Shadowdance

by Robin W Bailey

  A bright flash lit the borders of the stone, and thunder rumbled as the storm continued to rage. Dimly, another sound reached them. Screaming, Innowen realized, carnage, the sounds of terror reaching faintly over the high wall.

  Minarik reappeared in the glare of another lightning blast. He wiped the rain from his face and remounted. "Open it up," he instructed the soldiers who manned the ropes, and the stone slid halfway back inside the tunnel.

  Taelyn's voice came out of the darkness. Innowen hadn't seen or heard him as he approached on foot. "We're ready," he said, apparently to Minarik. "Near as we can tell, the gate's wide open and unguarded. They're too busy sacking the city, I guess, to think about their backs."

  "Don't worry about their backs," Minarik told him. "Just take the gate and hold it. Keep them inside as long as you can."

  Taelyn reached up to clasp his lord's hand, and Innowen imagined him grinning. "I hope they'll appreciate the switch," he said. He tapped Innowen's arm. "I'll say hello to your friend Vashni."

  "Stay away from Vashni," Innowen warned, but it was too late. Taelyn was no longer there.

  "I'm afraid for him," Innowen confided to Razkili, and his friend said nothing.

  Minarik rode to the opening. The lightning silhouetted him as he stared outward, waiting. Back down the tunnel, men and horses began to move, and the dust rose again. The crowding lessened. A slight breeze swept through and faded.

  "You've been very quiet, Veydon," Innowen said, unable to see the young soldier, but knowing he waited behind them.

  A hesitation. "I should be with my commander," he said sullenly.

  "We're going home," Innowen gently reminded, "to Shandisti."

  Veydon didn't answer, and Innowen bit his lip. He stared toward the exit. The rear end of Minarik's horse appeared and disappeared in the lightning glow. With a start, he remembered that it was morning. He couldn't walk. Yet the sky outside was eerily dark.

  "Let's go!" Minarik rode out into the rain. Kyrin trailed after him, leading Dyan's mount. Innowen, Razkili, and Veydon followed, then the rest of their escort. Now the pain of the city swelled louder over the walls, and the glow of fires gleamed on the low, black storm clouds. Far down the wall, Innowen made out the last of Taelyn's force as it rode in the opposite direction toward the gate. He wiped rain from his eyes.

  At Minarik's command, they ran at full gallop toward the foothills of the Akrotir. The wind bit sharply, and the rain stung. The muddy ground splashed treacherously under the horses' hooves. Still, they rushed onward, putting distance between themselves and the city.

  Then, off to the right where the plain spread before Parendur's main gate, Innowen spied a small glow. Though Rascal held him tight, he still bounced and jostled, and it was hard to see. He shielded his vision against the rain and stared. "Do you see that?" he cried.

  "What?" Razkili shouted back. "See what?"

  "Over there!" Innowen pointed. It was just a small glow, moving slowly. Still it sent a tingle through him. He peered, squinting. "Stop, Rascal! We've got to!"

  "Forget it!" Razkili's grip tightened around his waist, nearly crushing the breath from him. "There's nothing there!"

  Innowen jerked sharply on the horse's mane, but Rascal slapped his arms down and pinned them, then spurred the beast on faster. "It's her!" Innowen screamed. "It's the Witch! Stop!"

  "There's nothing there!" Rascal bellowed in his ear

  But he could see the glow! She used it to keep the rain off. Yes, and he could see her riding into Parendur alone to claim her prize of conquest. His vision seemed to sharpen as he stared. Darkly blond her hair, and so long, so beautiful, and those same lips like dark roses. He knew it was her!

  "Minarik!" he screamed.

  But Minarik couldn't hear him over the crash of the storm and the rush of the wind.

  Chapter 12

  The rain continued to fall. What might have been a blessing on the parched, dry land quickly turned into another kind of nightmare. Water ran in torrents upon the ground, carving deep ruts, washing away what little grass and topsoil remained. Streams swept treacherously over their banks, cutting new courses, spilling out to flood the forests and flatlands.

  A thick gray fog lingered everywhere. It clung to the earth like a thick paste, stirred and swirled in the slightest breeze, eddied around the horses' hooves, parted and congealed again at the movement of art arm or leg. In the low places, it was hard to see two men ahead. On the plains the strange shape of a tree would loom suddenly out of the mist, half-concealed, a shadowy monster that made the heart quicken for just an instant.

  For three days they rode, taking little rest, eating nothing. There had been no time to supply themselves, and hunting was impossible. The soldiers took it well. Even Riloosa with his broken arm bore his hunger in silence, though his pain carved deep lines in his face, and he cradled his arm as if it were a suffering child. Only Kyrin, of all the company, grumbled and complained.

  When the gray day segued toward night, they found copses of trees and spread their soggy bedrolls or wrapped themselves tighter in wet cloaks. Few slept.

  There were no fires to gather around; what wood they could find refused to burn. Some of the men curled up together under the scant shelter of dripping branches, sharing body heat for warmth and, perhaps, finding a measure of comfort from the demoralizing fear that gnawed at their hearts. They posted no guards. It was unlikely any pursuers would find them in such weather.

  On the third night, Innowen waited, as he had the two nights previously, for Razkili to fall into a troubled sleep. He watched the lines of tension that flowed across his friend's brow, watched the twitching of the eyes, the tightening of the jaw. Rascal's breath came in short, uneven gasps and long, soul-wrenching sighs. Innowen wondered what dreams or nightmares wracked him, and he wondered if it was much of a blessing that Rascal could sleep when so few others could. He clung to Razkili longer than usual that night, their bodies fitting together like spoons, before he slipped his arms free, rose, and stole away toward the edge of the copse.

  He had seen rain, and he had seen fog, but never so much of both at the same time. He knew it was the Witch's work. But why did she persist when her army had already taken Parendur? Was it to impede the king's escape? Or was it greater in scope? Perhaps she intended to drown the hopes of all the other rebels and armies that might try to wrest the capitol from her, now that Kyrin was out of the way. Certainly, it would be hard to martial their forces in such weather. They would be paralyzed while she secured her grip on the city.

  He tried to wipe his face with his bare arm, then with a corner of a sodden, muddy cloak, which Minarik had given him. It was useless. He was soaked to the bone. There seemed to be no escape from the relentless rain. If only there had been some village along the way to give them shelter.

  The ground sucked suddenly at his left sandal. He cursed quietly and tugged his foot free from the ooze.

  "Innocent?"

  Dyan stepped from behind the last tree. The useless, wet hood of her cloak was cast back, and her dark hair hung plastered to her head. Her eyes were wide, unsure, as she hovered in the shelter of the boll and peered at him. She hugged her pipe close to her chest with both hands, bending over it slightly in a vain attempt to keep the instrument dry. Innowen took a step toward her, and she retreated, placing one hand uncertainly on the damp bark, ready to bolt.

  "It's all right," he assured her. "It's me. You managed to get away again?"

  Her fear dissolved. "I wasn't sure it was you," she said with relief. "I'm still not used to sneaking around like this. I've never been outside without my father or his chosen chaperon, certainly never at night. Except for the very rare trip at his side, or with my nurse, the palace has been my whole life." She glanced around nervously. "It's kind of scary."

  Innowen grinned. "But you're getting used to it. This is the third night. How did you do it this time?"

  She giggled as she took his hand, and they started across the plain away from t
he copse of trees. "Lord Minarik dropped a full wineskin in my father's lap shortly after we stopped. I can't imagine where he got it, and it wasn't my place to ask." She giggled again, a quiet, little girl's laugh. "Well, father's always had a taste for the grape, and when the wineskin was done, so was father."

  "You mean he passed out drunk?" Innowen gave her hand a playful squeeze.

  She ignored that. "How did you sneak away from Razkili? He's always around, never leaves your side, and he gives me the strangest looks sometimes."

  Innowen frowned. "I don't have to sneak away from Rascal." He slipped in the mud. Her grip tightened, steadying him until he caught his balance.

  "Don't be so defensive," she teased, moving closer so that their bodies touched as they walked. "I like him, and your affection for him is plain. Even the name you call him by demonstrates that. Rascal. That's not a nickname. It's an endearment. Are you lovers?"

  Innowen frowned again and moved apart from her. Suddenly, he stopped walking and looked back the way they had come. The copse was an indistinct shadow in the mist and rain. "We shouldn't go any farther," he said. "We don't want to get lost."

  Dyan gave an exaggerated sigh. "We're not going to get lost, Innocent. But we'll stop here if you like. And I'm sorry if I pried. I just don't understand you two."

  He tilted his face up into the rain. It was cool, but not cold. He felt the rivulets that ran over his chin, down his throat past the collar of his cloak and tunic, felt the water flow upon his chest and belly. It rilled through his hair and down his back. He would have been more comfortable naked; his clothes were thick and heavy and clung awkwardly to his flesh. His cloak was a weight that bent his shoulders.

  "You can't understand," he told her at last. "The bonds between men are as varied and complex and deep and mystical as any that women ever imagined among themselves. Rascal belongs at my side, and I belong with him. That's all there is to it." They looked at each other for a long moment, then he managed a smile and reached out and tapped the end of her pipe. "Enough of this. Play a tune. Play something to drive away the mist and dry the rain."

  "You love him," she whispered gently.

  He frowned again, unable to form an answer that would make her understand.

  She smiled, and Innowen thought it was the only light in a darkness that threatened to last forever. "Something you can dance to?" she said. She put the pipe to her lips and blew a few soft notes. Innowen glanced over his shoulder toward the copse, but the fog and the rain muffled the music. There was little chance that anyone could hear them. "Yes," he agreed, grinning, "something to dance to."

  She closed her eyes and played. A quiet, gentle tune flowed from her, and her fingers worked upon the pipe with an elegant, flawless grace. At first, she stood there in the rain, still as a cool piece of carved ivory, only her fingers moving. Then her head began to move with a barely perceptible rhythm. Next, she began to sway in a subtle, serpentine undulation as she poured out her sound.

  Innowen felt the music caress him, enfold, and fill him. He thought he knew the melody, yet Dyan created it anew, enriched and embellished it. It touched him suddenly like a wave, white-capped with a foamy sadness. The high tones were longing and the low tones quiet despair. Each note was a sigh that made a crack in his heart.

  The drone of the rain was a moan and a chorus. Innowen lifted one knee, leaned, stretched his arms high overhead, then drew them in and curled into a ball. His flesh became grief and doubt and fear, whatever the music made him, emptiness and uncertainty. The music shaped him. The music gave him form.

  A passion filled his dance. He might have slipped in the mud, but his footing was sure. The world whirled around him. He stretched and soared, and the dance became a drug that burned in his veins and sharpened his senses with a razor-edged euphoria.

  He danced alone this night, for he had no shadow to dance with him. So thick was the fog that no moon shone through, no stars. He missed his shadow, missed its languid grace and the ease with which it imitated his most difficult moves. It was his friend and his partner, sometimes his confidante, and he could tell it things, tell it things in the language of his dance that only it could understand. But he had no shadow tonight, and the strange taste of loneliness in the music made its absence that much more poignant.

  Yet he did have a shadow! He almost stopped in surprise when it began to move beside him. No, not it. She. Dyan was dancing! Even as he turned, he watched her from the corner of his eye: she moved gracefully, bending and swaying, whirling, never taking the pipe from her lips. Somehow, she had managed to free herself from her cloak without ceasing her music. The rain pasted her pale thin gown transparently to every budding curve of her body. Her eyes gleamed as she regarded him, and the corners of her mouth turned upward in a smile as she blew a new series of notes.

  The music took a wilder course, and Innowen drew a sudden deep breath. The sound struck him like a spear thrust, and he flung back his head. He touched the clasp of his own cloak, and it slithered down his body. His tunic came away with a swift upraising of his arms as he pivoted on a sandaled toe. The wind brushed across his bare chest, and his nipples rose in response.

  He looked at Dyan, but her gaze told him she was in some world of her own now. Still, her movements mirrored his own. He danced less with his arms, since she could not use hers. He kept his kicks and lifts low because her dress was too restrictive. But he whirled, and she turned with him. He arched his back, and she raised her pipe to the sky.

  The rain on his body began to mingle with sweat. The faster she played, the faster he danced, and the faster he danced, the faster she played and danced beside him. He forgot the rain, forgot the mud under his feet, forgot Parendur and the Witch and all the soldiers in the trees nearby. He and his incredible shadow danced, and there was no one else in all the world but the two of them whirling and whirling, faster and faster and faster.

  Suddenly Dyan gave a little squawk as she lost her balance and fell. Unhurt though, she hugged her precious pipe between her breasts and rolled from side to side in an uncontrollable fit of giggles, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Make it stop!" she wheezed, "everything's spinning!"

  Innowen fell on his knees at her side and bent over her, grinning, breathing hard. The rain and sweat ran off the tip of his nose and splashed on her forehead until he wiped at his face. He pressed both her hands with one of his as if he might anchor her until the vertigo passed. Her giggling proved infectious as he stared down at her. Dark mud splattered her hair and skin. Her gown, a slickly smeared ruin, tangled and twisted around her body as she convulsed with laughter.

  "You're a mess!" he managed between gasps of laughter, and in response she reached up slyly and filled one of his ears with a fistful of muck.

  "Who's a mess?" she countered as he recoiled, and sitting up, she launched another slimy handful that splattered on his neck. He yelped in protest, then hurled himself atop her and pinned her back in the mud. He sat on her chest, his knees pressed against her sides. Laughing, she tried uselessly to push him off, even resorted to poking his ribs with one end of her pipe until he caught that and took it from her.

  "I give up!" she squealed. "I give! You're too heavy, and my dress is all tangled. I can't move!" She stopped struggling and lay limply underneath him, her breasts heaving, her giggles gradually subsiding.

  Then sharp nails dug into the side of his knee. With her other hand, she gave him a dangerously low short jab and twisted with a surprising sinuous strength. Instantly, Innowen found himself on his back with Dyan on his chest, her knees pinning his arms almost painfully.

  "Your pipe!" he exclaimed, for the instrument had slipped from his fingers and lay somewhere in the mud.

  She bent over him, her face coming close to his. "My nurse used to pin me like this when I was disobedient," she said in mock sternness. "But when I got a little older, she started winding up exactly as you are now, on your back with your legs beating the air." She rubbed a muddy finger down the length of his
nose. "Do you know how funny you look?"

  Innowen knew he could unseat her easily, but he played along, delighted by a side of Dyan he had never seen. Gone was the demure daughter who never looked her father, or any man, in the eyes. Sure, she had sneaked off the two previous nights and played for him while he danced, and they had talked a bit, even laughed a little. But this was another Dyan entirely, and he had not yet recovered from the surprise. "Your pipe!" he tried again. "It'll be ruined!"

  "I'll clean it," she said firmly, drumming the tips of her fingers ticklishly on his chest.

  It was torture. Innowen stood it less than a moment, then jerked one arm free and trapped her wrist. When he tried to free his other arm, though, she leaned all her weight upon it. They struggled against each other like that, neither gaining the advantage, until suddenly Dyan relaxed.

  Her face took on a strangely calm expression as she looked down at him. He saw the gleam in her gaze and a rich moistness there that puzzled him as she leaned lower. Her breath was a flower, and her breasts brushed against his chest through the thin fabric of her gown. He sensed their weight and the warmth they contained. "Innocent," she whispered. Then she kissed him.

  He knew a moment of terror and froze, aswirl with confusion as her tongue penetrated him. He couldn't draw a breath; he thought he would suffocate, and still she bent over him, kissing him, stroking his hair, his face, his throat. He reached up to push her away, and his hands found her breasts. She moaned a little, and, afraid that he had hurt her, he pulled back.

  Slowly, a warmth began to spread through him. He feared it, but couldn't deny it. His palms returned to her breasts and caressed them through the thin wet material of her dress. As she sighed into his mouth, he accepted her breath with a strange pleasure, swallowing it and opening his mouth wider to take more of her. Somehow, she had found her pipe. She ran it over his body, along his throat, in the hollow place of his chest and over his nipples, down his ribs and hips. The tip of it felt like a hot brand as she passed it over his belly and down the sides of his thighs. He closed his eyes and gasped.