Shadow of all Night Falling

Anina blocked the door. "Tough, ain't it?"

Nepanthe stared, surprised again.

"Ah, well." Anina laughed weakly. "You'll give him the gate now." She returned to the bedroom, came out shortly. She carried a bag.

"Where're you going?" Nepanthe demanded. "I need help dressing for supper."

"Find somebody else. My man doesn't want me around you anymore." That man was Rolf, maneuvering in Mocker's favor. Nepanthe was crushed. Even Rolf, her faithful commander and aide since those first days in Iwa Skolovda...

For the second time in minutes, her door slammed in her face. Another in her mind opened, releasing fears. She threw herself on her bed, wept and thought. She didn't go to supper. Nor did she sleep that night.

As dawn arrived grayly through falling snow, she stood at a window staring toward Haroun's camp, seeing nothing. Her eyes looked inward on rage at the world and people pushing her. What right had they?...

She began pacing. Slowly, as her anger grew, her face reddened. Long-forgotten tears dribbled from the corners of her eyes. "Damn-damn-damn! Why won't they leave me alone? I don't want anybody. I want to be myself!" And a little voice, mocking back in a corner of her mind which seldom allowed its denizens free of shadow, chuckled wickedly, You're a liar! "I don't want to be chained!" Ha! What're your dreams, if not chains that bind? What're the people and things with which you surround yourself, if not walls that keep you in? Run, and all life ahead will be a wasteland as desolate as the past. What'll you do when your bright tomorrows have all become the skeletons of yesterdays? Weep? Why? You won't know what you've missed, only that you were never complete.

It was a night worse than any from those nightmare-haunted years before Saltimbanco's coming. She wept till tears would come no more, destroyed things, screamed, raged-and could discover no escaping a decision.

Strange, that. She didn't worry the goods and bads of the decision Saltimbanco had thrust upon her, but whether or not it should be made. Decisions were anathema. Each became another brick in the wall of the cell of reality. Each committed her.

Next noon hunger finally drew Saltimbanco to the Great Hall. There he found Turran, Valther, and Brock, directing soldiers who were dismantling the plank-and-trestle tables. He seized a half-loaf and some wine before it could be spirited away, wandered over to the Storm Kings. "Self, am wondering what is happening." All the excitement and anguish of the news of Ridyeh's death seemed banished. He was glad, but wondered why.

"You don't know?" Turran countered. "I guess not. That's her style. Well, I'll never tell."

Brock, usually undemonstrative, gave Saltimbanco a friendly punch on the shoulder, but also refused enlightenment.

Anxious to remain as anonymous as possible these last few days, Saltimbanco left the Great Hall. He intended to stroll to the fortress rear to check the canyon, but found himself straying toward the Bell Tower instead. He surrendered to the impulse.

How haggard Nepanthe appeared when she answered his knock! In silence she let him in. He saw she had been mending her damaged embroidery. Once comfortable in the overstuffed chair, he leaned back, closed his eyes, acted his usual self, waited. Nepanthe had too many woes to worry Ridyeh's death. Here he was safe.

She, biting her lip again (she had developed a sore from doing it so frequently), stared at him a long time. She was pale and more frightened than ever. Her decision troubled her deeply, tormenting the roots of her fear. But she was determined to stand by it.

She slowly moved toward his chair. Shaking. He pretended snores, through cracked eyelids watched anger cross her face. With that to impel her, it seemed she feared less.

He opened his eyes, looked up as she slipped her hand into his. Still biting her swollen lip, she gently tugged. He rose, followed her to her bedroom. • • •

Drums echoed through Ravenkrak's shadowed halls. Trumpets proclaimed the occasion. Bright silk ba

Following Turran's directions-the Storm King was as magnificent as any southern King-Saltimbanco positioned himself beside a dais a-head the Great Hall. The folk of Ravenkrak sat on benches athwart the hall, an ocean of restless white and brown and black faces. Suddenly he was terrified. As it was for Nepanthe, this was no day he had ever desired. Yet he needed her, had to be tied to her.

The drums took a new cadence. The trumpets sounded their final call. The bride had abandoned her tower. She would return alone nevermore.

Turran mounted the dais. His was the task of binding. Orange and gold, scarlet and purple, motionless, he loomed like a fire demon.

From the Bell Tower, proceeding along a dark, cleared aisle between banks of snow, though the continuing blizzard, the bride's party started toward the hall. Six women, clad in dark green embroidered with thread-of-gold, carried Nepanthe's train. Liveried pikemen marched at either hand. All moved with a slow, measured step despite the cold. Ravenkrak's weddings were performed with regal pomp and deliberation.

The bride's party reached the Great Hall. Valther and Jerrad drew their swords and assumed Nepanthe's guardianship. They advanced on the dais slowly.

Saltimbanco experienced eternity during that approach. He stared, marveling anew at Nepanthe's beauty, her dark eyes and hair, her soft skin and delicate features. She seemed beatific this evening, unworldly, under some ecstatic enchantment. Her brothers, too, were under the spell. Briefly, he forgot his fears, hoped this would amply distract them. For the moment they might have thought Ridyeh still living.

Nepanthe reached the dais. The drums fell silent. The ceremony began...

As if bounced through time, Saltimbanco realized it was over, done. Was it true? Yes. The people were leaving for the parties. Where had time gone?

Nepanthe finally looked into his eyes. He took her hand, squeezing gently. At that moment, in that place, she showed neither fear nor doubt.

It was too late for either. She had become committed. She would fight for the commitment as bitterly as she had resisted it.

TWELVE: They Drink the Wine of Violence

Saltimbanco yawned and stretched, reaching the last leg of a long and lazy approach to wakefulness. He stretched again. He was as relaxed as a cat. His extended left arm came down on something soft and warm and swathed in a mass of silken hair. He yawned again, rolled so he could look into the smiling face of his new wife. He reached slowly, stalking a wisp of dark hair peeping from fold of coverlet, caught it between thumb and forefinger, curled and twirled it while watching her sleep. Then he drew a fingertip lightly over one soft, rosy cheek, following the line of her jaw, ended by tickling the dimple on her chin. The caress excited something at the corner of her mouth, a something seldom seen before last evening, a happy, demonic something that had spent years in hiding, a something now out and winking merrily. Her smile so lightly grew, drawing with its warmth. Those ruby cushions for his kiss parted slightly, permitting the flight of a sigh. She extended a small, delicate hand to cover his own, pressed it to her cheek. Slowly, so as not to disturb her slumber, he leaned and kissed that taunting quirk at the corner of her mouth.