The Shadow of What Was Lost

by James Islington

  Kelosh snorted. “You know the stories. Whoever holds it cannot be touched, by abominations or the gods themselves. One cut from Whisper steals your very soul and makes the blade stronger. That sort of thing.” He stared at his hand for a moment. “Two sevens. Six coppers.”

  Davian hesitated. Kelosh was lying about his cards, but Davian ignored it, instead thinking back to that night in Talmiel when the young woman had rescued them. He thought about the way their captors had died. “I don’t know about stealing souls,” he said quietly, “but all it takes is a nick, and you’re dead. Instantly. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  There was an impressed silence for a few seconds, then Gorron snorted. “Likely story,” he said, shaking his head in derision. “Three eights.”

  Davian prepared himself. Gorron had lied. It was finally over.

  However, Gorron paused before making his bid, then stood, unbuckling the leather-sheathed sword from around his waist. He drew it out, laying both sword and sheath on the table. The blade itself was beautiful, elegantly curved with delicately worked silver inlay on the hilt. It looked more than ornate, though. Like the sword of a master craftsman.

  “The workmanship alone is worth twice what any of you have in front of you,” he said. “But the blade? The killer of a thousand heretics and abominations? It is priceless.”

  Kelosh gave Gorron a look of open surprise. “You’re betting Slayer? Why?” He scratched his head. “This is just a friendly game, Gorron.”

  Gorron was silent for a moment, then scowled. “I’m not going to lose to him, Kelosh,” he said, jerking his head in Davian’s direction. “I don’t care who he’s trained with, how many abominations he’s killed. Look at him! He’s a child!” He glared at Davian. “I find it hard to believe he’s ever even seen a real sword except from the wrong end. Let’s see him try and win one.”

  Kelosh shrugged. “It’s your decision, Gorron,” he said, shooting Davian an apologetic look. He looked around. “Anyone want to call him on it?”

  Davian saw Wirr shaking his head from the corner of his eye. Gorron obviously loved the blade. The killer of a thousand heretics and abominations. The fear that had been with him all evening was suddenly gone, replaced with a burning anger. These men killed Gifted. They killed people like him, Asha, Wirr. And they were proud of it.

  “Gesh,” he said softly.

  Gorron stared at him in shock, a stricken look on his face. Davian had so much in front of him to lose, and only a fool would have assumed Gorron was bluffing with a bet that large. Kelosh saw the expression on his friend’s face and groaned.

  “Perhaps we can figure out an alternate means of—”

  Kelosh was cut short by a cry of anger from Gorron. Before Davian could react the Hunter had drawn a dagger from his belt and was lunging at him.

  Time slowed.

  From the rage on Gorron’s face, Davian had no doubt the man was going for a killing blow. Still seated, he snatched Slayer from the table, desperately putting it between himself and the leaping Gorron.

  The tip of the sword caught Gorron in the chest.

  It slid in smoothly, more easily than Davian had imagined a blade would go through flesh. Gorron froze, the dagger clattering from his hand to the floor, then stumbled back. He looked uncomprehendingly at Davian; he gave a racking cough and blood sprayed from his mouth.

  Then his eyes rolled upward and he collapsed. Altesh rushed to his side, but Davian knew what he would say before he got there.

  “He’s dead,” said Altesh, stunned.

  The entire tavern was silent, everyone looking alternately at the corpse on the floor and at Davian, who was still holding the bloodstained sword. He lowered the blade.

  Kelosh stared at him solemnly for a few moments.

  “I have never seen anyone move that fast,” said the Hunter eventually, his voice soft with awe. “You do Breshada credit, Shadat.” He sighed, shaking his head as he looked at Gorron’s motionless body, then gestured to the table. “You and your friend should go. Take your winnings; I will deal with the watch. I’ll tell them it was between Seekers, and it will be fine. If they see how young you are, though, it will only hold things up.”

  Davian just nodded, too numb to respond otherwise. He and Wirr quickly swept the pile of coins into their satchel.

  Before anyone could move to block their exit, they were outside and hurrying into the night.

  * * *

  They ran for a quarter hour before Wirr held up his hand, breathing hard, and came to a gradual stop.

  “I don’t think anyone is following us,” he said between gulps of air. “We can probably—”

  He cut off with a cry of pain as Davian’s fist crashed into his nose.

  “What in fates were you thinking?” Davian hissed, putting as much venom into the words as possible without making too much noise. “You knew! You knew they were Hunters, and you sent me right to them. Worse. You didn’t even tell me!” His friend had struggled back to his feet, but Davian stepped forward and drove his fist squarely into his nose again, eliciting another moan of pain. “This is not a game, Wirr! We could die out here!”

  Wirr stayed on the ground this time, looking up at Davian with pure shock on his face. “Dav!” He scrambled backward in the dirt as Davian took a menacing step forward. “I’m sorry!”

  Davian looked at his friend—stunned, upset, scared—and the anger drained from him, exposing the emotion it had tried to cover.

  Shame.

  He sunk to his knees next to his friend, suddenly realizing his entire body was shaking.

  “I killed him, Wirr,” he whispered after a few seconds. “I just picked up the sword, and…”

  Wirr hesitated, but seeing his friend’s rage had subsided, shifted over to sit next to him. He tested his nose gently with a finger. “It wasn’t your fault, Dav,” he said. “He was going to kill you—just like he killed all those other Gifted. Remember what he was.”

  Davian stared at the ground, unable to concentrate with all the emotions swirling in his head. “And that makes it right?”

  Wirr bit his lip, silent for a few seconds. “It couldn’t be avoided, Dav. Same as Talmiel,” he noted eventually.

  Davian screwed up his face. “Except I wasn’t holding the sword in Talmiel.”

  “So it’s all right for someone else to save your life, but not if you do it yourself?”

  Davian ran his hands through his hair. “I don’t know, Wirr,” he admitted. “I just feel… dirty. Sick to my very core. Like I just made the biggest mistake of my life, and there is no way I can ever take it back.”

  Wirr just nodded, obviously not sure what to say. They sat in silence for a while, then Wirr cleared his throat. “I should have told you. But I knew you’d never go along with it.”

  Davian took a deep breath. The silence had given him time to order his thoughts, push the shock of what he’d just done to the background. “How did you know who they were? And, fates—why, why did you choose them in the first place?”

  Wirr winced. “Geshett is a Hunter’s game,” he admitted. “They say it helps hone their ability to tell when people are lying, and to conceal things themselves. It’s the only game they play, Dav, and no one else is allowed to play it.” He shrugged. “Your ability doesn’t set off Finders and isn’t covered by the Tenets. It was the only way I could think of to get enough money.”

  Davian gritted his teeth. It made sense, though they had been beyond fortunate that none of the Hunters had been suspicious enough to check them with Finders. “Just… tell me everything next time. It was all I could do not to run when I realized who they were.”

  Wirr gave a slight smile and hefted the satchel, which made a jingling sound as he shook it. “All things considered, Dav, you did very well.”

  Despite everything, Davian laughed softly. “All I could think of half the time was what Breshada’s face would look like, if she ever found out I was using her name to dupe her ‘brethren.’”

&
nbsp; Wirr smirked. “Angry. Angry is how I picture her.”

  Davian smiled, and a tiny part of the pain—the worst part—faded just a little. He stood, sticking out his hand. Wirr hesitated for a moment, then grasped it firmly, allowing Davian to pull him back to his feet.

  “I think you broke my nose,” Wirr grumbled, pulling a kerchief from his pocket. He dabbed at his nose and grimaced as the cloth came away soaked in blood.

  “Nothing you didn’t deserve,” noted Davian.

  Wirr grunted. “I suppose that’s true.” He looked at Davian, expression thoughtful. “Dav… I have to ask. How did you do it?”

  Davian stared at his friend in confusion. “Do what?”

  “How in all fates did you move so fast? One second you were sitting there, and the next that sword was sticking clean through Gorron. I don’t doubt you have fast reactions, but that was…” He shook his head. “Something else.”

  Davian looked at the sword, still in his hand. He unsheathed it, hefted it, admiring the sense of balance and the clean lines of the blade. “He called it Slayer,” he pointed out. “If it has a name…”

  Wirr snorted. “A Hunter trying to sound important, nothing more. It’s not a Named sword, Dav. It would be easy to tell. Like Breshada’s.”

  Davian nodded, acknowledging the truth of the statement. As soon as he’d seen Whisper, he’d known there was something different about it, even before seeing how effectively it killed. For most Named swords he’d heard of, the names themselves hadn’t made sense to him. Having seen Whisper in action, though, he knew it was the perfect word to describe it.

  “Slayer,” on the other hand, didn’t fit. It was a nice sword—a very nice sword—but Wirr was right. It had no unusual powers.

  Gently he tossed the sword into the long grass at the side of the road. Valuable or not, he wanted nothing more to do with it.

  Wirr looked about to protest but then just sighed, nodding.

  “If it wasn’t the sword, then I don’t know,” Davian finally admitted. “Everything seemed to move more slowly, I suppose. I grabbed the sword, and…” He trailed off, stomach churning as he remembered the moment. For an instant he thought he was going to vomit, but a few deep breaths settled him again. “I can’t explain it, Wirr.”

  Wirr grunted. “Whatever it was, it saved your life.” He grimaced. “Probably both our lives. I was about to try and use Essence to hold him back.”

  Davian gave a low whistle. “First Tenet or not, that would have made things interesting.”

  “You have no idea,” muttered Wirr, almost to himself. He glanced around. The sky was clear tonight and though it was too early for much moonlight, the stars provided enough illumination to see the road. “We should keep moving. The further we are from here come dawn, the better.”

  They walked for a while in silence, the quiet of the night calming Davian’s jangling nerves somewhat.

  Abruptly Wirr cleared his throat. “I meant it, you know,” he said hesitantly. “I really am sorry.”

  “I know, Wirr,” said Davian. “It’s all right.”

  There was silence for a while longer, then Davian rubbed his hands together, keeping them warm against the chill of the night air. The motion caused his sleeve to pull upward a little, and he found himself staring at the carefully covered patch on his forearm.

  “Strange, what Kelosh said,” he said idly. “Do you really think there’s a Gifted out there without a Mark? Maybe if we got far enough away from Andarra…”

  Wirr shook his head. “No. I’ve read about Gifted as far away as the Eastern Empire having the Mark—when the Tenets were created, a lot of countries nearly went to war with us over it. They were all outraged that Andarra had unilaterally enforced laws that some of their citizens were bound to… but of course with the Gifted in their armies unable to fight, they were too weak to make an issue of it.” He kicked a stone along in front of him. “It’s interesting. The Gil’shar were supposedly amongst the most angry when the Treaty was signed; they thought the Loyalists should have pressed their advantage. But in the end, it helped them more than anyone else. Their army never relied on Gifted, so they were unaffected—and now they’re stronger than ever.”

  Davian nodded, though he hadn’t really been paying attention after the first sentence. Politics was Wirr’s passion, not his.

  “It’s a shame,” he noted. “Even with all the Finders around, being free of the Tenets would have been useful out here.”

  Wirr frowned. “How so?”

  Davian raised an eyebrow. “It would be easier to defend ourselves, for a start. And you could have used the Gift to steal some coin, rather than us having to risk our lives for it. It wouldn’t take much Essence to pickpocket a few people—not enough to set off Finders, anyway.”

  “I suppose,” said Wirr, sounding reluctant.

  Davian shot him a surprised look. “You disagree?”

  Wirr shrugged. “I just don’t like the idea of using our powers to steal from people.”

  Davian stared at his friend, not sure if Wirr was joking. “Isn’t that exactly what we just did?”

  Wirr shook his head. “Those men chose to gamble their money. They wagered you couldn’t tell when they were lying, and they lost. It’s a fine line, I know, but it is different.” He sighed. “I’m not disagreeing, Dav, particularly about the part where we could actually protect ourselves. But we need to be careful what we wish for.”

  Davian frowned. “They’re Desrielites,” he protested. “They’d string us up from the nearest tree, given the chance. Why should we feel badly about taking their coin? Weren’t you just saying my killing one of them was justified?”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” pointed out Wirr. “He was a Hunter, a murderer, and it was self-defense. What you’re talking about is going out and using the Gift to steal from ordinary people. I know we’re in need, but… it would still be an abuse, Dav. Before the war, the Augurs let the Gifted use Essence to take advantage of others when they ‘needed’ to, too. They said it was to make Andarra a better place. Look at where that got us.”

  Davian shook his head, surprised at the direction of the conversation. “So… you think the Treaty is justified?” he asked in confusion. Debating the Treaty was forbidden among students; with Talean always around, this was a topic that had never come up between them. It shouldn’t have needed to, though. Every Gifted wanted the Treaty, and particularly the Tenets, gone.

  Wirr shook his head. “Of course not,” he said, a little defensively. “But if you had the chance to remove all the Tenets, or just some of them—what would you do?”

  “Remove them all,” said Davian without hesitation.

  Wirr sighed. “Really? You don’t think some restrictions on how the Gift is used are a good thing?”

  “Like what?”

  Wirr shrugged. “There’s four Tenets. Let’s take the first: no use of the Gift with the intent to harm or hinder non-Gifted. Why is that so bad?”

  “Because we can’t defend ourselves,” said Davian. “I know the argument is that it only reduces us to the level of normal people, but the Gifted are hated. We never get attacked by just one person; it’s always a mob.” He unconsciously touched the scar on his face.

  “Right.” Wirr looked uncomfortable for a moment, realizing how close to the mark he’d come. “So what if that Tenet were changed, allowing the Gifted to use Essence to defend themselves?”

  Davian thought for a moment. He wanted to say it still wouldn’t be enough, but as he followed the argument through to its conclusion in his head, he knew he had no case. “I suppose that would be fine,” he said reluctantly.

  Wirr nodded in satisfaction. “The Second Tenet: no use of the Gift to deceive, intimidate, or otherwise work to the detriment of non-Gifted. Problem?”

  “We can’t steal things.”

  Wirr rolled his eyes. “Seriously.”

  Davian sighed, thinking for a moment. “It’s the same as the first,” he said. “It’s t
oo general. I can’t use the Gift to hide myself as a thief, and that’s fine. But I’d like the ability to hide myself if there are people chasing after me, trying to kill me, just because I’m Gifted.”

  Wirr nodded in approval. “A problem that would mostly be solved by the exception to the First Tenet.”

  Davian smiled. “Thought about this a lot, have we?”

  Wirr shrugged. “The joys of studying politics.”

  Davian gazed up at the starlit sky as they walked. “So let’s say the Third Tenet stays, for our own protection if nothing else—that Administrators and Gifted can do no harm to one another, physical or otherwise. What would you change about the Fourth Tenet?”

  “I think the Fourth could probably be removed,” admitted Wirr. “As long as the other three are in place, I see no reason why we should be forced to do what the Administrators tell us all the time. We don’t need keepers.”

  Davian nodded, relieved that his friend mirrored his thoughts on at least that much. “And the Treaty itself? The changes to all the Andarran laws?”

  Wirr shrugged. “Some of those would have to be revised, too, of course. But there are some reasonable checks and balances in there.”

  “You don’t think we should rule again?”

  Wirr looked at Davian levelly. “I’m stronger and faster than a regular person. I can do the work of several men each day, then tap my Reserve at night to do other things rather than sleeping. All being well, I’ll live twenty years longer than most people, maybe more.” He paused. “But does that make me wiser? Fairer? Do those qualities automatically make me a good ruler, or even just a better one than someone who doesn’t have the Gift?”

  Davian remained silent. He knew Wirr had a point but it irked him nonetheless; for some reason he’d never really thought it through before. It had always simply been accepted within the school that the Treaty was wrong, that the Gifted had been usurped from their rightful place.