A Song of Shadow

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Eid, did you see how Cypro created his guide?”

  “No, Lorelei. At the time of my creation, the Tenth already had his cicerone.”

  “Do you know anything about the cicerone’s creation or properties?”

  “Alas, I do not know much about cicerones. They belong to two worlds at once and help the living find what they want in the world of the dead. The stronger and more experienced the cicerone, the more accurately it understands the purpose of the search. Some cicerones have special, sometimes unique properties.”

  “What determines the strength and experience of the cicerone?” I inquired.

  “The cicerones are taught by special instructors,” Eid explained. “They can be found both in Barliona and in the Gray Lands. Most often they are shamans and necromancers, but sometimes the most incredible creatures became mentors.”

  “And how can I find such a mentor?” I inquired.

  “I’m afraid I cannot help you with this,” Eid said apologetically.

  “But I can,” said an old, gravelly voice.

  I shuddered and almost dropped the ghostly egg. And as I gawked around for the speaker, an insane question flashed through my mind: Can a phantom object break from falling?

  “Do not be afraid, child,” the stranger said again, and I finally noticed a hunched ash-gray silhouette, blended with the dusty gray of the environment.

  Eid stepped silently between me and the stranger, and I had to crane my neck to get a look at him. The speaker wasn’t merely old—he was ancient. The years had furrowed his face with folds and wrinkles. His bent back prevented me from estimating his height. Gaunt, knotty fingers gripped a staff whose shape I could not determine. It was fluid and changeable like the souls of the legendary objects I had seen earlier. The soul’s name and level were hidden.

  I replaced the vitar seed and egg in my satchel, got up and mechanically shook myself off. The omnipresent dust in this place made me feel dirty.

  “Who are you?” I asked, stepping up abreast of Eid.

  I did not feel any anxiety. Past experience suggested that the souls of the dead could do me no harm.

  “My name is Nathan,” the stranger introduced himself in the same old voice. “I’m one of those instructors your companion was talking about. Or rather, I was one of them when I was alive,” he corrected himself.

  “I assume you just happened to be here by sheer chance?” I proposed skeptically.

  An unpleasant coughing laughter escaped the old man’s throat.

  “It would be a truly amazing coincidence,” he answered, laughing. “No, I came here with a particular purpose. I sensed a future cicerone here and decided to offer my services for his training.”

  I paused to think. On the one hand, it is suspicious that an instructor suddenly shows up on a silver platter. On the other hand, maybe this is just like a tutorial to introduce me to guides? Maybe the game manual doesn’t have an entry on this topic.

  “I have a counter question. How can I train a cicerone that has not been created yet?”

  “You cannot train it,” Nathan agreed. “But I can augment the soul of your cicerone with an additional skill.”

  It sounded as interesting as it was suspicious.

  “What kind of skill? What will I owe you for this service?”

  The old man chewed his wrinkled lips and looked at me with faded, almost white eyes.

  “An additional search ability. For this you must complete a task for me in the world of the living.”

  I looked at Eid inquisitively. The helmet with its lowered visor kept me from knowing how the spirit felt about this, but his voice sounded thoughtful:

  “This is what the instructors do, Lorelei. They teach the cicerones to be better at searching.”

  “What kind of task do you need completed, Nathan?” I asked the spirit.

  I expected anything: from vengeance against an old enemy to bringing the old man’s soul back to Barliona, but Nathan surprised me.

  “I need a family heirloom delivered to my descendant.”

  The old man laughed sadly and turned away, hiding his face from me.

  “Once upon a time, I was an arrogant fool, concerned with the greatness of my family and kin. I wanted to give my daughter Maedzhan to a suitable suitor as if...as if she were some mare to be bred. She opposed me and fled with her beloved—a lowly beggar.”

  There was no anger in his words, only an immense weariness.

  “Back then I deemed her flight a betrayal. I renounced my own daughter, calling her the shame of my family.”

  The old man was silent for a while and then sadly concluded his story:

  “Only in very old age did I realize how wrong I was...I tried to make amends, to find her, but I no longer had the time. Death found me in the middle of my journey, preventing me from finishing what I had started. I wished to give Maedzhan the family ring that my father had given me. Now, probably, many years have passed. Maybe even centuries. But the fact that I have not passed on to Erebus yet, gives me hope that my family continues to exist. Maedzhan and her descendants remember me, despite the fact that it was I who betrayed them.”

  Quest available: Family Relic.

  Description: Find the family ring at the site of Nathan’s demise and deliver it to his descendant. Quest type: Unique chain. Reward for completion: Unlocks bonus skill for your cicerone. Penalty for failing/refusing the quest: None.

  I read the quest description again and again, but I could see no cons to accepting. No penalties, no restrictions on time, and my guide would receive a bonus skill.

  “I shall finish what you started,” I promised Nathan, accepting the quest.

  A smile crept across the ancient face.

  “Let me mark my last route on your map. You will have to find the exact place of my death on your own. As well as locate Maedzhan and her descendants.”

  I unfolded the map and the ghost tapped his finger on an unexplored area somewhere in the Free Lands. A quest marker appeared on the map. Yeah...Finding a single ring in such a vast expanse will not be easy.

  “How can I find the place of your death?” I asked in an attempt to narrow the search. “Do you remember any landmarks?”

  The old man laughed hoarsely—a cold and cruel kind of mirth.

  “Believe me, you will recognize the place. During my lifetime, I was not only a heartless fool but also a very skilled necromancer. Though I fell in my last battle, I managed to take all my assailants with me. I doubt that anything has grown there even if a thousand years have passed...”

  Having finished laughing, he went on in his earlier tone:

  “But you are right—finding the ring will not be easy...Perhaps I can offer you an advance, bard. The bonus skill I promised will be available to your cicerone from birth, though until you fulfill your promise, you will not be able to control it. From time to time, the cicerone himself will use the promised property, but not at your command. At least, this will help you in your search for the ring.”

  It sounded interesting. A bonus skill with a random chance of being triggered is better than no bonus skill, right? And necromancers should be well-versed in both pets and the interactions with the world of the dead.

  “What do I need to do to get this advance?”

  “Allow me touch the egg,” the old man said. I hesitated, but then complied with his request.

  The bony fingers reached for the ghostly egg and for a moment it was enveloped in purple light.

  Item modified: ‘Ghostly Egg’ has acquired a new passive function (‘detect cursed item’).

  “Heed an old man, bard,” said Nathan. “Do not waste a single precious moment of life. Each one is irreplaceable.”

  As if in reply to his words, the capsule’s warning icon began to blink in my interface. I waved goodbye to the spirit of the old necromancer and exited the game. The system reminded me that I had twelve hours before I could reenter the game.

  “Kiera, you all right?” I heard Pasha’s w
orried voice.

  I peered cautiously out of my capsule. The pilot stood in the doorway, with his back turned politely to me.

  “Everything’s fine. Why?”

  “We tried to contact you on the amulet,” Pasha explained. “But you didn’t answer. So I popped out and came here, and you were still in the capsule. So I got worried...”

  “Eh. I got ganked. But it turned out that I can travel to the Gray Lands now after death. Wait outside. I have to get dressed.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty,” the pilot stood at attention. “Shall I order the chambermaids in, or will you continue to cleave to the vulgar etiquette of the hoi polloi and don your own dress?”

  “Wha...? We have chambermaids?” I gaped, still not daring to leave my capsule.

  “Well, there’s Sarge. And Sarge has eight paws,” Pasha reported with bravado. “That’s worth at least three chambermaids. Do you wish me to summon him?”

  “An upstanding bard does not treat with the descendants of the tarantulas!” I replied proudly. “Close the door and call Snegov. We have time to take a walk.”

  THE NEXT MORNING Pasha had to go to the hospital: The doctors needed to run tests on his regenerators and eye implant. The pilot explained that unlike with other tissues, it was difficult to select and install an artificial eyeball. The prosthesis had to be combined with the implant, performing a number of functions. What these were, however, he did not explain, and I didn’t want to pry knowing how little Pasha liked to discuss his recovery.

  At his request, Sasha and I were allowed to accompany the pilot to a hospital in the neighboring city of Kislovodsk. The pilot justified our presence by the fact that after the inspection he wanted to take a stroll through the city park, since the opportunity had presented itself, and he would need someone to escort him. The doctor in charge of Pasha’s rehabilitation gibed about the nobility and their servants, but he still assented to our presence.

  We were not allowed into the hospital itself though. Seeing Sasha, the nurse on duty, turned pale and aghast and threatened to call in orderlies, a SWAT team and orbital lasers in that order, if (and I quote) “that long-nosed log even thinks of setting foot in my facility.” Sasha immediately affected an expression of pure integrity and innocence, took me by the elbow and dragged me off with him to stroll around the hospital’s campus park.

  “Am I to understand that you have been in this hospital before?” I asked a question that I already knew the answer to.

  “Yes, there was a time,” Sasha did not deny the obvious. “Who knew they were so spiteful here? No privacy to hear of in this place. And then these medical students reproach our boys for drilling too much. Meanwhile, they may as well hoist the Prussian flag in this panopticon. Oh, look, an empty bench...”

  The view from the bench was a beautiful one: The hospital was located on a hill by the river, and it was possible to look out over the city’s entire tourist area. Sasha reached into his pocket, took out a packet of sunflower seeds and handed it to me.

  “The racketeers will show up any second now,” he explained in response to my perplexed look. As if hearing him, a well-fed squirrel scurried down the tree and absolutely fearlessly clambered up onto our bench.

  “Insolent piece of fluff,” Sasha remarked about the rodent. “You’re missing a fox in your life...Give the raider his share, Kiera Khan.”

  “I’ve never seen a feral animal act so comfortably around people,” I said, trying to open the package without frightening the squirrel with my rustling. “Well, with the exception of Beast when he’s lit. He gets terribly sociable when he drinks. And I do mean terribly sociable.”

  Contrary to my reservations, the squirrel jumped to my knees in a businesslike manner and thrust its muzzle into the barely open bag in the most boorish way. And not in vain—after hearing the rustling, another fluffy lover of handouts hurried to us along the trunk of the nearest tree.

  “Better put the package on the ground,” advised Sasha, watching as a couple more tailed raiders closed in on us along the branches.

  In the meantime, the second squirrel tried to shove the first one from the grub and a brawl of rodents broke out over my knees. Sasha silently pushed them off to the ground, but they paid this bit of rudeness no attention, completely absorbed in their quarrel.

  “It’s too bad I didn’t bring any peppers,” Snegov complained.

  I placed the package on the bench, further from myself: the hell with them, the lovely forest critters. They’d happily trample me to death if it were up to them.

  “What are the peppers for?”

  “I give it to them as a special treat whenever they step too out of line,” Sasha explained. “There’s this one brand called ‘Fire & Flames’: a small, red, sinister, little pepper. First you offer some seeds to the horde, then you watch the Hollywood brawl that breaks out, and finally the victor receives a whole handful of peppers for his own personal enjoyment...”

  Sasha glanced at his watch, winced, took a flat flask from his pocket and took a few sips from it.

  “Swill...” he said, putting the flask away.

  “Polyjuice potion?” I asked, admiring the squirrel wrestling bout. “Do you really work for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”

  “Nah—this is more of a Little Vanya scenario. Although, he was forbidden from drinking so he wouldn’t become a goat, while I’m the opposite: I have to keep drinking until I turn into a goat,” Sasha smirked. “Damn, I forgot my slingshot...And as luck would have it, there goes, the hospital’s chief shrink.”

  He pointed at a well-fed military man, hurrying off somewhere along the nearby path.

  “I’m afraid to imagine why it is when you see a doctor, you remember your slingshot.”

  “A shrink,” Sasha reiterated, “not a doctor. He’s scared of mice too...”

  The expression on his face as he said this was both pensive and a little frightening. If only he could use all his energy for a good cause...That’s right!

  “Listen,” I turned to Sasha, almost jumping from impatience. “Do you want to help me gank about three dozen jerks in Barliona?”

  “Sure thing,” Sasha agreed without hesitation. “As long as they’re not furries. I like furries, there’s something innocent about them.”

  “Nah. I mean Oto and his ragged band.”

  “Oh, my sweet, bloodthirsty darling,” Sasha said with emotion. And then added dramatically: “I knew I sensed a kindred spirit in you!”

  The solemnity of the moment was spoiled by a squirrel scrambling onto Sasha’s shoulder and thrusting a curious nose into his ear. Sasha cursed, and with the words, “but this squirrel on my shoulder is quite untimely,” drove the rodent to the ground.

  “Are they too much for you to handle on your own?” Sasha inquired, compensating the squirrel with sunflower seeds. “I thought you could handle a mob or two in your new form. What do you need me for?”

  “Well, it turned out that even an imba can be rolled by teamwork,” I confessed and related to Sasha the circumstances of my recent, shameful defeat.

  “I still need a lot of frags,” I concluded.

  Sasha thought for a bit and then asked more himself than me:

  “There’s a forest all around there—a real thicket—right? Yeah...Nothing complicated. I’ll set up a couple ‘music boxes,’ and a few other trifles. They’ll have fun, I promise.”

  “The thing is, I have to be the one to kill them, not your toys,” I reminded him and as I did so a very unpleasant smile broke on his face.

  “Why you will, you will...” Sasha was obviously already in the woods, setting up his ‘tricks.’ “I’ll make them ‘less than lethal.’ And you’ll just land the coup de grace. A prick from the old misericorde. With the author’s music as accompaniment. At the same time, we’ll test out our invention.”

  “You do understand that they will come after you for this?” I asked Sasha.

  “That’s like asking a porcupine if he’s scared of a bare ass,” he
snorted contemptuously. “Want some ice cream?” he abruptly changed the subject, spotting a white van that drove up to the square.

  “Who doesn’t want some ice cream?” I asked, a little surprised. “Get me a caramel cone.”

  Sasha perked up and headed for the truck, followed by the squirrel’s thoughtful gaze. The fluffy racketeers were clearly reckoning how much of a cut to take from the second course.

  “It’s bupkis for you,” I threatened the insolent creatures with a fist, stuck my earphones into my ears and turned on the player. Edilberto had shared the newest album of his beloved band and was now haranguing me for my judgment of ‘this masterpiece.’

  A young guy in hospital scrubs took a seat beside me.

  “What are you listening to?” he asked loud enough for me to hear him over the roar in my headphones. It was evident from the nurse’s debonair appearance that the purpose of striking up a conversation wasn’t to expand his musical knowledge.

  Instead of answering, I pulled out one earpiece and held it out to him. But as soon as he inserted the earpiece, the satisfied smile vanished from his face. For a few seconds he looked at me in silence, then without a word, he handed the earpiece back to me and left. I guess he didn’t share my musical tastes. Well, to each his own.

  “Weakling,” Sasha snuffed in his wake, returning.

  Solemnly handing me the caramel cone, he tossed a cookie to the squirrels, and, sitting down on the bench, pushed the earpiece into his ear without asking. I didn’t mind.

  Chapter Eleven

  It is nice to spend time outdoors. It is even better when you are in good company and have a guitar with you. And it is simply excellent when a crowd of butthurt, vengeful little nerds are after your hide. The mood was further improved by the sight of running water and a man working. Or rather, an orc: Bogart was digging pits, neatly collecting the dug-up earth into a bag. When the bag was full, the orc took it to the nearby creek and dumped it into the water. According to him, this was to destroy any traces of activity.

  The pits themselves were small and shallow, but there were many of them, and the walls of each bristled with little stakes. They looked a bit like a brood of baby Sarlaccs to me.