Shadowmarch

Vansen closed his eyes for a moment, fighting back tears of his own. He put his hand on the young guardsman’s quivering shoulder. “The gods grant you made a good shot, Dab.”

* * *

So bleak and quiet was the company, so defeated, that when Vansen saw the moon again he didn’t speak of it, not wanting to raise hopes that had been so often dashed. But after an hour more trudging silently behind the girl he could not ignore the fact that the mists were clearing. The moon was not alone—there were stars, too, speckled across the sky as cold and bright as ice crystals.

They walked on through the high grass of wet hillside meadows and through thinning stands of trees, still alert to any sound, but after a while Vansen was certain that something truly had changed. The moon was far down in the sky now, a sky that had always before been blurry with fog and cloud.

They were all staggeringly tired, and for a few moments he considered stopping to build a fire so they could dry out wet clothes and snatch a little sleep, but he was afraid that if he closed his eyes he would open them again to find everything submerged in silvery nothingness again. Also, the girl was striding determinedly forward despite her weariness, like a horse on the path back to the barn at the end of a long day, and he didn’t want to disturb her. Now that the mists had thinned, he let go of her ragged smock and dropped back to walk for a little while with each of the men in turn, Southstead, Dawley, Balk, saying nothing unless they spoke to him, trying to turn his savaged company back into something whole again, or at least into something human. He couldn’t pretend that he was not overseeing a disaster, but he could make the best out of what he had.

They trooped on through shadowy glens and over moonlit hills.The sky began to change color, warming from black to a purple-tinted gray, and for the first time in days Vansen began to believe they might actually find their way out again.

But where? Into the middle of that fairy army? Or will we find that we have been wandering for a hundred years, like one of the old tales, and that all the world and the folk we knew are gone?

Still, even with these heavy thoughts in his head, he couldn’t help smiling when he saw the first gleam of sunrise on the horizon. His eyes welled up, so that for a moment the patch of bright sky smeared. There would be some kind of day after all. There would be east and west and north and south again.

The sun didn’t burn through the mist until it was high into the sky, but it was the real sun and the real sky, beyond doubt. No one wanted to stop now.

Most astonishingly of all, before the sun was halfway up the morning sky, they struck the Settland Road. “Praise all the gods!” shouted Balk. He ran forward, did a clumsy dance on the rutted dirt that covered the ancient stones and timbers. “Praise them each and every one!”

As the other men tumbled down into the grass by the roadside, laughing and clapping each other on the back in joy,Vansen looked up and down the road, not completely ready to trust. It was the same road, but what arrested him was what part of the road it was.

“Perin Cloudwalker!” he murmured, half to himself. “She’s brought us back to the place where we met her. That’s miles from where we crossed over. And miles closer to Southmarch, thank the gods!” He staggered on aching legs to where the girl stood, smiling a little, staring around her in calm confusion. He grabbed her and kissed her cheek, lifted her up and put her down again. He had a sudden thought then and hurried eastward down the road with the men shouting questions after him. Sure enough, at the next long straight stretch he found a height where he could climb up and see that mists had enveloped the road not a mile away to the east. She’s brought us back to our side of the Shadowline, but also we’re now between the shadow-army and the city, bless her! But how could that be? He tried to understand what had happened but could only guess that the substance of the lands behind the Shadowline was different than that of other lands, and not just because of mists and monsters. Somehow the girl had managed to find her way across a fold of shadow and bring them back to the place where she herself first crossed over, long before they even found her.

He hurried back to the others. “We will rest for a short while,” he said, “but then we have to find horses and ride as fast as we can. Southmarch is ahead of us and the enemy is behind us, but who knows how long until they catch up? The girl has given us a precious gift—we must not waste it, or waste the lives of our comrades either.” He turned to Willow. “I may wind up in chains for my part in all this, but if Southmarch survives, I’ll see you dressed in silks and laden with gold first.You may have saved us all!”

24. Leopards and Gazelles

GROWING JOY:

The hives are full

The leaves fall and drift slowly

Death is agreeable now

—from The Bonefall Oracles

Qinnitan groaned. “Why do I feel so ill?”

“Get up, you!” Favored Luian slapped at one of her Tuam servants, who ducked with a practiced shrug so that the blow only grazed the girl’s black-haired head. “What are you doing, you lazy lizard?” Luian shrieked. “That cloth is dry as dust.” She reached out and gave the girl’s arm a cruel pinch. “Go and get Mistress Qinnitan some more water!”

The slave got up and refilled the bowl from the fountain splashing quietly in the corner of the room, then returned with it and resumed cooling Qinnitan’s forehead.

“I don’t know, my darling,” Luian said as if the outburst had not happened. “A touch of fever, perhaps. Nothing dreadful, I’m sure. You must say your prayers and drink dishflower tea.” She seemed distracted by something more than Qinnitan’s miseries, her eyes flicking from side to side as though she expected to be interrupted at any moment.

“It’s that potion they give me every day, I’m sure.” Qinnitan tried to sit straight, groaned, and gave up. It was not worth the expenditure of strength.

“Oh, Luian, I hate it. It makes me feel so wretched. Do you think they’re poisoning me?'

“Poisoning you?” For a moment Luian actually looked at her. Her laugh was harsh and a bit shrill. “My small sweet one, if the Golden One wished you dead, it would not be poison that killed you, it would be something much…” She paled a little, caught herself. “What a thing to say! As if our beloved autarch, praises to his name, would want you dead, in any case. You have done nothing to displease him. You have been a very good girl.”

Qinnitan sighed and tried to tell herself Luian must be right. It didn’t quite feel like being poisoned, anyway, or at least not how she imagined such a thing would feel. Nothing hurt, and she wasn’t exactly ill—in fact, generally her appetite was extremely good and she slept well, too, if a little too long and deeply sometimes—but something definitely felt strange. “You’re right, of course You’re always right, Luian.” She yawned. “In fact, I think I feel a little better now. I should go back to my room and have a nap instead of lolling around here and being in your way.”

“Oh, no, no!” Luian looked startled at the suggestion. “No, you… you should come for a walk with me Yes, let us take a walk in the Scented Garden. That would do you more good than anything. Just the thing to brush away those cobwebs.”

Qinnitan had been living in the Seclusion too long not to see that something was troubling Luian, and it was strange for her to suggest the Scented Garden, which was on the opposite side of the Seclusion, when it would have been much easier to stroll in the Garden of Queen Sodan. “I suppose I can bear a walk, yes. Are you certain? You must have things to do…”

“I can think of nothing more important than helping you feel better, my little dear one. Come.” The Scented Garden was warmer than the halls of the Seclusion, but the canopies atop its high walls kept it cool enough to be bearable and its airs were very sweet and pleasant, suffused with myrtle and forest roses and snakeleaf after a short while Qinnitan began to feel a little stronger. As they walked, Luian spouted a litany of petty complaints and irritations in a breathless voice that made her seem far younger than she was. She was more sharp-tongued with her servants than usual, too, so savage in her scolding of one of the Tuanis when the girl bumped her elbow that several other people in the garden, wives and servants, looked up, and the usually expressionless slave girl curled