Gloomwalker

by Alex Lang

  The gladiator grunted, but again, he did not react as expected. Instead of succumbing to the mortal wound, he spun around, the shaft of his ax striking Kyris on the head, on the same spot where his bump was still healing. It sent him tumbling sideways into a pile of empty crates.

  Kyris hastily got to his feet but staggered, off balance and dazed, his head pounding. He still had his sword but had lost his knife. No, not lost, left in the gladiator.

  Kyris tried to escape into the Gloom, but he was too addled, the dark doorway bobbing and dancing in his mind. Hoping for some time to recover, he swung his sword wildly at the wavering figure in front of him, all the form and discipline of good swordsmanship abandoned. Before he could regain his composure, he was slammed by the warrior’s shield, sending him into the wall. His head cracked hard off the surface.

  He tried to bring his sword to bear, but the warrior pressed into him with the shield, pinning him against the wall. The pressure eased, then he was slammed again and again. The shield dropped away, and the gladiator seized his wrist and forearm.

  The gladiator was shouting something, but he could not make sense of the words in his current state. With his left hand, he pulled a throwing knife, intending on stabbing the gladiator in the face now that his visor was up.

  Excruciating pain erupted in his hand where the gladiator gripped him. A distant part of his mind noted someone else shouting, but the pain intensified, shattering any attempts at comprehension. He screamed, fully and unadulterated. In his relatively short life, Kyris had experienced a wide variety of pain, mostly from the wide variety of weapons of men. Cut and stabbed by swords and daggers. Bones cracked and broken by staves and maces. Skin lacerated by whips and chains. He’d been burned by fire, both divine and mundane. None of it compared to what he felt now.

  Desperate, he thrashed his body, pulling and kicking like an animal caught in a snare, but it was to no avail. Losing reason, he tried to enter the Gloom again, forgetting that it wouldn’t work with the gladiator attached. Though the pain had cut through the mental haze, the agony proved just as effective a barrier to his ability as the disorientation had been.

  Someone was shouting, had been shouting. The words somehow made it through the pain. “Stop! Stop, Sandamar! Both of you, stop!”

  There was blur of motion, an impact, then Kyris’s arm was freed and he slumped to the floor.

  The intense agony receded to something manageable, and Kyris regained enough presence of mind to look down at his hand. His sword was gone. The sight baffled him. What was this lump, this jumbled mess of discolored, twisted flesh? His fingers were missing and he thought them all severed, but there was no blood; his skin was not broken. It appeared as though the flesh had melted, fusing thumb to fingers to palm. He couldn’t comprehend why this was.

  Dumbfounded, he looked up and took in his surroundings.

  “Are you all right, Kyris?” Caldir asked.

  What was Caldir doing here?

  Kyris looked to the gladiator, only a few feet away, who was untangling himself from... Ellse!

  A fleshmender. The thought struck Kyris like a physical blow. When anyone of import fought in the arena, menders were said to be brought in, but he had never witnessed their actual talent in use. But all knew the stories, how they shaped flesh to their will.

  A fleshmender. A scion of Ormoss. The Imperium. His mind was slow to make the connection. Caldir was working with the Tesrini. This was a set-up.

  Caldir was slowly approaching him with his hands held out, as though Kyris were a skittish animal. He could see a panel in the far wall was open, revealing a secret room. A room from where Caldir and Ellse had, no doubt, witnessed the fight. Witnessed his ability.

  “Kyris—” Caldir started.

  Kyris shifted and disappeared.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kyris cradled his hand to his chest. The pain was intense, but not more so than his anger. He glowered at Caldir’s shadow-form, wanting nothing more than to reappear to stick a knife in the man, but reason prevailed, if only just. He could not hope to defeat both Ellse and the fleshmender in his current state. His sword was at his feet, but it might as well have been the bottom of the Ryles for all that mattered. With only two throwing knives left and a useless… He choked back a sob, looking at the malformed mass that used to be a fully functioning hand. It seemed unlikely he would ever hold anything again, much less a sword.

  He let out an infuriated growl. Now was not the time for self-pity.

  Kyris looked to his enemies. The gladiator sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, clutching his side. Perhaps the wound was catching up with him, Kyris thought with some small satisfaction. ‘A stab to the right parts will kill anyone,’ he had said to Jahna. Sometimes he could be such the fool.

  Ellse picked up his shortsword—Baaz’s sword—and began to move about the room, searching, as if Kyris were simply hiding behind a stack of crates.

  Caldir knelt next to the gladiator, put a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder, and said something to him. Muted by the Gloom, Kyris heard none of it, but it was obvious the two were well acquainted.

  Cursing himself a fool again for falling for the ruse, Kyris reconsidered the idea of attacking Caldir as Ellse moved further away in her search. A few steps more and he could shift out, stab Caldir, then escape to the Gloom before Ellse could intervene.

  He pulled a knife and positioned himself over Caldir. He swayed a bit, head pounding, eyes darting between Ellse and his target, waiting for the right moment.

  A hint of a grim visage flickered next to him. Then another, a yawning maw of teeth pushing against some film or shroud, struggling to coalesce.

  All thoughts of retribution vanished as Kyris rushed for the window he and Adar had used to enter. Halfway through climbing, he inadvertently leaned his gnarled hand against the frame. The pain that shot through his arm staggered him, and he tumbled forward out the window. His body slammed against the tiled roof and his feet dangled over the edge. He looked up to see his left hand gripping the bottom of the window sill. Kyris didn’t remember grabbing hold, but he must have done it out of reflex. Bringing his feet onto the roof and finding purchase, he pulled himself up to the window ledge, then nearly let go as he came face-to-blurry-face with Ellse’s shadow-form. For a moment, he just looked at her as she looked through him, scanning the rooftop then the street below. He could almost see, or perhaps imagine, the lines of her face beneath the hazy mask he now saw. She was Caldir’s lackey. She, and all the rest, had been in on the trap, but something other than anger was most prominent in Kyris. Disappointment, he realized, just as another wraith materialized behind Ellse, this one whole enough to let loose a haunting wail.

  Half running, half climbing, he scrambled up the angled roof. The instant his left hand reached the apex of the roof, he hurled himself over to the other side and fled the Gloom, shutting out the mounting moans and shrieks.

  He fought to control his breathing and to remain quiet.

  “Nothing,” he heard Ellse say, then the window closed.

  Caldir saw it coming a moment before Kyris vanished. It was the young man’s expression, one of resolute anger that so often proceeded action. Of course, he didn’t known what it would entail. That was… surprising, but it was the sudden stab of fear that made him gasp. The fright thrummed through him like the plucked string of an oud. He fought down the blind panic—while noting that Ellse and Sandamar had experienced something similar by their reactions—and suppressed his desire to act, instead keeping his eyes fixed to the spot where Kyris had been just a breath before. He swiped a hand through the space, half-expecting to hit something solid, but there was nothing.

  “Kyris? This was a misunderstanding. Can we please talk?” He waited, wondering if Kyris would reappear and if so, would it be from behind like during the fight with Sandamar? Caldir resisted the urge to turn around. Ellse had a sword in hand and she stalked the room, searching for Kyris behind stacks of crates. Caldir w
anted to tell her to put the weapon away, that they needed to calm the situation, but he couldn’t quite speak the words. It was with some effort that he didn’t grab the bloody knife Sandamar had extracted and tossed to the ground.

  He tried to process what he had witnessed. Kyris vanishing was a reverse of what he had seen earlier from the spy-hole within the hidden room. One moment he was staring at Sandamar’s back, then a dimmed silhouette appeared and, within a blink, he was watching Kyris stab the fleshmender.

  “Kyris, this was simply another test, like with Ellse and the others. I apologize that it went too far.” His instincts had told him that Kyris was a scion; not of the Tesrini gods, he thought, but one of the others. Although, this vanishing was nothing he had ever heard of, much less witnessed.

  It was never easy to convince outcast scions to reveal their secrets, to persuade them he and his organization were there to help. It was a matter of self-preservation, after all, to keep hidden from the watchful eyes of the Imperium. That’s why it sometimes took a forceful push, followed by a helping hand to smooth the process. The whole production had been to draw Kyris out, and in that, it was a success.

  “Kyris?” He tried one last time.

  Sandamar sat against the wall, his face a mask of pain. The Ormossan held his right hand over the wound he’d suffered, and Caldir knew that the flesh beneath was already pulling itself together.

  Caldir crouched down next to the man. “How is it?”

  Sandamar huffed, which seemed to cause him a great amount of pain. “I’ll live.”

  Caldir placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, then went to join Ellse by the window.

  “Anything?” he asked as he came up behind her.

  “Nothing” she replied, then pulled the window down. “What... what was that? What god grants such an ability?” Bewilderment was clear in her voice.

  None that he knew of, and the thought thrilled him. Caldir was a scholar of the past. He had a natural disposition for it, after all, but more specifically, he studied the history of the gods. Not something that was easy to doin Tesrin, at least not accurately.

  The pursuit of such knowledge was also essential for his other endeavor as a relic dealer and smuggler, the latter being a requirement for the former, as the true market for such wares lay outside the city, and often times beyond the Imperium’s distant borders. Was Kyris a scion of a known god using a heretofore unknown relic? They had searched him when he’d been knocked unconscious and found nothing. Perhaps suspecting such an examination, he had left it behind that night. Caldir thought this a likely possibility. Either way, he needed to find Kyris.

  “I don’t know,” Sandamar said in reply to Ellse. “Perhaps his ancestry runs darker, eh?”

  Caldir and Ellse shared a look.

  “Didn’t you feel it?” Sandamar said with disgust. “The… wrongness.”

  Caldir opened his mouth to say that it was just the heightened situation, but that didn’t ring true to him. The suddenness of how it came about was certainly odd, as though one had just caught sight of a would-be assailant’s shadow. Even now, there was a lingering foreboding. That they all felt it at the same time was also strange. Perhaps Kyris had affected them with another ability in addition to disappearing.

  “Of all the gods, I know of no ability to explain what was demonstrated here tonight,” Caldir said.

  “Well, whatever he is, when I get a hold of him again I'm going to shape more than just his hand. His own mother will run screaming from him,” Sandamar said, his breathing more steady now.

  “Sandamar,” Caldir said, reproachful.

  “What? The little maggot stabbed me. I think the blade nearly pierced my heart. Would have, if it was still in its proper place.”

  “And you will be fine, which is something none other than a fleshmender of your strength can say.”

  “Perhaps, but it still hurts like… well, being stabbed in the chest.”

  “I can only imagine, but Kyris thought all this was real. You, on the other hand, knew better. You were not supposed to hurt him.”

  Sandamar left out a heavy sigh. “Do we have to talk about this now?”

  “No, of course not.”

  The sliding door opened, and Adar stuck his head in. “Umm, is it over?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” Caldir said, giving the room another slow survey.

  “Good, 'cause we have company downstairs.”

  “Company? What is this about?” Caldir demanded, as he moved for the door.

  “It might be a while longer before I can move,” Sandamar said.

  Adar looked at the big man with obvious concern, then glanced around the room. “Where’s Kyris?”

  No one answered him.

  Caldir brushed past and proceeded down to the main floor of the warehouse with Ellse and Adar in tow. When he arrived, he found Tallence, Rollim, and the others, all those involved in the charade, facing off against four armed men and a child. The hostility between the two groups was palpable. Most everyone had their hands on their weapon hilts, ready to draw at the slightest provocation.

  “What exactly is going on here?” Caldir demanded. He saw the armbands then, black hound on red. Leashers.

  A tall, bearded man with a scarred face and a wild mane of black and gray hair turned to Caldir.“We're on official business for the Imperium to apprehend a wanted criminal. We need to go upstairs. Stand aside.”

  “There has been a mistake. This is my building, and I can assure you there are no criminals here. There are no escaped slaves here, either,” he continued, hoping none of his men would do anything rash. He’d had experience with the huntsmen before, as he often smuggled more than just relics out of Tesrin.

  The one with the scarred face, seemingly the leader, glared at him. “If you know us to be huntsmen, then you know, with a gesture, I can have two makors set loose in here. Step aside, I will not ask again.”

  The child, a sunken-cheeked boy in a worn, dirty jacket, pulled at the tunic of a huntsmen. The boy seemed excited, pointing up. The hunters all turned to watch the two. Moving the child to the back of the group, the leasher leaned down, seemingly conferring with him through hand gestures. The child pointed off towards the river, and the man stood and reluctantly approached and whispered to the leader.

  Caldir watched the big man bark back, “Well, which is it? What is he playing at?”

  The other leasher whispered the reply and shook his head slightly.

  The scarred man eyed Caldir suspiciously, then grumbled, “Bah, let's go.” He turned, and his companions followed, shooting dark stares at Caldir and his men that said, very clearly, that they’d hoped things would have gone another way.

  “What was that about?” Adar asked.

  “I do not know,” Caldir said, eyes lingering on where the group had exited. “But I intend to find out. Ellse, Adar, trail them, and leave markers for us to follow. We will be along shortly.”

  The two ran out the door without another word.

  "Tallence, check on Sandamar and get him some place safe so he can recuperate. The rest of you lot are with me.”

  “Tesra, the Divine Skyhold, City of the Godlings, listed to one side, and the radiant glow of the white structures flickered, then ceased, a sight unseen by any save the Makers themselves, and a thunderous crack rolled forth. Away from the whole broke a fragment of the foundation-stone, falling to the earth below. The bridges, like webbing draped, connecting towers and citadels, snapped, and toppled were the white edifices, collapsed were the stately halls and grand monuments. The greatest Gift of the Gods was torn asunder, and the denizens, the Gods-favored Children, fell to their deaths, and as an avalanche from the heavens, Tesra crumbled and crashed, reduced to rubble upon the land.

  “General Velloras witnessed it all from aboard the Valor, his rescue come too late. All the airships docked were dragged down to share the fate of their harbor, and thus, the Golden Fleet was reduced to only the Valor and the Sword of Allithor. Those upon
the ships and those defending Spire Aelyn and Spire Elaith were the last of the Godlings.

  “The impossible had occurred, and the cause of such was treachery equally unthinkable. Forewarned, General Velloras had let the tenderness in his heart for his fellow Godlings stall his hand. For this, he would never forgive himself, nor the betrayers. No words were equal to such a singularly vile act, and through all the realms high and low would ring echo of this deed.

  “What dark promises were whispered by the Nightbringer to turn kin against one another? What dark prize was dangled by Mezu Vos to tempt the children of Iolas away from their own Maker?”

  Jahna raised a hand to signal for Tasi to stop. She could hear the pounding of boots coming up the hallway outside their door. A moment later, the door was flung open.

  “It’s me. Quickly, we have to go.” Kyris sounded panicked, exhausted, and there was something else in his voice. Pain.

  “What’s happened?” Jahna asked, rising from her seat.

  “Are you injured?” Tasi added.

  “It’s nothing… just my hand. Urdor leaves, do you still have some?”

  “Yes, in my bag,” Tasi answered. This was followed by the sounds of rummaging.

  “What happened to your hand?” Kyris didn’t reply, so Jahna pressed her sister. “Tasi, what’s happened to his hand?” It was moments such as these that she resented her blindness most. It wasn’t the actual loss of sight but the feeling of helplessness that she couldn’t stomach.

  “I’ll explain later. Please. We have to go,” Kyris urged. He spoke around a mouthful of what she assumed were the pain numbing leaves.

  The desperation in his voice startled her. She headed for the bedroom, and in her rush bumped a leg into a small side table. She hissed at the pain. Tasi was there in an instant to take her arm.