Shadowdance

by Robin W Bailey

  Innowen turned back to the potter. "You say Kyrin poisoned his father?"

  "Common knowledge," the potter told him as he wiped down his wheel with a dirty cloth.

  "But they say the Witch of Shanalane killed him."

  The old potter gave a loud cackle and stopped his work. "Maybe you come from Kabari, now, and maybe you don't. Maybe you don't live around here at all. If you weren't but half a man, I might think you were an agent of this unnatural woman you say is sitting on the throne, and you're trying to test us."

  The cobbler from across the street joined in unexpectedly. "That's the tale Kyrin tried to spread across the Countryside, boy, blaming that Witch. Maybe some is green enough to believe it, too. But you listen to Rarus, there." He gestured with a wave at the potter. "He's a fool old buzzard, but he's here everyday. So am I, and so are a lot of us. If the Witch of Shanalane had come riding into this city the day Koryan died, don't you think we'd have known it? We got eyes, haven't we?"

  Innowen pursed his lips and tried to think. Was it because he personally disliked Kyrin so much that he found the old man's story easy to believe? Did he simply want to believe it? He wondered suddenly if Minarik had heard this story.

  "She's here now, though," Rarus said at last. "I got eyes to see that. Didn't know she was the one wearing the crown, I admit, and like I said, the gods will punish her for that arrogance. I thought it was that big one in the black armor, and she was just along for comfort, so to speak." He shrugged and turned away. "Doesn't mean anything to me, so long as things stay peaceable and I sell a few pots."

  "That's truth," the cobbler said from the other side of the road.

  The first hints of dawn began to color the eastern sky. In the distance, a line of carts trundled up the road, more merchants, craftsmen and farmers, come to sell their products outside the walls of Parendur.

  Innowen felt the life seep from his legs. He drew a breath and bit his lip, no longer pretending to be crippled. He could almost feel Vashni and the Witch stirring in their beds on the other side of the wall, rising to meet the day, as if he were somehow attuned to their movements, their spirits. He felt them as surely as he felt his legs dying in the sunlight, and he knew they were near, and that the end of his long quest was finally at hand.

  A small village of encampments grew rapidly on either side of the road as merchants and farmers set up stalls and booths and spread their goods for sale. Wagon wheels creaked in the morning. A hammer rang on an anvil. Someone groaned under a heavy burden. Down the road came a line of oxen with a farmer and two little boys waving willow branches to drive them along. The smell of leather rose as the cobbler fell to work. Rarus' potter's wheel began to hum, and the old man began to shape a mound of rich, wet clay.

  No one approached Innowen. His beggar's bowl kept them at bay as effectively as a lance or sword.

  A shout came from the top of the wall. Wood suddenly grated on wood, and Innowen imagined huge beams being withdrawn by teams of ten soldiers. He waited expectantly, adjusting the rags he'd tied around his elbows and knees, grasping his bowl. He chewed his lip.

  The gates of Parendur swung inward. A captain of the guard appeared in the entrance, the horsehair crest of his helmet stirring in a slight breeze. He cast a brief, dispassionate gaze over the motley assortment of traders and vendors, then turned his back and disappeared. Six soldiers with lances took his place, marching to the entrance in single file, then dividing smartly into teams of three. With crisp, sharp strides, they took up posts on either side of the roadway, the massive gates at their backs.

  Innowen flopped over onto his belly and crawled, pushing his bowl before him. He kept his head high, both to avoid eating the dust and to study the guards as he approached them. They had the look of several lands. Shaktar, Nimrut, Dardanus, as well as Ispor.

  "Out of the way! Out of the way, there, you low-bellied maggot!"

  The loud trundle of wagon wheels swelled suddenly in his ears, and the ground seemed to shake beneath him. Innowen rolled hastily out of the middle of the road as a huge cart drawn by four horses and laden with massive pithoi jars bore down on him. The driver leaned from the side of his cart and cracked his whip over Innowen's back. "Idiot!" the wasp-faced man cried angrily.

  Innowen flung a handful of dust uselessly after the departing cart, but bit back any invective. He lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, watching the great terra cotta vessels shake and shiver on the wagon bed. They were empty, then, held in place only by stout ropes. If he could secret himself inside such a jar, gaining entrance to the palace might be easy. But no, he had no reason to believe these particular ones were bound for the palace. They might as easily be on their way to a warehouse or some merchant's private stores.

  He crawled forward again, this time keeping to the side of the roadway. As he approached the three nearest guards, he paused and held up his bowl. "Selats?" he said, playing his role.

  The three looked at him, and at each other, and at their comrades by the opposite gate, and they laughed. "Coppers, you want, beggar?" one of them answered. "Here's copper!" He spun the butt of his lance upward and thrust the burnished point down through the space between Innowen's neck and his outstretched arm.

  Innowen glared, but did not flinch. "You shouldn't use a poor beggar so, sir," he commented dryly, running his gaze up the shaft of the lance until he met the eyes of its owner. "I see by the look of you that you're from Dardanus."

  The guard fingered the long slender braid that trailed from under his helmet and draped over one shoulder. It was barely as thick as a child's little finger, but according to Dardan faith, it guaranteed his passage to heaven. "What of it?" he scowled suspiciously.

  "I visited there once," Innowen answered. He glanced at the guard beside the Dardan and raised one eyebrow confidentially. "Their sheep are better looking than their women, and used accordingly."

  Several of the guards laughed in response, but the Dardan gave Innowen a hateful glare and raised the butt-end of his lance. "Filth!" he uttered between clenched teeth as he gripped the shaft of his weapon in both hands and prepared to swing it downward.

  Instinctively, Innowen cringed, bringing one arm up to protect his head, realizing too late that he had dared too much. He didn't have his legs now. He was a worm to them, unable to defend himself. He set his teeth against the expected blow.

  "Stop!"

  The force of command behind the shout was so great that even Innowen obeyed, dropping his arm without thinking about it so that he could look up at the speaker. The breath he'd held leaked slowly out of him, and he felt his heart wither within his chest. He lowered his face and, at the same time, strained to look through the upper corner of his eyes.

  Vashni gazed down sternly from the back of a huge black warhorse. He looked just as much the demon as Innowen remembered him on that time of their first meeting. The morning sun cast fiery rays onto the edges of his black lacquered breastplate and one side of his finely crafted helmet, and his huge dark eyes glittered angrily on either side of a narrow nasal bar. His size and strength had actually increased over the years, Innowen was sure.

  But more, there was a presence, a power, about Vashni that compelled Innowen to forget any fear that the Witch's man might recognize him. Slowly, he lifted his head again to drink in the sight.

  "You have been told." Vashni's voice was the sound of ice cracking at the bottom of the deepest chasm in the world. Yet he spoke slowly, deliberately, as if the air were too insubstantial to support the weight of his words. "Treat these citizens well. You are liberators, not conquerors." He raised one huge hand from where it rested by the reins on his horse's withers and pointed his finger.

  The Dardan turned pale, trembling visibly in the shadow of that outstretched limb. He set the end of his lance against the ground again and came to attention as best he could.

  Vashni lowered his hand. "Don't give me cause to remember you, Dardan. This is your warning." He looked at each of the guards on Either side o
f the road one by one, locking each of their gazes in turn. He repeated, "You have all been warned."

  The thumb and forefinger of his left hand disappeared for just an instant inside the broad metal-studded belt that encircled his waist. He stared down suddenly at Innowen. The hardness seemed to dim in his eyes, and his hand flicked outward.

  A gold cymoren clinked neatly into Innowen's begging bowl, slid around the rim, and finally settled in the bottom. Innowen stared open-mouthed at the giant figure in the black armor, thinking how strange it was that Vashni had, yet again, after so many years and so many miles, become his benefactor.

  But Innowen had a role to play. Carefully, he lifted the triangle-shaped coin with its gently rounded corners between his dirty fingers and bit it with his front teeth. "Thanks, warrior," he mumbled, nodding his satisfaction as he closed his fist around the cymoren. That was all he said, holding back a sharp remark about the price of a conqueror's conscience. It wouldn't do to speak too much with Vashni. How good was the man's memory of that night five years ago? Innowen's voice might give him away or spark a remembrance that would spell ruin for his purpose.

  Vashni stared at him a moment longer, making Innowen increasingly nervous. Could the Witch's man somehow read his thoughts? Or had he, as he had at first feared, been recognized? Vashni tugged on the reins, turning his mount's head, and rode a few steps closer until his sandaled foot dangled freely just above Innowen's head, and Innowen could see the thin pattern of inlaid gold on his black lacquered greaves.

  Innowen fought with himself to keep his gaze in the dirt, yet still he felt that powerful compulsion to look up and meet this man face to face. The sun burned just behind Vashni's head, creating at the same time a bright, eye-numbing corona and a mask of darkness that hid all his features from Innowen.

  Innowen wished fervently that it were night and that he had legs to stand.

  For an eternity of heartbeats, he waited in Vashni's shadow, but not a word more did either speak. Finally, rider and horse turned and cantered away, leaving Innowen to watch Vashni's broad, proud back and the long streamer of horsehair that trailed from the crest of his helmet down between his powerful shoulders.

  "Get on with you," one of the gate guards said at last. "You're blocking the road."

  Innowen only half heard. He looked up at the guard, still dazed from the encounter, then over his shoulder to where a group of merchants, including old Rarus, had gathered in the roadway to watch. Already, though, they were dispersing, returning to business.

  "Are you deaf as well as crippled?" the guard said again, louder this time, openly threatening. Vashni was out of sight now. It was time for the guards to reassert their authority.

  Innowen didn't argue. He dragged himself on his elbows, clutching the cymoren in one hand, pushing his bowl before him in the other. Out into the wakening streets of Parendur he went, making his way slowly, keeping as close to the ditches and the walls of buildings as he could, out of the more dangerous paths where carts and oxen and horses ran. For a time he forgot about Vashni and the Witch, forgot about everything, as he concentrated on his safety, avoiding the feet that threatened to mash his fingers, or the wandering hogs and dogs that tried to nip at him.

  In this earliest part of the morning, women were allowed outside unaccompanied. They hurried about their duties, eyes cast always downward, their backs bent under bundles and burdens. Their thick skirts swirled the dust as they went by, erasing the prints of their bare feet. The fine clouds of brown powder they raised choked Innowen if they ventured to pass close to him. That did not happen often. Most of them spied him early and cut a circle away, refusing to meet his gaze. For all that he was a cripple and a beggar, he was still a man and a stranger.

  A sharp stone penetrated the cloth padding around his right elbow. He gave a quiet yelp. Dragging himself into a narrow alleyway and propping himself up near the entrance, he paused to examine the wound. A small trickle of blood discolored the filthy strippings.

  Carefully, he unwound the wrappings and piled them in his lap. He spit on the tip of one finger, placed it against the cut, and leaned his head back against a stone wall. When the bleeding was stopped, he would move on. It was a small wound, but he was mindful of Riloosa and the foul infection he had seen in the dead man's flesh.

  He rolled his head to the side and gave a small sigh as he watched the traffic in the street just beyond the alley entrance. It was already hot in the alley, and the air was still. Trickles of sweat began to form on his face. They oozed down his neck and into his tunic. Still, he waited and observed the mingled press of citizens and soldiery that passed in the street.

  Suddenly, his sweat seemed to freeze on his skin. He caught his breath and held it, not daring to move, his gaze glued to the entrance. When he did move, it was to turn his head from side to side, wondering if he should crawl farther back into the still-dark depths of the alley or toward the opening to check what he thought he'd seen or to make a run for it

  Rather, a crawl for it, he reminded himself in disgust, opting finally to settle back again and let calm return. He had to remind himself he was a cripple until the sun went down, and on his own. He couldn't afford to act rashly or let panic overtake him. Taunting that Dardan guard had been stupid. Foolish, in fact.

  He was no fool.

  Hugging himself, he stared back at the alley entrance, this time intently watching the faces of those who passed, watching for one remembered face in particular, fearing it might return while he was still helpless.

  He had cause enough, he reflected, to fear Chohlit, and cause enough now to wonder what he had stirred in the man's soul that night on the plain of Kenay when his dancing had destroyed the rebel leader's army. Was he here in Parendur? Why?

  Could he have been on the same road, just moments behind me?

  Innowen felt for the dagger secreted inside his tunic and drew a measure of comfort from it. It wasn't much of a weapon. Even so, it was more than a beggar would usually have. He fingered his purse beside the dagger and looked back up the alley again. Biting his lower lip, he pulled it out, loosened its strings and dropped the gold cymoren into it with his other coins, mostly copper selats and a few egg-shaped silver phalens. Returning the purse to its hiding place, he leaned back and thought.

  Parendur was a big city. Why shouldn't Chohlit be here? Innowen tried to put aside his fears and suspicions, yet they nagged at him. He shouldn't stay in this alley much longer. If Chohlit was actually following him—an unlikely possibility—the man might double back.

  He bit his lip again as he glanced up and down the alley. His hand settled on his begging bowl. He lifted it, studied it for a moment by holding it close to his eyes in the faint light, then slammed it forcefully against the wall. It broke into several pieces.

  Seizing the largest shard, he ran his thumb along the clean, sharp edge. The rolled rim of the broken bowl made a safe grip. It wasn't as good as a sword or a quality dagger, but if he swung it quickly and surely, he had no doubt that it would cut, and he felt better having two weapons. He thrust the shard down into his knee wrappings. He could get at it quickly there.

  Hastily, he wrapped his elbow again. The bleeding had stopped. It hadn't been much anyway, he chided himself. But if he hadn't stopped to tend it, he might have fallen into the arms of his enemy.

  He frowned. Vashni and maybe Chohlit in the same morning, both close enough to spit on if he'd dared. Perhaps he had made a mistake in coming to Parendur alone. Well, no matter now. Here he was, and he intended to stay alive.

  He flopped over on his belly again and crawled back into the crowded street. He paused long enough to examine the sky, at least the piece of it he could see between the roofs of the buildings that lined the road. It was still early morning. Lots of sunshine left. Lots of time before he was whole.

  He crept along with all the strength and speed he could muster, taking the first turn that bore him away from his previous path, assuming, of course, Chohlit would have continued st
raight ahead. That wasn't necessarily a sure bet, Innowen admitted, so he turned down yet another street, taking a random way, and finding among several burned out buildings the first evidence of the fires caused by the storm of nights before. He continued slowly past, staring at the blackened timbers and scorched stones, and turned down yet another street.

  He found himself on the edge of one of Parendur's many small squares. Heat shimmer rose from the paving stones that suddenly lined the way. He was glad it was morning. Later in the day, the stones would be too hot for him to crawl on. They'd sting his flesh too severely. Only sandaled people would walk there after noon.

  For now, though, he could tolerate the heat. He set his gaze on the low well that stood at the center of the square. A potent thirst, born of wiggling his way through the dirt and dust, seized him. He waited until he saw no carts, no beasts of any kind that might trample him, then began to navigate a veritable forest of legs and feet toward his goal.

  A low circle of stones ringed the well. Eagerly, he dragged himself up, taking all his weight on his forearms, and peered over the side. His lips felt ready to crack, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  The well was dry, another victim of the drought.

  Innowen wished that he knew all the names of all the gods of Ispor, that he might curse them in the most personal terms.

  He twisted his body around and leaned against the well. His useless legs were tangled, and he bent forward to position them better. When he looked up again, another man had sat down beside him on the well's wall. The man was thin as a branch, and he had about him a desperate look. His cheeks were sunken, and his narrow lips were parchment dry. A ragged beard sprouted unevenly from his chin, and his eyes shone with a feral greed. His clothes were little more than tattered rags.

  Innowen knew he was about to be robbed. Beggars, especially crippled beggars, were easy marks. It didn't matter how secret his purse was. This man would be happy enough with a tunic that had fewer holes than his own.