The River of Shadows (55 page)

“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.

The cook kept a few servings aside for the youths and Hercól, but none of them was hungry. They sat quietly in the stateroom, which was unchanged but for the mold in the pantry area, while everywhere else on the ship men labored in their hundreds, shouting, thumping, dragging crates, coaxing animals and once more cursing “the fish-eyed freaks.” The dlömu’s fear had infected them. Every man aboard knew that they were running from some mortal threat.

Captain Rose would keep them at it all night, and all the next day, Thasha knew. Even after they launched, the work would continue: below the waterline, the crew would keep on shifting and securing the wares by lamplight, all the way across the gulf. And if that work was ever done, there were the forty miles of ropes to double- and triple-check, and paint with tar against the damp; seams to caulk, chains and wheelblocks and pump-gears to oil, extra sails to cut and stitch, hatch-covers to mend, stanchions to shore up; some fifty new animals to fuss over, two surly augrongs to scrub, delouse and copiously feed.

Hercól was right, but so was Pazel. It had been better not to talk anymore, there atop the city with nothing to lay their hands on, no mold to wipe away, no little tasks to hide behind. Still they all knew what the morning would bring. Neeps was putting his clothes in sacks. Hercól was seated on the bearskin, sharpening weapons. Pazel was rubbing oil into the creases of Thasha’s boots.

Everyone was on edge. Neeps and Marila bickered when they spoke at all, though they never seemed to be more than an arm’s length apart. The dogs lay in deep mourning, unable to bear the sight of the bags and bundles collecting near the door. Felthrup crouched on the window seat, gazing out at the night.

It fell to Mr. Fiffengurt to break the silence, roughly at midnight, when he staggered in from a long work shift and collapsed in the admiral’s chair. Pazel silently brought him a mug of dlömic beer—frothy, fruity, black. They had spent the evening developing a taste for it.

The quartermaster drank deeply. “Rose has just let me in on the plan,” he said. “It’s the damndest bit of hide-and-seek nonsense I’ve ever heard. And I can’t for the life of me think of a better idea.”

The
Chathrand
was to speed by night across the gulf, he explained, and land a tiny force, just three or four men, not far from where their little boat had been capsized by the emerald serpent. Those men would hide their boat, hide themselves deep in the dunes “and live off Rinforsaken
mül
” while the
Chathrand
sped out through the inlet, tacked west and raced along the outside of the Sandwall for a good sixty or eighty miles. There were rocky islets there, like those at Cape Lasung. A hiding place. Every sixth day the men on the Sandwall would climb the tallest dune and look for mirror-signals from Masalym, giving them the all-clear. On the same day, the
Chathrand
would venture carefully out of hiding and creep back along the Sandwall, hoping for a corresponding signal from the landing party.

“What then?” said Thasha.

“Then?” said Fiffengurt, startled. “Why, then we come and get you, m’lady.”

“Is that the captain’s plan?”

Fiffengurt gazed at her for a long time, his fingers caressing the chair’s felt arms. “If Rose tries to sail off and leave you here,” he said, “I will put a knife into his heart. D’ye understand me, Lady?”

As if there could be two ways of understanding a statement like that. Fiffengurt drained his mug and pushed to his feet. “Time to check the watch lists,” he grumbled. “The off-duty lads won’t sleep unless I order ’em to, their heads are so twisted with worry. The damned fools. Won’t be any blessed use tomorrow if they
don’t
sleep, will they?”

When he was gone, Hercól shook his head. “Do not mind Fiffengurt. He is angry at himself for that game leg: he knows it would make him useless on an overland journey. I fear he’s in more pain than he cares to admit, both from the leg and the thought of Anni and their child, and the slim chance that he will ever seen them again. But he thinks his own suffering too small a thing to share with anyone, just now.”

“Dear old Fiffengurt,” said Neeps. “But he’s assuming a lot, isn’t he? I mean, we still haven’t decided to go.”

“Haven’t we, mate?” said Pazel.

No one answered. Hercól rose and left the stateroom; the others went on with their work.

They were still drinking the black beer when a shout came from beyond the stateroom. Pazel at once felt a tightness in his chest: the voice was Ignus Chadfallow’s. He went to the door and opened it. The doctor was crouched by the invisible wall, his lips near the hole Counselor Vadu had made.

“Pazel,” he said, “come out here, will you? There is something you should see.”

Pazel glanced back at the others. “Go on,” said Thasha. He went, but he dragged his feet. He had a strong sense of having wronged the doctor. He had said nothing to Chadfallow about his dream-encounter with his mother; in fact they had barely spoken since their escape from the Conservatory. And Suthinia hadn’t admitted everything, to be sure. But clearly Captain Gregory had more than one thing on his mind when he abandoned his family.