When Shadows Fall

by Bruce Blake

  “Fuckin’ shut it, simpleton.”

  In the second between Dunal’s block-o’-wood hand slappin’ his back and the shock o’ hittin’ the sea, Horace had time to think the o’ersized child mightn’t have meant to put him in the drink. The instant he entered the water, thoughts and ev’rythin’ else but panic left him like rats fleein’ a punctured bilge.

  The ol’ sailor knew the sea’d be frigid despite what a day like this tried to make a man believe, but it surprised him into gulpin’ a salty mouthful o’ water, anyways. When his head broke the surface, he coughed and sputtered the ocean outta his lungs, then glanced up at fifty pairs o’ eyes starin’ at him from the deck. He waved his arms o’er his head but already knew this’d be his end. No man were gonna risk fishin’ anyone outta the water when the shore weren’t near. May as well’ve signed his name on the family gravestone the instant his feet slipped from under him, scribin’ Horace Seaman below his long-dead father, Nedren Seaman, and o’er the spot reserved for his son, Rilum Seaman.

  Bein’ a good man, Horace should’ve accepted his fate calmly and with honor. A good man would’ve tread water quietly, waitin’ to either drown or for some beast from underneath to come up and take him, but seein’ them eyes starin’ at him, doin’ nothin’ when they coulda thrown a rope in and pulled their mate out, added anger to the panic already makin’ ol’ Horace want to swim for his life.

  He thrashed and flapped his arms, splashed water at the ship’s side and shouted, implorin’ his fellers—some he’d practically grown up with on one ship or another—to save his sorry sailor ass. They answered by tellin’ him to shut his gob, to just fuckin’ drown and leave them outta it. Someone threw a wooden block his way and it splashed in the ocean less’n an arm’s length from him, tossin’ water in his face.

  “You can throw scraps but you can’t toss me a rope?” Horace yelled.

  A shoe with a hole where the toe shoulda been hit the sea and floated near his shoulder. A second later, a hard object hit his head, doublin’ his vision, and warmth flowed down his forehead. He reached outta the water and touched his head, winced at the pain it brung, then examined the washed-out pink color of his own blood upon his fingers. None of them was gonna help, no matter how much he shouted and kicked. As he stared down at the blood on his hand, seein’ his submerged body visible in the water beneath, a black shape slid past in the depths below. It took more’n a few heartbeats to do so, but Horace Seaman didn’t know how many, ‘cause it seemed his own ceased beatin’ at the sight.

  Horace forgot the blood and peered up at the men on the deck above. They’d seen the swimmin’ shadow, too, all their gazes focusin’ past their mate now, gapin’ at the thing in the water, the God o’ the Deep come to make the Devil pay.

  The water trembled 'round Horace, and his body went cold; colder’n the water, colder’n the deepest day in winter’s heart. The sea lapped 'round him, the waves growin’ bigger and bigger until one washed right o’er his head. When he broke the surface again, he glimpsed the crew standin’ in an open-mouthed line along the wale, but none of them was observin’ him. Their eyes was lifted offa the sea, directed towards the sky as a shadow fell across him and, in his life’s last moment, the ol’ sailor wondered who the man were what he’d seen floatin’ atop the sea, then he hoped they’d mention Horace Seaman in the tales told at ev’ry tavern along the coast.

  II River Under the Castle

  Teryk whirled around at a sound behind him, muscles tense and an excuse at the ready. He’d already planned for Trenan if the master swordsman found him—a semi-plausible story involving some bauble long lost during his tenth turn of the seasons. The man likely wouldn’t believe him, but it mattered not. He’d been doing nothing bad enough for Trenan to tell his father, so it would be kept between the two of them. Not so if he discovered him in the water, or worse—on the other side of the bars.

  But instead of Trenan finding his way past the shoulder-high hedges, Teryk peered into the smiling face of his sister.

  “You’re not going swimming without me, are you?” Danya’s eyes shone as she danced between a hedge of witch’s brew and a shock of creeper vines.

  The prince let out his breath. “You startled me. I thought I’d been seen, but Trenan got lazy and sent the dogs after me, you made so much noise.”

  “Pfft. You didn’t know I was here until I wanted you to know.”

  She strode across the bare dirt to where he stood on the bank of the river. The sound of its rushing water—a constant hum heard in most every room of Draekfarren—became no more than a burble here where it slipped through the bars into the channel beneath the castle. Birds sang more loudly in trees around them, whistling tunes to celebrate another day of warmth and peace.

  “It’s been a long time,” Teryk said, watching the water. “When was the last time we swam?”

  “Swam? Not so long ago.” Danya giggled.

  “Under the castle, I mean. I think I’d seen twelve turns of the seasons, and you eleven.”

  “It was the day of my twelfth turn, remember? We sneaked away after the banquet and, when Trenan found us, he made a fuss but didn’t tell mother and father.”

  The prince shook his head and laughed. “Trenan said if he ever caught us again, he’d tell the king.” He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the water, wondering if it was worth the risk. “Hard to believe a half dozen and one have passed.”

  “Not quite so many,” the princess said and took a step to stand beside him and survey the gently churning flow. “It’s still one more moon before the day of your twentieth turn of the seasons comes.”

  “One more moon. Where does youth go?”

  “Ha.” Danya nudged him and he smiled at her. “If it’s youth you want to experience, spend a day with father. Seeing the way he acts should make you feel young again.”

  Teryk looked at her feet and saw Danya already without her shoes. He wondered if she’d taken them off upon finding him here, or if she’d been barefoot for some time. With her feet hidden beneath the skirt of her long dress, footwear was a custom Danya avoided whenever possible. The option didn’t exist for Teryk because everyone would notice if he strode around bootless.

  He inhaled the aroma of the garden and the river, the chalky scent of the wall through which it flowed. Only a moon until the day of my twentieth turn of seasons. So much time gone, and never a step beyond the walls of the inner city.

  “What do you think father would do if he found out?”

  Danya gave him another shove, firmer this time. He leaned toward the water, absorbing it.

  “First, brother, he won’t find out. Second, it’s swimming in a river, not laying with a peasant cleaning girl.” She raised an eyebrow and gave him a knowing look; he diverted his gaze. “I think he’d do nothing. Trenan only told us stories of how angry father would be to keep two curious children from trouble.”

  “Hmph. I suppose that could be the truth of it.”

  “Come on.”

  Danya pushed him again and Teryk side-stepped to keep from treading off the bank and into the river.

  “Hey,” he cried. “You’ll ruin my boots!”

  He took a step away from the water lest she push him again, but his sister had moved away to pull the ivory comb out of her hair and let her dark brown tresses fall past her shoulders. She shook her head, loosening them, then turned her back toward him.

  “I can’t reach,” she said, stretching her arms behind her and slapping comically at the buttons. “Undo my dress for me, brother.”

  “Women. Can’t dress or undress themselves.”

  “You know I’d rather wear shirt and breeches, like you,” she said, fumbling with the top button.

  “And waistcoat, and jerkin, and—”

  “Don’t complain. You can get in and out of them all yourself, can’t you?”

  He obliged and the dress slid off her shoulders. She shimmied and shook and pulled until it lay on the ground at her feet, leaving her in
underclothes that still covered as much of her as Teryk’s shirt and breeches did of him.

  “It’s dreadfully hot under all this dress-up, too,” she said stepping out of the dress. She picked it up and surveyed the garden around them, searching for somewhere to secret her clothes.

  “Maybe swimming isn’t such a good idea,” the prince said, his hand hesitating on the buckle of his belt. “We’re bigger than we were then. We may not fit through the gap.”

  “Nonsense,” Danya said dipping her toe in the water. She pulled it out and considered her brother hopefully. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Danya, I—”

  His sister jumped into the river, the splash of her body hitting the water and the giggle that escaped her lips cutting his protest short. Her head disappeared beneath the rushing water for a second and an inexplicable surge of panic tugged in his gut; no more than two breaths later, her head reappeared, hair plastered to her head and a wide smile upon her lips.

  “Come on, Teryk. Have some fun before you become an old man.”

  He frowned, hating it when she mocked him, though he knew she meant no harm by it. He’d told her his worry over the approach of the day of his twentieth turn of the seasons. All the time gone by and he’d accomplished nothing of any import. By the time their father reached the same age, he sat the throne and dictated policy. Two turns of the seasons later, the uprising happened, and then the battle that turned their father from another king in the line to a legend.

  But what had the prince accomplished? Schooling and nothing more.

  Princess Danya must have read his thoughts by the set of his expression, for she sent a spray of water from the river with her hands, splashing the legs of his breeches and his precious boots.

  “Hey!” He pranced back a step, then raised his eyes and glared at her, a smile fighting for purchase upon his lips. “You’ll pay for that, sister.”

  “You’ll have to get wet to make me pay,” she said and splashed him again.

  Hopping on one foot, Teryk pulled off one boot, then the other, stowing them amongst a twist of creeper vine. Next, he removed his sword belt and lay it beneath the same witch’s brew hedge where the princess secreted her dress. Last, he took off his waistcoat, shirt and breeches, rolling them together into a bundle and stretching on his toes to jam them into the elbow where a Bunyon tree’s branch joined the trunk.

  He stood on the bank in his underpants, enjoying the kiss of warm sun on his bare skin and watching his sister tread water in the middle of the deep river. Danya gestured for him to jump in.

  “Hurry, before someone comes along.”

  “No one will come along,” he said, running his fingers through his short, blond hair. “Unless they’re looking for us.”

  He stepped up to the edge of the river and slid one foot into the water. The river rushed around his ankle, caressing his skin with its cool touch, tugging him, coaxing him to step farther in. He did, putting the other foot in and standing on the shallow side. Two steps farther and the side would fall away as the river grew quickly deeper.

  “What are you waiting for?” Danya chided. “Goddess Festival?”

  Teryk wanted to jump in, to throw up a splash that sloshed the river against her face and taught her a lesson for teasing him, but he didn’t. Too much noise, and noise might attract attention. Instead, he walked the next two steps until his toes jutted over the edge of the drop off, then he allowed his body to slip into the water.

  The current was mild here, but still enough to draw him toward the grate if he didn’t swim against it. He let it have its way with him, bobbing in the cool, refreshing water as it floated him along in the direction of the bars, watching Danya dive below the surface. He stroked hard to reach the bars before her.

  Teryk gripped one pitted and rusted bar an instant before Danya resurfaced beside him. She shook her head and laughed, throwing droplets from her hair into his face. He stopped her laughter by putting his hand on the top of her head and pushing it under the water, a ritual they’d repeated every time they’d come here since they first learned to swim.

  “We shouldn’t stay long,” Teryk said when her face came above water again.

  “You worry too much, my prince.”

  “Trenan will be seeking me soon. I have pike training just after the height of the sun.” He glanced skyward at the sun climbing toward its zenith. Time remained yet, but better early than late.

  “As do I.”

  Teryk snorted. “If you call that thing you wield a weapon.”

  “Don’t laugh or I’ll have to teach you a lesson.”

  “Never mind that now,” the prince said. “Which one of us will—”

  His sentence lay in the air unfinished when Danya dove under the water, gripping the bars and pulling herself toward the bottom of the river. It was another part of the ritual, in which he asked who’d go first and she took the initiative. Teryk always wanted to lead the way, but his sister invariably beat him to it.

  The prince huffed a perturbed breath and waited, the surface of the bar he held rough against his hand, and he wondered how long these bars had been in place. The castle had straddled the river for as long as history itself, but had the grate been in place all that time? Did the bars rust away over time and require replacement? The only answer to his questions came in the form of his sister’s head breaking the surface on the side of the bars opposite him.

  “See?” she said, her smile broadening. “Still fit.”

  “You do,” he said. Danya wasn’t much bigger than she’d been the last time they swam under Draekfarren. Teryk, however, was both taller and broader, a testament to the effectiveness of the fitness regimen Trenan dragged him through each morning.

  “It will be fine.”

  He peered between the bars at his sister, her eyes shimmering like the sun on water, her smile a beacon to light any darkness. Beholding her through the grate, she seemed like a prisoner, and he a jailer. They’d played this game in their youth, pretending the bars belonged to a cell in Dreemskerry, but the river’s course didn’t cut through the prison, and they’d grown too old for such games of fantasy. Teryk’s stomach tightened—what if he got through the bars, but couldn’t get out? Then it truly would be his jail.

  “I don’t—”

  “Come on. What are you afraid of?”

  He opened his mouth to tell her, but stopped; she’d never let him live it down if he did. She already had more than enough fodder to use against him; refusing to follow her would only add more. Instead of admitting his fears, he filled his lungs with air that tasted of sodden earth and cool water, and plunged beneath the surface.

  With one bar in his hand, he pulled himself down and down and down. It proved easier than in his youth; he was older, bigger, stronger now. He remembered it being a struggle, coordinating the holding of his breath with the downward pull, and he recalled the current seeming more forceful, attempting to pull him against the bars and threatening to pin him there, drown him.

  Down and down and down.

  The pressure of the river’s depth discomforted his ears, the rub of silt in the water grated against his eyes, but the prince soon spied the bottom and the end of the bars. To his right, the space formed where bottom and bars and side converged. He pulled himself toward it, air warming in his lungs.

  Teryk dragged himself along the bottom until he reached the side. The gap appeared narrower, as though filled in with silt and dirt and rocks washed along by the river’s current. Or maybe, since he was bigger, the world at large seemed smaller.

  Danya got through.

  The thought proved the opening hadn’t shrunk, and prodded him to continue despite his misgivings. If his sister did it, he could, too.

  Teryk gripped the horizontal bottom bar of the grate, pulled himself toward the opening the way he’d done so many times in their youth. The excited thrill of danger he hadn’t felt for so long tingled along his limbs, noticeable even under the cool water. It fluttered in his sto
mach and clenched his chest around his lungs working hard to hold in his breath.

  He swung around and put his feet through the gap, the way he’d always done. His ankles slid through, his knees, his thighs. He released a puff of air through his nose in an effort to keep water from entering his nostrils, bubbles racing toward the surface. His lungs strained with the pressure of his remaining breath.

  The prince’s hips went through the opening, seeming a tighter squeeze than he recalled. His stomach brushed the bottom of the rough metal, scraping lightly, and he considered extricating himself and heading back to the surface, thereby giving his sister the satisfaction of his failure, but he didn’t. He couldn’t let her have that.

  The bottom of his rib cage went through and he put his arms up over his head, using his feet against the river bottom to pull himself on. The metal rubbed along his flesh, tightening on him, holding him, pushing his back down against the bottom. Rocks and dirt scraped his flesh, but he continued moving through.

  When his nipples drew under the horizontal bar, his progress ceased.

  Teryk dug his feet into the river bottom, pulling hard with his legs, the muscles in his calves flexing until a cramp seized him. He opened his mouth and cried out, a mass of bubbles spilling out of his lips instead of a pained yell. His lungs burned with the air remaining in them and he tried to calm himself while he waited for the pain in his leg to dissipate, but the distress in his chest overcame his desire for calm.

  His feet flailed, kicking an invisible current in the depths of the river as he tried in vain to pull himself through or push himself back. The cramp in his calf gripped tighter, rendering his left leg useless, and one leg wasn’t enough to free him from the trap he’d put himself in. He moved to lower his arms and grab the bars, use them to leverage himself through one way or the other, but he’d jammed himself through enough he could do no more than brush the metal with his fingertips.

  The prince thrashed and another burst of air escaped his lungs, leaving room for panic to rush in and fill the space left by his fleeing breath. He wiggled side to side as much as his predicament allowed, but the grate’s grip on him didn’t loosen.