Tad Williams: Shadowplay

Then, with the beach at Coiner’s Point just a short distance away, Kelty told Vansen, his young brother had simply let go and slipped beneath the water.

“Tired, mayhap,” Kelty had said, shaking his head, eyes still haunted. “Cramped. But he just looked at me, peaceful-like, and then let himself slide away like he was getting under his blanket of a night. I think he even smiled.” Kelty had smiled too as he told this, as if to make up for the tears in his eyes. Vansen had been scarcely able to look at him. They had both been drinking, another payday spent in the Badger’s Boots or one of those other pestholes off Market Square, and it was the time of night when strange things were said, things that were sometimes difficult to forget, although most folk did their best.

Wincing now at the rain that leaked through their pathetic shelter of woven branches and ran down the neck of his cloak, Ferras Vansen wondered if Kelty had seen the same thing in his younger brother’s eyes that Vansen was seeing in Prince Barrick’s, the same inexplicable remoteness. Was Briony’s brother about to die, too? Was he about to surrender himself and drown in the shadowlands?

And if he does? What becomes of me? He had only barely made his way out of the shadowlands the first time, led by the touched girl, Willow. No one, he felt sure, least of all Ferras Vansen, could be that fortunate twice.

They had found an open track through the forest, a bit of clear path. Vansen jogged out ahead of the prince, trying to spy out a place where they might stop and spend a few hours of rest in the endless gray twilight. After what must have been several days’ riding, the supplies in his pack had dwindled to almost nothing; if they had to hunt for food, he wanted to do it here, where the dim ghosts of the sun and moon still haunted the sky behind the mists. He could not be certain that whatever animal he caught here would be more ordinary than prey taken deeper behind the Shadowline, but it was one small thing he was determined to do.

Vansen’s horse abruptly shrilled and reared, almost throwing him from the saddle. At first he thought they were being attacked, but the forest was still. His heart slowed a little. As he brought the horse under control he called back to the prince to hold up, then, as he leaned forward to stroke his mount’s neck, trying to soothe the still-frightened animal, he saw the dead thing on the ground.

At first disgust and alarm were mingled with relief, because the creature was no bigger than a child of four or five years and was obviously in no state to do any harm: its head was mostly off, and black blood gleamed all over its chest and belly and on the wet grass where it lay, thinning and running away under the remorseless rain. The more Vansen looked at the corpse, though, the more disturbing he found it. It was like an ape, but with abnormally long fingers and skin like a lizard’s, rough and netted with scales. Knobs of gray bone stuck out through the scaly hide at the joints and along the spine, not injuries but as much a part of it as a cow’s horns or a man’s fingernails. As Vansen examined the dead thing further, he saw that its face was disturbingly manlike, as brown as the rest of its studded hide but covered with smooth, leathery skin. The dark eyes were wide open in a net of wrinkled flesh, and if he had seen only them he would have been sure it was some little old man lying here, though the fanged mouth gave things a different flavor.

Vansen poked hard with his sword but the thing did not move. He guided his horse wide around the corpse, and watched as Barrick’s milky-eyed mount took the same roundabout path. The prince himself did not even look down.

Within moments Vansen saw a second and a third creature, both as dead and bloodied as the first, slashed by a blade or long claws. He reined up, wondering what sort of beast had so easily bested these unpleasant creatures. Was it one of the terrible, sticklike giants that had taken Collum Dyer? Or something worse, something... unimaginable? Perhaps even now it watched them from the forest shadows, eyes gleaming....

“Go slowly, Highness,” he told Barrick, but he might have spoken Xixian for all the notice the youth paid him.

Only a few paces ahead lay another clot of small, knobby corpses in the middle of the trail. Vansen’s horse pulled up, snuffling anxiously. Clearly, it did not want to step over the things, although Barrick’s shadow-bred horse showed no such compunction as it passed him. Vansen groaned and climbed down to clear the trail. He was pushing one of the bodies with his sword, hesitant to touch any of the creatures, when the thing abruptly came to life. Whistling in a horrid way that Vansen only realized later was the mortal slash across its chest sucking air, it managed to climb up his sword and sink its teeth into his arm before he could do more than grunt in shock. He had thought many times of removing his mail shirt—the damp cold had made it seem much more a burden than a benefit—but now he thanked the gods he had kept it. The creature’s teeth did not pierce the Funderling-forged rings, and he was able to smash its wizened face hard enough to dislodge it from his arm. It hit the ground but did not run away, scuttling toward him again, still whistling like a hillman’s pipes with the sack burst.

“Barrick!” he shouted, wondering how many more of the creatures might be still alive and lurking, “Highness, help me!”—but the prince was already out of sight down the trail.

Vansen backed away from his horse, not wanting to risk wounding it with a wild swing, and as the little monstrosity leaped up toward his throat he managed to strike it with the flat of his blade, knocking it aside. His heavy sword was not the best weapon, but he did not dare take the time to pull his dagger. Before the hissing thing could get up again he stepped forward and skewered it against the wet ground with his sword, pushing through muscle and gut and crunching bone until his hilt was almost in reach of the creature’s claws, which waved feebly a few times, then curled in death.

Vansen took only a moment to catch his breath and wipe his blade on the wet grass before clambering back up into the saddle, worried about the prince but also irritated. Hadn’t the boy heard him call?

He found Barrick just a short ride ahead, dismounted and staring down at a dozen or more of the hairy creatures, all apparently safely dead this time. In their midst lay a dead horse with its throat torn out and what Vansen at first thought was its equally dead rider lying facedown beside it. The black-haired body was human enough in shape, wrapped in a torn dark cloak and armor of some strange material with a blue-gray tortoiseshell-like finish. Vansen dismounted and cautiously put his hand on the back of the corpse’s neck, in a gap between helmet and armor. To his surprise he could feel movement under his fingers—a slow, labored rise: the rider was breathing. When he turned the victim over and pulled off the disturbing skull helm, he got his second shock. The man had no face.

No, he realized after an instant, still sickened, it does—but that’s no human face. He made the sign of the Three as he fought against a sudden clutch of nausea. There were eyes in that pale, membrane of flesh that stretched between scalp and narrow chin, but because they were shut they had seemed no more than creases of flesh beneath the wide brow, obscured by smears of blood from what looked like a near-mortal gash in the thing’s forehead—the blood, at least, was as red as that which flowed in a godly man. But the rest of the face was as featureless as a drumskin, with no nose or mouth.

The faceless man’s eyes flicked open, eyes red as his smeared blood. They struggled to fix on the guard captain and the prince, then rolled up and the waxy lids fell again.