Shadow’s Son

by Shirley Meier, S. M. Stirling

  I won’t tear your throat out, but I won’t stand in the Dark Lord’s way, either. I don’t feel like lifting a finger either way. Why should I? You wouldn’t let me anyway. She let go, and stood up.

  “Farewell,” said Chevenga. She looked: however wanly, he was smiling. “I’ll pray you find him. Live well.”

  The sickness suddenly swelled, and tears, Koru-forsaken Dark-Lord-damned tears! were burning behind her eyes. Damn you! Damn me if I show you anything! Like everyone else, everyone else you’ve fish-gutted betrayed, and are betraying now, I love you.

  “I just hope they find someone stubborner, or crazier, than you,” she said, forcing the pain in her throat not to pinch her voice and show her heart. “Faint chance though that is. And I won’t say farewell, or mourn you, until you’re stiff.” She stalked away, Emao-e following.

  * * *

  XXV

  It was the third day. The fires were all but out now, leaving whole neighborhoods of ash, only humped fragments left of their walls. Getting rid of the thousands of fast-swelling corpses had been the first priority of whoever was in charge now, so they were mostly gone, leaving only their stains; but rubble-heaps still slumped across roads, and burst water mains had made puddles of filthy ash-mud deeper than a man could stand.

  Noon; somehow, through the pall of smoke that hung trapped in the great pit, and the aging sick smell of burned living-places, the temple bells still rang each day. If the other’s not there in, say, an eight-day, we’ll know for sure. Megan remembered Shkai’ra’s acknowledging nod faintly, like a ghost’s face.

  She was just waiting for the eight days to pass; it was only for the sake of sticking to the plan she came to the Marble Palace steps. Every time hope tempted her, she reminded herself of Hotblood’s last thought-cry. Hope would be nothing but a hindrance to her mourning, she knew from experience, and delay her final acceptance.

  On the ninth day, she would make use of Chevenga’s note: full use, price no object. He owed her that. As he had admitted, dictating it.

  Though just showing at noon would do, she had been on the gleaming marble steps, wide as a field, most of today, sitting back against a sun-globe clasped by the familiar eagle, that had once had gilding, and a head. They’d cleared away the broken tower, and there was a small crowd here, all looking as if they were waiting for someone. We weren’t the only ones who thought this was a good meeting place.

  The great palace gates stood open. She absently looked that way. Tiny in their yawning hugeness, a Yeoli warrior staggered out into the light, slid to his knees, and threw back his head with his hands raised. “Aiiiiiiigggh!” The scream froze and silenced everyone; hands clasped hilts. “Naaaaiiggh! Amiyaseye mya!” He drew his sword, and smashed it down on the marble, breaking the layer-forged blade in two. The silence deepened. “We’ve lost him! He’s dead!”

  Megan hissed in a breath. As usual, she thought. He got his way. Then: oh, shit. After an instance’s stunned quiet, the people on the steps took up the cry, some dashing away. She heard it spread out into the City like a circular ripple, its tone anguished, then enraged. They’ll go nuts. Whenever Chevenga had got wounded badly enough in this war that his life was in danger, the army, especially the Yeolis, had gone on a rampage. She’d heard tales of fleeing Arkans being chased for days, prisoners by the thousand tortured, babies flung into fires ...

  She jumped down and dashed flat out to the manor, outrunning the news. Biting back her panting, she sauntered shaking her head into the main hall, where some of the Yeolis loitered. “I tell you, some rumors! I don’t know who could be stupid enough to believe the one I just heard.”

  “What’s that?” a stocky woman doing stretches turned her head to ask.

  “Oh, some dumb thing that the Invincible’s dead. They started that one the last three times he was wounded. I’ve never heard anyone with a decent healer die of broken arms.”

  “Dead?” the woman gasped. The rest all started, froze blinking; fast Yeoli words flew back and forth, and then they were all yelling, “Boru! Boru! Amiyaseye-mya-sema-nakraseye-mya-boru-boru-boru-naaiiiiiigghr.”

  Well, that answers my question, who could be stupid enough. “No, no, no!” she yelled in her ship-captain’s voice. “He’s not dead, dammit, it’s just a stupid rumor, didn’t you listen to me?!” The roar outside was distant, but audible. Then the centurion came running in, snapping orders angrily, making them all freeze in place. By the time the first keening warriors had reached the manor, the rumors that Chevenga was dead and that he wasn’t were being bellowed in equal amounts, as far as she could tell. But the centurion, having got warning enough, managed to hold his people in check.

  Chevenga, she thought. Your people catch whatever you throw them. When you were fearless for them, they were fearless; when you were angry, they were angry. Now you are insane, so are they, the whole fish-gutted city-full. From the garden house, with Sova and Ardas trembling near, she watched the plumes of black smoke rise thick and fresh, heard the screams and the mad laughter, as Arko was sacked again.

  The great Yeoli war-gong, newly set up on top of the Marble Palace, began its crashing roar; the code alternated between “stay arms” and “assemble,” and went on for most of the afternoon before things quieted. The centurion kept his unit here, sending a squire; she came back with the news that Chevenga was still alive, the whole thing a misunderstanding. “I saw him,” the girl said, clutching her crystal, swearing. “Second Fire come if I lie, he came to the window, alive.”

  A faint roaring chant came from the main square, where the assembly was. Three syllables; his name, what else? Someone convinced him it was a dumb idea. She felt her heart lift, then thought angrily, your charm still casts its spell, you bastard. Or ... Thirst might just not have killed him yet, and his minions had dragged him out to stop the chaos. So ... it could happen again. Your life-force is too strong to extinguish without taking a lot around you with it. What are you going to do to us all before you’re finished?

  Another day, the city waited.

  In the manor-yard, Sova stood with Ardas, at the grave they’d dug for his trainer, Tikas; she could walk now, but it was difficult, even with a cane they’d found in the manor. Megan watched from the now-cleaned-up fountain, wanting to be alone with her thoughts.

  She adjusted her seat on the edge of its bowl, filed a snag out of the third claw of her right hand.

  Smallsharpsnippydisagreeable.

  Megan froze. Cautiously she sent out a thought. Hotblood?

  Hmph. Hotboredtired. Concentrating, she paid little heed to the shape of a mount and rider coming up to the gate that she saw in the corner of her eye. A quick glance towards the rider’s face; for a moment she wondered who the gaunt-cheeked crop-haired warrior was on Hotblood’s back where her akribhan should be, and the boy peeking around behind her—then dropped the file, splash, into the water, stood up, stopped, hand outstretched, afraid to move, afraid to wake up from the dream she’d had so many times before.

  “Kh’eeredo. You do such a lovely gaffed fish imitation.”

  “Shkai’ra!” Megan staggered a step forward. “And ...” Blond hair, short but for the central strip, which was long in a dancing-boy’s cut, black eyes, the face lengthened and strengthened with years but the same, the same ... “Lixand?” She’d spoken in a whisper.

  All through her month-long convalescence, as Rasas had nursed her, the witch-demon turned sword-fairy had told him the same thing, in broken Arkan. They weren’t dreams. It was only the whip made you think they were dreams. She’s your real mother. It’s Rasas that’s your pretend name ... Lixand is your real name, the name she gave you, after her father. They’d had plenty of time to talk, and she’d told him how mata had killed the man who’d stolen him, taken his ship, built the merchant house, battled against the Thanes, crossed the Lannic, met her, taken the house back from Habiku, fought in this war. Rasas—No, it’s Lixand, I’ve got to think of myself as him again, now—had taught Shkai’ra more Arkan
just to hear what happened next.

  It all seemed like a story. The black and silver green-eyed horse-wolf-thing that had materialized out of the dark one night, and would do what the sword-lady wanted without her saying anything, the stringless blue kite with a person hanging under it, circling over the ruins of Arko—the Yeolis’ flying-machine, it’s real. As they had come into the city: familiar sights horribly changed, brightness turned to darkness everywhere, marble soot-blackened, gold stripped ... The streets near the Temonen Manor, Banatammas, Morroa, Rameras, all were nothing but littered spaces between double rows of smoldering rubble; the marble and glass trees of House Arboretus were all felled, fragments of carved branches, green glass leaves strewn across the pavement; only by a miracle had Boulevard Jibaennen been spared.

  And now ... the swooping orange tabby bat? No, cat, cat, with orange tabby wings, where else could such a thing be, but in a story? He kept waiting to wake up in the boys’ barracks, to find it had all been a dream. In Master’s manor ... he saw the smashed windows, and the rooms beyond them empty, felt in his pocket, a brown-stained pack of cards.

  The woman sitting on the edge of the fountain, the small woman with a silver-white fall of hair amidst jet black, was real. She was mata.

  “Lixand!” Two steps and she was next to him. My son. She touched his shoulder, still afraid he wasn’t real, felt its firm warmth, swung him down from the Ri’s back into her arms. He threw himself into her hug and they clung, laughing, crying. His smile was the spitting image of hers. “Lixand-mi, my son, my beautiful son. You’re not my baby anymore but grown so big, Lixand!”

  She was world-big back then, he thought ... because I was small! “Mata ...” She was real; so, in a way he’d never known before, he was, as real as his true name.

  Shkai’ra swung down off Hotblood’s back, while Fishhook mewed protestingly; on a closer look at the Kommanza’s face, Megan’s joy faded in concern. “Love, are you all right? Koru, I heard thoughts, I thought you were dead ...”

  “Bad wound,” she said, smiling gently. “Lixand was my healer. After he belted me over the head with a chair-leg—that was before we were introduced.” She seized Megan in a bear-hug; they kissed, long and hard and deep. These tears I don’t mind, Megan thought. “Oh, gods, love, it’s good to see you again. How’s the daughter?” Lixand glanced from one to the other through tearful grinning eyes.

  “Khyd-hird!” Sova limped up the laneway. “Oooh! We’ve both been wounded!”

  “Rasas!” Beside her the other boy, the blue-eyed one, broke into a run.

  “Ardas!” The two boys flung themselves into each others’ arms so hard they knocked themselves over. “I thought you were dead! I thought you were dead!”

  “Mata ...” Lixand’s voice, already more familiar with the word, held a hint of pride. The two boys hadn’t let go of each other, even as they picked themselves up off the ornamental gravel. “Mata, this is my best friend and, umm pretend brother, Ardas.” His eyes shone with optimism.

  Megan looked down at the two clinging together, over at Sova leaning on her stick, at Shkai’ra’s wry smile. I keep thinking all my problems are over, she thought, and new ones just keep ripping holes in my nets.

  * * *

  XXVI

  Five days after the Sack—people were already speaking of it as a historical event—Assembly was called again, in the square. None of the family went; whatever it announced would be Arkan politics, about which they didn’t care. If it announced Chevenga’s death, they’d find out soon enough without being there.

  But the sound of the crowd was joy, clear even from a distance. The news came: Chevenga had not only shown, with the Imperial robe on his shoulders, but spoken; the gist of it being that the war and all grudges against Arko were ended, that he would rebuild the City and maintain the Empire. In barely a day, soot-darkened ruins here and there were giving way to the bright lumber of rebuilding.

  “You know, love,” Megan said, lying on the grass of the Temonen manor’s gardens next to Shkai’ra, watching the boys show Sova some of their dance moves, the wing-cat flitting overhead as they tumbled. “It’s amazing how sanity can rear its ugly head, when you least expect it. I thought he’d crazy himself to death.” She lay back, one hand stroking Shkai’ra’s hair. “I imagine his innate heroness will carry the day from now on, not that I mind.”

  “Ia, having an ass of gold keeps your balance well,” Shkai’ra said. “Besides, that one’s life is nailed tight to his backbone; he’d be dead ten times and a day, else. Whoever kills him had best shoot him asleep, in the back.” She grinned. “Ah, well, he’s a good general and a good lay; that’s all you can ask of a man, nia?”

  The next day was as bright as it got in the lingering smoke, warm but with a first hint of fall. Sentries stood at the Marble Palace steps: Yeolis, the circle-sword insignia of the Demarchic Guard on their breastplates, leaning on their spears with relaxed alertness. The caravan was parked in a corner of the square, since they would probably not be in audience for more than an hour or so. All it had taken was a note passed into the Palace with their names on it, and they were in, same day; things were back to normal. Shkai’ra swung down from Hotblood; the Haian had said her leg would be good as new by next year. She grinned and looked over her shoulder at the half-dozen horse-drawn wagons waiting. “Didn’t think we’d pick up so much junk,” she said, taking Megan’s hand.

  “Well, when in Arko, shop,” the Zak replied, looking up at her with a slight smile and squeezing back. There had been a number of very nice things left in the Temonen manor, and a quit-claim to the property which the Yeolis stationed there had paid out of their share of the loot. One of the wagons below was solidly packed with books from the library, for example, that no one else had been interested in; Shkai’ra’s long gold-buttoned scarlet silk coat was another, and the silver and turquoise studs on her sword belt, and the rings ...

  “Lixand! Ardas! Stop fidgeting!” Megan snapped, though fondly. The boys were pulling at the hems of their tunics; nervousness at the thought of meeting the Imperator, she supposed. Sova was elaborately nonchalant; the plundered clothing she wore were at least as expensive as Shkai’ra’s, but understated, as if in deliberate contrast.

  A Marble Palace flunky, an Arkan, came down the steps to meet them, excruciatingly polite but standing a little away as if dreading proximity to these unclean foreign females. That meant he had to hold the heavy ceremonial umbrella at arm’s length, quite a strain.

  “After you, old son,” Shkai’ra said, with a cheerful wave to the guards as they passed; several of them stamped their spears on the steps in reply, grinning. Megan and she followed the functionary, walking hand in hand, herding the boys in front while Sova limped beside.

  They were ushered through courtyard after courtyard, gradually rising, in splendor as well, till the very marble tiles were edged with electrum. Down a hall with chryselephantine statues of ancient Imperators; someone had stripped the golden hair and eye-jewels, leaving blind white sockets, and gone down the line with a war-hammer breaking off the noses. Then into the one where sculpted maidens upbore a ceiling half crystal skylight and half golden sunbursts; Megan hadn’t noticed that, in the dark.

  “Zaik Mother of Death,” Shkai’ra said, fingering the hilt of her saber. “I had to miss the sack of this?”

  “Shut up,” Megan said sotto voce, as they passed a knot of deliberately unintimidated but harassed-looking Yeoli bureaucrats, their wool ponchos looking rough and primitive against this decor. Then into a smaller series of rooms, still sumptuously appointed. More guards outside the final inlaid door; Yeolis, and—astonishingly—an Arkan with the stone face of a Mahid.

  “Under new management,” Megan muttered in Zak. A rebirth, perhaps, but still one had the sense that something grand if wicked had died here.

  They were ushered into a relatively plain office. Relatively: the desk and wall-mirror were edged with gold filigree. Yes ... Megan remembered. I did sneak through here
the night I came to see him. Chevenga waited, face looking harried, wearing a half-poncho in the Yeoli style, a marya, they called it, but made of white Arkan sun-cotton, feather-light and translucent so the casts on his arms showed only faintly, the seals still slung around his neck. He smiled.

  Suddenly Lixand’s shoulders were gone from under Megan’s hands; both boys in unison were dropping to the floor. Arkans—they prostrate themselves in front of the Imperator. In a single motion, she and Shkai’ra grabbed one each by the collar. “No, no. You don’t have to do that. He’s a friend, not the Imperator. Well, he is the Imperator,” A sudden thought came: maybe he is standing on ceremony ... then, nyata. Not him. She was right: Chevenga just chuckled, gold teeth flashing.

  “You’re free citizens of F’talezon,” Shkai’ra added. “Bow, like this.” She did, one hand on her chest and the other resting in its usual place on her sword-hilt; as the Imperator-by-conquest’s eyes met hers, she winked. The boy’s repeated the motion, but without the wink, with dance-trained elegance.

  “You found him,” said the familiar soft voice.

  “Ia,” Shkai’ra said. “Them, actually.” She looked around. “You and your Killer Mountain Boys and Girls seem to have found new jobs, too, changed wool and water for silk and wine, hmm? Your Imperatorness.”

  “So it seems,” he said, in that impossibly ingenuous way. “Though you know that wasn’t the purpose. Everyone have a seat and say what you want to drink. Lixand—I am very pleased indeed to meet you.”

  I bet, Megan thought.

  “I’m very pleased indeed to meet you too, You-Whose-Mind-is-the-Fortress-of-the-World,” Lixand said, with annoying obsequiousness. We’ll train him out of that. Still, the polish is good ...

  “Where’d you find him? Them, I should say. And what happened,”—he was looking at Shkai’ra—“to you?”

  “Well ...” Megan said fast. Let’s get the omissions right. “We found out—through an agent of mine—that Lixand had been spirited out of House Temonen. Shkai’ra went after him; she got cut up rescuing him. He didn’t know who she was, hid in an attic and wielded a table leg against her when she put her head up to look for him. That’s it, in a fingernail’s worth of script.”