Shadow Dancers

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  He released the bar and flung open the door.

  The room was filled with spiraling gold and silver motes like the last remnant of sunset. In the midst of the brilliance was a shape, not a shadow but somehow the opposite of a shadow, a form molded of light itself. Even as Andrion squinted through the glorious radiance it ebbed, absorbed with a slow sonorous hum into a disk and a crescent, and into the body of a woman.

  Sumitra sat on a narrow bed. The strings of the zamtak on her lap still thrilled beneath her fingertips. Tears hung in shining strands upon her cheeks. Her dark, lambent eyes touched Dana without surprise, met Tembujin with pleasure, and fixed upon Andrion. They flooded with serene joy, the fear and doubt of her ordeal forgotten. He had come. He had cared enough to come.

  The room was gone. The entire world was gone. Andrion saw only Sumitra. His feet did not even touch the floor as he rushed into her embrace. Her warmth seeped through him, and jasmine and apricots flooded his senses. He had not realized until now just how parched he had been. His pride was only an affectation, his rank insignificant, it was her touch that mattered—but without his rank he would never have known her, and his life would have been a withered leaf tumbling aimlessly in the wind… .

  The wind. He saw then, beyond the soft hair pillowing his cheek, Dana watching him hold his wife. Her face was raw with a regret made doubly poignant by her denial of it. The floor rose suddenly beneath his feet and jarred him back into reality. The game was not over, the players still ranged themselves in intricate patterns, the rules were still maddeningly subtle.

  Dana’s expression was gone, wiped away by resolve, before he could respond to it. She did not want him to respond. She thrust out her chin, tilted back her head, lifted the shield that lay at her feet and clasped it in a passionate grip. The great disk flared in her face. Turning away slightly, retreating into her close-fitting carapace of law and duty and desperate righteousness, she searched the shield as if its shining surface were the liquid in the bronze basin of Sabazel. “Mother,” she whispered, “Astra. Kerith.”

  Sumitra’s face pressed against Andrion’s shoulder, her hands kneaded his cloak. “Purple becomes you,” she said. The movement of her lips against his skin was ripple after ripple of a delight that was almost, but not quite, unalloyed.

  Tembujin, glancing uncomfortably from Andrion to Dana and back, bent and picked up Solifrax. He hefted it, curious but clumsy. Sparks rushed along the crystalline blade to shower over Andrion.

  With a shrug and a bow, Tembujin surrendered it to its owner.

  Bliss. The hilt of Solifrax tingling in his hand, and Sumitra snug in the circle of his arm… . Dana still bent over the unyielding rim of the shield. All they had done was to complete one set of the never-ending game. The conclusion was distant as ever. Andrion’s exultation drained away, leaving him light-headed. He stiffened himself and asked the necessary question, “Now what? Do we flee across the island and find a ship at Akrotiri to take us home?”

  “Yes,” Dana replied. Her features were harrowed by more than the effort of translating the images in the shield. “Or we can hide until Miklos comes looking for us.”

  “Hide?” asked Tembujin caustically.

  “You would suggest we attack?” Andrion retorted. “We would surely be caught if we searched for a ship here. If we came to the dye works by sea, not by land, we could rescue Niarkos and the others without raising too much of an alarm.” And stir the pot of the gods ourselves this time? That would remain to be seen. One whole hell of a lot remained to be seen. He offered Dana and Tembujin a slightly crazed smile; they exchanged a wary glance and smiled back, like prisoners pretending bravado before their executioner.

  Harus protect us! Andrion swore, and managed to belt on the sheath of Solifrax without releasing Sumitra. She clung to him, her hands taproots into the soil of his flesh—the shape of her abdomen was hidden under her gown, and he would not grope for it before the others—gods! she would have to walk across the island, would she not? Well, his own mother had been further along in pregnancy when she rode to Iksandarun—and you were born early, some nagging thought told him. No choice, he told it, and stilling the whirlpool of his own mind, he led the way out of the cell and down the corridor.

  The clear evening had bleared into hazy night. The wind was already stained with a scent of spoiled fruit; an eerie chant floated from the arena, like a creeping fever distorting the perceptions and revealing hideous images in the depths of the mind. “Captain Jemail,” Andrion said, trying to ignore scent, chant, and fever, “take us to Akrotiri.”

  The soldier opened his mouth, but Andrion’s glinting eye, and the sword glinting as brightly in his hand, stopped any comments in his throat. He made a smart about-face and headed toward a narrow stairway.

  Tembujin, carrying Sumitra’s zamtak, eyed the somber darkness. Dana’s dagger glimmered, reflecting the faint glow of the shield. Andrion, his left arm still securely around Sumi, raised Solifrax like a lantern with his right. The blade shone with a pure white light.

  Which illuminated a shape skulking behind the myrtles. Jemail leaped, and after a brief struggle deposited the form of a boy at Andrion’s feet. The luminescence of the sword polished Gard’s gray eyes into silver mirrors.

  Andrion was not quite sure whether he was pleased to find the apparent ambush only a child. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “Following you,” the boy answered with disarming candor. “I went to my mother’s chambers after my lessons, but she was making love with Lord Eldrafel.” He grimaced as though dosed with bryony.

  Sumitra chuckled. Andrion had to agree, physical love had its ludicrous moments. But Tembujin said indulgently, “When you get older you will change your opinion.”

  “Everyone says that,” returned Gard, not believing a word of it. And he looked with interest at the sword and the shield and the woman held so tightly against Andrion’s side. “Is she your wife? What did you do to Rue; why is she in the cellar bawling? Is that sword yours? Is that shield hers? Are you escaping? Will you take me hostage?”

  “We did nothing to Rue,” Andrion said, briefly giddy at the barrage of questions. “This is my wife Sumitra, and my sword Solifrax. The shield belongs to Ilanit of Sabazel, of whom Dana is a deputy. And I think you can simply return to your room.” The chant from the arena seemed to grow louder, emanating from every direction at once, surrounding them.

  Gard drew himself up; his head came just to Andrion’s ribs. “If you send me away, I shall go straight to my mother.”

  Jemail’s face went ashen. Andrion quelled an impulse to shake the boy until, like milk coagulating into butter, his bravado became an appreciation of the situation. But then, with his limited experience he could probably never appreciate the situation. Innocent? Perhaps, but Gard was nowhere near as naive as Andrion had been at that age. Iksandarun had had its intrigues, but it had hardly been a sensual hothouse like Minras.

  The boy’s threat was not an idle one. He did not lack courage, to follow them alone through the gibbering shadows of the cellars.

  Andrion glanced at Dana, brows raised. Was it ill-considered to try and throw their tormentors off balance? He could not visualize Eldrafel’s lithe body ever losing its balance. But Sardians, Khazyari, Sabazians did not wait like dumb bullocks to be used. Dana offered a brief shrug, a crimp of her mouth, a sound that was part laugh, part groan. Do it; we have no other choice.

  Harus! Andrion exclaimed to himself, and to the boy he said sternly, “We will only take you with us if you behave yourself.”

  “Yes, yes,” Gard agreed with a solemn nod, but his eyes danced.

  “Gods!” protested Tembujin. “Instead of having half the army of Minras after us, we shall have it all!”

  Gard seemed even more delighted at that prospect. With an exhalation of aggravated amusement, Tembujin handed the zamtak to the boy and set an arrow to his makeshift bow. Gard obediently shouldered the instrument.

  “Let us go,” said And
rion, and they went, led by the shimmering crescent of the sword and the gleaming circle of the shield. The chanting swelled and died away. The wind muttered uneasily across the sky, the moon and stars cold, sputtering lamps in its depths.

  Rue stood in the doorway leading into the cellars. Her eyes were red-rimmed with bitter cunning, her small mouth was circled as tight as a clenched fist, hating those who deigned to pity her. Her baleful glare followed the shadowed figures until they were absorbed like ghosts into the unforgiving night.

  Chapter Ten

  Chrysais’s and Eldrafel’s bedchamber was not appreciably darker at night than it had been during the day’s gloom. The lamps cast a brazen aura that only emphasized the shadows lurking in the corners and at the top of the staircase.

  Rue lay prostrate upon the marble floor. The ruby in her nose winked as if struggling to detach itself from her. Her liquid eyes, muddied with cunning, gazed up through her lashes at Chrysais.

  The queen sat huddled in the midst of the bed, rising from the churned bedclothes like Zind Taurmeni rising from its cracked and fissured slopes. Perhaps smoke hovered around her as well, or perhaps it was merely the floating strands of her tousled chestnut hair. Her mouth, pale and sulky without its crimson paint, was turned so severely down at the corners that creases marred the softness of her chin. Her slightly smeared face seemed imperfect, and therefore more human than her gaudy mask. “They took Gard,” she essayed.

  The slave cast a wary look at Eldrafel. He sat on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a loose robe whose folds were at once careless and artfully draped to set off the smooth, strong lines of his torso. His hair was as sleekly contained by the fillet as always, his face the usual unconcerned facade. His gleaming eyes rested on Rue; intercepting her glance, they stirred, very briefly, and his brow rose, just a bit. He might have been amused that she had dared to return, or that Andrion had dared to free Sumitra, or most likely that he himself dared to stay within an arm’s length of smoldering Chrysais, goading her with his coolness.

  Rue licked her lips. “And, and they know about Rowan in Sardis.”

  Eldrafel nodded. His other brow twitched.

  “Is that all?” Chrysais demanded.

  Rue stared at her a moment. “I have told you all I know, serving you faithfully although—”

  “Although you are Lord Eldrafel’s slave, and mine only by default?” Chrysais’s eyes were sapphire projectiles.

  Rue tried to bury her forehead in the floor. “The Lord Eldrafel has promised my brother and myself freedom, if his plans are brought to fruition.”

  “True,” said Eldrafel. “When my plans are brought to fruition.”

  Mollified, her mouth relaxing a little, Chrysais repeated, “Is that all?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Then go now, and anticipate your reward.”

  Rue went. The door shut with a snap. Eldrafel rested his chin in his hand, contemplating a blot of shadow across the room.

  “They took Gard,” stated Chrysais. With an extravagant breath, part sigh, part moan, she rolled off the bed, hitched up her robe, and began to pace up and down. Her feet kicked aside the chamomile, leaving moist prints on the floor.

  “So they did not succumb to the drug,” said Eldrafel. “So the emperor proves his mettle—and his rashness, I wager. I had intended something of the sort, of course.” His expression wavered, indignant that some facet of his plan had gone awry, pleased that the game had taken a more challenging turn. But he seemed to find pleasure the more profitable.

  “They took Gard!” insisted Chrysais.

  “Do you think that proper little prig Andrion would actually harm the boy? Be pleased to have …” Eldrafel looked up at Chrysais with a slow smile. “… the little bastard out of the way for a time.”

  Chrysais flushed an ugly mauve. “How can you say that?”

  But Eldrafel, inspecting his pearly nails, said, “Interesting, that the brown dove, the wife, could rouse the power of the weapons to such a height. By the living god, I had to bear that infernal music ringing in my head all day!”

  Chrysais did not seem particularly sympathetic. “But you did not take the sword and the shield from her. And now they have them.”

  Eldrafel nobly forbore to point out that he had been occupied with Chrysais herself most of the afternoon. He continued to stare entranced at his own hands.

  Chrysais flounced away across the room. She lifted and turned in her hand the miniature plait of hair she had laid down earlier. “So they have their weapons again. But where can they go?”

  “Exactly,” Eldrafel said with mocking approval. “You begin to appreciate their problem. A bold gesture; that is all. Let them have their moment of triumph. Such spirit will be more acceptable to the god than if they walked like oxen to the slaughter.”

  The plait snarled among her fingers, Chrysais said hesitantly, “Eldrafel, my love, is it really necessary . . ?”

  He looked sharply up, and she flinched in the glitter of his eyes. Not anger, but a ruthless intelligence shaded with the faintest hint of disappointment.

  By rote Chrysais patted her hair, raised her bosom, bit her lips to redden them. She offered her husband a sly half smile. In her deepest, sweetest voice she said, “Yes, yes, of course.” And brandishing the strand of black hair, she said, “Shall I use this to guide them?”

  “Ah!” exclaimed Eldrafel. In one fluid movement he rose from the bed; in another he embraced his wife and escorted her toward the stairway. “Very good, my dear, very good.”

  Her cheeks flushed again, becomingly pink this time. She leaned into his arm as they climbed the stairs. When they opened the door a cloud of incense billowed out, surrounding them. Fingers of shadow, cast by the flickering lights inside the tower, reached across the ceiling of the bedchamber.

  Then the door shut, the shadows steadied, and the only sound was the reed flute of Eldrafel’s voice singing in a minor key, so quietly that it seemed almost to come from the darkness, from the stone of the palace itself, and not from a human throat at all.

  *

  The moon slid down the western sky, drawn by the indigo of the night, as pink and coral clouds swarmed up from the east. Even though Andrion was so tired that the jagged rock he leaned against seemed as soft as a down pillow, he was so tense he could not quite catch his breath, let alone rest. Those hours of paperwork, audiences, and councils were taking their toll upon his body, he told himself. Tembujin lived a more active life upon the moors and was already asleep, his hand protectively near Gard’s snoring form.

  Jemail sat nearby, dozing over his spear. Did he actually expect reward for his service? Andrion Bellasteros, Emperor, King of Sardis, would certainly reward him. And poor ensorcelled Niarkos, for that matter. This cold, hungry, hunted man was in no position to reward anyone. Embarrassing, that not one of them had thought to forage in the storerooms for food and blankets. Gard had been quite indignant when he realized his adventure would cost some discomfort, but Tembujin had told him in no uncertain terms to hold his tongue. With alacrity unusual in a child, he had.

  Another lesson in humility, Andrion told himself. Harus, Ashtar, whoever and whatever you are, must you be such implacable tutors?

  He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to remember their path from Orocastria, failing. Jemail had led them out of the city on the main road, he was sure of that. But then they had followed a maze of paths through the countryside, by low walls that dimly defined groves and vineyards, and along paths hacked up treacherous screes, kept from sliding only by thorny scrub. The setting moon, damp and insubstantial in the perpetual haze of Minras, had afforded almost no light; the stars had been veiled into mere blots of phosphorescence; the wind had offered only brief, odorous puffs, causing leaf and branch to whisper mockingly. A waking nightmare, Andrion thought, a shadowed journey from nowhere to nowhere, serving no purpose.

  No purpose? Sumitra lay folded against his side, her zamtak across her lap, watching in drowsy bemusement as Da
na stroked the glowing surface of the shield. Did Sumi cling to him all the more tightly because Dana was there? Perhaps; but they were all too polite to take notice. Solifrax rested, murmuring of latent power, along his thigh.

  As usual, his wife sensed his thought. “I sang to the shield and to the sword,” she said into his throat, her breath sparking his necklace. “I called them, and they answered. Such power, it is …”

  “Frightening?”

  She nodded. “My zamtak speaks, and yet it cannot speak without me. It has never been anything other than a musical instrument. I understand now, Andrion, why you wonder whether the strength is in you or in the sword itself.”

  He waited, but she did not question further. Thank the gods that her serenity was undamaged; if only he could share some of it. Surely the gods would not have given Sumi such power if they intended to deprive her of the child. Or would they, thinking that the power of the music, of the sword, was compensation for such grief? He snugged her a little closer against his side. Her head became heavier and heavier, and he realized she was asleep.

  He smoothed her gown around her, letting his hand linger for a moment on her belly. Yes, it was tautly curved, like the surface of the shield.

  Dana, too, sensed his thought. With a long exhalation she at last laid the shield down, turning a drawn and yet gentle gaze onto Sumitra. “She was not surprised to see me here with you.”

  “She knew you would come for the shield.”

  “Such certainty,” said Dana, so quietly he hardly heard. “She is the perfect foil for you.” She must have been exhausted to let such an admission slip. She arranged herself for sleep as if she had said nothing, presenting Andrion with only the angle of her shoulder as she curled about the shield.

  Loving them both, Andrion thought, his cheek against Sumitra’s hair, his eyes on Dana’s back, was like speaking two different, almost complementary languages. It could be done.