Shadow Prowler

by Alexey Pehov

  “I feel fine. Why?”

  I attempted to get up off the bed, but Miralissa gently pushed me back down.

  “Lie down for a while.”

  “Will someone explain to me what is going on?” asked Milord Alistan, unable to restrain himself any longer.

  “I wish someone would explain to me,” Miralissa snapped irritably, and shivered, as if there was a chilly draft in the room. Quickly, she recovered her composure and was all business again. “Everything was going as usual. The standard procedure for attuning the key—it can be carried out by any third-year apprentice who knows almost nothing about shamanism. Everything was normal, and then the key suddenly flared up with a purple light and I lost contact with Harold. His consciousness was transported to such distant realms that we had great difficulty in bringing him back here. Or rather, somehow he made his own way back—all our attempts were unsuccessful. I don’t understand a thing!”

  The artifact flared up with a purple light? That happened in one of the dreams. Some man . . . Sunik? Suonik? I can’t remember. He did something to that key. Something not exactly good. Another of the Master’s minions, that was who he was.

  “Harold, can you remember anything?”

  “Well, something,” I said slowly.

  “Stop muttering! What do you remember, thief?” Alistan was still furious.

  “Dreams. Thousands of dreams.”

  “What dreams?”

  “It’s all your key’s fault, you should have made it yourself, instead of sending a prince to the dwarves!” I said in a reproachful voice.

  “How do you know that a prince commissioned the key?” Miralissa’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “From a dream, I suppose . . . ,” I said after a moment’s thought. “I even remember the elf’s name—Elodssa.”

  “Elodssa the Destroyer of Laws,” Ell said, nodding to confirm that I wasn’t lying. “There was a head of the House of the Black Flame with that name. Long ago, more than a thousand years. But I did not know that he commissioned the key.”

  “He didn’t commission it,” I said, defying Miralissa’s prohibition and sitting up on the bed. “His father did. Not even his father, all the elves. Dark and the light. And Elodssa went to the dwarves. That was how it all happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “Pay no attention. It was only one of many dreams.”

  “Dreams have the quality of showing the past. Or the future. It is quite possible that without even knowing it, you saw a page from that book.”

  So I had to explain.

  “If we can rely on my dream,” I concluded, “then something bad was done to the key and now it doesn’t work the way it should.”

  “But before it worked just fine!” Alistan objected.

  “We didn’t know anything about the Master before,” Ell retorted. “Something in the key could have awoken, and it almost drew Harold in.”

  “Enough!” said Miralissa, clicking her fingers in annoyance. “We shall carry on with what we have been doing. In any case, the artifact has remembered Harold.”

  “And I think I’ll be going. If none of you have any objections, that is.” I got up off the bed and walked toward the door.

  “Don’t forget the key,” Alistan said.

  “No, let it stay with me for a while,” said Miralissa, unexpectedly supporting me. “I shall check it again. We have to be sure that it is absolutely safe.”

  Marvelous! I left the thoughtful elves and the disgruntled Count Rat.

  On the way to my room Tomcat called me. He looked somber.

  “Have you seen Alistan?” he asked without stopping.

  “He’s with Miralissa.”

  Tomcat nodded and set off toward the elfess’s room.

  “Where have you been gadding about?” That was how the jester greeted me when I appeared in the doorway.

  Lamplighter wasn’t there yet, and Kli-Kli was making up a bed for himself on the floor, between the two beds with cracked wooden frames.

  “Are you fond of sleeping on a hard surface?” I asked, ignoring the goblin’s question.

  “I’d advise you to do the same, it’s good for the health,” said Kli-Kli, plumping up his cushion.

  “Thank you, I think I’ll pass on that.” I took a plug of cotton wool out of my pocket—one of several that I had taken care to request from the innkeeper’s helpful wife—and put it in my ear.

  “What’s that for?” my green friend asked, screwing up his eyes suspiciously.

  “I can’t get to sleep without them,” I said with a crooked grin, and the goblin let it go at that.

  After several nights spent under the open stars, the bed seemed like a gift from the gods, and I slept like a baby. . . .

  As was only to be expected, the next morning Kli-Kli was morose and taciturn. He was out of sorts with the entire world, especially with Lamplighter, and also, for some reason or other, with me.

  Neither Miralissa nor Alistan said a word about the key that morning. They merely hurried us along, eager to set out as soon as possible. We left early, before the dawn arrived. While Milord Rat was pushing the entire group along, I finished sleeping on Little Bee’s back, since the horse was not dashing along at a gallop. Marmot, riding beside me, merely sniffed, understanding the state I was in, and began keeping an unobtrusive eye on Little Bee to make sure that I didn’t tumble out of the saddle.

  An hour later the horses moved up into a fast trot and there I was, wide awake, sitting upright in my saddle in dashing style. That’s what regular practice can do for you. And only then did I notice that certain changes had taken place in our small expeditionary force.

  “Where are Tomcat and Egrassa?” I asked Kli-Kli as he rode past me on Featherlight.

  “They’ve been given an important assignment,” said the goblin, opening his mouth to speak for the first time that morning. “That’s it, Harold. All the fun and games are behind us now. Now difficult and perhaps even dangerous days lie ahead. Something has to happen, I can smell it!”

  And Kli-Kli sniffed loudly to support his own words.

  “What’s happened, Marmot?” I persisted.

  The Wild Heart merely shrugged, but he looked concerned. “The Nameless One only knows. Tomcat was out of sorts all day yesterday. He kept muttering something to himself, and by evening he’d begun glancing round over his shoulder. And this morning he took the elf with him and disappeared. You heard what Kli-Kli said, didn’t you? Something’s going on. I hate being surrounded by riddles.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Loudmouth asked with a yawn. “Just look at the way Alistan’s driving us along. At this pace we’ll be in the Sultanate before evening comes.”

  We turned off the highway onto an old, deserted road that continued to lead us to the southeast, although Honeycomb said that later it would turn back toward the south and merge with the highway before Ranneng. This route was a lot shorter, but less busy. This was not a populous area and there were no villages, so once again we would have to spend the night under the open sky.

  The morning passed, the hot afternoon arrived and dissolved into the approaching evening, but Alistan kept driving us on, sparing neither horses nor riders. The worm of alarm began stirring somewhere in my soul. Something must have happened, otherwise why all this hurry?

  Neither the elfess, nor the count, nor Uncle replied to the jester’s questions; they merely drove the horses on even harder. There were brief halts, simply in order to allow the exhausted horses some rest, and then the dusty road was flitting past again below our feet, as the disk of the coppery red sun slipped down behind the horizon on our right hand.

  Our group did not stop for the night until the sky was a fiery crimson that was gradually turning dark purple, and there was nothing of the sun left above the horizon apart from a narrow rim. We didn’t go far from the road and were so exposed to view that we might as well have been sitting on Sagot’s palm. There were unplowed fields stretching out to the right and the left o
f the road and the light of a campfire would be seen a league away.

  The pale, horned crescent that had replaced the full moon while we were traveling appeared in the sky and began conversing with the first stars. But there was no time for admiring the beauty of nature—we still had to collect firewood.

  Within the group duties were precisely distributed. Two men gathered wood and kept the fire going, one cooked, a fourth watched the horses, and the rest prepared the site for the night’s rest. Everybody had a job to do; no one was allowed to shirk. Even Markauz, our very own count, checked the horses every evening to make sure that—Sagot forbid!—none of them had gone lame.

  Nobody asked me to do anything, but I didn’t want to seem like a useless idler (after all, I would have to share my final crust of bread with these people), so I also did whatever I could. Mostly I helped Marmot gather firewood or feed Invincible. The ling had turned out to be a most amusing animal and pretty damned smart, too. We got on perfectly well together: I allowed him to climb onto my shoulder and he allowed me to stroke him. Marmot found this idyllic love affair very surprising. He told me that Invincible wasn’t usually very keen on anyone touching him. Apart, of course, from his beloved master.

  That night Alistan posted sentries for the first time. The first to go on watch were Arnkh and Eel. In three hours’ time, they were due to be relieved by Uncle and Honeycomb, and during the early morning the next four would take their shifts.

  _______

  I couldn’t sleep. Sleep had abandoned me and I simply lay there with my hands under my head, looking up at the starry sky that was like a bottomless lake. The warm night breeze ran its soft hand across the tall wild grass and the sleeping flowers, gently bowing the plants down toward Mother Earth. The grass pretended to be angry and rustled, but as soon as the wind was distracted, it playfully raised its head again, calling the wind back.

  The skinny old crescent moon floated above the world and its light fell into the grass like silvery dust, making it look like precious jewelry that had escaped the control of some talented master craftsman’s hand. There was the smell of damp earth, wildflowers, summer freshness, and boundless space. After the constant stony stench of the overheated city, the scents of nature were intoxicating.

  Somewhere far off in the fields there was the melancholy call of a solitary bird. I was not the only one who did not feel like sleeping that night.

  For an instant a black silhouette blotted out the stars as it flitted over my head and silently dissolved into the night, only to return an instant later. The shadow turned in a circle above the camp and, realizing that it would not find any interesting prey beside the campfire, lazily flapped its wings and moved away, with its body almost touching the grass, disappearing into the silvery moonlit fields.

  An eagle owl out hunting. Watch out, all you mice. Just as long as it doesn’t take our Invincible. Although it’s not so very simple to eat a ling. Just try grabbing a creature with teeth like that, and you’ll soon find yourself with no beak or feathers! I could still hear the little beast rustling in the cooking pot, finishing off the remains of supper.

  The campfire was dying down and the coals it had created were quietly twinkling back at their distant sisters, the stars, to see who could glow brightest. I felt I ought to throw on a few sticks of firewood, but I was too lazy to get up—the soldiers were sleeping lightly and I was certain to wake someone up. Loudmouth was lying beside me, stretched out on his back with his mouth open. If Kli-Kli had not been asleep at the time, he would have been sure to exploit the soldier’s incautious pose and slip a dandelion or some small bug into his open mouth as a jolly joke—you could expect any kind of rotten trick from the green goblin at absolutely any moment.

  I still hadn’t managed to understand the goblin’s character: Either he was simply playing the part of the royal buffoon, acting crazily all over the place, or this really was the normal condition of his little green soul. Before I met Kli-Kli, I hadn’t really had any serious contact with his race—there were so few of them—and so my general impression of goblins had only begun to take shape quite recently.

  But this time Loudmouth was in no danger—the jester was too tired and he was snuffling softly with one hand under his cheek, as sound asleep as everyone else. Close by, Lamplighter was sleeping with his arms round his beloved bidenhander. Deler was over closer to the fire. Hallas was stretched with his precious sack on the boundary of light and darkness.

  The others were lying on the other side of the fading fire. They merged into the darkness, transformed into mere dark silhouettes, and it was impossible to make out who was sleeping where. Eel walked by several times, keeping watch. But then, convinced that all was quiet, he sat down not far away.

  Eel was probably the only one of my human companions about whom I had not yet formed a definite opinion. Always taciturn and as erect as a pikestaff, the dark-complexioned Garrakan rarely got involved in conversation. Sometimes he threw in a few sparse words, but only in cases when he thought it was worth sharing his opinion with the others.

  He was well respected in the unit, that was clear straightaway, but I couldn’t see that Eel had any friends among the Wild Hearts. To him we were all campaign comrades, the companions who would fight beside him, if necessary, against the common enemy, but not at all the kind of friends with whom he could enjoy drinking a glass of beer on some fine spring day. He kept his distance; he didn’t poke his nose into the others’ business and didn’t let them into his confidence. None of the soldiers took offense and they accepted the Garrakan’s character at face value. Once I asked Lamplighter how a man like that had come to be with them.

  “I don’t know, he’s not much inclined to talk about his past life,” Mumr said with a shrug. “And we don’t try to force him. The past is every man’s personal business. Take Ash, now—he’s the commander of the Thorns at the Giant—he used to be a petty thief. He wound up in the Wild Hearts when he was still a boy. And now we’d follow him to the Needles of Ice and beyond if need be. And I couldn’t give a damn what he used to do before—thieving, killing, or kidnapping old women. It’s the same thing with Eel. He doesn’t want to talk about anything before he joined up—and that’s his right. I’ve known him for almost ten years, and none of our lads have ever had any reason to doubt his courage. I heard a rumor once that he came from some noble family in Garrak. And I don’t think myself that he’s any kind of simple lad. Just look at the way he handles those swords, like he was born with them. In a word, a nobleman.”

  The night bird called again. The brief sound lingered and rippled across the fields, making Eel turn his head sharply in that direction. But the very creature that had made those howls seemed to have taken fright at its own voice.

  Sleep still would not come. I was too worried by the fact that Tomcat and Egrassa had been away for so long. The goblin was right when he said something nasty was on the way. What could detain two warriors on a seemingly safe and peaceful road?

  Hmm . . .

  Was it really that safe? Really that peaceful? It might be only just over a week to Avendoom on horseback, but that didn’t mean everything was peaceful and quiet on the highway. Anything at all could happen. What had Tomcat been so dour and upset about? A whole day before I was introduced to the key, he was already quite obviously concerned, frequently glancing round behind him without any need, staring down the empty road, stroking his cat’s whiskers far too nervously, and muttering strangely to himself under his breath.

  What had he seen? What had he sensed? All the others, including Miralissa and Egrassa, who were skilled shamans, had been quite unperturbed.

  But then, who could understand a tracker? In their profession, those lads were obliged to see what others failed to notice.

  The stars gradually blurred and the world sank into a deep sleep.

  I opened my eyes without knowing what had woken me. The crescent moon had sauntered quite a distance across the sky while I was asleep and now it was clutched i
n the embraces of the Arrow of the Sun, an immense constellation spread out at the very line of the horizon.

  Eel was dozing beside Loudmouth, whose mouth was still wide open. More than three hours had passed since I fell asleep and now Uncle and Honeycomb were on watch, having taken over from the Garrakan and Arnkh, who had gone to their beds.

  Someone had taken care to prolong the life of the campfire and its small scarlet flower was slowly consuming the sticks of firewood. Miralissa was sitting beside the fire, occasionally dipping a stick into the flames. The fire hissed in annoyance and shot out sparks that went streaking up into the night sky.

  I stood up and went toward the elfess, trying not to wake anyone, but I almost stepped on Deler on the way. I sat down cautiously beside her and started watching the fire lick the bark off the stick.

  “You cannot sleep either?” she asked after a long silence.

  “No.”

  I looked at her imperturbable face, at her hair gleaming with scarlet highlights in the light of the campfire.

  “It is a good night.” She sighed.

  “Bearing in mind that I haven’t spent the night in the fields very often in my life, yes it is. A good night.”

  “You have no idea what a lucky man you are,” the elfess said suddenly, her fangs glinting.

  I still hadn’t managed to get used to those protruding teeth the elves had. No doubt men are subconsciously afraid of anything different from themselves, especially if the unknown has fangs like that in its mouth.

  “Yes, if finding yourself in a situation that leaves you no option but to take a trip to Hrad Spein is good luck,” I replied rather gloomily.

  “I won’t try to console you there. You chose a rather risky profession and you knew what you were doing. It’s dangerous to be a thief. But that wasn’t what I meant. How often have you been outside the walls of Avendoom?”

  “Three times,” I said after a moment’s thought. “And not farther than five leagues.”

  “There, you see. A lucky man. Always close to home.”