Shannivar

by Deborah J. Ross

“Unless they mistake it for your mother-in-law.”

  “Aiee! You insult the lizard!”

  Unable to summon enthusiasm for idle talk, Shannivar let their words roll over her. Ever since she had looked upon the stone-drake, a part of its eerie nature had remained with her. She did not know what it was, except that it was not a thing to be taken lightly.

  Perhaps, she thought as she folded her arms around her knees and laid her forehead against them, the best thing would be to send it to Isarre with Danar, who was clearly enraptured with it. At least, that would get it out of Azkhantia.

  She was still drained from yesterday’s race, and the heat made her dizzy. Her thoughts drifted on the billows of smoke. What if there were more stone lizards? What if they crawled—or walked—or ran over the land? What if they were, even now, making their way from the frozen north across the steppe?

  In a dreamy vision, Shannivar saw herself mounted on Eriu, bow in hand, galloping across a plain. The ground underfoot glimmered, as if encased in frost. Eriu’s hooves churned beneath him and she swayed with the rocking of his gait, yet they hardly moved. The air itself held them prisoner. Ahead, mists boiled out of the ground, thick and gray. A shape moved within the mists, looming closer. With every passing moment, it gained in size and substance.

  Shannivar opened her mouth to call out a warning, but no sound came forth. The mist had stolen her voice. In dismay, she glanced to one side and then the other. No comrades rode beside her. She and Eriu were alone in this strange world.

  The black horse was laboring now, struggling. His ribs heaved, as they had at the end of the Long Ride. Flecks of lather blew back to encrust her chest and arms. Stop, they must stop, or even his brave heart would fail him. Try as she might, she could not move her hands on the reins, nor could she signal Eriu with her weight. Her body was frozen in the saddle.

  All the while, the thing within the mists grew larger, already many times the size of the stone-drake. Lightning flashed above, and storm clouds piled high and higher. Any moment now, the mist thing would burst free.

  Cry out! she begged herself. If only she could make a sound, the dreadful spell might be broken. Cry out!

  Suddenly, Shannivar came back to herself, sitting bolt upright within the smoke tent. Her lungs burned as she drew in the thick, acrid air. Within her chest, her heart galloped as fast as Eriu’s frantic hooves. Around her, the tent lay dark and silent. She heard the muted sounds of the encampment at night and the distant whinny of a horse. Some time must have passed while she dreamed, for the fire had died down, and someone had put new chips upon it. The smell of the dream resin was stronger than before. She raked back damp hair, trying to clear her thoughts.

  The shadow thing, what was it? Why did it terrify her? Was it a sacred vision, sent by Tabilit? A nightmare born of an exhausting race the day before and the sight of the hideous stone-drake? A dream from the resinous smoke?

  A dream . . .

  The others might well be dreaming, too. Danar lay back, one hand twitching. Rhuzenjin seemed to be lost in his own visions, too, and Zevaron . . . Zevaron was gone.

  Chapter 18

  CURSING, Shannivar scrambled for the door flap of the tent. Behind her, one of the men stirred and mumbled something about a goat. As she crawled outside, she heard another comment, this time about the feebleness of women who could not endure the smoke.

  The night air shocked her senses after the heat of the tent. She drew it into her lungs to clear her head. Overhead, the moon shone just past full in a cloudless sky, bright enough to cast faint shadows. The encampment lay still, quiet except for a few scattered voices and the last of the evening’s singing.

  Shannivar could think of only one place Zevaron might have gone, the worst destination possible. Surely he did not believe he could sneak up there without the enarees learning of it.

  Pausing only long enough to pull on her trousers, vest, and boots, she dashed back toward the circle of jorts. As she passed the banked remains of one of the wood fires, she yanked a half-burned stick free. The wind of her passage fanned the embers into flame.

  Breaking into a run, she sprinted toward the promontory that rose up before her, its bulk blotting out the stars. Halfway up its side, a barely visible figure moved slowly upward.

  Muscles burning, heart pounding against her ribs, she climbed the narrow, twisting trail, pushing herself to go quickly. Hours of sweating had left her light-headed, and she wished she had taken the time to grab a water skin. There was no help for it now. Zevaron could not be far ahead. He was just as weak, and he would have to feel his way along the difficult trail by moonlight. She at least had a torch.

  When she reached the top, she found no sign of him. She hurried to the tent the enarees had put up around the sledge. The door flap was askew, as if it had been jerked aside in haste. Shannivar lifted it and plunged inside.

  The air inside the tent reeked of adrenaline-laced sweat. The sledge and its contents occupied the center. Zevaron knelt beside it, back hunched, hands tearing at the cords that bound the wrappings.

  Fool! Onager-brained outlander fool! He had not only trespassed on the sacrosanct territory of the enarees, he was violating their specific taboo!

  “Tabilit’s silver ass!” she cried. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Zevaron made no response, only continued his efforts. His breath came quick and hoarse. He might have been deaf. Deaf, or under an evil spell.

  Shannivar plunged the unlit end of the torch into the ground, taking care to keep it away from the side of the tent. Curling her fingers in his shirt, she grabbed Zevaron by both shoulders.

  “Stop! Think what you’re doing!”

  Trying to turn him around was like trying to move the promontory itself. She jerked and tugged, but he continued to work at the cords with such determination that several of the knots came loose. She set her stance and shifted her grip, slipping one forearm around his neck. With a sharp exhale, she threw her own weight backward. This time, she was able to break his balance. Panting with effort, she dragged him away from the bundle.

  Snarling, Zevaron pivoted to face her. He rose from his knees into a fighting crouch. The speed and power of his movement broke her hold, and for a terrifying instant, Shannivar feared he might strike her. She recalled how easily he had taken down Phannus, a trained fighter. But Zevaron simply stared at her, reflections of firelight in his eyes. He looked drunk, ensorcelled. Obsessed.

  She could not give up now. When he turned back to the bundle, she grabbed him again.

  He moved more quickly than her mind could follow. His shoulders shifted, and he reached for her opposite hand. His fingers encircled her wrist. One thumb pressed into the back of her hand. In a small, subtle movement, he bent and twisted the joint. Pain lanced up Shannivar’s arm, almost sending her to her knees. The torch-lit interior of the tent wavered in her vision. Other than a single sharp gasp, she could not speak or cry out. Her free arm flailed about but could not reach him.

  Maintaining his grip upon her wrist with one hand, Zevaron bent sideways, grasped one edge of the blanket, and pulled it away.

  Through blurring vision, Shannivar glimpsed the stone-drake’s snout and opaque eyes. The creature seemed even more eerie in the flickering light of the torch than it had by day, and at that moment, it looked like the mummified corpse of a living creature and not stone at all.

  Zevaron began murmuring in his own language, too muffled for Shannivar to hear the words clearly. Whether he was praying to his own gods, invoking some protective magic, or simply talking to himself, she could not tell. She had not thought him a man to waste his breath on chatter. He was afraid. She could smell it, feel it through the unrelenting leverage on her wrist, see it in the taut lines of his muscles and the set of his jaw. But he was no coward.

  Zevaron bent over the stone form and peered into its unseeing eyes. Again, Shannivar caught
that flash of muted sunlight just below the surface of his skin. For an instant, the air shimmered with it. He raised his hand and reached for the stone-drake—

  “No!” The word burst from her throat. “Don’t—”

  Zevaron hesitated, then visibly gathered himself. With a cry that seemed to come from the depths of his being, he slammed his palm flat against the stone creature.

  For a long moment, the space of a half-dozen heartbeats, nothing happened. Then Shannivar realized that Zevaron had frozen in place. He might have turned to stone, like the lizard thing. She could not make out any movement of his chest. His grip on her wrist loosened minutely. She managed to twist free. His hand fell to his side, limp. The light beneath his skin flared and died.

  Just then, the improvised torch guttered out, plunging the tent into near darkness. The only illumination came from the opening at the top, where the faintest glimmering of the moon sifted in.

  “Zevaron—Zevaron, please.”

  Shannivar closed her fingers around his shoulder. Beneath the thin, summer-weight shirt, she touched muscle, smooth and hard. Too hard, more like polished stone than flesh.

  With only a little effort, she was able to pull him free. This time, he did not resist her. He seemed to weigh no more than if he were made of bird bones. As soon as she broke his contact with the twisted stone figure, heat flared beneath her fingers.

  “Ah!” Zevaron exhaled like a swimmer rising from the depths of a lake. Locked muscles gave way. He sagged against Shannivar’s braced legs. Shudders rippled through his body.

  “Up! Get up!” she snarled, but he did not respond. She did not know how she was going to get him out of the tent if he could not walk on his own.

  The door flap opened suddenly. Torchlight flooded in. Squinting against the sudden brightness, Shannivar made out several enarees as they peered inside.

  “Out!” one of them shouted. “Get out!”

  Zevaron offered no resistance as Shannivar hauled him to his feet and shoved him through the opening. She scrambled after him, into the chill night outside. Her vision went gray, but she managed to remain steady on her feet.

  The enarees, some holding torches, formed a circle around the two of them. Their expressions ranged from incredulity to outrage.

  “Daughter of the Golden Eagle,” Bennorakh growled, “you have brought great shame upon your clan this night!”

  Shannivar stifled a protest that she had only followed Zevaron, who knew no better. He was an outlander, a dweller-in-stone, ignorant of spirit matters and proper behavior. But she could offer no excuse for her own actions. More than that, she was certain that Zevaron had not acted lightly. He was neither witless nor irresponsible. Something great and terrible had compelled him to transgress as he had. Something, she realized, that had roused from the very moment he heard Chinjizhin’s story.

  “Shannivar.” Zevaron moved closer to her, his voice low and urgent. “Help me.”

  “Help you?” After what you’ve done? Are you mad?

  She wondered if Zevaron realized what he was asking. Surely it was a point of honor in his people as well as hers to accept the full consequences of one’s actions. In this case, the offense was grave. The enarees might exile them, curse their arrows, or sever their spirits from their bodies.

  “I have done wrong in your eyes,” he said to her. Some harmonic in his voice, dignity mixed with sorrow, reached into her heart. “I deeply regret the trouble I have brought to you. You, who have shown me nothing but kindness. For myself, I saw no other choice.”

  Shannivar stared at him. She had not been kind. She had threatened him, lectured him, taken him under her protection—how was that kind?

  Then she thought of the moments of quiet conversation, of how they’d shared songs and stories to better understand one another. Of the loneliness she sensed in him. How her heart had ached for him because his closest friend was the blood kin of his most bitter enemy.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, shoving aside the uncomfortable feelings. “How can you not have had a choice? Who held a knife to your throat and forced you to do this?”

  He shook his head, as if the answer were utterly beyond words.

  “Why did you defy the taboo?” she pressed on. “Do you not understand that the enarees speak for Tabilit herself in these matters? Yet you set yourself against the Mother of Horses and the laws she established.”

  “No—no, I meant none of these things! It was never my intention act disrespectfully or to violate the shamans’ commands. I do not know how to explain myself to these holy men, and I do not wish to offend them any further. Shannivar, please. Help me to explain.”

  She turned to look him full in the face. Torchlight burnished his skin to molten bronze. His eyes were dark and pleading.

  “I will accept whatever punishment they see fit to impose,” he said. “Will you tell them for me?”

  “I will try.”

  By this time, the Rabbit clan enaree had arrived. The others drew back to let him through. Shannivar bowed, one fist over her heart. He looked at her as if he had never truly seen her before.

  Praying that Tabilit might look into her soul and guide her words, Shannivar began to explain. She did not know the correct shamanic words to describe the situation. She tried to convey that the stranger meant no lack of respect. According to the customs of his own people, he had important spirit business with the stone-drake. He did not understand the importance of the taboo, and he begged to be allowed to make amends for his offense.

  The enaree nodded from time to time, closed his eyes, and swayed back and forth. He might be listening to her or communing with the spirits, or about to break into a dance. When she finished, her words spent, he peered at Zevaron for a long moment.

  “Ha-ya-heh! Eez-ma-cha-kovh’ar!” The shaman raised his staff and shook it vigorously.

  At the outburst, Shannivar flinched, but Zevaron stood firm.

  “Don’t ask me what that means,” Shannivar whispered. “It is a mystical language that only the enarees know.”

  “I can understand it,” Zevaron said. “At least, in a general sense. It is very like the ancient holy tongue of my people, but how your wise men came to speak it, I cannot tell.”

  “What did he say, then?” Shannivar demanded.

  One corner of Zevaron’s mouth tightened. “Fool of an unbeliever, or something to that effect, only less generous.”

  The enaree, who clearly understood their exchange, responded by tilting his head back and laughing uproariously. Several of the others followed. Bennorakh scowled and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “We will hear this story,” the enaree chief said, “and then you will be purified again. Properly, this time.”

  The Rabbit clan enaree directed that a fire be built up a short distance from the tent. The lesser shamans and the apprentices hastened to obey. They unrolled reed mats, some to sit upon and others, hung from wicker frames, to keep off the worst of the wind that blew around the promontory. One of the apprentices produced cups of buttered tea. Shannivar sipped hers, welcoming the savory warmth.

  “The sacred writings of my people tell of many things,” Zevaron began, his command of trade-dialect much more fluent than when Shannivar had first met him. “Some are like this stone-drake, neither alive nor dead, but a combination of fire and ice, utterly inimical to all that lives. Until recently, I had thought them to be mere legends, like the fables Danar spoke of, entertainments for the simple-minded.”

  Several of the enarees seemed to look upon him with increased respect, or at any rate, diminished hostility.

  “Do your people have legends of the beginning of all things?” Zevaron went on. “Ours tell of the making of the world, and also of the great enemy. Fire and Ice, it is called in the common tongue.”

  “Olash-giyn-Olash,” the Rabbit clan enaree said, nodding in
agreement. “The Shadow of Shadows.”

  Shannivar said to Zevaron, “I do not know if it is the same as your Fire and Ice or only an invention to frighten disobedient children.”

  “Once I would have said so. I was taught, as is every Meklavaran child, how Fire and Ice tried to reshape Creation to its own will. How it almost succeeded, except for a great king, Khored of Blessed Memory, and his six warrior brothers. As it is told in our sacred text, the te-Ketav, so hear it now.”

  Zevaron lifted his head and began to recite. Shannivar recognized the language as a very old form of Meklavaran, yet it also sounded a little like the holy tongue of the enarees. From the first syllable he uttered, they looked startled. They stared at him, mouths open and eyes wide. He paused at the end of each section to translate into trade-dialect, sometimes pausing to search for the right phrase.

  “At the beginning of time, the world was formed in Fire and Ice, in darkness and light. The Holy One caused the elements to become separate, and thus did earth and heaven come into being. But as the sun set on the first day, twilight opened the gates to evil. Fire once more embraced Ice, and that which had been made separate now joined in unholy union. Defying the Holy One, it gave itself a secret name . . .”

  His words flowed in a rhythm that was strange and yet compelling. Hearing the original language, even though she could not understand it, sent ghostly lightning through her. The clear meaning in trade-dialect heightened the uncomfortable sensation of hearing a dreadful and wonderful tale.

  “In the hidden places of the world, the union of Fire and Ice conceived a terrible hatred for all who dwelt beneath the sun. Slowly, it gathered an army unto itself, dragons of frost and flame, ice trolls, and, most dreadful of all, the invisible shadows that cast themselves upon the souls of men.

  “And as the minions of Fire and Ice swept across the land, men fought against their domination . . .”

  In her mind, Shannivar glimpsed the creatures of Fire and Ice marching across the living land, stone-drakes creeping inexorably onward, monstrous giants crushing the earth itself. She heard trumpets calling, the neighing of horses, and the ringing sound of drawn swords. And over it, through it, a force luminous with magic, with pure radiant light.