Port of Shadows by Glen Cook
“He will grow, though? Right?”
“He will, but he’ll be weak and he’ll take sick easily.”
Papa decided that goats and sheep were not the solution to Laissa’s limitation.
It took him just hours to pull the baby into the heart of his Laissa obsession. Nothing would do but that the boy get human breast milk. He would find a woman who could provide that.
Papa mounted his carpet and went in search of a lactating woman.
He was barely out of sight when Laissa said, “Time for you to go, Kitten.”
“But…”
“Kitten, you’re ready. And this is the last chance you’ll ever get. Go. I can milk the goats.”
She had not yet named her baby. Neither had Papa made any suggestions. Despite the infant’s quiet presence Kitten had trouble believing that he could actually exist. Or that he should be allowed to exist.
The midwife said, “I’m ready to go.” And, “I want to live. I want to get back to my people. I don’t believe that I’ll have that option if I stay here. But I do know that I can’t get away from here on my own.”
Laissa said, “Kitten, please! Go! I can manage. Honest. And I’ll still have Papa forever.”
Although she felt like a traitor Kitten did recall that she was Bathdek Senjak. “All right. Right after you prove to me that you can handle the milking and feeding. The animals have to be…”
“Kitten! Stop. I know how. I helped you do it a hundred times. Just stop fussing and go!”
Bathdek looked at the baby, held so close by his cold mother. He was quieter than babies were supposed to be. Maybe she should smother it before …
Papa had not locked his laboratory before he left, though normally he did that only when he was inside and did not want Laissa to disturb him. Bathdek made a quick sweep through, collected some deadly toys and recovered the special cards that Papa had taken from her back when.
Laissa had been saved. Papa was working on something else, now. He would not talk about it even though he did have Kitten help when he could not manage alone.
Bathdek was tempted to vandalize the lab, for the hell of it, but instead just walked away, for Laissa’s sake.
* * *
The midwife carried the escape pack that Bathdek had put together for Laissa. It was heavy. Bathdek’s was equally massive. Even the three dogs, that Bathdek had worked to make her own from the day that Papa brought them home, carried little packs.
Kitten now fully recalled that she was Bathdek Senjak, born Credence Senjak, third daughter of the most powerful family in the Domination. This tempered Credence Senjak headed west. She had years of practical training to help her survive. She had a companion who owned extremely useful commoner skills. She had hounds to sense trouble coming before she could smell the danger herself. And she had an aura as fierce as that of any member of her clan who had become Taken.
Things and beasts did not mess with her in the wilderness. But people tried, later. People were never as sensible as the wild things.
She got a full seven-day lead on Papa, although she would never know that. Not once while in flight did she have to make an effort to remain unnoticed from the air. Papa apparently made no effort to find her.
She had expected that he would because he would want her back to help with Laissa and the baby.
No doubt he was too busy fussing over his lover. The poor girl had been on her own for days and days, without a soul to wait upon her. And he would want to ride herd on the wet nurse.
If he ever did come hunting he had no luck. Bathdek never sensed his presence. Her feelings were bruised. Never was it more clear that he only cared about Laissa.
Sad Kitten sank into the quagmire of history.
Bathdek did the same when she and her hounds emerged from the Plain of Fear months later, after a long grim passage. The Plain of Fear and the woman who was no longer Bathdek Senjak would remember one another for an age.
* * *
The Taken called Stormbringer, who was Credence Senjak’s second cousin, came to collect her once her family heard that she had returned to the realm of the living. Then anyone who mattered amongst the people of the imperial capital insisted on hearing every detail of the Credence Senjak story from the girl who had lived it. Even the Dominator had her in for an evening visit during which He was more sane, self-controlled, and solicitous than ever she had seen before.
That was, almost certainly, a function of his paranoia.
Papa’s existence truly worried him.
He provided a feast that was too rich after her years with Papa. She nibbled and told her tale again, telling it true except for a handful of details. She left out the fact that she and Papa had rescued Dorotea from death. And although she never said so directly she let her listeners think that she had slaughtered Papa before she ran away.
She said she had no idea where Papa’s hidden fortress lay except that it was in some mountains on the other side of the Plain of Fear. She had needed months to find her way out of there. And that was inarguably true, though there were those who believed that she was holding out because there was something back there that she wanted to collect as soon as she obtained her own flying carpet. She never mentioned the name of the mountains, if she had heard it right herself, because greedy or crazy Domination folk might go haring after something they thought they could use to make themselves more powerful.
Credence Senjak felt good about herself.
Credence Senjak was far away from all that insanity. And now Papa and Laissa, who were not bad people, could live out their years together, free from the madness of the Domination.
Credence told everyone that her great mission now would be to manage the campaign to clear the Old Forest away.
That did earn her a certain amount of attention.
The Senjak girls were famous for not doing much but squabble amongst themselves. This one suddenly wanted to do something useful? Her long trial sure had changed her.
Credence believed that such a vain project might keep the Domination focused on not doing any real harm elsewhere for several generations.
* * *
The morning after Credence’s audience with Him she received a luncheon invitation from her mother, Banat. Dread clawed at Credence immediately. However the invitation was phrased, it was a summons.
Banat Senjak was not a sorceress. She had wormed her way into, had married into, the clan by means of several fierce small talents. Getting her own way was the greatest of those. She was a strong personality. She made everyone but the Dominator and her most stubborn, ingrate daughters eager to do her bidding.
“That is what I suspected,” Mother said, halfway through the meal, although the conversation had been inconsequential. “You haven’t been completely honest.”
Credence faked a befuddled look. She was determined to be as stubbornly uncooperative as Ardath and Sylith when facing parental ambition.
“You left them to their bizarre love. You’re too sentimental, dear.”
Mother was a genius at discovering truth while armed with almost no solid information. Her daughters inherited the knack, though none of them would realize that for years.
“Whatever you choose to believe, Mother. I have no idea how to find those people now.”
That was true. And Mother believed her. “And I have no interest in finding them, dear.”
And she did not press. Thereafter, Credence took care not to betray anything she knew that might help someone who wanted to lay hands on Laissa and Papa.
Almost anyone who haunted Dusk, knowing what Mother had guessed, would have become determined to find Papa and Laissa—even without knowing what had happened out there.
Mother chose to let the matter slide.
* * *
Mother said, “Tell me again about the time that man hypnotized you.”
Oh! And just when she was starting to think she might get through this unscathed.
She told it again. Nothing that happened t
“Did he discover the secret of the Blessing?”
Ah. So. Mother was unable to hide her excitement. That must be what this lunch was all about: the chance of penetrating that secret, of breaking His hold over dozens of dreadfully powerful women and men.
“I know what you’re after, Mother. But, too bad. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The only reason Papa got it to work was because Dorotea had received the Blessing already. He just woke it up again.”
“Uhn.” Disappointed.
“I never told Him that part.”
“I see. That’s good, then. Show me your stomach.”
“Mother?”
“Show me where you were wounded when you wakened from his hypnotic spell.”
Could she get out of this? She had nothing to hide. It was just a matter of modesty.
“Come, girl! You have nothing that I haven’t seen before.”
Credence bared her midriff. She had to shed half her clothing to do so.
“You’re quite well toned, girl. Better than I was at your age, and I worked at it because I wanted to catch me a powerful man. All that common physical labor did you some good.”
“If ever the empire falls I can work as a stonemason or swineherd. Lucky me.”
“Hold still, dear.”
Credence’s scars were almost invisible now, being only pale dots lower than her belly button.
Mother poked each scar gently. “Do you feel anything unusual?”
“No.”
Mother sat with her chin cupped in her left hand. Her left elbow rested on her left knee. She stared at Credence’s belly like she was trying to see what lay inside it. “Did your sister have matching wounds?”
“I think. That’s what it looked like. But when we were on those tables was the only time I actually saw anything.”
“I think I know what happened, though not why. Well, maybe why, but not how your Papa intended to do it.”
“Mother? You’re sounding a little scary.”
“With excellent reason, I suspect.”
“He did something to me? What did he do?”
“He took your eggs. He took the parts of you that make the eggs. But that part only on the right side.”
Credence did not understand. She knew very little about how her insides worked. Mother, though, was an expert. The study of the human body, whether quick or dead, was her grand avocation. Discards from His night sport occasionally found their ways into her hobby lair.
Mother explained the female side of the reproductive process in far more detail than Credence cared to hear.
“So why would he want our eggs?”
“Presumably in order to create more Doroteas and Credences. He could have seen himself gaining a whole crop of lovely daughters.”
“But…”
“Did your sister have more wounds than you did? I would imagine that your Papa would have tried to recover everything he could from her.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I wasn’t curious right then. I was barely able to think. I had a murderous headache.”
“Suppose I regress you to that moment?”
“Not going to happen, Mother. Not going to happen. That once was the last time.”
Mother shrugged, mused, “One of Dorotea’s eggs must have gotten loose while he was harvesting the rest. That would explain why there was one there to fertilize. It doesn’t explain why the egg was healthy enough to quicken, though. Was there anything wrong with the baby?”
Credence shook her head. “Not that I could tell. But what do I know about babies? I do remember that Papa was concerned because the baby didn’t cry much.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. The story will end once he reaches his natural term. Dorotea cannot persist without his support.” Mother betrayed a trace of what might have been sorrow.
Amazing.
Credence left her mother soon afterward, wondering what she would do out east if ever she got the chance to go back.
She suspected that Mother might develop some eastward-leaning ambitions based on what she thought of Papa’s research.
Banat Senjak had the influence and wherewithal to send out stealthy search parties.
26
Long Ago and Far Away: Generations Drift
The baby arrived within minutes of the time that Papa had predicted. The midwife, though terrified, performed perfectly.
The baby was vigorous and healthy and hungry but his mother could produce no milk.
Papa headed west immediately. While he was absent Kitten vanished, taking all of the dogs and the midwife with her.
* * *
Papa brought back three unhappy wet nurses whose own newborns would now have to share. The three understood that their family fortunes were now dependent upon Papa’s goodwill. They could become fatally redundant once the preferred infant no longer needed milk.
Papa was baffled by Kitten’s disappearance. He would not believe that she had run away. Misfortune must have befallen her somehow while he was not around to protect her. He made a number of search forays, flying over the nearby wilderness. He did not go farther because he did not want to tempt the mercy of his wet nurses.
He found no trace of Kitten.
Papa began weaving protective webs like those with which he had surrounded his old place. He had delayed their creation for far too long. Sad that it took the loss of a daughter to get him moving.
* * *
Laissa did not age. Papa did, despite efforts to beat time by having Laissa and the slave women put him through the rites gleaned from that lost daughter whose name he could no longer remember.
Laissa could not remember her sister’s name, either. That made her sad. She did remember that she had loved that girl.
The rites helped but only slowed time. Papa was just over two hundred when, weeping because he had to leave Laissa, he passed into the darkness.
* * *
Papa never gave his son a name. He referred to him as “the boy,” and, when addressing him directly, just called him, “Boy.”
Laissa called him Precious Pearl, having overheard the captive women gossiping about a mythic sword of that name. She thought the name sounded auspicious for someone destined to shake the world.
Laissa’s mind was working its best when she made that name choice.
The wet nurses had brought their little ones with them. Papa had the hard will to drag the women away from their husbands but not the wicked will to make them abandon their babies.
Papa collected other serving folk over the years, all women. He never molested or abused a one. That temptation never troubled him.
Laissa did not age but her need for warmth grew more insistent. Papa’s ability to provide that warmth declined. Though he hated doing so he brought in several young men to help. Their advent precipitated a population explosion. They did not confine their attentions to Laissa.
Strange years followed, strange decades, and strange centuries. Precious suffered Papa’s interpretation of the Blessing, which took far better with him than it had with his father.
Precious appeared to be about thirty when Papa passed.
Precious hated hearing it but he was a lot like Papa, over toward the necromancer end of the spectrum. He looked a lot like his father, too—what Papa had looked like when Laissa first wakened in the old house near Dusk.
Precious’s mind was better anchored than his father’s. He lost memories seldom and always recalled who everyone was. He did not drift off into imaginary realities.
From his toddler years onward Precious was a presence in Papa’s lab. He watched. He learned. He became Papa’s assistant, then Papa’s partner, and then the man himself after Papa crossed over.
Papa was never comfortable with his son. Mostly he tolerated Precious because any failure to do so would have troubled Laissa. He did, however, ensure that the boy was as well-educated as he could be while living two steps beyond the edge of the world.
&
Papa’s flying carpet leaned against a wall in a room that harbored nothing else, gathering dust and spiders.
Laissa gently declined and forgot that there was a world outside the castle. Servant generations came and went and, in time, only owned hand-me-down tales of a time when their ancestors had lived somewhere other than in a fortress without a name.
Vast changes swept the broader world. Comets crawled the skies. Fires devoured civilizations. Plagues consumed whole peoples. Empires crumbled.
Precious finally successfully fulfilled his father’s grand ambition by creating a new Laissa.
A serving woman carried the baby, not voluntarily.
In time Precious would bring forth seven more infants using materials that Papa had harvested. Three would be copies of his mother. The others, although they resembled Laissa, would have black hair and a more pronounced figure once they matured. Unlike Laissa, they would be quick of wit. None would be pleased with their situation. Those with black hair would develop a psychic connection. The Laissa copies would not be fertile but would be able to carry an implanted embryo. The black-haired girls would be fertile, but not often.
Precious was not fertile. He created his children in his laboratory.
Precious was long-lived and cursed with his father’s bent toward obsession. He learned a great deal that would have been valued enormously in the wider world, but that possibility never occurred to him.
Papa had been gone a hundred years when a gang of adventurous castle children found an antique wooden box in Papa’s bedchamber. Hardly anyone had been in there since Papa’s passing. Kids thought the room was haunted. The one who found the box only went in on a dare. She was one of the dark-haired fatherless girls. Those girls were all remarkably bold.
Precious’s creations grew up alongside the rest of the castle kids.
The discovered box contained Papa’s journals, seven volumes recorded in a tiny, precise hand.