Shadowplay

“My destiny—the world’s destiny—rides on my shoulder.” Sulepis’ pale eyes glinted, impossibly alert, impossibly lively. “These men are happy to live for their autarch, why should they not die for him happily, too? Either way, they will spend eternity in the golden glow of my father Nushash.”

The autarch laughed, the musical trill of someone contemplating with absolute, amused indifference the murder of thousands. “Now, let us see our first Royal Crocodile sing for his supper, eh?”

Johar, his brown face looking a touch more wan than usual, bowed several times as he backed away from the autarch’s chair and descended from the golden litter, then waved his arms and bellowed an order to his generals. The command was passed rapidly down the chain of command until the gunnery master bowed and ordered a last few creaks of the wheel, lifting the elevation of the snarling, reptilian muzzle. When he was satisfied, the gunnery master stood up straight, wiping at the sweat that covered his face on this chill day.

“On the Master of the Great Tent’s word!” he bawled. “For the glory of Heaven and of eternal Xis!”

The god-on-earth waved a languid hand. “You may set it off.”

“Give it fire!” shouted the gunnery master. A shirtless man dropped the head of a flaming torch on the cannon’s touchhole.

For a moment the gun was so silent that it seemed to have sucked all the noise out of the world. It was only as Vash realized that the waves were still murmuring in the strait and the gulls still keening overhead that the cannon went off.

Some moments later the paramount minister of Xis scrambled up onto his knees, certain that he would never hear anything again: his head was buzzing like the hive of the fire god’s sacred bees. A pall of smoke hung in the air around them, slowly being fanned away by the wind. The cannon had rolled back several yards, crushing two unfortunate soldiers beneath it. The gunnery master was frowning at the bloody ruin beneath the wheels. “We’ll have to put sand underneath them, or chain them,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll have to roll it back each time and firing will take even longer.” It sounded to Vash’s throbbing ears as though he whispered the words from miles away.

“It does not matter,” said the autarch, his voice almost as muffled. “Ah, it was beautiful to see. And look!” He pointed with his gauntleted hand.

On the far side of the strait a chunk of pale rock the size of a palace door had been knocked out of Hierosol’s great seawall, leaving a darker spot like a wound. Atop the walls tiny soldiers scurried like startled ants, unable to believe in anything so powerful, unwilling to think anything could throw a stone so far, let alone actually chip the mighty, ancient defenses.

“Ah, they hear us knocking on their door,” said the autarch, clapping his hands together in delight; Vash could barely hear the sound they made. “Soon we will come in and make ourselves at home!”

A few moments later, and for the first time since the previous day, the bells of Hierosol began to ring again.

34. Through Immon’s Gate

With his death, Silvergleam’s house fell. Whitefire and Judgment were banished into the same Unbeing to which old Twilight had been dispatched, and most of their servants slaughtered. Crooked only was kept alive because the children of Moisture coveted his arts. They tormented him first, cutting away his manhood so that he would never spread the seed of Breeze’s children, then they made him their slave.

Even the victors did not sing of these deeds, but made false tales to hide their shame and grief. The truth could not be encompassed. The true story is called Kingdom of Tears.

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

The mysterious dark-haired girl had not appeared to him in days. His hours in the cell were long and empty, he was still angry with Vansen, Gyir had shown no evidence of having come up with the promised plan of escape (nor done much at all except sit in oblique silence), and Barrick was desperate for something to distract him from his own discomfort and dread, so he brooded about her.

He had even begun to wonder if she might have been a herald of his own death—whether, despite all her words about courage and resistance, her presence actually meant he was nearing the end of his life. Perhaps she was some daughter of Kernios, awakened or summoned by the nearness of the monstrous gate. Barrick didn’t know whether Kernios had a daughter—he had never been able to keep up with Father Timoid’s endless recitations of the lineages of gods, even if his family claimed relationship to one—but it seemed possible.

Still, if the dark-haired girl was an emissary of the ultimate, he was not as afraid of dying as he had thought he would be. This Death had a kind, clever face. But so young! Younger than he was, certainly. Then again, if she was a goddess, how she appeared meant little—after all, the gods could become whatever they wanted, trees or stars or beasts of the field.

But what was the use of wondering, in any case? Day after day of throbbing pain in his head and blurred thoughts, night after night of frightening visions—Barrick was not even quite certain of what was real anymore. Why had he been chosen for this particular torment? Not fair. Not fair.

Push against it. He heard her voice again, but only in memory. Escape it. Change it.

What had Gyir told him? You are only a prisoner when you surrender. Even steadfast, stolid Vansen seemed to reproach Barrick for his weakness—everyone else was so cursedly certain about things they didn’t have to suffer.

Barrick opened his eyes a little. Vansen was sleeping next to him, the soldier’s thin face now softened by a beard which obscured but could not completely hide the hollowness of his cheeks. Though they drained every drop of the swill Jikuyin’s guards gave them, they were all slowly wasting away. Barrick had been slender to begin with, but now he could watch each bone sliding and moving beneath his skin, see the deformity of his shattered arm in more detail than he had ever wanted.

For a moment, then, his eyes half shut, he could almost see King Olin’s features hovering before him instead of Vansen’s.

I hope you’re happy, Father. You were so ashamed of what you did to me that you couldn’t even speak of it. Soon I’ll be dead and you’ll never have to see me again.

But was it really all his father’s fault? It was the curse, after all, a poison in the Eddon blood they shared, and even his father’s blood was not as corrupted as Barrick’s. For proof, he need look no farther than the days and nights just passed: when Olin had escaped the castle his own curse had become less—his letters had all but said so. Barrick, though, was in the grip of even worse fevers of madness than he had experienced at home.

He shut his eyes tight but sleep would not come. A quiet shuffling noise made him open them again. The latest shift of prisoners had just come back from their labors and one of the apish guards was coming right toward their cell. Gyir, who had been propped in a corner of the stony cell with his chin against his chest, slowly looked up. Barrick’s heart raced—what could the guard want? Had the time come for the blood sacrifice Gyir had feared?

The creature stopped in front of the grille, cutting off most of the outside light. Gyir moved toward the door, but with a swift, easy grace that took a little of the edge off Barrick’s fear: he had learned to read the fairy’s movements a bit, and what they said now was not danger but only caution.

The beastlike guard stood in silence, its face pressed against the bars. Nothing visible passed between the guard and Gyir, but after a dozen or so heartbeats the shaggy creature shook itself and then turned away, a puzzled, perhaps even frightened expression on its inhuman face.

During the course of the following hours and days, many more guards and more than a few returning prisoners enacted a similar ritual as Barrick watched with fascination. He couldn’t help wondering what this had to do with the Storm Lantern’s talk of gun-flour, since there was none of the black powder to be seen. Instead, it was like watching the Bronzes ceremony at the Southmarch court, when the leading nobles of the March Kingdoms came