Алексей Пехов - Shadow Chaser

I shuddered.

“Are you trying to tell me that I can take any shadow and make something like Siala out of thin air?”

“You can deny it if you like, Harold, but you are the Dancer, and there’s no way you can get away from that. And as for the shadows, the answer is no, you can’t. I told you. A new universe can only be created from shadows of the World of Chaos. The shadows of our world are only shadows of shadows of shadows of shadows of the Primal World. They are dead and not capable of dancing.”

“But if I did end up in Chaos, then I could manage it?”

“How would I know? It’s only a fairy tale, after all, and you don’t know how to wander between different worlds…”

“And Sagot be praised for that,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Carry on then, let’s hear a few more lies.”

“Where was I, now? Ah, yes! The Dancers took the shadows, and thousands and thousands of new worlds appeared, thanks to them. But in creating new worlds, the Dancers took away a little part of their own world, and the time came when the World of Chaos died. There were no shadows left there. It was filled with the darkness and the fire of the Elemental Time. The people left it and settled in other worlds, and the way to the Primal World was forgotten. None of the Dancers in that time tried to save the World of Chaos, although they could have done it. What for? With so many new and unusual universes all around, why bother trying to restore an old piece of junk?”

“What are you thinking about, Harold?” asked Miralissa, who had kept quiet all this time.

“About the joker who created our world. So, Kli-Kli, you say that Chaos can no longer be restored?”

“No. The way to it has been forgotten. And if there was a way to get there, you need a shadow from that world in order to breathe life into it.”

I remembered the three female shadow-friends dancing on the crimson tongues of flame and asking me to save their world. I got an itchy feeling in my stomach—maybe the jester was right? Maybe there was an element of truth in his fairy tale?

“Why are you telling me all of this? I have enough trouble sleeping at night already. And just how does the House of Power fit into your story?”

“This is only the prehistory.… To be honest, Harold-Barold, I don’t really know anything about these houses.… My grandfather said there were Four Great Houses, and that they were supposedly created by the Dancer who gave life to our world. But no one knows why he created these houses. The goblin books don’t even hint at the reason.”

“But it is mentioned in the Annals of the Crown, ” said Miralissa, joining in the conversation again. “In the very first pages of the chronicles there is a small paragraph about the houses. There were four of them, absolutely different and quite unlike each other: the House of Love, the House of Pain, the House of Fear, and, finally and most importantly, the House of Power. It is said that those who have visited them became immortal. No matter how many times you kill these people, sooner or later they are reborn in the House of Love. Someone who has been through the four houses can be killed forever only when he is in one of the houses. But I don’t know which one.”

“What were they created for?”

“You must understand that we know nothing for certain and can only guess. That one short paragraph in the annals, written by an unknown author, has provoked controversy among our historians for thousands of years. Entire works of scholarship have been written, based on that fragment, but how reliable are they? We only know that someone who has passed through all the Four Great Houses is no longer simply a man, an elf, or a dwarf—he is something completely different. I have no idea what they do in the Houses of Love, Pain, and Fear. The only thing we do know is that those who are in the House of Power are exceptionally powerful in magic, or rather, in its initial aspect—shamanism. And that is all I know, Harold.”

“That is all you know?” I repeated like an echo. “And you hid this knowledge from me? A stupid story about how our world was supposedly created, and assumptions based on some tiny little paragraph? Is this the greatest and most terrible secret of the goblins and the elves?”

I was amused. Go into any tavern and you’d hear a better story than that. And it would sound a lot more plausible than what Kli-Kli and Miralissa had told me.

“This knowledge is very dangerous,” the elfess rebuked me gently. “Especially for certain people—when they learn that they can become even greater than the gods and create their own world.”

“I beg your pardon, milady, but this is nonsense.”

“I told you it was still too early and he wouldn’t understand a thing,” said the goblin, looking reproachfully at the elfess. “The Order would pay us a wagonload of gold for the story that we’ve just told you.”

“That does not speak well for the wizards,” I said.

“Pah, you fool,” the jester said irritably, and walked away.

I thought he was reacting a bit too sensitively to my skepticism.

“Perhaps you will understand some time later, Harold,” Miralissa sighed, also standing up.

“Wait,” I said to her. “Why did you think that I might know something about the House of Power?”

“You are the Dancer in the Shadows.… But take no notice, I made a mistake.”

“And the Master? Why did you decide that the Master is in this House of Power?”

“He has a distinctive magical signature.… You would not understand that, Harold, you have no skills in shamanism. The things that attacked us in Hargan’s Wasteland, the thing that struck the ferry … They are quite different, nothing like our magic … Things like that can only be created with the help of the legendary and mythical House of Power.”

She walked away, treading gently on the soaking wet grass, and I was left alone.

To think.

After what the elfess and the goblin had told me, there were even more riddles, not fewer.

Ranneng was awash with flowers. Sweet-scented roses of every possible color had invaded the entire town. The festival was in its second noisy day, and those who could still stand had spilled out into the streets, bawling out songs and dancing together in circles, gorging themselves on the free food laid out on tables and washing it down with the wine or beer that gushed out of huge barrels in torrents. It had always been this way and it always would be. Once a year, at the end of August, all the people glorified the gods.

Voices singing and yelling, the laughter and the music, the smells of wine, fine fresh bread, and roasted meat—it all mingled together into an atmosphere of vital festive joy.

Djok Imargo was walking down the street with a smile on his face.

He was a tall young man with broad shoulders and a firm jaw, brown eyes, absolutely black hair, and a mischievous smile. He radiated a feeling of calm confidence and high spirits.

People recognized him and waved to him, they shouted to him, inviting him to join one group or another, to drink a mug of beer or take a turn in some antic dance. It was hard not to notice him—tall and well-built, with a quiver of arrows on his hip and a powerful two-yard bow in his hands. Who did not know Djok Imargo, everybody’s favorite, the champion bowman at the last four royal tournaments?

“Hey, Djok, come over here!”

“Djok, dance with me! Oh, Djok!”

“Djok, it’s the royal tournament today! Good luck.”

“Hey, Djok! Let’s have a beer!”

“Five in a row, Djok!”

He smiled, nodded, waved his hand in response to the greetings, but he didn’t stop. Right now he wasn’t really interested in mugs of beer with foaming heads, or accommodating young beauties. At five o’clock today, he would become the champion archer for the fifth time, and only then would he be able to relax and celebrate his success.