A Play of Shadow

by Julie E. Czerneda

Yellowed sheets, their bottoms stained, covered chairs set in a row before a wall. The lower halves of the wall’s panels were swollen, what had once been rich dark wood coated in powdery rot. At a guess, the room had been flooded more than once by water that hadn’t, yet, reached the portraits above the chairs. Thick frames, more dust and cobweb than gilt, surrounded women and men in uniforms crusted with medals, who stared at the truthseer as if he interrupted a discussion, then resumed their grim outward gaze.

  From the vaulted ceiling hung a chandelier twice Bannan’s height, a scant handful of its flames still burning. Shadows crowded close, hiding the rest of the room’s size and shape, keeping secret any windows or doors.

  All this he gleaned from the quickest possible glance, being more urgently interested in his captor.

  And the truth.

  “Fair evening.” The cultured voice. The man sat in a chair, its cover tossed to the mud-streaked floor, set midway between Bannan and the wall of portraits. His back was straight, feet together in tall polished boots, and his hands, long fingers well-manicured, rested on his knees. He was dressed for a social function, his white shirt and collar trimmed with black lace, a jacket, also black, but textured with embroidery. He wore black billowing trousers clasped at the knee by golden straps, and looked every bit the Naalish but for the addition of a short wool cloak about his shoulders.

  Beneath sparse fair hair, his face was even-featured, comely, aside from a nose that looked to have been broken more than once and eyes like blue ice.

  Not a face he’d seen before, Bannan decided. Not one he’d forget.

  Older by ten or so years, taller, more slender. Bookish, like Kydd, which made him more, rather than less, a threat.

  “What, no courtesy?” the man inquired, lifting a brow.

  “Untie me,” Bannan suggested.

  “Of course.” A smile quirked his lips up and to the side, then the man snapped finger and thumb.

  The ropes snapped too, their ends slithering to the floor.

  “Sir!” A protest like any of Tir’s, but the guard stepping forward was of different stuff.

  The man wore a constable’s livery, wanting only the plumed helmet and nightstick. It wasn’t his, by the strained seams, and Bannan hoped the original wearer had lost only his clothing and dignity.

  By the flat stare of those eyes, the dour set of the jaw, it was a faint hope, lessened further by brass at the knuckles. The truthseer kept his hands in plain sight as he sat, slowly, discovering in the process he was filthy. Dragged through a significant amount of mud and debris, that meant, and no need to guess by whom.

  He swung his legs over the side of the table, fighting a wave of dizziness. To disguise the effort, he scrubbed the last of the vile substance from his face with the cleanest part of a sleeve.

  Outrage, Bannan decided, lowering his arm, and set his face in an offended scowl. “Who are you? How dare you—”

  “You don’t know me. And I dare many things,” the cultured man said smoothly. “A pleasure I’ve long anticipated, meeting you at last.”

  “I don’t know who you think I am.” Had the trap not been for Lila? Bannan did his utmost to look flustered, which wasn’t difficult. “I’m a simple merchant—”

  “Ancestors Witness, you’re anything but that.”

  The truth.

  Well enough. In Channen, did he not wear more than one disguise? This could work to his advantage. Sitting straighter, Bannan went for scorn. “Then you know I’m a Keeper of the Source. The Shadow Sect—”

  “Greedy fools who’d wet themselves if they knew what they tended.” The man’s smile held a disconcerting appetite, as if he watched a feast being spread before him. “Not that they don’t have their use. We do one another small favors, from time to time, making convenient— but enough of business. Hearts of my Ancestors, I am truly Beholden. Bannan Marerrym Larmensu, here.” Sharply. “Don’t waste my time and deny who you are.”

  Ancestors Desperate and Dire. The truthseer bowed his head, gathering his wits. What was a name? All manner of people knew his. People in Vorkoun and other, farther places. “Who are you?”

  “Glammis Lurgan,” too easily said. “You won’t have heard of me. I’m a private man. A collector, of sorts. I’ve patrons with like interests, you see, and am known for my—quality.”

  True, and oddly disturbing. Bannan fought for calm, fought to remember he was the truthseer and should be able to deal with this Glammis, but he wasn’t calm, not at all. Tempting to think it the aftermath of the spell, tempting but wrong. There was something about the other man that shook him to his core, and he was afraid he knew why.

  “What is it you collect?”

  “Today? You.” Glammis waved a generous hand. “And your sister, of course. I’d thought to catch her here, so conveniently alone and unknown, while you were brought down from the north.” An exaggerated shrug. “Alas, Lila’s proved elusive. No matter. You’ll make fine bait. Welcome to Channen, truthseer and key!” He leaned his head back and laughed. The chandelier’s dusty pendants sang like discordant bells in echo.

  As the enormity of his folly sank in, Bannan was left with one clear thought.

  Lila’d have his ears for this, if Jenn didn’t take them first.

  It was then he felt tiny hands seize his hair in a desperate grip, as if afraid of falling.

  The yling!

  Jenn rode a hunting kruar across the mist-cloaked rooftops of the Shadow District, a toad clenched under her arm, and wondered rather desperately how she’d explain this to her sister.

  Assuming they made it home for her to explain.

  ~Elder sister?~

  “I’m a little busy.” And she was, busy holding on. Though in the semblance of a horse, the kruar moved across sloped tile or flat stone with equal ease, but tended to pounce without warning, there being pigeons at roost for the night. She’d grown almost used to the crunching, it being the kruar’s nature after all, but the leaping? That usually involved a drop to a lower level, leaving her stomach behind. Still, they were almost to the Distal Hold. She could see the palace lights.

  ~While I am honored by your care, elder sister, please, you need not carry me. I can manage.~

  Oh dear. She must be squeezing the breath from the poor creature. When the kruar next paused, nostrils working at the air, Jenn put the toad on his shoulders, in front of her. “Are you sure?”

  By way of answer, its claws dug into their mount’s hide and its body flattened, eyes aimed forward. ~I will not fail you, elder sister. Onward, nameless one!~

  ~Fool little cousin!~ The kruar snarled and bucked, but the toad stayed in place better than Jenn, who yelped and had to change her hold.

  A shape formed out of the shadow of a chimney. Jenn’s heart leapt at the sight of Bannan’s kruar, who’d gone back for the truthseer while she lay in the artisan’s care.

  Until she saw the empty saddle. “You didn’t find him,” she said, discouraged.

  Defensive. ~The scent changed.~

  Her kruar rumbled and pranced. ~Scent does not change!~

  His snarled back.

  “Stop!” Jenn softened her tone. “Please.” This was more than a difficulty, she thought despairingly; she’d counted on the hunters. “If you can’t smell him, how will we find Bannan?”

  ~We cannot,~ admitted one.

  ~You are turn-born,~ said the other, seeming perturbed. ~Do you not know?~

  She slipped down, pressing her forehead to the side of the kruar for a moment, then took a step away. “Let me think.”

  Jenn went to the roof edge, no longer as wary of heights as she’d been, and sat beside a stone . . . whatever. This one had bulbous eyes, broad etched feathers, and the usual open mouth through which water would pour after a rain. She put an arm around it and gazed out at the Shadow District.

  She might be look
ing over the world, with mountains and rivers and unreachable depths. Lamplight floated along canals and marched over bridges. Few lights showed now from the buildings above street level. More gleamed in the distance, below. Where there was dancing.

  Where was Bannan?

  “Keep Us Close,” Jenn whispered, the part of the prayer she wanted, with all her heart, to be true. For no reason but hope, she held out her hand, palm up, and waited.

  A heartbeat went by.

  A breath came and went.

  Then a moth white as snow landed on her palm, its toes prickly, and fussed with its wings.

  Be grateful for small mistakes, Bannan told himself as his captors hustled him from room to room. He could almost hear Tir add, beware your own, they’ll cost more.

  The false constable had searched him, carelessly and in haste. He’d torn free the purse, displeased to find it empty; though had it remained full of toad, he’d have had a rude surprise. Tossing that aside, he’d felt Bannan’s clothing for weapons, swearing under his breath, and stopped with a satisfied grunt upon finding the knife.

  Saving his back from further bruising, Bannan thought almost cheerfully, should they throw him on another table.

  His sodden braid, home to the suffering yling, the fool left untouched, as well as the belt, with its seemingly ornamental pouches. For now. He couldn’t expect too much stupidity, more’s the pity.

  From Glammis, he expected none.

  The wretched dining hall had been on a lower, long-abandoned floor of whatever building this was, its entrance through a panel that barely opened to let them pass, then closed behind as if never touched. Beyond lay a whole series of equally decrepit rooms and halls. He’d seen the like in Vorkoun, along the riverbank, where old buildings had sunk under their own weight; levels damaged by flood or at risk were simply sealed and forgotten, with new floors built above.

  Yet there was magic here, still. At their approach, sconces along the walls flickered to life. By their feeble light, Bannan counted the footprints in the accumulated silt and grime. Too few to suggest anyone else had been here in years.

  His hands were bound behind his back. He’d naught but what he wore, the guard having tossed Bannan’s staff into the shadows with his purse, deeming the knife alone worth taking.

  Glammis had a staff of his own, gleaming black, with a top carved into the head of weasel. What trade or guild it signified, the truthseer couldn’t guess, but red jeweled eyes gazed wherever its master looked, giving the thing an eerie semblance of life. No doubt the staff concealed a blade or other, more subtle, weapon. This wasn’t a man who went unarmed.

  As for mistakes? Oh, he’d made his own, potentially costly. The tokens to bind a truthseer. Bringing them, in hindsight, had been foolish enough. Now they sat at his waist, waiting to be found and used against him.

  Really, Bannan told himself, he’d had better days.

  Of course, should Glammis have a supply of the dreadful things and if such a wishing could enslave him?

  What he carried wouldn’t matter. Nothing would.

  They came to stairs leading up to a closed door, a door in better shape than any they’d passed so far. Glammis stopped, raising his staff.

  “Sir?” the guard questioned with a frown. “We daren’t take’m that way.”

  “I’ve wasted time enough.” Discarding his cloak on the floor, Glammis reached inside his jacket, pulling out a twist of wool. “Hold him still.”

  That brought a thick arm around the truthseer’s neck and a knife to his spine above his tied wrists.

  Leaning his staff against the wall, Glammis put a booted foot on a stair, stooping to use the step above as a worktable.

  The wool had secured tokens, as Bannan feared, tokens his captor now laid out in a row, ready for use.

  The truthseer tensed.

  “Here now!” the guard growled in his ear, tightening his grip.

  Glammis didn’t look up. “This won’t harm you, Bannan Larmensu,” he said pleasantly. “I know you must believe me, if I tell the truth.”

  Heart’s Blood. Bannan refused to panic. The other might be sure of his name; he couldn’t be sure of the rest. “I don’t believe you. Why should I?”

  “Because of what you are,” with chilling confidence. Glammis finished whatever he was doing on the stair and stood, his hands cupped. “You must wonder how I learned of your rare and special gift . . .” —a smile— “ . . . truthseer.”

  “I wonder,” Bannan said politely, “if you’re mad.” The knife tip pressed; he ignored it. “‘Truthseer?’ Next you’ll tell me you believe in the Bone Stealer.”

  “And you don’t?” Glammis chuckled. “The world isn’t as it appears to those like Dokis here. I know it.” A nod. “You see it. And you, truthseer, will find what I seek.”

  “Mad,” Bannan repeated just as surely, hiding his consternation. This man wasn’t after his gift to detect lies in others, or not that alone. He wanted something more.

  Something perilous. What if Glammis meant to use him to learn about the edge and its magic, maybe even the Verge and how to reach it? To trespass against turn-born and sei?

  Mountains had crumbled, the last time someone dared that utter folly.

  Jenn would find him first. The edge was her domain, as was the Verge. All he had to do was return to it. To her. Bannan clung to that hope.

  Glammis raised his cupped hands to his mouth, murmured something Bannan couldn’t hear over the guard’s ragged breathing in his ear, then threw open his hands.

  Doing what? Nothing, so far as the truthseer could tell. He began to relax.

  “A simple trick,” Glammis said dismissively, implying all manner of magic at his disposal that was neither. He dusted his boots with a cloth, then went up the stairs.

  “Get moving,” the guard commanded, shoving Bannan to follow, but his voice?

  It was a woman’s! The truthseer turned and gasped. The false constable was now a scullery maid, albeit a substantial one, the illusion—for surely it was only that—complete to a spoon in the hand that, an instant before, had held a knife. In place of the helmet he’d donned, the man—maid—wore a lacy cap.

  In horrible surmise, Bannan looked down at himself.

  He was still a man, but that was the only thing familiar. He was now bone-thin, wearing a stained apron that draped him from neck to knee, with a beard, or its seeming, braided and long enough to reach his waist. There were sandals on feet, the right foot missing toes.

  Toes, Bannan checked by flexing his inside his boots, he was relieved to still have. “How long—” he tried to say.

  He’d no voice. The “maid” wagged her/his eyebrows, then nodded to the stair.

  Mute and no longer recognizable, though the “spoon” in his back still felt like a knife, Bannan obeyed.

  The reason for their disguises became clear when they passed through the door Glammis unlocked. A foyer lay beyond, sparkly clean and ornate, complete with lavish marble stairs that swept up on two sides and voices—along with soft music and the civilized chink of glassware—flowing back down.

  Glammis stepped out like someone who belonged here, engaging the sole person in view, a passing servant, with a question. The young woman nodded compliantly and went up the stairs. As soon as she was out of sight, he beckoned.

  A push encouraged Bannan to move. He and his guard kept close to the wall under the staircase, walking in no great hurry to a small door on the far side. A servants’ discreet entrance, he judged it.

  Glammis slipped through first. Once the door closed behind them, the guard became himself again, giving a groan of relief.

  Bannan didn’t bother checking his own state. His mind reeled with unsettling thoughts, from Jenn’s fate to his sister to— “Where are we going?”

  “To where I can work in comfort, without disturbance or discove
ry.” Glammis walked away.

  The guard gave him no choice but to follow.

  They came to an outer door, secured by a key his captor produced from a pocket. The air outside was redolent of rain-damp stone and greenery. Another canal.

  No, this air was fresher and what had seemed a canal stretched away in the dark, its water lapping against the bank. Lights bobbed in the distance. There were more lights and higher on the far side.

  Heart’s Blood. This must be one of the greater canals that split and tamed the Sarra River as it passed through Channen. On maps, the one to the west was named Sunset’s Crescent, the one to the east, Dawn’s Blush. Those on the barges called them the Crooked Arm and the Straight, since the westernmost meandered and bent and was prone to shoals.

  By the look of it, this was the Straight. Stars twinkled overhead in a clear sky and there, there was the moon, delicately curved as always. But no mist. No silver mimrol. Had Bannan needed proof, here it was. He’d left the edge. Entered his world.

  Leaving Jenn’s behind.

  From here barges traveled throughout Mellynne. They’d go to Rhoth. To the Sweet Sea and points east.

  Barges like the one waiting, lamps unlit, tarped against the rain. Ancestors Adrift and Abandoned. Was that Glammis’ intention? To take him from Channen?

  “Your pardon, Bannan Larmensu,” the name savored. “It’s time I returned to the gathering upstairs or be missed. We’ll wait, of course, but Ordo’s so-secretive envoy won’t be joining us as planned.”

  Emon? Bannan felt unsteady. What was going on? Who was this Glammis?

  Someone who smiled, as if aware of the effect of his words; worse, as if relishing it. “I believe you’re aware his wife was released from jail this evening? A misunderstanding. The constables have apologized profusely. Such things happen, when foreigners wander the Shadow District.” Glammis raised his staff, contemplating the weasel’s red eyes. “Unfortunately, the lovely Lila has since disappeared. The envoy will hunt for her, but these are dangerous times, as you know. I’m certain he won’t be heard from again.”

  Bannan’s blood went cold. “You can’t—”