Shadowrise (64 page)

“So what do you know of this city?” Barrick asked as their dinner roasted on a pine-skewer over the open flame. The smell was most distracting, musky but appetizing. “Where are we? How is the place shaped?”

Beck wrinkled his dirty face in thought. “I know little, to be truthful. The only time my master took me out before the hunting trip was on a ceremonial visit to the Duke of Spidersilk. He brought several of his mortal servants—just to put out the duke, or so it seemed.” A sad little smile flickered on Raemon Beck’s lips. “We had to go far into the city, and he pointed things out to me along the way. Let me think.” He picked up a pine twig and began to draw with it in the dark, damp soil. “It has a shape like this, I think.” He scratched an awkward spiral.
“K’ze-shehaoui
—the River Fade—that is what they call the great canal,” he said, tracing this main line. “But there are other waterways crossing it all the way in.” He drew other lines across the main line. The shape began to look like one of the halved chamber shells the priests of Erivor wore upon their breasts as an emblem of their god.

“But where are we?” Barrick asked.

Raemon Beck rubbed his face for a moment. “I think the house of Qu’arus must be somewhere here,” he said, jabbing with his stick about halfway along the outermost spiral. “Master was always proud that he lived outside the heart of the city, separate from the other wealthy, important families. And
this
spot is probably somewhere near here.” He poked again, scratching a larger mark on the second and third spirals. “I couldn’t guess how far we’ve come exactly, but I know that part is full of islands.”

Barrick frowned. He pulled the meat from the fire, then set it on a clean rock and began to cut it into two portions, an awkward process with a blade so big and a meal so small. He left Beck’s on the rock and began to eat his own share with his fingers. “I need to know more. I have been set a task.”

“What kind of task?” Beck asked.

Even the unfamiliar human company and the comfort of a hot meal was not enough to induce Barrick to share all his secrets with someone who was after all nearly a stranger. “Never mind that. I need to find a certain door, as I said, but I have no idea where it might be except for the name Crooked’s Hall. What else can you tell me? If you don’t know Crooked’s Hall, is there a famous door somewhere in Sleep? An important gate? Something guarded?”

“Everything is guarded,” Beck said grimly. “What is not watched by the skrikers is in the houses of the Dreamless, clutched tight.”

“You mentioned some fellow your master took you to see—the Duke of Spiderwebs, was it?”

“Spidersilk. He is tremendously old. My master said he was one of the oldest in the city, second only to the members of the Laughing Council.”

Despite himself, Barrick blinked. “What sort of name is that?”

“I don’t know, my lord. Master hated them. He said someone should suck the last of the juices from them and then we could all begin again. He also said that laughter should have a sound, but I do not know what he meant.”

Barrick was growing impatient with all the history. “This Spidersilk— where is he? Could we reach him? Could we make him tell us what we want to know?”

Raemon Beck stared in abject horror. “The duke? No! We cannot go near him. He would destroy us without lifting a finger!”

“But where did he live? Can you at least tell me that?”

“I’m not certain. Somewhere near the heart of the city. I remember because we passed many of the oldest places as we reached the middle of Sleep, some of them burned and others fallen down into ruins, some of them so surrounded with darklight that I could not see them even from a short distance. My master pointed out many things—such strange names!—the Garden of Hands was one, and a place called Five Red Stones, the Library of Painful Music—no, Pitiful Music . . .” He took a breath. “So many names! Syu’maa’s Tower, Traitor’s Gate, the Field of the First Waking ...”

“Hold,” said Barrick, suddenly intent. “Traitor’s Gate? What was that?”

“I . . . I don’t remember ...”

Barrick reached out and grabbed Beck’s arm with his left hand, and only realized that he was hurting him when he heard him whimper. He let go. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I must know. Think, man! What was it, this Traitor’s Gate?”

“Please, Lord, it was . . . it was one of the places so dark I could not see it. But Master said something ...” Beck squinted his eyes, clearly trying hard to remember, all the while rubbing the arm Barrick had squeezed. “He said it was a
hole
.”

“A hole?” Barrick had to restrain the impulse to grab the small, dirty man again and shake him this time. “Is that all?”

“I know it sounds strange, but he called it a hole . . . what did he say? A hole that even the gods could not . . . could not ...” His face brightened. “That even the gods could not close.”

Barrick’s heart was beating fast. He had heard enough talk of Crooked’s roads to know this was something he could not ignore. “Show me how to find it.”

Beck’s look of satisfaction evaporated. “What? But . . . my lord, it’s in the heart of Sleep—in the district of Silence where only those who are called may go. Even my master would not have set foot there without being summoned by Spidersilk ...” He jumped at a loud clacking noise, but it was only Skurn cracking a snail shell against a rock.

“My master was very clever,” Beck said. “If he wouldn’t go there by himself, neither should we. You do not know these creatures, Prince Barrick—they’ve no souls, no kindness at all! They will skin us just to amuse themselves, with less concern than I gave to this coney!”

“I will not force you to go with me, but I cannot let the chance pass.” Barrick wiped his hands on his ragged clothes and began smoothing out a place to lie down. “I must see this place, Beck. I must find out if this . . . hole that even the gods can’t close is what I’m looking for. I have a task, as I said.” He reached into his shirt to touch the mirror in its bag. “You are free to do what you want.”

“But if you leave me, I will be caught! A runaway servant—and a Sunlander!” The man’s eyes filled with tears. “They will do terrible things to me!”

Some of the coldness had returned to his heart: Barrick was suddenly tired and did not want to listen to this weak fellow’s weeping—he could almost feel himself hardening like clay becoming brick. He lay back in the hollow between two pine roots and rolled the hood of Qu’arus’ cloak behind his head as a cushion. “I cannot make your decisions for you, trader. I have responsibilities beyond shepherding one man.” He closed his eyes.

It should not have been easy to fall asleep with Beck sobbing quietly only an arm’s length away, but Barrick had scarcely slept in the house of the Dreamless—would not have said he slept at all, but for the memories of that strange lizard-dream. The world quickly slipped away.

 

In his dream he stood on a hilltop, an oddly featureless place the color of ancient ivory. A crowd of people had gathered on the slope below him, their staring faces like a garden bed of unusual flowers. He could recognize some of them instantly—his father the king, Shaso, his brother Kendrick—but some of them were less familiar. One might be Ferras Vansen he realized after a moment, but at the same time it was an older man with a gray-shot beard and thinning hair—a Vansen who could never exist because the guard captain had died in Greatdeeps, falling into endless darkness. Most of the rest were strangers, some in antique-looking dress, others as weird and misshapen as any of the creatures he had met in the demigod Jikuyin’s slave cells: the only things the strange assembly seemed to share were their silence and attention.

Barrick tried to speak, to ask them what they wanted of him, but his mouth would not form the words. His face felt numb, and although the muscles of his jaw and tongue twitched, something kept them from moving freely. He reached his hand to his lips. To his horror, he felt nothing there but skin, stiff as old leather. His mouth was gone.

Someone spoke from behind him, the achingly familiar voice of the dark-haired girl—Qinnitan, that was her name—but he could not answer her no matter how he tried. He struggled to turn toward her but could not move, either—his body had become as numb and hard as his face.

Why won’t you talk to me?
she asked.
I can see you! I have wanted to talk to you so long! What have I done to anger you?

Barrick strained until his vision swirled, trying to make his stony muscles move, but it was useless. He might as well have been a statue. The expectant faces still gazed up at him but some of them began to change, showing impatience and confusion. He stood looking down as the sky darkened and rain began to fall, cold drops that he barely felt, as though the very flesh of his body had become something thick and stiff as tree bark. He heard Qinnitan’s voice again but it grew fainter and fainter until at last it was gone. The crowd began to disperse, some clearly enraged by his inaction, others merely puzzled, until he stood by himself on the bare hilltop, dripping with rain that he could not wipe away.

 

“Prince Barrick, if you truly . . . ah!” Raemon Beck, who had only shaken Barrick once, was startled to feel Qu’arus’ blade pressing against his neck.

“What is it?”

Beck swallowed carefully. “Could you . . . could you please not kill me, my lord?”

Barrick withdrew the blade and slipped it back into its scabbard. “How long did I sleep?”

Beck rubbed his throat. “It’s always hard to tell here, but the quarter bell rang a short time ago. We do not have long before Repose is over and the Dreamless are out on the canals again.” Pale and with dark circles under his eyes, the young merchant looked as though he had not managed to sleep at all. “If you truly mean to look for this place, we should go.”

“We? Does that mean you are going with me?”

Beck nodded miserably. “What choice do I have, my lord? They’ll kill me either way.” His mouth pursed as he struggled with his composure. “For the first time in a long while I was thinking of my children and my wife . . . thinking of how I will likely never see them again ...”

“Enough. That does neither of us any good.” Barrick sat up, stretched. “How much longer will this Repose last?”

Beck shrugged miserably. “I told you, the quarter bell rang. That means three-quarters of it is gone. I do not even know how to judge time anymore, Prince Barrick. An hour? Two hours? That is all we have.”

“Then we must try to find the center of the city before then. What of these skrikers? Will they interfere with us on the river?”

“Interfere?” Beck laughed, the sound hollow as a rotten log. “You do not understand, my lord. The Lonely Ones are not sentries or reeves like we had back in Helmingsea. They will not ‘interfere’; they will turn the marrow in your bones to ice. They will pluck out your heart and swallow it whole. If you are on the water and you hear their voices calling to you, you will drown yourself to get away from them.”

“Stop talking in puzzles—what are they?”

“I don’t know! Even my master was afraid of them. He told me his people should never have brought them to Sleep. That’s what he said—‘brought them.’ I don’t know if they found them or bred them or summoned them like Xandian demons—even the Dreamless speak of the skrikers only in whispers. I heard one of Qu’arus’ sons tell his brother they were like white rags caught on the wind, but with the voices of women. The Dreamless also call them ‘the Eyes of the Empty Place.’ I don’t know what that means. May the gods help me, I never want to find out.” He was all but weeping again.

“Stop this blubbing. Here, look at your map.” Barrick squatted over the spiral the merchant had drawn. “We don’t dare go straight down the big canal, especially if Repose is ending soon, as you say. You must help me find our way to the center by smaller waterways.”

“The small canals—it’s all darklight,” Beck said. “You can’t see anything. Some of them are blocked with water gates—we’re blind, they’ll still be able to see
us
...”

Barrick groaned in frustration. “Still, there must be a way to get there, even if we have to go right down the middle of the biggest canal ...”

“Like a snail shell,” Skurn said suddenly. The bird lifted his head from where he had been pecking through the fractured, sticky remains of just such an object. “Seen that, us has. From above.”

“Yes. We want to get to the center, but Beck says we can’t go down the smallest waterways without being noticed.”

“Us could find a way,” Skurn said. “Island to island, where the dark don’t reach.”

“Then do it,” Barrick told him. “Do it, and I promise I will catch you the biggest, fattest rabbit you ever saw and I won’t take even a bite myself.”

The bird tipped his head sideways to look at him, black eyes alive with reflected firelight. “Done,” he said and spread his wings. “Keep up best as can, then.”

Before getting back into the skiff Barrick stopped to extinguish the fire, but before he kicked the sandy dirt over it he took a pine bough, sticky with sap, and held it in the flames until it caught.

“That’s real fire!” Beck said when he saw it. “Put it out!”

“It’s dark as night out there. I’m not going to feel my way through this cursed city on hands and knees. Besides, if the Dreamless don’t like twilight, maybe they’ll be scared of actual fire.”

“They hate light, but they’re not afraid of it. And they’ll see it from far away. If we carry that, we might as well go shouting at the top of our voices for the skrikers to come and find us.”

Barrick stared at him, trying to sift the man’s sense from his fearfulness. At last he threw the torch into the river; a wisp of smoke drifted after them as they slid away from the island.

 

Barrick had not liked the gloomy city before, but as they worked their way deeper and deeper into the heart of Sleep he liked it even less. It might be a less forbidding place when Repose had ended and the streets were full again, but it was hard to imagine it ever being cheerful, or even ordinary. The waterways, with their high, leaning sides, docks like crooked teeth, and bridges hanging close overhead, seemed almost intestinal—as though the city were some great, mindless creature like a starfish, absorbing them slowly into itself. The houses, even the largest, seemed cramped and secretive, with small windows like the foggy eyes of blind men. Barrick also saw little in the way of public places, at least that he could recognize as such, only the jagged bridges and occasional barren open spaces which looked less like squares or markets and more as if the buildings that had once stood there had vanished without being replaced. Worst of all, though, was the aura of brooding silence that hung over the dark maze. Its residents might be called Dreamless, but instead of perpetual wakefulness every building Barrick and Raemon Beck passed seemed a sort of nightmare construct, a hard shell hiding a seed of slumbering malice in its depths, as though Sleep were not a city at all but a mausoleum for the uneasy dead.