Shadow's End Page 13

  Even as she said to herself, perhaps, perhaps, she knew there was no happenstance involved. Similarity didn't matter. Only this place mattered, its odors that smelled like, its growths that looked like, its moor that felt like the moor she had dreamed. This could be the actual refuge she had found as a child—or dreamed she had found. If one went west across this stretch of rolling ground, one would come to cliffs above the sea. They would be the same cliffs, the same sea. During the workaday world of daylight there had been no opportunity to explore. Now in a dark relieved only by the pearly glimmer of tiny moonlets, shining through the night like so many lopsided paper lanterns, she would find the old cliff, the old sea, the old place she knew so well.

  Every step of the way could have been dictated from memory! Surely she had seen a pool of this shape before! Surely she had caught her foot on just such a root and been sent sprawling in just this way, with this particular herb crushed beneath her cheek to surround her with identical pungency. Surely the sound of the sea had come at just this point and no other, the swelling and sighing of the surf as it rolled small stones on the rocky shelf below. Surely all of this was the same, her own childhood place, wherever and whenever it had been, come here again.

  She wasn't even surprised. However astonishing similar things might be, identical things were not. One could be astonished at the close resemblance of brothers but not at that of identical twins. So she couldn't be astonished at this moor, for it was not merely like. It was the one she had known, and that was all there was to it. The two, though they seemed separate in time and space, were the same place.

  So musing, believing herself half dreaming, she came to the edge of the cliff at last, feeling a familiar panic, a fleeting urge to jump. Why? Why the panic? Why … because there was something following her. Something seeking her. Now? Or then?

  She puzzled over this as she turned left along the rimrock. This was the way she had always turned. The cliff was as she remembered, and the soughing of the sea. She wandered slowly along the precipice, around this stone and that twiggy growth, searching, believing she had missed it, as she had always believed—

  Only to come upon it suddenly: the outcropping of stone, the branch extending into space, the bare, pale, polished place upon the wood where her hands, someone's hands, had rubbed the bark away to make a smoothness. Without thinking, without decision, she leapt out, hands extended to grasp, the springiness of the wood coming as a shock to the muscles of her arms as she bounced pendant beneath it like a toy jerking upon a string. No hole, she told herself in sudden panic. No hole in the cliff. Nowhere to go from here.

  The fear was only momentary. The entry was there, a darker crevice among the striations of the cliff face. And a protruding stone where she needed to put her foot. And a ropy rootlet hanging down …

  She didn't really remember this part. In her dream, she felt the details of the cave rather than smelled or heard or saw them. This cave felt sandier; it had no bracken bed. It felt smaller, too, but then, it would have seemed larger to the child she had been when she had dreamed it first. The trickle of water was there at the back, making a modest puddle on its hollowed stone, seeping away down a mossy crack. She remembered caches of food. There were none in this cave. She remembered warm animal skins, and they, too, were missing. She could bring food. She could bring blankets and armfuls of cut bracken to cushion her rest. From this time forward, she would go to bed with the others, but when they slept, she would sneak away to spend the dark hours here, in this refuge above the sea.

  Now she lay down on the sandy floor, her body taking the curved form so often imposed upon it, knees up, thumb in mouth, hip seeking a familiar hollow. The stones beside the entry were piled as she had left them in dream. She reached with one hand to stack them, the larger ones on the bottom, the smaller above.

  Moving the stones disclosed a niche. In the niche was a painted jar with a lid. Snark's eyes drifted across it, hardly seeing it. Though she hadn't remembered the jar before, hadn't recalled its presence or patterns, she did so now. The jar had always been there, its egglike shape of white clay covered with dark swerving lines, wings, and faces. She even knew the names of those portrayed. Father Endless and Mother Darkness. Mother had put the jar there. Someone … someone named Mother had put the jar there. And inside were the bones of …

  Whose bones? Why there?

  She fell asleep before she could answer the question.

  Just before dawn she had a momentary panic when she prepared to leave the cave and realized she didn't know how. She remembered coming here, yes, time after time, escaping here, yes, finding refuge here, cuddling down warmly, nose to the gap in the piled rocks, smelling the sea wind, hearing the birds when they woke before dawn to plunge out in their screaming spirals above the sea. She could remember eating here, jaws moving in slow mastication while the birds screamed and dived. She could remember sucking up the slow seep of water as it accumulated on the hollowed stone. She even remembered squatting on the minuscule ledge, skinny butt jutting over the gulf as she peed down the face of the cliff, her own tiny stream joining the vast ocean below, but she had no memory at all of ever leaving this place.

  So, how did she get out? The branch that had dropped her down had sprung back to its position above, out of reach. The cliff overhung the ledge. Above was invisible, unreachable. She sat, fighting panic, thinking it out. She needed something to draw the branch down. Once she had hold of the branch, she could pull herself up. So, she would use her belt, with a stone tied to the end to give it weight.

  She tried this, but her belt was too thick, too inflexible. She took off her shirt and tore strips from it, braiding them together for strength, succeeding at last in drawing the branch down, close, where she could reach it. As she bounced and juddered, working her way up to the rim of the stone, she resolved next time to bring a strong line with a weight affixed so she would have the proper tool to get out.

  She must have had such a tool before. She could not imagine why she had forgotten it until now. Unless perhaps, before, someone else had drawn the branch down for her. Unless, before, she had been only a child.

  She returned to the dormitory complex just in time to get into bed before the others woke. Perhaps the watchers on Dinadh knew she had been away, but none of the Shadowland people did. Certainly Snark did not tell them.

  The shadows had been given the knowledge they needed to act as their roles required, and for some of them this had been the equivalent of an advanced education in biotechnology. Though the information had been imposed, they could use it, fumblingly at first and with more assurance as time went by. They had not been given a course in morals and ethics. No one had thought to prevent their stealing. What was there to steal on Perdur Alas?

  Snark stole food and blankets to start with. Over the next dozen nights she equipped her refuge. She stole food enough for a lengthy stay. She made her bracken bed, a blanketful cut each night on her way to the cliff, a new blanket carried there each night until the entire floor of the cave was cushioned and comfortable. Though she remembered animal skins from the time before, the blankets were as warm and they smelled better. She brought two lengths of line with weights at one end, keeping one in her pocket and one in the niche next to the opening—just in case she lost the one she was carrying.

  She did nothing that significantly changed the original dream until she had fulfilled it meticulously. Only then did she add other supplies, things the adult Snark thought might be useful: night glasses for spying, an emergency beacon, a box of vegetable and fruit seeds from the agricultural lab. Suppose, she told herself, suppose I get left here all by myself! Suppose the Ularians get all the others, but I'm hiding and they can't find me. Suppose they don't get me! I'd need the beacon so humans could come rescue me. I'd need to grow food. I'd need to stay alive!

  The words, the very tone was familiar. Someone had said the same to her once, long ago. Fleetingly she realized the idea of rescue was ridiculous. Why would they come
to rescue a totally dispensable shadow? A shadow who had been put here as bait in the first place? Does the worm on the hook expect to be rescued simply because the fish have eaten all the other worms?

  Perhaps, she told herself. Perhaps, if the worm had information about the fish. Perhaps then. Suppose she saw the fish, the Ularians. Then there'd be reason to pick her up. The monitor would sense what she sensed, but he couldn't read her mind. The monitor might think she'd found out something important! Whether she did or not, she could say she had. If she said it out loud, the monitor would hear what she said.

  So, she would try to see them, if they came, and whether she did or not, she would say loudly that she had found out something. Dangerous, that. How did one find anything out except through one's senses. If she merely deduced, it would have to be from evidence. From things seen and heard. Could one pretend to see? Pretend to hear?

  Such questions preoccupied her. Rarely she thought about men. Susso had come with the other shadows. Maybe she ought to tell Susso about her cave. Invite him to come along.

  The idea was transient, the motivation unconvincing. Sex was pleasurable, sure, but survival was sweeter still. Susso wouldn't keep his mouth shut. Then the others would get involved. They'd interfere. They'd stop Snark leaving. Stop her coming here. Better not say anything to Susso. Who needed men anyhow?

  "Inventory's almost done," said Kane, when they had been on the planet thirty or forty days. "Tomorrow we'll start the ag-study."

  "I'm missing supplies in ag-lab," one of the women said plaintively. "One whole carton of vegetable seeds is missing."

  "They probably miscounted," said Kane carelessly. "They probably did."

  They were the predecessors, the other team, the real team, acknowledged but unconsidered. They had been here. They had gone. Now we were here. No one ever said, "When we're finished and gone." No one ever said, "When the job's done." They had been conditioned against such expectations. The job was interminable. The task was lifelong. And though lifelong might be short indeed, they were conditioned against anxiety.

  "You got enough seeds left to do the job?" Kane asked. "That's all that matters."

  She had enough for the job. No one paid any attention to her earlier comment. They went to their daily tasks with perfect gravity and understanding, though it was all accomplished in dreamlike slow motion. Even eating was slow. Every movement, every task was set for them. Go from 1 to 2; 2 leads to 3; 3 leads to 4. Nothing was done because they wanted to or thought of it themselves. They didn't worry; they didn't fight. They scarcely spoke. Sometimes two of them would couple in the night with spurious urgency, but even such brief convulsions were muted and soon forgotten.

  Very occasionally Snark remembered the simul booth back in Shadowland, but she couldn't bring herself to want it much. She sometimes remembered raging, remembered shouting, remembered fighting—or trying to. It was all another dream, not unlike this dream of being on Perdur Alas. Each day took care of itself. And now that Snark had found her own place, which was real and remote from dreaming, each night took care of itself as well.

  Deprived of his shadows, the Procurator had not yet grown accustomed to pouring his own tea. Often more liquid slopped onto the table than stayed in the cup, on this occasion giving him reason to swear gustily as an underling entered, one Mikeraw.

  "Sorry, sir," the underling murmured.

  "You didn't do it," grouched the Procurator. "I did. I am clumsy and incapable! We had grown too dependent upon shadows, Mikeraw. Far too dependent!"

  Mikeraw, who was lowly in rank and non-Fastigat, had never been served by shadows. He contented himself with a murmured agreement as he helped the Procurator mop both himself and the tabletop.

  This accomplished, Mikeraw bowed, murmuring, "I thought you should see this, sir. It seems to impinge—"

  "What? What is it?" He reached for the proffered document.

  "An agent upon Dinadh, sir. Reporting rumor, sir."

  "An Alliance agent?"

  Mikeraw flushed slightly. "As a matter of fact, no, sir. We have an agent there, but he doesn't report much. This is from a Gadravian agent."

  "The Gadravians take a lot on themselves!"

  "They insist they are loyal members of the Alliance and are merely providing us with appropriate redundancy in intelligence matters. As in this case."

  "This case? Case of what, man?"

  Mikeraw cleared his throat. "It is rumored the King of Kamir has sent assassins to Dinadh to eradicate the Famber lineage, sir."

  The Procurator sat down with a thump.

  "Famber? Leelson Famber? Why in the name of all that's holy and intractable … ?" The King of Kamir was a joke, of course. Everyone knew of the King of Kamir. He was proverbial. "Useless as the King of Kamir." Said of lackadaisical students and lie-about workmen, as well as of tools that didn't function or equipment that fell apart. For the first time the Procurator considered that the king might rather resent this reputation. Might have resented it enough to have wished to put it behind him.

  He gaped unattractively while thinking. Suddenly aware of this, he gave his mouth something to do, asking, "It was Leelson who found him, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, sir. When the king disappeared, the government of Kamir retained Fastiga to investigate, and Fastiga assigned Leelson Famber."

  "Excrement," muttered the Procurator. "Oh, excrement."

  "I thought, inasmuch … "

  "Quite right. Quite right. Good man. Well, it puts Lutha Tallstaff in the broth, doesn't it? And any Fastigat with her. On behalf of the boy, of course. The assassins might not bother him, and maybe not her, but they will the boy. Unless Trompe Paggas gets in the way!"

  "I've consulted the relevant documents, sir, that is, the laws of Kamir as they might apply in this situation. I came up with the thought that we might approach the king himself to obtain a royal writ."

  "Calling the assassins off, you mean?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And then what?"

  "Send the writ to Dinadh … " His voice trailed off, and he shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably.

  "Assuming one could get such a writ, who would deliver it on Dinadh, and to whom?" asked the Procurator.

  The underling shrugged. He didn't know.

  The Procurator sighed. "Fastiga," he murmured. "Whoever goes to Kamir can't be from Fastiga."

  "Why not from Fastiga, sir?"

  "The bureaucrats would suspect a Fastigat. They do, you know."

  "Perhaps we could send another assassin, sir?"

  "You say?"

  "Send a corsair to catch a corsair, isn't that the saying?"

  "Not in my language, it isn't."

  "In mine, sir."

  "And where are you from?"

  "Far Barbary, sir."

  "Well, that explains it. All pirates there, aren't they?"

  "Not much anymore, sir. Once were, of course. My own great-grandfather, in fact."

  "And how did you end up here?"

  The man stared at his boots, reddening.

  The Procurator accurately read his embarrassment.

  "Government is merely another kind of piracy, is that it?" The Procurator guffawed, tears welling in his eyes. "I take no offense. It's true, my boy. Politicians are pirates, of a sort!"

  "I wasn't going to say so, sir. Though my father does."

  "And your grandfather, too, no doubt. Well. You could be right. Send a corsair to fetch a corsair, an assassin to fetch an assassin. In which case, who's our assassin?"

  "We'll need to ask the King of Kamir, sir. He seems to have an inexhaustible supply."

  It was, as a matter of fact, Councilwoman Poracious Luv who went to Kamir on behalf of the Alliance. She demanded an audience with the king and received it without delay. Jiacare Lostre, King of Kamir, was so enervated by his day-to-day life, he didn't even make her wait. He would have consented to meet with an offal-eater from Hapsobog to break the tedium, and he found little fault with this wallowing bulk, this mo
nstrous bosom heaving at him, even though she insisted on boring him with a brief history of the Ularian crisis, which he cared nothing about.

  His kingly prerogative allowed him to tell her so, yawning.

  "I don't think Your Majesty understands," she said, growing quite pink about the jowls as she held out a pleading arm from which the quivering flesh hung in braceleted rolls.

  "My Majesty does understand quite well," he said. "I just don't give a damn if we're condemned a wee bit sooner than our present course will equally condemn us."

  She chewed her lower lip, wondering why in heaven's name the Procurator had picked her for this mission.

  "There are those who feel differently," she murmured.

  "Not I," he said. "Not while I'm pinioned here!"

  "Are you?" she asked, suddenly interested despite herself. "By what?"

  Her obvious interest caught him by surprise, and he became expansive. "Tradition, madam. And the force of law. I am coerced in many divers ways, by suasion horrible to contemplate, by threats against the comforts of my kin, of whom, despite my boredom, I am fond. My mother's life is hostage 'gainst my own, and so my sister's—who, in happier times, was very dear to me."

  "You did have happier times, then?"

  He snorted. "I had four brothers older than myself, all four of whom aspired to mount this seat. Efficiently they entered on the task of murdering each other, leaving me to sit upon a throne I much despised."

  "So much so you ran away from it."

  He flushed. "I planned escape, achieved it! Ah, but then I was dragged back to duty as bad boys are driven to their books by masters' canes. Like them, I swot and grimace and complain … "

  She gnawed at the inside of her cheek, a habit that gave her the look of some ponderous ruminant.