Shadowfell

by Juliet Marillier

  ‘Want to, no. Need to, yes. Promise me you won’t interrupt until I’m finished. Promise you will listen to the end.’

  Now he was scaring me. What could this be? ‘All right,’ I said.

  He sat opposite me, his eyes sombre, his fingers twisting restlessly together. ‘You know, I imagine, that the king has a number of canny folk in his household.’ He had lowered his voice to the merest murmur. ‘Folk whose abilities he uses for his own ends. What is outlawed in the general community is accepted within his inner circle, and that includes the Enforcers. A talent for, say, being able to pass through walls, or to hear as acutely as a cat does, might prove extremely useful to such a person. As might, indeed, the skill of seeing into the future.’

  Since he had told me not to interrupt, I only nodded. My expression no doubt revealed my opinion of Keldec and his exploitation of magic. This was no surprise to me; it had been common knowledge in Corbie’s Wood, and was understood all across the west. Not that folk spoke of it the way Flint did. It was a hushed comment here, a whisper there, with always a glance over the shoulder in case the wrong person might be listening.

  ‘I . . .’ He hesitated, his brows drawing together in a frown. ‘We spoke of the western isles, before. I was not born there, but sent. As a small child, to be . . . trained. When I was eighteen years old, I went to court. My skills were of value to the king. I have been there ever since. I belong to Keldec’s inner circle, Neryn. He has few friends. I am . . . He considers me the closest of those friends.’

  In my mind was a picture of Flint on that island, a little boy learning what an Enforcer needed to learn: how to break down a door with a single well-placed kick; how to extract a confession by torture; how to wreak terror in the king’s name. How to perform those acts and survive. How to remain obedient even when his orders made him sick. The thought of it was disturbing, and yet, most shocking of all was the revelation that he was not only the king’s obedient henchman, but also his friend. That, I could not picture.

  ‘I have to say to you that . . .’ He cleared his throat and started again. ‘You have more reason than most to hate the king’s authority. To despise those who enforce it for him. You’ve suffered grievous losses. You’ve seen the very worst of what his rule has brought to Alban. But . . .’ He broke off once more, staring down at his hands. ‘A pox on it,’ he muttered. ‘There is no right way to say this.’

  ‘What? I know you are an Enforcer. I know you are connected with the rebel movement, and I can imagine how hard that makes your life. You’ve taken a terrible risk to help me. I understand that it isn’t safe for you to explain any more, not yet anyway. What is so important that I must hear it now?’

  ‘I . . . Neryn, I . . . What you understand about enthralment, what you saw with your grandmother, that is not the true nature of mind-mending. It is a twisted variant, an evil distortion of what was once a noble art. People have forgotten what it was in times past; they have seen it only as this perverted mockery. Mind-mending is not the destructive practice you have witnessed. Used as it should be, to heal, it can be a powerful tool for good.’

  A cold snake of dread was curling around me, squeezing at my vitals. ‘So I’ve been told,’ I said. ‘Though I never quite believed it. Flint, whatever you have to tell me, just say it.’

  Flint reached up to the collar of his tunic. His hand was shaking. There was a cord around his neck; I had seen it before but had not given much thought to what might be strung on it. Men often wore a lucky stone, a family talisman, a token from an employer or patron.

  He drew the thing out, and it was no lucky stone, no stag amulet, no rune or sign of protection. It was a tiny transparent vial, held in place by an elaborate clasp of silver shaped like the clawed foot of a bird of prey. My shocked eyes took in every detail: the delicate, five-sided shape of the container, like a long crystal; the intricate chasing on the silver talons; an area of scratching to one side, as if it had at some time been roughly handled. Around the top, just below the clasp, was wound a lock of honey-coloured hair. Within the vial something stirred, something a little like smoke and a little like water.

  ‘This is my canny skill, Neryn,’ Flint said, and his voice might have been that of death itself. ‘I am a mind-mender. You mustn’t –’

  My gorge rose. Spots danced before my eyes. The cave went night dark, and blood red, and began to turn in circles around me. I jumped to my feet and staggered outside, where I was violently sick, retching up my breakfast down the front of my gown and onto the rocks. I clutched my arms around myself as my stomach churned with spasm after spasm. My ears rang. My eyes and nose streamed. I could barely stay on my feet.

  ‘Let me help you.’ He was here, looming up beside me, his fingers on my skin –

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ I wrenched my arm from his grasp and bolted, stumbling over the uneven ground, slipping on the pebbles, tripping on tussock, running, running toward the shelter of the pines, anywhere away, away from him.

  ‘Neryn, stop! Wait! You promised to hear me out! Neryn, listen to me!’

  ‘Get away! Leave me alone!’ Oh gods, I had thought him my friend, my guardian, my saviour, and all the time he was one of them . . .

  Revulsion sped my feet, but I knew Flint could outrun me. The wood lay some hundred paces ahead. His boots crunched on the stones not far behind me. I heard his hard breathing. My chest was tight and sore; each breath hurt more than the last. In my head, throbbing pain warred with images of Grandmother staggering toward me, her eyes those of a stranger; of Garret and the little son who would grow up while his father remained a child. I dug deep within myself and summoned what I needed. The call burst from me, silent, powerful. Hide me. Help me.

  Tendrils of mist snaked out from the dark place under the trees. The vapour moved too fast to be a natural thing, enveloping me, cloaking me in its clouds, twisting and tangling about me and drawing me up the hill toward the wood. There were shapes in it: a queen in a long gown, a fighting man whose sword flashed silver through the wreathing fog, a big-eyed child in tattered garments, a great white hound. They merged and changed even as my head turned from one to another, for none held its form for longer than a heartbeat. They led me, pushed me, swept me forward until the darkness of the pines fell over me, and my juddering heart began to slow, and I knew I was hidden. The vapour formed a thin pale curtain around the little grove where I stood. I could see through it to the outside, but my instincts told me nobody could see in. It seemed to me that some of these trees that hedged me around were . . . not quite trees. I held myself still, my feet on a dense carpet of needles, my hands against the trunk of a pine. I tried to quiet my breathing.

  ‘Neryn!’ He was out there, calling. ‘Where are you? Come out and talk to me!’

  I listened. I breathed. I spoke not a word.

  ‘Neryn, you know I have to go soon. I can’t leave you here like this, I must be sure you’re safe. Please come out and listen to me. Neryn!’

  His voice was uneven, cracking; he strode through the woods, one way, the other way, his face linen-pale, his fists clenched.

  If it’s so important to go, then go, I told him silently. I pray to all the gods that I never see you again.

  He stayed a long time, hunting for me, begging me to reveal myself. He stayed so long that he would surely be late getting to wherever he was going. He would not find me. The Watch of the North had its own uncanny powers, and I was thankful from the bottom of my heart that they had answered my call.

  I watched Flint make a final turn around the little wood, jogging now. He called my name one last time. His voice was hoarse with shouting. I saw him return to the cave and emerge soon after with his bag on his back and his sword at his belt. He took one last look up toward the wood, and then he was gone.

  Even so, I stood a long time among the trees, motionless, scarcely breathing. I waited until the sun had risen higher behind its veil of clouds, and small birds were busy foraging in the trees, and my back ached from the effort o
f keeping still. I waited until I was sure – as sure as I could be – that Flint was really gone. Then I murmured, ‘My respects to you. I will leave here now,’ and with a shivering movement the almost-trees parted and the mist lifted to let me through.

  Down at the cave I wiped off my vomit-spattered gown. I scoured the cook pot, the bowl, the spoon. I picked up the blankets and folded them precisely. Just last night I had lain there beside him. I had felt comfort in his warmth; this morning I had not wanted to get up and face the day, for it had felt good to be close to him, sheltered by him. It set my stomach churning to think of it, to picture that thing around his neck, that accursed vessel only Enthrallers wore. How could I not have seen it before?

  I built up the fire and sat down by it. I drank some water from the flask. Beyond the cave mouth the sky was duller now, and the air had the strange warmth that means snow is coming.

  My hair. He had cut that lock from my head that night at the farm in the Rush Valley, when I’d been fighting to get a comb through the tangles. But he could have worked his foul magic on me long before that, on the very first night we were together, encamped on the hill near Darkwater. How easy for him to take advantage of my exhaustion and change my thoughts so I would trust him. So I would see him, not as an agent of the king, but as someone who could be my friend. If not on that first night, then surely he had worked his magic on one of the many nights we had spent in the little hut above Corbie’s Wood, when I had been too feverish to be aware of much at all. What a complete fool I had been, how gullible, how stupid! No wonder my dreams had been so confused, no wonder they had been full of dark and threatening things I had no names for. No wonder I had dreamed so often of Flint himself, as a child, as a man; no wonder his story had woven its way into my sleep, as if he and I were two parts of the same whole. I had been all too ready to forgive him and to see in him a good man, despite everything he was and everything he did. He had twisted my mind with his so-called mind-mending. The Enthrallers’ work was to turn strong-minded folk, folk with canny gifts, into loyal subjects of Keldec. To make them think the king worthy, a great leader, someone whose will they were honoured to work. But it would be easy enough for a mind-scraper to make a person follow him instead. That was what Flint had done. Made me care about him. Rendered me blind to his faults. Wound my hair around his wretched vial like a trophy.

  ‘How dare you order me to hear you out!’ I muttered. ‘How dare you try to tell me that your gift is something noble and good! How can it be, when every village has its own ruined victim wandering about dazed and hollow and frightened? How dare you say you wouldn’t lie to me? Everything you’ve said, every single thing you’ve done is a lie!’

  I sat hunched over the fire, shivering. Images filled my mind: Flint striding away down the mountain; Flint looking out into the night with tears spilling down his cheeks; Flint, always so neat with his hands, butchering a marten and spilling blood everywhere. Flint sleeping, warm against me. Flint’s beautiful eyes, shining in the firelight, full of falsehoods. Flint shouting my name, his voice broken and exhausted. In my mind, words from the trickster’s rhyme repeated themselves over and over. To your lost, your slain, your broken, grant forgiveness. But the rhyme was nothing to do with Flint. He was not lost, slain or broken. And some things could never be forgiven.

  I sat there until the fire had burned down to nothing. I spread out the ashes and sprinkled earth on top. I packed my bag. I took the last of the oatmeal, the precious supply of dried fruit, the remains of the hard cheese that we had brought from the hut. Let Flint find his own food. I rolled up one blanket and strapped it atop the bag. I put on my cloak. Time to go.

  ‘Do what you want,’ I whispered, taking a last look around the cave. The place was as lonely as a tomb, its corners full of shadows. ‘Meddle with my dreams, put your own poxy thoughts in my head. I’ll fight you. I won’t be anyone’s puppet. A man who lies to me will never be my friend. I don’t need you. I don’t want you. I’ll get to Shadowfell on my own.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Good Folk of the north were subtle beings. I sensed them as whispers on the icy wind, as creakings among the stones, as half-glimpsed, fleeting shadows, here then gone. I had wondered if I might see them more clearly when I camped for the night. But when my long day’s walk was done and I crept into a makeshift refuge under the roots of a great fallen tree, the best bolthole I could find in the gathering dusk, no small creatures pattered in to greet me.

  I did not dare make fire in case Flint was close enough to see it and find me. It would snow by morning; I felt it in the air. Tomorrow, there would be no hiding my tracks. They would lie in the white, an announcement of my presence and a signpost to my destination. But if I waited, if I stayed in hiding, I might still be here next spring, a frozen corpse tangled in the tree roots. Or bare bones, picked over by the wolves; their voices had reached me on the wind as I walked. I wondered how Flint would feel if he stumbled on my remains. Would he be sad, or merely annoyed that he had failed in his mission, whatever it truly was?

  Gods, it was cold! Why had I left that second blanket for Flint? I must have been mad. I imagined sharing my refuge with the wolves; I thought how warm that would feel, how welcome their hairy bodies would be against my shivering one. Provided they did not eat me. If the only pickings here were mice and martens, it was no wonder the creatures howled so. They must be ravenous.

  No cooking without a fire. I ate a handful of raw oats, nibbled a shrivelled circle of dried apple, drank some water. It came to me that the cold was so intense I might be dead before morning. To die thus, through my own miscalculation, would be a sorry end indeed to my journey. ‘Rise in strength,’ I whispered. ‘Live for Alban’s liberty.’ Those stirring words had filled me with hope. Now they only served to show me my own weakness.

  There were the Good Folk, of course. I could send out another call and hope they were nearby. I could ask for a hot, smokeless fire or a magical garment or a big dog to warm me. But that felt wrong. A gift like mine was not only precious, it was dangerous. I had called upon them to hide me from Flint, and they had been quick to help me. But I must not squander my gift on making my life more comfortable. If I was to be in their debt, let it be because there was no other choice.

  But perhaps there need not be a debt at all. The transaction could be an exchange. The Giving Hand. There certainly wasn’t much to give tonight, but I did have the remnants of the food and I could share that. If I was on the right track, if I evaded Flint and the Enforcers, I might be at Shadowfell by dusk tomorrow. I need only keep sufficient for one more meal.

  In the darkness I found a piece of bark and shook out a small heap of oats onto it. I crumbled cheese at one side and laid three wizened plums at the other. There was almost a disaster as I tripped while carrying this meagre feast over to a flat rock a few paces from my bolthole under the roots.

  ‘Here,’ I whispered into the night. ‘This is for you. Not much, but the best I can do right now.’ I did not say I was freezing. I did not ask for help. I retreated under the roots, wrapped my shawl over my head, pulled cloak and blanket around me, and tried not to think of the cold.

  I waited. Images of roaring flames, of glowing lamps, of fur cloaks and woollen coverlets processed through my mind. Pots of steaming soup. Tubs of warm water in chambers heated by bright hearth fires. Most treacherous of all was the memory of how it had felt to lie under the blankets with Flint’s body close to mine and his arm over me. Get out of my mind, I told him. I despise you. I would freeze to death before I let you touch me again.

  It seemed to me, as time passed and my body came close to the point where it no longer had the will even to shiver, that this really was the end, and a pretty poor one it was proving to be. My mission was a complete failure. Sorrel’s death had been for nothing. The help the Good Folk had given me, Sage’s courage, the selfless aid of Mara, the patience of Hollow had all been wasted. I should have risked a fire. Too late now. I might strike a spark, but
there’d be no finding dry wood in the dark.

  My chest hurt in an all too familiar way. Each breath seemed to draw cold deep into me, as if it would turn my very bones to ice. How did creatures survive here? How did they carry on?

  Nobody would come. The place was empty. I would die all alone. Even the shades of my family, which sometimes seemed to linger close around me, were absent tonight. Perhaps, after Odd’s Hole, they would visit me no more. ‘Grandmother,’ I murmured through chattering teeth. ‘Father. Mother. Farral.’ A charm to keep away the dark. A lamp to illuminate the night. But I had no sense of them at all. There was only the wilderness. Shadows pressed close around me. ‘Flint,’ I whispered, not knowing why I spoke his name.

  Tap. Tap, tap. Something was pecking at the oats. Something that showed pale in the night, something white, with feathers, about the size of a small dog. Tap, tappity, tap. I dared not move lest I startle it away. I watched, clutching the blanket around me, as it investigated the cheese, sampled a little, then ate the dried plums, one, two, three. What was it, an owl? The shape was rounded, compact, the plumage neat and glossy, the legs sturdy. When it turned its head to gaze at me, its eyes gleamed of themselves, round and strange. A not-quite-owl. Perhaps that was a feather cape, and underneath it . . . I could not see clearly, but the legs seemed to end, not in a set of owlish talons, but in a pair of small, well-crafted boots.

  ‘G-g-greetings,’ I stammered.

  The creature inclined its head. What there was of moonlight showed its face to be somewhat human in shape and form, save for those great eyes.

  ‘You’ll be dead before morning,’ it observed. Its voice was as much an owl’s as a young man’s.

  ‘I hope not,’ I managed. ‘If you c-can help me, I’d welcome that. I am . . . almost at my d-destination. One more d-day . . .’

  ‘You seek the Folds?’