Shadowplay s-2

by Tad Williams

  “Yes, but there are many that Ludis displaced, the old nobility of Hierosol, who might think precisely that.”

  Again the merchant waved a dismissive hand. “We will bore Princess Briony with this talk. She wants assurances and we give her debate.” He turned his sharp gaze onto her. “You have my word, Highness. As the oracles teach us, only a fool says ’Forever,’ but I promise you that the autarch will not take Hierosol this year or even next year. There is time enough to get your father back.”

  Shaso muttered something, but Briony could not make out the words.

  “What else did you learn today?” she asked. “Anything about my brother or Southmarch?”

  “Nothing we did not already know, at least in general terms. The only thing of interest I heard was that there is a new castellan at Southmarch—a man named Havemore.”

  Shaso cursed, but Briony did not recognize the name at first. “Hold—is that Brone’s factor?” She felt sudden anger boil through her. “If he has appointed his own factor as castellan, then Avin Brone must be prospering under the Tollys.” Could the lord constable, one of her father’s oldest friends and closest advisers, have been with them all along? But if so, why had he told her and Barrick about the contact between the autarch and Summerfield Court ? “It is all too confusing,” she said at last.

  “Not so confusing, at least in one respect.” Shaso looked as though he wanted to swim back to Southmarch and get his large hands around someone’s neck. “Tirnan Havemore is well-named. He has always been ambitious. If anyone would profit from the Tollys being in power, he would.”

  Shaso and Effir had gone in, and Briony had been left alone in the garden to mull over the latest tidings from Southmarch and elsewhere, large and small. She paced slowly, pulling her shawl close around her loose garment. Havemore being made castellan and the Tollys’ liegeman Berkan Hood being made lord constable, those changes were not all that surprising, just evidence of Hendon tightening his fist on power. No one knew much about Anissa, Briony’s stepmother, and the new baby, but they had been seen, or at least Anissa and a baby had been seen.

  It’s not as if Hendon Tolly even needs a real heir, Briony thought bitterly. The baby might have died that night, for all anyone will ever know. As long as Anissa swears it’s true, any baby she claims is hers will be the heir, and the Tollys will protect the heir—which means the Tollys will rule. It was especially bizarre to think that this child, if it was the real one, was her own half brother.

  A sudden pang touched her. Maybe he looks like Father, or like Kendrick or Barrick. For me, that would be reason enough to protect him. For a moment she did not realize that she had made another promise to herself and the gods, but she had. If that child is truly my father’s, then Zoria, hear me—I will save him from the Tollys, too! He’s an Eddon, after all. I won’t let him be their mask.

  She was so deep in these thoughts that she had not noticed the man standing across the courtyard from her, watching her in the growing twilight gloom, until he began to move toward her.

  “You are thinking,” said Talibo, the merchant’s nephew. His curly hair was wet, combed close against his head, and he wore a robe so clean and white it seemed to glow in the garden shadows. “What do you think about, lady?”

  She tried to suppress her anger. How was he to know she wished to be alone with her thoughts? “Matters of my family.”

  “Ah, yes. Families are very important. All the wise men say this.” He put his hand to his chin in a gesture so transparently meant to look like a wise man’s pondering that Briony actually giggled. His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Why do you laugh?”

  “Sorry. I thought of something funny, that’s all. What brings you to the garden? I will be happy to let you walk in peace— I should go join the other women for the evening meal.”

  He looked at her for a moment with something like defiance. “You do not want to go. Not truly.” “What?”

  “You do not want to go. I know this. I saw you look at me.”

  She shook her head. He was using words, simple words in her own language, but he was not making any sense to her at all. “What do you mean, Tal?”

  “Do not call me that. That is a name for a child. I am Talibo dan-Mozan. You watch me. I see you watch me.” “Watch you...?”

  “A woman does not look at a man so unless she is interested in him. No woman makes such shameful eyes at a man if she does not want him.”

  Briony did not know whether to laugh again or to shout at him. He was mad! “You...you don’t know what you’re talking about. You were staring at me. You have been staring at me since I came here.”

  “You are a handsome woman, for an Eioni.” He shrugged. “A girl, really. But still, not bad to the eye.”

  “How dare you? How dare you talk to me like...like I was a serving wench!”

  “You are only a woman and you have no husband to protect you. You cannot make eyes at men, you know.” He said this with the calm certainty of someone describing the weather. “Other men would take advantage of you.” He stepped forward, trying to pull her toward him, first her hands, then— when she slapped his fingers away—moving even closer to put his arms around her.

  Zoria, save me! She was so astonished she almost could not fight. He was going to try to kiss her! A small, sane part of her was glad she had left her knives behind, because at this moment she would happily have stabbed him through the heart.

  She fought him off, but it was difficult: he was pushing blindly forward, as though determined on something he knew might be painful but needed to be done, and her own knees were weak with surprise and even fear. She was terrified and did not entirely know why. He was a boy, and Shaso and the others were only a few paces away—one shout and they would come to her aid.

  She got her arm free and slapped at him, missing his face but striking him hard against the neck. He stopped in surprise, then began to step toward her again but she used one of Shaso’s holds to grab his arm and shove him to one side, then she fled across the courtyard back toward the women’s quarters, tears of rage and shame making it hard to see.

  “You will come to me,” he called after her, no more shaken than if someone at the market had rejected his first price. “You know that I am right.” A moment later his last words came, now with a hot edge of anger. “You will not make a fool of me!”

  13. Messages

  Why was it ordered so? Why should the entwining of two hearts’ melodies give birth to the destruction of the Firstborn and the People, too? The oldest voices cannot say. When Crooked spoke of it he called it “The Narrowing of the Way,” and likened it to the point of a blade, which cuts where it is sharpest and which cannot shed blood without dividing Might Be from Is.

  —from One Hundred Considerations, out of the Qar’s Book of Regret

  Chaven seemed a little better with the cup of hot blueroot tea in his bandaged hands, but he was still shaking like a man with fever.

  “What is all this about?” Chert demanded. “Your pardon, but you acted like a madman while we were in your house. What is happening?”

  “No. No, I cannot tell you. I am ashamed.” “You owe us at least that much,” Chert said. “We have taken you in—you, a wanted fugitive. If you are found here by the Tollys, we will all be thrown into the big folk’s stronghold. How long do you think before one of our neighbors sees you? It has been nearly impossible, sneaking you in and out by night.”

  “Chert, leave the man alone,” Opal growled at him, although she too looked frightened: the physician and Chert had come through the door with the harried look of two men chased by wolves. “It’s not his fault he’s fallen on the wrong side of those dreadful people.”

  “Ah, but it is my fault that I trusted one I should not.” Chaven took a shaky sip of tea. “But how could Okros know of it? That was the one thing I never showed him—never showed anyone!”

  “What is the one thing?” Chert had never seen the physician like this, trembling and weeping like a sm
all child —not even after his escape from death and the horrors of Queen Anissa’s chambers.

  “Not so loud,” Opal said, quietly but fiercely. “You’ll wake the boy.”

  As if we did not have enough troubles already, Chert thought. Two of the big folk in my house, one a grown man, both of them half mad. Just feeding them will kill us long before the castle guards come for us. Not to mention the uncomfortable and unfamiliar brightness of having to burn lamps at all hours to make Chaven and his weak, uplander eyes more comfortable. “You owe us some explanation, sir,” Chert said stubbornly. “We are your friends—and not the kind who have betrayed you.”

  “You are right, of course.” Chaven took another sip of tea and stared at the floor. “You have risked your lives for me. Oh, I am wretched—wretched!”

  Chert let out a hiss of air. He was losing his patience. Just before he got up in frustration and walked out of the main room, Chaven raised one of his wounded hands.

  “Peace, friend,” he said. “I will try to explain, although I think you will not care for me so much once you have heard my story. Still, it would only be what I deserved...”

  Chert sat down, shared a glance with Opal. She leaned forward and filled the physician’s cup with blueroot tea. “Speak, then.” Despite his curiosity, Chert hoped it would not be a long story. He had already been up half the night and was so weary he could barely keep his eyes open.

  “I have...I had...an...object. A mirror. You heard Okros talk of captromancy—a clumsy word that means mirror-scrying. It is an art, an art with many depths and strange turnings, and a long, mysterious history.”

  “Mirror-scrying?” Opal asked. “Do you mean reading fortunes?” She refilled her own teacup and put her elbows on the table, listening carefully.

  “More than that—far more.” Chaven sighed. “There is a book. You likely have not heard of it, although in certain circles it is famous. Ximander’s Book, it is called, but those who have seen it say it is merely part of a larger work, something called The Book of Regret, which was written by the fairy folk—the Qar, as they call themselves. Ximander was a mantis, a priest of Kupilas the Healer in the old days of the Hierosoline Empire, and he is said to have received the writings from a homeless wanderer who died in the temple.”

  Chert shifted impatiently. This might be the kind of thing that fascinated Chaven, but he was having trouble making sense of it. “Yes? And this book taught you mirror-scrying?”

  “I have never seen it—it has been lost for years. But my master, Kaspar Dyelos, had either seen it or a copy of it when he was young—he would never tell me—and much of what he taught me came from those infamous pages. Ximander’s Book tells us that the gods gave us three great gifts—fire, shouma, and mirror-wisdom...”

  “Shouma? What is that?”

  “A drink—some call it the gods’ nectar. It breeds visions, but sometimes madness or even death, too. For centuries it was used in special ceremonies in the temples and palaces of Eion, for those who wished to become closer to the gods. It is said that just as wine makes mortals drunk, shouma makes the gods themselves drunk. It is so powerful that it is not used anymore, or at least the priests of our modern day mix only the tiniest bit into their ceremonial wine, and some say that it is not the true, potent shouma anymore, that the knowledge of making that has been lost. In the old days, many young priests used to die in shouma ecstasies at their first investiture...” He trailed off. “Forgive me. I have spent my life studying these things and I forget that not all are as interested as me.”

  “You were going to speak of mirrors,” Opal reminded him firmly. “That was what you said. Mirrors.”

  “Yes, of course. And despite my seemingly wandering thoughts, that is the subject closest to my heart just now. The last of the gods’ great gifts—mirror-wisdom. Captromancy.

  “I will not task you with listening to much mirror-lore. Much is what seems like mere folktales, fairy stories to help the initiated remember complicated rituals—or at least so I believe. But what cannot be argued is that with proper training and preparation mirrors can be used not for reflection of what is before them, but as portals—windows, certainly, and some even claim as doors—to other worlds.”

  Chert shook his head. “What does that mean—other worlds? What other worlds?”

  “In the old days,” the physician said, “men thought that the gods lived here beside them, on the earth. The peak of Mount Xandos was said to hold Perin’s great fortress, and Kernios was believed to live in the caverns of the south, although I believe there are other strains of wisdom that claim he dwelt somewhat closer, eh?” He gave Chert a significant gaze.

  What does he mean? Does he know something of the Mysteries? Chert looked at Opal, but she was watching the physician with a speculation Chert found unsettling, as if her mind was awhirl with dangerous new thoughts. But why would Opal, FunderlingTown’s least flighty person, the bedrock on which Chert had based his whole life, be so interested in this obscure study of Chaven’s?

  “In later years,” Chaven went on, “when brave or sacreligious men at last climbed cloud-wreathed Xandos and found no trace of Perin’s stronghold, new ideas arose. A wise man named Phelsas in Hierosol began to talk of the Many Worlds, saying that the worlds of the gods are both connected to and separate from our own.”

  “What does that mean?” Chert demanded. “Connected but separate? That makes no sense.”

  “Don’t interrupt, old man,” said Opal. “He’s trying to explain if you’d just listen.”

  Chaven Makaros looked a little shamefaced at being the cause of such discord. Despite living in the house for several days he had not yet realized that this was Chert and Opal’s way of speaking, especially Opal’s, a kind of mock harshness that did not disguise her true and much warmer feelings—did not disguise them from Chert, at least, though outsiders might not recognize them.

  “Have I spoken too much?” the physician asked. “It is late...”

  “No, no.” Chert waved for him to continue. “Opal is just reminding me that I’m a dunderhead. Continue—I am fascinated. It is certainly the first time any of these subjects have been discussed inside these walls.”

  “I know it is hard to understand,” said Chaven. “I spent years with my master studying this and still do not altogether grasp it, and it is only one possible way of looking at the cosmos. The School of Phelsas says that the mistake is in thinking of our world or the world of the gods as solid things—as great masses of earth and stone. In truth, the Phelsaians suggest, the worlds—and there are more than two, they claim, far more—are closer to water.”

  “But that makes no sense...!” Chert began, then Opal caught his eye. “Apologies. Please continue.”

  “That does not mean the world is made of water,” Chaven explained. “Let me explain. Just off the coast of my homeland Ulos in the south there is a cold current that moves through the water—cold enough to be felt with the hand, and even of a slightly different color than the rest of the Hesperian Ocean. This cold current sweeps down from the forbidden lands north of Settland, rushes south past Perikal and the Ulosian coast, then curves back out to sea again, finally disappearing in the waters off the western coast of distant Xand. Does that water travel through a clay pipe, like a Hierosoline water-channel bringing water hundreds of miles to the city? No. It passes through other water—it is water itself—but it retains its characteristic chill and color.

  “This, says the School of Phelsas, is the nature of the worlds, our world, the world of the gods, and others. They touch, they flow through each other, but they retain that which makes them what they are. They inhabit almost the same place, but they are not the same thing, and most of the time there is no crossing over from one to another. Most of the time, one cannot even perceive the other.”

  Chert shook his head. “Strange. But where do mirrors fit into this?”

  For once in the conversation, Opal did not seem to find him a waste of breath. “Yes, please, Doctor
. What about the mirrors?”

  Their guest shrugged in discomfort. Even after several days, it was still strange to see him here in their front room. Chert knew that Chaven was not particularly large for one of the big folk, but in this setting he loomed like a mountain. “You do not need to call me ‘Doctor,’ Mistress Blue Quartz.”

  “Opal! Call me Opal.”

  “Well. Chaven, then.” He smiled a little. “Very well. Ximander’s Book tells that mirror-lore is the third great gift because it allows men to glimpse these other worlds that travel as close to us as our own shadows. Just as an ordinary mirror bounces back the vision that is before it, so too can a special mirror be constructed and employed that will send back visions of...other places.” He paused for a moment, as if considering what he was about to say very carefully. In the silence, Opal spoke up. “It has to be a...special mirror?”

  “In most cases and for most mirror-scrying, yes.” Chaven looked at her in surprise. “You have heard something of this?”

  “No, no.” Opal shook her head. “Please go on. No, wait. Let me quickly look in on the boy.” She got up and left the room, leaving Chert and Chaven to sip their tea. The blueroot had helped a little: Chert no longer felt as though he might fall onto his face at any moment.

  Opal returned and Chaven took a breath. “As I said, I will not bore you with too much mirror-lore, which is complicated and full of disputations—just learning and understanding some of the disagreements between the Phelsaians and the Captrosophist Order in Tessis could take years. And of course the Trigonate church has considered the whole science blasphemous for centuries. In bad times, men have burned for mirrors.” As he said this, Chaven faltered a little. “Perhaps now I know why.”