A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Jenn nodded dutifully, hiding her doubt. Oh, how she wanted to believe what she’d seen was harmless, but hadn’t Wisp warned her, often, that the turn-born of the Verge didn’t always tell the truth? Even if they did, she suspected a certain arrogance. That what turn-born didn’t know, couldn’t be important?

  Aunt Sybb had a great deal to say on the topic of willful ignorance, none of it flattering.

  Mistress Sand clicked the tongue she didn’t have. ~As for my advice? I repeat Riverstone’s. The Verge is what it is. I add my own. We’ve arrangements in Channen. Follow the one who waits at the crossing, but be wary. Expectations go awry there. Too much of the Verge, might be. Too much magic in those living there, might be as well. Most are friendly folk and good traders, minding their own business.~ Darker. ~There’s others, too interested for any one’s good. Know the difference, Sweetling and truthseer. Or you won’t cross back.~

  Oh, dear. Yes, they’d spoken of magic in the Shadow District, but Jenn had imagined trinkets like the pendant or at most wishings, like the ones Kydd teased Peggs about, to produce larger babies or smooth wrinkles. Nothing of the Verge.

  Nothing to put either of them at risk.

  When Jenn looked at Bannan, he dipped his head in a grim nod. He’d known, or feared it.

  He’d lived with his own magic, concealing it at risk of his life. Though the thought was chilling, Jenn nodded back. “Thank you for your kindness. We will take very great care.”

  ~Around the lake and up the slope, then,~ Mistress Sand repeated. ~With luck, you won’t meet any broods.~

  With that, she and Master Riverstone turned and left.

  Jenn and Bannan looked at one another.

  “‘Broods’ of what?” he mouthed, eyes wide with mock horror.

  She couldn’t help it.

  Laughing, she took him in her arms.

  They couldn’t leave the sleepy house toad, so Bannan put it into his pack, Jenn helping. Their fingers touched and mingled in the process, both chuckling at the awkwardness of the limp creature. What had come between them—what he’d put between them—was gone and he was beyond grateful. They’d talk, he decided, losing himself in the wells of beauty that were her eyes.

  ~Hurry. Hurry!~ the dragon snapped, though he seemed in better temper. The mask had helped.

  As had the departure of the turn-born.

  Bannan kissed the tip of Jenn’s nose before they both stood. “Hurry it is.” He looked over at Scourge.

  Who deliberately pretended something moved in the—they weren’t bushes, being more like fur, but had flowers, or were they eyes?

  He made the effort to look deeper, rewarded by flowers again.

  “Bannan?”

  “Hurry it is,” he agreed. If they weren’t to ride, it’d be walking.

  Walking it was. The sand curved away from the lake, as a beach couldn’t, becoming a road of sorts, if you watched where you stepped. Jenn hinted such roadmaking was within a turn-born’s power, and Bannan decided to be grateful.

  There being shadows away from the lake he didn’t care for at all.

  Scourge padded alongside. Wisp, with his two ruined limbs, had taken flight. Bannan lost him in a stream of flowing silver, a river of mimrol now overhead.

  “Do things change all the time?” he complained mildly.

  Jenn grinned. “It seems so. But I feel,” her grin faded as she thought, “it’s more about what can be seen, at any time. I’m glad we’ve guides.”

  Guides they hadn’t met and didn’t know. “Are we sure we’ll be able to see them?” he asked, only half joking. “Maybe Wisp and Scourge should stay with us.”

  ~No.~ The dragon.

  Taken aback, as he was, Jenn stared into the sky. “Wisp?”

  ~Once you are with those the turn-born have sent, I’ve another duty.~ From sharp and adamant, almost harsh, Wisp’s tone gentled. ~If you need me, I will know. I will come. Never doubt that, Dearest Heart.~

  Bannan stopped walking. “What about the boys? What of Werfol?” Surely the dragon had a soft spot.

  ~MINE!~

  Ancestors Greedy and Gluttonous, if that wasn’t predictable? “So you’ll abandon us too.” He was more relieved than otherwise; not something to tell the kruar.

  Scourge rolled a red-rimmed eye. ~I will stay with my new truthseer. You may die here.~

  Jenn’s mouth formed a shocked “O.” Bannan grinned. “I can see you’ve thought it through. Just promise me you’ll look after Semyn and Tir as well.”

  ~They are mine.~ With affront he’d had to ask.

  Jenn’s lips closed into a firm line. No one was dying, that meant. He couldn’t argue.

  A short while later they came to what Bannan would have very much liked to argue with, and loudly. He and Jenn tipped their heads back as far as they could, trying to see to the top. “Slope, she called it? It’s a bloody cliff!”

  The rock reared from the sandy path, its surface veined in green, bronze, and black, sheer and glistening as if wet. The top, if there was a top, was lost in cloud.

  Cloud that had a disturbing tendency to flock and whirl.

  “We can walk up it.” Jenn turned to him, eyes alight. “If Mistress Sand said to go this way, she’d expect it to be possible. They would have made it possible, Bannan. The turn-born.”

  With those words, she lifted her slender foot, toes spread, and put it against the rock. As if taking a normal step, her other foot rose to meet its mate and Jenn Nalynn stood out from the cliff, her skirt floating in midair. She laughed and waved to him. “It’s wonderful, Bannan. Try it.” She took more steps, quickly beyond where he could reach if he jumped.

  Tiny hands patted him encouragingly. “Fine for you,” the truthseer muttered. “You’ve wings.”

  “Bannan!” Heart’s Blood, she was almost out of sight.

  This was—Ancestors Mad and Delirious—this was the Verge. Tightening the straps on his pack, Bannan planted his boot against the rock.

  It was like tipping on a plank. Suddenly, the foot on the rock was the foot on flat ground, while his other was stuck up behind him. Bannan staggered more than stepped forward, putting both feet on the cliff.

  Which was now a road, easy and flat as could be.

  Yet not. When he tried moving faster than a steady walk, he lost his balance and almost fell backward.

  Jenn, well ahead, or above, looked back—or was it down?—at him. He couldn’t make out her expression, but her wave seemed cheery enough. “Almost there!” she called, and he smiled, waving back.

  It was around that moment that Bannan realized the rock supporting his feet was occupied.

  By things with teeth.

  Ancestors Elated and Exhilarated. The more time she spent in the Verge, the more amazed Jenn found herself. The more at home. Not that this was her home, but she’d been more than a little anxious about this other world, being such a stranger to it.

  But it welcomed her with open arms. Hadn’t she the all-important mask, to make her acceptable to those who lived here, and now walked up a wall with ease? Being in the Verge, Jenn decided, was like being inside a story, one filled with unexpected wonders at every turn of the page. Pleased by the thought, she glanced back at Bannan and waved. He returned the gesture with a brave smile, being something of a wonder himself.

  However the Verge appeared to her, she shouldn’t assume it seemed the same to Bannan. They’d need to compare their observations, like the worthy explorers who’d mapped the roads through Upper Rhoth or sailed across the Sweet Sea to discover Eld. Were there seas here? Other domains than the turn-borns’? With each footstep, Jenn happily came up with more and more possibilities, though she—reluctantly—dismissed the notion of drawing a map. How could a road that went up as well as away fit on paper?

  Not to mention a road that, just ahead, disappeared into a cloud tha
t spun and whirled and—Jenn blinked.

  Wasn’t a cloud at all.

  Running was out of the question. As, Bannan discovered, was walking on tiptoe. So, however reluctantly, he continued to plant each boot against what felt solid but, more and more, swam with things.

  Things with teeth. He couldn’t tell more about them, for their bodies, assuming they had bodies, blended into the colors streaking through the rock itself. The teeth, though, were regrettable—white and brilliant. Small, but sharp. They circled and gathered, like obscene little smiles.

  Heart’s Blood. Bannan wrenched his eyes from where he stepped, and what on, to stare determinedly ahead. Nothing for it but to reach Jenn Nalynn.

  But where was she?

  Something bumped his boot.

  Another something.

  He had to look down again. Ancestors Harried and Helpless! They were—they were eating his boots!

  Regardless of the real threat of falling off the road—for falling might be an improvement—Bannan moved faster, wheeling his arms to keep his balance. Each time his foot touched, there’d be one or more bumps. The boots were—had been—his favorites and new, with thick soles. Ancestors Witness. Would they be thick enough?

  One of the little smiles broke free of the rock, like a fish jumping into air, narrowly missing his hand!

  Proving—oh, yes—there was a body belonging to that wicked set of teeth. A body he recognized, however much smaller and stubbier.

  Dragon!

  Brood, Sand had warned. He’d walked right into it, hadn’t he?

  Bannan shouted, half-warning, half-plea. “Jenn!”

  More dragonlings erupted from the rock to snap at him, nipping holes in his shirt, pulling at his hair. The yling appeared on his shoulder, brandishing a spear, and accounted for one that fell tumbling through the sky, but there were more.

  They were small and seemed able only to jump, then plunge back. Small mercy, Bannan discovered as he used his hands to protect his face. Their teeth resembled a rabbit’s, rather than Wisp’s long fangs, but were as sharp as they looked. The bag over his shoulders protected his back but confined the little cousin, whose desperate wriggles to join the battle threatened Bannan’s balance.

  All while the brood ripped and tore at his clothing, as if tearing away skin. It would take only the taste of blood, Bannan feared, to send them into a frenzy.

  “Jenn—!” but she’d left him behind, surely thinking him safe.

  A slash opened his cheek, spilling warm blood down his shirt. Bannan hunched, arms over his face, but his arms simply became the new target.

  Crunch.

  The attacks ceased. He lowered his arms only to flinch as most of a full-size dragon flew by his face and into the rock, the young scattering.

  Flinched and might have fallen but for the mass behind him. Bannan grabbed for Scourge as the kruar snapped up a hapless dragonling. Once the truthseer felt steady, he voiced a heartfelt, “Couldn’t have got here a moment sooner, could you? Before they were eating me?”

  ~Sooner and there wouldn’t be enough.~ Another snap and capture. With purring.

  “‘Enough—?’” As if to answer his question, Wisp’s head appeared from the rock, jaws crammed with little bodies, then slipped back again. “—oh,” Bannan finished, now distinctly queasy. So dragons ate their young. Here he’d been pleased to have one sleep with his nephews.

  Something he might not tell Lila.

  Using a sleeve of his dragonling-shredded shirt, Bannan wiped the blood from his cheek, ignoring the rest. Shallow, the cuts. He rued the lost clothing more. “Where’s Jenn? Is she all right?”

  ~Why wouldn’t she be?~ as if he’d asked something ridiculous.

  Maybe he had. Bannan sighed and started walking up—along—the rock again. By the feel of his feet, he’d need new boots as well as clothes. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked, when Scourge didn’t move with him.

  ~Tasty!~

  Not for the first time, Bannan was grateful the old kruar didn’t think the same about his rider.

  Not that he’d mentioned, anyway.

  Of course, Scourge was far from the only kruar in the Verge, as Wisp wasn’t the only adult dragon.

  Wasn’t that a thought to put a shiver down the spine?

  A sliver of paper, touched by ink and finger’s tip . . . a drop of sleep, under the tongue . . .

  And the dream unfolds . . .

  Up is down and behind is before and nothing is but madness—

  Nothing is but madness—

  Nothing is—

  The dream breaks . . .

  Jenn was delighted to discover, upon closer inspection, that what she’d thought a cloud was composed of dragons that would fit in her hand. Like a flock of late-summer birds, they flew in vast murmurations, tails and wings in constant motion. Some flew higher than she could see, while others plunged into the rock and disappeared.

  On impulse, Jenn held out her hands as she might to birds, but the baby dragons—was that the right word?—were too shy to approach, though heads turned to watch her as they passed and she thought a couple were tempted.

  Bannan wasn’t far behind, so he should see them too. She hoped so; a flock of baby dragons surely a marvel even in the Verge.

  Ahead the rock split apart, a third bending up again—or was it over—and the rest verging at a tangent to the right. Between was something new.

  Yet almost ordinary. It looked to be a grassy meadow, surrounded by what she decided to call trees, in lieu of a proper name for what had a woody trunk like a tree, but instead of branches sprouted clumps of black feathers. The feathers met at the tops, forming a canopy a little like a night sky, complete with stars.

  Stars that were ylings, who danced overhead, their hair afire with light. Entranced, Jenn stepped from rock to meadow.

  With a startled gasp, the meadow being a far higher step than she’d thought to take. It took her a moment to regain her balance. She’d have to watch for Bannan and warn him about that.

  The short brown grass was pleasantly soft underfoot and warm. The meadow itself, now that she stood within it, stretched like an open, welcoming hand, each finger and thumb a path whose end she couldn’t see from where she stood.

  While the palm was a depression, with a round fountain in its midst; a fountain so like those of Marrowdell Jenn didn’t need the tangle of turn-born expectation to tell her who’d made it. She started walking toward it, then stopped to look back, abruptly uneasy.

  “Bannan?”

  He should be mere steps behind her. Mere steps—but what did that mean in the Verge? Where was he?

  Jenn ran back to where the meadow ended and rock began, only to find herself confronted by tree trunks and darkening shadows. Their road was gone.

  What had she done?

  He was to be here. Now and safe! WITH HER!

  Every wish she began slammed into DENIAL until she stopped, gasping, and fell to her knees. “I wasn’t to leave him,” Jenn whispered. “Ancestors Blessed and Beloved, how could I have left him?”

  Well, this was a problem.

  Bannan considered the wall of—stalks, he decided to call them—that had sprung into existence around him between one step and the next. They were topped by silky black feathers, like one of Lorra’s hats, and seemed harmless.

  He’d keep his distance.

  As best he could. They grew, or sprouted, or stood, no more than two arm’s lengths apart, though some touched and others merged. The ground was covered in what appeared brown fur—and might be—leaving him grateful for what remained of his boots.

  Closing his eyes, he rubbed them with thumb and forefinger, seeking relief from the strain. Never before had his deeper sight cost him like this. Then again, Bannan thought ruefully, he’d not wandered a world where he’d needed to look deeper simply to s
ee where to put his feet.

  Pat. Pat.

  Dropping his hand, he opened his eyes to find a yling—his yling—hovering just out of reach. It faced him, two hands gripping the barbed spear it had used to such good effect, another holding a shield made from polished acorn shell. Yling possessed two pairs of arms and one pair of legs, with hands at the ends of each. Its remaining three hands were held empty and open. He, for this was certainly male, wore a cape of purple aster petals. Wisp’s doing, Bannan remembered.

  Hair like threads of glass stood out from the yling’s head; dark eyes regarded him.

  Waiting. For what?

  Bannan bowed, leaving his hand over his heart, fingers and thumb forming a circle. “By the Hearts of my Ancestors, accept my thanks for your courage, my friend.”

  The yling tipped his head, light splintering into rainbows around it.

  How much did the creatures understand? “I must find Jenn Nalynn,” Bannan said hopefully. “Can you help me?”

  “Can I help you?”

  The voice, querulous and high-pitched, seemed to come from everywhere at once. The yling dove into the truthseer’s hair. As Bannan whirled around, searching in vain for the source, the house toad warned, ~Do not answer! Do NOT!~

  “Can I?” the voice said again, abruptly high overhead. “Will I, is the better question.”

  ~Let me out,~ demanded the toad. ~Our elder sister is near. Do not believe him!~

  Good advice, Bannan decided grimly. The disembodied voice grated unpleasantly along every nerve; he needn’t see who spoke to feel ill intent. He unslung the pack, tearing open the ties. The toad burst out between his hands to land on the furry ground, puffed and battle-ready.

  Nostrils flared and red, Scourge plunged into the clearing, shattering wood to clear an opening. Plumes of black fluttered up and away, frightened from their hold. A furious wind followed on the kruar’s heels, whirling splinters into a dizzying wall. The dragon’s roar sent Bannan to his knees, hands over his ears, wondering why the ground hadn’t shattered as well.

  ~SHOW YOURSELF!~

  Jenn sat on one of the stones ringing the fountain, facing the direction Bannan should come. She’d tried to push her way to him through the trees and managed only to scrape the skin of her arms and tear the bodice of her dress. It was Peggs’ second-best and, while she greatly regretted the tear, her sister did have a baby growing inside. Having witnessed the blossoming of Hettie’s bosom, Jenn supposed Peggs was unlikely to fit into the dress again for at least a while.