Shadowless

by Randall McNally

  Several times during the year, Dorrin would stop in mid-sentence while explaining something or get up in the middle of the night, making an excuse that he had to tend to one of his snakewort plants. He would pack up his travel gear, grab the map that he kept by his chair and tell Amrodan not to touch anything until he had returned.

  The young man would not see him for hours, sometimes a whole day, and when he came back he would have a new mushroom and fresh blood-splatters on his clothing.

  After such an occasion, Amrodan would be sent out into the forest in the morning to collect different species of plants and told not to come back until sunset. Upon his return, he would find that the larder had more food in it, and there were more weapons or pieces of adventuring equipment, and that Dorrin’s grinding machine contained more fertilizer.

  Amrodan was never told what was going on, but he knew precisely what was happening, his vision had told him.

  In Amrodan’s mind, Dorrin was a spider who had set up a network of plants as traps; they told him when they had caught something and he would go running to seal their victim’s fate.

  The worrying thing for Amrodan was that he was living in the spider’s web and the flask of black liquid was dangerously close to being full.

  It was a cold morning in late spring when Amrodan woke to hear movement coming from the study. He rose from his bed, which now consisted of several blankets and bedrolls that had been stitched together, and went to investigate.

  Walking under the low doorway into the study, Amrodan saw Dorrin adding another few drops of the black liquid into the flask and then swirling it around.

  ‘Soon it will be ready,’ he was muttering.

  Amrodan coughed.

  ‘Oh, I did not see you there. Anyway, I have to go out. One of my children is calling to me,’ Dorrin stated, before rushing past Amrodan, grabbing his travelling equipment and slamming shut the front door.

  Amrodan went to the window and saw Dorrin stride into the forest. He went back to the study and looked at the workbench.

  The flask with the black liquid was sitting on top of it. Dorrin never usually let it out of his sight. It was almost full.

  Amrodan would soon be surplus to requirements: it was time to act.

  He quickly began to load his rucksack: trail rations, water, bedroll, clothing, a weapon… and the potion.

  ‘I forgot my map,’ the voice said. ‘Honestly, I would forget my head if it was not screwed…?’

  Amrodan spun round, the flask in his hand, to see Dorrin standing in the doorway with a surprised look on his face.

  ‘What is going on?’

  Amrodan backed away slowly, trying to put one of the workbenches between himself and Dorrin.

  ‘Put the potion down now,’ Dorrin said as he closed the front door and drew a serrated dagger. He brandished it and advanced towards the study.

  Amrodan moved away, circling the table, reaching a hand under his robes for his own weapon.

  ‘Calm down, Dorrin, no one has to get hurt. All I want is the potion,’ he said.

  ‘So that is why you are here,’ Dorrin said, a look of realisation on his face. ‘Arriving on my doorstep and saying you wanted to learn from me, helping me collect the material for my research and befriending me… It was all a ruse, was it not?’

  ‘I need this, Dorrin,’ Amrodan told him.

  ‘Why, Amrodan? Help me understand why you are betraying me after I welcomed you into my home and shared my knowledge with you.’

  Dorrin was moving around the workbench, the dagger in his hand, trying to get close to Amrodan.

  ‘This potion is more powerful than you know. I need it to set off a chain of events: let me take it and I promise you, that is what will happen.’

  Both men were edging around the study.

  ‘What events?’ Dorrin asked.

  ‘The visions—’ Amrodan began.

  ‘Bah! Visions. You told me your power was that you could withstand elemental forces, now you speak of visions?’ Dorrin interrupted. ‘Stop your lying. Give it back to me: now.’

  Heart racing and clinging on to the potion as tightly as he could, Amrodan continued to keep a safe distance between him and Dorrin.

  ‘This potion is the first piece of a bigger puzzle, Dorrin. It is going to play a part in ending the reign of the…’

  ‘Silence,’ Dorrin shouted. ‘I have heard enough of your lies. Put the potion on the table and step away from it.’

  ‘I cannot do that,’ Amrodan said. He glanced at the door.

  ‘Then you leave me with no choice,’ Dorrin said as he pounced, slashing at Amrodan with his dagger, cutting through the sleeve of his robes and narrowly missing his arm.

  Amrodan jumped back, slamming against the vat of liquid used for steeping the mushrooms, and falling to the floor.

  As Dorrin bore down on him, Amrodan rolled away, taking care not to let go of the flask. Clambering to his feet, he sprinted from the study and made for the door.

  Amrodan knew that stopping to open the door would allow his attacker enough time to catch up and stab him in the back, and so he decided to play his final card.

  He reached inside his robes and produced a brightly glowing crananx crystal.

  Dorrin stopped in his tracks, a look of horror on his face.

  ‘Get back or I will send you to hell,’ Amrodan said, as he raised the crystal above his head.

  Dorrin cowered and crept away from him.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I absorbed the energy that struck me, Dorrin. Then I pulled the crystal from the ground once it had discharged and channelled the power back into it,’ Amrodan said.

  Amrodan put the potion into his pocket and opened the front door. He retreated into the garden.

  ‘You will never make it; the forest is littered with my plants. You will be dead by nightfall,’ Dorrin shouted after him.

  Amrodan produced a piece of folded-up paper from his robes, keeping the crystal above his head with his other hand.

  ‘That is why I took the precaution of copying your map,’ he said, with a smile.

  Seething, Dorrin rushed across the room towards him.

  Amrodan quickly threw the crystal at the open doorway of the cottage. It struck the stone doorstep and detonated.

  The explosion ripped through the ground floor of the wooden-framed structure, splintering load-bearing beams and shattering the wattle and daub walls. The glass vials and clay bottles that adorned the shelves and tables were instantly smashed apart by the force of the blast, sending shards of razor-sharp debris everywhere.

  Amrodan ran down the path and hopped over the gate as the violent burst of energy ripped through the upper floor of the house and, as the front of the building collapsed upon Dorrin, he disappeared into the woods without looking back.

  Amrodan stood in the cavern-like hall, gazing into the dark-red pool.

  Its surface was still and its glow faint, meaning that it was at ease. He had stood motionless before it for hours now, waiting for a sign, no matter how small, but there had been nothing.

  He sighed and rubbed his face to try and wake himself up. Then, he heard a door open at the back of the huge hall. The sound of footsteps got louder.

  ‘Brother Amrodan, the horseman is here to see you.’

  He turned to see a similarly dressed man standing by a pillar. Amrodan looked into the pool one last time and then turned and walked to him.

  ‘Thank you, Brother Surratal,’ Amrodan said as he left the room.

  Amrodan made his way down the twisting stairwell that led from the cliff-side temple to the monastery, five hundred feet below. Crossing exterior courtyards and outer gardens he came to a library.

  Standing outside it were three men dressed in furs and riding clothes, each with a long black moustache, standing beside a chest. One
of them, a broad man with several scars on his face, walked forward and took off his fur-brimmed hat, smiling at Amrodan before embracing him.

  ‘It is good to see you, Kvältax. Is that it?’ Amrodan indicated the container.

  Kvältax nodded, a smug look on his face.

  ‘I never doubted you, old friend. Now, let us go in,’ Amrodan said as he opened the door to the library and ushered the men inside.

  The library was as big as most of the other rooms in the monastery put together, with bookcases made of walnut and several desks with candles on them. The monks going about their business there got up and left silently upon seeing Amrodan and the horsemen.

  Two of the men lifted the chest by each end and carried it into the room, setting it down on one of the tables. Then Kvältax instructed his men to leave.

  Amrodan walked to a desk beside a stained-glass window and opened the top drawer with a key. From it he retrieved a glass flask containing a black liquid.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ the horseman asked.

  Amrodan nodded, quietly reciting a litany.

  ‘This is it, Kvältax. The events that take place now will put our plan in motion. The downfall of the gods starts here,’ he stated, scarcely believing the words coming from his mouth.

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Kvältax said.

  Amrodan didn’t respond. ‘Let me see it,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the chest.

  Kvältax snapped open the clasps before slowly lifting the lid. Carrying the flask, Amrodan walked to the chest and stared into it. His eyes lit up as he gazed upon its contents. There, in amongst the furs that had been used as padding, was a white dragon’s egg.

  ‘It is beautiful,’ he muttered, transfixed. ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘I levitated while she was out hunting and got it from her nest,’ Kvältax said. ‘I don’t know why you wanted a white one; you do know that white dragons are the weakest of them all?’

  Amrodan took the cork stopper out of the flask, reached over the chest and poured its contents onto the egg, taking care to cover every part of it. It soaked up the black liquid greedily, its shell darkening.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, but I hope you don’t regret this,’ the horseman said.

  Amrodan re-stoppered the empty flask and stood back.

  ‘Now what?’ Kvältax asked.

  ‘Now, we wait.’ Amrodan stared at the egg.

  ‘For what?’

  Amrodan pointed.

  A small crack, no wider than a hair, had appeared in the shell. Two more quickly followed. Thirty seconds later the cracks had formed into a rough circle and a section of the egg was being knocked through from within.

  Amrodan gently lifted out the piece of the shell. When he did a small black snout pushed its way through the aperture and opened its maw, revealing rows of needle-like teeth.

  It emitted a high-pitched squeal, surprisingly loud in contrast to its size. Two claws protruded from the hole and it began to pull at the surrounding shell.

  ‘Amrodan, tell me that’s not…’

  ‘A black dragon? That is exactly what it is.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘The last of the God-Slayers,’ Amrodan said.

  The two men watched as the tiny creature wrestled free from the confines of the egg.

  The dragon hatchling then crawled around the bottom of the chest, climbing over the fur and stretching its wings.

  ‘What will you call it?’ Kvältax said.

  ‘What is the word for black in your native tongue, old friend?’

  ‘Golas t’darkan,’ the horseman said.

  Amrodan picked up the dragon, which slithered around his hand, looking about it and shaking itself as a wet dog would, rattling its scales and getting embryonic fluid over Amrodan’s robes.

  Lifting it up, he and the horseman looked closely at it before the robed man finally broke the silence.

  ‘Then its name will be Darkan.’

  Chapter X

  The Ninth Deathstrike of Ermithdin Ulroch

  Ermithdin sat on the edge of his bed and yawned. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he tied back his long grey hair and put on his dressing gown. He went to the cupboard of his single-roomed cave and took out some ground oat-porridge.

  Better warm this up, he thought, pouring some water from a jug.

  With the metal bowl held in the palm of his hand Ermithdin concentrated. His dark-red eyes began to glow and his hand became hotter. The creases on his skin shone a fiery orange and the water in the bowl started to bubble and hiss. He stirred the bowl’s contents, cleared some of the tools from the corner of his workbench and sat down. The smell of warm oats filled the room as he gazed around at the rough limestone walls that his living quarters were cut from.

  Bedroom, workshop, kitchen, privy; the one room served as them all.

  After finishing his morning meal he examined some of the items he was working on, wondering if there was any way he could refine them.

  He heard a loud knock at his door.

  Tightening the cloth belt on his dressing gown Ermithdin walked over and opened the door to see his apprentice, Protius, dressed in red-and-black robes, standing in the doorway.

  ‘There’s been a fight on the surface. One of the dragons is dead.’

  Nobo climbed up the four-hundred-and-fifty-yard-high shaft that led to the surface. The iron rungs embedded in the stone wall were cold and wet, and a few of them were loose, meaning he had to skip them as well as call out to the twenty men coming up the ladder behind him to let them know.

  He put his arm through one of the rungs for support and looked up. The disk of light at the top of the shaft was getting wider; he was nearly at the surface.

  Even though he was only thirteen, he was equipped with a backpack and tool-belt and had been first in the queue to scale the vertical passage. Now his muscles burned and he could barely breathe in the stifling heat. Below him he could hear the men starting to lose patience:

  ‘Any bloody chance of getting a move on?’ one yelled.

  Nobo looked down, but could not tell who had spoken.

  ‘What the hell’s going on up there?’ another shouted, sounding more irate than the first one.

  ‘Nobo?’ the man directly below him, Thrargo, enquired.

  Nobo leaned away from the ladder and looked down; as he did, he felt his backpack press against the other side of the tunnel wall.

  ‘Nobo, you’re fifteen yards from the surface. I know this is your first trip but you need to dig deep and keep going, lad. We can’t go anywhere unless you move,’ Thrargo said.

  Nobo unhooked his arm from the iron rung and pulled himself up the remaining ones until he was only a few feet from the surface.

  At the top he found a heavy grille, made from several different metals, sealing the opening of the shaft. Beside the grille on the wall was a rusted metal plate with a lock set into it.

  ‘Right, Nobo, now easy does it. I have the key tied to my wrist, lad, so it can’t fall down the shaft. Reach down slowly and take it from me, then put it into the lock in the metal plate, just like we discussed: got it?’ Thrargo asked.

  ‘Got it,’ Nobo confirmed, panting heavily.

  He felt blindly for the key. When he brought it towards the lock it pulled away from him and inserted itself into the opening. The grille flew open, slamming against the topside surface of the rock, giving off a loud ringing sound.

  He could hear the sarcastic cheers of the other men as they urged him on up the tunnel.

  Nobo scaled the last few feet of the ladder until he reached the top. Pulling his weary body up to the surface, he rolled onto his back and took in a lungful of sea air.

  The winter wind howled across the top of the exposed limestone, battering what little vegetation there was and blowi
ng sea mist and rain into his face. He looked out at the sea and saw the white froth of the waves crashing against the shores of the other islands of Umberöc.

  The men filed out, some patted Nobo on the head while others were less-than-complimentary.

  ‘Retard,’ one said.

  ‘Take no notice, lad, it gets easier,’ Thrargo said.

  A wooden winch was set up over the opening and the men began hauling equipment up using a counterweight pulley system with long thick ropes. As soon as everything was safely up, the men gathered around their team leader and began talking amongst themselves.

  ‘Silence,’ Thrargo shouted over the noise of the rain. ‘We all know why we’re here. This is an opportunity we don’t get every day and we know what’s involved. We’re the first ones here, and this has to be done quickly and quietly. This thing came down just south of here, now let’s get it dismantled and get the parts back down. Movers, cutters, skinners and spotters, we all know our jobs, now let’s move out.’

  At once the men snapped into action, splitting into the four teams before grabbing their backpacks and equipment.

  The male dragon was just under two centuries old. It had challenged Bulros, the dominant male for supremacy, and paid for it with his life. Its carcass lay to the south of the shaft. The other dragons in the area had picked much of the meat from its body and now only the sharp, precise beaks of the crows and seagulls were small enough to feed on what was left.

  Lookouts had reported that the battle for leadership had taken place the night before last and that the vanquished dragon had fallen from the sky. The left side of its chest had been ripped open and its wings broken and slashed by the fall, and yet there was still something utterly terrifying about it.

  The team set out on the three-hundred-yard trek to the dead creature, running in teams and keeping one eye skywards.

  Nobo looked around frantically, trying to see through the driving rain, puffing and panting as the straps of his backpack dug into his shoulders. As the newest recruit on the team, it was his job to keep lookout, but he was already lagging behind. This was not the confined space of the shaft and the rest of the men charged on in front of Nobo, leaving him in their wake.