The new-hatched mantid sat up on her hind legs, little hands folded primly across a narrow pearlescent abdomen, shook out her delicate wings with a prismatic flash, tipped her head to the side, and hissed.
“Oh, look at you,” Daru breathed. “Lovely girl. Do you want to be my friend?”
Dainty, feather-fine antennae unfurled partway, and an iridescent sheen washed across her multifaceted eyes. The mantid’s sweet little triangular head tipped to the other side, and she hissed again. Daru thought she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
Catching a wild mantid was no easy thing. His hands and knees were raw, his clothes torn and filthy, and his breathing was labored after the long walk down the ramp used by the rag-tag men. The air reeked of sulfur and human waste and a strange, yeasty, cinnamony smell that turned his stomach and sat heavy in his lungs, but Ashta had told him that if he wanted to have a mantid of his own, he would have to catch a wild hatchling and train her up himself.
“If you can talk shadows into letting you throw knives at them,” she had teased, “surely you can catch a little bug.”
Atukos was crawling with mantids. Big as crows and easily as intelligent, the insects had caught his fancy with their pretty colors and winning ways, and Loremaster Rothfaust himself had said he had a way with them. But the charming pets, specially trained to the hand and able to carry messages in the form of sweet little tunes, were a vanity only available to the wealthiest citizens of Atualon, and well beyond the reach of a dreamshifter’s apprentice.
This is how Daru found himself outside the city walls on an especially hot day, stinking of poop and rotten vegetables, hoping to find a hatchling of his own before the bug-men scooped them all up in their little black nets. Earlier excursions had yielded nothing but hatched eggs, an interesting skull, and the husk of a dead soldier beetle, but this time he had ventured closer to the beetle-fields, and had been rewarded for his daring—or would be rewarded, if he could manage to catch the golden-pearl hatchling that lingered so close to the thin catch-loop just beyond his fingertips.
Ashta had shown him how to twist and weave the noose so that he might catch a tender infant without doing any harm, and how to soak the cord in the musk of a cat’s-paw orchid, but his intended pet was not convinced. She sat up higher on her rear legs, mandibles working at the smell of sweet musk, and combed one antennae again and again through a forelimb.
She took a tentative step toward the noose, and stopped. A second step, swaying and bobbing and waving her antennae… a third step, and she was his. Daru pulled gently on his end of the cord and the noose flipped up and over the little stick he had set so carefully, so that it closed gently about the little bug, trapping wings and forelimbs against her body. The heat of the sun and the stink of refuse pressed him down onto the hard-packed path, his knives dug into his ribs and one hip, and sweat plastered the hair to his temples, but the thrill of his victory flushed through Daru in a wave, and he could feel a grin spreading across his face.
“Hello, sweetling,” he crooned to her.
The mantid tucked her head down as if contemplating her predicament, and her mandibles parted so that her long tongue could uncurl and taste the cord. She chirruped, a tiny, soft noise, but made no effort to break free. Perhaps she did not know how to fight, he thought. Or perhaps she was afraid to try. He inched closer, urging her onto his outstretched hand, and then he stood and held his new mantid, marveling at her gentle beauty and his own audacity. He cupped his hands about her and stroked the tip of his finger along her back, crooning a wordless tune.
“Pakka,” he told her, and grinned when she tipped her head all the way to the side. “Pakka. Do you like that name? It means raindrops on the river.” He had never seen raindrops on the river, but it must be beautiful.
What are you doing with that bug?
Daru froze and spun to face the vash’ai, drawing Pakka protectively close to his bony chest.
Are you going to eat that? I do not think it will help you grow. Why are you eating bugs? Have your litter-mates finally pushed you from the pride? The great golden eyes flashed and the smoke-and-gold sire took a lazy step closer. It is past time for you to leave. Past time for you to run. You weaken the pride… you weaken her. His mouth gaped open, and sunlight dazzled on the gold-cuffed tusks.
Khurra’an drew back his black lips and sneezed in disgust. Even out here, in the bright light of day, Daru could feel the shadows gathering, giggling like naughty and hungry children.
You are sick. You are weak. Would it weaken me, to eat you? I think… not. He crouched, thick tail lashing from side to side as he kneaded the ground in anticipation.
Daru’s mouth went dry as old bones, and Pakka trilled a protest as he clutched her too close. His eyes darted about wildly, but there was nobody there to help him, not even a rag-tag man. He groped with his mind, but his rising panic made it impossible to find Shehannam, let alone his mistress. His little knives called to him, but they would be as nothing to the vash’ai.
Run, little mouse. Khurra’an drew his forepaws in, black claws scraping across rock, and his haunches wiggled. Run.
Listen for the silence between your heartbeats, Ashta had told him. The stillness between shadows. Then make your move.
Daru drew in a breath, as deeply as he could. His heart was a big skin drum beating in his ears. The shadows held their breaths, too.
As Khurra’an pounced, Daru ducked and scuttled to one side, into the stillness between shadows, slipping like a breath between heartbeats. One claw scored his shoulder, tearing fabric and burning like a brand down his back. He cried out and twisted away from the flash of pain, from the heavy heat and cat-stink, felt the brush of Khurra’an’s mane against his flesh as he wriggled and ducked and ran.
There was an angry grunt and thump as the cat caught empty air, and then the scrabble and scrape of claws on the hard-packed earth behind him. Daru tucked himself into a ball midstride and rolled, curling his body protectively around Pakka, who whistled and shrieked in protest when Khurra’an’s shadow swallowed them both. Even as the vash’ai overshot his mark and flew overhead, snarling with frustration, Daru was on his feet and running, running toward the little caves that pockmarked the pale cliffs below the city.
He darted and wove like a hare under the hawk, breath searing his lungs and mantid scrabbling for purchase against his skin. He imagined Khurra’an’s mouth closing over the top of his head, the proud tusks punching through the top of his skull, and knew that the shadows had finally won. Over and over again he lived his own death, heard teeth scraping across his skull, felt the hot red blood spray, heard his own neck snap. Over and over again the shadows shrieked their triumph and tore hungrily at his soul.
Daru’s legs pumped on, his feet smacked against the ground, and he darted and wove even as his little rabbit’s heart gave out in terror. The voices of the shadows faded away behind him, and his heartbeat slowed, slowed, slowwwwed sloooowwwwwed until he had a lifetime between beats. An eternity. The cliffs loomed before him and Daru saw one of the round caves, smaller and lower than the rest, just above his head. Still clutching the mantid to him with one hand, and praying he had not crushed her, Daru scrambled up the steep rock and squeezed himself into the rock through a hole barely big enough for a full-grown hare, much less a terrified boy.
He was able to wriggle through the crack and down a short tunnel, though he left skin and hair and one sandal on the rock behind him. When he heard Khurra’an scrabbling and scraping at the entrance to the tunnel, and felt the hot wind of the cat’s breath and outrage, he slumped against the rock wall and wept with relief.
Come out, little mouse. Come out and play.
Daru hung his head and took air in great gulps, as if it were water and he had been lost in the desert for days. His skin stung— he had left a great deal of himself on the rocks back there—one knee throbbed, his back burned and it felt like maybe he was bleeding, and his heart hurt. After all these years, could Khurra’an not simply let him be? Tears dripped down his face and onto his hands, cupped protectively against his chest. He loosed them slowly, carefully, and held his breath.
Was she alive? Had he crushed her?
Pakka thrust her little head from between his fingers, swiveled her head this way and that, and peeped like a baby chicken. Daru let his breath go in a long, shuddering sob. She was alive. He was alive.
For the moment, at least.
He huddled in the dark, stroking Pakka with his fingertips—she seemed to like it—and listening to the fading snarls as Khurra’an gave up the hunt. His eyes adjusted to the ruddy gloom soon enough, the thin bit of sunlight sparkling in the thin red dust he had dislodged in his flight. He was in a small chamber, a hole in the ground just big enough for a boy and a bug, with two exits. There was the small hole he had wriggled through once already—and, looking at it, Daru could not imagine how he had ever squeezed himself in there—and a low, dark passage to one side. A faint, warm breeze rose from that passage, and with it the smell of warm bread and cinnamon. Daru decided that he must be in one of the vents that brought fresh air into the kitchens.
He tucked his chin and looked at the baby mantid.
“What do you think, Pakka? Should we go that way? If we come out into the kitchens, the ladies will probably patch me up and feed us. If we go out the other way, Khurra’an will probably catch me up and eat us. I do not want to be eaten today, do you?”
Pakka tipped her head down and twerped at him. She unfolded her forelegs and stroked his wrist, an odd little gesture that made him smile.
“To the kitchens it is, then—but first, let me do something about these shadows.” For they had gathered about him like small children waiting for one of Loremaster Rothfaust’s many stories… naughty children, hungry children, whose eyes glistened like drying blood in the thin light. Daru drew his bird’s-skull flute forth, sighing with relief to find it uncrushed.
The shadows whispered and chittered amongst themselves as he brought the bone instrument to his lips and played. Pippip piiiii, pip-pip-peeee-oh, pip tit-ta-ta-tit-pip pip pip, he played. A silly song, a child’s song, flowers and sunlight and little fishes jumping in the river. A song, a game, and then to bed. The shadows cavorted like darkling flames, hungry naughty mouths singing along to a song with no words, pressing in and pulling back again in time to the beating of his own heart.
Finally the music softened, slowed, and rocked them all to sleep. Shadows poured across the dirt floor. Yawning and blinking their bloody little bat-eyes, they flowed away and left him alone.
For the moment, at least.
When he took the flute from his lips, Pakka surprised him by reaching out and touching it with one slender forelimb.
Pip-pip piiiii, she trilled. Her voice was sweet as berries. Pip-pip-peeeeee-ohhhhh. She flittered her wings, briefly, and then crawled up Daru’s arm and nestled in the soft, warm place between his neck and his shoulder. Pip-pip piiii, she sang happily, and clung to his skin. Daru stood slowly, careful not to dislodge the sweet little thing from her perch.
He could hear no sound coming from the sunlit tunnel, but he had seen many cats watching mouse-holes and was not the least bit reassured.
“The kitchens it is, then,” he whispered again, and pushed away from the wall.
It was dark, but Daru had spent much of his life peering through the shadows. He took a long, steadying breath, and another, imagining as he did so that he was feeding the inner flames of his intikallah higher, hotter. A thin column of indigo and rose flame twined like flowering vines up along his backbone, and when his heart’s-eye kallah blushed and his face flushed with warmth, he opened his dreaming eyes just as Hafsa Azeina had taught him.
Opening the dreaming eyes while fully awake was never easy— he had only been able to do it one time out of every three—but this time his efforts met with success. When he opened his waking eyes again, it was as if the tunnels were lit with a dull reddish light.
He drew in a breath, gathered his courage, and walked through the low passage.
He stood before a maze of twisting little passages, all alike, and they were filled with the sticky cobwebs of dreams. The tattered ends of discarded wishes danced in a breeze that never touched his flesh, and the tunnels were thick with dreamshifting and sorcery, a trap for the unwary. The web was hung with globes like silvered pearls, each of them endlessly reflecting everything. Daru looked away from the sight of his own eyes watching him watching himself watching him. That path, he knew, led to madness, and he did not want to get caught in the web, trapped like a fly for Eth to feed on.
Which way to go? he wondered. He let his ka unfurl, but just a little bit, because none of the dreaming webs were familiar to him. Some were probably just the remnants of innocent dreams, and those would dissolve at a touch, but others might be anchored in nightmares, or laid down with sorcery, and none of them felt like Hafsa Azeina’s work. The last thing he needed was to get caught up in someone else’s nightmare, or to have his soul ripped to bits and gobbled up by an Arachnist.
Those passages that glowed a faint greenish color he dismissed out of hand. He did not know what the color meant, but it looked sickly and filled him with unease. That left three passages tall enough and wide enough for him to pass through easily. The middle path was widest and tallest, and seemed the easiest way. The left-hand path had a gentle upward slope, and this passage was the one that smelled most strongly of cinnamon and yeast. The right-hand path looked to be the oldest and least used of the three. It angled sharply downward and had a neglected feel to it.
His feet, especially the bare one, wanted him to take the easiest path. But he had heard enough children’s tales to know that was a bad idea. Daru figured that if he were a soul-eating sorcerer, he would set his trap on such a path. An image came to him, unbidden, of Sulema with her hands full of honey-cakes, her golden eyes full of laughing mischief. “If in doubt, Daru,” she would have said, “follow your nose.” He took two hesitant steps toward the left-hand path, and his empty stomach roiled at the thought of fresh spice bread.
Pip piiiii, trilled Pakka, and her sharp little feet stung as she clutched at his skin. Peeeee-oh.
He stopped. “No?” he asked her. “Why not?”
Dream-Sulema mocked his indecision. Are you afraid to face the hearthmothers, then, little boy? She brought the spice-bread to her mouth and tore at the soft loaf. Honey spilled from the corner of her mouth to drip, drip, drip down her chin. Daru felt as if his stomach was trying to gnaw its way through his spine, and made a hungry little noise in the back of his throat as one foot dragged itself forward. Hungry…
PEEEEEEEE-OHHHHHHHH! Pakka shrieked and bit his ear, breaking the spell.
Sulema’s face dissolved into a wretched mask with maggoty eyes and blood dripping down its chin, and then broke apart into a mass of shadows. Hungry, they reminded him. Hungry. One of them tried to smile at him, showing a mouth full of pointed cat’s teeth. Follow your nose. Hungry.
Daru reached up and touched his stinging earlobe. His fingers came away wet, and the shadows hissed at the smell of his blood.
“Hungry?” he asked.
They waited, rustling in the darkness like a dead man’s clothes.
Daru took off his remaining sandal and threw it at the shadows. “Eat my shoe!” he shouted at them. Disappointed, they melted from his sight. Thus emboldened, he turned and walked down the right-hand path, careful not to brush up against any of the tattered webs with his ka. He reached up and gently untangled Pakka from his hair.
Tit-tit-titta-pip, she agreed.
He laughed, and his heart lifted as his steps took him down into a darkness too thick to see through even with his dreaming eyes. Bits of rock stung his feet. The air did smell cleaner in this tunnel, and he imagined that there was a little breeze. Surely it would come out somewhere in the fortress, and then he could ask the outlanders to help him find his way back. Surely a boy would not be lost forever in the…
…dark? He spun as a light bobbed next to his head. What trickery was this? The light spun with his movement, and as Pakka skreeked in protest, the rose-colored light flickered and dimmed.
“Pakka?”
The little light flickered again, and she peeped in his ear. She was glowing.
“Clever girl,” he murmured, and stroked her gently, mindful of the delicate wings. It was just a little light, really not enough to see by, but it cheered him nonetheless and he stepped livelier. After a while the floor became smoother, to the relief of his feet. The broken tunnel took on a more tended look, and it grew wider, the roof arching farther and farther from his head until it seemed he was walking down a great hall. It no longer felt as if he were walking downward, either. Though he could not be sure, it felt as if he were turning always a little to the left, inward and inward as if he were inside a giant snake that was coiled in upon itself.
A snake—or a sleeping dragon.
Then the floor dropped out from under his feet, and he fell.
…and fell…
He tumbled headlong into the dark, rolling through the air like one of the acrobats in that fools’ troupe he had so enjoyed watching. Pakka fell away from him without a sound, and her flame was extinguished. The top of his head cracked sharply against something as he tumbled boneless and breathless, and there was a hungry roar from below, a foul wash of carrion-eater’s breath hot on his face. His outflung arm hit something, hard, and he heard a dull snap like Hafsa Azeina breaking a big piece of kindling.
He opened his mouth to scream, but the shadows swallowed him whole.