Shadow Born

by Martin Frowd

  “You have an ambassador’s tongue, necromancer,” the shade lord hissed with laughter again. “Your teaching will, I concur, be beneficial to the boy, and so I will permit you to leave with him, when his healing sleep is ended. I regret I have no healing to offer that would benefit you. But I can replace your ruined raiment.” The shade gestured with one shadowy hand at the tattered and torn remnants of Glaraz’s robes. “If nothing else, it would surely undermine your authority as teacher, should the boy see your current state,” he hissed once more in amusement.

  “If it would be no burden, my Lord,” Glaraz said carefully, bowing again.

  “You seek to avoid incurring obligation to us,” Vrnx observed. “Your caution does you credit, human. Clearly you have learned what befalls those who incur debt to us and then violate it! I grant you this now freely, necromancer. Call it a favour to your young charge, if you like. By shadow shall you be cleansed! In shadow shall you be clad!”

  The shade lord pointed one shadowy finger directly at Glaraz. Instantly, searing pain wracked the necromancer. His vision blurred to an iron-grey haze and a furious buzzing filled his ears. Every inch of him burned, as if he were being taken apart piece by piece and dipped in molten metal. Then, as suddenly as the pain had come upon him, it was gone. With it went the stench of mud that had accompanied him throughout his sojourn so far in the valley. A cool, slippery sensation covered his body. Looking himself carefully up and down, the necromancer saw no trace of mud, dirt or grime on his form, as if he had been taken apart and remade clean. Although he still ached all over, his visible bruises were gone, and he felt revitalised, even energised, his weariness banished by the shade’s magic. In place of his ruined and filthy robes, he was now sheathed in what appeared to be a garment of pure elemental shadow, a grey-black coating that felt like the lightest silk and rippled with his movements. The one-piece garment appeared to encompass a long-sleeved and hooded tunic, breeches, boots and gloves, with no obvious join demarcating them. On the polished stone floor before him lay his belt, its hammered iron plates glinting in the golden light and looking as polished as the floor. No trace of mud or dirt remained on the thin iron plates nor on the metal flasks and leather pouches that remained affixed to them, Glaraz saw, as he reclaimed and fastened the belt.

  “The shadowstuff will not last long in sunlight, outside of this interface chamber, which stands in both your world and ours, necromancer. No more than a few hours, perhaps, once the sun rises. Long enough, I think, if you leave soon, to see you back to your own kind, where you can find raiment more familiar to you.”

  “You are too kind, Lord,” Glaraz bowed again to the shade.

  “I merely equip you to better protect and guide the boy, necromancer, so that he may learn and develop as he must, to one day achieve his destiny.”

  “His destiny, Lord? Then you already knew of him?” Glaraz’s heart sank. If a lord of the ancient shades had designs on the boy, there would be nothing the necromancer could do to stop him. This was not some Druid, to be defied and fought, but a master of arcane power far beyond any human.

  “Hrm. I have said too much, necromancer.”

  “The valley above us was struck by shadowfire,” Glaraz noted. “I had thought it must be the boy’s Gift manifesting, as he sought to escape capture. Was I perhaps too swift to assume, my Lord Vrnx?”

  “You think I intervened to rescue the boy?” the shade’s hollow voice was tinged with amusement. “This chamber where we are stands in both worlds, human. The land above does not. And I have not ventured out into it.”

  “I ask your forgiveness then, my Lord of shades. I had merely surmised-”

  “That it was not I, necromancer, does not mean it was, necessarily, the boy. There are yet others who wield the power of shadowfire. My people are older by far than yours, but we were not the first in this land.”

  “You suggest that-”

  “Perhaps, necromancer. Perhaps one of those who came before us has ventured forth from its ancient lair and chosen to take a part in events. Rare it is, now, that they choose to intervene – perhaps to avoid attracting the attention of their western cousins, across the sea – but it is not unknown. Or, of course, perhaps you were correct to begin with, and the boy’s own Gift is growing swiftly in strength. Perhaps what befell the valley was his doing alone.”

  “As you say, my Lord,” Glaraz murmured.

  “Indeed, necromancer. Indeed. But look. The boy stirs, and wakes.”

  ◆◆◆

  Zarynn woke from a peaceful, dreamless sleep to the sound of voices. The tone of one sounded like the outlander, Glaraz, although the words were unknown to him. The other was oddly hollow, as if speaking from far away, and again the words spoken were strange. They were clearly not conversing in the tongue of the People.

  Zarynn opened his eyes and looked around. He was curled up in the strange black chair of metal and hide that had risen up out of the ground – no, the floor, he corrected himself, for it was clearly not natural, though the polished stone was nothing like the tanned hide of a tent floor. Looming over him, a hand outstretched in his direction, was the ominous black-robed and hooded figure of the Druid who had commanded the hunters in the silent vale. Zarynn flinched, instinctively, before he realised that the Druid appeared to be frozen in mid-step, one bare foot off the floor, and had not reacted to his waking.

  A few feet away stood Glaraz. The necromancer was no longer wearing the black robes in which Zarynn had last seen him, but instead was draped from head to toe in a shimmering one-piece garment of grey-black that swirled with intricate patterns, rippled with every motion and appeared to have neither seam nor fastening. His hood was lowered, and Zarynn fancied that he saw a moment’s relief in the necromancer’s green eyes in response to his waking, before the man’s expression closed into inscrutability once more.

  Standing only a few paces each from Glaraz and the motionless Druid, completing the triangle, was a tall figure who seemed to be composed of pure grey-black shadows, but for the sullen crimson glow of his eyes. Zarynn flinched again for a moment as their colour reminded him of the brighter red eyes of the doomwolves, but quickly controlled himself. Whoever, or whatever, this person was, Glaraz was talking to him – the deep and hollow voice certainly sounded male – rather than fighting. Zarynn hoped that was a good sign.

  Glaraz said something to the shadowy figure, in a harsh, guttural tongue. Zarynn did not understand the words, but unless he was much mistaken, the necromancer’s tone was a respectful one. The shadowy figure responded with a hissing sound, which the boy took a moment to understand as laughter.

  “Very well, necromancer,” the hollow voice now spoke words that Zarynn knew – the tongue of the People, and with perfect fluency and no trace of accent, unlike Glaraz’s own limited mastery of the language! “I grant you this request. If the boy speaks as yet no other tongue, we shall converse in the language of the betrayers, that he may understand our speech, and perchance even participate.”

  “Grateful am I, Lord,” Glaraz responded in his usual awkward command of the tongue of the People, and still in a respectful tone such as Zarynn had never before heard from the outlander. “Now the boy has woken, we shall take our leave of you, by your grace. I shall explain to the boy.”

  The shadowy figure hissed with laughter again.

  “Perhaps, necromancer, it is I who should explain matters to your young charge,” his hollow voice echoed in the room. “It would seem that my command of the language of the betrayers surpasses yours. I did, after all, absorb it when their sect first arose in these lands – as I had absorbed the many languages of your human kind that occupied these lands before them. This was long before your own time, of course.”

  “Indeed, Lord,” Glaraz agreed, “five thousand and more years have passed since those days.”

  “Has it been so long?” The shadowy being hissed with what Zarynn thought was laughter again. “Time passes more swiftly on this side of the veil than upon ours,
but even so. Fifty centuries under the iron rule of the betrayers? Impressive, that any dissent yet survives.”

  The tall shadow-being turned to regard Zarynn with the full stare of his sunken crimson eyes. “I greet you, Son of Shadow. My true name would confound your limited tongue, but you may call me Lord Vrnx. I am a lord of shades – those whom you call the First People. We were here – I was here – before ever your people came to these lands. Our dominion was long and wide, Son of Shadow, our realm great and majestic, before our ancient foes brought us low and we stepped sideways from the world.”

  “I’m not the son of shadow,” Zarynn dared to object before he could think better of it. “I’m the son of Zaryth! Zarynn, son of Zaryth! My father was Zaryth the chief hunter! And my father told me the First People went away long ago.”

  “Your charge is spirited, necromancer!” the shade hissed with amusement at Glaraz before turning his attention back to Zarynn. “I speak not of your sire, boy. You are of the Shadowborn, you bear the Gift of Shadow from birth, and so I greet you as distant kin. Yes, we turned sideways from this world long ago, but still we watch, and now and then one of your kind finds their way to chambers such as this, where our worlds overlap, and passes the test.”

  “The chair,” Zarynn guessed. “I knew it was a magic chair! It was a test?”

  “Perceptive, young Shadowborn!” the shade nodded approvingly. “Yes. Any arrival in the interface chamber triggers the chair’s deployment. The chair examines any who sit upon it. Should they be of the Shadowborn, their hurts are healed, and an alarm is triggered on our side of the veil, to attract the attention of one of my kin. Should they be of the betrayer brotherhood, or their minions who slavishly serve the Tyrant,” the shade’s voice turned cruel, “they will perish. Should they be of neither kind, nothing will befall them, good nor ill. As you, young Zarynn, are of the Shadowborn, and no willing slave to the Tyrant, the chair healed you and called to me.”

  “Betray – the Druids?” Zarynn had not understood every word the shade lord spoke, but it was clear that he had no more love for the Druid Order than the boy himself, or the necromancer Glaraz.

  “Indeed, young Shadowborn, I speak of the priesthood of the Tyrant. They it was who betrayed both the best interests of your own kind and your people’s early pact with my kind in order to serve Him. Betrayers, my kindred call them. But that is a tale for another time. Your custodian will perhaps teach it to you, once you have crossed the sea to his school of magecraft. You will be safe from the betrayers there, young one. They do not cross the seas. Ever.” Crimson eyes flickered. “Tell me now, young Shadowborn, is there a God you call your own?”

  “I – my – my parents – Heldor –”

  “The Protector,” the shade hissed amusedly. “Truly, necromancer, this is priceless! You harvest from under the noses of the betrayers one who is already a betrayer to the betrayers!”

  “No good did it him, Lord, nor his elders,” Zarynn heard Glaraz snort. “When the Druid came to slay him, where was the Protector?”

  “Gods move in strange ways, necromancer,” the shade intoned solemnly. “Perhaps you are but part of a larger plan.” He hissed with mirth as Glaraz grimaced. “And perhaps even the Protector in turn merely plays a part in the plans of the Whisperer. Not for nothing is He Who Whispers in Shadows called also the Keeper of Secrets.”

  Zarynn stretched and clambered down from the large chair to stand on the polished stone floor before Glaraz and Vrnx, looking up at the pair of them and trying to ignore the immobile, unresponsive Druid. Glaraz, in turn, stepped closer and extended a hand, shrouded in shimmering grey-black swirls. Zarynn, fascinated by the scintillating patterns on the outlander’s new clothes, took the hand without hesitation. The shadowy covering felt cool and slippery to the touch and looked like nothing he had ever seen before.

  “If you will grant us leave now, Lord?” Glaraz bowed to Vrnx. Zarynn was confused for a moment, for the People of the Bear called only the Gods by the title of Lord, and even that seldom, for when they spoke of Gods at all it was mostly of Kelnaaros alone, whom they called the Dark King. Men were ruled by chiefs, who in turn of course bowed to the Druids. He tried to remember the old stories of the First People – the ones that were told to all the People by the Druids, and the secret ones that he had learned from his parents – and concluded that perhaps the First People were somehow between the Gods and men, neither one thing nor yet the other. Certainly, Glaraz was acting most respectfully around this Vrnx, when he had shown nothing but contempt for the Druids, who were, after all, only men, if powerful and evil magical men.

  “Is – is your magic stronger than Druid magic?” Zarynn dared. “Lord,” he amended, seeing Glaraz wince.

  “Your new charge is most amusing, necromancer!” the shade hissed with mirth. “Yes, young one,” he inclined his shadowy head toward Zarynn. “My own magic is older, and stronger, by far than the magic of the betrayers – or the magic of your necromancer custodian, or the magic of any human born. In the ages before your kind ever set foot upon these lands, we were supreme, until the coming of the titans from beyond the northern seas – I believe the betrayers call them the Towering Ones? The arrogance of our leaders, who were beguiled by the Tyrant and thought themselves invincible, brought our great empires to war. We made war against the northern interlopers, and then, when they were driven forth, we made war among ourselves, for those who served the Tyrant would rule all, and those of us who did not had no mind to let them.

  “We stepped sideways from this world, then, and took our cities with us into shadow, all but poor ruined Shadra. Once the throne city of our empire, but wrecked by war, it remained behind on this side of the veil, young one. We waited for our time to come again, to reclaim our ancient glory and supremacy. We waited – many centuries long, we waited! Hundreds of years passed even by the reckoning of our side of the veil, and many thousands of years went by upon this side. We thought, with the coming of your human kind to this world, that our time had indeed come again. We made pacts, then, with the first of your people, young Shadowborn, pacts of blood and magic. We bestowed the Gift of Shadow upon your ancestors, and many more magics besides. We uplifted your ancestors, and we granted them the strength to thrive in this land, to fight back the goblins, the reptath, and the monsters of the wild. We gave them the strength to establish kingdoms, and many realms blossomed.

  “But as time went by, there were those among your kind who grew foolish, young Shadowborn. They took heed of the Tyrant, and were beguiled by Him, just as the leaders of my own kind fell before His twisted promises, so many dozens of centuries before. They became His priesthood, His hand among humankind, and overthrew their own rulers to seize control of their lands. They betrayed our pact and our trust, and it is for that reason that we name them betrayers. We remember. Always, we remember. And we do not forgive.”

  Zarynn was almost entranced by the shade’s tale, and his strange words – his father had spoken of the goblins, the fierce folk of the distant mountains, but never of reptath, whatever they were, and for that matter, kingdoms? And as for the Druids overthrowing the rulers of the lands? Zarynn had always been told, by his parents in secret as well as by the other adults of the Duskwalker clan, that the Druids had always led their people, since there first were people. He was eager to hear more, and judging by the shade’s amused hissing laugh, he must have blurted it out aloud.

  “All in due course, young Shadowborn, yes. Your custodian will teach you much, I think? You have much to learn about the true history of your own people, and his, and more besides. Much to learn about the nations of this world. The languages of the realms of Karnos beyond these Blirian shores, I imagine, will be the first step – at least, the speech of the land to which your custodian takes you. You have much to learn about the arcane art – magic, to you – and the lore of its use. No doubt, your custodian and others shall teach you all about the Sevenfold Path. And perhaps, one day, when your training is more advanced, we
shall meet again.”

  Zarynn’s expression clearly gave away his bewilderment at the strange names and terms the First People lord used, judging by his hiss of amusement.

  “Even the name of this world is strange to you, then, young one? And the name of Bliria, the continent upon which we stand? How the betrayers hobble their young with ignorance! All the better, no doubt, to preserve their rule – to keep the unlearned from becoming a threat to their way of life. Most especially, unless I miss my guess, to prevent their minions from reaching out to other Gods than the Tyrant.”

  Zarynn nodded, taking in the gist of what the First People lord had said, even though he still did not understand every word.

  “By your leave then, Lord?” Glaraz asked again, respect clear in his voice when he spoke to the shade.

  “You have it, necromancer,” the hollow-voiced shade responded, pointing a long finger at the rear wall of the chamber, behind the chair, the opposite end from the entrance where chamber met cave. A humming sound filled the air for a moment, and a large segment of the wall slid aside, although neither a join nor a doorway had previously been apparent. Beyond the newly revealed gap, a smooth-bored tunnel sloped upward, sheathed in the same gold-veined black stone as the chamber in which they stood. Light glowed softly from the gold veins, more than enough illumination for Zarynn to see, but he noticed Glaraz squinting as if the passageway were as dark as the cave above. Even as the boy watched, the golden light flared to the brightness of midday, and the necromancer relaxed.

  “This passage will bring you to the surface a little way west of this place, necromancer,” the shade lord advised in his hollow tones, “closer to where your winged steed waits for you, to convey you to your ship and thence home, across the sea.”

  “You saw even that, Lord?”

  “That, and more besides, necromancer. Remember that,” the shade lord suggested, “and be certain that you treat and train the young Shadowborn well. Perhaps, one day, it is fated that we will claim him. Or he will find his way to his destiny without our assistance.”