Shadowplay

"It's a statue," she said at last, almost disappointed. It was about the size of one of the privy garden's red squirrels sitting up on its hind legs, but there the resemblance to anything ordinary ended: the hooded figure, face almost entirely hidden, was made of cloudchip crystal, gray-white and murky as frost in some places, clear and bright as cathedral glass in others, with col¬ors ranging from the palest blue to pinks like flesh or watered blood. The squat, powerful figure held a shepherd's crook; an owl crouched on its shoulder like a second head. "It's Kernios." She had seen it somewhere be¬fore, and reached out her hand to touch it.

"Don't!" Barrick pulled it back, wrapped the cloth around ii again. "It's… it's bad."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I just… I hate it."

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then suddenly remembered. "Oh, no! Barrick, is that… is that the statue from the Erivor Chapel? The one Father Timoid was so angry about when it went missing?"

"When someone stole it. That's what he said, over and over." Barrick flushed, a bold burst of red on his pale cheeks. "He was right."

"Zoria's mercy, did you…?" He did not speak, but that was an answer in itself. "Oh, Barrick, why?"

"I don't know. I told you, I hate it. I hate the way it looks, so blind and quiet, just… thinking. Waiting. And I can feel it all the time, but it's even worse when I'm in the chapel. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"It… I don't know. It's hot. It makes a hot feeling in my head. No, that's not right. I can't say. But I hate it." His little face was determined again, pale and stern. "I'm going to throw it into the moat."

"You can't! It's valuable! It's been in the family for… for a long time."

"I don't care. It's not going to be in the family any longer. I can't even bear to look at it." He stared at her. "Remember, you promised, so you can't tell anyone. You swore an oath-we shared blood."

"Of course I won't tell. But I still don't think you should do it."

He shook his head. "I don't care. And you can't stop me."

She sighed. "I know. No one can stop you doing anything, redling, no matter how foolish. I was just going to tell you not to throw it in the moat."

He stared at her from beneath a furious brow. "Why?"

"Because they drain it. Don't you remember when they did it the sum¬mer before last and they found those bones of that woman who drowned?"

He nodded slowly. "Merola

"That's right." She considered. "It should go into the ocean. Off the out-wall behind the East Lagoon. The water comes up right under the wall there."

"But how can I do it without the guards noticing?"

"I'll tell you how, but you have to promise me something."

"What?"

"Just promise."

He scowled, but she had obviously caught his curiosity. "So be it, 1 promise. Well, how do I throw it over without the guards seeing me do it?"

"I'll go with you. We'll say we want to go up and count the seagulls or something. They all think we're children, anyway-they don't pay any at¬tention to what we do."

"We are children. But why does you coming along help? I can throw it off myself, you know." He looked down quickly at his clenched left hand. "I can get it into the water easily. It's not very heavy."

"Because I'm going to fall down just when we get to the top. You'll be just in front of me and the guards will stop to help me-they'll be terri¬fied I've broken my leg or something-and you just step to the wall and… do it."

He stared at her with admiration. "You're clever, strawhead."

"And you need someone like me to keep you out of trouble, redling. Now what about that promise?"

"Well?"

"I want you to swear on our blood oath that the next time you think of something like stealing a valuable statue out of the chapel, you'll talk to me first."

"I'm not your little brother, you know…!"

"Swear. Or the oath I made doesn't count anymore."

"Oh, very well. I swear." He smiled a little. "I feel better."

"I don't. For one thing, think of all those servants who were stripped and searched and even beaten when Father Timoid was looking for the statue. It wasn't their fault at all!"

"It never is. They're used to it." But he at least had the good sense to ap¬pear a little troubled.

"And what about Kernios? How is he going to feel about having his statue stolen and thrown into the sea?"

Barrick's open expression shuttered again. "I don't care about that. He's my enemy."

"Barrick! Don't say such things about the gods!"

He shrugged. "Let's go. Lady Simeon must have given up by now. We'll come back and get the statue later. We can take it up to the wall tomorrow morning." He stood, then reached down his good hand to help his sister, who was struggling with her long skirts. "We'd better clean this blood off

oui hands before we get back, to the Residence or they'll be wauling to know where we've been."

"It's not very much blood."

"It's enough to cause questions. They love to ask questions-and every¬one pays attention to blood."

Briony opened the pantry door and they slipped back out into the cor¬ridor, quiet as phantoms. The throne hall was also oddly quiet-tomb-silent, as though the immense old building had been holding its breath while it listened to the whispering voices in the pantry.

1

Exiles

,

If, as many of the Deep Voices believe, the darkness is just as much a

something as is the light, then which came first after Nothingthe dark or the light?

The songs of the oldest voices claim that without a listener there can be no

first word: the darkness was until the light became. The lonely Void gave

birth to the Light of love, and afterward they made all that would bethe good and bad, the living and unliving, the found and lost.

— from One Hundred Considerations, out of the Qar's Book of Regret

IT WAS A TERRIBLE DREAM. The young poet Matt Tinwright was declaiming a funeral ode for Barrick, full of high-flown nonsense about the loving arms of Kernios and the warm embrace of the earth, but Briony watched in horror as her twin brother's casket rocked and shook. Something inside was struggling to escape, and the old jester Puzzle was doing his best to hold down the lid, clinging with all the strength of his scrawny arms as the lid creaked and the box shuddered beneath him.

Let him out, she wanted to cry, but could not-the veil she wore was SO tight that words could not pass her lips. His arm, his poor crippled arm! How it must pain him, her poor dead Barrick, having to struggle like that in such a confined place.

Others at the funeral, courtiers and royal guards, helped the jester hold the lid down, then together they hustled the box out of the chapel. Briony hurried after them, but instead of the grass and sun of the graveyard, the chapel doorway led directly downward into a warren of dark stone tu

Briony sat up, heart fluttering in her chest, and discovered herself in a chilly darkness pierced by the bright, distant eyes of stars. The boat rocked under her, the oars creaking quietly in their locks as the Skimmer girl Ena slipped them in and out of the water with the smooth delicacy of an otter sporting in a quiet cove.