Shadowless

by Randall McNally

  Not for the first time that day his thoughts drifted off to dragons, knights and exotic lands far away before he eventually succumbed to sleep.

  The sun shining in through the window woke Arpherius. Its strong rays fell on him as he opened his eyes, causing him to blink rapidly and squirm in his bed. He pulled the quilt over his head and cursed the sunlight for wrecking his dreams. Unable to doze, he sat upright facing the window with his eyes shut tight and felt the heat from the sun warming his face. He tried opening one of his eyes slightly and was instantly dazzled.

  ‘That damn sun is blinding me,’ he muttered, not completely sure why he had used the profanity or even if it had been used in the correct context.

  One day, not so long ago, he had overheard his uncle use the word when, as he was repairing his boat, he missed the head of a nail and smashed the tip of his thumb with the hammer. Since then he was fascinated by the word. It seemed like an appropriate time for its use.

  Arpherius stretched, yawned and then rubbed his eyes, making sure to pick out the little flakes that gathered in the corners. He got out of bed, put on his tunic and sandals, grabbed his belt and headed downstairs.

  The tower was empty, but on the kitchen table there was a wooden plate with some dried apple, nuts and berries that his uncle had left out for him. Arpherius ate his morning meal thinking about what adventures today might hold.

  He hoped his shells were still there and had not fallen off or been covered with sand by the wind, as sometimes happened in the winter months. Trying to locate his sword and then digging it out was a bad start to any day.

  He skipped down the stairs, unlocked the door and stepped outside. The sun sat overhead in the bright blue sky, blazing down on the tower and everything around it. Arpherius could hear sea birds calling to each other from high above the waves as he made his way around the tower to the rain barrel and cupped his hands in the fresh water before splashing it over his head. He pulled his hair from out of his eyes, patted it down and then washed himself quickly with a few more handfuls; and with that he was ready for the day ahead.

  He ran down the hill and got to the sand dune in no time. As he peered over the edge, freshly stung from the marram grass, he saw the markers he had left the night before. With a grin and a chortle he quickly retrieved Mistbeam and, with the shells back in his belt-pouch, it was off to the beach.

  Down the well-trodden path he went, pausing only briefly to decapitate dandelions and the wild bluebells, until he reached the long stretch of beach, at which point he broke into a sprint. For as long as he could he ran along the golden sand, heart pumping and the sound of his breathing ragged in his ears, until his muscles cried out in pain. Eventually he began to tire and slowed to a jog before stopping over a mile along the beach.

  Plunging his sword into the loose dry sand beside him, he collapsed onto the beach panting for breath. He lay in the hot sun, recovering, and thought about how great it was to be outdoors on a warm summer’s day without a cloud in the sky.

  ‘That damn sun is still blinding me though,’ he muttered and moved his hand up to shield his squinting eyes from the strong rays.

  Arpherius closed his eyes, safe in the understanding that the sun was not irritating him any longer. He lay for a few seconds basking. Then it happened; a tiny, nagging feeling formed in the back of his mind. A thought no bigger than a grain of the sand he was lying on was beginning to develop and, once formed, it rolled around his head. Before long, it had become an avalanche. The sun was still dazzling him. Something was not right.

  Slowly opening his eyes, he locked his vision on to the palm of his outstretched hand. After a few seconds he moved it, letting the direct light reach his face. He moved it back to block the sun from his eye line. He moved it away. Back. Away. Back. Away.

  Arpherius sat upright. He leapt to his feet and stared down at the ground. His gaze turned to his sword. Walking to the side that was facing away from the sun, he crouched and carefully inspected Mistbeam, from the makeshift hilt, past the crushed-cup cross-guard, down the chipped and splintered edge, on to the point where the blade met the sand.

  Then on to its shadow.

  He moved the sand back and forth with his fingers. The sword’s shadow remained undisturbed. Jumping up he stood next to it. Only Mistbeam’s shadow was cast in the sand.

  Arpherius moved around the sword several times in a circular fashion, coming in between it and the sun, checking each time if the shadow cast by the sword changed. It did not. He moved his hand over the sword and then grabbed the hilt. Mistbeam’s shadow disappeared. Retracting it slowly from the sand and then putting it back in, he observed how its shadow returned as soon as he released it.

  Arpherius fell to the ground and sat with his legs crossed, staring at the shadow on the beach cast by the sword. For over an hour he remained there, trying to make sense of it, slowly moving his hand back and forth periodically, as though trying to grab the shadow of his sword.

  There were so many questions rushing through his head that it made him dizzy. Finally, he picked himself up and walked back along the beach, still dazed and confused by the recent revelation. Such was his distraction that the flowers and weeds on either side of the path were spared. After hiding his sword in the sand dune, he made his way to the tower.

  Sitting on his bed, he wondered what had happened to his shadow. Had he never had one? Was he born that way? Was it something that had happened to him recently? Arpherius spent the rest of the day rehearsing what he wanted to ask. His questions needed answering and there was, quite literally, only one person he could ask.

  Arpherius was lighting the candles in the upper stairwell of the tower when he heard the front door open. He rushed downstairs in time to see his uncle offload his daily catch, pitiful even by Barranos’s standards, onto the kitchen floor.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ his uncle said, as he put his nets in a pile beside the door.

  Arpherius walked slowly across the room to the table. He sat down in silence, looking at his uncle, unsure which question to ask first. If he asked the wrong one to begin with, then Barranos would clam up and tell him nothing.

  ‘What’s wrong boy, cat got your tongue?’ Barranos picked up the fish.

  ‘Shadow,’ Arpherius muttered, a tremble in his voice.

  So much for rehearsing it, he thought. He was pretty sure his opening line had gone a lot smoother in his head.

  He cleared his throat and tried again.

  ‘I have no shadow.’

  He was not sure what reaction that would provoke. Although he had never given Arpherius any cause to be afraid of him, Barranos had a steely manner and when he was clean shaven his neck was seen to boast several scars, a suggestion, perhaps, of a violent past. A sharp tone and severe stare often let the boy know exactly where the line was and that it was not to be crossed.

  Barranos stood with his back to Arpherius. His hands were flat on the work-bench that he used to gut the fish and shell the molluscs. Untying his fishing apron, he rolled it into a ball before putting it on the bench.

  ‘I thought I might have had more time,’ Barranos said.

  ‘More time for what?’

  Barranos inhaled and exhaled heavily.

  ‘This day. The day when you came and asked me who you really were.’

  ‘Who am I?’ asked Arpherius. ‘Who was my mother? Where did I come from? Why do I not have a shadow? Why do we never get any visitors?’

  The questions were coming out hard and fast. The rehearsing was starting to pay off, he was back on track. When he turned back round Arpherius looked his uncle in the eye with a determination that let him know that no half-baked fairy tale or reference to some rudimentary set of rules was going to satisfy his curiosity this time.

  Barranos rubbed his face, hoping this was all just a bad dream. He closed his eyes and when he opened them, he saw a s
crawny boy looking up at him, his legs dangling from the stool barely able to touch the floor, dressed in one of his own old tunics that was cut in half and still too big for him. He looked like a stiff breeze would knock him off his feet.

  ‘How am I going to tell you the truth?’ Barranos muttered.

  He briefly leaned against the bench then walked to a shelf and took two clay mugs from it. He filled them with water from the pump before setting them down on the table. He pushed one towards Arpherius and took a large gulp of his own.

  ‘Take a drink of water, Arpherius. You’re going to need it,’ Barranos commanded.

  Arpherius nervously sipped from the mug, the gravity of the situation beginning to dawn on him.

  ‘You’re frightening me. You never call me by my name unless I’m in trouble. It’s always “boy” or “young man”.’

  ‘Arpherius,’ Barranos started. ‘What you’re about to hear will change your entire life. No longer will you live a carefree existence, walking around in blissful ignorance. The story I have to tell is worse than any nightmare you can ever imagine. Are you sure you still want to hear it?’

  Barranos could see from his expression that Arpherius was petrified; he had never spoken to the boy in this way or with such sincerity.

  Arpherius took another sip of his water and nodded.

  Barranos put both elbows on the table and brought his hands together, interlocking his fingers.

  ‘I’ll tell you exactly why it is that you don’t have a shadow,’ he began. ‘Twenty-four years ago your mother and I lived on a farm a few miles from Helystus, the capital city of Narquiss. She tended to the grapes in our vineyard and the apples in our orchard,and I was a captain in the king’s guards. We lived in a house of cob bricks and limestone. It wasn’t much, but it was home, and we were happy.’

  He stopped talking and leaned across the table.

  ‘Arpherius, I need you to understand this when I say it. I was your mother’s husband, yet you are not my son.’

  ‘Then whose son am I?’ asked Arpherius, the pitch of his question rising towards the end.

  Barranos looked at his twiddling thumbs as though searching for an answer from them.

  ‘Up until now I have told you very little of the gods, Arpherius. I have destroyed the books that mention them, and all for one reason. That reason is you. You are the son of a god.’

  Arpherius sat dumbfounded.

  ‘A god? Really? Is that a good thing?’

  ‘No, Arpherius. The gods are evil beings. Their wickedness and hatred is matched only by their maliciousness and cruelty,’ Barranos said with a grimace. ‘Long ago, further back than anyone dares to remember, they went to war amongst themselves; a war that claimed many of the gods and left every last goddess slaughtered. Driven mad by rage and lust they now descend from the heavens to the realm of mortal men, taking women when they please.’

  He looked at Arpherius solemnly. The boy’s face was white and he looked nauseous.

  ‘Perhaps that’s enough for now.’ Barranos went to rise from the table.

  ‘No,’ snapped Arpherius. ‘I want to know everything.’

  Barranos had never doubted the boy’s bravery; it was a trait his mother had had in abundance. Sitting down he took another gulp of water and reluctantly continued.

  ‘Twenty-four years ago, one winter’s night, Helystus was rocked by a storm. It was a storm like no other. A storm, not created by nature, but by the gods. Dark rain bombarded the city and rivers of water as black as coal ran through the streets. The priests said it was the end of the world and that we were paying for the sins of our forefathers. People were in panic, we told them to stay indoors, but still there was a mass exodus from the city. I disbanded the troops under my control and told them to go home to their families. I did likewise. I rode from the city on the fastest horse I could find with my shield above my head.

  ‘The grass and the crops in the fields were starting to wither and die where the dark rain fell. It was even burning the very paint from the surface of my shield. My horse fell just a few hundred yards from our farm, its flesh blistered and burnt from the rain. I started off on foot and the closer to home I got, the more I could hear what sounded like screaming.

  ‘I ran as fast as I could, but by the time I got to our farm it was all over. I kicked open the door and rushed inside. The inside of the house was destroyed. The floor was covered in sea water. Barnacles and limpets covered the walls and ceiling, seaweed and kelp were strewn everywhere. I found your mother cowering in a corner in the bedroom. The window had been broken and this thing had already escaped.

  ‘We got ready to leave immediately. Then the storm ended. The skies cleared and the rain stopped. He had arrived, forced himself upon your mother and then escaped under the cover of this dark storm.’

  Arpherius sat trembling, the mug of water shaking in his hand. Barranos knew by the boy’s facial expressions that he was struggling to comprehend everything that he was being told.

  ‘Who did this?’ he finally said, in a broken voice.

  ‘Kröm, the God of the Sea,’ Barranos said with the bitter-sweet satisfaction of a man who had just got a terrible burden off his mind.

  ‘But why?’ quizzed Arpherius, sounding like he did not fully understand the chain of events that took place on that fateful night.

  ‘Because they can,’ continued Barranos, through gritted teeth. ‘Because they can do whatever they want to us. Arpherius, we’re nothing to them. At best we’re toys to be played with and then cast aside when they’ve tired of us. What they did to Arianne, your mother, they’ve done to countless women for thousands of years. They take what they want from us: when they want.’

  Arpherius sat stunned, the expression on his face conveying to Barranos that he understood at least some of what he had been told.

  ‘Is that why I don’t have a shadow?’ he asked.

  ‘The missing shadow. That’s where the tale gets a little darker,’ Barranos replied.

  Barranos stood up from the table and went to the locker under the stairs. He was going to need something stronger to drink than water for the next part. He took the rusty iron key from the thin chain that hung round his neck and inserted it into the clasp of the locker. After a stern clockwise twist, the clasp sprang open.

  He lifted the lid and rummaged around in the locker, pulling out an earthenware container with a wide cork wedged in the neck. He held it to his ear and shook it gently. Returning to the table he finished his water and pulled the cork from the flask with his teeth. He poured some of its contents into the mug and replaced the cork.

  Swirling it around in his hand he put the mug to his lips and in one swift motion, swallowed it. He pursed his lips as the liquid moved down his throat. A few seconds later, he poured himself another.

  ‘When attacks like this take place, Arpherius, children are born as a direct outcome. These children are born without shadows. They are part-man, part-god, and as a result they gain some of the power of the god that fathered them,’ Barranos explained, trying to be as direct as possible with the boy without getting into a full-blown conversation about procreation.

  Arpherius sat thinking for a moment.

  ‘So, if I’m part-god, do I have powers like a god has?’

  ‘Almost certainly, Arpherius, but many of these children don’t become aware of their powers until they reach adulthood or until their lives are in danger. Having this power isn’t a good thing; when a child is spawned by one of these gods,’ his disdain at saying the very word was palpable, ‘any power that is gained by the child is, in turn, lost by the god.

  ‘Take this flask; if I fill it and leave the mug empty, then all the power is in the flask. Now if I pour some into the mug, the liquid in it has left the bottle and entered the mug, leaving the flask not as full. It’s the same with Kröm and you. Except no one knows how much of this
god’s power has been transferred into you.’

  ‘Can I fly?’ said Arpherius, half-nervous, half-excited.

  Barranos put his head into his hands. Looking up at the boy while shaking his head he poured himself another drink. He emptied it into his mouth and swallowed it in one gulp. It was obvious the boy just did not get it.

  ‘This is not some game, Arpherius,’ he snapped in a low voice. ‘Do you think the gods just give their power away to whomever they choose to sire? Giving you this power has left it in a slightly weakened state. This happens every time they father a child and the only way this power gets transferred back is if the child dies.’

  Arpherius sat upright on his stool. His clear blue eyes were wide open and he was staring straight at Barranos with a look of utter panic. The penny had seemingly dropped.

  His uncle began to speak again, this time it was slowly and in a hushed tone.

  ‘Arpherius, this god spawned you so that its power will grow as you mature. One day it may come looking to get its power back and it will kill you. The way it has come for and killed hundreds of its offspring down through the years. This is how the gods get stronger. That’s why we live alone. That’s why we get no visitors. That is why you cannot go near the sea, for if you go in the water, the sea god might sense you. This thing does not care who you are, its only concern is getting its power back, and to do that you must die. You cannot plead with this thing; you cannot negotiate with it. If you see it, then you run and you keep running and you hope that it loses your trail, otherwise it will slay you. Do you understand?’

  Barranos could not have made himself any clearer.

  Arpherius looked terrified, his face ashen.

  ‘Yes,’ the boy stuttered, staring into space. His eyes had glazed over and his mouth had dried up. It appeared as if it was taking all his concentration and will not to burst into tears.