by Matthew Ward
“Viktor?”
He opened his eyes, drawn from a dreamless, black sleep. Sidara stood at the tent flaps, face crowded with uncertainty. Sunlight streaming through the gap set Viktor’s shadow seething. Groggy, he propped himself onto an elbow. Still fully clothed, he barely remembered crawling onto the bed.
“How long have I slept?”
“It’s past noon. The camp’s taken down, all save this. We can march whenever you’re ready.”
He swung upright and stood, scowling at the pain crackling along his arms. Fishing a replacement from the haversack at the bed’s foot, he peeled off his soiled, bloodied shirt.
“Uncle…” Sidara started forward, her eyes wide. “Your arms…”
Viktor nodded. Thanks to his shadow’s embrace, they looked far worse than they felt, crusted black skin above livid, blistered flesh still burning. “Others… Others suffered more. I can hold a sword. Nothing else matters.”
She stepped closer, the golden light about her fingers topped by a writhing plume of shadow. “Let me help you.”
Viktor’s own shadow hissed its distaste. He held out a hand to ward her off. “I regret your light is no balm to me. I wish it were otherwise.”
Sidara nodded and stepped away. “How did it happen?” Her face fell. “They sent you to the pyre, didn’t they?”
How soon the conversation strayed onto delicate ground, but lies would only make matters worse. Wincing only a little as he pulled on the clean shirt, Viktor sought a response that would serve.
“I confess, I have misled you. My return to Tressia was not solely to test the truth of your brother’s reports… I wanted to see Calenne, and bring her safe out of the city.”
She frowned. “Josiri’s sister? You’re mistaken, Uncle. She’s been dead for years.”
“I found a way to bring her back. Elzar’s light and my shadow, channelled through a relic recovered from Darkmere.” Elzar. One more reason to fight on. One more sacrifice to be respected. “That vranastone existed in our world and the Raven’s – a tether binding the living to the dead. We cheated the Raven’s grasp and restored Calenne to a body of clay.”
Swallowing, she pursed her lips, eyes bright with grief. “Like Ana’s?”
He nodded, a piece of him aching in empathy with Sidara’s loss, even if he didn’t share it. “In practice, it’s nothing more than creating constructs. The power of the soul harnessed in place of Lumestra’s magic. But I knew others would call it witchcraft.” Old mistakes crowding close, he sat heavily on the bed. “That they’d name Calenne an imposter, or worse. So I kept her secret. Just yesterday, those who call themselves Tressia’s Council – Josiri among them – sent her to the pyre.”
She screwed her eyes shut. “Josiri killed his own sister?”
“He stood by as she burned,” Viktor replied. “That’s almost worse. He’s not the man we remember. His political machinations are only part of this. The shadowthorns were ready for us at Argatha Bridge because he gave warning we were coming. If only I’d seen what he’d become. Perhaps Anastacia and Calenne would still be alive.”
Aghast, Sidara brushed her left forearm with her fingertips, mirroring the path of his wounds. “You earned these trying to save her…”
He grunted. “They came later, when I tried to reclaim the vranastone. Its keepers… fought harder than I could have imagined. In the end, they triumphed. The vranastone is lost to me.”
“And with it, hope of retrieving Calenne? I’m so sorry, Uncle.”
Viktor closed his eyes, sealing the guilt and rage of preceding days in the darkness. “No. She was lost to me even then. Otherworld’s mists are vast, and the Raven a jealous warden. He’ll keep her from me for ever.” He brushed away a tear. “But we could have used the vranastone to set things right. Together, you and I could have remade Elzar’s miracle. Calenne was only ever meant to be the first to return. I thought to raise an army out of Otherworld, their service exchanged for a new lease of life. With an army like that…? When the shadowthorns come again with Fellhallow at their back, those supine fools on the Council will roll over and beg. Everything we’ve fought for will be lost.”
“You’ll find a way, Uncle. You always do.”
He nodded, though found little agreement. His talk of finding aid from Armund af Garna, thane of Indrigsval, was talk alone. Armund had refused direct support not a month before, brokering terms with the now-dead thrydaxes instead of committing his own forces. Another friend proven unworthy in a moment of need. But what else was there? Perhaps the thane could be persuaded to make amends. “I hope you’re right.”
She laid a hesitant hand on his. He barely felt it. The shadow’s embrace left him numb to more than pain. “I am with you to the end, Uncle.”
“You know that it may not be my fight to finish? It may yet fall to you to see our people protected.”
She grimaced, but nodded. “Yes.”
Of course Sidara understood. Constans never would. The boy had cleverness, but little sense of duty. Strange how years altered perspective. Years ago, when Malatriant had striven to make him her inheritor, Viktor had not grasped her drive to do so. Still didn’t, in truth, but he at last had a glimmering. Immortality was more than flesh. It was legacy. When the time came, Sidara would be a worthy heir.
“A hard road lies ahead, but I could hope for no better companion.”
Sidara backed away, embarrassed… but pleased as well, he thought. “Death and honour.”
“Death and honour.”
Reaching for the tent flaps, she paused. “You said Calenne was to be the first, but Tzila… I never noticed before, but now I can feel the shadow clinging to her. She’s the same, isn’t she?”
Even now, he heard no judgement. Just a woman wrestling with a puzzle. Whatever else she’d learnt from Anastacia, Sidara retained an open mind… or was it his shadow, easing her to his way of thinking? Did it matter, so long as it was done?
“Tzila is… different. It takes Lumestra’s light to make a body whole. Elzar made it so for Calenne. I saved Tzila alone, and rescued only pieces. That’s why she is how she is – part of her remains in the Raven’s jealous keeping. I hold together what remains as best I can.”
“Then Tzila exists in both worlds?” Sidara spoke slowly, carefully, shaping emergent thought with words more than expressing one. “And if she does…”
Was it really that simple? Unbidden laughter spilled free of Viktor’s lips. “Why did I not see it?”
He traced the thought to its end and found no flaw. Tzila’s fractured soul, already steeped in shadow, trapped in both worlds but belonging wholly to neither – as the vranastone had belonged to neither – could serve as the bridge. One foot in the mists and one in the light. Through her, he could reach from the living realm into Otherworld’s heart.
A once-bleak future burgeoned with possibility. All he needed were souls eager to escape the Raven’s grasp. Angry enough to fight. Defiant enough to face the armies of the traitor Council without hesitation.
He had the answer at once. Perfect symmetry. Proof that for all his missteps, his course had always – always – been correct. With Sidara’s help, he’d yet save the Republic from itself.
“We march south.”
Sixty
Nothing had changed in Eskavord since Viktor’s last visit, but then nothing ever did any longer. The provincial town lingered only in memory, erased by the fires that had purged Malatriant from the shores of the mortal world. In its place, a field of fire-blackened stones barely visible through Otherworld’s intrusive, unyielding mists. A Forbidden Place, haunted by the scent of bitter memories and whispers on the edge of hearing. Every Ascension for five years he’d trod the ash, seeking absolution from those he’d failed, clinging to the hope of reunification.
Branghall, the Trelan ancestral home, dominated the western horizon, a black, angry presence of uncertain shape. The remnant of the church – spire and roof gone, chancel open to the black, cloud-choked skies �
� held sway over what had once been the marketplace. Echoes of other structures remained. A gable wall. A beam. A pillar. A spill of rubble about a knee-high wall. Grave markers of lives lost in a battle they’d never known they’d faced, souls snuffed out and bodies dancing to Malatriant’s command. All of it drowning in ash.
A jerk of the reins brought Viktor’s horse to a standstill – by chance, or unconscious design, at the very spot where Malatriant had tricked him into embracing her magic.
If my legacy is to be a shining realm of privileged squabbles, with you as its champion and Calenne at your side, then so be it. I wish you the joy of making it so.
Had she known even then how matters would unfold? That even had he conquered the Dark and pressed it to righteous purpose, others would fall over themselves to cast down what he’d built? To think he’d once walked from Eskavord thinking his battles done. But battles were like art. They might change form or become abandoned, but they were never truly finished. There was always more to do.
It was the one consolation of losing Calenne that he was now freed to the pursuit.
“Uncle?” Sidara cantered to his side, eyes dark as the mists drew her shadow to the surface. Brittle tone belied composed expression. “You’re making our soldiers nervous. You’ve done nothing but stare into space for a quarter hour.”
Blinking away old memories, he gazed back across the column of Drazina, some on horseback, most on foot. Too many pale faces and restless eyes. Timorousness that went beyond defeat-eddied morale. Northwealders all, they’d grown up far from the Forbidden Places that dotted the Southshires. For them, the dead belonged to Otherworld, and the living to the light. They didn’t yet understand how little such absolutes held sway.
Constans clattered to a halt between Viktor and Sidara, his horse a little ahead of hers and his posture crafted to shield his sister from view.
“They’re cowards. Send them away.” His voice held no trace of his sister’s wariness.
Viktor scowled. Jealousy was one thing. Disrespect another. Foolishness something else. “The Republic is theirs to defend as much as ours.”
“Look at them.” Constans cast out an arm, his voice pitched loud enough to carry, but low enough for denial. “They’ll seize any excuse to flee.”
“Enough!” Viktor leaned over his saddle, shadow curling about his shoulders. “If you cannot show respect, then I release you from service and duty. You may leave whenever you wish.”
Constans flinched as if struck, suddenly crestfallen. “My place is with you.”
“It’s wherever I decide.”
“He didn’t mean it,” said Sidara. “We’re all on edge.”
Constans chased away a grimace with a twist of his lips, his displeasure obvious. But he nodded. “I’m sorry, Father. I spoke out of turn.”
“Follow your sister’s example,” said Viktor. “She’s lost more than any of us, but comports herself with dignity.”
A twitch of Constans’ cheek told him the admonition had hurt, as it was meant to. A test was nothing without bite. “Yes, Father.”
Viktor nodded his satisfaction and turned his attention to the Drazina. For all their brashness, Constans’ words held a kernel of truth. Beaten, harried and faced with matters beyond ephemeral ken, it was all too possible the Drazina would desert him.
“I understand your fears,” he rumbled. “But there is no malice in this place. Those voices you hear belong to men and women abandoned by the Council as we were abandoned by the Council. They yearn for a second chance, as we yearn for a second chance. Harden your hearts, and it will be ours.”
A few nodded and stood straighter, purpose returning. But only a few. Most retained harried aspect. Too much uncertainty. Viktor didn’t blame them for that, damnably inconvenient though it was.
He had to excise that uncertainty.
Closing his eyes, Viktor set his shadow free across the Drazina, smothering their fear as it smothered the pain from his burns. A handful yielded with reluctance, felt in the flaring of spirit as the shadow drew tight about troubled thoughts, and heard in sharp intake of breath. But resistance never lasted. By the time Viktor opened his eyes, those gazing back were bereft of doubt, fear gone and purpose in its place. His purpose.
“For the Republic!” he bellowed.
For the Republic! Fists crashed against breastplates. Constans and Sidara offered salute alongside, though they alone had needed no urging.
Muffled hoofbeats on the stone bridge heralded Tzila’s return from the eastern mists. Viktor spurred to greet her. “Well?”
[[I found a handful of scavengers on the southern boundary. They fled at first sight of me. Eskavord is ours.]]
Viktor nodded. “Then we can begin.”
Eskavord’s lychfield brought back old memories, few of them welcome, but what better place to treat with the dead? Though none of those Viktor sought had been buried in the church’s shadow – or had indeed been buried at all – the ash-drowned gardens and skeletal, long-dead yews retained a strong connection to the mists.
Sidara was a nervous presence beneath one such tree, her hands clasped tight together. Her attention split between Viktor and the solemn, silent Tzila kneeling between them. With the Drazina standing watch on Eskavord’s boundary, quarrying clay from the western fields or ridden east to the abandoned, ash-strewn fortress of Cragwatch in search of weapons, Constans was left the only other observer – a subdued, suspicious presence in the gaping maw of what had once been the church’s vestry door.
Had he been too harsh with the boy before? Probably. Viktor was all too aware that kindness was so seldom in his gift. If only Constans was more like his sister in temperament. If only Sidara had given herself fully to his cause long ago. So much pain could have been avoided.
He glanced at the row of androgynous clay figures lying atop the ash. A mere six to begin with: grey, hastily fashioned and unfired. Artistry held second place to urgency. Their crudity made them even more alike to Ocranza statues than the body he’d made for Calenne. And perhaps that was fitting. In stories, Ocranza had ever been guardians of the living, forerunners even to Belenzo’s kraikons. It was a suitable lineage, born of the oldest traditions. All they’d lacked was life. Not so his Ocranza.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Sidara nodded, doubts locked away behind her eyes. Yes, so much stronger than her brother. “Viktor… If this works, is there any hope for Altiris?”
The pain in her voice chimed with Viktor’s own at losing Calenne. So simple to ease it. To tell her that he’d spared the lad, despite provocation to do otherwise. But truth would lead to more questions, and questions to distraction. He needed Sidara focused – maybe even in pain, if it goaded her to do what the Republic required.
He could make things right afterwards. Josiri had led Altiris astray. Once that influence was removed, anything was possible. And if the corruption went deeper? Well, there was always the shadow. If it could quell the Drazina’s fear, it could surely rid Altiris of misguided sentiment. Nothing so crude as what Apara Rann had forced him to. Just a nudge. A caress.
He nodded. “If it is at all possible to bring you together, I will do so. You have my promise.”
She offered uncertain smile, not yet ready to believe. Or perhaps she’d a better ear for equivocal truths than he’d suspected? “Then we should begin.”
“Open yourself to the shadow,” said Viktor. “I’ll guide you.”
Closing his eyes, he beheld the lychfield through his shadow’s eyes. Constans became a wisp of darkness in vision’s periphery, Tzila an inky, swirling stain upon the ash.
Sidara’s pale presence darkened as she set her own shadow free. As they joined, Viktor felt her light seething in the cage he’d made for it. His shadow hissed at its touch. He ignored it. Shadow could reach into Otherworld, it could grant flexion to immobile limbs, but only light set free the soul. Only light could fire the clay into useful form.
Taking a deep breath, he reached out
through Tzila. His shadow’s perception of Eskavord shifted, overlaid with an echo filled with twisted buildings and lurid green skies. Flickers of soul, sensed but never seen through ephemeral eyes, gathered to vaporous etravia spirits milling through the streets, directionless and without purpose.
Sidara’s sharp intake of breath warned Viktor that she saw them too. “Have no fear,” he said. “They won’t hurt you. They’re barely aware.”
Her shadow-form rippled a nod. Viktor reached out to the nearest etravia, drew it tight in gossamer strands of shadow as he’d once done with Tzila’s soul. Flickers of memory roused at the touch. A man, slain by Malatriant during her conquest of Eskavord. He reached for another. This one had been a young woman – a serene – barely old enough to know anything of life. A third was a wolf’s-head, his soul trapped on the gallows.
All of them as much a part of the living realm as the Raven’s domain. Everything he’d sought. Everything the Republic needed.
“Do you feel them?”
Sidara offered a taut nod. “Yes. They’re… beautiful.”
“Set free your light. Bring them home.”
Radiance cracked through Sidara’s shadow, daylight from thunderclouds. Even braced though he was, Viktor shied away, its touch – even the suggestion of contact – sending a searing shiver through his shadow. And yet he could almost… feel it. The bridge between his magic and Sidara’s allowing him to endure a force that should have boiled him away to nothing. Through his shadow’s slitted eyes, he glimpsed a vast apparition at Sidara’s back. A woman like but unlike, washed of all colour save dawnlight, and her hands on Sidara’s shoulders.
Tzila went rigid. Daylight enveloped the captive souls.
They screamed.
Sidara staggered, her shadow-self convulsing in pain. “They don’t want to!”
Viktor felt it now. The reluctance. The fear. Not Sidara’s. Not his. Not even the Raven’s. But something deeper and more pervasive. The defiance of timber before the flame, or steel beneath the blacksmith’s hammer. “It will pass! Keep going!”