Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“Counselor,” said Hercol, “will you depart in peace?”

Vadu’s face contorted. His head began to bob, more violently than Pazel had ever seen, and suddenly he realized that it was not a mere habit but an affliction, involuntary, perhaps even painful. The counselor’s eyes filled with rage; his limbs shook, and his hand went slowly to the Plazic Blade. Muscles straining, he drew the blade a fraction of an inch from its sheath. The sicunas crouched, hissing, and the horses of several warriors bolted in fear, deaf to their riders’ cries. Pazel gasped and clutched at his chest. That poisonous feeling. That black energy that poured like heat from the body of the demonic reptile, the eguar: it was there, alive in Vadu’s blade. He could almost hear the creature’s agonizing language, which his Gift had forced him to learn.

With a smooth motion Hercol dismounted, never lowering Ildraquin, and walked toward Vadu’s prancing steed. The counselor drew his weapon fully, and Pazel saw that it was no more than a stump upon the hilt. But was there something else there? A pale ghost of a knife, maybe, where the old blade had been?

“I can kill you with a word,” snarled Vadu, his head bobbing, snapping, his face twitching like an addict deprived of his deathsmoke.

Hercol stood at his knee. Slowly he lowered Ildraquin toward the man-and then, with blinding speed, turned the blade about and offered its hilt to the counselor.

“No!” shouted the youths together. But it was done: Vadu snatched the sword from Hercol with his free hand. And cried aloud.

It was a different sort of cry: not tortured, but rather the cry of one suddenly released from torture. He sheathed the ghostly knife and took his hand from the hilt. Then he pressed the blade of Ildraquin to his forehead and held it there, eyes closed. Slowly his jerking and twitching ceased. The sword slipped from his grasp, and Hercol caught it as it fell.

Vadu looked down at him, and his face was serene, almost aglow, like the face of one clinging to a marvelous dream. But even as they watched him the glow faded, and something of his strained, proud look came back to him.

“Mercy of the stars,” he said. “I was rid of it. For a moment I was free. That is a sword from Kingdom Dafvniana.”

Hercol polished the blade on his arm. “The smiths who made her named her Ildraquin, ‘Earthblood,’ for it is said that she was forged in a cavern deep in the heart of the world. But King Bectur, delivered from enchantment by her touch, called her Curse-Cleaver, and that name too is well deserved.”

“My curse is too strong, however,” said Vadu. “The sword cannot free me from the curse of my own Plazic Blade-but time will, if only I can remain alive. Listen to me, before the knife seals my tongue again! The Blades have made monsters of us, and a nightmare of Bali Adro. Through all my life I’ve watched them poison us with power. Olik told you that they are rotting away. Did he tell you that we who carry them rejoice in our hearts? For we are slaves to them, though they make us masters of other men. They whisper to our savage minds, even as they break our bodies. What happens to the Blades, you see, happens also to those who carry them. When they wither, we scream in pain. When they shatter, we die. Many have died this way already: my commander in Orbilesc swept an army of Thuls over a cliff with a sweep of his arm, and we all heard the knife break, and he fell down dead. That is how the knife came to me-a last, loathsome inch. I am a small man to own such a thing, or be owned by it. But I mean to survive it. When only the hilt remains, I shall be able to toss it away. Until then I must resist the urge to use it, for any but the smallest deeds.”

“Better no deeds at all,” said Cayer Vispek. “That is a devil’s tool.”

Vadu’s eyes flashed at the elder sfvantskor. But there was struggle in them still, and when they turned to Hercol they were beseeching.

“Pazel,” said Neda in Mzithrini, “tell the Tholjassan to drive this man away. He will bring us all to grief.”

“I can see by the woman’s face what she wishes,” said Vadu. “Do not send me off! I tell you I mean to survive, but there is more: I wish to see my people, my country, survive. Do you understand what I have witnessed, what I have done? And in another year or two the horror must end, for all the Blades will have melted. Our insanity will lift, and Bali Adro can start to heal the world it has profaned. I live for that day. I cannot bear to see the harm renewed by something even worse. I rode out to help, not hinder you.”

Hercol studied him carefully. “Then ride, and be welcome,” he said at last, “but guard your soul, man of Masalym. It is not free yet.”

As the track moved away from the river it grew into something like a proper road, running between fields neatly laid out, and sturdy brick farmhouses with smoke rising from their chimneys. They rode faster here; the smallest of the hunting dogs had to be picked up and carried. At midday they did not pause for a meal but ate riding; Olik had advised them to cross the open farmland as swiftly as possible, and to rest where the track entered the riverbank forest called the Ragwood, where the trees would hide them. Pazel found it hard to imagine anyone watching from the Chalice of the Mai. But there were nearer peaks and, for all he knew, villages scattered among them, watching the curious procession along the valley floor.

In the hottest hour of the day they rode through a plain of tall red grass, dotted by great solitary trees and swarming with a kind of hopping insect that rose in clouds at their approach with a sound like sizzling meat. The horses shied and the sicunas growled. Pazel did not understand their distress until one of the insects landed on his arm. It jumped away instantly, but as it did so he felt a shock, like the kind the ironwork on the Chathrand could give you during an electrical storm.

“Chuun-crickets,” said Bolutu. “We have them in Istolym as well. By autumn there will be millions, and they will have sucked all the sap from the chuun-grass, and those little shocks you feel will set it all ablaze.”

“What happens then?” asked Pazel.

“They all die,” said Bolutu, “and the plain burns down to stubble-only those great oaks can live through the blaze. Then there are no more crickets until their eggs hatch underground the next summer. It is the way of things. They flourish, they perish, they return.”

The company rode on, and the little shocks were many before they left the chuun-grass behind. An hour later they reached Garal Crossing, where the Coast Road bisected their own. The surface of the Coast Road was heavily rutted and dusty, as though some great host had passed over it, but on their own road the signs of passage were few. By the time they reached the Ragwood the horses were winded, and the sicunas lifted their paws and licked at them unhappily. Pazel saw Jalantri dismount quickly and hurry to Neda’s horse before she could do the same. “Your blisters,” he said, reaching for her boot.

“They are nothing,” said Neda quickly, drawing her foot away.

“Not so. I saw them when you dressed. Come, I’ll treat them before you-”

“Jalantri,” said Vispek softly, “your sister will ask for aid when she requires it.”

Jalantri looked at the ground, abashed. Then he noticed Pazel watching and swept past him, tugging his horse by the bit.

“These animals need water,” said Vadu to Hercol. “We will take them down to the Mai and let them wade. Come, my Masalyndar.”

The dlomic soldiers went eagerly with Vadu. Cayer Vispek watched them carefully, then turned to Hercol. “They think much of him,” he said. “He must have had some merit as a commander, once. But I fear they may scheme in private.”