A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Except for the drooling rage. That was kruar.

  Bannan drew breath for another shout, not that shouting ever worked.

  Scourge bent his neck to look around. With a nicker of happy-horse that would have put Wainn’s deceitful old pony to shame, he gave a nose-to-tail shake, going from all-out threat to placid. As if the truthseer believed any of it.

  The reason for this sudden change of tactic walked up the path, being Jenn Nalynn and Semyn, bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked.

  Bannan waiting on his porch wasn’t unusual. Waiting in his thick socks without a coat, fire still in his eye?

  Oh dear, Jenn thought. What had Scourge done now?

  Though it took him into the deeper snow, Semyn went by the kruar at a distance, familiar with the creature from his family’s stable. Where he’d apparently not stayed in a stall, being of more use clearing any vermin, a topic Jenn had meant to mention to Bannan.

  Well, here was her chance, and it might possibly improve tempers. She walked up to Scourge, standing in his shadow. He gave her a wary look. “Thank you,” Jenn told him warmly. “I know how you protected the Treffs. It was very brave.”

  “‘The Treffs?’” Bannan sounded surprised.

  “Their toad told me only today.” She stroked the kruar’s broad shoulder, the only part she could reach, and felt his disquieting purr. “Nyphrit came in great numbers each night, drawn by—they sought to harm Frann.” She shuddered at the thought. “You guarded the house so the little cousin could stay inside and warm. You were quite wonderful.”

  “I’d have done it,” a dragonish breeze claimed with some indignation, “but it kept him out of trouble.”

  Scourge growled. Semyn scampered onto the porch to be with his uncle, who gently pushed him through the still-open door.

  Where Tir leaned, amusement deepening the scars around his mouth.

  “I see.” Bannan’s eyes hadn’t left Scourge. “A moment please, Jenn, while I settle something with our ‘wonderful’ idiot.”

  Well, she’d done what she could and, as Aunt Sybb would say, the only thing less welcome than unsought advice was the third to an argument. Giving the kruar a final, hopeful, pat, Jenn went into the house. She took Tir’s arm and brought him with her, turning to close the door.

  “I’d love a cuppa,” she said briskly, stripping off her winter gear to hang on the pegs Bannan had put near the door. “Semyn?”

  He didn’t respond, having spotted his brother. Werfol sat in a chair by the fire, counting in a determined voice, a count that neither slowed nor stopped with their arrival. Which was odd of itself, and deserved explanation, but then Semyn joined his brother, sitting at his feet. Putting the flute case on the rug, he raised his hands and began to make small, rapid gestures.

  Stranger still, Werfol stopped counting aloud to do the same. Their little fingers flew, every movement a mirror image, and both frowned in concentration. This wasn’t play.

  What was it? Tir appeared as nonplussed as she felt. “Tea there is. And lunch, if you like.” He led the way to the table, having her take a seat while he poured a fresh mug, all the while staring at the boys, then added to his own. “Tell me, Jenn,” he said, turning eyes full of mischief on her. “About the usual goings-on. I’ve been to more’n my share of Dear and Departed’s.” At her blank look he chuckled. “I’m guessing what with winter you’d no unwelcome mourners to show the door, but surely there was a scrap? The surprise? C’mon, girl. Share the news.”

  Jenn blushed.

  “Both!” Tir leaned back, a satisfied gleam in his eye. “So was it—?”

  Bannan’s arrival was, she thought, a most timely interruption; Tir’s glee for gossip being matched only by Covie and Cynd.

  The truthseer rubbed snow from his socks, then gave up and removed them to hang on pegs to dry. He glanced at the boys but let them be, choosing to come to the table. Smiling at Jenn, he accepted the steaming mug Tir held out in silent question. “We’ve compromised.” He took a swallow then grimaced, not at the tea. “We’ll need the practice gear after all.”

  Had Tir eyebrows, they’d have shot skyward; he achieved the same effect by rumpling the scars on his forehead. “That’d be the gear you ordered not be used, sir. To be clear. Sir.”

  Bannan shot him a quelling look.

  Tir chuckled. “I’ll bring it from Devins’ tomorrow, then.”

  Another mystery, on a day she welcomed distraction. Jenn couldn’t help but grin. “So do I ask about them?” She indicated the boys, still trading gestures. “Him?” a nod at the door beyond which Scourge might or not be lurking. “Or the two of you?” She pantomimed the give and take between the men.

  Bannan’s lips twitched, then smiled back. “My apologies, Dearest Heart. Semyn?” The boy got to his feet and came promptly, Werfol turning in his chair to watch. “Please explain to our guest what you and your brother were doing just now.”

  “Counting, Uncle.” Properly said, but with a dose, Jenn thought, of defiance. “You made Weed count.”

  “I did. For the same reason your mother would.”

  “I lost my temper,” Werfol admitted. “Mamma lets Semyn count with me, Uncle.”

  “‘Counting?’” Tir wiggled his fingers. “This?”

  “And more,” Bannan said. The eyes of both boys widened as their uncle’s fingers began to move as theirs had. No, thought Jenn. His were quicker and more assured.

  “That’s—” Semyn’s mouth shut tight.

  “A secret!” Werfol said, earning a stern look from his brother.

  “A secret,” Bannan’s voice grew stern, “you were using in front of strangers.”

  “Jenn and Tir aren’t strangers,” Werfol stated.

  Semyn nodded. “They’re family, Uncle. That’s what you told us.”

  Which was rather impertinent, but Jenn felt a warm glow and didn’t mind a bit.

  Nor, from his almost smile, did Bannan. “So long as you’re more careful, outside these walls.”

  Tir coughed.

  “Lila and I learned the signs as children. You’ve used a version,” he told the former guard. “Our border signals have the same source.” Bannan glanced at Jenn. “Naalish. I wondered if you could understand it.”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s Shadow Talk, Uncle. Poppa said so.”

  “Hush!”

  Werfol glared at his brother. “He did. He knows all about it.”

  Semyn rolled his eyes. “And told us not to tell.”

  “He didn’t mean Uncle!”

  “You’re terrible at secrets!”

  “I’m better than you!!”

  “Lunch,” Bannan declared, ending the escalation. “Tir?”

  “Aie, there’s plenty.”

  “I’m not eating,” Werfol muttered, putting his back to them.

  Oh, he was in a mood. As Semyn sat to the table, his face flushed with temper, Jenn leaned to whisper in Bannan’s ear, “Maybe I should go.”

  “Dear lady,” he replied, his hand warm on hers. “Stay, please. I was sorry not to attend the gathering.”

  “Me too. There was a scrap, sir,” Tir volunteered much too happily. “And a surprise.”

  “There wasn’t really—there was, of a sort,” Jenn corrected, because Werfol was present and already unhappy. “Wen announced she’s with child.” The rest didn’t feel comfortable to mention.

  Wen in the Verge? It didn’t feel comfortable to think.

  Tir served Semyn, and they paused for the Beholding, Bannan adding a heartfelt one for Wen and Wainn. “Keep Us Close,” they finished together.

  “Now, Jenn,” Tir spoke up. “Tell us about the scrap.”

  When she didn’t answer immediately, Semyn piped up. “Jenn won!”

  “You did?” Bannan turned his head to face her.

  Whi
le a breeze, sudden and demanding, shouted. “You fought? Who? Why wasn’t I there? I should have been there. I have FAILED you!”

  “Wisp!” she protested, covering her ears.

  The dragon settled. The rest were staring at her and Jenn felt the blood drain from her cheeks, because she had, she told herself fiercely, blood and cheeks. “It wasn’t a scrap, as you call it, and there was no winning or losing anything. Cynd—she wanted to know why I—why I hadn’t—hadn’t—” Jenn gathered herself. “Why I hadn’t stopped Frann from dying.”

  “Heart’s Blood.” Bannan took her in his arms and held her so tightly she could feel the pound of his heart. “I should have been there,” he said, echoing the dragon. “I’m so sorry.”

  She pushed, gently, and he released her. His apple butter eyes were filled with remorse, and she laid a hand along his cheek. “You were where you should be. Semyn was with me, so all was well.” The boy straightened proudly in his seat. “He played for everyone. The loveliest music I’ve ever heard.”

  “Lady Lorra gave me the most wonderful flute, Uncle. I’ve never played one so fine before.”

  “We’ll have a concert after lunch,” Bannan declared. “Well done, Semyn.”

  And all would have been fine, but for what happened next.

  “I can put it together.” They all turned to see Werfol before the fireplace, a piece of the flute in each hand.

  “Don’t touch it!” Semyn jumped up, knocking over his stool. “Lady Frann wanted me to have it, Ancestors Dear and Departed. It’s mine!”

  Werfol’s face contorted with rage. “LIAR!” He rammed the pieces together, and silver broke free, falling on the rug like bits of ice.

  In the shocked silence, the boy’s hands opened to let the remaining pieces drop. His lower lip began to tremble. “I didn’t mean—”

  Semyn shoved his brother aside and went to his knees by the flute. As he collected the broken bits of mechanism, he looked up at Werfol, tears of fury pouring down his face. “Who’s the liar? You are!”

  “Easy.” Bannan moved between the two, putting a comforting hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “Mistakes happen.” Jenn noticed he carefully didn’t say “accident.” “Instruments can be repaired. Werfol, do you have something to say to your brother?”

  “I’m sorry I broke the flute.”

  Semyn looked to Bannan. “Is he?”

  It was one thing, Jenn realized, to see beyond the ordinary to magic and wonder. Another, quite horrible, thing, to be the arbiter of truth within a family.

  Before Bannan could answer, Werfol pulled away sobbing. He ran to the ladder, climbing to the top and out of sight.

  Bannan winced at the loud thud from above. Werfol must have thrown himself on the bed. “That went about as badly as possible,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

  Jenn gave him a sympathetic look. She’d gone down on the rug to help Semyn and Tir find the fragments of what had been, from the look of the silver and ebony, an extremely fine flute.

  Doubtless the very one for which Frann had traded Marrowdell’s ash.

  “Uncle. It can’t be fixed. Not here.” Semyn held out his hand, palm up, and on it were two halves of what had been a key. “We’d need an expert with this kind of flute. A master silversmith. Even Vorkoun doesn’t have those skilled enough.”

  Something Emon’s son would know. “Then we’ll find those who are,” Bannan promised. “Let’s have everything in the case, Semyn, and leave it with me.”

  Tir gave him a warning look, but Ancestors Set and Determined, the shining trust in the boy’s eyes was worth whatever he’d have to do. The Lady Mahavar would know who in Avyo to use.

  Spring seemed farther away than ever.

  “I believe that’s all of them—oh. Thank you,” Jenn said as silver glinted in midair, floating into her outstretched hand.

  “Sir!” Tir scanned the room, then lifted a foot as if worried where to step. “Where is he?”

  “Where you needn’t worry.” Bannan gave the dragon credit. It couldn’t be easy to inhabit a room full of people. “My thanks, Wisp.”

  Semyn looked around too, then sat, shoulders slumped. He glanced upward. “I shouldn’t have been angry. I’ve upset—”

  A scream tore through the house, high-pitched and terrified. Werfol!

  Bannan ran to the ladder, jumped to hook his fingers in the opening and heave himself through. “What is it? Are you hurt?”

  The boy lay on the floor by the bed, on top of—on top of the mirror that should have been wrapped and safely out of sight under the bed! It wasn’t wrapped now.

  Nor did it reflect the ceiling or the boy.

  A detail he hardly took in, frantic to determine why Werfol wasn’t moving. No bump on his head—

  Like Frann. Bannan’s heart hammered in his chest. It wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same. “Werfol. Dear Heart!”

  Werfol groaned, then spoke. What he said chilled Bannan to the bone. “Momma! Look out!!”

  “‘Momma?’” Fighting dread, Bannan looked at the mirror.

  Daylight in the room.

  . . . Night in the mirror. Huge lamps, their shapes exotic and strange, splashed yellow over stone and rippled in dark water. A wall, nearby.

  Nothing moved in the room.

  . . . Everything moved in the mirror, as if he were moving. No, running, as lamps came close then fell behind. Turning corners. Water alongside. Always water. A bridge arched over. Staircase led up.

  . . . There! The glint of steel and armor!

  “They’re coming! Momma! No!”

  Somehow, Bannan pulled his eyes away. Taking hold of the unconscious boy, he pulled him away too.

  Lila’s pendant bounced against the mirror.

  Which reflected a ceiling.

  And daylight in a room.

  “What’s wrong with Weed?”

  “I don’t know, Semyn,” Bannan said, wishing with all his heart he did. He laid his hand on Werfol’s forehead. Dark eyelashes swept colorless cheeks and the boy might have been asleep, but the skin beneath the truthseer’s palm was fever hot. “Jenn’s gone for Covie.” She’d be there now, he knew, using her magic to shorten the road.

  Magic.

  He’d left the pendant around Werfol’s neck. Put the boy on the bed before throwing a blanket over the cursed mirror. Though sorely tempted to smash it, he hadn’t. Couldn’t.

  Because he was afraid he knew what magic had shown them. Channen.

  Through Lila’s eyes.

  And her son’s. Bannan lifted his hand. “Has he fainted like this before?”

  “No, Uncle.” Semyn sat on the bed beside his brother, almost as pale. “Weed gets angry. So angry he shakes sometimes. But that’s mostly when people—” He swallowed and fingered the blanket over Werfol’s legs, then went on very softly, “—when people lie to him. Nothing like this. I wish he’d wake up. I’m very sorry. I don’t care about the flute. I don’t!”

  “This isn’t your fault.” Bannan ruffled Semyn’s hair. “Trust me.”

  Tir didn’t look around from the window. “Just say’n, sir. This place.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Marrowdell changed everything. Bannan glanced up. To his deeper sight, silver glinted in the shadows above. The dragon perched there, presumably due to the lack of room on the bed. Wisp had been suspiciously silent.

  Having included itself in the rush to the loft, the house toad sat where it had leapt, on the mirror, the blanket cover clenched in its claws as if holding something inside.

  Something with eyes. And wasn’t that another sort of nightmare?

  Swords on a bridge. Ancestors Fearful and Fraught. What had Lila gotten herself into?

  “They’re here,” Tir announced, leaving his watch. “I’ll see them in.”

  Within minutes, Covie was
up the ladder into the loft, Jenn right behind. “Stay,” the healer said, when Bannan went to move out of her way. “You know the boys.”

  “I’ll fill the kettle,” Tir offered, backing down the ladder.

  Jenn went to the side of the bed by Semyn. The boy reached for her hand and she took it in both of hers, sitting on the edge. Her eyes were blue again, like the morning sky, and the look she gave Bannan was both determined and worried.

  While Covie leaned over Werfol, gently examining his head, then his neck. “He fell?”

  “I don’t think so.” Bannan decided on the truth, such as he knew it. “I found him lying on the floor, atop that mirror. There.” He pointed. She eyed the toad, which eyed her back. “There’s some—some magic to the thing. I kept it under the bed, and wrapped. Not that I blame Werfol,” he added hastily.

  No, he blamed himself. And Lila. While he was at it, some blame belonged to the fat prince who’d started all this, and the train being built through Lower Rhoth to reach the mines of Ansnor, Ansnans likely deserving their share—

  “Bannan.” Jenn’s voice found him, wherever he’d gone.

  “My apologies, Covie. The mirror was where you see it. Werfol saw something in it that made him scream, then faint.”

  “‘Something,’” the healer echoed.

  “I—” saw it too, Bannan was about to say, then hesitated. What had he seen? Eyes, the once. This time? Had he truly seen Channen?

  Covie held up her hand. “I don’t need to know. He’s had a shock, that’s my thinking, and needs time to recover. Keep him warm, stay by him.” She put a finger on Werfol’s forehead, then gently drew it down to the tip of his nose. Had he seen a glow, where she’d touched? The boy let out a peaceful sigh, then rolled on his side.

  “A bit of proper sleep,” she said with reassuring firmness, “and he should be fine. Fetch me again if he isn’t.” She rose to her feet.

  “Ancestors Blessed.” Bannan bowed. “We’re Beholden for your care and kindness.”

  Semyn slipped off the bed to bow. “That we are, Lady Covie.”