The Shadow Roads

One

The disk of light stretched and wavered, flowing left thenright.

The moon, he thought. That is the moon-Butwho am I?

Dust mote stars spun slowly in the black. Light began togrow, and he slipped down into the cool, dark depths. He could feel the othershere, their numbers beyond counting. Slowly they made their way toward thebreathing sea, some so weak they were barely there, others … Others were asstrong and clear as the risen sun.

But what are their names? Have none of them names?

Once he had been a traveler. Of that he was almost certain.A traveler whose journeys had become legend.

Once he had gone into a great swamp and battled Death himself.

The bright light faded, and he rose again, floating uptoward the waning moon, the faint stars. Something swam by, pale and flowing.

A fish, he thought. But it was not. It was a man,blue-pale, like the belly of a fish, eyes like moon shells. For a moment itpaused and gazed at him, sadly.

Who are you? he tried to say, but no words wouldform.

And then he was alone. He felt himself rising again, thewavering moon growing-so close. His face broke the surface, moonlight clingingto him, running out of his hair, his eyes. He took a breath. And then another.

“But who am I?” he whispered.

“Sainth?”

He looked around, but saw nothing.

“Sainth?” The voice came from a shadow on the water, blackas a starless sky.

“Sainth …?” he said. “Is that who I am?”

“It is who you were,” the voice said.

“And who are you?”

“I am the past. Perhaps not even that, but only a shadow ofthe past.”

“I think you are a dream. This is all a dream.”

“You are on the River Wyrr, where things are not as theyshould be.”

A shard of memory knifed into his thoughts. “Death … Deathpursued me!”

“His servants, perhaps. Death does not venture beyond the gatesof his dark kingdom … yet.”

“But why were his servants abroad in forms that could beseen?”

This brought a moment of silence, and he felt a breeze touchhis face and sigh through the trees along the shore.

“They have not yet appeared so in the land between the mountains,but only in the hidden lands, as they are called: the kingdom of Aillyn,of old. Tusival’s great spell fails, and the wall that surrounds Death’skingdom is falling. His servants clamber through the breach. They are preparingthe way for their master to follow … as was foreseen long ago.”

“But how can this be? Death cannot leave his kingdom.”

“Aillyn … Aillyn meddled with his father’s spell. He usedit to sunder his lands from his brother’s. Fear and jealousy and madness haveled to this.”

The man who had been Sainth felt himself sinking again, sinkingbeneath the weight of these words. He laid his head back in the waters,blinking at the stars. Each breath he drew sounded loud in his ears. The waterswere neither warm nor cool. A soft current spun him slowly.

“Sainth,” he whispered, listening for resonance.

Yes, he had memories of one called Sainth. But there wereother memories, as well.

Death’s servants had stalked him through a drownedforest. Death’s servants!

For a moment, he closed his eyes, blotting out the slowlyspinning stars. A man, almost hidden in a cloud of screeching crows, surfacedfrom memory.

Crowheart!

“Sainth?” came the oddly hissing voice again.

“I am not he.”

“Then who are you?”

A light flickered behind closed eyes. “Alaan-I amAlaan!”

“Perhaps,” the voice said, almost sadly. “Perhapsyou are-in part. But you were Sainth once, and you have Sainth’s dutiesto perform. Do not for get.You cannot shirk them.”

The man who believed he was Alaan opened his eyes. “What?What are you saying? What duties?”

But in answer he heard only the soft murmuring of the river.

He floated on, the currents of memories filling him,spinning him this way, then that. How dreamlike some of them seemed, shroudedin mist, or washed out in the brightest light. Some were lost in darkness.Rabal Crowheart he remembered, and Orlem Slighthand. But surely these memorieswere confused, for Slighthand had served the sorcerer named Sainth, whereas Crowheartwas a memory of this life-of Alaan’s.

But the currents all seemed to flow together, like tworivers joining to form a new waterway. New, but made up of the tributaries.

Perhaps I should have a new name, the man thought-neitherAlaan nor Sainth. But no, Alaan would do. Alaan would do for this life, howeverlong it proved to be.

Waving arms and legs, he turned himself so that his headlifted clear of the water, and he searched the darkness. The Wynnd was broadhere, but he could make out a line of trees, poplars, swaying gently in a softbreeze, moonlight shimmering off their leaves.

He set out for the shore, his strength seeming to grow witheach stroke. A light, appeared among the trees. It was unlike the cold light ofthe stars, for this was orange-yellow and warm. Fire.

The man who had once been Sainth slowed his pace as heneared the shore. He could see other fires now. It was an encampment, hethought. And then a strand of music wafted out over the water and wove itselfinto the night sounds.

Fael. He had found an encampment of black wanderers.

For a moment he hovered out of sight, silent in the slowlymoving waters. On the embankment some Fael men were watering horses in thedark. They must have just returned from somewhere. He could hear their muffledvoices as they spoke softly. The horses splashed in the shallows beneath thelow embankment, drinking, then lifting their great heads to peer into thenight. Their white faces appeared to glow palely in the moonlight. He wonderedif they sensed him here, in the dark.

“Nann is distressed,” one of the Fael said. “I have seen itin her face. And Tuath … Tuath has not been out of her tent in two days. Norhas her needle stopped in all that time. A vision has possessed her, they say.”

Alaan could hear the uneasiness in the men’s voices. Evenamong the Fael the vision weavers-for certainly that is who they were speakingof-were viewed with a mixture of awe and loathing. Too often their visions wereof dark events, calamities pending. Yet such visions had allowed the Fael toescape or at least mitigate such disasters many times. Thus the weavers weretolerated, even treated with some respect, but they were also feared andshunned-outcasts among the outcast.

“The one with no legs … he has unsettled Nann as much asany. As much as that small boy who makes speech with his hands. I don’t likewhat goes on. We should have been gone from this place days ago. Why we remainis a mystery to me. War is gathering, has begun already if the rumors are true.We should flee-west or south-as fast as our horses will bear us.”

“Nann is not foolish. She is wise and cautious, Deeken. Bearwith her yet awhile. There might be more for the Fael to do than simply fly.”

“We’ll not be involving ourselves in the wars of the Renneand the Wills-the wars of men. Our people have taken oaths.”

“Long ago, Deeken. Long ago. Nothing is as it once was. Up,you!” he said, clucking at the horse whose lead he held. The two men turned themassive beasts and led them back up the bank, into the firelit camp.

Alaan gazed into the darkness along the shore. Among theshadows there were bowmen watching the river. He could sense them.

For some time he waited, patient as the river, holding hisposition near to the bank. And then he slipped ashore, silent as a serpent.He was in the central open area before anyone noticed him.

A group seated beneath lanterns stared at him, gape-mouthed.A determined-looking Fael woman rose and was about to sound the alarm whenAlaan noticed a legless man seated in one of the bent-willow chairs. Alaanstopped, as surprised to see this ghost as they were to see him.

“Kilydd?” he said.

The man only stared at him, his mouth opening and closingsoundlessly, like a fish gasping for water.

“Go back,” the man managed finally, his voice a frightenedwhisper. “Go back into the river where you belong.”