Shadow Chaser (19 page)

I’ve been here once before.

When was that? An eternity earlier or an eternity later?

Ah yes! I think I remember—it was in the distant future, on that day when Miralissa bound the Key of the Doors of Hrad Spein to my consciousness. On that memorable evening I fell through into the black night of Nothingness, into a dream of a dream, filled with fiery flakes of the crimson flame of Kronk-a-Mor.

But unlike last time, this time I felt cold … very cold.…

My body was racked by agonizing cramps. The only things I could feel were the cold and the pain. But which of these two evils was causing me more suffering? Just at the moment I couldn’t give a rotten damn; all I wanted, with every nerve in my body, was to get out of there to somewhere a bit more welcoming and a bit less mysterious. But this time nothing came of my futile efforts to escape from Nothingness. There was no dark elfess there to help me, I was absolutely helpless and freezing … colder and colder.

Cold-cold-cold-cold-cold …

After a while I had the feeling that a tangle of gluttonous leeches had invaded my stomach, inflicting a pain more appalling than anything I could have imagined. If not for the cold swirling of the sharp, prickly snowflakes, constantly distracting me from the hot coals blazing in my belly, the pain would have driven me out of my mind. There was no question of actually looking at what the Messenger’s talons had done to my stomach: I was afraid I would pass out if I even caught a glimpse of it.

The pain pulsated and increased, doubling and multiplying inside me, like the infinite reflections in the mirror maze of a dream. It unfolded its sharp petals all the way through my body, driving me to the brink of insanity. Now I knew what the most terrible torture of all is.

Through the silent swirling dance of the fiery snowflakes I could hear a regular tapping sound, but it took me a while to realize that it was my teeth beating out a tattoo in honor of the master of this world—the fiery snow, bringer of an icy death.

The wind of the darkness, the wind that had once brought me dreams of the past, dreams of those who were long dead—men, elves, gnomes, orcs, and many other creatures—sprang to life, flinging sharp crystals of icy fire into my face.

I tried to dodge away, or at least protect my face against the snowflakes with my hands, but my pitiful efforts only infuriated the leeches of pain in my stomach. The moment they sensed that I was busy with something else, that I had stopped trying to control them, they started gnawing into my guts, and I howled out in pain and horror.

They pulsated in unison, breathing together, but if you knew that they are not all-powerful, they could be defeated.

But the cold was pitiless, heartless, and indifferent to everything alive. This thing was trying to put me to sleep, to bring me false warmth and peace, to carry my mind off into the river of eternal forgetfulness and dreams that flowed into the sea of Death.

I’m cold! Sagot, I’m so cold!

In the darkness the fiery snowflakes swirled together into a gigantic pillar of flame, falling on my hands and melting, turning into crimson steam.

The black Nothing of magic, the world of dreams and phantoms of the past, has its own, different, laws.

“Greetings, Dancer!”

Just like the last time, I had missed the brief instant when they appeared in front of me. They glided toward me—my old friends, the living shadows, the mistresses of Nothing. I thought of them as First, Second, and Third. Three shadows, three friends, three sisters, three lovers … They hadn’t changed at all since our last meeting and our last dance, which had helped me get out of here the last time. Perhaps I might be able to escape with their help this time, too?

“Hel-lo, la-dies.” My teeth were chattering and words were hard to pronounce.

“Do you not know, Dancer, that some dreams are as dangerous as reality?” There was a note of sadness in Second’s voice.

“D-dreams are d-dangerous?” I recalled all the nightmares about the past that I had seen in the last month. “Yes, I sup-pose I kn-now that…”

“Then why do you summon them to yourself, Dancer? Prophecies and destiny cannot protect you forever.”

First and Third did not say anything.

“I did not wish to ap-pear in your d-dream world,” I said, trying to make excuses. “I d-don’t even know how I ended up here in this cr-cr-crimson snow.”

“You think our world is a dream?” First asked in amazement. “That is a mistake, Dancer. Our world is far more real than yours—it was the first of all to appear. The world of Chaos had served as the basis for thousands of others when your kind started creating and destroying shadows. It is not a dream, and we are not a dream, and you are not in a dream now.…”

“And you are dying, Dancer,” said Third, joining in the conversation. “You are dying because you wander too often through dreams that are too dangerous for you as yet.”

“I d-don’t und-derstand what you…” The cold was lulling my mind to sleep.

“Dreams can kill,” First murmured. “Once you believe a dream is reality, you don’t just see it, you start living in it. And then how dangerous it becomes! The one who did this to you was in your dream—”

“Or you were in his,” said Second, interrupting First.

“That’s not important now. You believed and so you received this wound…”

The Master’s prison is a dream?

The reminder of the wound and the sincere sympathy I could hear in the shadow’s voice made me take a look at my stomach.

I really shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t know why I was still alive. Wounds like that guarantee a quick passage into the light with no chance of ever coming back to see the blue sky.

The leeches of pain started gnawing on me twice as viciously, and I was unable to hold back my scream.

“There, Dancer, now you see how dangerous uncontrolled dreams can be?”

“How d-did … How did I g-get here?”

“We should ask you that—you entered our house of your own free will.”

“I d-didn’t want to come here! I wanted to g-go home!”

“Now our world will be your home forever. In Siala you would have drawn your last breath ages ago. You can only stay alive here.”

“I n-need my world!”

“Your world?” Third began swirling round me, scattering a shimmering curtain of crimson snowflakes. “Why is it better than this one? Can you do this there?”

Third moved close, until she was almost touching me, and I caught a brief glimpse of a woman’s face. Then she merged into me, and I felt a wave of warmth run through my body, and the leeches of pain unclamped their suckers with a rasping groan of disappointment and drifted away into the black night to find a weaker and more accommodating victim.

In an instant Third was beside her sisters again, and I stared in astonishment at the spot where only a second ago there was a terrible, gaping wound.

Nothing. No wound at all. My torn and bloody shirt was the only reminder of the Messenger’s blow.

“Is your world capable of that, Dancer?”

I shook my head in bewilderment. Nobody, not even the Order, can make healthy, unbroken skin appear where there was a hole the size of a man’s fist, gushing blood, with guts spilling out of it. In Siala only the gods can pull off tricks like that.

“Then why are you so eager to go back there?”

“I have b-business to finish,” I blurted out. “And ap-part from that, it’s t-too cold here.”

First laughed, and the snowflakes responded to her laugh by bursting and turning into little sparks. Then they fused together into the ravenous beast whose name is fire, and in an instant it had devoured the black night and surrounded us with a dense cocoon of heat.

The shadows remained as impenetrably black as ever.

“Well then, Dancer, is that warmer?” First asked mockingly.

“Yes…” I didn’t have the strength to feel surprised. Just how omnipotent were these three? And why were they so interested in my humble person?

“Are you staying with us?”

“What d-do you want with me?” I asked, playing for time as I warmed up.

“You are the Shadow Dancer. The first Dancer who has appeared in more than ten thousand years! And you can do things that other people cannot. You still don’t know what you are capable of. We need you, this world needs you, and you will breathe into it the life that has gone to other worlds, thanks to your kind. Without you our home will die!”

“Without me my world will die,” I tried to shout above the vicious roar of the flame. “It’s my duty…”

“Your duty?” Second said sarcastically. “A thief talking about duty.”

“I have to go back and finish a job,” I insisted stubbornly. “I accepted a Commission, and until I carry it out, I am not free to follow my own wishes.”

The shadows put their heads together and started talking quietly. Had I really managed to persuade them? My place was not in this world, a world of emptiness filled with fiery snow or hot flame. Surely they could understand that?

“All right, you can leave,” Second announced. “We have waited for thousands of years, we will wait a little longer. You will come back to us in any case. He who has found the way to the primary world always returns. Now go!”

“Which way?”

“Forward.”

I cast a wary glance at the wall of fire.

“You know that I cannot pass through the fire without you.”

“True. But this time you must pass through without our help. We shall not always be beside you. A djanga with shadows will not always lead you through the traps of the House of Power. The time will come when you will have to fight it singlehanded.”

“The House of Power?” I exclaimed. “You said ‘the House of Power’! And do you know about the Houses of Love, Pain, and Fear as well?”

“Yes, we know.”

“And the Master? Who or what he is? You know about—”

“Yes, we know,” Third interrupted.

“Then tell me. It’s very important!”

“A moment ago you were in a hurry to get away, Dancer, and now you are hungry for information,” First answered my question coldly. “Information must be paid for, are you ready for that?”

“That depends on what you want for it,” I said cautiously. You should never agree to anything until you know what price you’d be asked to pay in return.

“You will have to stay with us.”

“Then your knowledge is not worth a bent penny. I won’t have any use for it here.”

“I’m sorry, but it will be a long time before your world is ready for this knowledge,” Second answered regretfully. “Forward, Dancer, the fire is waiting for you.”

“Good-bye!”

“No, until we meet again, and soon, Dancer! Remember that a djanga with shadows does not always lead along the right road.”

“Remember!”

“Beware!”

They shouted something else as well from behind me, but I could no longer hear what they said. The fire flicked its hissing tongues of flame at me, menacing me.

“You’re mine!” roared the crimson fire.

“You’re ours!” its ravenous tongues echoed.

I’m not much inclined to acting in a crazy, irrational fashion, but the time for it had clearly come now. So it’s not always possible to pass through the flame by dancing with shadows? Well, some other way, then …

The fire scorched my face and my hair started crackling menacingly. The skin started to crack on the hands covering my eyes.

The last time only the djanga, the wild, crazy dance that I’d been whirled into by the three shadows, had allowed me to pass through the flames of this inhospitable world and get back to Siala.

This time I was on my own, face-to-face with the ravenous fire.

“You’re mine!” the wall of heat droned.

“You’re mine!” I barked back.

And without thinking about it anymore, I jumped straight into the oven. The wall roared triumphantly as it embraced me. The pain from the burning unfolded into a crimson blossom, but my clothes and my hair didn’t flare up. The flame was left howling in disappointment behind me. Before the silence came crashing down on me, I had time to realize that I had managed to break through the boundary between worlds without the help of any djanga with shadows.…

*   *   *

My head was buzzing, a herd of hedgehogs had settled in my mouth, the back of my head was throbbing. I hissed louder than a boiling kettle and forced myself to open my eyes. Everything was swimming about, so it cost me a serious effort to understand where I was.

“Good morning!” said a loud voice, and I started.

“Is this what you call a good morning, Eel?” I asked with a wry chuckle.

“At least we’re still alive.”

“How long have we been here?”

“We’ve been stuck in here all yesterday and all night. How’s your head?”

“Don’t even mention it,” I told the Garrakian with a groan. “It’s buzzing like an angry nest of hornets. They belted me pretty hard in the cart.”

“I was starting to get worried. You had a fever and you were talking, but you didn’t come round.”