Tad Williams - Shadowmarch

“Oh, yes, I should apologize for my clothes,” Barrick growled. “How terribly tasteless of me to dress this way, as though our father were being held prisoner somewhere. But wait—our father is a prisoner. Fancy that.”

Kendrick winced and looked inquiringly at Briony, who made a face that said, He’s having one of his difficult days. The prince regent turned to his younger brother and asked, “Would you rather go back?"

“No!” Barrick shook his head violently, but then managed to summon an unconvincing smile. “No. Everyone worries about me too much. I don’t mean to be rude, truly. My arm just hurts a bit. Sometimes.”

“He is a brave youth,” said Duke Gailon without even the tiniest hint of mockery, but it still made Briony bristle like one of her beloved dogs. Last year Gailon had offered to marry her. He was handsome enough in a long-chinned way, and his family’s holdings in Summerfield were second only to Southmarch itself in size, but she was glad that her father had been in no hurry to find her a husband. She had a feeling that Gailon Tolly would not be as tolerant to his wife as King Olin was to his daughter—that if she were his, he would make certain Briony did not go riding to the hunt in a split skirt, straddling her horse like a man.

The dogs were yapping even more shrilly now, and a stir ran through the hunting party gathered on the hill. Briony turned to see a movement in the trees of the dell below them, a flash of red and gold like autumn leaves carried on a swift stream Then something burst out of the undergrowth and into the open, a large serpentine shape that was fully visible for the space of five or six heartbeats before it found high grass and vanished again. The dogs were already swarming after it in a frenzy.

“Gods!” said Briony in sudden fear, and several around her made the three-fingered sign of the Trigon against their breasts. “That thing is huge!” She turned accusingly to Shaso. “I thought you said you could kill one of them with no more than a good clop on the head.”

Even the master of arms looked startled. “The other one… it was smaller.”

Kendrick shook his head. “That thing is ten cubits long or I’m a Skimmer.” He shouted, “Bring up the boar spears!” to one of the beaters, then spurred down the hill with Gailon of Summerfield racing beside him and the other nobles hurrying to find their places close to the young prince regent.

“But… !” Briony fell silent. She had no idea what she’d meant to say— why else were they here if not to hunt and kill a wyvern?—but she suddenly felt certain that Kendrick would be in danger if he got too close. Since when are you an oracle or a witching-woman? she asked herself, but the worry was strangely potent, the crystallization of something that had been troubling her all day like a shadow at the corner of her eye. The strangeness of the gods was in the air today, that feeling of being surrounded by the unseen. Perhaps it was not Barrick who was seeking Death—perhaps rather the grim deity, the Earth Father, was hunting them all.

She shook her head to throw off the swift chill of fear. Silly thoughts, Briony. Evil thoughts. It must have been Barrick’s sorrowing talk of their own imprisoned father that had done it. Surely there was no harm in a day like this, late in Dekamene, the tenth month, but lit by such a bold sun it still seemed high summer—how could the gods object? The whole hunt was riding in Kendrick’s wake now, the horses thundering down the hill after the hounds, the beaters and servants bounding along behind, shouting excitedly, and she suddenly wanted to be out in front with Kendrick and the other nobles, running ahead of all shadows and worries.

I won’t hang back like a girl this time, she thought. Like a proper lady. I want to see a wyvern. And what if I’m the one who kills it? Well, why not?

In any case, her brothers both needed looking after.”Come on, Barrick,” she called. “No time to mope. If we don’t go now, we’ll miss it all.”

“The girl, the princess—her name’s Briony, isn’t it?” Opal asked after they had been hiking again for a good part of an hour.

Chert hid a smile. “Are we talking about the big folk? I thought we weren’t supposed to meddle with that sort.”

“Don’t mock. I don’t like it here. Even though the sun’s overhead, it seems dark. And the grass is so wet! It makes me feel all fluttery.”

“Sorry, my dear. I don’t like it much here either, but along the edge is where the interesting things are. Almost every time it draws back a little there’s something new. Do you remember that Edri’s Egg crystal, the one big as a fist? I found it just sitting in the grass, like something washed up on a beach.”

“This whole place—it’s not natural.”

“Of course it’s not natural. Nothing about the Shadowline is natural. That’s why the Qar left it behind when they retreated from the big folk armies, not just as a boundary between their lands and ours, but as a a warning, I suppose you’d call it. Keep out. But you said you wanted to come today, and here you are.” He looked up to the line of mist running along the grassy hills, denser in the hollows, but still thick as eiderdown along the hilltops. “We’ve almost reached it.”

“So you say,” she grunted wearily.

Chert felt a pang of shame at how he teased her, his good old wife. She could be tart, but so could an apple, and none the less wholesome for it. “Yes, by the way, since you asked. The girl’s name’s Briony.”

“And that other one, dressed in black. That’s the other brother?”

“I think so, but I’ve never seem him so close.They’re not much for public show, that family. The old king, Ustin—those children’s grandfather—he was a great one for festivals and parades, do you remember? Scarcely a holy day went by.

Opal did not seem interested in historical reminiscence. “He seemed sad, that boy.”

“Well, his father’s being held for a ransom the kingdom can’t afford and the boy’s got himself a gammy arm Reasons enough, perhaps.”

“What happened to him?”

Chert waved his hand as though he were not the type to pass along idle gossip, but it was only for show, of course. “I’ve heard it said a horse fell on him. But Old Pyrite claims that his father threw him down the stairs.”

“King Olin? He would never do such a thing!”

Chert almost smiled again at her indignant tone for one who claimed not to care about the doings of big folk, his wife had some definite opinions about them. “It seems far-fetched,” he admitted. “And the gods know that Old Pyrite will say almost anything when he’s had enough moss-brew…” He stopped, frowning. It was always hard to tell, here along the edge where distances were tricky at the best of times, but there was definitely something wrong.

“What is it?”

“It’s… it’s moved.” They were only a few dozen paces away from the boundary now—quite as close as he wanted to get. He stared, first at the ground, then at a familiar stand of white oak trees now half smothered by mist and faint as wandering spirits. For the first time he could remember, the unnatural murk had actually advanced past their trunks. The hairs on the back of Chert’s neck rose. “It has moved!”

“But it’s always moving.You said so.”

“Slipping back from the edge a wee bit, then coming up to it again, like the tide,” he whispered. “Like something breathing in and out That is why we find things here, when the line has drifted back toward the shadow-lands.” He could feel a heaviness to the air unusual even for this haunted place, a heightened watchfulness: it made him feel reluctant even to speak. “But from the moment two centuries ago when the Twilight People first conjured it up, it’s never moved any closer to us, Opal. Until now.”