by Sam Bowring
Losara never returned to his physical form, for he feared the tears that would fall. As a shadow thing he wandered, slipping quietly from place to place, watching his people suffer as their homeland faded away. The slaughter wherever the light’s forces found them was complete, regardless of sex or age. After a time he could stand it no more and he dwindled away to the delta at the Dimglades, where he recalled that things lived in harmony. There he waited, until the war was truly over and the Dark Gods were no more. He felt the moment when their Great Well broke – the end of shadow magic, and the end of him. On that day, in the comfortable shade of a willow tree, he too faded away.
Off in the east, Bel stood over a fallen Arabodedas with his sword raised to kill, while behind him Afei Edres burned. It was one of the last cities to stand against him, and had fallen too easily to truly excite him.
As Losara died, the sword fell from Bel’s hand and he dropped to his knees with empty eyes. Their soul, divided in life, was united in death.
It didn’t matter. He had served his purpose.
The light had won.
•
Losara awoke with a start. Snuggled at his side, Lalenda stirred but stayed asleep. Carefully he disentangled himself from her. Around them the delta was loud as the sun set, full of frogs and insects chirping. He looked up to the Cloud and there it was, high in the sky. He breathed a deep sigh of relief.
‘What is it, my lord?’ came Lalenda’s sleepy voice.
‘I know the reason for my pilgrimage,’ said Losara. ‘I know why I needed to see the land, the beauty that will be destroyed if they triumph. I appreciate now the price of failure. I understand that there can be no peace. I must fight my other and I must win.’
She was sitting up now, her eyes glistening in the dark. He bent down and cupped her cheeks in his hands. She smiled.
‘I have something to do,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be back before you know it. Sleep, my flutterbug.’
She closed her eyes and his touch evaporated. In shadowform he sped towards Holdwith. There, in the cobblestoned tower, he found a whelkling chained to the wall.
‘Fly home with a lighter load,’ he told it, and disintegrated the chain.
From there he went north, through Kainordas and all the way to the Open Halls. He circled around the wards to find the point closest to the Open Castle, then broke through the resistance. He knew somewhere alarms were sounding and mages and soldiers would be rushing to find him, but they would never be fast enough. He sped to the Open Tower and up to the Throne’s chambers.
It was a familiar scene. The Throne stood silhouetted by the open end of his quarters, a large glass of bloodfire in his hand. The sun was low in the sky to the south, and the liquid caught its rays brightly, casting a red wash back over the rest of the room. Losara knew Naphur waited for his other, was going to give him the order to charge, to put him on the path.
Gathering himself into physical form, Losara stepped from the darkness and placed a shadowy hand on Naphur’s chest. Naphur gasped as Losara froze his heart.
The door to the room opened and Losara turned to see Bel and Fahren enter. At the sight of him, Fahren’s hands shot up, suffusing himself and Bel in a defensive light.
‘You!’ said Bel, his jaw dropping open.
For a moment the two of them stared at each other. There came the sounds of other feet and Losara knew he had best not tarry – he was not at the height of his powers here. He pulled his hand back from the Throne, who slid lifelessly down the wall. Bel’s cheeks heated and he drew his sword.
Losara smiled thinly. ‘I think perhaps you’d best check the path before you strike me,’ he said.
He watched as Bel’s expression grew confused, then horrified with realisation.
Losara chuckled. ‘The way to defeat me – it would not be to strike yourself down, would it?’
With that, he dissolved and fled.
Epilogue
Epilogue
Epilogue
Little Kaja peeked around the rock again, but there was still no sign of the other children. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, hiding or hunting through the wood. Her older brother, Duri, was excellent at playing the hunter, and Kaja knew he could be sneaking up on her at this very moment. The thought of it made her blood tingle, and with an excited giggle she jumped to her feet and ran further into the wood.
She spotted a large bush and, knowing it would make a good hiding spot, wormed her way amongst the branches, positioning herself to look back the way she had come. Duri and the others would have a hard time finding her here! Minutes passed and she remained silent. Soon she began to grow bored. Where was Duri? She hadn’t heard any gleeful shouting as other hiding children had been discovered, or seen any hunters running through the trees after fleeing quarry. There were no sounds in the wood except the flapping of wings in the canopy and rustling in the undergrowth. Maybe the others had gone home without her?
She crawled out of the bush and got to her feet, almost hoping that Duri was going to erupt triumphantly from somewhere nearby. ‘Duri?’ she called. ‘Are you there?’
When there was no reply, she began to tread her way back to the forest’s edge. After walking some way, she stopped and looked around. She should have been able to see the edge of the trees by now, and the tended fields that lay beyond. She realised with rising panic that she had somehow become lost and was way beyond the bounds her parents had set.
She continued walking, telling herself that everything would be all right. If she really was lost, her father and mother would soon come looking for her, and there was nothing in the forest to be afraid of. Still, now that she was alone, Kaja began to imagine all kinds of ferocious beasts lurking amongst the trees. She quickened her pace.
As time passed, it became harder for her to remain calm. She suspected she was walking in the wrong direction, and that it would have been wiser to stay put as soon as she’d realised she was lost. She was just about to turn around when she spotted an open area through the trees ahead. Breathing a sigh of relief, she made her way towards it. Relief was short-lived, however. As she came to the edge of the tree line she saw not fields, but a clear area of grass some twenty paces wide, ending in a rocky cliff face. She’d heard her father talk of the higher ground in the middle of the wood and now she definitely knew she’d walked in the wrong direction. Tired, frustrated and afraid, she sat down heavily on a root to catch her breath.
A sudden noise made her start, and she scrambled behind the root to lie as flat as she could, her heart pounding. About halfway up the cliff face was a dark hole, which, a moment before, had been empty. Now, at the mouth of the raised cave, a figure stood, stooped in an enveloping robe that shrouded its face.
Kaja raised her face above the root – she had to know if the figure had seen her. For a moment it stood as still as the rock that surrounded it. Then it moved forward, and Kaja had to suppress a gasp as it stepped into the air and floated slowly down from the high cave to land softly on the grass. There it paused again, and she had the most horrible sensation that it was searching for her. She stiffened, ready to jump and run the instant its shrouded face turned to her . . . but the hidden gaze passed on.
There was a rustling in the leaves by her side and a tiny mouse appeared. It seemed unafraid as it came to a stop on the root just in front of Kaja’s peeking eyes. Go away, she willed it miserably. Instead the mouse sat up on its hind legs, twitching its nose at her. It gave a soft squeak and bounded down the other side. Kaja watched as it raced into the clearing, heading straight for the figure. The figure’s head snapped over and the mouse came to a stop. The little creature began to squeak again, waggling its whiskers, apparently unworried by the cloaked figure. The figure whispered back, and with a terrifying certainty Kaja knew that the mouse was betraying her presence.
The figure reached down tow
ards the mouse, and this time Kaja could not help but gasp. The hand it held out was black and skeletal!
After her gasp, the thing most certainly knew she was there; it turned its head right to her. A moment later Kaja was on her feet, dashing away through the trees, squealing uncontrollably in panic. Faster and faster she went as she imagined the creature coming after her, floating through the trees, its skeleton hands reaching for her. She screamed out to anyone who might be searching for her, ignoring the burning pain of her breathlessness, the branches that scratched her as she went.
Back in the clearing, the figure stared after her. Eventually it turned back to the mouse, stroking it behind the ears with a bone finger. The mouse squeaked approval.
‘That was clumsy,’ said the figure in a voice that echoed.
He drew back his hood to reveal a charred and blackened skull beneath, cheekbones rough and crumbling away, teeth like charcoal blocks, eye sockets empty.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose it’s time to move on again.’
The mouse squeaked, leaped free of the hard palm and raced away into the wood.
‘Goodbye to you too,’ said Fazel, and sighed.