Shadowplay

The prince was also sleeping, but a superstitious fear made Vansen crawl across the sodden carpet of dead leaves that separated them so that he could get a closer look. All was well: Barrick's chest rose and fell. Vansen stared at the youth's pale face, the skin so white that even by firelight he could see the blue veins beneath the surface. For a moment he felt unutterably weary and defeated. How could he possibly keep one frail child-and a mad one at that-safe in the midst of so much strangeness, so much peril?

I promised his sister. I gave my word. Even here, surely, at the end of the world, a man's pledge meant something-perhaps everything. If not, the world tottered, the skies fell, the gods turned their back on meaning.

"Gyir will ride with me," Barrick a

The Twilight man stirred, begi

Barrick only shook his head, almost sadly. "I ca

"What? No, Highness-he will not have his sword, even if you call me traitor!"

Gyir had awakened. Vansen saw an expression on the creature's feature¬less face that almost seemed like amusement-a drooping of the eyelids, a slow turn away from Vansen's scrutiny. It enraged him, but also made him wonder again at how the creature lived at all, how it ate and breathed. If it could not make a recognizable expression on the curved skin of its face, how did it communicate to others? The prince certainly seemed to think he understood him.

Gyir chose to retain his thundercloud-blue breastplate and his helmet, but left the rest of his armor where it had been thrown. Already the grass seemed to be covering it over. The tall fairy sat behind Barrick on the strange dark horse the prince had brought from the battlefield. The tall Twilight demon Gyir could snap the boy's neck in an instant if he chose, but Barrick seemed undisturbed to have him so near. Together they looked like some two-headed monstrosity out of an old wall-painting, and Vansen could not help superstitiously making the sign of the Three, but if this invocation of the true gods bothered Gyir in any way, he gave no sign of it.

"Where are we going exactly, Highness?" Vansen asked wearily. He had lost command of this journey long ago-there was no sense in pretending otherwise.

"That way," Barrick said, pointing. "Toward high M'aarenol."

How the prince could claim to see some foreign landmark in this con¬founding eternal twilight was more than Ferras Vansen could guess. Gyir now turned his ember-red eyes toward Vansen, and for a moment he could almost hear a voice inside his skull, as though the wind had blown a hand¬ful of words there without him hearing them first-words that were not words, that were almost pictures.

A long way, the words seemed to say. A long, dangerous way.

Ferras Vansen could think of nothing to do but shake the reins, turn his horse, and ride out in the direction Barrick had indicated. Vansen had lost his mind to madness once before in this place, or as near to it as he could imagine. Perhaps madness was simply something he would have to learn to live in, as a fish could live in water without drowning.

/

3

Night Noises

O my children, listen! In the begi

fruitless. Then the light came and brought life to the nothingness, and of

this light were born the gods, and all the earth's joys and sorrows.

This is truth I tell you.

— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One

T

HE FACE WAS COLD and emotionless, the skin pale and blood¬less as Akaris marble, but it was the eyes that terrified Chert most: they seemed to glare with an i

"Who are you to meddle in the gods' affairs?" she demanded. "You are the least of your people-less than a man. You betray the Mysteries without apology or prayer or ritual. You ca

Chert sat up in bed, panting, sweat beading on his face even in the midst of a chilly night. Opal made a grumbling sound and reclaimed some of the blanket, then rolled over, putting her back to her a

Why should that face haunt his dream? Why should the grim noblewoman who had commanded the Twilight army-who in actuality had regarded Chert as though he were nothing more than a beede on the tabletop-rail at him about the gods? She had not even really spoken to him, let alone made accusations that were so painful it felt as though they had been chiseled into his heart and could not be effaced.

/ can't even protect my family-it's true. My wife cries every evening after Flint has fallen asleep-the hoy who no longer recognizes us. And all because I let him go dashing off and could not find him until it was too late. At least that's what Opal thinks.

Not that she said any such thing. His wife was aware of the weapon her tongue could be, and since that strange and terrible time a te

A quiet noise suddenly caught his attention. He held his breath, listen¬ing. For the first time he realized that what had awakened him was not the fearfulness of the dream but a dim comprehension of something out of the ordinary. There it was again-a muffled scrabbling sound like a mouse in the wall. But the walls of Funderling houses were stone, and even if they had been made of wood like the big folks' flimsy dwellings, it would be a brave mouse indeed that would brave the sovereign territory of Opal Blue Quartz.

Is it the boy? Chert's heart flopped again. Is he dying from those strange va¬pors we breathed in the depths? Flint had never been well since coming back, sleeping away most days, speechless as a newborn much of the time he was awake, staring at his foster parents as though he were a trapped animal and they his captors-the single thing that tore most at Opal's heart.

Chert roiled out of bed, trying not to wake his wife. He padded into the other room, scarcely feeling the cold stone against his tough soles. The boy looked much as always, asleep with his mouth open and his arms cast wide, half on his stomach as though he were swimming, the covers kicked away. Chert paused first to lay a hand on Flint's ribs to be reassured by his breath¬ing, then felt the boy's forehead for signs that the fever had returned. As he leaned close in the darkness he heard the noise again-a strange, slow scratching, as though some ancient Funderling ancestor from the days be¬fore burning were digging his way up toward the living.