A Play of Shadow (77 page)

A drop of blood, bitten from a cheek . . . a chewed sleeve, threads once touched by other skin and warm . . .

And the dream unfolds . . .

What is this?

Soft, white. A blanket?

For it covers. Soothes.

Chills.

SMOTHERS!

CAN’T GET OUT! CAN’T GET OUT! CAN’T—

The dream splinters . . .

Running in the Verge was a peculiar thing. Jenn had picked up the toad and, to be sure, the yling did fly ahead, hands beckoning, so she ran as quickly as she could in its wake.

But sometimes she ran up and sometimes sideways and several times, most disconcertingly, she was upside down. It helped profoundly, she discovered, to focus on the yling.

Flying being a more straightforward business.

She didn’t run out of breath, which was a comfort. Though troubling, if she thought about it, so she did her best not, other than to remember to breathe.

That being important, since she took Mistress Sand’s warnings about the risky nature of flesh seriously indeed, and ran as turn-born.

While thinking, always, of what else she was and intended to be.

After a while, which might have been an afternoon or hour, Jenn began to think about something else. “Little cousin, why are we still running?”

~This is not a good part of the Verge, elder sister.~ In much the same tone as she’d warned Bannan about Palma’s inn.

“So there are good parts.”

She felt it swell under her arm. ~Yes, elder sister! Wonderful parts. Where our—~ It stopped mid-rapture.

Jenn slowed to a jog. “‘Where our—’ what? Is there a part where little cousins live?” Bannan’s toad had been pleased when she’d offered, she recalled with a twinge of guilt, to look for other toads. “Is it far?” If on the way home, surely she could accomplish at least that much.

~We are not yet worthy, elder sister.~ Sorrowfully.

Meaning there was such a place, she decided, but what could be more worthy than the stalwart toads of Marrowdell? If they needed an advocate—

A shadow scented with cinnamon crossed her path, and Jenn looked up—

—down. Below flew a dragon, larger than Wisp. She stopped in her tracks, trying to puzzle out what wasn’t right about it. The emerald green was a bit gaudy, but she’d once seen dragons in great numbers, and they came in colors like the sky of the Verge.

Emerald green not being one.

Oh, but she’d seen eyes of this color, hadn’t she? Glimpsed a head of that shape, before all had become a moth, then been gone. And this dragon didn’t fly, for its wings didn’t move, so what held it in the air was another strangeness. She grew quite dizzy, looking down and up and at it, but not afraid.

For this wasn’t, Jenn realized, a dragon at all, but a sei.

“I wouldn’t listen to it, Lovely Jenn,” said a hatefully familiar voice.

Crumlin!

The world stopped moving. Or they had. Bannan was fuzzy on the details. What he did know was Lila’d fallen off.

Fall off a horse? His sister?

It did strain credulity, but he found himself dropping to the ground, able to stagger, if not walk, to where she lay curled in a ball.

A groan.

“Ancestors Blessed,” Bannan said then, startled—awake by his own voice? Had he been sleeping?

No. Riding. As he went to check Lila for broken bones, he glanced up.

The kruar stood, heads lowered. Their sides worked like bellows and sweat darkened their hides, where it didn’t cling in streaks of white froth. Spent, they looked, as he’d never seen Scourge.

Feeling his gaze, heads lifted, lips curled. Ready when you are, that was.

Lila first. “Dear Heart,” he urged. “Are you hurt?”

Her head lolled back against his arm, eyes open but upturned, staring at nothing. No, he thought in horror. She truedreamed. “Wake up!” He shook her, gently then hard enough to rattle teeth, though what he hoped to accomplish the fall from the kruar hadn’t done—“Lila!!”

“Heart’s Blood—Bannan. Stop!”

He snatched her to him, despite a protest involving most of their ancestors and a suggestion regarding his progeny, should he live so long, letting her go only when she boxed his ear. “Ow!”

His sister glared. “Exactly!” She stretched, rubbing the back of her head. “What happened?” Then looked around. “Where are we?”

Being the better question. Bannan stood, turning in a slow circle. The sun was up, but barely. They stood in the midst of flat land, dusted with snow. On every side, hedges marked neat fields of—“Those are grapes. We’re in Lower Rhoth. I remember—” his turn to rub his head. “We crossed the Kotor in the night, I swear it.”

Lila got to her feet. “Halfway.” She looked at the kruar. “Ancestors Wild and Wondrous. From Channen to the heart of Rhoth in a night.” Then her face changed. “Bannan. I ’dreamed Werfol. He’s no better. Might be worse. We can’t stop now.”

“We have, so let’s use it. Food and drink,” he ordered bluntly. “And your promise not to ’dream in the saddle—unless you want to be tied to it.”

Her lips twisted. “No more dreams. I’m not helping him,” Lila admitted. She nodded to the kruar. “They are.”

“Then a short break and, our brave mounts willing, we go on.” He kept a straight face. “Unless you wish a rest?” he asked the kruar.

Snarls were his answer.

Bannan shook his head and smiled. Halfway.

With the Northward Road closed by snow? With who knew what storms ahead?

Halfway, he told himself.

Home.

Alone had been better.

Keeping her eyes on the yling, still fluttering ahead, Jenn did her best to ignore her unwanted company. If she didn’t look, it wasn’t hard to pretend the sei-dragon had left her in peace.

Crumlin was another matter. How had he found her? Possibilities abounded, none pleasant. Had he followed the crossing drop and laid in wait? Did he share her gift for finding? Set traps?

The toad had swallowed something of his magic. Had that betrayed them?

It could be all of those, or something worse.

“Why are you going this way, Lovely Jenn?”

She gritted her teeth. The bodiless voice would fall behind and grow faint, each time giving her hope she’d left it—him—behind, only to start again from ahead or the side as if he’d found a swifter path and outpaced her. All the while, Crumlin chatted as if they were friends out for a stroll. If she answered, she knew she’d never be rid of him. It was, in a way, like dealing with Roche in one of his moods.

Except that Roche was a person and, however annoying, could be fun and even reasonable.

Unlike what pestered her now.

“There’s nothing nice that way, Lovely Jenn. You should go to the right.”

Where gloom filled the space beneath tall stalks of something, and little red eyes blinked?

She was not going there.

But when Jenn passed it, her head high, Crumlin laughed, a soft and happy laugh, as if she’d done what he wanted after all.

Roche, she’d thrown into the sows’ pond.

She walked and walked, the sei-dragon staying with her and Crumlin keeping up, though neither of them were walking that she could tell, which was rather unfair.

As well as alarming.

Still, walking was progress, Jenn told herself. She moved away from them, or tried to, and moved toward home, or somewhere that wasn’t here.

Tried to. A peculiar thought, suited to the Verge.

Yet was the yling leading her somewhere?

Or for something.

Perturbed, Jenn stopped, lifting the toad so she could look into one of its eyes. “Where are we going?” she whispered. “Is this the right way?”

A leg lengthened, clawed toes stretched, then the toad settled peacefully in her hands. ~Trust in us, elder sister, as we trust in you.~

Because she did, Jenn kissed it, then tucked it safely back under her arm. She looked for the yling, sorry for her doubt.

There it hovered, waiting.

Jenn nodded to it, and began to walk again.

“What’s the hurry, Lovely Jenn?” Crumlin asked, falling behind. “Where are you going?”

To wherever those she trusted wished her to be.

Though part of her hoped that meant home and Peggs and—oh, Bannan and Lila with Werfol safe and Semyn happy—

—the rest and better part now understood.

The small ones had risked themselves in the Verge and Channen to help Bannan. To help her. They’d proven themselves not only worthy, but selfless and true friends.

Now it was her turn.

He’d crossed into the Verge. Flown to the turn-borns’ cursed fountain and back. Roared at the impudent and curious who’d come to see why.

When they scattered, the dragon thought the better of it and commanded their help. Not trusting his temper, they’d flown away even faster. Younglings.

He’d have been proud, if not for the inconvenience.

Kruar were no better help, refusing to leave their hiding places for a question. As if he’d trick them.

As if, the dragon smiled to himself, he hadn’t many times before.

He sought the girl, not the truthseer, knowing Bannan would be with Jenn or dead. Dead was of no use to Werfol.

After his second futile flight, Wisp realized searching was of no use either.

He considered approaching the turn-born, who knew the crossing to Channen, only to discard the notion. They’d been reluctant to see the girl cross. To suggest something had gone amiss would be like stirring up a nest of nyphrit.

Only worse and without the tasty result.

Leaving this.

The blue door stood open and waiting. The dragon ignored that invitation to stay on the path, crystal breaking in protest. He would remain here, and be found by the sei.

First? An interesting question. The dimming would soon begin and the hunt.

Wisp let his jaws hang open, dragonfire warm in his throat.

Let them come.

But what arrived first was neither sei-dragon nor hunter.

It was a moth.

“W
HERE ARE WE
going, Lovely Jenn?”

Crumlin asked more and more often. Did he grow anxious? More likely, Jenn thought, he’d been one of those children who’d pestered adults with repetition.

She’d lost track of time long ago, having not the usual clues of sore feet or an empty stomach or even thirst. Mistress Sand had warned her not to forget herself, and what held her to flesh thinned, in some fashion, the more she walked as turn-born. Jenn felt lighter, might have become insubstantial.

But she remembered and refused and began to walk as woman. That meant feeling the weight of the toad, which she found herself shifting from arm to arm as each wearied in turn. A weight and weariness she treasured, for they reminded her of who she was, and meant to stay.

“You will lose your shape, Lovely Jenn.”

Something new at last, as if Crumlin heard her thoughts, which he couldn’t. Even so, she came close to protesting and had to catch herself.

“That’s the price, to stay here. They take your shape! That’s the price. The price! The price!” His voice, so long the same, became louder and more shrill.

Encumbered by the toad, Jenn couldn’t cover her ears. Just when she thought she’d have to respond if only to stop him, Crumlin fell silent. Then, almost a whisper, close as could be. “I could show you. I could prove it. I could save you, Lovely Jenn.”

She’d preferred it when he was annoying. To distract herself, she looked for the sei-dragon.

It was gone. When had it left? Having worried over its presence, Jenn felt abandoned.

“Let me save you, Lovely Jenn. One boon, the smallest of services, a nothing, and I would save you.”

Everything Crumlin said was a lie, she told herself, walking faster.

“You will lose your shape.”

Even what sounded all too true.

Winter met them at Weken, where smoke blew sideways from chimneys and not a soul stirred outside.

The sun crouched, distant and chill, above the road—or the expanse of unbroken white that had been the road. Once on the snow, the kruar slowed perceptibly, as if some of their strength now went to keeping aloft, but still ran faster than the fleetest horse. Bannan held on, knew Lila did the same; hope gave them strength. The Northward Road wasn’t closed, not to the mighty beasts they rode.

But even kruar had limits. The body beneath him was furnace hot, saving him from frostbite, but at what cost? Bannan could feel a change in the kruar’s once-effortless strides, a shortening. He shouted at his, tried to stop it.

Felt a snarl of denial through his legs.

They needed rest. Needed meat, he was certain. Bloody idiots, he told himself worriedly. They risked everything, risked leaving him and Lila to freeze. Why wouldn’t they stop?

Then Bannan stared ahead, at first bemused to see their way blocked by a range of massive white mountains, like those to the south near Vorkoun.

But they were clouds, not mountains, and beneath them was night.

Heart’s Blood. The kruar wouldn’t stop because they saw what was coming. A storm. Between them and Marrowdell.

The road was closed after all.

They’d die together, Bannan realized. This close, and they’d fail.

Why make it easy?

“Hyah!!!” he shouted, and leaned over as far as he could to slap the beast on the shoulder. “You want a name? Claim it!”

The kruar heard.

And began to hum.

The yling clung to a long silver thread by the hands of his feet, gossamer wings limp. The fragile-looking thread was one of many over Jenn’s head, extending from where she stood over a wide lake of pure mimrol, like the web of a too-daring garden spider across a garden path.

What might have been the nests of weaver birds hung from the threads, except these were far more than nests. Each teardrop shape had doors like windows, complete with balconies and delicate perches. Yling homes.

No, Jenn realized, as she tried to estimate their number. A yling city. A very quiet city.

With only one yling, hers, in sight.

The toad squirmed gently. ~We have arrived, elder sister.~

She put him down on what wasn’t sand or a beach but a woven carpet that met the silver of the lake or became part of it. She knelt to take a closer look, entranced by map-like patterns in the design, though like no map she’d ever seen. There were stories in it, layers upon layers of stories, as if the carpet surrounding the lake was an ever-growing quilt.

“Are you sure you want to be here, Lovely Jenn?”

The hoarse whisper broke a lengthy silence she’d quite enjoyed, having guessed it meant Crumlin recognized where the yling would lead her and didn’t care for it.

Making the ylings’ extraordinary city a place she liked very much, Jenn told herself, despite there being no signs of life.

The ylings’ webbing was secured, on this side of the lake, to rocks that jutted from the ground. The rocks were remarkable—for the Verge—in appearing to be simply rocks, gray and rough. The tallest was about three times Jenn’s height, its girth that of a privy, though most were no larger than the toad. In fact, the toad, having turned itself gray, might have been one of them.

Not wanting to break a thread, she watched for them as she explored, but those she found were well above her head. Finally, she chose a rock the size of a chair and tapped it politely. When it remained a rock, Jenn sat gingerly.

“Leave, Lovely Jenn. Leave while you can!”

Leave to go home she’d do and happily. Once they were done here.

Done what? Jenn touched the toes of her new boots together, regarding their scuffs and marks wistfully. She moved her toes apart.

To find something stood behind them. Something no larger than her hand.

A yling?

But they didn’t stand on the ground.

Or rather, half in the ground.

Curious, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, chin in her cupped hands. What was this?

It had wings, like a yling, but withered and curled against its back. The chest was little more than ribs over a hollowed belly and, though it had a pair of arms, those were thin and ended in stubby claws. As she watched, it struggled free, revealing legs very much, she thought with a horrid growing surmise, like those of a nyphrit, but more bone than flesh.

Then it lifted its head, and it wasn’t just a head, but a man’s head, with a mouth and nose and ears.

Except for eyes that were yellow and round with pupils like pits of darkness.

Crumlin.

The wind howled and raged, sending drifts of snow and shards of ice, and Bannan knew only that they moved through it.

He couldn’t imagine how.

The kruar fought the storm as they might an enemy of flesh, snapping and snarling. They hummed too; he heard it. The idiot beasts expected their riders to die first.

And planned to honor them, by taking his and Lila’s last breath.

Well, they weren’t, that was all. If the kruar could keep going, so could they. When he could see his sister, she was a mound of white crusted to her mount’s back. Holding on, his Lila. She’d make it.

He’d better, or he’d not hear the end of it.

It was then Bannan felt something wet and hot strike his cheek. Then again.

He brought up a hand gloved in a sock, wiped it away. Somehow brought it close.

Saw a dark stain.

Ancestors Dire and Doomed.

Blood.

The kruar refused to fail. They ran themselves to death, for glory.

And for a child.

Bannan lowered his face to that burning hot hide, and wept.

Old, he was. That too. Wrinkles seamed a face no larger than the tip of her thumb and his body was hunched over, so he must use the claws of one arm like a cane. She’d have judged him a pitiful, miserable creature.

Except that he’d escaped her dragon. Harmed him. Jenn sat straight, resisting the urge to rub her arm where Crumlin had put his shackle, and stared into those too-familiar yellow eyes. “What do you want?”

Oh, and didn’t the wee thing bow, then, and didn’t the tiny mouth smile? “To save you, Lovely Jenn.” The same voice, from everywhere as well as before her. A trick. “Or would you become like me?” The free hand gestured from head to toe.

“I will never be like you,” Jenn countered, for she knew—didn’t she?—why he was so monstrous. Everything he’d consumed had left its mark on that twisted body. “The Verge shows your true shape, Crumlin Tralee. Stealer of lives!”

“I harvest magic, Lovely Jenn, from those who need it less.” A blink,
rustlerustle.
“I can show you how.”

“I am magic,” she told him and was.

He pretended to cower, then straightened with a triumphant laugh. “So you are. Such a waste in someone who cares so little for it.”

Was this the shape he wanted? Jenn quickly became herself again. She could step on him. Squash him flat.

But this was the Verge. She couldn’t trust size here. Perhaps Crumlin had made himself small to avoid notice.

Or set another trap.

It was then Jenn realized they were no longer alone.

Ylings filled the air between the rocks, some clinging to the surface, others balanced along silver threads. They were armed, these ylings, some even armored, and in such vast number that the light of the Verge shattered within their hair, making it impossible to look up.