The River of Shadows Part 52

"The gla.s.s spiders come from here, don't they?"

The Teller looked pleased. "That was shrewd, my boy. Yes, they enter Vasparhaven by this pool, and it is said that when they no longer come we must abandon the temple forever. That day will certainly come, for I see it in every version of our future. A few years from now, it may be, or when my novices grow old, or perhaps when Alifros itself falls to ruin. But of that darkest future you know more than I do myself. You have borne the agent of that future, the black orb you call the Nilstone. And you have seen the Swarm of Night."

Pazel shuddered. He did not want to think about the Swarm. "Father, how can I be in nuhzat nuhzat? I'm not a dlomu." He looked up at the old seer, pondering. "Unless...Prince Olik said that some humans could go into nuhzat nuhzat, if they'd been close to dlomu, in the old days before the plague. And my mother came from that time. And Rin knows she has a lot of fits. Could she have been with a dlomu, Father, before she crossed the Ruling Sea? Was she slipping into nuhzat nuhzat, all those times we thought she was mad?"

The old Teller smiled inscrutably. "Knowledge, Pazel Pathkendle. Hasn't that been your desire from the start?"

Pazel leaned over the edge of the pool. The bottom was a mosaic of fine blue tiles. "I'm not going to drink," he said. "Don't take it the wrong way, Father, but I've had quite enough of-"

He stopped. The Master Teller was gone without a trace. He stood alone in the chamber, facing the dimly glowing pool.

Alarmed, he turned in a circle. Behind him was a dark doorway, and a staircase leading down. He felt the temptation sharply...but there lay the pool. He bent down and dipped his hand into the water. It was icy cold.

Knowledge. What good did it do? Was he happier for knowing the mind-bruising languages of murths and eguar? The tortured life of Sandor Ott? The fact that something as ghastly as the Swarm lurked just outside Alifros, pressing in, like an ogre's face at the window? What would he learn this time? Something even more terrible, probably.

He cupped some water in his hand, and winced: even that little puddle on his palm burned with cold. He brought it close to his mouth. No, by the Pits. He did not want any more visions. He deserved not to see.

He drank.

At first the cold all but scalded his lips, but when he swallowed it was mere water he tasted, cool but pleasant. He dipped his hand and drank again, his fear abruptly gone. It was too late anyway, and despite the earlier wine and tea, he was thirsty.

After his fourth drink something made him look up. Directly across the pool a figure crouched, in almost the same posture as Pazel himself. A woman. She was no more than a silhouette above the pale blue light.

Was she the one who had met him in the first chamber, the one whose hand had always been there to catch him? He blinked. Something was still wrong with his eyes, or his mind. For although there was enough light to see her, he could not decide if she were young or old, human or dlomu. "Who are you?" he whispered.

The woman shook her head: speaking, apparently, was once more forbidden. Her very silence, however, woke a sudden and almost overpowering desire in Pazel: a desire to see her clearly, to know her, touch her. More than anything, to speak her name.

He rose and started around the pool-and the woman, quick and agile, jumped up and moved in the opposite direction, keeping the water between them. Pazel changed directions: she did the same. Heart hammering, he feinted one way, then dashed another. She mirrored him perfectly. She could not be fooled.

He stopped dead. Their eyes met; he had a vague idea that she was teasing him. Fine Fine, he thought obstinately, you win you win. He stepped down into the pool, and the cold closed like teeth upon his ankles.

The woman gazed at him, standing very still. Pazel gritted his teeth and stepped down again, and then again. The water was now above his waist, and the cold was a shout of pain that would not stop. Two more steps to the bottom. There were deep cracks in the floor, some wide enough to put his foot in, and an idea came to him that the cracks led down infinitely far, into a dark turbulence beyond the bounds of Alifros. He descended another step, and then the woman put out her hand.

Stop. The command was as plain as if she had spoken aloud. She crouched again, lowering both hands into the pool, and when she lifted them he saw that they held something beautiful.

It was a transparent sphere, very much like the one Kirishgan had formed with the spider's liquid, but this one was as wide as a bushel basket, and growing even as he watched. Like the other sphere it seemed light in her hands, and very fragile. Colors and whorls and tiny translucent shapes danced over its surface, racing like clouds. Like a soap bubble, it rested on the surface of the pool, and very soon it had grown so large that Pazel had to retreat one step, and then another, until he was back upon the pool's rim, watching her distorted features through that sleek, uncanny shape.

Pazel knew now what he must do. Watching her, he raised his hands and laid them very carefully upon the sphere.

It trembled at his touch. The woman stared at him, cautious as a deer, and Pazel found he could barely breathe. He had been missing her before he knew she existed. Or had been a part of her before he ever fully became himself.

Mother?

He moved toward her slowly, keeping his hands upon the sphere. He knew somehow that she was alarmed, but this time she did not step away. The sphere so unthinkably delicate. Perhaps she did not dare to move.

Neda?

Islands formed between his fingers; continents turned before his eyes. Their hands were on the surface of the world. They were lifting countries, moving seas. She was frightened, yet she laughed silently, and so did he.

Thasha?

He could feel the world's winds across his knuckles; the ocean currents tickling his palms. It was like the best moments of his Gift, when the joy of an exquisite language, a language not of suffering but of song, burst open like a rose in his mind. He could look wide across the sphere and see whole coastlines; he could peer close and see the smallest details. A crumbling glacier, a forest draped with sleeping b.u.t.terflies, a tiny houseboat in a river delta, a diving bell abandoned on a beach.

Klyst?

There was Etherhorde, smoking, bustling; there were her fleets on the prowl. And Aya Rin Aya Rin, there was Ormael, her flat little houses, her cobbled streets, her rubbishy port. The orchard settlements, his houserow, his house. The very window of the room he'd crawled out of years before, clutching a knife and an ivory whale.

Pazel blinked, startled, and found his gaze had flown westward thousands of miles. Now he was following a real whale as it hurled itself, suicidally, upon a beach. It wallowed in the surf, exhausted, possibly dying. Then an armed mob rushed down the beach and surrounded it. One of them, the bravest, put his hand in the whale's mouth and extracted a golden scepter, and when he held it high the other men fell to their knees in prayer. And suddenly the whale was no longer a whale but a young man, or possibly the corpse of one.

But that scepter: solid gold, but crowned with a black shard of crystal. It was Sathek's Scepter, the Mzithrini relic, and that meant the island must be- Pazel blinked again: the scene was gone. He was only an arm's length from the woman, and more desperate than ever to know who she was. But now upon the world-sphere there moved a teeming darkness, a boiling cloud. It pa.s.sed over towns and cities and left them blackened; it moved over the land and left blight. The woman saw it too, and he felt her calling to him silently: Fight it, stop it, stop the Swarm! Fight it, stop it, stop the Swarm! The Swarm! How could she expect him to fight it? How could anyone fight for a world plagued by The Swarm! How could she expect him to fight it? How could anyone fight for a world plagued by that that?

And yet (Pazel met the woman's eyes again) it was no greater than what they shared, the bond between them, the growing trust. He felt suddenly that this was the knowledge he had taken with those gulps of water: the absurdly simple gift of trust and peacefulness. For a moment he did not care if she were human or dlomu or something drastically different. He knew the joy of being close to her, and that was enough.

The darkness began to retreat. Light shone again from the sphere, and once more the winds flowed clean over his hands. They stood like twin statues, and Pazel sensed the woman's fear ebbing away. Such peace! Could you still want conquests, power over others, worship and dominion and treasure, once you'd felt such peace?

To notice peace when you had it. That was treasure. That was what waking waking was for. was for.

Through the gla.s.s he saw her wide adoring smile. She closed her eyes, and in repose she was so lovely that he could not help it, he lifted a hand and reached to touch her, and the gla.s.s sphere burst and rained in a million shards into the pool.

He was alone.

Pazel whirled: one small gla.s.s spider crawled from the water and vanished across the floor. He raced around the pool. Gone, gone: he should have been howling with loss. But he could not. He had loved her (loved what?), but her loss was suddenly distant and elusive, as though they had parted years ago.

No, not years. Centuries.

He stared at the empty chamber, shaking, convulsing. There was no source of warmth; he had to move or die. He groped for the exit, dripping, sensing already the deeper cold that lay ahead.

The stairway spat him out upon the lakesh.o.r.e, half a mile from Vasparhaven, among tall rocks sheathed in ice. The first thing he saw was Hercol and Alyash and Counselor Vadu, talking to a squat figure beside a long wooden boat.

Pazel staggered from the doorway, and the wind went through him like knives. But a bit farther on a great fire blazed, and Ibjen stood warming his shoes. Thasha and Neeps were there as well. They raced to his side, and Thasha wrapped a woolen towel about his shoulders and dragged him to the fire, swearing like a Volpek.

He watched her gruffly as she dried his hair. "You lunatic, lunatic," she said, her voice shrill with concern. "You're cold as a blary fish. How did you get soaked like that?"

Pazel closed his eyes.

"Get nearer to the fire. Take off that mucking shirt!"

He obeyed. Neeps made a joke about him needing a bath anyway, but fell silent when he glared. Thasha was looking at him strangely.

"A novice came from the temple," she said. "He gave me something gorgeous, in a tiny wooden box. He said it came from you."

Pazel wished she would just stop talking. He was clutching at memories, like fragments of a story heard once in childhood, and never again. A strange woman, a shining globe.

"We're crossing the lake tonight," said Thasha, drying him vigorously, "in three boats. If Hercol can make himself understood, that is. You should go and talk to the fisherfolk, Pazel. They're mizralds, and we just can't tell what they're trying to say. I think they're afraid of the north sh.o.r.e, but Hercol-"

"Ouch!" he snapped. "Not so hard, d.a.m.n it!"

Thasha lowered the towel. "Baby."

"Savage."

Their eyes met. He touched his scalp, brought away a b.l.o.o.d.y finger. He was quite annoyed with her, and wondered at the months of agony he'd let her cause. Then Thasha reached into his hair, and brought away something small and hard. It gleamed in the firelight: a shard of crystal, which even as he reached out a finger melted like ice and was gone.

The Black Tongue

8 Modobrin 941 237th day from Etherhorde

When the keel of the fishing-boat dug into the sandy sh.o.r.e, Ibjen was first out: the journey had turned his stomach. And it had been bad, Pazel thought: the open boat with its one spindly mast and weird ribbed sail flapping about like a fin, no lamps on it anywhere, cutting through all that darkness with the wind howling over the peaks, the bright stars wheeling as they pitched and heaved, ice floes looming up suddenly, sometimes even grinding against their sides...He shuddered, and leaped out himself, and winced as his feet sank to the ankles in the watery sand. Freezing, even at midsummer Freezing, even at midsummer. How did they manage, those fisherfolk, year after icebound year?

At least the moon had sailed above the peaks: a full moon, by which the snowcaps dimly glowed. The second boat drew up beside the first, and the fisherman's uncle leaped barefoot into the water and pulled it in.

"And to think I'd hoped to sleep sleep a little," growled Big Skip, wading ash.o.r.e as the dogs leaped out around him. He cursed as the nearest one shook its wet coat vigorously, then opened the front of his coat. "Are you well, my ladies?" he asked. a little," growled Big Skip, wading ash.o.r.e as the dogs leaped out around him. He cursed as the nearest one shook its wet coat vigorously, then opened the front of his coat. "Are you well, my ladies?" he asked.

"Alive, anyway," said Ensyl as she and Myett crawled groggily to his shoulders.

The mizralds kept looking at the sh.o.r.e, as though anxious to be gone from it. Hercol counted coins into the fisherman's hand. The man's wife took one and studied the strange Arquali designs. "It's a fake," she announced. "There's a tol-chenni tol-chenni on this coin." on this coin."

"It's real gold, I bit one," said the fisherman's brother.

"That's the face of His Supremacy Magad the Fifth you just gnashed," said Dastu coldly. "You understand? He's our Emperor, our King."

The fisherman's son laughed. "King of the tol-chenni tol-chenni. King of the monkeys, the beasts!" He hooted and beat his chest. His uncle laughed, but his father scowled at him, embarra.s.sed. Pazel looked at the wrinkled, wind-chapped creature. Was he, like Ibjen's father, just old enough to recall the days before the plague?

Soon all the chilly pa.s.sengers were ash.o.r.e. Hercol placed the twentieth coin in the man's palm, then smiled and added another fistful. "Ask them not to speak of us to strangers, Pazel," he said. "There is still a chance we might be pursued."

The family waved goodbye, delight beginning to show on their faces as they realized there was no trick.

"Come," urged Hercol. "We have gained a few miles on Arunis, I think. Let us gain a few more."

He started at once up the gray, wind-sculpted beach. As the others straggled after him, Pazel heard a shout from the old fisherman. He turned: the mizrald was splashing up to him.

"You will go down the Ansyndra, and across the burn? What you call Black Tongue Black Tongue?"

"Well, yes," said Pazel. "There's no other way, is there?"

The mizrald shook his head. "No other way. No other way except with wings."

"Wings would be dandy," said Pazel.

The fisherman nodded solemnly.

"Well," said Pazel, "goodbye."

"You go at night, eh? Only at night across the burn. Darkly, quietly: that's how it's done. Tell your friends. Because by daylight-no, no."

"No?"

The mizrald drew his finger across his throat. "No, no and no."

He stared at Pazel with concern, and looked as though he wished to say more. Then (as his family howled in protest) he pulled the youth down and planted a kiss upon his forehead. Then he turned and pushed his boat offsh.o.r.e.

Stunned, Pazel hurried after the others. They were trudging west along the rim of the lake, toward the spot the mizralds had said was the only way down. Pazel could hear a rushing of water, and the now very familiar slushing roar of a waterfall. He ran, catching up with Neeps and Thasha. Neeps was gazing back across the lake.

"How are we supposed to return?" he said. "The fisherwoman herself said they almost never come down here. And half the time there's no sh.o.r.e to walk along, just blary cliffs. How are we supposed to get back?"

"There must be trails through the mountains," said Pazel, trying to sound as though he believed it. "Hercol and Olik must have thought about it, mate. Don't worry."

Thasha's gaze swept darkly over the peaks. "They thought about it, all right," she said.

Their destination, as it happened, was similar to the Chalice of the Mai: a river outlet above a sharp descent. But then Pazel swayed and stepped back, dizzied by what he saw. Where the Mai had begun as no more than a stream, this was a thrashing watercourse, descending almost vertically within a deep, twisting crack down the mountainside. In many spots the water vanished under boulders; in others it surged forth in a chaos of white spray. There were outright cliffs beneath them too, where the river became falls. And very close to the river, bolted fast to the rock, was a heavy iron ladder. It descended some forty feet and met up with a wet, steep trail that snaked back and forth down the mountain to another ladder, which in turn met another trail, and so on for some distance. Even by moonlight Pazel could see how far and fast the Ansyndra descended, falls beneath falls beneath falls...

"The ladders will take us only so far," Vadu was explaining. "There, at that widest shelf, you can see where the Black Tongue begins."

Pazel could not see it, in fact, for the men were all crowding hazardously for a view. Quickly he told the others what the mizrald had said.

"By night alone," mused Hercol. "Prince Olik too had heard rumors to that effect."

"Nonsense," said Vadu. "Day or night makes no difference. Look there: you will see what does."

This time Pazel managed to catch a glimpse. Far down the black ridge a faint light shone. Something was burning, with flames that danced and guttered in the wind, throwing sparks into the night. Then all at once it was gone. Utter darkness wrapped the slopes again.

"A fumarole," said Vadu, "a tunnel into the depths, formed as the lava cooled. The gases that erupt from those horrid pipes are flammable, and sudden in their emergence. But something worse dwells in them: the flame-trolls. Idlers who never leave the Upper City will tell you that they are mere legends, but we who carry the Plazic Blades know better. They are real, and deadly. When they emerge, no living thing can cross the Tongue."

"And when is that, Counselor?" asked Myett, from Big Skip's shoulder.

"When they hear footsteps on their roof," he said. "Or loud voices, possibly. Many parts of the Tongue are but a hollow crust."

"How did ye learn so much about the place?" asked Alyash.

Vadu gave him a rather hostile glance.

"The answer to that can wait," said Cayer Vispek. "The crossing cannot, if we are to go by night as Pathkendle says."

"I tell you silence is all that matters," said Vadu.