Shadow Magic

by Joshua Khan

  Zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and ghosts surrounded him, writhing in torment. Behind him were ruined cities, and the skies were a storm of howling spirits.

  “Astaroth Shadow,” said Lily. “Many of the horror stories you’ve heard about our family originate from him.”

  “Let me guess,” said Thorn. “He was just misunderstood?”

  “No. He was pure evil. He raised armies of the dead. Turned cities into graveyards. All thanks to that mask he’s wearing.” She gazed up at it. Carved from black stone, it was plain, but coldly elegant. The mouth was part opened into a sneer of contempt and the eyes tilted into a cruel, hateful frown.

  “What did it do?” asked Thorn.

  “I’ve heard that he based the mask on the face of Prince Shadow himself and gained some of our founder’s power, adding it to his own magical strength. And he was powerful to begin with.”

  His blood flows through me. His deeds taint my past.

  But he was one of the greatest of my family.

  Pride and shame mingled uneasily in Lily’s heart.

  K’leef stared at the image, his face showing an anger Lily hadn’t seen before. “It took all five of the other Great Houses to defeat him.”

  Lily continued. “With the mask, even a common farmer could be a great sorcerer. Certainly greater than any sorcerer alive now.”

  “Well, that’s sorted, then,” said Thorn. “Just get the mask and it’s job done.”

  K’leef shook his head. “It was destroyed many centuries ago.” He directed Lily to a clear space. “Stand here and close your eyes.”

  “What shall I do?” asked Thorn. “I can help.”

  “Not with this, Thorn,” said K’leef.

  Thorn frowned and took a step back.

  Lily did as she was told. “What am I trying to do?”

  “Magic is an art, not a craft. It’s born out of the heart, not the mind. It’s passion, desire. It can be rage, too.”

  “But shouldn’t we be studying the spell books? The library’s filled with them.”

  “No, it would take too long. This is not about copying another’s work or method. It’s about creating your own.” He stood close to her, whispering from behind. “You’re Lady Shadow; your element is darkness and all that dwells within it. There are shadows, of course, but there are other things, too. The spirits of the dead. Dreams, nightmares, sleep, and the creatures of night. The moon—that is yours, too.”

  “It’s too much. I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Pick one thing.”

  “What about Castle Gloom?”

  “Good choice.”

  The castle was darkness made solid. No natural light had entered it since the day Prince Shadow, the original lord of darkness, had built it. The corridors recalled her family’s every footstep. The stone walls in the bedrooms had absorbed the dreams of every Shadow.

  How many members of her family had been born here? Almost all of them. Her own birthing cries had once filled the castle. Did it remember?

  Things had been buried here. Not just the dead, but memories, too. And secrets. And sorrows.

  Sorrows most of all.

  I never said good-bye.

  I saw them and passed them by without a word. If only I’d said something to Dante on that last day. Or even just smiled at him. He was my brother and I loved him and never told him.

  Just a single hug would have made all the difference.

  The next time she’d seen him, he was lying under a sheet, his body burned beyond recognition.

  Had they even wanted her? Her parents had been polite, formal. Her father’s priority had been to teach Dante; her mother’s was to support her husband. They’d loved each other so much that there’d been nothing left for her.

  Lily tightened her hands into fists.

  They’d dressed her in silks and given her jewels and dolls, but none of that had been what she’d wanted.

  All she’d had was Custard.

  Pink and blind and smaller than her palm, he’d been the runt of the litter. She’d fed him from her breakfast plate, and he’d licked her face and slobbered all over her dresses.

  Now he was gone, too.

  She wished she’d drunk the poison.

  Custard. What a silly name for a black dog.

  She heard a startled breath. Was it K’leef?

  She kept her eyes closed. All the other dogs in the litter had been pure black, but not Custard. He’d had white socks. Maybe that’s why she’d wanted him so much. He was the unwanted one, too.

  She’d loved the way he yapped. She could hear it so clearly, even now.

  “By the Six Princes,” said K’leef. “Lily…look.”

  Lily wiped her eyes with her sleeve and opened them.

  A gray mist slowly swirled on the black stone surface. There was something inside the mist—an animal. Not flesh and blood, but it had heart and a voice. And a tail, a little stump that was wagging excitedly. The dog met Lily’s gaze and jumped up and down.

  “A ghost,” said Thorn, stunned. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Custard…can I touch him?” asked Lily.

  “Try.”

  She reached out….

  “Lily!”

  Pan stood by the door, staring at them horrified, sword in his hands. Then he gritted his teeth and ran forward.

  “No!” Lily screamed.

  The sword crashed down on the table, and the mist fell away, leaving nothing there.

  Her uncle gazed at the empty table, trembling. “Lily, what have you done?”

  “Have you ever seen a person burn?” said Pan. The question slipped out as a whisper. “Have you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “They say the smoke suffocates you before the heat becomes too much to bear, but that’s not true. It’s not true at all.”

  Lily said nothing. K’leef and Thorn were gone, pushed out of the library as Pan had dragged her along by her wrist like some little child. She’d heard the doors of the library slam behind her with a brutal finality.

  Pan had yelled at servants to get out of the way and had shoved a boy who hadn’t been quick enough, sending him tumbling.

  They’d marched through the castle until they’d reached her quarters. Pan had booted the door open and thrown Lily in.

  She was scared, but not as scared as Uncle Pan seemed. He sagged against the door, sweating and shaking. “I watched her. I watched her hair begin to smoke. I saw the blisters swell and pop all over her. Her eyes, Lily. I saw them bubbling.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Some village woman who knew a few simple spells for fixing bones and curing fevers, but that was enough. She was a witch, and that was the law. They burned her child, too, just to be sure. A child much younger than you, Lily.”

  “Why? She was helping people. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Lily, do you know what you’ve done? If anyone found out, you would suffer the same fate. I couldn’t save you. No one could. That family friend of ours, Baron Sable? He and his sons would pile on the logs. Tyburn himself would be the one to tie you to the stake and light the flames. Then what about Gehenna? Solar would march in and scrub the Shadow name from history. He would turn your people into slaves. That’s what conquerors do. Is that what you want to happen to Mary? To Rose?”

  “Why are they so afraid? Men can practice magic, and when they do it, they’re called heroes.”

  “Men can control magic but women can’t. There are too many stories of disasters and wild magic, all caused by women who ended up slaves to the very powers they’d hoped to master.”

  “Stories told by men. That doesn’t make them true, Uncle.”

  “But it does make them law. Laws that can’t be changed. Not by me and not by you. Things are dangerous enough around here without you summoning…whatever it was.”

  “It was—”

  “I don’t want to know, Lily!” he snapped. “I thought you were sensible. What’s happened to you?”

/>   “Someone killed my family and tried to murder me.”

  Pan whipped around and glared at her. It was so sudden, so shocking, that she stepped back, afraid of what he might do. Was this her uncle?

  Then, just as suddenly, the fierceness fled. His eyes dulled, his shoulders sank, and he stood there, a sad little man. “They were my family, too,” he whispered. “Not a day passes without me wishing I had died instead of them. Useless Pandemonium Shadow instead of Iblis. It might have been the one good thing I achieved in my life.” He shook his head. “Leave the investigation to the adults. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

  Lily took hold of her uncle’s hand, ashamed that she didn’t realize he missed her family, too, that the pain was shared. “I am Lady Shadow now. I can look after myself, Uncle.” And she could do more. Much more. “I summoned Custard. You saw it. Look, Uncle, no one needs to know. But what if I could summon other spirits? Or even enter the Twilight?”

  The Twilight. The land between the living and the dead. The realm of restless spirits.

  All color drained from her uncle’s face. “What do you mean?”

  “I never got to say good-bye to my mother and father. If I could see them, speak to them, just for a second…” It was possible. She knew it now. She’d brought Custard back, and she hadn’t even been trying. “We’d do it here, away from everyone! Don’t you want it, too? To see Father again?”

  “Enough!” Uncle Pan snatched his hand free. “The Twilight? What do you know about the Twilight? What if you’d not summoned…whatever it was you did summon, but instead brought forth a specter? You know what a specter is, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said, head bowed. “The blackest of spirits. The ever hungry.” They were ancient ghosts of rage and hate and the most terrible dwellers of the Twilight. If even one had passed into the world of the living, it would have killed and eaten souls, and there would have been no way to stop it.

  “Imagine what it would have done to you, Lily.” Pan put his hand on her shoulder and made her sit down. “Listen to yourself. Bringing back the dead. Don’t they deserve peace?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Give me the key, Lily.”

  “What?”

  “The Skeleton Key. Give it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? To stop you from any more foolishness.”

  Pan was just trying to protect her. He’d brought her up when her parents had been too busy, which was all the time. He’d been more of a father to her than her real father had been.

  He’d been her hero, once. Back when his eyes had been bright and his laugh deep, before he’d swapped stories for drink.

  “Remember the tales you used to tell me? When you explored the Shardlands, searching for treasure, and fought manticores and hydras?”

  “Enough, Lily.” He opened up his hand. “The key.”

  He wasn’t going to change his mind, not this time.

  She put it in his palm.

  Pan sighed with relief. “That’s a good girl.”

  “Is that it?” she replied coldly.

  Pan frowned. “One more thing: I don’t want you mixing with those two boys.”

  “Why not?” They were the only friends she had!

  “Thorn’s a commoner, and you are a noble. How do you think it looks with you running around with an uncouth lout? The boy needs to learn his place.”

  “You will not touch Thorn.”

  “And K’leef? Do not trust him, Lily.”

  “But he’s helping me.”

  “Helping you? By teaching you magic? Are you blind, child? He knows the price you’ll pay if you are ever found using it. He wants to brew as much trouble as he can between you and the Solars, because that would give his father breathing space. He’d love it if we destroyed each other.”

  “Thorn and K’leef are my friends.”

  “As you said, you’re Lady Shadow now,” Pan replied sadly. “You cannot have friends.”

  Tyburn wanted to see Thorn. The executioner hadn’t shown interest in anything Thorn had done since they’d arrived and now, the night after they’d been caught in the Shadow Library, Tyburn wanted to see him.

  I am dead.

  How would Tyburn do it? Take him up to Lamentation Hill and add Thorn’s head to those five up there already?

  This is all that Lily’s fault.

  He should have stuck with Wade and gone to see the fair being set up. Instead, he’d ventured down into the pits of Castle Gloom and…

  Seen amazing things. Not just the Shadow Library but K’leef weaving fire through his fingers and Lily summoning a ghost. A real made-of-mist-and-memories ghost.

  All right, Lily’s not so bad.

  But that didn’t make seeing Tyburn any easier. He trudged up the stairs to Tyburn’s quarters, his legs moving as if made of lead and his heart just as heavy.

  The door was already open, and Tyburn was writing at a desk. He glanced up. “Come in.”

  Thorn wasn’t sure what he’d expected, maybe skulls and skeletons and walls filled with weapons. Tyburn’s quarters were…comfortable. A rug covered the bare stone and embers smoldered in the fireplace. Sure, there were a few weapons, but this was a castle after all.

  The only sound was the scratching of Tyburn’s quill.

  “I want you to go to Graven,” said the executioner.

  “Is that why you called me?”

  Tyburn put down the quill and narrowed his eyes. “Were you expecting something else?”

  “Er…no. Of course not.” Thorn hoped his sigh of relief wasn’t too loud. “Where’s Graven?”

  “You know those big mountains to the south, the Three Princes?” asked Tyburn. “On the other side of them. I need you there and back, by dawn.”

  “Ain’t gonna happen. Them rocks are over a hundred miles away. No horse can cover that distance.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about you taking a horse.”

  “Then what…” Suddenly Thorn grinned. “Oh. Hades.”

  “The bat should have you over the mountains in a few hours. Follow the Cleft Way and you can’t go wrong. Graven’s the last village before the border with Lumina, on the bank of the River Lacrimae.”

  This would be a real test of flying. Thorn’s escape from the caverns had been more luck than anything. But taking Hades on a journey, navigating, that was special.

  Tyburn tapped a pile of sealed envelopes on the desk. “You know what these are?”

  “Trouble?”

  Tyburn put them in a satchel and handed it to Thorn. “Coded messages. They allow me to know what’s going on, here in Gehenna and beyond. My usual messengers are busy with Halloween duties, so I’m asking you. I want these delivered to Captain Wayland. He runs the patrols on the border. He’ll have messages for you to bring back.”

  This was a big deal. Thorn knew it, and Tyburn had to know it, too. Thorn bet he didn’t usually trust stable boys with this sort of work. So why was he trusting him? “What’s to stop me from just taking Hades and flying off home?”

  “You don’t know the way and neither does your bat.”

  “I could ask someone.”

  Tyburn leaned back and looked at Thorn. “Yes, you could. And who knows, eventually you might even make your way back to Stour. To find me waiting. Can you guess what might happen next?”

  Thorn gulped.

  “Just get going,” said Tyburn. “And keep your eyes open for anything unusual.”

  “Like what?” There was plenty unusual in Gehenna. What was considered normal at home might be considered weird here. Like parties. Like smiling. Like not summoning ghosts.

  “If I knew, then I wouldn’t need you to go and have a look, would I?” Tyburn’s attention returned to his letters. This conversation was over.

  Before long, Thorn found himself in the ruins of Murk Hall.

  It was bigger than the Great Hall. How could humans build such things?

 
; Maybe they hadn’t. He’d been here long enough now to know that the ancient necromancers had commanded devils and demons and performed magic beyond the boundaries of his imagination.

  The roof had fallen in a long time back. There were broken columns lying across the shattered flagstones and a tree grew in the southwestern corner, its roots weaving over rubble.

  But even with the sun in the sky, the hall was reluctant to let in the light. Dense shadows filled the corners and alcoves.

  “Hades? Are you here?”

  The bat unfurled his wings and sniffed the air as Thorn approached. His huge ears twitched and rotated, and he yawned. His ivory fangs glistened. Remains of dinner hung from his teeth, and in between, wedged in the gums, were chunks of stringy flesh.

  Thorn rubbed the beast’s chin. “All right, boy? Fancy a trip?”

  Hades blinked slowly. His eyes were small compared to his head, and he thrust himself closer to Thorn so they were almost nose-to-nose. He sniffed loudly.

  “Sounds like a yes to me,” said someone from behind him.

  Thorn spun around to where Lily sat among the shadows, less than ten feet away.

  “Sorry, did I scare you?” she said, smiling.

  “You’re a strange, strange girl.” Thorn frowned. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Not after what happened in the library.”

  “This is my castle, Thorn.” She stood up and joined him in gazing at the monstrous bat. “Beautiful, isn’t he?”

  “Not the word I’d use.” Thorn picked a string of what looked like sheep’s guts out from between Hades’s teeth and tossed it aside. “More…majestic?”

  “Majestic. I didn’t know you knew such words. But yes, majestic.” Lily didn’t come closer; she seemed wary of Hades. “You’re going out on him, then?”

  “Yeah. Tyburn wants me to take him to Graven.”

  “Then you’ll be needing something to sit on, won’t you?” Lily took his hand. “I have just the thing.”

  She led him over to a large leather object—shiny, and smelling of polish—on the floor. Straps hung from it in loops, and there were buckles of exquisitely engraved silver.

  Thorn nodded in appreciation. “That ain’t for no horse,” he said.

  Lily patted the flat, wide seat. “This is Faustus Shadow’s saddle. I found it at the back of the armory. The whole thing was tattered and covered with cobwebs. I had it cleaned and repaired. What do you think?”