A Play of Shadow (57 page)

The dimming came and shadows played. Hunting; being hunted. A gibbering shriek ended in a crunch. Success for one, if not the other.

Wisp snarled a warning, not yet able to move. He hurt, but pain was an old friend. Harder to bear was the loss of his prey and he’d be ever so willing to kill something else. Making it hard to understand why the fool ylings kept hovering nearby. ~Go away.~

One dared come close to his eye, like the spark from a fire, and the dragon prepared to snap, then hesitated. The hands of this yling were filled with needles. One of those hands gestured toward his torn wing.

They’d sewn up the truthseer.

These weren’t of Marrowdell. They weren’t—his. ~Why?~ he questioned, suspicion always safer.

Others flew, the sparks in their hair the only light below the sky, to gather over the turn-borns’ fountain. They danced up and down, stabbing with spears even a dragon respected, being tipped with poison.

Making themselves understood.

So. The Lost One hunted here, too. The turn-born should have dealt with this man the instant he crossed. As well as expect a sei to wipe the bottom of an infant terst. The powerful cared nothing for the small ones.

Had he, before Marrowdell and Jenn Nalynn?

Wisp extended his wing.

Dragons strengthened with age and little could penetrate the hide of an adult. The claws and fangs of other, older, dragons. The secret venom-filled fangs of kruar.

The darts and spear points used by ylings could do damage as well; by the sudden bites along his wing, so could their needles. Wisp brought his head around to watch, bemused how the small one pushed each needle through with seeming ease, then bent it back on itself to secure the seam. By the time it had moved to the next needle, the first had disappeared, the section of wing intact again.

Yling magic. Quiet. Productive. As powerful in its way, the dragon thought warily, as any in the Verge. What else did they sew?

They worked quickly, oblivious to his curiosity, turning to his leg once finished the wing. Others, warriors, hovered on guard or clung by a hand; at some point Wisp had become a roost for several and couldn’t very well shake them off. They protected those preoccupied.

If they thought to protect him too, he’d not bother to argue, though he was heartily glad the kruar were gone.

Especially Scourge.

The old fool returned to Marrowdell for his own reasons; the girl would have him return for hers. Wisp snarled, startling the ylings on his snout into the air. ~Your pardon.~ They settled.

Only to startle again, spears at the ready, while the rest wrapped themselves in cloaks, dousing their lights to hide as leaves on the ground!

Ground with wretched fur to muffle any footfall. He could be safe in his sanctuary, asleep and uninjured. He could be in Marrowdell, snuggling with the boys. Wisp growled. He was too old for this; that was the problem. Did not dragons barely older take to the high cliffs?

Where admittedly most stopped moving altogether, too busy hoarding their magic and plotting dire deeds to care about themselves, let alone the world below.

He. Was. Not. That. Old.

~WHAT DARES HUNT ME?~ Wisp roared, claws ready, daring whatever lurked in the shadows to strike.

Rustlerustle.

~YOU!~ Shedding ylings, the dragon lurched to stand on his one good leg, bearing with the pain of the others. ~SHOW YOURSELF!~ He didn’t risk more movement, wouldn’t again underestimate an enemy able to bend the earth itself into a trap.

Rustlerustle.

A flurry of wings, cloaks, and sparks converged on the dragon. Five ylings carried something between them, something they dropped before him.

The shard of mirror Jenn Nalynn had brought to the Verge!

The small ones stayed around the shard, the sparks within their hair enough to light it.

Or rather, to light the ground around the shard, for the surface was black and reflected nothing.

Easing back down, Wisp placed a clawtip in the center of the shard and set a breeze to whispering. “Crumlin. She is gone and you are lost. I offer a quick death.”

Not that he’d any intention of mercy, but the man needn’t know.

Rustle.
Eyes opened, then crossed to stare at the clawtip neatly between them. “What are you?”

Mortified, Wisp opened his jaws to roar, then thought better of it. If this Crumlin kept to the shadows, coming out only to hunt the small ones, little wonder he was ignorant of the Verge’s other inhabitants.

It was likely how he’d survived.

No longer. “I am your death,” the dragon replied comfortably. “Face me now or wait in fear.”

The eyes narrowed. “You won’t catch me again. I’m too clever. Too quick. I’ll catch you first!”

Tiresome creature. Wisp yawned. “Wait, then. I’ve other places to be.”

He snapped up the shard and filled his mouth with dragonfire, until nothing remained of the mirror or eyes but the last echo of Crumlin’s, “Noooo—!”

The ylings crowded close, patting the dragon with their tiny hands. He forced himself to endure for a moment, as they’d been brave and helpful, then snarled an end to such liberties.

Wisp opened his wings, finding the one healed by the ylings no less strong. With a single beat, he was in the air above the meadow, sparks glittering below.

With the next, he’d turned and begun the journey to his crossing, and Marrowdell.

Destroying the shard had been to rid himself of the bother of conversation.

When next he crossed into the Verge?

He’d rid them all of Crumlin.

“We don’t wish to go to lessons,” the elder boy exclaimed. “We wish to stay here, and wait for Uncle Bannan.”

Wisp resisted the urge to open an eye. He’d promised the girl to return and had, but healing was best done asleep. Something far easier in his sanctuary than here. It didn’t help that everyone seemed bent on making as much noise as possible.

~Elder brother.~

Let alone the little cousins.

~I’m asleep.~

Unfortunately, this was the truthseer’s too-clever toad. ~No need to wake, elder brother. I know you can hear me in your dreams. Is everything all right? Did our elder sister cross into Channen? Have they succeeded?~

~Have you the ability to be silent!?~

Silence as, presumably, the toad considered the question.

“Master Dusom’s expecting you on the morrow. You promised your uncle you’d go.” Tir, the redoubtable warrior, was losing ground.

“Weed can do sums here and I’m to practice with my sword anyway. We’ll work ever so hard, Tir. We promise.”

Werfol joined the pleading. “We promise, Tir.”

The man was seriously outmatched. Wisp bestirred himself and sent a breeze to Werfol’s ear alone. “Behave or we’ll eat you.”

“Wisp’s back!!” A joyful shout.

The dragon felt his control of the situation slipping. Had the girl been so difficult?

“Back? Ancestors Useless and Unreliable!” Tir bellowed. He grabbed a broom and started poking into corners. “Show yourself, dragon!” He passed a window and stopped to peer outside, wiping away frost with his sleeve. All of a sudden, he pounded his fist on the glass. “An’ there’s the other bloody fool!” He brandished the broomstick. “Open the door, Semyn, so I can smack one o’them at least.”

“You mustn’t!” Werfol cried, even as Semyn obeyed, letting in a cold draft and Scourge’s head.

The broom lifted, which was promising, but to the dragon’s disappointment, the old kruar meekly lowered his head. “I’ve come for the boys’ lesson.”

Tir gave his erstwhile weapon a frustrated shake then tossed it aside. “There’ll be no lesson till I get a report! What happened? Where’s Bannan and Jenn?”

Before Scourge could reply, Wisp wrapped himself in light and raised his head. “We saw them safely to the crossing into Channen where they were met by an escort arranged by the turn-born. I have returned to Marrowdell as its protector.”

A derisive snort. “You returned to lick your wounds.”

The dragon found himself surrounded by boys. “You’re hurt?” Semyn asked worriedly. “Where?”

“Can we see?” Werfol, the more bloodthirsty. “Were you in a battle?”

“Lessons!” Scourge urged, but his cause was lost.

Tir Half-face pointed a stubby finger at the dragon, then brought it to bear on the kruar. “I’ll have the whole of it. Now!”

I
N THE SHADOW
District, night was brighter than day. Certainly it was livelier. The huge wall lamps were joined by others on poles and hung from wires overhead, not to mention the bright welcome from open doors and windows as shops opened along the canals. Damp stone glistened by that light, as did skin, bared shoulders rubbing in the crush, for Channen’s inhabitants had streamed belowground with sunset, to walk and shop and feast.

Night didn’t matter. Hadn’t she found lost boys and a half-frozen dragon in the middle of a storm?

Finding one woman among thousands, however, was proving a different sort of challenge. Her gift worked here. In short order, Jenn found a lost coin, a lost earring, and a box of ribbons. More satisfyingly, she’d reunited a crying child with his parents; less so, they’d been followed by a trio of dogs—according to Bannan not so much lost as hoping to be found and fed—until she’d stopped trying to find Lila for a while.

Though under other circumstances, Jenn would have been happy to spend more time with dogs, having not met one before.

In a city, she thought, something—someone—must be lost all the time. Perhaps if she could stay in one place, but they were moving steadily through the crowd, Bannan proving adept at slipping around and between without so much as a bump.

Though he heard her as speaking Rhothan, any Naalish who might overhear would think it their language. Convenient for their disguise, so long as Bannan answered in Naalish and kept his voice to an indistinct murmur. He’d done quite well so far, better than she could have, Jenn was sure, especially the time when a heavily burdened servant had trod on the truthseer’s foot and he’d stifled a shout.

She plucked his sleeve. “I could try again.”

His fingers covered hers, warm and comforting, but his gaze continued to sweep the faces of passersby and he didn’t slow. “Thank you, Dearest Heart,” he said gently. “But save your gift, for now. I fear it may not be the city. What if Lila isn’t lost?”

His sister was lost, because Jenn wanted to find her and hadn’t. Yet.

This firm conviction being difficult to put into words without sounding childish, Jenn nodded. “So we’re going to the token dealer?”

“Not exactly.” Instead of explaining, Bannan led the way under another arched bridge. They were everywhere, some merely for foot traffic, others so wide going beneath was like entering a tunnel. On either side of each bridge was a stair leading up to what would seem the surface of the city, if you didn’t know how much of it was below. “We do need to find the Artisans’ Market. It should be close.”

He’d had directions from Appin, but Jenn wasn’t so sure. The Shadow District was a maze of streets above and walkways below, made worse by how the canals flowed with what seemed no direction or sense that she could see. Just ahead, this one widened almost into another lake, with its strange sunken disks, then narrowed under a longer bridge than most, only to widen again, with more disks, beyond. If she looked the other way, well, it was more of the same. Cities seemed to try to be confusing.

“Up and over we go.” He nodded to the stair by the bridge. They climbed single file to make room for the family with three laughing children on the way down. The adults courteously touched fingers to shoulder.

Jenn did the same. Bannan, now carrying the gilded staff Appin had assured them was required for a merchant about legal business, gracefully tapped the round top of that to his shoulder, as they’d seen others do.

Her sack remained with the Naalish, as did Bannan’s pack and anything with pockets. Merchants, however, carried purses and he’d a small gold one, studded with square golden mirrors, hanging from a chain that went from shoulder to hip. He’d tucked the tokens and coins from Marrowdell, along with Frann’s brooch, into the compartments along his belt. The purse, that fit in the palm of his hand?

Oh, that held the house toad.

With Appin out of the room a moment, they’d watched the stout creature squeeze himself in, doing their best to neither laugh nor gasp. Somehow it managed. The chain went through the lid, so Bannan had gently pushed that down.

Toad on his hip, staff in hand—with, no doubt, the yling clinging to him somewhere, perhaps part of the fringe on his jacket—they’d headed into the night.

Having climbed to street level, Jenn was charmed to discover the bridge was bordered by boxes of greenery interspersed with more benches, these in shadow rather than light. At the top of the arch, she knelt on a bench to look down, her arms crossed on the stone railing, her chin atop her arms.

Below, the canal was dark violet and impenetrable. Only where the disks lay just beneath the surface could she even tell for sure something was there. Light played over the water, or the water played with the light; nothing reflected as it would in a puddle at home. Instead, the shapes of buildings, of pedestrians, of bridges sprawled and bent, while ripples came and went, like suggestions of life.

Yet the air was moist and warm, as if summer had taken shelter here for the winter, and small creatures scurried along branches. Something trembled the leaves nearby. Jenn took a second look, wondering if she’d glimpsed red little eyes.

Rabbits, she thought then, quite firmly, for nyphrit surely didn’t belong in a place full of young children and not-found dogs.

“Jenn. We mustn’t linger.” The first impatience he’d shown, though it must, she thought, wear on Bannan to stroll the city instead of run through it.

“But we must, at least once.” She looked around meaningfully. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Bannan shook his head and almost smiled. “You’re absolutely right.” Leaning his staff against the bench, he sat with her, his back to the rail, arms along it. “As pretty a little bridge, Ancestors Witness, as ever there was.”

“Little?”

“Vorkoun’s span the Lilem,” he explained. “The river’s easily a hundred times wider.”

Jenn turned to sit as well. Her love’s fingers explored the shape of her shoulder, tracing the bones with a touch not so light as to tickle, sending gooseflesh down her arms and an interesting heat elsewhere. While that was certainly enjoyable, her curiosity was even more aroused and she’d have liked to ask how such massive bridges were made and how long they lasted, not to mention what ice did to their structures, if there was ice in Vorkoun at all, but . . .

This wasn’t the time. “Melusine’s gift—my gift—”

“It’s all right.” Bannan gave her a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find my sister without it, Dearest Heart. If Emon came to meet these shadow lords, Lila will have come here. My guess is she’s being held nearby, somewhere. Unless she’s escaped or been freed—which,” abrupt dismay, “could be a problem.”

“She hasn’t, or she’d be here.”

He gave her a doubtful look.

Jenn bent to look under the bench, unsurprised to find a child’s shoe. She put it beside her where the owner could spot it. “I don’t believe my gift has failed, Bannan. Perhaps it’s not that I find what’s lost,” she mused aloud. “When I’m searching—” not that she did, so much as pay attention, “—things that are out of place, adrift, and yes, lost, find me. I’ve been searching since we arrived. If Lila hasn’t found me,” she hazarded, “maybe it’s because she’s still a prisoner and can’t.”

“Or I was wrong about Channen, in which case I apolog—” Without warning, Bannan went white and Jenn knew what he’d thought, another reason for no Lila at all—

His sister injured.

Or worse.

“Don’t think it.” Jenn grabbed his hands. “You’ve told me about Lila. How careful she is—how strong and quick and wise. Dearest Heart. Bannan! What’s more likely?”

He shuddered, then rested his forehead to hers. “Ancestors Awed and Amazed,” unsteady. When Bannan straightened, his eyes gleamed with renewed hope. “A cell able to hold my sister? Who’d have thought!”

“A cell that could be anywhere,” Jenn had to point out, for in that her gift had failed. “How do we find it?”

“Continue as we’ve begun. What I saw in Werfol’s vision was no mysterious dungeon, but a jail like those of any city. My plan’s to roam the market and commit a petty crime.”

“Bannan!” Whatever would Peggs say? Let alone her father. “We can’t!”

His grin was pure mischief. “Agreed. We’d do Lila no good in jail ourselves.” Before Jenn could do more than scowl at him, the truthseer grew serious. “My first thought was to find a constable, spin a tale of needing to question a jailed thief about some missing goods. See the truth.”

Which sounded reasonable, but . . . “Why tell Appin we were going to the token dealer?”

A shrug. “So he wouldn’t know where we really went, while gaining a name for Lila.”

Jenn stared at the remarkable man she’d only thought she knew. “That was—” devious and altogether not what she’d have done, but how better to throw the alarming Shadow Sect off their trail? “—very clever,” she finished admiringly.

“Maybe.” Bannan went to run his fingers through his hair, then stopped, likely thinking of the yling. “Maybe not,” he said abruptly. “If my Naalish will expose me as Rhothan, I can’t risk a conversation with a constable or anyone else. This Birr may be our only choice.”

The difficulty with clever people, Jenn decided, was keeping up. “Why?”

“The most lucrative wishings—and their tokens—are illegal, even here. I’d bet the winter’s dishes Birr’s spent his share of nights in the city jail. He should know what we need.” A decisive nod. “If necessary, we’ll trade him our tokens for the information.”

“You wanted them for Lila,” she protested.

“I want Lila.”

Flat and uncompromising. She’d feel the same, were it Peggs, Jenn thought.

Bannan searched her face. “Much as I hate this, Dearest Heart—” he began.

“I’m the one to speak to Birr,” she finished.

“Are you sure?”

~Is this wise, elder sister?~ the toad asked at the same time.

“Of course,” Jenn answered them both. “Just tell me what to say. After all, this city is your world, beloved.”

Then, because they were alone for this moment and shadowed, because Bannan feared for her and mustn’t, and because, most of all, she’d lost him once—

And would not again.

Between one heartbeat and the next, Jenn Nalynn let her other self show.

“As the edge is mine.”

Like a glimpse of the Verge, seeing her shift between glorious turn-born and the woman who was equally so. His ally. His partner. The love of his life. Whatever Jenn saw in his face brought forth one of her magical smiles and Bannan might have happily drowned in it, then and there . . .

Save she jumped to her feet and held out a hand with a brisk, “Shall we?”

“Away, then,” he agreed.

Down the other side of the bridge, then down again, taking the next staircase to the canal level. To his deeper sight, the ever-present dampness on the stone walls had a silver tint and what filled the channel between banks was nothing he’d swim in or touch to his lips.

Mimrol. No doubt as to the “Source” the Naalish, Appin, had spoken of with such reverence.

Magic rained here.

To be collected with care. Dusom’s friend had been mystified to discover the lesser canals of the Shadow District didn’t join those surrounding the city, but Bannan understood all too well. Let magic wash away? Be diluted?

Surely a waste, when it could be bottled for use beyond the edge. “Jenn.” He lowered his voice, for they’d rejoined the crowds. “The ‘Silver Tears’ Kydd spoke of, sold by Channen for Rhothan wishings? It has to be mimrol. Mellynne’s magic comes from the Verge. As rain!”

“The ‘Source.’” She looked up, as if hoping for a glimpse, then sideways at him. “Is mimrol as lovely here as the Verge?”

Wistful. How often she’d ask him to describe Marrowdell’s wonders, being, like any villager, unable to see them for herself until the turn. “No,” he admitted. “It sinks and tarnishes in the canal. Those,” he pointed to one of the submerged platters, “must be where something of it becomes solid.”

“And no longer magic,” she guessed. “Or the Naalish would dig them out.”

Implying it would be worth collecting the rain as soon as it fell. Bannan took a closer look at the walls and walkways, their abundance of eaves, catchments, and gutters taking on a new significance.