Shadowheart (15 page)

“You . . . you have seen her?” After the girl disappeared that night, Idite had feared that Briony was dead or in a Southmarch dungeon, although in recent days she had heard rumors that the princess had somehow reached Tessis. “Truly? She is alive?”

He looked at her closely, as if he suspected her concern was not genuine. “Yes,” he said at last. “She lives. Although she will not talk much about the night of the fire.” He paused a moment, gazing at the starlike blossoms of the pear tree. “And besides your husband, many others died that night, Lady Dan-Mozan. I want to talk about one of them. About Shaso dan-Heza.”

Idite’s heart almost stopped beating. “Sh . . . Shaso?”

“Yes, Lady. The one whose daughter all believe I kidnapped and ravished. The man who hated me so much he swore he would cut out my heart and lay it on his daughter’s grave. Tell me about Shaso.”

“What . . . what do you mean?”

“Do not pretend he wasn’t in your husband’s house that night, Lady. I will not threaten you, but neither do I wish to be insulted. I know he was there—I have spoken to the princess, remember?”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Idite wondered if he truly would leave if she asked him. What could this famous monster want? Who could have sent him? “He was there, yes, Lord Shaso was. It was a secret. He was killed in the fire. Only myself, the other women, and a few of the servants survived.”

“But I do not believe that, my lady,” said Dawet. He stood up. He was taller than she’d imagined. His shadow fell across little Moseffir, who looked up in confused surprise, muddy twig clenched between his teeth. “I believe that Shaso dan-Heza is alive. And you, Lady, are going to tell me how I can find him.”

It was one of the most dreadful things Pinimmon Vash had ever seen, a dusty black horror as long as a supply wagon, with six thick plated walking legs and two more that each carried a heavy claw. Almost a dozen men pulled at it with ropes but still couldn’t coax it out of its cage at the bottom of the ramp, a box taller than a man, made of heavy wooden boughs woven together like wicker.

“By the gods, what is that terrible thing?” demanded Olin in a tone of horror. Even his guards had turned their backs on him to watch the angry thing swiping claws as large as ox-yokes at its handlers, who although presumably experienced with such creatures looked no happier at dealing with it than anyone else would be, their faces pale and set in tight, fearful lines.

“Have you never seen an
askorab
?” Vash tried to sound matter-of-fact, but it was not easy with a hissing monstrosity like that only a few dozen paces away, struggling so hard as it was dragged out of the cage that the sand it kicked was landing on the paramount minister’s feet. “I believe you have them in the south of Eion. The Hierosolines call them ...”

“Skorpas,” said Olin, staring as though he could not help himself. “Yes, I have seen them, but never one as big as a wagon . . . !”

“By my blood, but that is a handsome fellow!” said the autarch, laughing. “Have you ever seen such a splendid machine?”

“Machine? It is a living creature, or I miss my guess,” Olin said. “I can hear its breath piping.”

Sulepis chortled. The god-king was in a good mood. “I meant only that it was a machine in the sense of being something created to fulfill a task, as a plow turns the soil or a windmill turns a stone to grind grain. The forefathers of this brute in the Sanian desert hills were nothing like this big—scarcely larger than a hunting dog. He and his cousins have been bred just for this task.”

“And what task is worthy of such a hideous demon?” Olin asked, but if he meant to sound defiant or disgusted, he failed: even Vash could hear how shaken the man was by the sight of the terrible beast, which had just caught one of its handlers in a flailing pincer and was busy crushing out his life as the others struggled to hold onto their ropes and cursed uselessly, breaking their sticks against the monster’s hard shell.

“Why, to go down into the tunnels beneath your old home and clear them for us,” said the autarch. “The
askorabi
are hunters. This fellow will make short work of anything alive down there. And he is only one of a dozen!” Sulepis sat up straight. “Ah, look there—they have lured him out at last!”

“Lured” was perhaps not the word that Pinimmon Vash would have chosen, since a dozen more of the askorab-handlers had been forced to run and help their fellows keep the monster from escaping, but with so many more hands on the cords, they had at last managed to drag the hissing black beast out into the direct light. Vash saw that its tail was more slender in proportion than that of its small desert brothers, but still a formidable weapon, coiled over the creature’s back, trembling with the urge to drive the dripping barb at its tip into the handlers, who knew well enough to stay out of reach of the tail as well as the claws.

Most of them knew, Vash amended himself as another handler was abruptly caught up in a massive pincer, tweezed mostly in half, then shoved into the creature’s clicking mouth parts even as he still tried to scream. King Olin turned away, clearly struggling not to be sick, but Sulepis watched avidly.

“Into the tunnels with him!” the autarch shouted. He turned to Olin and Vash. “Then we will seal the entrance with a big stone.” He seemed as pleased as a child describing a new game. “They are all but blind—the beast will go downward in search of food.” He frowned. “They should not have let him eat that slave. He will be sluggish.” The moment of bad humor did not last. “Then we will let the next ones go. Soon the tunnels beneath Southmarch will be full of these beauties.”

Olin looked up, pale and shocked. “But the tunnels beneath the castle—some of them must lead to Funderling Town. And from there, up to the rest of the city.”

“Yes,” said the autarch. “Yes, indeed.”

“And it would be pointless to beg you not to do this,” said the northern king heavily, “wouldn’t it? To say that if you refrain, I will cooperate with whatever you plan?”

“Worse than pointless,” said Sulepis, smiling. “You will cooperate whether you wish to or no, Olin Eddon—your part in what is to come is important but not subtle. And although I have soldiers in the thousands, I myself must go down into the depths beneath your old home. Do you see? In the dark caves there are many places to hide in ambush. But when the
askorabi
are finished, nothing that breathes will remain.”

“It is not that skorpa who is the monster here,” Olin said.

Sulepis only laughed. It seemed there was nothing the northerner could ever say to make the autarch lose his temper—an astounding talent to have, and one that Vash fervently wished he, too, possessed. “I am another perfect machine, King Olin. I let nothing stand in my way.” He clapped his long, gold-bejeweled hands and his platform was carried away, back toward the massive tent that had been set up in the town square, a new Orchard Palace underneath the skies of the March Kingdom.

The
askorab
had lifted what was left of the dead handler and had stung it over and over in a raging frenzy until what remained was scarcely recognizable as having once been human. As the shouting handlers slowly drove the many-legged beast toward the rocks, it dropped the tattered remains into the sand. The other handlers, ashen to a man, turned their faces away as they passed. Behind them, scores of other workers were lowering more cages down from the deck, each with its own hideous, hissing passenger.

“We shall probably lose a few
askorabi
down in the depths,” the autarch said cheerfully. “They are not hounds, after all—they will not return when called. It is interesting to think that generations from now their descendants will probably still be emerging from the tunnels to hunt unwary travelers. ...”

Olin’s movement was so swift it astounded Vash, who had come to think of the northern king as someone like himself—older, passive, a creature of mind and manners. With a shout of rage that clearly had been long bottled inside him, the northerner leaped past his own guards and in a quick two paces had crossed the sand to the autarch’s litter, then began to clamber up onto the platform. The autarch watched with interest, as if the murderous northern monarch was just another entertainment. Olin’s attack was hindered by the alarmed slaves, who in their sudden fear made the whole litter dip and sway precariously, so that Olin slid backward, away from the autarch, but the Leopard guards had already moved to block him. Three of the elite guardsmen grabbed the northerner and yanked him off the litter, then threw him to the ground. Two of them knelt on his arms while the third set his blade against the king’s throat hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.

“Don’t hurt him,” said Sulepis, sounding for all the world as if Olin had done nothing more than startle them all with a clever trick. “He is valuable to me.”

The skin of Olin Eddon’s face was white above his beard and he was trembling in every limb as the guards roughly dragged him to his feet—he looked as though he might even try to attack the autarch again. Instead, to Pinimmon Vash’s great relief, the northerner yanked himself loose from the unresisting guards and stalked away up the beach, back toward the autarch’s camp and the guarded tent that served as his prison. His guards hurried after him.

Vash, however, was still petrified. “Golden One, I am so sorry . . . !”

The autarch laughed. “I was beginning to wonder whether any blood at all ran in that man’s veins, let alone the ichor of a god.” He nodded. “I would not want to spoil my long years of preparation by the use of an insufficient vessel.” He waved his hand and his slaves turned the platform around to face the distant rocks. “Oh, and see that all King Olin’s guards are replaced, then execute them. Do it in front of the other men. Make it slow, so the lesson is well-learned by their replacements.” He raised his hand and the slaves stopped moving. “There was something else ...” The autarch frowned, closing his brilliant yellow eyes to think. “Ah!” he said, opening them again. “Of course! Arrange a parley with the master of Southmarch Castle. Time is growing short.”

He wriggled his fingers and the slaves carried him away down the beach—to watch the rest of the
askorabi
being released into the tunnels, Vash presumed. He watched him go.

Surely even the northern king has realized by now that the Golden One cannot be resisted,
thought Pinimmon Vash, as if someone had spoken to him, had questioned him, but of course he was now alone on the dock.
Only a fool would do anything differently than I have done.

—from “A Child’s Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven”

 

 

 

“Y
OU ARE A DRUNKARD AND A FOOL, Crowel.” Hendon Tolly then turned on his constable, Berkan Hood. “And you are no better!” His voice echoed through the Erivor Chapel. “I should have both your heads this very moment.”

“But, my lord, it is true!” Durstin Crowel insisted. “The Twilight People are gone! Come up onto the battlements with me and see for yourself.”

“Not even the fairies can make an entire camp of more than a thousand soldiers disappear in a night without a single sound,” Tolly snarled. “In any case, why would they retreat? They were winning! No, the Qar and their ancient bitch of a leader are planning something . . . and you are too stupid to see it!”

Crowel’s face turned ugly with frustration, but instead of replying he closed his mouth with an almost audible
snap
. Even a pig like the Baron of Graylock knew better than to trade words with Hendon Tolly when he was in a foul mood. Tinwright, who still remembered several near escapes from Crowel and his cronies, was a little disappointed by his restraint.

“Doubtless you are right, Lordship,” said Tirnan Havemore, the castellan. “And that is why we have all come to you, because we need your wisdom.”

“If you butter me any more thickly, Havemore, I shall slip out of your fingers,” Tolly said with a scowl, but the worst of his anger seemed to have passed. Tinwright, who had been unwillingly keeping company for several days with the lord protector of Southmarch, had never met anyone so mercurial of mood, laughing and jesting one moment, beating a servant almost to death a few scant instants later. He was like a weathercock that never rested, spinning always toward a new direction and new extremes. “What do you say, Hood?” Tolly asked the lord constable again, sounding almost reasonable this time. “Are they truly gone? And if you say so, pray then tell me why that should be.”

Tinwright had heard almost as many terrifying stories about the scarred, muscular Berkan Hood as about Lord Tolly himself. Since Hood had become lord constable, dozens of people heard to speak slightingly of the Tollys in any way, especially those who suggested the disappearance of Princess Briony and her brother might have something to do with Hendon and his family, had quickly disappeared themselves. Rumor said they were brought to the little fortress Berkan Hood had made for himself in the Tower of Autumn. After that, nobody heard from them again, although from time to time faceless corpses were found floating in the East Lagoon just below the tower.