Shadowplay

Yasammez, with little success. Much of what Barrick did not know the faceless Qar thought too obvious for explanation, and the rest was full of Qar concepts that did not make words in Barrick’s head but only smeary ideas. Yasammez was powerful and old, that was clear, but Barrick could have guessed that just from his own muddled memories, the bits of her that still seemed to drape his mind like spiderwebs. She also seemed to be in the middle of some kind of conflict between the fairy rulers Gyir thought of as king and queen, although even these concepts were far from straightforward—they all seemed to have many names and many titles, and some of them seemed to him oddly contradictory: Barrick had felt Gyir think of the king as recently crowned, but also as ageless, as blind but allseeing.

It was hard enough just to understand the simple things.

You were going to tell me about Jack Chain. Jikuyin. Is he really a god?

No, no. He is a child of the gods, though. Not like I am, or you are, or any thinking creature is—a child of great power. His kind were mostly spawned by the congress of the gods and other, older beings. The gods walk the earth no more—that is the first reason we are living the Long Defeat—but a few demigods such as Jikuyin apparently still remain.

Barrick took a deep breath, frustrated again. They had left the overgrown road hours ago because it had been blocked by a fallen tree, and had wandered far afield before they had spotted the road again, now on the far side of a rough, fast-moving stream. They were trying to make their way back to it on something that was closer to a deer track; the rains had stopped, but the trees were wet, and it had occurred to Barrick several times that every branch that smacked him in the face was one that did not hit Gyir, who rode behind him. I don’t understand any of that. I just want to know what this Jack Chain is and why he worries you. Why is the bird still so frightened? Aren’t we going away from Northmarch where he lives?

Yes, but Jikuyin is a Power, and like any of his kind, he rules a broad territory. I think among your people there are bandit lords like that, who respect no master but their own strength, yes?

There used to be. Barrick at first was thinking of the infamous Gray Companies, but then he remembered the adventurer who held their father even now—Ludis Drakava, the so-called Lord Protector of Hierosol. Yes, we have people like that.

So. That is Jikuyin. As the bird said, he has made the ruined sunlander city of Northmarch his own, although it was ours before it was yours—it is an old place.

The Qar lived in Northmarch?

So I am told. It was long before my time. There are certain places of power, and people are drawn to them, places like... Here another strange concept bounced uselessly in Barrick’s head, a shadowy image of light the subtle gold of a falcon’s eye gleaming from deep underwater, all muddled with something that was bright, piercing blue and as tangled and twined as a grapevine. In the old days all the Children of Stone lived there in peace, and their roads ran beneath the ground in all directions—some say as far as the castle where you were born... Gyir’s words suddenly changed, insofar as Barrick was able to tell, the voice in his head growing suddenly cautious, withdrawn. But all that does not matter. The simple tale is this—we are skirting Jikuyin’s lair as widely as we can.

But what about those...things that the bird said would be hunting us—Night Men and Longskulls...?

Gyir was dismissive. I do not fear the Longskulls, not if I am armed. And no Dreamless, I think, would be willing servants to Jikuyin—surely the world has not changed so much. They have their own lands and their own purposes... The Dreamless—Barrick shivered at the name. Will we have to cross their lands, too? he asked.

At some point, all who go to Qul-na-Qar, the great knife of the People, the city of black towers, must cross their lands. For a moment, there was something almost like kindness in Gyir’s thoughts— almost, but not quite. But don’t fear, boy. Many survive the journey. He considered for a moment; when he spoke again, his thoughts were somber.

Of course, none of your kind has yet tried it.

11. A Little Hard Work

The three children Oneyna birthed were Zmeos, the Horned Serpent, his brother Khors Moonlord, and their sister Zuriyal, who was called Merciless. And for long no one knew these three existed. But Sveros was a tyrannical ruler, and his true sons Perin, Erivor, and Kernios made compact to dethrone him. They fought courageously against him and threw him down, and then returned him to the Void of Unbeing.

—from The Beginnings of Things, The Book of the Trigon

The skies over Hierosol were bright on this mild winter day, clouds piled high and white as the snowfall on the distant summit of Mount Sarissa and its neighbors. The thousand sails in the huge Harbor of Nektarios seemed a reflection of those clouds, as if the bay were a great green mirror.

The small inspector’s boat that had tied up beside the much larger trading vessel now cast free, the rowers ferrying the petty official back to the the harbor master’s office in the labyrinth of buildings behind the high eastern harbor wall where all legitimate business of the mighty port was transacted (and a great deal of its shadier workings, too). The trading ship, having duly submitted to the official’s inspection—a rather cursory one, noted Daikonas Vo— was now free to move toward its designated harbor slip.

Vo did not think much of the harbor master’s defenses against smuggling, and thought it likely that the lackey’s visit had been more about the ceremonial exchange of bribes for permits than any actual search for contraband, but he could not help admiring the city’s fortifications. Hierosol’s eastern peninsula, which contained most of the anchorage, was as formidable as its reputation suggested, the seawalls ten times the height of a man, studded with gunports and bristling with cannon like the quills of a porcupine. On the far side of the KulloanStrait stood the Finger, a narrow strip of land with its own heavy fortifications. Modern planners, reexamining the walls in this new age of cannonfire, had realized that if a determined attack should overthrow the much more thinly defended areas along the Finger, the heart of Hierosol would then be vulnerable to the citadel’s own guns. Thus, they had mounted smaller guns in those forts on the western side of the isthmus facing the city—cannons which could reach the middle of the strait, well within the compass of the eastern guns, but could not themselves reach the eastern wall.

Vo respected that in his cold way, as he respected most types of careful planning. If, as rumors suggested, Autarch Sulepis truly intended a conquest of Hierosol, Xis’ ancient rival, the Golden One would have hard work laid out before him.

Still, it would be interesting—a problem well worth the time and trouble, even without the rich reward of plunder, not to mention the choke hold a successful conqueror of Hierosol would gain on vast Lake Strivothos, the still mighty (and wealthy) kingdom of Syan, and the rest of the interior of Eion. Perhaps, Vo mused, after his own project was successfully concluded he might find himself moving higher in the circles of the autarch’s advisers. Yes, it would be a grand entertainment to devote adequate time and attention to cracking open Hierosol’s mighty walls like a nut, exposing all the frail, human flesh within to the mercies of the autarch’s armies, especially Vo’s own comrades, the White Hounds. If such a day came the Hounds would bloody their muzzles well, there was no doubt about that. Vo did not think particularly highly of the cleverness of his fellow Perikalese mercenaries but he had a deep respect for their essential hunger for combat. They were well-named: you could kennel them for years, but when you let them out, they struck like red Nature.

As he thought about it he could almost smell blood in the salty air, and for a moment the seagulls’ shrill cries seemed the lamentation of bereaved women. Daikonas Vo felt a thrill of anticipation, like a child being taken to the fair.

His belongings in a seabag slung across his shoulder, Vo gave the trading ship’s captain a farewell nod as he stepped onto the gangplank. The captain, flush with the pride of a man about to unload a full cargo hold, returned the gesture with magisterial condescension.

The merchant captain had proved to be a garrulous fool, and for that Vo was grateful. During their