The Shadow Isle

PART I

The Westlands Spring, 1160

Some say that the ancient mages of the Seven Cities, those long dead fortresses of beauty and magic, left a record of their secret work not in words or images but in stones and earth. Yet I for one call such a foolish tale, because I see not how it may be possible, no, not in the least.

The Pseudo-Iamblichos Scroll

‘The crux of the problem,’ Valandario said, ‘is Laz. We want the pair of crystals. As far as we know, he still has them. Finding them means finding him.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ Dallandra said. ‘I wish I knew whether or not he’s worth the effort of finding.’

‘Sidro says he is.’

‘Sidro loves him or thinks she does. She’s not a reliable advocate. From everything she’s told me about him, I certainly don’t understand how she could care so much about him.’

Valandario managed to shield her thought just in time. You’re a fine one to talk about her, Dalla, running off with that awful Evandar the way you did! They were communicating through the fire, Valandario in her chamber in Mandra, Dallandra in her tent some miles east.

‘So you’re convinced he’s still alive,’ Valandario said.

‘Not I.’ Dallandra’s image, floating above the bed of coals in the brazier, paused for a wry smile. ‘My guess would be that he’s dwelling on the spirit plane, waiting to be reborn. It’s Vek who’s convinced he’s still alive.’

‘Vek? Oh, yes, that Horsekin boy prophet.’

‘A Gel da’Thae boy prophet. There really is a difference.’

‘Very well, if you say so. Now, consider the vision Ebañy saw in the crystal, Evandar standing on Haen Marn. Do you think that means the crystal’s linked to the island?’

‘It might, but you can’t trust Evandar’s riddles to be logical. It certainly indicates that the book he was holding is linked to Haen Marn. But the crystal – I can’t say either way.’

‘Blast! I was afraid of that. Can we definitely say that wherever Haen Marn may be, it’s not the physical plane?’

‘Again, maybe. It’s surrounded by water, after all. Maybe it’s enough water to make scrying impossible.’

‘If it’s surrounded by water, how could Evandar even reach it? The play of forces in the water veil should have torn him apart.’

‘That’s a very good question. He probably couldn’t, and the view of Haen Marn that Salamander saw is just an image of the place. Probably. I don’t really know.’

‘In short, we can’t say anything useful about the wretched island at all, and I’m starting to think the beastly thing should just stay gone.’

Dallandra laughed. ‘Val, your image looks so sour! Not that I blame you, mind.’

‘Thank you, I suppose. The omens are so tangled! It’s enough to drive one daft.’

‘I couldn’t agree more about that. But tell me, how are you surviving the winter?’

‘Well, I miss everyone in the alar, but I have to admit that I’ve never been so comfortable in my life.’

For a while they spoke of trivial things, then broke the link between them. Valandario leaned back in her chair and considered the set of rough shelves across from her, a precious library of some fifty books protected by the solid walls of her chamber. For the first time in her life, Valandario had spent the winter inside a house rather than a tent.

In the winter the Westfolk and their herds usually moved south, until, by the shortest day in the year, they camped along the seacoast. Although it snowed only rarely that far south, it did rain three or four days out of every five. In a Westfolk tent, Grallezar’s library of dweomer books would have stood in as much danger as it had faced from the devotees of Alshandra back in Braemel, its original home, although the danger would have come from water, not fire.

Another place, however, had offered it shelter – Linalavenmandra, the new town that returning elven refugees had built at a natural harbour near the Deverry border. Although the name meant ‘sorrow but new hope’, its eight hundred inhabitants generally called it Mandra, simply ‘hope’. They were young people, by and large, fleeing the minutely structured life of the far distant Southern Isles where they’d been born. To them, having a Wise One, as the Westfolk term their dweomermasters, among them was not merely an honour, but a sign that their town had achieved the same status as the ancient cities they’d left behind.

So, when Valandario had volunteered to live in Mandra and tend Grallezar’s library, the townsfolk had responded by finding a house with room for her and the books both. She had moved all her belongings into a big upstairs chamber with a view of the sea from its window. Elaborately patterned Bardekian rugs covered the floor, her red and blue tent bags hung along the walls, embroidered cushions of green and purple lay piled on the narrow bed. The townsfolk had added a wooden table and chair so the Wise One could study her books in comfort and a small wooden coffer to keep her supply of oil, wicks, and clay lamps handy.

‘Wise One?’ Lara, the woman who owned the house with her husband, appeared in the doorway to the chamber. ‘We’re preparing dinner. Would you like some meat with your bread and soup?’

‘No, thank you. I’m not very hungry.’

Lara smiled, made a little bow, then silently shut the door again. Laradalpancora, to give her her full name, and her husband, Jinsavadelan, insisted on acting as if they were servants in Valandario’s house rather than the owners of the house in question, cooking, cleaning, mending her clothes, and generally fussing over her. They also fussed over each other.

‘They never would have let us marry back home,’ Lara told her one evening. ‘Even though we’d loved each other for years. So we had to come here.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Val said. ‘Who’s they, and why would they forbid it?’

‘The Council, of course. Jin’s birth-clan was too far above mine in rank.’ She held her head high with a defiant lift to her chin. ‘That doesn’t matter here.’

Jin smiled at her with such a depth of feeling that Val quietly got up and left the room. Seeing them so happy had woken an old grief. At times after that conversation, she missed Jav as badly as if he’d been murdered only a few years past.

Val used her work to blot her memories from her mind, reading for hours on end in pale sun or flickering candlelight until her eyes watered and ached. She was searching for information concerning a particularly powerful act of dweomer, one beyond the capabilities of any living dweomermaster, elven or human alike. Any one of Grallezar’s books might have held a clue. Fortunately, most of them were bilingual, with a roughly translated elven text on one page and the Gel da’Thae text facing it. Grallezar had wanted to make the knowledge they contained accessible to Westfolk dweomermasters as well her own people.

As Valandario read through each book, she copied any relevant passages onto a scroll made of pabrus, a writing material that had come over from the islands with the new settlers. One book in particular she kept on the table near her, but not for its information. Bound in black leather, decorated with a white appliqué of a dragon, it contained a translation into Gel da’Thae of a familiar work on dweomer, one she knew practically by heart. Its importance lay in its links to its previous owner, Laz Moj. According to Sidro, he’d made the translation and written it out in the book as well. Now and then Val would lay a hand upon it and try to pick up some impression of its absent scribe. Very slowly, an insight grew in her mind. Once she could articulate it, she presented it to Dallandra.

‘It’s about Laz’s book. It’s the antithesis of the one Evandar showed Ebañy in the vision crystal. The binding’s in the opposite colours, and the information inside it is well-known, while we don’t have any idea what may be in Evandar’s.’

‘That’s all true,’ Dallandra said.

‘So if the two books are linked by antithesis, they might echo the pair of crystals, the black and the white.’

‘In which case,’ Dalla continued the thought, ‘the missing book might also tell us about the crystals.’

‘Exactly! Furthermore, both the crystals and the island are shadows from some higher plane. Could it be that Haen Marn’s their real home, and they wanted to take Laz there for some reason?’

‘Or else they used him to get there. Salamander was planning on smashing the black one. I wonder if it was trying to escape.’

‘How would it have known?’ Val asked. ‘You don’t think it had some kind of consciousness, do you?’

‘I can’t say either way. I didn’t get to study it for very long.’

‘That’s not exactly helpful.’

Dallandra’s image grinned at her. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not thinking very clearly these days. It’s the baby, I suppose. I’m sinking to the level of a pregnant animal, all warm and broody like a mother dog.’ Her smile disappeared. ‘I hate it.’

‘At least it’s only temporary.’

‘That’s very true, and I thank the Star Goddesses for it.’

Dallandra’s image, floating over the glowing coals, suddenly wavered, faded, then returned to clarity.

‘Val, I have to leave,’ Dallandra said. ‘Someone’s calling for me, and they sound panicked.’

‘Dalla! Dalla!’ Branna was standing right outside the tent. ‘Vek’s having a seizure, and it’s a bad one.’

Dallandra grabbed the tent bag of medicinals she kept ready for these occasions and hurried outside. Wrapped in a heavy cloak, Branna stood waiting for her. A mist that fell just short of rain swirled around her in the grey light and beaded her blonde hair. Her grey gnome hunkered down next to her and squeezed handfuls of mud through its twiggy fingers.

‘He’s in Sidro and Pir’s tent,’ Branna said. ‘Over this way.’

The gnome dematerialized as they hurried through the maze of round tents, as strangely silent as winter camps always were, with life moved so resolutely inside. As usual, the winter rains had washed off their painted decorations, leaving strange ghostly stains on the leather, outlines to be repainted once the weather turned towards summer. In the grey light it seemed that the camp lay caught between two worlds of water and earth, scarcely there. Since Branna was striding along just ahead of her, Dallandra noticed that the girl’s dress hung thick with yellow-brown mud about her ankles. Her clogs sank into the ground with every step.

‘You really need to wear leggings and boots,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’ll get the women to make you some.’

‘I suppose so,’ Branna said. ‘I’m just so used to dresses, but truly, it’s impossible to keep them clean out here.’ She paused for a sigh. ‘It sounded so exciting, coming to live among the Westfolk. I didn’t realize what the winters would be like.’

‘They can be a bit grim, truly.’

‘I understand now why Salamander wintered with my uncle. I thought he was daft for it, until the rains started.’

‘Do you want to go home?’

‘I don’t. There’s too much to learn here. I just wish I could get really dry and warm.’

‘Well, it’s almost spring. Things will be better then.’

‘The days are getting longer, truly.’ Branna paused to extricate a clog from a particularly sticky lump of mud.

‘And in a few days we’ll move camp,’ Dallandra continued. ‘The ground will be cleaner in the new site.’

Sidro and Pir had pitched their newly made tent on the edge of the camp, not far from the horse herd. When Dallandra ducked inside, she saw Vek kneeling on the floor cloth and leaning, face forward, onto a supporting heap of leather cushions. He’d come of age the summer past, and as was usual among the Horsekin, he’d been bald until that point in his life. Still short and straight, his black hair clung to his dead-white skin. Sidro knelt beside him and wiped his sweaty face with a damp rag. Drool laced with pink stained the neckline of his dirty linen tunic.

‘I do think the worst be done with,’ Sidro said. ‘But he did bite his tongue afore I could get him turned over and sitting up like this.’

Branna hovered back in the curve of the wall to watch. Dallandra laid her bag down, then knelt at Vek’s other side. When she laid her hand on his face, she found it cold and clammy. He looked at her out of one dark eye.

‘I’ve brought your drops,’ Dallandra said. ‘Let me just get them out.’

In response he let his mouth hang open. She rummaged through the tent bag and found the tiny glass vial, filled with an extremely potent tincture of valerian. It smelled horrible and must have tasted worse, but Vek neither squirmed nor made a face when she used the glass stopper to drip a small quantity into his mouth. She could see the cut on the side of his tongue – not big enough to worry about, she decided.

‘You know this will help. Good lad!’ Dallandra made her voice soothing and soft, as if she were speaking to a small child instead of a boy who was at least thirteen summers old. She was never sure how much he understood when he was in this condition. Afterwards he could never remember.

Sidro handed her a cup of spiced honey water. Dallandra helped Vek drink a few sips to wash the medicine down and the taste out of his mouth. She gave the cup back to Sidro, then patted him on the shoulder.

‘You just rest now,’ Dallandra said. ‘Sidro, will it be all right if he stays here with you?’

‘Of course. Help me lie him down on those blankets over there. Pir be out with the horses, but he’d not mind anyway were he here.’

‘I’ll help.’ Branna stepped forward. ‘Dalla, you shouldn’t lift anything heavy.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Dallandra laid her hands on her swollen stomach, hanging over the waist of her leather leggings – she no longer bothered to lace them up in front. ‘This is the part about being with child that I hated before, feeling so bloated and awkward.’

‘True spoken,’ Sidro said. ‘But I’d put up with that again gladly to give Pir a child. He does so want one.’ She smiled. ‘He’s not like Laz.’

‘I’ve no doubt you’ll get your wish soon. You’re both in good health.’

‘So did Exalted Mother Grallezar say. She did tell me that when one woman in a circle be with child, the rest be sure to follow. The smell in the air does induce fertility.’ Sidro grinned and took a deep breath. ‘I do hope she be right.’

‘She generally is,’ Dalla said.

As if she’d heard, the female child in Dallandra’s womb kicked her, an unpleasant sensation though not precisely a pain, as she’d missed the kidneys – this time. Soon, little one, Dallandra thought, soon you’ll be out, and we’ll both be free of this.

Between them Branna and Sidro hauled Vek to his feet. He threw an arm over each of their shoulders and let them drag him to the heap of blankets over by the wall of the tent. Once he was lying down comfortably, the two women came back to distribute the leather cushions and sit with Dallandra. Sidro ran both hands through her raven-dark hair, still too short to braid thanks to her humiliation of the summer before, and pushed it back from her face.

‘And what about you, Branna?’ Sidro said. ‘Do you too long for a child?’

Branna’s grey gnome popped into materialization and shook its head in a resounding no.

‘What’s this?’ Branna said to the gnome. ‘You’d be jealous, I suppose.’ She brought her attention back to Sidro. ‘I hope this doesn’t mean I’m an awful unnatural woman, but I don’t really want a child just now. I want to keep studying dweomer. A baby would be a nuisance.’

‘Not here,’ Dallandra said, ‘not among the Westfolk. We prize our children so much that you’ll have plenty of help when you do give birth.’

‘Good. If he got me with child, Neb doubtless would gloat over it, but I’ll wager he wouldn’t be any help with the baby. Although I might be doing him a disservice. He’s not like the men I grew up with.’

‘I’m glad you can see that.’ Dallandra smiled at her. ‘An honour-bound warrior he’s not.’

Over on the blankets Vek let out a long snore, then turned over on his side and nestled down, his back to the women.

‘Good, he’s asleep,’ Dallandra said. ‘That’s the best thing for him.’

‘So it is,’ Sidro said, then lowered her voice to a murmur. ‘He had one of his visions during the fit.’

‘Did he see Laz or the black stone?’ Dallandra leaned closer and spoke softly.

‘Alas, he did not. He spoke of a tower that reached to the sky, but it turned to smoke.’

‘The tower did?’

‘It turned to a pillar of smoke whilst it sent out flames, he did say. Do you think his mind did fasten on the burning of Zakh Gral? The men here have talked of little else all winter long.’

‘It seems likely, truly. Did he say anything about where this tower was?’

‘He did not, but many of our people – the Gel da’Thae, that be – did die in the flames. He wept to see it. Then spirits came down from heaven and spread snow upon the burning, and the snow did fall everywhere and ruin a harvest. The oats and barley in the field do die, he cried out. The snow were ashes, I suppose.’ Sidro frowned, thinking. ‘But there were no tilled fields near Zakh Gral. The rakzanir did speak of settling slave farmers around it to feed the soldiers stationed there, but that were to happen the next year. Our food did come from the cities.’

‘Well, I don’t think we can expect every detail of his visions to make perfect sense.’ Dallandra glanced at Vek to make sure that he was still sound asleep. ‘This one seems clearer than the others, though, so I can see why you’re trying to puzzle it out.

‘So it be.’ Sidro paused for a sigh. ‘I think me, Wise One, that we’ll be having a harvest of omens this summer.’

‘And few of them good.’ Dallandra had meant to speak lightly, but her words sprang to life in her mouth and burned.

Branna and Sidro both turned towards her and waited, studying her face. ‘More trouble, I suppose,’ Dallandra said. ‘The Star Goddesses only know what, though I’ve no doubt we’ll find out for ourselves soon enough.’

‘True spoken,’ Branna said, ‘or too soon.’

Branna’s grey gnome grinned and nodded, then slowly, one bit at a time, disappeared.

On the morrow the rain slackened. A wind sprang up from the south and brought not warmth but the promise of it as it drove the clouds from the sky. Prince Daralanteriel gave the order to his royal alar to break camp. Besides his wife, Carra, and their children, the prince travelled with his banadar or warleader, his bard, his dweomermasters, and a hundred warriors, most of them archers, along with their wives and children, or in the case of the women archers, their husbands and children. Getting this mob on the road took time.

As well as the crowd of Westfolk, the alar travelled with herds of horses, flocks of sheep, and packs of dogs, trained for herding or hunting. Although the People were adept at packing up their goods, their livestock, and their tents, by the time they got moving along the predetermined route, the sun would be well on its way to midday. They’d travel until some hours before sunset, when everyone would stop to allow the stock to graze before night fall. In the short days of winter’s end, they managed perhaps ten miles a day.

Dallandra thanked the Star Goddesses for the slow pace. She was too pregnant to ride astride for long. Walking would have tired her after a few miles, and sitting on a travois to be dragged along would have shaken her bones and the baby both. With the ground still saturated from the winter rains, using a wagon would have been out of the question even if the Westfolk had possessed such a thing. Fortunately Grallezar had a solution.

‘Among my people,’ the Gel da’Thae said, ‘we have a thing called a mother’s saddle. It be long from pommel to cantle, and both stirrups, they hang on one side.’

‘I saw something similar in Deverry,’ Dallandra said. ‘I’d be afraid to use one. What if something frightens my horse, and it tries to throw me? I couldn’t get free in time to save myself and the child.’

‘With Pir leading your horse, think you it will spook at shadows?’

Dallandra grinned at her. ‘I’d forgotten about Pir. Do you think we can put together one of those saddles?’

‘Something like it at the least.’

It took Dallandra some days to grow used to the new saddle. She had to sit extremely straight to keep her back from hurting, which meant counterbalancing the weight of her pregnancy. She felt her posture as awkward and ugly both. By the afternoons she wanted nothing more than to call an early halt, but with the memory of omens burning in her mouth, she set her teeth against the discomfort and said nothing. At least with the horse mage walking along beside her, she knew that she could trust her mount, who seemed to view Pir as a wiser sort of horse. A tall lean fellow, Pir’s dark hair hung in an odd style all his own. He’d cropped most of it off short but left a wide stripe down the middle of his head from brow to neck that was long enough to braid like a horse’s mane. At moments Dallandra’s mare would snuffle into the mane or onto Pir’s shoulder, as if reassuring herself that he was still there.

The royal alar made its last camp before reaching Mandra late on a day that most definitely felt like spring. Dallandra contacted Valandario while her apprentice and some of Calonderiel’s men set up her tent.

‘We’ll arrive just after noon, I think,’ Dallandra told her.

‘Very well,’ Val said. ‘I’ll tell the mayor. The townsfolk will want to greet the prince properly.’

‘What does properly mean to them?’

‘Lots of speeches. Tell Dar to have one ready.’

‘Devaberiel’s travelling with us. The two of them can work something up.’

‘Excellent! It would be a good idea for Dar to ride into town with some sort of ceremony around him, banners, pennants that kind of thing. Does he have more than that old shabby one he took to the war?’

‘He does. Carra and some of the women have been stitching all winter long.’

‘Good. The town will like that.’

On the morrow, the alar set out with the prince and his banadar in the lead, dressed in their best clothes and riding golden horses. Behind them came Dallandra and the royal bard, Devaberiel, also wearing what finery they owned. Next rode the archers and swordsmen, with the rest of the alar bringing up the rear with the flocks and herds. Some of the older children rode in front of the warriors and carried the banners and pennants of Daralanteriel’s royal line, embroidered and appliquéd with the red rose and the seven stars of the cities of the far western mountains.

For those last few miles, the road, a rough affair of mud and gravel, ran along the tops of the sea cliffs. Long before they reached its walls, they came to fields of sprouting grain and orchards of young apple trees, spindly and doubtless still barren, but a promise of fruit to come. The farmers working in the fields rushed to the stone fences to call out ‘the prince! the prince! here’s to our prince!’ as the alar rode on by. Daralanteriel bowed from the saddle and waved to acknowledge them all.