A Dance of Shadows

by David Dalglish

  “I left Veldaren,” Victor said. “Walked on bare feet north. Begged for food whenever I met strangers, and hitched rides with a few who seemed kindly. When I reached our family’s castle, I walked into the court, muddy-faced and bleeding feet, and announced my presence.”

  Victor shook his head. “You ask why I do this? You ask what madness drives me? That is it. I want revenge for everything the guilds took from me. I had to flee my childhood home while the beaten corpses of my parents were stripped naked, robbed of every possession, and then left to rot beside our dead horses.”

  He wiped away his tears, and as he did, he chuckled. “Do you know the worst part?” he asked. “The greatest insult? I found out Thren used our mansion as his home when he discovered it was vacant. For years he tunneled out holes and boarded up windows, and that scum lived and slept in the bed of my father. And when he left, he burned it all down to the last brick and board. That’s when I knew. That’s when I swore to come back, to make every man bearing the colors of a guild tremble in fear of my name. Day after day I trained. My family is not the wealthiest, but I saved money like a tightfisted miser. This is my purpose. This is how I will honor the memory of my parents. Before I die, I will rid my beloved city of the rats and vultures that have done nothing but destroy.”

  The Watcher stood over him, staring, thinking. Something burdened him greatly, but Victor could only guess at what.

  “I understand more than you can possibly believe,” he said. “I am sorry for the loss of your parents, and your home.”

  Victor closed his eyes and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, not anymore. What I saw out there… I am nothing to you, to your kind. I thought Veldaren full of thieves, cowards, men with daggers and poison and little else. But I was wrong. Now I see the monsters. How can I stop men who summon fire with a wave of their hand? How can I hunt down those who move faster than my eyes can follow, whose skill borders on that of gods? I’ve done nothing but throw stones into a cave, and at last I’ve woken the beasts within it. I’m a fool, Watcher, a damn fool.”

  “No,” the Watcher said, kneeling down before him and grabbing his shoulders. His blue eyes pierced the magical darkness of his hood. “You are what we need. You can be where I cannot, you can fill the streets with a hundred men while I am but one. One man can be stopped, but a hundred? A thousand? You told me I would inspire fear from the shadows, yet you would be the light to banish all shadows. You still can. Be stronger than them. Be stronger than any of us. Prove to Veldaren that you can stand against the darkness, without mask or cloak, and live. Can you do that for me, Victor?”

  Victor took a deep breath, and he thought of his mother and father, sitting opposite him in the coach as the mob surrounded them. No one should be that afraid, he decided. Not ever again.

  “I will,” he said. “Forgive my moment of doubt.”

  The Watcher grinned. “Good. Continue on as you have. As for me, well…”

  A change came over the Watcher, hardening those blue eyes. A chill swept through Victor as he realized he saw what others must see when the cloaked man descended from the rooftops, sabers drawn, fury in his every movement.

  “I’ll handle the monsters.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  Melody ran her hands along John Gandrem’s chest, touching the soft silk of his shirt. She lay in his arms atop her extravagant bed, the silken sheets smooth beneath her. They were both fully clothed.

  “Are you sure you are fine?” John asked her, brushing his hands through her hair.

  “I believe so,” she said. “Please, just kiss me first…”

  He did so, his lips rough, his facial hair brushing against her skin. Closing her eyes, she tried to slip into the rhythm, to remember what it meant to be embraced by a man who was strong, and kind, and caring. As she did, he kissed the top of her head, rubbed her neck and her shoulders, then drifted his hands downward. When his callused fingers touched her breasts she let out a cry, and immediately the hands were gone.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard him say, but despite it she sensed the frustration. Melody felt her lower lip quiver.

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. “It’s…”

  Such a beautiful dove you are, Melody…

  She sat up, pushing aside the blankets and wrapping her arms around her knees. John let out a sigh, and he slid his legs off the bed and put his back to her.

  “I don’t know what that sick bastard Leon did to you,” he said. “I have a feeling I’ll never know. If you need time, though, I’ll give it to you. It’s only what you deserve.”

  She grabbed his shoulder when he turned to go. He was stronger than any would guess, still muscular, and at her touch she felt him tighten.

  “You are far better than I deserve,” she said, kissing his shoulder, his neck. “When the time comes, when I… am ready, I will let you know. Thank you, John. You are a good man, a kind man.”

  He left her room, and the moment he was gone she slid off the bed, moved to the door, and flung the lock shut. A silent sob escaped her lips as she pressed her forehead against the cold wood.

  Karak help her, soon she’d have to give John something more than a fleeting touch of her lips against his. But even those kisses flooded her with thoughts of Leon, of his touch, never entering her, only wanting her there like some idol he could touch himself to, something to spill his seed on as she lay imprisoned, helpless, chained.

  “I need you, John,” she whispered. “You’re a good man. A good man.”

  She prayed he stayed so good, so willing to wait as she pushed through her pain. The world was dark, and her friends few.

  Turning toward her closet, she walked across the padded carpet until she knelt inside and retrieved her chrysarium from its hiding place. Its touch helped soothe her worries, and she smiled as she closed her eyes. Putting it on her bed, she went to her windows. They’d shut the curtains when John entered, but she wanted them thicker still, wanted not even the moonlight to filter in. A spare sheet did the trick, hung over the curtain rods. That done, she returned to her bed, and in the darkness touched the sides of the chrysarium.

  “Karak,” she said, breathing the word like a charm.

  Immediately the gems lit up, beginning to rock as the magic flooded into them. Eyes locked on the center, she watched as the gems lifted to the farthest extent of their thin silver chains. Prayers left her lips, simple ones, adulations to the beloved Lion. A warmth flooded her, the feeling of her god’s presence. It was that feeling that had kept her sane through the years, the chrysarium the only gift Leon had allowed her to keep. In the darkness she’d seen visions, distant beauty, even glimpses of the friends and family she’d known.

  It wasn’t until she’d been freed from the prison that she’d fully discovered the chrysarium’s true power.

  “Laerek,” she whispered when Karak’s power filled her like a river.

  The colors bled out of the gems and into the center of the chrysarium, shifting, molding, becoming a shape with a face. The young priest startled, and she saw his small form look up to her, right into her own eyes.

  “Melody,” he said, and then the miniature version of him bowed low. “I am glad to see you are still safe and well.”

  “Fear not for my safety,” she whispered to him, crouching down closer. “It is you who must be careful.”

  “And I am,” Laerek said. “I assure you, I am.”

  His voice was tinny, the pitch not quite right. Limitations of the chrysarium, she knew, but the ability to converse with someone so far away was a godsend. She didn’t quite know what it was Laerek saw when he talked to her, and she’d been afraid to ask. Did he see a smaller version of herself? Perhaps a vision of her full form, hovering in the air above him? Or was she nothing but an image in his mind’s eye?

  “Any word from Luther?” she asked, deciding not to let the conversation run any longer than necessary. The longer she used the chrysarium, the greater the headache afterward.

&n
bsp; “Indeed,” he said. “I received his letter just this morning.”

  “And?”

  Laerek looked left and right, his hands rubbing together to show his nervousness.

  “Have you made any progress with your daughter about her faith, or lack thereof?”

  Melody let out a sigh. This was it, of course, the one conversation she’d been dreading. Part of her wanted to lie, but she would not demean herself so in the eyes of her god.

  “The outcast Zusa has been with her for too long,” she admitted. “Alyssa will not turn to Karak, barring a miracle. The priests here in Veldaren have done little to persuade her, either. The Lion will find no home here, not without much work on my part.”

  “Is it only a matter of time?”

  Melody shook her head. “It is a matter of years, not months or days.”

  Laerek crossed his arms, and however it was he saw her, he refused to look her in the eye. “Then forgive me, Melody, but my orders are clear. We do not have years. We may not even have months. If Alyssa will not bow to the faith, and allow us the use of her resources, then it is time for the Gemcroft family to find itself a new leader.”

  Melody felt a shadow fall across her heart. For the briefest moment Laerek’s color faded, the gems starting to dim.

  Karak be with me, she begged, her fingers tightly clutching the sides of the chrysarium.

  “Would you have me imprison her?” she asked, daring to hope.

  Laerek finally looked back into her eye. “We cannot take that risk. The Widow I hear of… she is still under your control, yes?”

  Melody nodded. “For now.”

  “Then have the Widow kill Alyssa. No one will ask questions, and if they do, the answers they find will never lead back to you.”

  Slowly Melody breathed in, and slowly she exhaled. The gems lifted, and Laerek’s skin glowed once more with a vibrancy that was beautiful to behold.

  “Karak orders, and I obey,” she said. “Tomorrow night I will relay your orders to the Widow. With Alyssa’s death, taking over the household will be of little difficulty, especially with Lord Gandrem at my side.”

  Laerek’s head bobbed up and down, rapidly, like a bird’s.

  “Good. Good. I’m glad things go well for you.”

  “Yes, so well, the execution of my own daughter.”

  Laerek opened his mouth to speak, but he had no words. Melody pulled her hands away from the chrysarium. The gems fell into the dark stone bowl with a clatter, and with tears in her eyes she stared at the fading afterimage in the darkness. Tears slipped down her face, and she didn’t bother to fight them. She was too old for losing battles such as that.

  “Your fault,” she whispered, thinking of Maynard’s cold smile, his ungentle hands. “This is all your fault. You drove me to him. He listened. You never did.”

  It was her affair that had brought Maynard’s wrath upon her, her affair that had sent her into the bowels of Leon’s prison, denied the fate of death her husband had been promised, instead left to suffer and rot. And now, because of a near decade of absence, her daughter had grown up denied the wisdom of her deity, denied the proof of his love. Alyssa’s heart was hardened, and now she would suffer greatly for it.

  “Damn you, Maynard,” she whispered. “I hope you burn in the deepest pit of Karak’s purifying flames.”

  She returned the chrysarium to her closet, then lay on her bed, wanting to at least attempt to fall asleep before the headache could come in force. It was a race she knew she’d lose, but she had to try. When the throbbing in her temples came, she pushed her face into the pillow, let her tears wash it, as she prayed and prayed.

  “Thy will,” she whispered. “Thy will, not mine, not mine, thy will, thy will…”

  By thy will, the death of her daughter. By the will of the Lion, her household would be made clean.

  Haern spent the day in the guise of a commoner named Jamie. As he wandered he kept his smile big, his eyes wide. Just a blabbermouth, that’s all he was, a man eager to hear a good tale or two to tell later that night, and through the telling become a bit more important than he was in reality. And given the excitement of the past few days, he garnered hardly even a raised eyebrow from the target of his inquiries.

  “Heard anything about them Bloodcrafts?” Haern asked as he sat before the bar of a tavern, the tenth one he’d visited that day.

  “I’ve heard plenty,” said the barkeep, not even bothering to look at him as he talked. His back was to Haern, and he was pouring him a drink of the cheapest alcohol they had. Haern accepted it with a smile on his face. The barkeep remembered what he’d order without asking? How flattering.

  “Is that so?” Haern asked, sitting up straighter in his chair.

  “Indeed,” said the barkeep, a tough-looking man without any hair. “I doubt a word of it’s true though, Jamie. People just like to tell tales.”

  “As do I!” said Haern. “But more than anything, I’d like to meet them. Oh, I won’t talk to them or nothing, just want to catch a glimpse. Think they wear red like everyone says? And that they’re all taller than a horse?”

  “Red horses in coats would stand out fast,” said a man beside him, laughing into his cup.

  “So you have seen them,” Haern said, the dumbest smile he could manage on his face.

  “Aye, I seen ’em,” the man said.

  “No you haven’t, Turl,” the barkeep said. “Not if you want to keep drinking in my bar, you haven’t.”

  Haern raised an eyebrow, but the man next to him shook his head.

  “Never mind then,” he said, taking another drink.

  “Well,” Haern said, downing half his beer and then tossing a few pieces of copper on the bar. “You hear something, you let Jamie Blue hear about it, right? I might even pay a bit, if it keeps being this hard to catch a glimpse of those bastards before they head back to Mordeina.”

  “Right,” said the barkeep, though his tone showed he’d more likely sell a drink to the man in the moon than give information to Haern.

  Interesting…

  At the door to the place, Haern stopped a moment, leaning with his arms crossed as he thought. Going from tavern to tavern didn’t seem to be as fruitful as he’d hoped. People liked to talk, but the moment the Bloodcrafts came up, they were willing to share only the wildest of rumors. Not that he blamed them. The reputation of the mercenaries was fierce, and no one wanted to cross them. At least not without something to gain.

  A boy stepped out of the door, barely older than twelve. He refused to look at Haern, instead walking the opposite way. Yet the second he was beyond sight of the door, he turned back around and beckoned for Haern to follow.

  Even more interesting…

  Just beside the tavern was the thinnest of gaps between it and a small bakery shop. The boy put his back to the tavern, crossed his arms.

  “Make it worth my while,” he said.

  Haern didn’t dare ask about what. He pulled out three silver coins and dropped them into the boy’s hands. His eyes widened at the sight of such wealth, and then he quickly pocketed them.

  “Behind me,” he said. “Highest window and on the left. My pa would kill me if he knew I told you, so don’t tell anyone.”

  “It’s not your pa you have to worry about,” Haern said, and the chill of his voice seemed to convey to the boy the seriousness of his position. Nodding, he turned back around and rushed into the tavern.

  Looking up at the window, Haern smiled, only this time it wasn’t part of an act. At last he knew something about the Bloodcrafts.

  “I’ve found you,” he whispered as he made his way back to the tower.

  Twice now they had been the ambushers, attacking the Eschaton when they were weak or unprepared.

  It was time that changed.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Zusa had no measure of time, nothing to go on beyond when they fed her. Twice a small boy adorned in gray robes arrived and gently spooned gruel into her mouth. As f
or drink, a young girl came bearing water every few hours or so. Every time it was a different girl, and Zusa looked upon them with pity. How many might soon hide their beautiful faces beneath rags and wrappings? She felt herself weakening, felt her muscles tightening and her back aching constantly. So far Vrashka had not returned, Daverik’s promise appearing to have been true. But her time was almost up.

  The door creaked open, and she stirred from her daydreams of life and freedom at the Gemcroft mansion. As if to confirm her fears, Daverik stepped inside, and he looked vaguely worried.

  “Are you well?” he asked her, crossing the room.

  “A cruel question to ask a woman in chains,” Zusa said.

  “Perhaps. I have stretched my influence to its limits, Zusa. I can protect you no longer. What is your answer? Will you return to Karak’s bosom? Will you embrace the faith once more?”

  Zusa shook her head. “You know I won’t. What is there for me, Daverik?”

  In answer, he knelt before her and brushed her face with his hand.

  “There’s me,” he said. “There’s a life free of imprisonment and torture. Can that not mean something?”

  “The temple’s laws will keep you from me.”

  “Temple laws can be changed.”

  Zusa laughed. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

  He shifted closer, leaning so close that she felt his breath on her neck. His hands brushed her arms, her sides, her breasts. His cheek pressed against hers as he whispered.

  “It doesn’t matter. Come back to me, Katherine…”

  She knew what he was trying to do. His lips pressed against her neck as he cupped her face. He was trying to reignite a distant flame, a flame that for him had never died. Yet that flame had long died for her, for it’d been nothing more than teenage lust and excitement. Now, as his hands roamed, she felt only disgust. It was one thing for him to touch her in a distant alley, a secret meeting between long-lost lovers… but here? While manacles held her wrists to a wall? While her whole body ached from the imprisonment, and she sat in her own piss and shit?