The River of Shadows

by Robert V. S. Redick

For the moment their good spirits hold, and they are laboring with a will. So, for that matter, are the dlömu, whose orders now are clearly to see us gone with all possible haste. But they will no longer step aboard the ship, or even pass supplies directly into our hands. What is not loaded by cargo crane they carry to the center of the gangway. We must wait for them to withdraw onto the quay before retrieving it ourselves. All of this because one of them went mad and began to sing upon the quarterdeck.

  When we set sail at nightfall tomorrow, there are yet a few others who will not be among us. You may think it good fortune, and for most of this voyage I have wished for nothing more ardently. Now I think their absence may prove disaster. Or perhaps I misstate the case: perhaps it is my own absence from their number that haunts me now as a looming, possibly fatal, mistake. I know of course what you will say, Father, but do restrain yourself. I will welcome no advice at this juncture; the shades of Chathrand’s old skippers inflict quite enough as it is.

  Thasha raised her eyes from the scribbled vellum. Crowded around her, Pazel, Neeps and Marila continued to read. Oggosk was leaning on her stick by the palace window in the bright evening sun, watching them. She had appeared suddenly in the palace, and been escorted to their waiting chambers by a pair of dlömic chamber maids. “What do you want us to do with this?” Thasha asked.

  The old woman walked stiffly to them and snatched the page back. “I want you to bear it in mind,” she said. “Nilus faces a terrible decision—probably the greatest in his life. And how you speak to him next may make all the difference.”

  “What’s this about ‘a few others not among us’?” asked Pazel. “Who’s he talking about?”

  “You’re about to find out,” said Oggosk, glancing at the door.

  “Where’s the rest of the letter?” asked Marila.

  “Right here,” said the witch, pulling two more sheets from inside her cloak. Placing the three sheets together, she ripped them in quarters. Then, walking to the hearth—it was chilly in the palace, despite the warmth outside—she tossed the pieces onto the bed of glowing coals.

  “Again!” cried Neeps. “I’ve never understood why you do that. Such a blary waste of time.”

  Oggosk looked at him over her shoulder, contemptuous. “Scrawny little ape. When did you ever understand a thing?” She crouched before the fire and blew. The vellum smoldered, then burst suddenly into flames. Oggosk stood with a groan and turned to face the youths.

  “The letters I burn, he watches forming in a fireplace, beneath the dying coals. When the last ember goes out he brushes off the ash and there they are, waiting to be read. I speak of Theimat, of course, the captain’s father. He is a prisoner in Agaroth, on the doorstep of death, a shade without the rest that every shade must long for. Until Nilus chooses to let him go.”

  “And Rose keeps him there,” said Pazel, “because he wants to know which of you is his real mother?”

  “You can see that much plainly,” snapped the witch. “Now listen to me: you will keep the family matters to yourselves, am I clear? Nilus will go mad if he learns I’ve made you privy to the worst secret of his childhood.”

  “Why did you?” asked Thasha.

  Oggosk hesitated, and the wrinkles tightened around her milky-blue eyes. “Perhaps for no good reason,” she said. “In any case we will know in a matter of hours.”

  The door of the chamber banged open. It was Prince Olik’s footman. “His Highness asks his honored guests to join him on the Dais of Masalym.”

  “He’s back!” cried Pazel. “Is Hercól with him? Is there any sign of Arunis?”

  The man did not answer at first; like most of the dlömu he seemed caught between wonder and fear when in their presence. “I am to take you quickly,” he said at last.

  They followed him, Thasha’s dogs padding at her side; Oggosk struggling irritably, leaning on both her stick and Pazel’s arm. Out of the splendid drawing room they walked, through a portrait gallery where they had tried to glean clues about Bali Adro history (and where Druffle now stood transfixed before a dlömic nude), across the dining chamber where Rain and Uskins sat earnestly masticating mül. How could they possibly be hungry, Thasha wondered, when two hours ago they had all been treated to such a staggering meal?

  What they had not been treated to was information. They had climbed a broad stair from beneath the pillar to these chambers, where Alyash, Dastu and Sandor Ott were waiting already, and twenty servants (and twice as many guards) attended them, in that same abashed and fearful style. Olik and Bolutu had returned at once to the Lower City, and the frantic search. Ibjen had stayed to dote on them—carrying tea-trays, measuring their feet for new shoes when the tailor’s hands shook too much for the task. It was good luck, Thasha realized, that they had landed first in a village too small and isolated to trade in the fanciful, terrifying gossip that had swept Masalym. Ibjen had had time to realize they were simply people, before anyone declared them something else.

  From the dining chamber they walked down a short corridor, then climbed a steep and narrow staircase. Then another, and another. Only after the fifth staircase did the footman speak again, announcing, “The Dais of Masalym,” and throwing open a door.

  Sunlight and wind: the door let onto a small, roofless space with another staircase, very short, leading up to what Thasha saw instantly must be the roof of the entire palace, the cut-off apex of the pyramid.

  “There you are! Come, hurry!” came the prince’s voice, faintly.

  Up they climbed, into the last hour of daylight. The roof was flat, featureless, immense, a great courtyard thrust up into the sky, with no railing, no shelter of any kind. Here at the center they could see nothing of the city, only the snowy peaks in the south and west, and on the other side the spire of Narybir Tower, hazy across the gulf. Olik and Hercól stood close to this edge—and beside them, tiny in that enormous space, were two figures that made Thasha’s heart leap with joy.

  “Ensyl! Felthrup!”

  The dogs bounded forward, skidding to a halt before their beloved rat. Thasha saw that Hercól was holding Ildraquin naked in his hand. “You found it!” she cried.

  “It was never lost,” said Ensyl, “though in removing it from Vadu’s reach I made it appear so, alas. Dear friends! I wondered if I should ever see you again.”

  “Felthrup, you’re a hero,” said Thasha, dropping to her knees beside him.

  The black rat scurried into her arms, shivering with pleasure. “I am nothing of the kind,” he said. “What sort of hero sleeps through a fight, and awakens when it has ended?”

  “It has not ended,” said Oggosk, wrapping her cloak tighter against the wind.

  “Quite right, Duchess,” said Prince Olik. “Listen well, you four. A great deal has changed since this morning.”

  “You know where Fulbreech is, don’t you?” said Marila to Hercól.

  The Tholjassan drew a deep breath. “I know,” he said. “Ildraquin has told me.” He stepped back, closing his eyes and straightening his sword-arm. At first he appeared to be pointing down at someplace in the city, but then his arm swung slowly to the right, and upward, until it was pointing southwest, at a place in the mountains between two peaks. It was a saddle, a pass, but still a very high and distant spot. The mountain peaks were white all around it; the slopes looked harsh and dry.

  “There?” asked Neeps, disbelieving.

  “At the Chalice of the Maî,” said Prince Olik, “where the river that flows past our feet has its source in cold Ilvaspar, the glacier lake. Yet I must doubt you, friend Hercól. Arunis stood in this very spot just twenty hours ago, with Fulbreech at his side, and the tol-chenni he took from the Conservatory, too—his ‘idiot,’ as he calls the creature. Many servants, and the Issár as well, confirmed that they were here. And even on the swiftest steed, they could not yet have reached the Chalice. It takes that long to cross our Inner Dominion, the high country that begins here, at the Upper Gate of the Upper City, and runs to the mountain’s foot. And
another twelve to climb to the Chalice, and Ilvaspar’s frigid shores.”

  “Yet Fulbreech is there all the same,” said Hercól. “Alone or with the sorcerer? That I cannot guess. But Ildraquin has never led me astray when we follow a blood scent.”

  Olik sighed. “Then perhaps they did not use the highway at all, but some magic that let them ride the very wind. As you say, however, we have no proof that Arunis has kept the boy by his side.”

  “It could well be a trick,” said Ensyl. “Arunis might have sent him to the mountains alone, to throw us off.”

  “That is true,” said Hercól, “for I cannot be certain what he knows of Ildraquin’s powers.”

  “You’ve got to make Ott send Niriviel,” said Thasha. “He could reach the summit by midnight, and be back here by dawn. He can tell us if Arunis is with Fulbreech or not.”

  “If they are not indoors,” said the prince.

  But Hercól shook his head. “You have not seen Niriviel by daylight, Thasha. He nearly died of exhaustion on the Ruling Sea, and when he made it across, he did not rest, but began weeks of searching for the Chathrand, and his master. He needs days of rest and feasting. He stole the ropes and grapples we used last night, and did some scouting for us over the Lower City, but even those efforts taxed him. If Ott sent him racing to that mountain he would go—but I fear the poor, deluded creature would fly until his heart broke, and he fell dead from the sky. No, we are blind to the sorcerer’s movements. We can only hope that he is also blind—to the danger of keeping Fulbreech near him.”

  “And that we cannot know,” cried Felthrup, beside himself. “What a miserable fix!”

  “You should not run in circles on a rooftop, little brother,” said Hercól. “But we may be glad that for his part, Fulbreech is holding still. He has not moved these two hours since I regained Ildraquin. Of course, that could change in an instant.”

  “We should assume that it will,” said Ensyl, “unless the youth has died.”

  “He has not died,” said Hercól. “That too I can sense.”

  A flash of shame passed over Thasha. I’m disappointed, she thought. I wanted Hercól to say he might be dead.

  “Yes, Mr. Stargraven, a fix,” said the prince, “and that is precisely why I summoned you.”

  Beckoning, he led them forward, closer to the pyramid’s sharp edge. All three levels of Masalym were spread before them, looking something like an irregular layer cake, except that the decrepit first layer dwarfed the upper two. There in the raised shipyard stood the Chathrand, a dark crowd about her on the quay, paler forms on her topdeck, all of them busy as ants.

  “There is a choice before you,” said Olik. “I wish you did not have to face it so quickly, but with the Kirisang approaching you dare not delay. Arunis may still be hiding in the great maze of the Lower City—or he may be on that mountain, and about to escape us farther. Regardless, the Chathrand must flee, across the gulf and into hiding. Will you be upon her? That is what you must decide.”

  Thasha felt a sudden dread creeping over her. She looked from the city to the mountain pass and back again. “What’s beyond the mountain?” she asked Olik. “A lake, you say?”

  “Ilvaspar, which is ‘Snowborn’ in the tongue of the mountain folk. An enormous, frigid lake, closed in wholly by the mountains except at its two narrow ends. One is there at the Maîtar, the Chalice. The fisherfolk who dwell there may agree to row you down Ilvaspar’s length, for a fee, but no gold will persuade them to venture farther. The southern end of Ilvaspar is a place of many perils. The lake flows out in a second river, the Ansyndra, far greater than the Maî, but for the first twenty miles that river blasts through gorges and cataracts and canyons, and descent along its banks is impossible. The only way down is upon the Black Tongue, a cursed place, created in the early days of the Platazcra by a warlord with an eguar blade, to terrify the mountain folk into surrender. He called up magma from the depths of the earth and sent it gushing down the mountain, with his forces marching behind upon the cooling rock, a sight terrible to behold. They conquered the mountain folk, of course. But the Black Tongue kept spreading, and when the warlord tried to melt it back into the earth, he only succeeded in opening many cracks and tunnels into the roots of the mountain. On warm days, flame-trolls may issue from those cracks, and they are awful foes.

  “Beyond the Black Tongue the Ansyndra flows more gently, and may even be navigable in places. The danger, however, merely changes form.” He looked at them each in turn, and at last his eyes settled on Felthrup. “You do not remember, Mr. Stargraven, but you have already faced the danger I speak of, which we call the River of Shadows.”

  “The River of Shadows!” said Felthrup, his hair suddenly bristling. “Yes, yes, I know that place, certainly! No, I don’t. Oh dear. What is it?”

  “It is a tunnel between worlds, and a flood that never abates,” said the prince. “The channel cut by the wild pulse of life through a hostile universe, the thought that flees on waking, the pure stuff from which souls are distilled. If I speak in riddles, Mr. Stargraven, it is only because riddles are what one meets with there. Like the nuhzat, the River of Shadows must be experienced to be understood. One way is through dream-travel, as you have done; another is by astral journey. That is high magic, for one can bring back objects, creatures even, when one returns. Lord Ramachni showed me the River that way, once.”

  “But there is a third way,” said Oggosk.

  “Yes,” said the prince, “a third way. As I said, the River of Shadows winds through many worlds—and travelers tell us that those it does not enter are unthinkably grim, soulless realms where men live like machines. In each world the River touches, it has a source and an exit. Between these points it usually runs deep under the earth, in the living heart of the world, so that we feel its presence beneath us only when we are very still. But here and there it comes close to the surface. In Alifros, more than a dozen such places are known to exist. After the Dawn War, the victorious Auru found most of these places and built great watchtowers beside them, for they knew that the demons they had just defeated had crept into Alifros by way of the River.”

  “This is all strange and wonderful,” said Ensyl, “but why are you telling us about it, Sire?”

  “Because you are looking at the place where the River of Shadows enters this world,” said the prince, pointing again at the mountains. “Somewhere under those peaks it rises, perhaps entering the deep depths of Ilvaspar, but certainly—and uniquely, in all Alifros—joining for a time with a natural river. That river is the Ansyndra. For nearly a hundred miles it and the River of Shadows follow the same course. This has made our Efaroc Peninsula one of the strangest parts of Alifros. Beings from other times, other worlds—other versions of this world—have washed or crawled up from the River over the centuries. Many perish, but some dwell on in the pockets and folds of those mountains. Bali Adro claims the peninsula, but in truth it is a land apart, beautiful and ghastly by turns.

  “Ghastly wins out at last, however, in a place where no sensible person ever sets foot: the Bauracloj, the Infernal Forest. I can tell you little of that place, for I have never been near it. But it is said that a whole city of the Auru was swallowed up by that forest, and the first watchtower on the River of Shadows thrown down in pieces.”

  “Great Mother!” said Ensyl. “Could Arunis possibly mean to go there?”

  “Who can tell?” said the prince. “It is a place of dark magic, certainly. Many Spider Tellers believe that the Nilstone entered the world right there, carried upward by the bubbling force of the River. But none of us knows for certain.”

  He stopped speaking and gazed out over Masalym again. “At dawn tomorrow,” he said, “unless Arunis be found first, an expedition made up of those who still revere me will ride out toward the Chalice of the Maî. I will not be with them, for while there is a chance that he remains here I must ensure that the hunt in the city does not fall to pieces. You would all be welcome on the expedition. But I do not
ask it of you. The Chathrand will be far from Masalym before any return is possible, and no one can predict what sort of city will await those who descend from the peaks. This much is certain: I will no longer be ordering its affairs. By then I may indeed be a prisoner in the bowels of the Kirisang, waiting for transport back to Bali Adro City, and the judgment of the Ravens.”

  “Well, don’t blary wait for that to happen,” said Neeps.

  Olik gestured over the city. “I hold the lives of these people in trust,” he said, “and I promised them I would remain here, until all the dangers I brought with me were removed. I will not depart until I am sure that Arunis has done so.” He smiled broadly. “Then I will depart very quickly.”

  Thasha swallowed. If you still can.

  “I am sending you back to your ship tonight,” said the prince. “But an hour before sunrise the carriages will again be on the quay, for any who wish to join the expedition. You will have tonight to decide.”

  “And to prepare,” said Oggosk, “for either choice will have its costs.”

  The four youths looked at one another. They were shaken. This was something none of them had foreseen.

  “Nothing to decide, is there?” said Pazel, his voice less certain than his words. “We swore an oath. That settles it.”

  “Right you are,” said Neeps. But his expression was hunted. The tarboys looked anxiously at their friends. Thasha found she couldn’t speak. Marila’s face was a mask.

  “It may be less simple than you think,” said Hercól. “Grant me this much, boys: that we sit with our choices in silence awhile, until we are all back on the Chathrand, at least.”

  “But Hercól,” said Pazel, “we already—”

  “Heed his words!” croaked Oggosk with sudden vehemence. The tarboys started; Ensyl stared up at her with great unease. Felthrup looked from Oggosk to Thasha and back again. He rubbed his paws together, a blur before his face.

  Mr. Teggatz cooked a vat of pork and snake-bean stew. It was a surprising success in taste, but some kind of gelatin leaked from the bean pods and turned the whole cauldron into a translucent solid. His tarboy aides served it like a jiggling, messy pudding, and the crew devoured it without comment. They were well beyond shock.