Shadowless: Book 1 of the Ilmaen Quartet

by Helen Bell

  It was four years since they had last met; four years in which Lemno had gained the trust of Maregh – and since Maregh was both LandMaster of Karn and brother of Sarol, four years in which Lemno’s influence had grown. When they had last met, Lemno had been a lowly weapons master. As one of the best swordsmen on the continent, he had been selected to teach Kerin, whose talents hinted that he could be one of the best in the future. And Lemno had always demanded Kerin’s best, always stretched him to his very limit; a risky business when it would have cost Lemno his head if a killing blow had got past Kerin’s talented but youthful guard. Kerin couldn’t tell if it was professional pride or personal resentment that drove Lemno’s approach to his training; it certainly wasn’t love of his talented protégé. Now, for the first time as they journeyed back to Ilmaen, Lemno had actively sought out his pupil and started a conversation. Kerin had been surprised; Lemno was not usually one to bother with those he disliked. Perhaps he was tempering his attitude because Kerin was so close to the new Crown; but no, that was out of character too. If Lemno didn’t like you, he didn’t trouble to disguise the fact.

  It had always galled Lemno that he couldn’t put the fear of hell into Kerin. That pleased Kerin – but mystified him too. How did Lemno create fear so easily in others? Granted he was a dangerous opponent in a fight, but Kerin had seen many a gallant man show visible fear just at Lemno's approach, or even the mention of his name. Kerin derived unrighteous pleasure from remaining calm or even provoking the other man when everyone else was as tense as a bowstring around him. He knew he shouldn’t. If things had turned out differently, Lemno would have been his equal, not his weapons master. He had lost his high position through no action of his own, but by his father’s treason. Even his name, Lemno Tekai, had been stripped of any family honour. No honorific ‘Hed’ for him, when even the poorest citizen used it; and he was forced to use his grandfather’s name, Tekai, rather than permitting his traitorous father’s name to be spoken. Yet Kerin was immune to sympathy where Lemno was involved; and given what had happened next, with every justification.

  A sensible man always watches his back, even if he pretends otherwise. It was a rule Kerin had failed to follow that night. Lemno started a conversation, on a subject he had every reason to raise. He relaxed against the gunwale as they spoke and soon Kerin had found himself doing the same. So as he hit the water after Lemno had deftly up-ended him over the rail, he could only think, Fool! He should have expected as much.

  His right side had smacked into the gunwale, his arm too when he snatched vainly for a handhold as he went over. He came up for air with both of them hurting like hell, despite the painful shock of the icy water coursing through him. He worried lest his arm was broken, then cursed himself for a fool once more. Lemno wanted him dead, and he was worried about a broken arm? On the surface again, he flexed it experimentally and found it wasn’t broken. Treading water, he turned round to sight the ship – and just in time. He was still alongside it and Lemno was heaving a barrel at him. He surface dived, but the barrel caught him under the ribs, knocking most of the breath and half the sense from him.

  He did not know where he was for about thirty seconds, until he rolled over and felt air on his face. He breathed in and nearly choked himself – his mouth had still been underwater. Once he had finished coughing and spluttering, he looked around. The ship was a fair way away now, but he could just make out the helmsman leaning over the stern and shouting something. Then Lemno barked a command and the man, after a moment's hesitation, turned away and went back to the helm. Kerin had nursed no illusions that the ship would turn back; Lemno would ensure that. But it was a desperate feeling, to watch it sail away while the freezing cold sapped him of strength.

  He trod water again, turning slowly. The barrel was the nearest thing to him and that was a surprising distance away already, which must mean that either he or it was in a current. It rode high out of the water. If he could reach it, he could use it to keep himself afloat. Strangely neither his arm nor his side hurt now, probably numb from the cold, but he was sure he was a strong enough swimmer to reach the barrel. He struck out, his arms making watery arcs of silver in the moonlight, but found it an incredible struggle after a very short while. He stopped briefly to tread water – and found he could not stay up. Now he started to panic until he felt the pulling round his neck and realized it was his sodden cloak that was drowning him. He struggled with the clasp at his collar, fingers clumsy with cold and fright. He remembered that his boots would have filled with water too, and tried to kick them off, but only succeeded in getting rid of one. At last he got the cloak off, and the weight literally fell from his shoulders. He paddled for a moment, summoning what strength he had left, then fixed his eyes on the barrel and swam unsteadily towards it.

  It was a hollow relief when his fingers finally touched the rough wood. He could have cried but had already had enough of saltwater to last him a lifetime. He wrestled some kind of a hold on the barrel and clung there shivering, not certain how long he would be able to hold on. He could feel the tow; thankfully it seemed to be pushing him against the barrel rather than trying to pull him away. However he didn’t know if the current he was in would take him to the nearest land or further out to sea. He was far too tired to work it out; fate would decide now if he lived or died.

  As he clung on with the last of his strength the badge of office on his jacket reminded him of its presence, weighing his collar down and jabbing into his neck, and he named himself fool for a third time. He should have dropped it with his cloak! All the gold and symbols of rank in the world couldn’t help him now, and he knew his frozen fingers wouldn’t manage the fastening to rid himself of its weight. All he could do was hang on, beyond even shivering and knowing what that meant. His time was nearly over. He didn’t want to die, but he knew he might not have a choice any longer. He was so tired, and the cold was overpowering everything, mind as well as body...

  oOo

  …He dreamt of seagulls, their cries cutting through the air like plaintive ghosts.

  The more he listened, the more he knew they were real birds. He forced his eyes open and focused them in the dim light. He was lying on his back, slightly propped up and looking to his left; he found himself staring at a sandstone wall with a niche cut into it, in which stood a water jug, bowl and cloth. It was the room from his dreams.

  Well, he thought, unless they make you wash in the Afterlife, I am either reincarnated or else I survived. He decided on the latter, and felt the same rush of tempered joy that getting off a battlefield alive gave him.

  The feeling invigorated him, and he tried to sit up. He found he couldn’t.

  A long sigh made him look down, and he saw why. Someone sitting on the floor beside the bed had fallen asleep, and was using his stomach as a pillow, one arm flung across his chest. His attempt to sit up had roused the person – the brown-haired girl from his dreams. She sat up, another sigh for her stiffness turning into a yawn; she rubbed her face and had a stretch before she noticed him watching her and gave a little cry of surprise. Then she smiled nervously at him, turned and yelled as though calling someone, but no one came. She sighed. Turning back to him, she laid her hand on his forehead, made a noise that suggested she was satisfied with what she found, and began talking to him. It was a foreign language, but one that he knew. His brain got up to speed and he caught the last few words she said.

  ‘...I can get you something against the pain if you need it, with all those bruises. Nothing's broken, thank goodness. Why am I telling you all this, it's not going in, is it? I hope you're good at learning languages; I've never tried. I'm no good at miming either.’

  ‘Mhrydaineg… I’m in Mhrydain,’ he said to himself, and the girl's mouth dropped open at the realization that he did understand her language.

  ‘Where in Mhrydain?’ he asked her. The girl’s mouth snapped shut and she pulled herself together.

  ‘The Southlands. The nearest town is Dorster?’ She mad
e it a question, unsure how well known the place might be to an outsider. He knew of it, nodded recognition.

  Speaking made him realize that his mouth was very dry. He asked her, ‘Could I have something to drink?’ and the girl jumped up and disappeared beyond a curtain. A minute later she returned with a cup of water and helped him to sit up and drink it.

  ‘Sip it slowly,’ she advised him. ‘It’s nearly three days since you had anything, so more than a sip'll be a shock to your system.’ It was a few sips and several seconds before that sank in.

  ‘Three days?’ He thrust the cup back into her hands and pushed the bedclothes back, making apologies as she protested.

  ‘I have to go…’ His head suddenly spun and his legs buckled as he put his weight on them. He had the foresight to snatch at the bedclothes as he folded into an untidy heap by the side of the bed, realizing too late that he did not have a stitch on.

  ‘I did try to warn you.’

  Through the buzz of dizziness, he was sure he heard suppressed laughter in her voice as she helped him back into the bed and under the covers.

  oOo

  The episode left him light-headed and sick, as if the embarrassment was not bad enough; it took some time for the nausea to fade after she left. If he needed a slow recovery… well, nothing to be done about it, but he cursed the thought inwardly, and despair mounted within him.

  His ship would have made the coast of Ilmaen two days since. To a backwoods place like this, foreign news might be weeks in arriving, if anyone bothered with it at all. He tried to remember the name of the town the girl had mentioned, but it escaped him. Normally a thing like that entered his mind and was fixed solid. Damn! He would have to ask her again. In the meantime, he worked out the likely progress of events. A week more, he thought, and recent news would spread the length of Ilmaen. Quicker still, with Lemno's network of spies, in the places he and Maregh wanted it spread.

  That had been another mistake: to dismiss rumours of Maregh’s ambitions for the Crown. But then, would such ambitions have even existed, let alone come to anything, without Lemno’s influence? And how fast were they planning to move? Heaven, let there be time still for Jastur! It would rouse too much suspicion, surely, to put an end to them both on one short journey. Surely Lemno at least was too clever, too patient after all these years on the margins of power, to let Maregh's greed threaten his own plans. Please Heaven, let it be so!

  When Kerin left here, he must be careful; while he was here also. One mention of him from these people in the nearest village or town could easily reach the ears of a spy. He knew now, from Lemno’s murderous actions on the ship, how far his reach extended, and what Maregh's money could buy him. Kerin had thought their Federinese helmsman beyond corruption.

  That galled him; to be wrong, and wrong again. He dared no longer trust his instinct, which was to be open with these folk who had taken him in: instead he found himself questioning their motives, judging their words, though all their faces spoke of was humanity, openness and genuine concern. The switch from trust to doubt was all too easy to make, these days. But it was what they had trained him for, and at some point he had learnt the lesson.

  He dozed a while, woke to find a drink being set down beside him.

  ‘Oh! I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’ It was the girl again – the men must be out working, he surmised. ‘But it's for the best anyway. If you can drink plenty, it will help you. A fever's bad for the body like that.’ She gingerly offered him her arm to help him sit up; strange reticence considering she had fallen asleep across him, and had hauled him naked back into the bed earlier. Shy because she’d done and seen more than was proper for such a slip of a girl, perhaps. He took the help she offered, and then the drink. It was tea of some kind, but with a strange taste to it. It was the milk that seemed to be different.

  ‘You don't like it?’ she asked, dismayed.

  ‘No, no, it’s good. It just tastes strange. The milk?’

  ‘Goat's milk. We've that or sheep's. We can get you cow's milk, if you like.’ She spoke as though giving him goat's milk was the worst crime anyone could commit, and getting him cow's milk might be her redemption.

  ‘No. Goat’s milk is fine. Thank you.’

  She nodded, but watched him sip it anxiously with her brow furrowed.

  ‘The dizziness has gone?’ she asked after a while longer. He nodded, finished the tea.

  ‘I’ve put you to much trouble. My apologies. I was anxious not to impose, but instead I’ve given you more work – and made a fool of myself too. I’m not used to feeling so weak... How long, do you judge, before I’m fit to leave?’

  ‘Some days, at the very best,’ she said with a frown. ‘There’s something you want done, isn’t there? Is it something we can help with? A message to someone?’

  ‘Thank you, but no. It’s something only I can do. It will have to wait.’

  ‘Is it why you were travelling?’ Innocent curiosity, in all likelihood, but how to answer her without telling her too much?

  Tell her that you cannot tell her; it was the simplest answer. In the absence of anything more inventive, that was what he did.

  oOo

  Shy though she might be, she was a firm nurse still, and all in all Kerin thought it best to lie back and take orders. They seemed good people; but he knew he should trust no one. He had their names now; she was Renia, her brother was Velohim – Vel for short – and their guardian was Melor. In addition Kerin now knew that there were just the three of them on this sheep farm, that it was away from the main village, and the beach where he had washed up was on an isolated part of the coast. It was reasonable to assume that only these three knew he still lived. Again, an advantage; and he got this information without revealing anything about himself. She had looked worried that he would not give his name, but not offended, which for some reason he felt would have mattered more. She had let it go, thankfully; he could only hope the others would too.

  Before she went to get some sleep, she brought him some food. Not much, just enough to get his fever-starved system used to it again. It was mutton stew; she warned him apologetically that he would see a lot of that in the next few days. He didn’t care; it tasted wonderful to him. He had not felt hungry until he took his first mouthful. Then it seemed the amount on his plate would never be enough; he would have to ask for some more. But in his weakened state, even the simple act of chasing it round the plate with his spoon was very tiring...

  oOo

  Renia woke up after a few hours, and the first thing she did was go to check on her charge. His covers were pushed down around his waist, one arm draped over the edge of the bed where his plate had weighed it down before it slipped from his grasp. Since it had landed on the matting and he had scraped it clean first, no damage was done. She bent and picked it up, and took in the sound of his breathing as she did so. It was slow and even now, not laboured as it had been during his fever.

  She looked at him, rested and not fever-racked as before, and wondered at the contradictions his body posed. He was around Vel’s age, clearly looked after himself and took plenty of exercise. But something had happened to him recently; the right side of his torso was one massive bruise, his right arm a series of smaller ones. In addition he bore many old scars, especially on his left arm, long-since healed. He must have done some living, to be so battered; yet his face bore no mark that she could see.

  And what a face. He was as beautiful as the angels painted on the wall of the village chapel. Sleep had chased away the frown from features that managed to look both youthful and worldly-wise. His eyebrows were very dark, which didn’t quite seem to match the light brown of his hair and his fair skin, and he had a quirky little cleft in his chin, but put them together and the end result was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

  She heard barking: Happa their sheep-dog. A sign that Melor and Vel were nearly home, and supper would be needed, and she hadn’t put the stew back over the range yet. She was neglecting h
er duties standing here looking at this man just because he was so beautiful; an indulgence that couldn’t be afforded.

  She stole one last glance at him before hurrying off to quieten Happa.

  Chapter 3 – Shadows

  Once it was clear he wasn’t fit to leave, Kerin surprised himself by tolerating three days lying quietly in bed. It was something he had rarely experienced before. Other than meals and drinks and help to reach the necessary, they left him pretty much to his own devices. This was despite knowing nothing about him, not even his name. Vel had asked him directly, once, but hadn’t pushed him when he saw Kerin was reluctant to say. But as his strength returned, so did his impatience. By the third day he was starting to fret.

  It was a huge relief when, that afternoon, Vel's long, honest face appeared round the curtain, his dark blond hair loosened from the band that tied it back by the incessant wind, and he said: ‘You all right? I won't come over…’ he held up his hands ‘…I've got the grime of the fields on me. Melor and Ren say you can get up today for dinner, if you feel up to sitting out in the parlour.’

  ‘That’s good news. I know these four walls much too well,’ Kerin said, but from Vel’s expression it seemed his impatience to be out of his sickbed was already obvious. Earlier he’d tried staggering the length of the room on his own and, despite feeling light-headed, he’d managed it. The thought of Jastur's plight lent urgency to his efforts. He must be up and gone soon!