K Parker - Shadow

Poldarn turned round slowly, studying the patterns of destruction by fire, the constants and the variables. 'It looks like the end of the world,' he said.

'Very good,' replied the crow. 'And all your fault, of course; all directly your fault. I want you to be sure and remember this moment, later, when all this happens.'

Poldarn looked round again, taking careful note of various details-a building collapsing in a shower of sparks, a mob of soldiers dragging a woman out of her house, dragging the baby from her arms and tossing it like a log of firewood into the flames, noteworthy items that would jog his memory when he came to witness them. 'What do you mean, my fault?' he asked. 'Is this to do with who I was, or what I'm going to become?'

The crow looked past him. 'Same difference,' it said. 'You'll be who you always were; wiping our your memory hasn't changed who you are, all it's done is rearrange the schedule a little, added a few refinements, tinkered a little with a few of the causality chains. I mean,' it went on, 'you haven't really changed a bit, in spite of this wonderful fresh start you were given, this chance to stop being you. You've acted differently, mostly because you haven't been in much of a position to do harm deliberately, but you still have the same mind, the same temperament.'

'I see,' Poldarn said. 'Well, if you can show me the future, can you show me my past as well? I'd like to be able to see that.'

The crow didn't move, but everything else changed around it; now they were standing in a prison cell, lit by one window very high up in the wall. Through it Poldarn could just make out the legs and feet of passers-by. He found that he was sitting in the middle of the floor, secured with chains to the point where he could hardly move, let alone accomplish anything. 'That's the essential you,' said the crow, 'trapped in a prison in your own mind; and you know why? Prisons can be ambiguous things, you know; maybe this one isn't what you assume. The man in the middle there is you. Some prisons aren't built to keep the inmates from getting out, you see, they're to keep everybody else from getting in, with a rope and a chair, to deal with you as you deserve.'

'Who are you?' Poldarn asked.

'That,' the crow answered, 'is a very good question. You ought to ask him that,' it added, opening its wings and pitching on the chained man's shoulder. 'He could tell you that, if only you could reach him. But you can't, because deep down-as far below the surface as this prison is-you don't want to find out, because you already know. Oh sure, not a name or any memories, but you can feel the sort of man you are, and really, you don't want to go back. Understandable, God only knows, but it isn't going to do you any good.'

The crow suddenly vanished, in less time than it'd take a sword-monk to draw, and where the chained man had been Poldarn saw a sword-monk. He was in a bad way, with blood on his face and seeping through the cloth of his shirt. 'Who are you?' Poldarn asked.

'You know, I can't seem to remember,' the monk replied. 'But lately, I've been using the name Monach. It's just the word for monk where I came from originally.'

'Monach, then,' Poldarn said. 'All right, do you know who I am?'

The monk laughed. 'Of course I do,' he said. 'You're the evil bastard who did this to me. At least,' he added, 'I think you are. Your face is different, but I can see you very clearly hiding behind its eyes.'

'I don't understand,' Poldarn said.

The monk shrugged. 'Doesn't matter,' he said, 'it's what you've done that matters. Would you like to see that? Some of it, anyway, there isn't time to show you more than a few examples.'

Before Poldarn could reply, the monk vanished. Poldarn looked round to see where he'd gone to, and realised that he was flying, a long way up above the ground. All around him were columns of smoke, and when he looked down he saw that they were billowing up out of cities.

'Not bad,' said a voice that seemed to be coming from between his shoulder blades. It sounded like the monk he'd just been talking to. 'Considering that when you first arrived in this country you had nothing but the clothes you stood up in and a backsabre bashed out of an old beanhook, it represents a fairly impressive achievement. There's Culhan Bohec, look-of course, you've never heard of Culhan Bohec. Not many people have, these days. And there's Sirouesse, that used to be on the north-west coast, where the Mahec meets the sea; your first major work, and there's many as reckon it's still your best. Oh, and there's Josequin. I guess you could call that your posthumous masterpiece, since strictly speaking it happened after your death-of-memory. But even though you weren't there in person, it was definitely all yours, conceived, planned, realised and produced by you, got your signature all over it. And another thing you've got to bear in mind is how quickly you achieved all this. Twelve years; dammit, if you'd stayed a monk, like me, what would you have accomplished in those twelve years? Maybe, if you'd practised really hard and brown-nosed your way round the faculty, you might just have gone from ninth to twelfth grade, to the point where you'd be allowed to learn how to fight three imaginary enemies at the same time.' The voice sighed wistfully. 'Amazing, isn't it, the different ways our lives turned out. You went on and made something of yourself, out here in the world: burned cities, killed thousands-make that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands even-made and overthrew emperors, played knucklebones and bouncing-bunny with the destinies of millions. I stayed in the abbey, cutting neat slices of empty air, to the point where I was allowed to go outside and kill-what, two dozen? Three? Can't actually remember offhand, but it can't have been more than five dozen, and that's including guards, witnesses and other dross. As for making a difference and diverting the course of history's river, forget it; all right, I may have wasted a few big-noses here and there, but I never had the faintest idea who they were or why they were important, so I really can't claim any of the credit.' The voice made a tut-tutting noise. 'Got to face facts,' it said. 'If there's a life after death and we all meet up in some sulphur-pit for a class reunion, no prizes for guessing who'll get the lifetime achievement award. I mean, who else in our year went on to become a god? No, I wouldn't do that if I were you,' the voice added, as Poldarn felt himself losing height, swooping down on wide, scraggy black wings towards the burning roofs of Josequin. 'No offence, but you don't want to go there. Might prove bad for your health, if you see what I mean.'

'I can't help it,' Poldarn replied. 'I can't seem to climb.'

'Oh,' said the monk. 'Oh, that is a pity. My weight, probably, forcing you down. Never mind, it'll probably be quick, if that's any consolation. Of course, if you could see your way to waking up at this point, you'd save us both a lot of bother.'

'I can't,' Poldarn said.

'Damn. The closer we get, you see, the sharper the focus gets; they stop being tiny little scurrying dots and start turning into people. Hey, look at that, will you? That's really recent. Today, in fact. Look!'

A gust of wind caught hold of him and dragged him down; beating his wings didn't help, and he couldn't turn into the wind to slow down. On the rapidly approaching ground below him he could see the derelict barn at Vistock, the crazy old woman who sold bones, and four men dragging her out into the light. He saw a fifth man: bald, with a brown, liver-spotted head, clearly not a day less than eighty years old but still tall, upright, imposing; he was absent-mindedly doing backflips with a mirror-burnished backsabre as he waited for the old woman to be brought to him and crushed down to her knees by skilful pressure on the joints of her outstretched arms; she was cursing and screaming in a language he didn't understand; she was in the middle of a sentence when the old man swung the backsabre smartly back to gather blade-speed and cut off her head in one fluid, graceful movement.