SPINNING SHADOW

MARGARET RONALD

Tarma had only just begun the Widow Fenton’s flax when the Shadow Undying rose once more. At first, she thought that the shutter on the upper window must have come unwedged, since the light shouldn’t have failed so early in the day. But the unholy chanting in a voice like the bottom of a well ruled out it being any of the shutters. “Name yourself,” Tarma interrupted the chanting, because her grandmother had been a proper High Dales lady and, for lack of other outlets, spent a good deal of time educating Tarma. Said education had included drop- and wheel-spinning, warding the pantry against dusk-rats, single-entry bookkeeping, and how to address bodiless entities. While the latter two had rarely come up, Tarma was more likely to cut off her other leg than forget Grandmama’s lessons. The sunlight in the room all but vanished, replaced by a pulsing gleam at the end of her thread. “I am the ice unmelting,” the voice intoned, increasing in volume as the gleam intensified, “the master of Frostkeep, the lord of the dominion of night. I am reborn as was foretold, in despite of Kail Lodestar and his band of traitors. I am the Shadow Undying.” Tarma picked up her drop spindle and peered at its weight. It was a polished circle of flawed crystal that had been worn as a pendant by her great-uncle, although at the time it hadn’t glowed a deep and malevolent violet. “I think I’ve heard of you.”

“Then you know what I am capable of,” the voice purred. “Bring me to your king, and I will reward you as no mortal has ever been rewarded.”

“King, hm?” She gazed into the stone, then dropped it again and gave it a flick. “I’ll think on it.”

“Of course.” The glow dimmed. “I have time. I am Undying.”

A week passed. The Widow Fenton came for her thread, returned with her usual complaints, and sent over two of her friends who had their own flax to be spun. Tarma began working closer to the window, so as to have the extra light when the ophicleidean voice in her spindle focused its attention on her.

It wasn’t until after she’d finished Gooddame Breckin’s thread that the Shadow Undying spoke to her again. This was poorly timed, as she was on her way back from Gooddame Breckin’s house, and she needed one hand for the basket and one for her crutch and couldn’t spare either to tuck the glowing spindle beneath a jar of Gooddame Breckin’s preserved pears. “You could spin a thread of gold,” the voice murmured, “of diamond, of starlight, only bring me to your king.”

“Don’t you dare,” Tarma said. “It’s bad enough you keep slowing down my spindle, but I won’t have you switch out my good thread with some flummery.” One of the market-day drovers passed by on the other side of the road, and Tarma nodded to him, but he paid no attention. She’d been effectively invisible to most people even before her fiftieth birthday and talking to herself hadn’t changed that. “And we don’t have a king.”

“Impossible.” Shadows spilled out of the spindle and coalesced around her, so that it was as if she walked within her own column of night. This was presumably less unnoticeable, but at this point the drover had passed by and wasn’t likely to look back. “Presaï the Light-Fingered it was, who stole my Orb Amaranthine, and he used its power to raise a kingdom here in these the High Dales. With the power of my Orb at his hand, he would have ensured his line would not fail.”

“Ah.” Tarma slowed her pace. “I think I see the issue. Wait until we’re home.”

“I will wait. I have time. I am Undying.” The darkness faded. “But I am also displeased.”

Displeased wasn’t how Tarma would have described its tone. More like petulant.

“Let me see if I understand this.” Tarma pulled out the day’s baking as she spoke. She had two more bundles of flax commissioned to spin, never mind her own, but it had become increasingly difficult to do so without the Shadow Undying emerging from its crystal and materializing just behind her shoulder. Tarma’s father’s cat had been like that, a furry, hissing knot of resentment, and while the Shadow Undying lacked the fur and the hiss, the effect was similar. “You placed part of your soul into this rock.”

“Into the Orb Amaranthine,” the Shadow Undying corrected. “And ‘soul’ is the wrong word.”

“It’s close enough for someone outside your trade.” She turned the proofed dough out of the bowl. “I mean, I can go over the difference between ‘roving’ and ‘rolag’, but it won’t mean anything to you if you don’t know wool. Understand?”

The Shadow Undying snorted, an impressive feat without a nose to snort.

“And Presaï stole it and used it to found the High Dales. But because it held your soul—”

“My dark essence,” the Shadow interrupted.

“Yes, fine. Because of that, it corrupted him?”

“As it would any who held it.” The pool of darkness in the far corner rippled, and she had the impression of someone tugging at their hair in exasperation. “And if you would but bring me to your king or prince or whoever is in charge, then we can both stop bothering each other.”

Tarma gave the day’s loaf a quick dusting of flour and draped a cloth over top. “Well, there’s our difficulty.” She turned around on her stool, picked up her tea, and poured a measure of brandy into it. It was not nearly strong enough in either aspect. “So, there was a King Presaï some generations back, and if you believe the stories, he made the fields fertile and the orchards so heavy with fruit all the trees drooped, and every ewe and cow bore twins.”

“His sights ever were on the ground, never the heights,” the Shadow Undying sneered.

“He also dismantled the monarchy.” She took a long sip, savoring both the brandy and the utter blankness of the Shadow, if such could be said of something without facial expressions. “Set the circuit riders and the dispute councils and everything else, got it all running, and then sat back and did absolutely nothing for the next thirty years. And this Orb, if it’s the same one in the stories, the last thing he did was to smash it.”

“That would have done nothing,” the Shadow Undying snapped. “Even if he himself escaped corruption—”

“Didn’t say he did. There are some nasty stories about his, hm, personal habits there toward the end. Not that he was ever punished for it; the High Dales aren’t good at justice.” And there were some stories that said he’d claimed to have corrupted the Orb in turn, which gave Tarma pause when she considered the personal habits in question. “But he set the rules before all that and made it so that they’d stay in place even when he was useless. And we’ve managed since. Mainly because no one bothers invading us, since we don’t have those drooping orchards or twin ruminants anymore. Seems like that went sideways too when he smashed it.”

Shadow made no reply. If Tarma’s eyes had been able to see shades of darkness, she might have called its reaction seething. “If it makes you feel better, there are some stories of the Shards Amaranthine. Most of the Shards supposedly do just what you said: they give power, but they end up destroying those who use them.”

“At least that worked,” Shadow muttered. “And this Shard wherefrom I now speak? What fell deeds has it inspired?”

Tarma shrugged. “My family’s fought over that damn thing since whichever great-great-uncle it was bought it, and from what you say, I’m inclined to doubt his story of buying anything. Only reason I have it is that my aunts were like to strangle each other over it, so Grandmama gave it to me just to get it away from them.” She took another sip and chuckled. “Aunt Gwilys came over once to wheedle it out of me, since it’s not like I have reason to wear jewelry. And the whole time she didn’t recognize that I was using it to spin, right in front of her! Ha! I’m far too gleeful about deceiving that woman. Must be your corruption working on me.”

“Yes, it must be,” agreed Shadow absently. “Would she be more likely to assist me?”

Tarma shrugged again. “Aunt Gwilys was never one for assisting anyone. And I won’t have you corrupting her; she’s bad enough already.” Tarma peered at the Shadow Undying. “What was your plan? Sit in the royal treasury and corrupt whoever happened to be on the throne?”

“Something like that,” the Shadow said evenly. “More to the point, the Orb Amaranthine contained my dark essence.” Tarma tried not to snort at dark essence again. “Corruption would have been incidental at best. What was supposed to happen is exactly what has happened. Despite Kail Lodestar’s rebellion, I yet endure.”

“Endure.”

“Yes.”

“This is enduring.”

“Yes!” The room darkened further. “Those fools have only inconvenienced me, and I, I shall build a body and rise again—”

Tarma turned her back and began cleaning up what she could while the Shadow Undying continued its rant, in which the words “fools” and “eternity” and “momentary setback” featured repeatedly. She considered what she knew of her spindle—no fell deeds around it, but plenty of petty nastiness. I really should write to Aunt Gwilys. Maybe not right away, not so she’d visit . . .

There was only so much cleaning she could do by touch in the dark, but eventually, the Shadow wound down, and a little light returned to the room. “So, since you’ve been killed—”

“Temporarily killed.”

“Does this mean you’re going to grow seven or eight or however many bodies as there are existing Shards?”

“No!” The Shadow contracted briefly. “I don’t believe so. I do not feel divided.”

“But you wouldn’t, then, would you?” She shook out a dishcloth. “Will the other bodies be proportional to the size of each Shard? Or will you only be able to grow an arm or a foot or—”

“No!” The darkness flared again. “How have I come to be surrounded by fools yet again?”

“One person doesn’t really count as surrounded,” Tarma countered. “And be grateful I am a fool, since a smart woman would have chucked you in the river long since. I’ve just gotten used to this weight, and I have no desire to switch it out for another.”

“Yes, of course,” the Shadow Undying crooned. “Even now, my stone becomes your obsession, your most treasured possession, till you will kill for it, die for it—for me.” But its heart didn’t really seem to be in the words.

If other people noticed that the light in Tarma’s cottage was a bit different these days, they didn’t remark on it, or, more likely, put those thoughts at the back of the queue behind Gooddame Meytha’s cat littering seven kittens in the middle of the silk merchants’ sample stock, or Councilor Bulven’s son running off to become a prospector, or the ongoing saga of the Widow Fenton, Goodmaster Grenther, and the silver candlesticks. Tarma made a habit of stopping by the town square when the strolling players were in town, but tales of the Shards were out of fashion, and according to the head of the company, they didn’t plan to perform The Crystal Heart of Ophio until next spring. (“Not enough male parts,” she said, and both she and Tarma snickered at “male parts.”)

If this daunted the Shadow Undying, it only showed in how often it began to repeat certain aspects of its plans. Tarma took to adding the occasional comment, usually along the lines of “where would you get that much molten sulfur” and “I’d think you’d be less fond of high towers surrounded by spikes, considering.” By the first snows, Shadow was definitely starting to manifest as a man-shaped darkness, when it decided to manifest as anything other than ambient light. It spent a good hour exulting about this development, striding back and forth across the cottage floor while Tarma peeled parsnips. “Already my power returns! And you—soon I will reward you as my first disciple!”

“Don’t start that again,” Tarma said.

Shadow chuckled. “Wise Tarma. But what do you want? I can give you anything, only tell me.” There was a note of frustration in its voice, similar to that of someone seeking gift ideas for a notoriously finicky relative.

“Can’t think of anything.”

“Liar,” Shadow crooned.

She hated when it crooned. She flipped one hand at Shadow, and a discarded parsnip peel drifted slowly through its not-yet-solid body. “Grandmama deeded me this cottage and just enough to get by. If I had more, I’d have every layabout at my door trying to make nice.” The last word came out through her teeth. “I’ve had enough of that.”

Shadow was silent a moment. “I could give you your leg back.”

Tarma dropped the bowl. It broke in two, scattering parsnips. “Don’t ever insult me again,” she said in a low, even voice.

“But—”

She picked up her crutch, stomped to the seat by the window, and dropped the spindle in her mending box—and locked it for good measure. Only then did she return to clean up. The Shadow Undying followed her, but after the fifth time she ignored a direct question, it fell silent.

The silence was an odd emptiness in a cottage that had recently held quite a bit of conversation, if diabolical schemes and overly literal questions could be said to be conversation. After several days and attempts by the Shadow Undying to get Tarma’s attention (first by standing in front of her wherever she went, then by using what little corporeality it had to knock over her cups, then briefly wrapping the house in impenetrable night), it gave in. It pulled itself into a bipedal shape, approached her as she sat by the window, and gave what a scholar might recognize as an archaic supplicant’s bow from an extinct northern civilization. “I would have you forget my words.”

Tarma crossed her arms and waited.

“I have only asked this of one other, my lieutenant Sthar of the Teeth of the Dawn. He, too, was plain of speech with me. I valued his counsel. As I do yours. And so, I ask that you forget my words.”

As an apology, it was lacking, but Tarma suspected it was all she was going to get. “Where is he now?”

Shadow rippled a shrug. “Slain. Cut down by Kail Lodestar and his fools.” It was silent a moment. “He had a daughter . . . I was with her when she swore vengeance on the Lodestar. Sthar would have smiled to see it, she was so brilliant in her fury.” Another silence. “She turned on me, in time. Conspired with the Lodestar to infiltrate my fortress of Frostkeep, then sacrificed herself to the slavering drakes so that the Lodestar’s true love might live. I should have done better by her, for his sake.”

Tarma nodded, then bent and unlocked the mending box. They did not speak further that day, but the thread they spun was smooth and strong.

At midwinter, the Shadow Undying proclaimed with glee that it now had recovered enough dark essence to recreate a body, that it might once again walk under the stars. Or something such as that; it had gone on about the stars and how dare they look down and judge, and Tarma had let the rant go unquestioned. When the day came, she rather wished she had paid more attention.

“This is intolerable!” The Shadow Undying clutched at the fringe of dust-colored hair that was all that surrounded his bald pate. “Unprecedented! Worthless!”

“If you say so,” Tarma said. The body in question wore robes of absolute midnight, but they hung loose in some places and pulled tight in others. The eyes were watery gray instead of piercing black, the hands somewhat spotted and thick-fingered, and the beard—well, Tarma thought it best not to mention the beard.

“Look at this! I’m shorter than you now!” He stood before her, leveling one hand from his head to hers and fuming when he realized the angle between. “This is not as I was! My body was tall, elegant, menacing! My body was—”

“A corpse,” Tarma interrupted. “Your body as it was is gone,” she added more gently at his stricken look. “That you have this at all is more than most get. Be glad of it.” She thought again of Presaï claiming to corrupt the Orb as it corrupted him, and the pettiness that had marked this Shard’s passage from one owner to another, the diminishment of malice to misanthropy.

Shadow harrumphed—a slightly different sound now that it came from lungs, but familiar nonetheless. He gazed at his hands, turning them over and back. “I can mend this. I have time. I am Undying.”

“At least you don’t look like whatever great-uncle of mine had the Shard,” Tarma offered. “That would make things—” and she clamped her mouth over the rest, because obviously his next question would be and why would that make things weird, and she didn’t want to answer that to him or herself just yet.

Shadow only harrumphed again.

Word did get out that Tarma now had a man living with her, which was scandalous for about two days and then faded behind Goodmaster Granther’s naked antics in the town square (right in front of the Widow Fenton’s house) and a dispute over a misplaced goat. It remained of little notice, at least to all but the three travelers who came down from the north just after harvest.

Tarma and Shadow had a little warning of them since the players were in town and the company head had come over for tea. She let Tarma know that three travelers had been asking similar questions about legends of the Orb, the Shards, and such tales. Unfortunately, she’d also let the travelers know about Tarma’s questions, so there was really no point in hiding.

Shadow insisted on watching them as they approached Tarma’s house. “Look at them,” he grumbled, peering out from the upper window. “That’s them, all right—not Lodestar and his love, but the one with the staff, I’d know that stupid face anywhere, and her friend the singer, of course he’s here, probably sick of his warbling up north—and look, look, it’s that idiot greenwalker! Can’t stand greenwalkers, especially not him.”

“Get down from there,” Tarma said placidly, masking a discontent that, if not as deeply rooted as his, was no less consuming. “And be civil. Your stone’s in the mending box, and I doubt they’ll ransack it immediately.” It was cushioned in the scraps of the robes of absolute midnight, which had been resewn into better fitting clothes, now faded to gray.

Shadow simmered, but he vaulted down from the upper rafter and set to washing leeks for the evening’s dinner. Tarma welcomed the visitors from her place at the table, introduced Shadow as “my gentleman,” which in the High Dales could mean anything from a valet to a leman, and let his work at the kitchen fill in the details. She put on a bland, unthreatening smile, much as a knight might lower his visor, and waited.

Virvothen the singer did have a lovely voice as he introduced himself and his companions Soli Ironfoot and Eurysthen of the Green. Tarma invited them in but did not offer tea, a distinction that only Eurysthen seemed to note (though it was hard to tell with greenwalkers). She sat at her table, away from the chair by the window, hands folded, while Soli and Virvothen orated their way to the point of their visit. “You know of the Nightlord,” Virvothen eventually said.

“Only what news makes it this far,” Tarma agreed.

“He has been cast down,” Soli declared, “and the land made green again.”

“Good harvest to it, then,” Tarma agreed.

“I could spend a week telling you the tale of his fall,” Virvothen mused.

“Please don’t,” Shadow muttered from his place by the oven. Tarma ignored this, and Virvothen was apparently used to ignoring similar sentiments, for he began a recitation of King Kail Lodestar’s exploits. He was interrupted by Shadow, who wordlessly stomped up, dropped the bowl of chopped leeks on the table, and shouldered Soli aside to reach the potatoes.

“The Nightlord was master of many fell magics,” Eurysthen said. “Among them, a way of preserving his life within a stone. We believe that stone may have been the Orb Amaranthine stolen by your King Presaï.”

“Isn’t that a thing,” Tarma agreed. “And our once-king Presaï. We don’t have one now.”

“Yes, we noticed,” Soli said, with the clear implication that many of their journey’s inconveniences could be traced to this fact. “Seems the High Dales aren’t good at justice or proper organization.”

“If the Nightlord returns, then it would spell disaster,” Eurysthen went on. “The force that defeated him was a once-in-a-century alliance, never to unite again.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” Tarma said, and did not react to Shadow’s furious glance from the far end of the room. He turned and began chopping potatoes with a force that made the board judder. “I’m sure you’d manage just fine.”

“We have heard that you, too, were seeking to learn about the Orb, and those Shards that once comprised it,” Virvothen said. “Would you say why?”

Tarma looked down at her hands. “It’s silly,” she said finally. The chopping sounds slowed. “I was thinking—well, I wanted to maybe write a play. About the Shards, and maybe a noble estate and a murder, and some romance . . .” She sighed. “But it seems like all my ideas have been used already.”

“That shouldn’t stop you!” Virvothen seized her hands. “Just because a story’s been told before, that doesn’t mean your story is valueless!” His eyes welled up with tears at the thought of Tarma’s entirely fictional discarded dreams.

“Would you know of any such Shard?” Eurysthen asked.

Tarma extracted her hands from Virvothen’s grip. “I did ask around,” she said. “But either they’re gone or no one’s talking.” Shadow stomped by again, this time depositing a bowl of potatoes beside the leeks.

Eurysthen nodded. “And the tales of some ethereal creature attending on you are false? You have no demon bound to you?”

“Not unless demons have really lowered their standards,” Soli muttered.

Shadow spun around, eyes flaring, stopping only when Tarma held up a hand. “No, more’s the pity. I’d think it’s clear that I’ve had no demon offering me wishes,” she added, gesturing to her crutch, and managed a winsome, fragile smile.

Virvothen teared up further, murmuring, “So brave,” but Eurysthen laid his hands on his companions’ shoulders.

“Then we will be away, Gooddame Tarma.”

“I’ll see them out,” Shadow offered. Soli gave another snort at that.

“You will not,” Tarma snapped, levering herself out of the chair. “There’s dinner needs starting. Go to it.” She tried for the bland smile again. “If you please, gentlefolk?”

She hustled them out of her home and stood, arms crossed, in the doorway while Virvothen and Soli retreated. Eurysthen lingered, gazing at the sky as if to read it. “Thousands died because of the Night-lord,” he said at last. “Not all at his hand, but by his doing. Lands were despoiled. Cities razed.” He looked down at her. “That is what the Shadow Undying was.”

Tarma met his eyes. “And would you rather he were punished or stopped?” Eurysthen held her gaze, his expression unchanging. “The High Dales aren’t good at justice. Everyone knows that. Be off with you.”

For a long moment he remained motionless, then bowed and walked away. Tarma waited, exhaled, and went inside, where the smell of frying bacon had begun to fill the air. She joined Shadow as he jabbed at the pan and wordlessly handed over the bowl of leeks. “The fool should not have spoken of you thus,” he muttered at last.

She shrugged. “I’ve heard worse.”

He glowered at the leeks, and one scorched before it touched the pan. “Bah,” he said, and flipped the burnt husk away. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to rule over such fools.”

At the peevish note in his voice—and the lack of simmering rage— Tarma exhaled the rest of the way. “At least they’ll be fools elsewhere.”

“Their conquest was for naught. I am Undying, and I have time, and I would—” He paused, swallowed, and turned to face her. “I would stay with you, Tarma. For as long as you wish it.”

She did not note that this was already the arrangement they had— if she wanted to be rid of him, there were any number of places to dispose of a stone. She did not say her thoughts, which were of Presaï’s claim to have corrupted—or maybe just changed—the Orb, of the difference between stopped and punished, of how the High Dales were no good at justice, and of four seasons’ worth of conversation by the window. Instead, she leaned over and kissed him. Startled, he flinched, then returned the kiss with the enthusiasm of someone who had just discovered the concept.

Tarma drew back a little. “If you mention your ‘dark essence’ even once when we’re abed, I will drop your stone in the privy.”

The laugh Shadow gave was entirely unlike any sound ever heard on the heights of Frostkeep, and loud enough that outside in the street, Eurysthen raised his head, looking back along the line of houses. He remained that way for some time, until the carters (being unused to greenwalkers in this part of the world) began to swear at him for not getting out of their way.

Time passed, as it does. The Widow Fenton died and left her silver candlesticks to her daughter (or possibly to her nephew-in-law; there were conflicting wills). The Crystal Heart of Ophio played to a full audience, and two years later the company tried it again, resulting in a very public fistfight over the lead role. The play the next year was Lodestar on the Heights, which had plenty of roles, and Tarma made sure the two of them missed every performance. Tarma’s spinning continued to bring in a little money, and her house continued to stay in good repair, sometimes because Shadow went up on the roof to discover what hammer and nails could do.

And some years after that, longer than one might think but not as long as one might hope, Tarma fell ill. Shadow did not press his offer of healing sorcery, not after that first shouting, sobbing fight. “I’ve pulled all that remains of my power from what is left of the Shards,” he told her as they curled together on her bed.

“Dark essence,” she murmured, and listened to his laugh deep in his chest.

“At the time I thought I’d need it. Now, though . . .” He couldn’t quite shrug while holding her, but he tried. “I had time. I was Undying.”

“No other Shards?” she managed. Her voice was worn to a whisper.

“If there were, they’re only stones now.” He hesitated. “I hurt so many people. Killed so many people.”

“I know.” She reached up to touch his face, or tried to.

He caught her hand. “All of that will be on my reckoning. What is a few years with you against that?”

“I don’t know,” Tarma said, and dragged more breath into her lungs. “What is a few years with me? If you wanted justice, you should have risen elsewhere than the High Dales. We’re no good at it.”

Shadow gave a soft laugh. “I think I was fortunate to rise here and not elsewhere.”

She smiled, and he kissed her fingertips. “Put out the lights, please.”

He did so, till it was just him, his darkness holding her, and then it was a different darkness, holding him with her.

Some years after that, Eurysthen of the Green returned to town, last of the companions of Kail Lodestar (for the greenwalkers are a long-lived people, and they’re not pricks about it like some others). He asked after Tarma and her companion and was shown to her grave by a cousin. “Left the house to my mother and the money to my uncle,” the cousin said, pointing out the tree that had been planted for her. “Can’t say as she left much else.”

“Was there a stone?” Eurysthen asked, laying one hand on the tree. It was quiet, or as quiet as trees ever are, and it had nothing to tell him.

“Mm, there was her old spindle-weight. She left instructions asking that it be buried with her. Good thing she did, too, since her friend couldn’t be bothered to stick around and see her wishes carried out.”

Eurysthen tilted his head slightly. “He’s gone?”

“Hasn’t been seen since she was buried. That’s layabouts for you. Mooched off her and then lit out, I’d say. You think?”

Eurysthen was silent a moment. “Do you know of the Shadow Undying?”

“No. What’s that?”

The greenwalker stood motionless, the way greenwalkers do, long past when the cousin shook her head and left. “A misnomer,” he said at last, as the sun’s light dimmed with day’s end.