The Council of Shadows

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

A TAINT IN THE BLOOD

 

 

 

ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME
AGAINST THE TIDE OF YEARS
ON THE OCEANS OF ETERNITY

 

DIES THE FIRE
THE PROTECTOR'S WAR
A MEETING AT CORVALLIS

 

THE SUNRISE LANDS
THE SCOURGE OF GOD
THE SWORD OF THE LADY

 

 

THE PESHAWAR LANCERS CONQUISTADOR

ROC
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

First Printing, May 2011

Copyright © Steven M. Stirling, 2010 All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
:

 

Stirling, S. M.
The council of shadows/S. M. Stirling.
p. cm.—(Shadowspawn; 2)

eISBN : 978-1-101-51477-1

I. Title.
PS3569.T543C68 2011
813'.54—dc22 2010052285

 

 

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

 

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

Thanks to Richard Foss, for help with the fine details of food, wine, and restaurants, and invaluable hints about Paris and other locations.

To Kier Salmon, for
all sorts
of help throughout construction!

To Marino Panzanelli and Marco Pertoni for help with Italian, and also the other members of the Stirling Listserv.

To Melinda Snodgrass, Emily Mah, George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Vic Milan, John J. Miller, Jan Stirling, and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction.

To Jack Williamson, Fred Pohl, Sprague de Camp, and other Golden Agers for inspiration; and Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen.

To Joe's Diner, which makes the best Greek salad in Santa Fe, and to Roland and Sheila Richter, proprietors, who put up with the weird guy in the far booth cackling and talking to himself as he typed. And to Lisa, favorite waitress.

E
llen Tarnowski ran through the darkness, darkness so thick that the jungle was merely shapes of a deeper black.

Branches flogged at her naked body, ripping and stinging, stinging again as sweat ran down her body in the hot, airless night. Rocks cut at her feet, and mud clung. Breath rasped in and out through a mouth gone dry as old leather, though she struggled to keep it even, as years of cross-country running had taught her. Fear made her heart thunder between her ribs, and her hands were outstretched to keep her from running into a tree trunk. They did nothing when a foot came down on emptiness. With a scream she pitched forward and tumbled down the slope, clutching at bushes that cut her hands and wrenched loose strands of her long yellow hair.

Behind her came a high, racking snarl that built up into a great squalling feline screech. There was the rage of hunger in it, and killinglust, and an appalling hint of laughter.

The tumble ended with a thump that knocked the breath out of her, in a little clearing of waist-high grass and flowers that showed like pale trumpets in the night. Clouds parted above, and great strange-colored stars shone like jewels around a pale moon. Ellen pushed herself backwards with hands and heels, her eyes going wider.

A tiger flowed down the slope and slunk into the open. It was nightshade itself, striped in black-on-black, its eyes pools of molten sulfur yellow. It snarled like an ivory-fanged saw as it came forward, placing its paws with slow precision. As the teeth showed a voice sounded in Ellen's mind, hatefully familiar, soft-toned and musical.

Hallo,
chérie
. 'Allo, my sweet tasty curvy little blond wonton dumpling of delight! Let's
play
now, shall we? Play-play-play!

It came closer, taunting in its sleek fluid grace. Then its muscles rippled beneath the midnight coat as it crouched to spring.

Ellen did scream as it leapt. Then another streak came through the darkness. The arcs met in midair, and the two huge cats went tumbling over in a blur of striking paws tipped with claws like knives, gleaming fangs and blazing yellow eyes. The newcomer was more massively built, as much like a bear as a cat, tawny colored, with heavy hulking forelimbs and seveninch fangs that jutted saberlike below its jaws. The tumble ended with both rearing and hammering at each other in a blurring frenzy of paw strokes.

Ellen screamed again, this time in rage. A sword lay near her on the ground, its silvery curved blade marked with glyphs that blazed back the moonlight. She snatched it up, darted in and struck a long lashing blow with both hands on the hilt, as if it were a backhand smash in a game of tennis. The black hide of the tiger parted and blood spilled, the red nearly black itself in the night. She struck again and again and again, lost in the hate that possessed her—

And woke.

“Uhhh. Uhhhh. Uhhhh.”

She gasped for breath, feeling her sweat soaking the sheet and suddenly turning cold and gelid, eyes blinking in the light of the bedside lamp. Adrian's hand closed on her arm, careful not to make her feel constrained as a hug might.

“You're awake, darling. You're awake. I'm here.”

She grabbed him with a sudden convulsive movement, burrowing into the strength and warmth as his arms closed around her gently. The big room had the still darkness that comes an hour before dawn, and she could smell the sea and cool scents of dew and rock through the balcony windows. After a few moments she began to shiver in reaction, her skin turning to goose bumps. Adrian wrapped her in a blanket and pulled her back against him, rocking her slightly as her dry sobs wound down.

“That was a bad one,” she said. “Adrian, was that sabertooth you?”

He nodded, his chin moving against her head. “Yes. I walked into that part of the dream.”

Ellen felt dizzy with exhaustion. “Why didn't you kill her?”

“Too risky, my sweet one. That wasn't Adrienne. Adrienne is dead; what you saw in your dream was a memory, a projection, part of your own psyche. Only you could kill it safely. As you killed Adrienne herself. You were very brave, then and now.”

Ellen sighed wearily. “I wish killing the memories were as easy,” she said. “I just got around my childhood and then I get more trauma dumped on me. Dad goes, Adrienne steps into the all-powerful-nightmareabuser slot.”

“I am so sorry, my darling,” Adrian said softly.

She thumped her fist against his back in weak anger. “Not your fault!
You
didn't do it!”

Then she was too tired to speak, but too shivering-taut to sleep. Adrian laid her down, stripped off the sopping sheets, and began kneading the muscles along her spine with strong, expert fingers. There were muted clicks as things adjusted and relaxed; then he covered her again and brought a glass.

“Drink,” he said. “You need to hydrate and get your blood sugar up.”

It was sweet lemonade; the landlady of the
pensione
kept a carafe of it in their rooms, squeezed each day from the grove that surrounded the building. She drank it gratefully and lay back in his embrace, cocooned in the blankets.

“Sleep, darling, sleep. I will watch over you.”

 

 

“Urrgggh,” she said.

Ellen knuckled at her eyes. Adrian waited until she'd blinked them clear before sitting down on the edge of the bed. Bright sunlight spilled through the louvers of the bedroom window, falling over the hatched tile floor and cream-colored stucco of the walls and the tumbled linen of the bedding. She sighed and leaned her head against the flat muscle of his shoulder, like hard living rubber under the soft fine-grained olive skin.