Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

I ducked down the Holy Stair, bickered with the crawlies at the checkpoint amp; was finally escorted (how the word sticks in my throat) onto the mercy deck amp; aft to the brig. The four Turachs (two for each sfvantskor, none for Pathkendle) were licking clean plates of their own; they turned spiteful when they realized I wasn’t bringing second helpings. At the far end of the row of cells the two sfvantskors watched me with bright wolf eyes.

I unlocked Pathkendle’s cell; he walked out, slow amp; dignified amp; hurt. Some spark in his eye was gone. I might never have become of aware of its existence, that lad’s blary spark (what do I mean, spark? Here’s my old dad’s answer: If you have to ask you ain’t never goin’ to know) but for its absence then.

“Chin up, Pathkendle,” says I, much heartier than I feel. “The ship’s out of danger amp; you’re out of jail. Try a wiggler. I happen to know they’re fresh.”

“Go on,” said a grinning, green-lipped Turach, “they only look like big maggots.”

Pazel stared insolently at him amp; bit into a piece of bread. “I want,” he said, chewing, “to finish telling Neda my dream.”

Under the soldiers’ eyes we took food to the sfvantskors. Pazel sat facing them, cross-legged on the floor. They ate. To fill the silence I talked about the waterfalls, the incredible way we rose into the city. Pazel sat there slipping snake-beans into his mouth amp; gazing at his sister through the iron bars. His sister, a Black Rag priestess: the thought chilled my blood. This was the girl they’d been looking for, those countrymen of mine, during the Ormali siege. They’d beaten Pazel himself into a coma, that day, when he refused to guide them to his sister’s hiding place. He’d lain there ready to die for her. Could anything-time, training, religion-challenge a bond like that?

“Thasha painted me with mud,” Pathkendle was saying. “Head to toe. Bright red mud that she’d heated in a pot. It felt”-he glanced at me, coloring a little-“really good. The beach was windy; the mud was smooth amp; warm. I told you already what happened next.”

“She pushing you,” said Neda. Her attempt at Arquali was for my benefit, I suppose.

“Into a coffin,” said Pazel. “A fancy coffin, trimmed with gold. She slammed the lid amp; nailed it shut amp; I kicked amp; pounded from the inside. When she was done she dragged the coffin into the surf.”

“And pushed you out to sea,” said the older one, Vispek. He raised his head amp; looked at me. “The mud, the gilded coffin in the waves. Those are Arquali funeral rites, are they not?”

“Only for kings amp; nobles, these days,” I said, startled at his knowledge of us. “It’s a high honor, that sort of burial.”

“And the one who paints the body?”

“The King’s favorite girly. His whatsit, his courtesan.”

“Neda thinks the dream’s important,” said Pazel.

Her eyes flickered over me coldly. “Dreams are warning,” she said. “We not listen, then we getting die.”

“Is that a fact.”

She said something quick amp; cross in the Sizzy tongue amp; her master grunted in agreement. “The Isiq girl wants to be rid of him,” he said, “although once she pretended to love him. Like an expensive whore.”

“Now just you shut your mouth,” I said, rising to my feet. But Vispek went right on talking.

“She wished to seem as though she revered him, saw him as her equal. Never mind that she’s from one of the most powerful families in Arqual, and the boy is nothing: a peasant from a country her father destroyed. So she honors him, buries him like a king.”

“But is lie,” said Neda, wolfing cheese. “No honor if he put in water alive. Only after he getting die.”

“The girl’s touch was pleasurable, in this dream?” asked Vispek.

Pazel nodded uncomfortably. “Well then,” said Vispek, “all the better to catch you off-guard in the moment of betrayal.”

“That’s enough,” I said. “You’re a slimy beast, Vispek. You’re trying to divide us, and using Pazel’s sister to do it. By the Tree, you’re carrying on the old war, ain’t you? Right here in Chathrand’s brig, ten thousand miles from home.”

Vispek kept his eyes on Pazel. “Neda is correct,” he said. “Dreams are warnings, and must not be ignored. The next time you feel that caressing hand, you can be sure a knife will follow. Watch your step.”

“I will, Cayer Vispek,” said Pazel.

“Damn it, Pathkendle!” I sputtered. “This is Thasha you’re talking about!”

The tarboy looked up at me, chewing. “Thasha,” he said. “Thasha Isiq.” As if the last name changed something for him.

A few minutes later we left the brig, with ixchel scurrying ahead amp; behind. I was aghast at the whole exchange. What kind of horrid nonsense had Pazel been listening to, in that black cell for three hopeless days? What ideas had those Sizzies stuffed him with? I grew frantic, amp; as soon as we cleared the checkpoint I dragged him from the ladderway amp; pressed him up against a wall.

“Flimflam!” I said. “Mule dung! A man will dream anything when his heart’s broken. That don’t make it true!”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “My sister’s special. Wise. They both are, as a matter of fact.”

It was worse than I feared. “Pathkendle,” I implored. “My dear, sarcastic, sharp-tongued tarboy. Religion’s a fine thing, a truly noble thing-except for the believing part. Trust me, please. It’s worse than what a girl can do to you.”

“Nothing is.”

I groaned aloud. “Pitfire, that’s true, of course. But so is what I’m telling you. Listen to me, for the love of Rin-”

He met my eyes at that. “For the love of who, Mr. Fiffengurt?”

I stood up straight. “That’s a different matter, the Rinfaith. It’s part of society. And it ain’t so extreme, like. You know what I’m saying. Barbaric.”

He frowned a little at that. “I just wanted to talk to my sister,” he said, “and that Vispek bloke won’t let her talk except about grim and serious things.” Then he smiled at me, with his old sly look. “Maybe he hoped she’d win me over to the Old Faith. Not a chance. Neda’s never been able to talk me into anything.” He laughed. “But it sure kept them talking. And I must have done a good enough job, if I fooled you too.”

I could have smacked the little bastard. Or kissed him. I was that relieved.

“What was all that about her being special?” I asked.

“Oh, she is,” he said. “Mother cast a spell on Neda, too. All these years I thought it hadn’t worked, hadn’t done anything to her, but it did. It gave her perfect memory. You wouldn’t believe it, Mr. Fiffengurt. I wrote a six-foot string of numbers in the dust amp; read them to her aloud. She recited them all back to me in perfect order. She didn’t even have to try.”

I just stared at him. What could I possibly say? “You’re from a witching family,” I managed at last. “But does she have mind-fits, like you?”

“Sort of,” he replied. “She told me her memory can be like a horse that runs away with its rider. It just gallops off amp; she’s trapped, remembering more amp; more, faster amp; faster, even if what she’s remembering is terrible. I told her that sort of thing happened to me on Bramian, when the eguar made me look into Sandor Ott’s mind, and learn about his life. Neda said, ‘Imagine if at the end of that vision you couldn’t escape, because the mind you were looking into was your own.’ ”

The eguar. He’d never spoken to me of it before, but I’d heard him telling Undrabust about the creature. Like a crocodile, but demonic amp; huge, amp; surrounded by a burning haze. “What did that monster do to you, Pathkendle?” I asked him now.