Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  37 Seer Jud

  He stepped through the black door and looked about him. It was a place that Rin had given him, a place on Cabarissa.

  He was standing above a road that followed the line of a cliff. It was a dirt road, but broad and smooth and sufficiently set back from the edge to be safe from the sea. The country was hot, dry and dusty, decorated with thin leaved bushes that came up to his waist. Almost at once he began to sweat and peeled off his jacket. His eyes followed the road and the cliff down to where the house stood, just as he had seen it in his mind’s eye. It was a good sized house, he saw now, and blended with the cliff so that it looked natural and ancient. Its roof was grassed, and it was backed into the rise of land above the cliff so that one could walk down the hill and onto the roof.

  He had to squint against the harsh light of the sun which brightened both the pale surface of the road and the waters of the sea. To his northern eyes the colours seemed unreasonably clear and solid, like a child’s painting.

  We are in good time. Wait here.

  Serhan sat down. Their plan was to rely on routine. If things had not changed it would only be a short while until a Shan passed along this road on his way back to the house. He was a friend of Rin’s, and should respect what was left of her enough to aid them. So Rin thought.

  Some of the things that Rin had known were leaking through to his conscious mind. There was a stair, he remembered, that scrambled down the cliff below the house to a small sheltered bay, an impossible little crescent of moon white sand, sheltered from almost every direction, and hushed by the curtains of solid rock. The shallow water was warm to the touch, and turquoise over the white sand. It was a place to swim.

  This had been Rin’s home.

  He took out the flask of water that he had brought, took a sip, and wished he had brought a larger one.

  Looking up the road away from the house he could see only as far as the next corner. Even that was some distance and there was nothing on that arc of the road, but the landscape wavered and shook in the heat.

  “Is it this hot all the time?”

  Our seasons are less pronounced than yours, but it gets both hotter and cooler. It is cooler when it rains.

  He tried to find shade under a bush, but the bushes were too small and the sun was too high.

  “Do we have to wait here? We should go to the house and wait.”

  No. That would be… offensive.

  Yes. He should have known that. There was a strict code of behaviour governing how a visitor could approach someone in their home. As a stranger he could not even approach the house until he had been invited to do so.

  He looked up the road again and just about at the limit of what he could see there was a dark dot on the road.

  “Your friend?”

  The time is right.

  He sat and waited. The figure grew larger, and he could see by the way it walked that it was a Shan, with the same slightly alien gait that he’d observed in Rin. But then there were no men here, so it could be nothing but a Shan.

  He obeyed Rin’s instructions and waited until the figure was approaching his position and then called out to it.

  “Seer Jud, I have come to seek private audience with you. I am here by the word of Seer Sage Rin Percan Sylbastinorette.”

  The figure stopped on the road, and seemed startled, but it did not run.

  “You are a man,” it said.

  “I am, Seer Jud. My name is Cal Serhan.”

  The Shan took a few steps towards him, as though to get a better look.

  “This name is known to me,” he said. “Where are you from, and what title do you hold?”

  “I am from the cold lands in the west, but I reside at White Rock, and I am called Lord Seneschal of all its domains.”

  “So I have heard. What do you want here, Cal Serhan? You know that men are forbidden here?”

  “I know, Seer, but I bring heavy news, and I beg your assistance in a task that I must complete.”

  “This heavy news: Rin?”

  “Yes. She has died.”

  “I thought as much. We were always close, and I felt something – many nights ago now. But you speak her name. Did she send you here?”

  “May I approach the road and speak, Seer?”

  “Yes, of course, come down.”

  Serhan made his way down through the scrub and sat on the edge of the road. From here he could see that Jud was a lot younger that Rin had been. He had an open face, and Serhan could detect no fear.

  “I am much in her debt, Seer Jud,” he said. “She died by her own hand, and she did this to protect me. She believed that I have some role to play in coming events.”

  “I must know the truth of this,” the Shan said. “You understand what that means?”

  “You want to touch me – see what is in my mind.”

  “Is it acceptable?”

  “I have many secrets, Seer Jud. Some of them are dangerous to those that bear them.”

  It is all right. I can protect your secrets. Allow it.

  “If I am to trust you, I must see. It is hard for the Shan to trust men at any time.”

  “I shall allow it, Seer Jud.”

  He held out his hands to the Shan, who looked at him carefully before taking them, as though trying to gauge some other threat. The Shan’s hands were cool and smooth, and felt like Rin’s. Perhaps all Shan hands were like that. Did they sweat? What was their normal body temperature? He had no idea.

  There was a quiet moment of concentration, and then the Shan jumped back as though he had been bitten.

  “What is this?” he asked in wonder. “You carry Rin inside you? How can it be?”

  “I do not understand it myself, Seer, but you must know what has happened.”

  “I do. She chose to make you her death mate, and she named you Frateri Moru. I see the reason for both things, but she holds much of you still in darkness.”

  “Her choice.”

  “Not entirely, as I understand it, Cal Serhan. Rin is dead. The thing that is within you is yourself, but so much like Rin…”

  “To me it is Rin.”

  “I see that it is your truth, so I will accept it.”

  Serhan felt that he was being condescended to, but he also felt a long way out of his depth. The senses that the Shan used to communicate were beyond him. As a witness, sensing what had passed between Rin and Jud inside his own mind reminded him of the first time he had seen master swordsmen sparring. Everything was so fast and subtle that he could barely pick up the thread of what was going on, and yet he was aware that layers of subtlety were being exchanged, as though it were a separate language.

  “You are most gracious, Seer Jud,” he said. “I confess that I am at a loss to understand what passes before my eyes.”

  “And yet you are not to be taken lightly, Cal Serhan. Rin warns me that you are worthy of respect.”

  “Surely you would expect nothing else, Seer Jud. As you say, it is not really Rin, and I do have self respect.”

  “That is one way of seeing it, Seneschal. Please allow me to invite you to my house, which was once Rin’s house, and we can discuss our trip. I assure you that it is my sincere intention to help you to the limit of my abilities.”

  He followed the Shan down the road to the house, and was glad to do so. The heat was oppressive, and he was greatly in need of a seat in the shade and a cup of water. Both of these he had in very short order. The house was staffed by other Shan, but they did not wear the robes that he had seen on Rin and Jud. They were not seers, it would seem, and dressed themselves in breeches and simple tunics of varied colours. He felt like a giant and was large and clumsy in their presence.

  “I regret the question, Seer Jud,” he said as they sat in a shaded space looking out at the violent blue of the sea. “Are all your people here to be trusted?”

  There were so many of them that he felt the likelihood of betrayal increased with every moment that he sat, with every pair of eyes that sa
w him.

  “You are quite safe. The rule within a house is absolute. None may speak of what passes here without my blessing. To do so would aschat the family – cast them out, make them of no value. Loyalty is a primary virtue here.”

  He decided to relax. The house was a wonder in itself. At White Rock, and though all its domains, there was nothing like this. Fortresses he knew, and village houses, but nothing that was so grand and yet so undefended. It had been built as part of the landscape with only that and the comfort of its inhabitants in mind.

  “Now,” Seer Jud said when they had found a couch large enough for Serhan to be comfortable. “We must talk about the place of arrival.”

  * * * *

  The valley looked like any other highland valley on Cabarissa. The grass was cropped short by the shy mountain sheep that stared back at them from the rocky slopes. A boggy tarn occupied the head of the valley, coloured green by some kind of weed, and a thin stream tricked down the valley floor and out through the gap at the other end. It was not so big that a Shan could not step across it without effort.

  The air was cooler here, too. They were high above sea level, and Serhan was glad of the change, though Jud and the servants that had accompanied them wrapped up as though it were the dead of winter.

  They had brought a good deal of comfort with them. Several tents had been pitched near the valley’s mouth, and a home from home was quickly set up, with cooking fires, sleeping rooms and seating areas all within the tents. It was evident that the Shan had some skill at this way of life.

  “Oh yes,” Jud said when asked. “When we gather anywhere we move our households with us. It is important to have home ground to entertain on, to be sure of things.”

  “Poison,” Serhan said, startling himself with the word, and remembering what Stil had put on his door handle, and the sting of the needle that had made him obey Rin.

  “More than that, but yes, we like to eat our own food, travel with help at hand. We do not make war as men do, Cal Serhan, but we are not innocent.”

  Well, that was honest. Serhan shuddered inwardly. It was a society that was suddenly very frightening, and now he could see why loyalty was paramount. Who could trust a cook, or even someone who made your bed in a society where the prick of a thorn or a tasty meal could mean death? He preferred the way of the sword, knowing when it was that an enemy faced you.

  He left the Shan camp and walked up into the valley of arrival. It was what he had come here for, to see if he could sense anything. The valley was large, but not huge, covering perhaps two dozen acres. As he walked he could detect nothing, no sound, no movement, no colour. He sat on a rock and closed his eyes, allowing the sun to warm him and the presence of the valley to drift away. He covered his eyes with his hands and breathed deeply, alert for anything, and there was something there, a sweep of lilac, like the beat of a bird’s wing, and then it was gone.

  He stayed still, trying to guess which direction it had come from. It was a while before he noticed, but there was something else there, like a black rain falling at night. It was just the slightest hint of downward motion, but it was constant, and it was over to his left.

  He stood up and looked in that direction, seeing nothing special. He walked about a hundred yards and sat down again, closed his eyes, concentrated.

  Black rain again, but not really, a shifting perhaps, drifting downwards across whatever this new sense was. There are moments, when you lie on your back and look up at the sky, that the world seems to be falling and the sky itself quite still. It was like that now – a sudden sense of vertigo, with the whole world sliding away from him.

  His eyes snapped open and everything steadied. The sensation was gone. What was that? He sensed that it was very wrong.

  Eyes closed again, and the shifting blackness was very pronounced. He put a hand to the ground to reassure himself. Suddenly there was a flowering of colour, quite bright, and he heard four words. It was nothing that he recognised, not even the language, but he understood the shape of it without the meaning.

  It was time. The rushing, shifting blackness was time, or the friction between one time and another, moving differently. There was a thinness here, a wound where something had passed through. This was where the Faer Karan had arrived.

  He had picked up the very smallest fragment of a spell, but it was still there, or bits of it were. There might still be enough to be meaningful, but it would take a long time to recover a significant proportion.

  Glancing up at the Shan camp he saw usual business. They did not seem concerned with him. He turned back within himself, to the darkness and silence, and concentrated again.

  Time passed. He chased words and images across the blackness. Sometimes he caught fragments, and sometimes they escaped, but slowly he was building up pieces, like a child’s puzzle where everything must fit together into a simple shape, he was picking up the shapes and colours, but no sense of the meaning.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and started out of his trance.

  “Are you all right, Cal Serhan?”

  It was Jud. The Shan was standing next to him, holding a lantern, and it was dark.

  “How long have I been here?” he asked.

  “Four hours. I was worried, and the evening meal is prepared.”

  He realised that he was hungry, even ravenous.

  “That is enough for today, then,” he said. “I will come back to the tents with you.”

  His limbs felt stiff when he stood from so much stillness, and he walked in silence back to the promised meal. He ate with Jud and no other, from the same bowl. He was sure that this was no guarantee of safety among the Shan, and his host told him as much, but it was the Shan way; a gesture of trust.

  “Tell me, Cal Serhan, if it does not conflict with your endeavour,” Jud said. “What is it that you do in this valley?”

  He weighed up the risk, and found it slight. If the Faer Karan knew that he was here they would know at once what interested him, and if they knew that he was Rin’s death mate there would be no hiding his aims.

  “The Faer Karan arrived here,” he said. “I have confirmed this. I am trying to determine how.”

  The Shan gazed at him, and he was reminded by those strange eyes just how different the Shan were.

  “You can do this?” Jud asked.

  “It has been a long time, and there may not be enough of the magic remaining here, but I can sense some things, and it may be possible to learn enough to be useful. It is the way in which Rin’s gift has made me different.”

  “We have no magic,” the Shan said. “We cannot touch it, no matter how we try, and we are forever at the mercy of those that wield it. Is it true that you have sworn to protect us?”

  No. Not sworn. Rin asked me to do so as the price of her gift, but I was in no state to swear, and so I have not.

  But you will.

  “If I have not so sworn, then I do so now, Seer Jud. If it is within my power I will protect the Shan, or at least provide them with the means to defend themselves.”

  “That sounds like a barbed promise, Cal Serhan. We are not warriors.”

  “I will do what is within my power, Seer. I can promise no more.”

  They continued to talk, continued to eat, and the food was very good. He was beginning to like Seer Jud.

  * * * *

  It was about mid day on his second day in the valley, and already he was beginning to realise that several more trips would be necessary. He had assembled enough fragments of the ancient spell to guess at its size and complexity, and he knew that he had only a very small part. He had only one more day after this before he must return to White Rock or be missed.

  He was already tired. The concentration drained him, and his shoulders ached from so much sitting still. Taking a break seemed a good idea, so he rested, eyes still closed, but put his back against a rock and soaked up the sun, allowing his mind to wander aimlessly. It was pleasant.

  He must have dozed off, because whe
n he awoke it was with a start, and there was shouting coming from the Shan camp. It sounded urgent and had a note of panic, so he stood and looked in that direction. There were a great deal more of the Shan about than he remembered; dozens of them. He saw something that looked like a weapon in a Shan hand, and felt apprehension. The Shan that had travelled with him had not been armed, and even frowned at his insistence on bearing a weapon.

  He walked towards the camp, and after a few paces began to run. There was something going on up there that looked decidedly hostile.

  As he got closer he could see that Jud’s servants were all on their knees, and that thirty of forty roughly dressed Shan were in the process of looting the camp. He stopped about ten paces from the nearest tent and called out.

  “Seer Jud, what is taking place here?”

  A lot of the looters stopped and looked at him. One of them, who seemed a little better dressed than the others, and carried a short sword, took a couple of steps towards Serhan, waved his sword and shouted at him. He couldn’t understand what the Shan said, but it was apparent that it expected him to yield.

  “Cal Serhan, they do not speak your tongue, but you must yield to them.” It was Jud. Serhan could see him now, kneeling with the others. One of the looters gestured at him when he spoke, and the Seer cringed.

  “Why?” he asked. His hand was resting on the hilt of his sword.

  “They will kill you if you do not.”

  “I do not think so, Seer Jud.”

  Seeing that Jud could speak to him they dragged him out from among his fellows and shouted at him.

  “They demand that you yield, Cal Serhan,” the terrified Shan said.

  “Who are they? I thought your people didn’t carry weapons.”

  “They are the Kastan Delor, wild people who live in the hills. It is unusual to see them so far south. If we yield they will just take our food and leave us unharmed.”

  “I have not finished here yet. We need the food. Tell them that they must yield to me.”

  “I will not.”

  Serhan walked forwards, his sword coming out of its sheath. A couple of the wild Shan took a step back. Not so fearsome as all that, then. He pointed the sword at their leader.