by C D Tavenor
“Yes. Yes! All of Lethotar lives. I swear.”
Erin grunts. “Even if Lethotar lives, we have a greater
problem on our hands.”
She steps back through the crowd, and I follow, the men stepping away. Beyond them, the faces of a few children peek between legs and hide in shadows, but they are few and far between. It’s mostly men in this dark, damp place. My eyes having adjusted, I recognize it for a cave system, yet it also resembles a sewer system. Rocky outcroppings intermingle with flowing troughs and pipes.
“How long have you all lived down here?” I ask.
Erin leads me into a new tunnel. “Ten years. Since the fall of the Gates of Vicor, they’ve kept us trapped in these tunnels, every so often taking crews into the mines to drill for sunsteel and moonstone. They drop meager food to us, randomly steal a dozen or so away, and they’re never seen again. On latest count, there’s maybe a thousand of us down here? At one point, they trapped nearly five thousand in these sewers.”
“Only five thousand? But . . .”
“Yes, at one point, the Three Valleys housed nearly a million. We don’t know what happened to everyone else. There may be camps all across the region, but there’s no way to know.”
“They’re working you to death.”
“Beyond death, Ermo.”
We approach a cliff, water rushing through metal grates and below, toward a small pool. Piled beneath the cascade, dozens of bodies decompose, rotting and festering beneath the mist. Surrounding the corpses, black shapes dart, crawl, and—
“Fiends,” I say.
“We call them shadow wolves,” Erin says. “And they form from our dead.”
“What?”
“Every man and woman who has died in these tunnels has turned into a shadow wolf.”
I encountered them outside—north of the Gates of Vicor, in the ruined city.”
“Makes sense,” Erin says. “The sewers most likely connect. A few, or more, escaping from below? Makes sense.”
“They are terrible. Evil.”
“That’s what the Holy Empire says. That’s their justification to continue calling us demons. For enslaving us. They believe shadow wolves live in our blood. That it’s a curse. But you want to know a secret?” She doesn’t wait for me to respond. “Look closely at the pile of dead at the bottom of the cliff.”
I squint, examining the corpses. I look up, toward the waterfall, noticing the light streaming from above. Back toward the dead, I see a few dozen fair-skinned men. Soldiers of the Holy Empire. Wait—not just soldiers.
“They don’t trap just our people down here,” Erin says. “There’s only a few, and they mostly keep to themselves, but they trap paleskins down here too. When they die—or when their soldiers die from disease, or some other cause—they turn into shadow wolves too. It is a curse upon this place, not upon any particular people.”
“How do we stop it?”
Erin shifts her gaze toward me, as if she’s expecting me to say more. The words don’t arrive.
“Ermo,” she eventually says, “I am still the High Priest of the Clan Wi. I know our scripture by heart. The moment you arrived, I knew the truth. I know who you are. Do you know?”
Swallowing, my dry throat threatens vomit. Some hours ago, I knew my role. My path. But seeing my people like this? I don’t know what I can do. How can I save them? They’re broken. Shattered. Defeated.
“Does the Lord of Light speak to you, daughter of Mono?”
I laugh. I fall to the dirt, holding my sides, laughing. “Speak? I thought once. You wouldn’t believe me. You wouldn’t believe the words, nor the path I’ve taken since those words. The Lord of Light doesn’t speak to me. He’s abandoned me, like he abandoned all of us.”
Erin nods, as if it’s the answer she expected. “I’d be worried if you said the Lord of Light speaks to you.”
“Wait, what?”
“The Lord of Light does not speak to anyone. The Lord of Light merely moves and acts through his people, giving them power and strength to do what is right. You can only be a vessel of the Lord. Speak with the Lord? No. But if you are a vessel, the Lord’s thoughts are your thoughts.”
My hands. My power. I glance at my fingers, at the water, at the shadow wolves far below. Energy crackles between fingers, blades of white light skipping through the air.
Erin notices. “Ah, so you know of what I speak.”
“There was a moment where I decided I would save you. I would find a way, but they . . . they give no way forward. The Holy Empire has broken me too.”
“You are not broken. You’re merely bent.”
XV
Three days pass, and I spend them regaining my strength alongside my people. I quickly recognize the strange society built into the underground of the Gates of Vicor. The community is close knit; everyone knows everyone, and they give to those in need . . . even the enslaved paleskins. Erin introduced me to a small group of them on the second day, hidden down a crevice in a corner of the sewers. Their eyes showed their terror, but they accepted the food we brought.
When the Holy Empire opens the gates each day to either return miners or acquire new ones, everyone prepares. They ensure those weakest are hidden away in secret places. When the slave masters arrive, I notice a group of large men block the path toward the paleskin camp; curious, how my people protect the weakest of the enemy.
On the fourth day, I tell Erin I’m ready. I tell her it’s time for action, even if I don’t know what will happen.
The soldiers of the Holy Empire open the gate at dawn, sunlight streaming through. Ten men and women are pushed through, their arms beaten and bloody. Ten of us, including me, step through the gate as the next victims of the mines.
Walking forward, we enter a courtyard surrounded by an immense stone rampart, archers standing at the ready atop the parapets. Without word, they march us straight under an iron gate, down a rocky path carved into a cliff-face, and into a dark, damp cave. Within minutes, the darkness fades, and we arrive at the brilliance of a sunsteel mine.
I recognize the golden metal, dripping from the rock surrounding us. While the art of smelting sunsteel and moonstone disappeared with my grandfather, his relics, and the artifacts of those who came before, litter the holy places of Lethotar. To see the Holy Empire desecrating our holy places? My blood boils.
The Holy Empire soldiers place picks in our hands, and for countless hours, we toil, splitting rock from steel and stone from ore. When the sun nears the end of its path across the sky, they march us out of the cave and back to the sewers.
I wait another week, resting alongside my people, conversing with Erin, and learning their stories. For many hours, I watch the shadow wolves, their haphazard movements creeping above the corpses. I see Erin’s point. They’re not evil. They’re a mark of evil, but the creatures themselves? They are something else entirely. They’re just beasts, living on instinct.
At the end of the week, I join another mining crew. We take a different path, entering a cave filled with moonstone. We drill. We mine. We carve the metal from the rocky veins on which they form.
Another week. More life among my people. More stories. A girl, only eight years old. She was born inside the sewers, it’s the only life she’s known. I tell her of Lethotar, but she cannot comprehend the beauty of our true home.
I continue visiting the paleskins, Tathias acting as my translator. As rude as the big man had originally been, he’s kind to these poor souls trapped by their own kind. Tathias learned their language years ago, and one of the paleskins, Victor, asks questions about our religion and the Lord of Light. They all seem skeptical, but . . . I’ve not once heard them call us accursed. They understand the evils perpetrated by their own people.
It turns out the Inquisition sentenced them as accursed for acts it deemed “immoral.” As Victor lists their “crimes,” I further recognize the absurdity of the Holy Empire’s position. Condemning someone for how they choose to love—what divi
ne being could proclaim such a rule? Others stole to survive because they wanted food for their family. Noble in heart, even if “illegal” in the eyes of the law. Certainly not deserving of a life in bondage. The more time I spend with the paleskins, the more I recognize our similarities. They deserve a future beyond one trapped beneath the yolk of the Holy Empire, too.
Four more cycles. I pass from mine to mine, living with my people, working with them, suffering alongside them. Each evening, I slip into a distant cave . . . and I meditate, considering the possibility of another soul existing within my own, urging me to save the people around me.
Yet, what can I do? None of us are armed. I’m unsure the extent of my magic, and if I overexert myself, will I die due to my own idiocy? Still, as I talk with my new family, I learn their fears. Hopes. Dreams. They’ve been beaten, but they’re still the People of Light at heart.
While in the mines, I sense the power encapsulating the Gates of Vicor. When I held Flame of Maripes weeks ago, energy channeled through the sunsteel blade and moonstone shaft. Surrounding me here, in every square meter of rock, sunsteel and moonstone binds the mountain together at its core. The power concentrated in my spear flows through everything. Yet even though they stole my spear, I can sense the power ensconcing me.
On the seventh trip to work in the mines, I halt in the middle of the courtyard, my comrades continuing past me. I sit, crossing my legs.
Shouts surround, and a soldier of the Holy Empire rushes toward me. “I wish to speak to” —I conjure the name in their tongue—“Ricarian.”
It’s a risk. It’s a huge risk. But I know it will work.
The soldier grabs my arm and drags me away.
◆ ◆ ◆
They’ve thrown me to the dirt beneath a massive, wooden throne, on which sits Ricarian. It’s been over a month, but I recognize his ugly beard. Strings of words pass between soldiers—taunts and jeers, most likely. Even through multiple conversations with Victor and his cohort in the sewers, I’ve only picked up a few dozen paleskin words.
“Girl, I remember you,” he says through his translator, “you’re the one we found out beyond the East Gate. Why did I know you’d be a problem? We should have just killed you. But we can always use more miners.”
I steal a glance around the room, resisting the urge to draw forth power into my hands. As I suspected, Flame of Maripes hangs behind the throne on the wall. And on Ricarian’s belt—
“What are you looking for?” He steps down from the throne. “Are you even listening to me, cur? You are our slave. We own you. You deserve no better in this life.”
On his belt. A hammer. A massive hammer, carved from the same metal, formed with the same engravings, as Flame of Maripes. Impossible.
If they’re mining sunsteel and moonstone, they’re still trying to find a way to—
His steel boot connects with my shoulder, flipping me onto my back. Standing over me, he uncouples the hammer from his belt. The translator stops speaking, and Ricarian shouts indecipherable profanities, spit dripping from his lips.
I close my eyes. It’s now or never.
Glowing energy races down my arms and along the bones of my fingers, veins pulsing with power. Surrounding us, everywhere, immeasurable tons of sunsteel and moonstone interweave through rock, lie waiting in storerooms, and . . . in both Flame of Maripes and the hammer in my captor’s hands. Breathing in, I open my eyes.
Ricarian’s swinging the hammer over his shoulder. With my right hand, I call for Flame of Maripes, and with impossible speed it flies through the air—and into the chest of the commander, blood spraying across my face. His fingers release Maripes’s hammer.
The room explodes in a frenzy.
As do I.
Red bile dripping from his lips, Ricarian falls to his knees. I fluidly roll to the side, pick up his hammer, and twist so I’m behind him. I withdraw the spear from his back, the metal sliding effortlessly from the wound. I shouldn’t be able to hold both weapons, but I’m drawing energy from the mountain around us. Hammer in my left, spear in my right, pure power coursing through . . . everything. As long as using magic in this way doesn’t burn me to a crisp, I’m ready to fight.
Soldiers converge, and I cycle through the forms, twisting the spear in a wide arc. The blade slices and dices, and as one or two soldiers slip through the arc, the hammer connects with skulls, shoulders, knees. Within moments, the room clears of enemies, either falling to me—or fleeing in fear.
Already, pain reaches my joints, and I remember the moment when I almost torched my arm by drawing too much power. I tighten the siphon—though I need a trickle to hold the weapons—but I’ll release the floodgates when necessary. Spear in hand, I can more easily channel the power through the weapon itself, straight from the rocks into the shaft and blade. Battle fury is enveloping my mind, and a small part of me recognizes I’ll probably die today.
It’s worth it.
Leaving the throne room, I step into a stone hallway. It’s deserted. Remembering the path from the courtyard, I slowly jog until I reach a stairway. No enemies. Ascending, I arrive on the second floor, where I assume archers wait, armed. Well, here goes nothing.
Darting onto the wall, a dozen or so archers stand ready, arrows raised. Fortunately, they’re pointed down, not toward me. I ignore the first few archers, instead drawing energy from my hand to lance through their legs. It’s not enough to incinerate them like the fiends, but the jolt cracks bones, and the soldiers topple, some falling into the courtyard below.
Like a bolt of lightning, I strike, impossible to hit. Arrows whistle, but before they reach me, I’m gone, slicing Flame through the next soldier. Once again, my enemies fall or flee. It’s almost too easy—disturbingly so.
No one should hold this much power, I think, but I push the thought away. The Holy Empire, and all its followers, deserve death. For too long, they’ve been allowed to run amuck across our lands, enslaving and butchering the People of Light. They’re—
The last soldier falls, leaving me standing in front of the path toward the mines. I rush down the pebbled path, kick an
unsuspecting spearman off the cliff, and sprint into the caves. Three armed guards await, but I leap over a railing, land between them, and dispatch them with a sweep of a spear, energy lancing from the tip as it connects with their armor. Immediately, I release my flow of energy, hoping I’ve not already expended too much.
“What in the Three Valleys?”
I look up. Tathias is standing there, shovel in his hand.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m here to rescue you all.”
“We thought you were dead,” he says. “Thought you’d given up, back in the courtyard.”
“Nope. Come on. We’ve got to get everyone out of the sewers and beyond the Gates. It’s time to go home.”
XVI
The fortress is eerily quiet as the last of our people exit the sewers. Corpses litter the courtyard, but not a Holy Empire soldier is visible. After scouting the fortress and dispatching stragglers, Tathias and I concluded any who lived escaped westward to their camps in the valley below the ridge. It won’t be long before a full force returns.
“I don’t know how you did it,” Tathias says, “or what you are, but you scared them. They had nearly three hundred soldiers stationed in this fortress. You only killed a few dozen, but you made them believe you were an army on your own.”
Our people pass through the East Gate, heading toward the ruins. To the strongest, we hand swords and spears collected from dead soldiers or the armory. “We’re not out of this yet,” I say. “We still need to pass by the fiends—the shadow wolves.” Looking out toward the ruined city beyond, I think of River, most likely torn to shreds by the beasts. “There are hundreds out there.”
“Yet you defeated the Holy Empire single-handedly,” says Erin, approaching us from the side. “You can’t handle a few shadow wolves?”
“I don’t know how long I can keep up what I’m doing.” I eye Flame of
Maripes and its accompanying hammer, resting against stone. Looking at my arms, I notice black strands along my veins. “It’s killing me.”
“You can do it,” Erin says. “You know you can. You know what’s happening.”
“Sure, the Lord of Light is using me as a vessel. But I’m the one taking the actions, making the choices.”
“Are you?” Erin’s eyebrows raise. “Do any of us really have a choice in life?”
“Now’s not the time for philosophy, Erin,” says Tathias, “we need to keep moving.” He walks along the wall, looking west over the edge. “Troops on their way up the ridge road.”
“All right.” I nod. “Let’s go. I’d almost rather face the shadow wolves than an army.”
“Well, this time you have your own army, too,” Tathias says. “After today, we’ll follow you anywhere.”
After retrieving my weapons, we descend from the wall and pass through the East Gate behind the last of our people. We’re about to close it when a crowd of forty or fifty paleskins shuffle out of the sewers. Of course—how could we forget?
“I understand if you don’t wish for us to come with you,” Victor says, Tathias translating. “But . . . we have no home. Your people have shown us kindness. The Holy Empire is evil, and we want to join the People of Light. We’ve all agreed.” With his final words, everyone standing behind him nods vigorously.
I smile, glancing at both Erin and Tathias.
Erin nudges my shoulder and whispers, “Say the words. They are yours to wield.”
I close my eyes for a second, calling forth the scriptures. “Tathias, please translate. Victor: You and your people are always welcome in Lethotar. ‘So says our Lord of Light: to turn away the least fortunate, even your greatest enemy, is to turn away me.’ Perhaps together, my friend, we can begin a new story between your people and the People of Light.”
“We welcome the chance to prove ourselves.”
“That’s the beauty of it. You have nothing to prove. But we’ll have plenty of time to talk—now, we must escape this place.”