the currycomb, to Brown Barley’s loud disappointment, and stepped around the horse and toward Clovermead. “Your mother—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Clovermead, harsh and abrupt. Sorrel nodded, and Clovermead took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s just that—I came here to talk with you. Be with you.” She looked at the Tansyard’s half-changed visage. The sun shone straight on his face; his tanned skin glowed dark gold. “Do you know you’re even better-looking than when you left?”

  “I have stared intently into clear pools, hoping that might be the case.” Sorrel looked at Clovermead from head to toe, slowly, and he smiled as Clovermead blushed. “I think I said I am not offended by anything about you, old or new, and that most assuredly is true. As for the details of what I appreciate—I would not dare to tell you,
for fear those ruby cheeks of yours would burst into flame. Compliment me more instead; I am shameless.”

  Lovely lips, Lacebark had said, and Clovermead’s cheeks had burned.

  “That isn’t a change,” said Clovermead. “You’ve always been conceited.” Hesitantly she reached out her hand to touch his mustache. It was thick, smooth, and well groomed. It was a little greasy. She brought her fingers back to her nose, and sniffed. “Perfume! What did you do that for?”

  Sorrel smiled a little sadly, and his eyes dropped to the ground. “So that you would have no cause for complaint when we kissed. I also chewed mint leaves.”

  “Oh,” said Clovermead. Tears started to her eyes, and she reached out her hand. Their fingers touched—and then her fingers jerked back. “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.” I dreamed of you for years and years, she thought bitterly. I still do, but you’ve been gone so long that I’ve started to dream of other men as well. How can I touch you when I’ve got Lacebark in my head? Couldn’t you have come just a few weeks sooner?

  Clovermead looked away from Sorrel. She didn’t want him to see the resentment in her eyes. When she looked up again, she had it properly hidden.

  “I was not unaware that time would change me,” Sorrel said after a while. “Therefore I devised a way for you to know how the Sorrel you left became the Sorrel you would meet again. I have been making bad jokes for three years, with no one to appreciate them properly, and so I have memorized them, and the order in which they were composed. I will recite them to you, and with each joke no more than a week will pass. With my changing humor, you will know the changing Sorrel.”

  “You didn’t,” said Clovermead, her eyes wide.

  “I didn’t,” said Sorrel calmly—and he grinned. “You look so hurt! I remember that look, and it is the look of the Clovermead who left me three years ago to ride back to Chandlefort. Perhaps you have not changed so much.”

  “I have,” said Clovermead. “Saraband read love poems at me until I actually started to like some of them. Mother put me in charge of tax collection for a year, and I have the laws memorized. I’ve been to the Lakelands, and, and, so much stuff. I’m different.”

  “I would be glad to find out how,” said Sorrel. He looked straight at Clovermead. “The jokes are in my head. There are two hundred and twenty-seven of them.”

  “Oh,” said Clovermead. Her heart skipped a beat. “What’s the first one?”

  “I saw a gopher scurrying away from me, and I said to the emptiness by my side, ‘Look, Clovermead, he go fer, fer away.’” Clovermead rolled her eyes, and Sorrel smiled. “I have been waiting three years for you to roll your eyes that way. I said they were bad jokes.”

  “You have changed! You never used to know how awful your jokes were.” Sorrel chuckled, and some of the three years melted away. Clovermead started to reach out her hand again—

  Could not. Too strange, thought Clovermead. Too soon. And I’m angry at you some. Maybe I shouldn’t be, but I am. She saw disappointment in Sorrel’s eyes, though he concealed it quickly. And a flicker of resentment of his own. Still, you’re more gentlemanly than any lord in Chandlefort, thought Clovermead. I hope you realize it’s part of why I love you.

  Clovermead sighed. We aren’t going to kiss tonight. We aren’t even going to hold hands. I love you, but I just can’t. And I can’t talk to you about how Mother will be gone forever, dear Lady, so soon. Sorrel, I want to kiss you, and I want to cry on your shoulder, and what you’re doing is a wonderful beginning, but that’s all. And you’re going away tomorrow. There’s no time to get to know you again.

  “Tell me the second joke,” said Clovermead. “Tell them all to me.” Don’t give up on me. Maybe by the time you’re done, we won’t be complete strangers to each other.

  “Certainly, Clovermead,” said Sorrel gently. He turned so that they stood side by side. “Three days after I saw the gopher, I saw a wildcat.”

  “But it turned out to be a mild cat?”

  “Shush. I am the one telling these jokes.” He glared at her, and Clovermead giggled. “As I was saying, I saw a wildcat.”

  As they walked through the stables, Clovermead didn’t look at Sorrel, but listened to him. Slowly, joke by joke, the sound of his voice became familiar to her again.

  Lovely lips, said Lacebark in Clovermead’s mind. Sorrel’s gentle jokes could not drown out his tempting voice.

  Chapter Five

  The Bridge of Bones

  That night Clovermead dreamed old memories—

  She was in the gorge north of Barleymill once more, trapped with Lucifer Snuff and Boulderbash. Snuff cried in the darkness, Boulderbash lay near death, and Clovermead called on Our Lady to heal them. They became whole again, and Snuff did . . . not kill her, when he had the chance, but wrenched her dislocated arm back into its socket. Honorably repaid her mercy with equal mercy. Then bear-priest and bear sprang from the gorge, ready to fight for Lord Ursus again. Ready to kill Clovermead once more.

  “Did I make a mistake, Lady?” Clovermead muttered. “I still don’t know. I asked you to heal Snuff. It’ll be my fault if he kills us all.” She tossed under her blankets. “Send me a dream to comfort me.”

  “I have no comfort to give,” a voice whispered inside her.

  “I’m afraid, Lady,” Clovermead groaned. “Afraid of Ursus, the future, everything. Darkness and death. Help me.”

  “I can give you nightmares,” said the voice. “Dreams of dark souls, lost souls, and foolish love. What I see. Terrible visions, hard knowledge, and perhaps a way past fear. The only way I know. They will hurt, but they can help you through the hard time to come. Will you take my gift, Clovermead?”

  “More educational dreams. Ugh.” Clovermead grimaced. “Yes, Lady. Yes.”

  Clovermead looked down from the heavens at a world smeared with black ooze. Blackness crawled along roads and sailed along rivers; it withered corn in the fields and stripped leaves from forests. It whispered temptingly in the ears of men, and they opened themselves up to the ebony oil. It slipped inside them and ate out their hearts. They looked upward and snarled with hunger. Ursus stared out from their empty eyes.

  Black lightning flashed.

  Boulderbash padded in a dark labyrinth. Its walls were sheer obsidian and as high as mountains. A stale odor pervaded the maze—Boulderbash’s own scent. The white bear had paced down the same passageway a hundred times. Far above, an echo of moonlight glinted on the walls, but it could not make its way down to the depths where Ursus’ mother walked.

  Boulderbash growled at Clovermead when she saw her. “Traitor,” she growled, and her paw shot out blazingly swift at Clovermead—and passed through her. Boulderbash grunted disappointment. “Only a ghost,” she grumbled. “Only a dream.”

  “My dream too,” said Clovermead. “Boulderbash, I’m sorry I left you behind in Barleymill—”

  “So you said at the time,” said Boulderbash dismissively. “You’ve been sorry every time you’ve abandoned me. What good does your sorrow do me? I should have killed you when I had the chance at Yarrow’s Bowl. I was a merciful fool.” She swung away and padded on. “Come along, little ghost. Maybe I’ll wake up and you’ll still be with me. I don’t think I’ll be merciful a second time.”

  Clovermead hurried after her. She was barefoot, and she gasped with pain as obsidian chips dug into her feet. When she looked at Boulderbash, she saw dozens of the sharp black slivers embedded in her paws. “Is there a way out of here?”

  “I keep looking, but I haven’t found one,” said Boulderbash. “I don’t even remember how I came in.” She snorted unhappily. “That’s the way of dreams. And now Our Lady sends you to be my companion.”

  “She must have a reason,” said Clovermead. “Maybe I can help you.” She looked around, but the walls were featureless. She turned her nose into a bear-snout—and she smelled fresh air. A breeze blew from behind them. “Turn around, Boulderbash. The exit’s there.”

  Boulderbash circled abou
t and snuffled at the gentle wind. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “Its scent is as clear as anything in my nose,” said Clovermead. “Hurry, before the dream ends.”

  “Maybe,” said Boulderbash. “You’ve betrayed me so many times.” She sighed, and sat down on the black rocks. “Rest awhile first. I’ve wandered here a long time.” She looked up at the echo of moonlight above. “What is it by now, Lady? A hundred years? I’ve grown old.”

  Clovermead looked at Boulderbash, more closely than she had ever done, and she saw the signs of age. Her underfur was gray, and wrinkles lined her flesh beneath her fur. She was still strong enough to run, still strong enough to kill, but time had clawed at her.

  “How can you still be alive?” asked Clovermead.

  “Ursus said he couldn’t endure to be parted from me,” said Boulderbash. “He wrought a special chain from his darkness and tied it tight between us. Now not even death can steal me from him. My little cub has such power.” She smiled. “I knew that from the beginning. Long before he stole Our Lady’s light. He stirred in my womb, and I knew he would do great things.” Her smile faded. “I thought he had a different sort of greatness in his future. Oh, Lady, I never imagined he would become so terrible.”

  “I wish—” Clovermead began. She shook her head. “So many things, and it’s all just ways to say I wish the past had been different. What’s the use? I can’t fix what’s already happened. I can help you now.” She gestured back the way they had come. “Follow me, Boulderbash. I can free you from this maze.”

  “So you say.” Boulderbash sniffed at the air once more. She looked at Clovermead again, with all her old wariness. Slowly she got to her feet. Her white fur shone in the darkness. “Will it take another hundred years to find the exit?”

  Another breeze wafted by Clovermead’s nose. “It’s very near,” said Clovermead. “I can smell a forest. There are pinecones and rabbits, and honeycombs and green meadows. It smells wonderful! It can’t be more than a five-minute walk from here.” She held out her hand. “But I’ll stay with you if it does take a hundred years. Come with me.”