Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  Now for the final, quickest, and most complicated stage—endowing his creation with life and memory. The master craftsman stood up, opened an old book, and raised his hand above the slumbering key.

  And at that moment someone knocked on the door of his workshop. The dwarf swore furiously. That elf must be here already. Too early! Well, prince or not, he would have to wait until Frahel had done everything that was needed.

  “Wait, honored sir!” Frahel shouted. “I haven’t finished yet!”

  Another knock.

  “Ah, damn you! It’s open!” Frahel called, preparing a couple of choice endearments for his client.

  A man came into the workshop. “Master Frahel?” the man asked, looking carefully round the room.

  “And who’s asking?” the craftsman replied rather impolitely.

  “Oh! Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Suovik.”

  “Suovik?” The dwarf was quite certain that this Suovik had a title. If only because there was a gold nightingale embroidered on his tunic. He thought that someone in Valiostr wore that crest.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Master Frahel. Simply Suovik will do.”

  “Simply Suovik” was about fifty years old. He was tall and as thin as a rake, with gray temples and streaks of gray in his tidy little beard. His brown eyes regarded the dwarf with friendly mockery.

  “What can I do for you?” Frahel asked, attempting to conceal his irritation.

  “Oh! I would like to buy a certain item. Or rather, not I, but the person who sent me. My Master . . .”

  “But, by your leave,” said Frahel, interrupting his visitor with a shrug, “I am no shopkeeper. I do not have anything for sale. I carry out private and very well paid commissions. If you wish to buy something, talk to Master Smerhel, two levels higher, gallery three hundred and twenty-two.”

  Frahel turned his back to Suovik to indicate that the conversation was at an end.

  “Oh! You have misunderstood me, respected master.” The man showed no signs of wishing to leave the workshop.

  He walked up rather presumptuously to the table and sat down, crossing his legs.

  “My Master wishes to acquire an item created by your own hands.”

  “And what exactly does he intend to buy from me?” the dwarf asked with unconcealed mockery, setting his hands on his hips.

  Politeness was all well and good, but he would take great pleasure in throwing this man out of his workshop.

  “That amusing little trinket,” said Suovik, half rising off his chair and pointing one finger at the sparkling key.

  For a moment the master craftsman was struck dumb.

  “Have you lost your mind, dear sir? The elfin key? I have a client for it! And what do you want it for?”

  “Mmmm . . . My Master is a man”—for some reason Suovik hesitated slightly over the word “man”—“a man of very special tastes. Let us leave it at that. He is a collector, and this remarkable key would suit his collection very well.”

  “No!” the dwarf snapped. “You wouldn’t have enough money to buy the work, and I will not break my word.”

  “Oh! You need not be concerned about money, Master Frahel!”

  Suovik got up off his chair, went across to the table on which the artifact was waiting for the final touch from its maker, and began taking stones out of his bag and setting them on the table. Frahel’s teeth began chattering and his eyes turned as big and round as saucers. The man put a dragon’s tear on the table—a stone in no way inferior to the one that the elf had brought. Then another one. And another. And another.

  “My Master is very generous, you will have no cause for regret,” Suovik said with a smile.

  The dwarf said nothing: he gazed wide-eyed at the stones, expecting them to disappear at any moment. This simply could not be! The dragon’s tears lying there were equal to the amount found by the dwarves and the gnomes in the last thousand years! Without waiting for an answer, Suovik placed another two specimens of the mineral on the table. The last one was simply enormous.

  “You must agree, dear Master Frahel, that this price is enough to make you think. Let your client wait for one more week, and you can make him another key; you have more than enough material here.”

  “But the key is not ready yet, it has not been endowed with life,” said the dwarf, trying to convince himself.

  “No need for you to be concerned; I can manage that on my own.”

  “Human wizardry is of no use here,” the dwarf said, shaking his head.

  “There is other magic besides human wizardry,” the man said with a smile.

  “Other magic?” Frahel screwed up his eyes suspiciously. “There is also the stone magic of my people, and shamanism. The magic of the gnomes and dwarves is not suitable for men, and your tribe can only study ogric shamanism . . .”

  “And what if this is so?” Suovik asked with a shrug.

  “Who are you?” the dwarf blurted out, looking round the workshop in search of his poleax.

  “Is that really so important? Well then, have we a deal?” Suovik reached his hand out for the key.

  “No,” the dwarf forced himself to say. “Take your junk and get out of here.”

  “Is that your last word?”

  “Yes!”

  “What a shame,” the man sighed. “I wanted to do things in a friendly way.”

  The door opened and five shadows slipped into the room. Frahel turned pale.

  Despite everything, Elodssa still somehow managed to lose his way and turn off into the wrong corridor. For a moment the elf’s dark skin was covered in sweat at the sudden thought that he was lost. But after walking back and turning twice to the right, the elf found himself in a familiar corridor with a low ceiling.

  Eventually he found himself outside Frahel’s workshop and pushed the door open.

  The dwarf was lying on the floor as dead as dead could be. A man was frozen absolutely still over a key—his key—singing a song in the ogric language, and the artifact was responding with a poisonous purple glow, pulsating like a living heart in time to the words.

  The singer cast a single swift glance at the elf and snapped: “Kill him!”

  Five orcs with drawn yataghans came dashing at Elodssa.

  Elodssa’s s’kash slid from its scabbard with a quiet rustle as his other hand grabbed the dagger from his belt and flung it at the shaman. The blade sank into the stranger’s neck below the Adam’s apple and he slumped over onto his side, wheezing and bleeding heavily. Now he could not say another word and he would not use any magic. The purple glow that had been spreading around the key began gradually fading. But the elf could not take the artifact yet—the first orc had drawn back his yataghan to strike. The s’kash and the yataghan clashed, parted, and clashed again. The orc jumped back, waiting for his fellows to move up.

  “You’re finished, you scum!”

  Elodssa did not bother to answer. Of course, five against one was very bad odds, but the elf was saved by the fact that he was standing in the doorway and only two of them could attack him at once.

  “Duck!” a familiar sharp voice said behind him.

  He did as he was told and the bow that appeared above his shoulder fired an arrow that buried itself in an orc’s eye. Another shot, and a second orc fell, shot through the heart. Midla fired her third arrow point-blank into the face of the enemy running at her. Elodssa joined in the fight, giving the elfess time to put her bow away and draw her two swords.

  Dodging a blow from the right, he raised his s’kash over his head, offering the flat side of the blade to his opponent’s yataghan. The orc was caught out, his yataghan slid along the downward slope of Elodssa’s s’kash, and the force of his own blow carried him forward an extra step, exposing his flank. The elf’s curving blade sliced through his opponent’s left arm and deep into his side. The elf then raised his weapon, stepped to the side—and the s’kash severed his enemy’s neck, sending the head tumbling across the floor until it stopped somewhere u
nder the table.

  Elodssa hurried to assist Midla, but she had already dealt with the final orc herself. There were two curved blades protruding from the enemy’s dead body. Midla slumped back against the wall, hissing in pain as she squeezed shut the gaping yataghan wound in her leg.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No, by a thousand demons! How could you be so stupid as to come here alone? What if I hadn’t got here in time?”

  “I’d have had to manage on my own,” he said, tearing up a cloth he had found in the dwarf’s workshop.

  “On your own,” Midla muttered, tightening the knot. “That wolf’s spawn even managed to wound me.”

  “Can you walk?”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for the next few months.”

  “We have to get out of here. Who knows how many enemies entered the galleries.”

  “Are these the ones who killed the guards on that distant gate?”

  “Probably. I’ll carry you.”

  Midla simply nodded. “Pull the swords out of the body—they mean too much to me.”

  “Of course.” Elodssa pulled the twin blades out of the dead body, handed them to Midla, and set off toward the body of the man, intending to pull his own dagger out of it.

  In defiance of all the laws of nature, the shaman was still alive, although there was bloody foam on his lips and it had dribbled down onto his chin and beard. Elodssa indifferently tugged the dagger out of the wound and listened to the man wheezing, gurgling, and whistling.

  “You . . . ,” the man began, trying to say something. “The Ma . . . ster will po . . . ssess the key . . . any . . . way.”

  “I don’t know who your master is, but elves don’t part with their property that easily.”

  Elodssa finished off the wounded man, watching with satisfaction as the brown eyes turned glassy. Then he took the key off the table, thought for a moment, and raked all the dragon’s tears into the bag lying on the floor, reasoning quite soberly that the dead had no more need of them, while the gnomes and dwarves would be able to get along without them.

  “Is he dead?” Midla asked when he came across and lifted her up in his arms.

  “Yes, he was working a spell when I got here. Doing something with the key.”

  “That’s none of our business, let the shamans sort that out. Was he working for the orcs?”

  “More likely the other way round,” Elodssa panted as he carried Midla out into the corridor. “They were working for him.”

  “How is that possible? The orcs never obey anyone they consider inferior to themselves.”

  “I didn’t have time to ask them. By the way, did you notice that they weren’t wearing clan badges?”

  “Yes. That’s very strange.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Report everything to the gnomes or the dwarves and get out into the open air.”

  “And then?”

  “Then?” Elodssa thought for a moment. “Then I’m going to give the key to my father and change a few old laws, regardless of the opinion of the head of the house.”

  “What laws?” Midla asked in surprise.

  “Those that forbid the son of a royal dynasty and a scout to be together. Have you any objections?”

  Midla’s smile was enough to let Elodssa know that there would be no objections from her side. Neither of them had noticed that in the depths of the key lying in the elf’s bag a faint purple spark was still glowing.

  22

  CONVERSATIONS IN THE FIRE

  There are many who think there is no life in the darkness.

  That is a great error. Perhaps, in the pitch-black emptiness of Nothing, life is not so obvious as in our own colorful world, but there can be no doubt that it exists. On this side and on that, doors opened for a brief fraction of a second with a despairing creak—columns of light in the boundless darkness, leading into goodness only knew where. I was suspended in emptiness and I saw many dreams, both beautiful and terrible at the same time. Dreams in which I was merely an observer; dreams in which I lived a thousand lives; dreams that were the truth and dreams that were simply dreams.

  How long did this go on for? I don’t think that it was longer than eternity; anyway even eternity has to end sometime. And like dreams, eternity has the disagreeable habit of coming to an end at the most inappropriate time.

  After several ages that seemed like mere minutes to me, the first crimson sparks were born in the darkness, the children of a gigantic bonfire that I could not yet see.

  The number of sparks increased, they started flying faster, and now they were flying horizontally as well as upward, as if they were driven by some mischievous wind. Sometimes, when there was too much of the fiery snow, the snowflakes swirled together into an orange whirlwind. And at those moments, pictures of the past appeared before my eyes.

  Another eternity passed and at one spot the darkness swelled up and turned yellow—the way paper turns yellow if you bring it near the flame of a candle—and then burst. Tongues of crimson flame appeared. Then more and more of them, and a moment later the flames consumed the darkness and filled the entire space of my infinite dream.

  I can remember that those eyes looking at me are the slanting, golden amber eyes of an elfess whose name, I think, is Miralissa.

  “Dance with us, Dancer!” The sound of jolly laughter made me look round.

  There were three shadows whirling in a furious dance on the tongues of flame. They were not frightened at all by the presence of light; they remained as black and impervious to it as if there was no fire there at all.

  “Come on, Dancer, do not be afraid!” One of them laughed, and made a circle round me.

  “I don’t dance, ladies,” I said. My throat was dry, either from the cold fire or from my dreams.

  “Look, he doesn’t want to dance.” Another shadow laughed merrily, flying right up to me.

  For an instant I glimpsed the outline of a woman’s face.

  “Why do you refuse to dance, Dancer? Why do you not wish to grant us the gift of at least one dance?”

  “I have to go.” The flame behind my back was howling ceaselessly, and I thought it was beginning to grow warmer.

  “Go?” The third shadow was there beside the first two. “But in order to go, you have to make us a gift of a dance. Come on, Dancer! Choose! Which of us is most to your liking?”

  “I do not know how to dance,” I said, shaking my head and turning away.

  The amber eyes had still not disappeared, but they were slowly moving away, disappearing behind the wall of flame. I dashed toward them, but instantly I was scorched by the searing cold. I covered my face with my hands in fear.

  “You see, Dancer,” the second shadow said with a nod. “You can only dance your way through the fire. Dance, or you will remain here forever!”

  I could already distinguish each of them by their voices. They were so similar and at the same time so different.

  “Which of us do you choose?” the third one asked again. The heat behind my back was becoming unbearable.

  “All three,” I said sullenly.

  One piece of foolishness more or less. What difference did it really make?

  A momentary bewilderment.

  “You are truly a Dancer,” the first shadow said in surprise. “You take everything from life.”

  “Well then, we shall lead you through the barrier. Hold on!”

  The shadows embraced me, shielding me with their dark bodies against the fire advancing from all sides. And they led me. An eddying swirl, a darting, sliding lightness, a black flash of lightning piercing the wall of flame and pushing me toward the amber eyes.

  I am falling . . .

  “We will dance the djanga with you yet!” I heard a voice say behind me.

  A final, angry spurt of crimson flame enraged at its own impotence. Night . . .

  “What’s wrong with him?”

&nbs
p; The voice pierced through the dense cobweb of unconsciousness, severing its threads like the blade of a dagger. It snatched me from the bottom of my sleep, slowly lifting me up to the surface so that I could take a gulp of the fresh air of life.

  “He’s coming round! Egrassa, give me the flowers! Quickly!” Miralissa’s voice was tense and . . .

  Perplexed? Frightened?

  “What, may the Darkness devour me, is going on here?” asked the first voice.

  I thought I knew it, too . . . Alistan Markauz.

  “Calm down, count, explanations later! Egrassa, why are you taking so long?”

  “Here.” The elf sounded calm.

  I smelled the sour scent of some herb and winced involuntarily.

  “All right, Harold, time to stop this comedy! Open your eyes!” The imperturbable Ell’s voice was sharp and tense.

  I tried. I really did try. But my eyelids were terrible heavy; they were filled with lead and refused to obey me.

  “Come, Dancer, open your eyes! I know you can hear me!”

  Miralissa calls me that, too—Dancer! It’s all Kli-Kli’s fault. The goblin was the first one to claim that I’m supposedly in some prophecy or other. I ought to strangle him, but I feel sorry for the little green creature.

  One more effort. This time everything was much easier. The elfess had a will of iron. The first thing I saw was her face. Miralissa was leaning down over me and, despite her swarthy complexion, she was exceptionally pale. “Thank the gods,” she said when I looked up at her and smiled. Standing a little farther away were the two elves, as tense as two taut bowstrings or the strings of some musical instrument. Markauz was standing beside them. He looked gloomy. But then, that was his constant mood; we had all grown used to that long ago.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Miralissa, putting her hand on my forehead again.

  How am I feeling? My arms and legs are all there. I don’t think I have a tail. Everything’s all right. Just what are they all in such a flurry about?