The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  And then the first of the Hounds was upon him, leaping onto his back, tearing at his clothes with paws that turned to taloned fingers as it giggled in his ear.

  "Wildmage—Wildmage—Wildmage—"

  HE woke up.

  He was in his own bed in his own room back in House Tavadon. It. was all a dream!

  Relief so intense he nearly swooned filled him. All a dream! The discovery, the trial, the Banishment, and everything that followed, only a dream! A warning, and he'd been lucky to receive it. Now he could—

  But when he flung back the covers, he saw that the sky outside was the color of blood and darkness. Green fire laced across the sky, and by its light he could see the Hunt, racing across the garden toward his window.

  He ran for the door, but the door was gone. His father had taken the door away, because his father meant him to die here, die with the Demons he'd summoned.

  He picked up a club…

  HE was standing over a Demon. It was dead, and its blood was all over him. He wiped it away, but the harder he scrubbed at it, the more it spread, and everywhere it spread his skin turned black—black and scaled. Demonskin.

  He was a Demon, too.

  Kellen ran.

  THE Hounds pursued him, and Kellen ran. They turned into Demons, laughing at him, mocking at him, until, most horrible of all, somehow Kellen was one of them, running with the Hunt, chasing himself, howling with glee as he ran through eternal night on leathery clawed paws, hunting himself down. He would always run, always hunt. He would never be free…

  Tainted. Unclean. Because of the Wild Magic, just as Lycaelon had said.

  Lycaelon had been right. He'd been right about the Banishing, and he'd been right about this. Why would the High Council send so many Hounds, send not one Hunt, but many, if Lycaelon had not been telling the truth about the Demons… ?

  At last Kellen spiraled down into a deeper sleep, one without dreams.

  WHAT seemed a very long time later, Kellen woke up.

  It was day. He stared incuriously at the ceiling for a long time, aware of being awake but without feeling the slightest need to do anything about it. He realized that he'd felt this way before—once, as a child, he'd caught the Spotted Sickness and run a very high fever for almost a week. When the fever had finally run its course he'd felt just like this, as if all his energy had been burned away by his body's fires. He wasn't sure where he was, and had no clear idea of how he'd come here, nor did it really matter to him. To think, to remember, to feel, all would take more energy than he had.

  It was a pleasant sort of lassitude, a comforting exhaustion, where the body said to the mind, you will rest because you have no choice, you will not think, nor worry, because you will not have the strength.

  He was lying on a bed in a small room with walls completely made out of unpeeled logs chinked with white river clay. He could see the ceiling—thatch over timbers—and parts of two walls. There was a window in one of the walls, its shutters thrown open to admit light and air; he had a view of green tree branches, and heard a chorus of birdsong, and the air smelled verdant and sweet. To see anything more would involve moving, and Kellen wasn't ready to do that yet.

  He was not completely certain of how he'd gotten here. The unicorn… was Shalkan real, or was he a part of the vivid fever-dreams? Memory thrust itself into his present with the sudden unwelcome pain of a thorn in the foot. Remembering made Kellen shudder weakly—but those dreams— the Hounds, the fight—they couldn't have been real, could they? He'd been wounded nearly to death, and nothing hurt now. He was very weak, but he wasn't in any pain.

  But I am here, not in my room — I've never seen anything like this room in the City. So I was Banished, and I escaped the Hunt, so Shalkan must be real…

  Just then, he heard soft footsteps behind him, and a young woman came into his field of vision. She was carrying a small wooden tray. Her arrival jarred Kellen further out of his drifting mood of acceptance, for she looked nothing like any female he had ever seen before in his life, dressed as she was in garments that no City-dweller, even the most desperate day laborer, would have contemplated wearing for even a moment. She was… she was un-Citified. More proof, assuming Kellen had needed it, that he was actually outside the City.

  The stranger was wearing a sleeveless calf-length dress that looked as if it were made of some kind of soft golden leather, and her long dark hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into two braids wrapped and. tied with leather as well, worn down as no adult woman of the City would ever consider wearing hers. She had a curious face, which reminded him of a cat; perhaps because it was shaped like an inverted triangle, perhaps because her expression was very certain, and very self-composed. He'd never seen a female who had such an air of self-confidence about her— but then as a member of the Mageborn aristocracy, Kellen hadn't met very many females at all. Her soft violet eyes, which seemed large for her face, were fringed by the longest darkest lashes Kellen had ever seen—and suddenly he was positive, not only that Shalkan was real, but that the vow of chastity and celibacy that he had so recklessly sworn to gain the unicorn's aid was going to be more difficult to keep than he'd ever actually imagined.

  His body's response surprised him—surely he was far too weak and sick to be thinking of something like that at a time like this?

  All this went through his mind in the moment it took for her to turn her gaze on him and smile.

  "Oh, good, you're awake. I was starting to worry; it's been more than a sennight," she said. Her voice was low and friendly, and strangely familiar—where could he have heard it before?—and her smile warmed her eyes. "Do you think you can sit up?"

  Without waiting for an answer, she set the wooden tray on a table beside the bed and moved toward Kellen. Slipping one arm behind his shoulders, she pulled him into an upright position with easy strength. As the bedcovers—a thin wool blanket covered by several supple, beautifully tanned animal skins with the hair still on—slipped away, Kellen realized he wasn't wearing a single thing beneath them.

  Reflexively, he grabbed for the blanket, pulling it up around his waist, and gazed at his hands and arms in puzzlement.

  There were no wounds. No bites, no bruises, not even any of the scratches he'd gotten riding Shalkan through all those thornbushes on their flight from the City before the fight with the stone Hounds. He didn't even see the bruises from the way the stone golems had handled him, dragging him out of the Council chamber.

  For a moment reality slid dizzyingly around Kellen. Without the proof of his injuries to anchor him, he wasn't sure what to believe. What was real, and what was just a fever dream?

  But Shalkan was reed. He was sure of it. And the City had sent an Outlaw Hunt to kill him and anyone who dared to help him escape the City lands—the Hounds. He remembered almost everything now. But where were the bites, the wounds—the proof of his flight? He didn't even have scars.

  "Eat now, then we'll talk," the woman said firmly, seeing his confusion. "You've been asleep for a long time."

  But not long enough to heal without scars, Kellen thought with a faint pang of fear.

  The strange woman sat down on the edge of the bed and helped him feed himself. He was weaker than he'd expected to be, and clumsy; she had to guide his fingers around the wooden mug and help him hold it to his lips, and he could not manage the bowl and spoon at all for very long. The strength just went out of his arm and hand, and his hand shook so much he had to give up on the notion of doing without help. She just waited while he came to that conclusion by himself, then took up the spoon and continued where he had left off.

  Defeated, he lay back and let her feed him, but when he had finished the meat broth and the mug of herb tea with honey, he felt much stronger. Strong enough to worry about where Shalkan was, and about what came next, at any rate. He was free of the City, and now he had to figure out what to do next. In fact, he had his entire life to figure out now, and the prospect was daunting.

  Free. In all h
is seventeen years of life, Kellen had never imagined the word could have such a bitter taste. For the rest of his life he was going to have to live with the consequences of a decision made in the flush of youthful bravado and adolescent anger. He was an Outlaw—barring a miracle, he would never see Armethalieh or his father again. And now that he was in this position, he realized that he missed the City more than he'd ever imagined he could.

  Or—did he really miss the City, or only the comforts and certainty it represented? It was not going to be an easy thing to make his way alone outside the City walls.

  For one thing, how was he going to live out here? Unless something extraordinary happened, and this young woman decided to allow him to live with her, he was completely without resources now. He didn't even have clothing at this point! No food, no clothing, no place to live, and no idea how he was to get any of those things. He knew nothing about farming, hunting—

  Maybe Shalkan could help him. If Shalkan was all right—if the unicorn wasn't in worse shape than he had been… Kellen had a vague recollection of seeing Shalkan's white fur saturated with blood; it couldn't have been the Hounds', and he couldn't remember if it was his…

  "Your friend is fine," the woman said, as if she could guess the direction of at least some of his thoughts. "And he was in much better shape to begin with than you were when you arrived. The unicorn says that your name is Kellen, you're a Wildmage, and that you fight remarkably well, but he doesn't know much else. Now, since all I know about you is that you escaped the City and the Outlaw Hunt, and that you arrived on my doorstep in a rather pitiable condition, let's begin at the beginning. Tell me, Outlaw, what's your full name?"

  He didn't really want to tell her his life story, but—well—she'd more or less earned some answers by taking him in and caring for him without knowing anything about him.

  "Kellen… Tavadon," he admitted reluctantly.

  His rescuer looked startled, as if she almost suspected him of playing some kind of a trick on her. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and her jawline tensed.

  "Son of Lycaelon Tavadon?" she asked sharply. "The Arch-Mage of Armethalieh?"

  "Yes…" Kellen admitted warily. It suddenly occurred to him that if the City enforced its rules by such drastic means as the Outlaw Hunt within its borders, it might have enemies outside them.

  She knows Father's name. What has he done to her, to her people? Is she going to hate me, because Lycaelon's my father! Or demand some sort of reparation from me? Or throw me back to the Hunt?

  "I'm afraid so. Though I'm not exactly in good odor with him, since he's the one who Banished me."

  The woman smiled sardonically, looking enormously like Lycaelon all of a sudden.

  "A Tavadon—and an Outlaw to boot. Well, I guess Mother's Mountain blood runs true, little brother."

  Of all the responses Kellen had tried to anticipate, this was not one that had even crossed the threshold of his mind. It was his turn to be startled, and for a moment he wasn't certain he'd heard her correctly.

  "Brother?" Kellen said blankly.

  "Didn't our loving father tell you?" the woman asked. "That you had an evil sister, and that you'd turned out just like her? I would have thought he wouldn't be able to resist casting that in your face, if he was Banishing you…"

  Suddenly Kellen remembered. His last night in the City—in the cell— his father had said he would come to the same bad end that his sister had. But his sister was dead, killed by the Outlaw Hunt years ago!

  If Kellen had been confused before, he was at the edge of panic now, as too many new ideas and too much information crowded in on him all at once. It was one thing to say—back behind the safety of the City walls—that he'd welcome new ideas and complete freedom. It was quite another thing, Kellen was discovering, to be handed both things on a platter.

  "Uh… yes. Sort of. Not exactly," Kellen stammered. "If you— Are you—" He shook his head just a little, trying to make his thoughts come clearer. "He said I had bad blood, all right; he said that I'd end up just like my sister. I guess you're… that sister?" he finished meekly.

  "Typical of him," the woman—his sister!—muttered cryptically, staring fixedly at nothing for a moment.

  Kellen felt an unsettled mixture of confusion and relief that did much to restore his composure. Confusion, oh my, yes. It wasn't every day that you woke up to discover entirely new family members existed. But relief as well, for this meant one thing for certain; he wasn't completely alone out here. He had a sister—and a beautiful and competent one at that. She must be kind; she'd taken in an Outlawed stranger and had tended him. If luck was with him, she'd let him stay with her until he got something sorted out about making his own way out here. She wouldn't throw her own brother out of her house, would she?

  And another sort of relief as well, for the moment that she had named herself as his sister, every bit of desire for her had just—vanished. At least this way—since she was his sister, even if he didn't really know her—his promise to Shalkan would still be easy to keep.

  He studied her more closely, trying to see a resemblance between them. But her hair was dark and straight where his was light and curly, and her eyes were violet to his grey. Still, now that he was looking for it, he could see something of their father in her—more than anyone could see in him, anyway.

  He had a sister, right here in front of him. And she was alive. Kellen did his best to get used to both ideas.

  "He didn't tell me your name," Kellen offered hopefully.

  She sighed and shook her head with disgust. "Typical. He probably drove it right out of his memory. I'm Idalia—just Idalia. I don't claim his name. Pleased to meet you, Kellen—again."

  She held out her hand, and Kellen shook it solemnly before he, took in the full sense of her words. "Again? But we've never met. You were Banished before I was bom. You must have been. That's why I don't remember you."

  "Wait. I'm going to find you some clothes. I've had plenty of time to prepare them while you were asleep. Then we'll talk. You aren't going to like some of what you hear, so you might as well be patient—and dressed." She got up, then looked back over her shoulder and added, "You'll feel less vulnerable when you're dressed, too, and that will make it easier for you to hear some of it."

  Idalia went into the other room and came back with an armful of leather of the same sort and color that she was wearing. She shook it out, revealing it to be a pair of pants—leggings, really—and a long voluminous shirt.

  "I wanted to salvage your clothes, but all that was left by the time you got here was a pile of bloody rags, barely enough to make smallclothes with. This should be a good fit, though." She held out her hand to him. "Come on, now, I'll help you stand up."

  "But—" Kellen felt himself blushing. He hadn't been dressed by a woman since he was… well, a whole lot younger than this, anyway.

  Idalia dropped the tunic and leggings on the bed and regarded him, hands on hips, an amused smile on her lips. "Oh, come now, brother mine, who do you think cleaned you up, treated your wounds, and put you to bed when you got here? And I bathed you and put you to bed every night until you were six; that ought to count for something."

  "But—" Kellen swung his legs over the edge of the bed—still clutching the blanket to him—and stared up at her. "Idalia, I don't remember you," he blurted, feeling the fear begin to well up within him once more.

  Idalia sighed, and tugged on one of her braids. "I know, Kellen," she said gently. "Father told me he'd do that, just before the Constables came. Look, just think of me as—as a servant, and we'll get this over with."

  Kellen flushed. "I still don't remember you. And you don't seem old enough to—to have gone away when you said." Everyone who had cared for him in his childhood had been very, very old; he remembered that much. And his last "Nursie" had departed when he'd been five, not six.

  She shook her head. "But I'm not; I'm only ten years older than you are. I left the City when I was sixteen, a year younger than you
are. Banished, just as you were. You were born when I was ten. You were six when I left, old enough to remember me and ask embarrassing questions, since I was almost your sole caretaker until then. So after I was gone, Father tampered with your memories, erasing me from them."

  Wildly, Kellen cast his mind back over his childhood. He remembered growing up—alone—in the vast gloom of House Tavadon under the indifferent care of a succession of nursemaids and nannies—none of whom had been Idalia. He remembered falling off his first pony when he was four, and the grand celebration—with fireworks in the garden—when Lycaelon had become Arch-Mage.

  He did not remember Idalia. Somehow, Idalia had been taken out of all those memories, and a series of strangers put in her place.

  "He couldn't do that!" Kellen gasped in shock as he realized just how extensive the changes must have been. He WOULDN'T do that, his mind cried inwardly, clinging to that last hope.