Shadow of the Void

by Nathan Garrison

  As he shuffled to the spot, she bounced over to the weapons rack against the wall. She selected a dagger and handed it to him. “We’ll start simple. Now, attack me.”

  To his credit, he didn’t hesitate at all. She’d taught him, over the hundreds of times they’d sparred, that she was a master and he a novice. She could tell he no longer feared harming her.

  With the blade in his right hand, tip forward, he lunged.

  She stepped left in a slight crouch. The dagger swept past her shoulder. She surged up and in, twisting her hips to generate force, and rammed her fist into his solar plexus.

  The air escaped his lungs, and he stumbled to his knees, the dagger falling from limp fingers. He clutched his belly with both arms and collapsed onto his side.

  It was almost half a mark before he sucked in another breath.

  After his wheezing had come under control, he glared up at her. “I thought you were practicing disarming techniques?”

  Tassariel grasped the dagger with her toes and flipped it up into her hand. “You dropped it, didn’t you?”

  “I . . . yes.”

  “Best way to disarm someone is to render him incapable of holding on to anything. Just be glad I didn’t go for your throat.”

  His eyes widened. “But you promised!”

  “So I did.” She reached down and helped him to his feet. She returned to the weapons rack and slid the dagger back in its place, yanking out an axe this time. “Now, on to bigger things. I swear, though, only takeaways from now on.”

  He groaned but assumed a fighting stance. “Chop or slash?”

  Tassariel grinned. “Surprise me.”

  Over the next toll, they fought through her entire arsenal. Tassariel set the book open at her side and studied the new techniques before attempting each one. Her hands grew numb from all the gripping and twisting, and they both worked up a slick sheen of sweat. The closest she ever came to breaking her promise was when she executed a counter on a sword thrust by chopping at Eluhar’s fingers. She’d already swept his arm down, and the tip of the sword struck the ground, snapping the blade off at the hilt. The metal flew straight up, bounced off the ceiling, and spun towards Eluhar’s face. Tassariel managed to snatch it out of the air a few finger widths from his eye, getting a bloody thumb for her bravery.

  The last weapon was a spear, which he now began thrusting at her. She backed away, kicking to avoid the point until he finally overextended. She then twirled, tucking herself inside his reach, and used his own momentum to flip him over. She pounced on his chest, pinching the nerves on his inner arms with her knees, then plucked the spear from his twitching fingers.

  Her chest heaved, aching for breath, as she tossed the weapon aside. “I win at last.”

  “So soon?” Eluhar paused, wheezing. “I thought we were just getting warmed up?” He brought his hands down on her hips and began rubbing in small circles. “Right?”

  “Uh . . . no.” Tassariel hopped up, annoyed, and strode towards her balcony. She grabbed a towel off the edge of her bathing pod and wiped the sweat from her face and neck as she stepped outside.

  The afternoon sun sparkled across the silverstone roofs of a thousand other singles’ homes just like hers, all stacked in a steep, sloping terrace. Less than a third of them were occupied. Wind cooled the flush from her skin—­not all of which had come from the exercise. She leaned her elbows over the railing, where long troughs full of soil clung like leeches. Most other valynkar grew flowers or herbs in them, but Tassariel had never been good at keeping plants alive naturally. And using magic to do it felt like cheating. Her little gardens remained empty.

  Tassariel heard the slow shuffle of feet behind her, which came to a stop less than a pace away. She didn’t turn.

  “I’m sorry,” Eluhar said. “That was . . . in poor taste.”

  “Abyss right it was. You should know better than to joke about things like that with me.”

  “Joke. Right. Just a joke.”

  Tassariel turned to face him. “My mother died giving birth to me. And my father?” She scoffed. “He’d rather be off chasing the skirts of human women than bear to even look at me. I thought I’d made it clear that this is a not a subject I wish to discuss.”

  “I know. Please . . . forgive me.”

  She sighed, releasing some of the tension that she hadn’t even known was gripping her chest. Elos, grant me the patience to show grace to others as you have shown grace to me. “Oh, El . . . Of course I forgive you.”

  They gave each other a hug, as they always did upon parting, though this time it was mutually kept short. Eluhar retreated to her doorway, asking if it would be okay if he joined her table at dinner. She replied that it would be fine.

  Lost in nebulous thought, she watched the sun circle the sky for tolls until it began throwing deep shadows across her home district, and the wind grew cold.

  My hundredth birthday can’t come soon enough. Perhaps then, Elos will finally be able to answer my questions.

  CHAPTER 3

  Within the realm of the casters, the endless white of commune surrounded Draevenus as he waited, broken only by the cluster of dark stars hovering before him. Farther off, perhaps a day’s march away—­though distances were tricky in this place—­he saw thousands upon thousands of tiny black pinpricks, a massive well of power surpassed only, he suspected, by the valynkar themselves.

  Must be the new mierothi settlement. My sister should be proud. It’s not easy to get so many of our kind so close together without everyone’s trying to kill each other.

  He thought back to the formation of the Veiled Empire and how almost everyone was in favor of mierothi dispersion. They all said it was to address the practical concerns of ruling an entire continent, but Draevenus knew the truth: With no more war to fight, it was hard keeping their claws from each other’s throats.

  Even from this distance, one of the dark stars drew him. Ten thousand of them were what he considered middling in size and could only belong to daeloth, while another six hundred were triple their strength or better. Mierothi for sure. The one he focused on was nearly equal in power to his own. Draevenus knew the feel of it well.

  He had, after all, started a war just to free her.

  “Good to see you, Mother,” he said. Though he communed with her from time to time, today he had other matters to attend to.

  Turning towards those closest to him, he spied a score of daeloth surrounding another, stronger pair. The last two stars could only be Vashodia and her mysterious apprentice. Though so close in power to each other that Draevenus could not tell which had the edge, they made all others he knew seem like mere pebbles among twin boulders. Only the first two mierothi emperors could have laid claim to greater strength in their day, and that only by a slim margin.

  As always, Vashodia tested his patience, but at last her star began pulsing and drawing in on itself, collapsing to a point. It disappeared, and, a beat later, his sister stood beside him in commune.

  “Good morning, dear brother,” she said.

  “Good evening, dear sister,” he replied.

  She yawned, stretching, as if the body she conjured for this place had any need for such things. “It was difficult enough coordinating our schedules when we were separated by half a continent. Being half a world away will quickly grow tiresome.”

  “Ah, but back then we were plotting the downfall of an empire. No such need drives our meetings now.” He fixed her with a piercing gaze. “Right?”

  “Worry not. We’re just getting settled in. Making friends with our new neighbors and whatnot.”

  Draevenus groaned. “Please tell me you haven’t started any wars yet.”

  “Why would you even ask such a thing?” She placed hands on her hips and lifted her chin. “Have you no faith in me?”

  “Faith? That’s rich, coming from you.”

>   “But unwarranted?”

  Draevenus shrugged. “Fine, then. I have faith in you, Vash. All the faith in the world.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Faith,” he continued, “that you’ll manipulate all those around you into doing your bidding, whether they want to or not. Abyss, whether they’re even aware of it!”

  Vashodia giggled.

  Draevenus sighed, smiling. “Just like old times, eh?”

  “Indeed.”

  “But what’s this about settling in? It looks like you’ve left the colony.” He pointed towards the thousands of dark stars grouped a distance away.

  “Oh, just taking a little trip. Some old cobwebs to clear to help keep peace with the Weskarans.”

  “Cobwebs?”

  “Nothing to concern yourself over.”

  He frowned. “But I am concerned. This isn’t exactly your style.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “You know. Peace.”

  “I may not look it, dear brother, but I’m an old woman now. Maybe I’ve decided to change. To calm my ways. Ruffling feathers just doesn’t have the same appeal it used to.”

  “Right. I’m sure that’s why you’ve taken on an apprentice who could lay waste to half a nation by herself.”

  She held up a finger, wagging it back and forth. “A valiant attempt, but you can stop fishing now. I’ll tell you about her when I’m good and ready.”

  “And when will that be, exactly?”

  Vashodia smiled. “When I decide if I’m going to keep her.”

  Draevenus could only shake his head.

  “Speaking of apprentices,” Vashodia said, “how is that dear deceased Hardohl of yours doing?”

  Draevenus stiffened. “You haven’t told anyone about him, have you? That he’s still alive?”

  “Of course not. If nothing else, I do know how to keep secrets.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  “I am curious, though. Has he said yet why he wishes to remain lost, even to those he loves?”

  Draevenus closed his eyes, pondering all that had happened in the last year. Trying to draw conclusions from what little insight he could glean from Mevon’s actions and words. “I think,” he said, “that lost is an appropriate description. He searches for something. For himself. For a reason to justify his existence. He carries his sins on his shoulders, buried beneath the weight of all those souls who wrongly felt his justice. For some reason, he thinks that I can help him.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Draevenus turned away, staring into the endless white. “I need something that will give him hope. Have you heard from Orbrahn recently?”

  “I have.”

  “And?”

  “And the new ruler of the Veiled Empire is doing well. Although I suppose he’ll have to come up with a better name for it, now that his land is veiled no longer.”

  “ ‘Well,’ huh? Any chance you could be more specific?”

  Vashodia let out a long, high-­pitched sigh. “Yandumar has stabilized his domain, for the most part, with reforms all around to help equalize things for his citizens. Not everyone is happy with the changes. The great merchant families still push back, sometimes aggressively, but Paen, at my behest, is helping the emperor navigate their inner workings.”

  “Even after you left him behind?”

  “Oh, ours was never a permanent arrangement, and he knew as much from the beginning. He’s already grown too old for me.”

  “I thought he just turned sixteen?”

  “Precisely.”

  Draevenus narrowed his eyes at her. “Fine. You’ve told me of his rule. Now, what of the man himself?”

  She lifted her hands. “Who can say? Even I can’t see into a person’s soul.”

  “Please, sister. There must be something you can tell me.”

  “Plenty. But do you want to hear the truth? Or just some good news?”

  “Can it not be both?”

  She stepped close to him, reaching up to pat him gently on the cheek. Her red eyes burned like coals. “A father has lost his last child. No, it cannot.”

  Draevenus jerked his head away. Angry, though he knew he should not be. It wasn’t her fault that things had turned out as they had. She might be able to manipulate events better than anyone who ever lived, but even her foresight had limits. That their revolution won didn’t seem to matter much to the half million souls who died in the attempt, nor the countless families left to mourn the lost.

  Mevon. Whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope you find it. Soon.

  Vashodia danced away from him, grinning. “But enough of this dour business. It’s horrible for my complexion. What was the real reason you woke me up so early?”

  Draevenus couldn’t help but smile. “Ruul,” he said. “I think I’m finally on his trail.”

  Vashodia’s face gained all the expressiveness of a corpse. “How wonderful,” she said.

  Draevenus felt his smile wither. “Look, I don’t expect you to be happy for me—­”

  “I’m not.”

  “—­but the fact is, I am going to find him. And not just in some distant, theoretical future, but soon. Find him . . . and make him answer. Is there anything that I can say that will make you consider breaking your silence on the matter?”

  Vashodia blinked. Slowly. “No.”

  “But I need to know what I’m heading into.”

  She scoffed. “Nothing of worth.”

  He shook his head, teeth clenched. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe what you will. Most ­people shape their gods into whatever suits their purposes, good or ill. I thought you would be an exception.” She sighed. “But I gave up hope long ago that you’d come to share my particular worldview. Looks like you’re nothing more than a tool, after all. Useful, but unmindful. Most disappointing.”

  Draevenus felt a coldness growing within him at these words. A tired kind of anger. She seemed to be pushing him away, which only hardened his resolve to defy her. But he didn’t know if he could trust the feeling. Is even this a manipulation? I can no longer tell.

  “Will you at least tell me why you won’t speak of your meeting with him?” Draevenus said. “What was it you found there?”

  Vashodia’s conjured form began fading, a crooked smile adorning her translucent lips. “Give my regards to Ruul, dear brother. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “You idiot!”

  Jasside flinched, despite the fact that the words were not aimed at her. The daeloth guard standing before Vashodia dropped to his knees, clasping his hands in a beggar’s pose. “Please, great mistress, forgive me.”

  The mierothi gestured sharply at the massive covered wagon, a veritable house on wheels, leaning precariously over an axle that was bent and jammed into a muddy rut. “Is the task of keeping us upright and on the road too much for your tiny intellect to handle?”

  “No,” he said. “My apologies. I won’t let it happen again.”

  Vashodia giggled, a sound that drove a chill up Jasside’s spine. “Oh, of course you won’t.”

  She stepped within arm’s reach of the prostrate man. A week’s hard travel had seen their party to the edge of the swampy regions of southeastern Weskara, and Vashodia had abandoned her traditional full robe for a sleeveless blouse and skirt ensemble. They made her seem even more childlike than normal, an effect that was amplified by her proximity to the daeloth and the sharp lines of his bulky red-­and-­black armor. Only the dark scales decorating her bare arms and shoulders belied the image.

  Vashodia raked her claws across the daeloth’s face. Blood sprayed as four red stripes blossomed on his cheek and scalp. Red dripped down, curling along his jaw to the tip of his chin. More pooled in his eye.

  “A driver,” Vashodia said, “needs
to keep his eye on the road. Hard to do when yours is filled with blood.”

  Jasside kept careful watch. A tendril of energy probed his body, allowing her to read the man’s physical responses like a book. Respiration, pulse, pupil dilation, the tension and contraction of each muscle—­they all gave her insight into what he might do next. She was surprised to find little anger in him. Fear, of course. Pain. But no anger. A lifetime’s worth of indoctrination had taught him the futility of resisting a mierothi, no doubt.

  Vashodia had never even energized.

  Her mistress now stalked away, ordering another of the daeloth into the driver’s seat of the carriage. The man hopped up without hesitation, and without the barest glance—­sympathetic or otherwise—­towards his bleeding peer. Vashodia lifted one foot through the open door of the wagon, glancing over her shoulder at Jasside. “Fix this,” she ordered.

  Jasside nodded as Vashodia slammed the door.

  She immediately went to the daeloth. No time like the present to start putting the past behind me. She reached down to him with a helping hand.

  To her surprise, he took it. Though he had nearly half again her mass beneath all that armor, one year of war and another of endless marching had put more than enough strength into her limbs to pull him upright. He rose to full height, his chin level with the top of her head, then released her hand.

  “Here,” Jasside said. “Let me have a look at your wounds.”

  “No,” he said, jerking his head away. “You’d best be getting on with the great mistress’s wishes. I won’t have you getting in trouble on my account.”

  With a sigh that was more angry than anything, Jasside energized, pulling darkness into her body from its resting place in the spaces between all things. She gathered the very limit of her capacity. She saw his eyes spring open in wonder. “Do you feel me?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you understand the depth of my power?”

  Carefully, he nodded.

  “Do you trust that I know how to take care of my own affairs?”

  “Yes, but—­”

  “Then please, shut your mouth and stay still, so I can heal you.”