Taeris shook his head. “No. The first must have been waiting for the second. He just got here too late.” He bit his lip as he stared at the sha’teth. “First she speaks Andarran. Then she waits for reinforcements at the risk of losing us. A survival instinct. Something is different,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Suddenly one of the creatures—Davian could not tell which one—spoke. “He belongs to us, Taeris Sarr,” it hissed. “Give him over and you may yet live.” The voice was not angry, or even insistent. It was completely devoid of emotion.
Taeris just motioned in the other direction. “Ignore them,” he said quietly. “Let’s move.”
No one voiced a complaint, and they started silently along the long, open bridge. After a minute Davian looked back. The sha’teth were still just standing there, watching.
Then the mists closed around him, hiding the creatures and the desolate town from view.
He turned his head forward again, facing into the thick white murk.
They had reached Deilannis.
Chapter 24
Wirr took a deep breath, heart still hammering.
He threw a nervous glance over his shoulder, relieved to see that the mists had finally hidden the sha’teth and their unsettling stares from view. He slowed his pace a little, breathing evening out as the end of the bridge became visible up ahead. A flight of stairs led sharply downward; below, stretching away into the fog, the rooftops of hundreds of abandoned buildings were barely discernible through the haze.
Taeris came to a gradual halt at the top of the stairs, and everyone followed suit. Wirr gave an involuntary cough as he stared into the city. The atmosphere here was thicker, damp and hard to breathe. The mood of Deilannis was even heavier and more oppressive than it had looked from the outside.
“Are we safe?” Wirr asked Taeris.
Taeris looked around at the forbidding mists, then nodded, though his expression was still grim. “From the sha’teth at least.”
Dezia shivered, walking up to stand beside Wirr. “What if we get through, and they’re waiting for us on the other side?”
“They won’t be. There’s not a crossing for at least two hundred miles in any direction. Even with their speed, it would take them several days to get there.” Taeris paused, then rummaged around in his bag, producing four Shackles. “Before we go any further…”
Wirr sighed. “They’re really necessary?”
“We’ve already talked about this,” said Taeris, his tone firm. “You all need to wear one. The Contract will let me sense you—if we get separated, it’s the only way I’ll be able to find you.”
Aelric looked at the Shackle with obvious distaste. “I’m still worried about what happens if you don’t find us. I don’t want to wear that thing for the rest of my life.”
Taeris gave a long-suffering sigh. “If I don’t find you then either I will be dead, in which case the Shackle will come off of its own accord, or you will be dead, in which case you won’t terribly mind.”
Dezia pushed past her brother, rolling up her sleeve. “We know. We’re happy to do it,” she said, glaring at Aelric.
Taeris nodded as if there had been no issue, touching the Shackle to Dezia’s wrist. The young woman stared as the torc sealed itself, touching it lightly. “I don’t feel any different,” she reassured Aelric.
Aelric hesitated, then reluctantly submitted himself to the same process. He gave an irritable tug at the twisted metal band once it was on, but did not appear to suffer any ill effects. Davian followed, and then Taeris held up the last Shackle to Wirr, gesturing for him to come forward.
“What about Nihim?” asked Wirr, realizing the priest didn’t have one.
Taeris shook his head. “There aren’t enough Shackles.” He turned to Nihim. “If you’re separated…”
“It’s fine,” said Nihim. “I’ve studied maps of Deilannis. If it happens, I can figure out the way through.”
Taeris and Nihim exchanged a look, so brief that Wirr immediately wondered if he’d imagined it. Then Taeris was turning back to him. “Your turn.”
Wirr sighed. He hated Shackles. He wasn’t as badly affected as some Gifted, but whenever he wore one he still felt significantly slower, weaker. He held out his arm, and Taeris touched the torc to it.
Pain lanced through Wirr’s head.
He gave an involuntary cry as his knees buckled; he scrabbled desperately at the metal as it slithered around his arm, trying his utmost to rip it off. It was hard to breathe…
And then he was lying on the cool, smooth stone of the bridge. He took a few long, shaky breaths, vision clearing to reveal everyone crowded around him, their faces taut with concern. Taeris was kneeling at his side, the Shackle back in his hand, his face pale.
“Wirr. Can you hear me?” Taeris asked urgently. “Are you all right?”
Wirr groaned, elevating himself on one elbow. “A little dizzy, but… I think I’ll be fine.”
Taeris exhaled in relief. “Good.” His brow furrowed. “What happened? Have you ever had a reaction like that to a Shackle before?”
“Never.” Wirr climbed to his feet with Davian’s assistance. “I sometimes get a little shaky or nauseous, but that was…” He shook his head, at a loss for words.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Should we be wearing these?” Aelric asked nervously.
“Whatever happened to Wirr happened as soon as he put the Shackle on. You’ll be fine,” said Taeris, waving away the question. His eyes never left Wirr.
“I think I’m going to have to risk Deilannis without a Shackle,” noted Wirr, still a little groggy.
“I think you are,” agreed Taeris. “Just… don’t try to use Essence while we’re in the city. Under any circumstances.”
Wirr frowned. “I thought you said it has no effect here.”
“It doesn’t. And we have no idea why.” Taeris rubbed his forehead. “For all we know, it’s by design. Essence could be dangerous here, somehow.”
“Or it could attract whatever guards this place,” pointed out Caeden.
“Exactly.” Taeris acknowledged Caeden with a nod. “Regardless of the reasons—if you’re not going to be wearing a Shackle…”
“I’ll be careful,” promised Wirr.
“Good.” Taeris gave him an appraising look. “Can you walk?”
Wirr nodded; his head still ached, but everything else appeared to be functioning normally. “I’ll be fine.”
Taeris turned to Nihim, holding out the Shackle in his hand and raising an eyebrow.
“Not a chance,” said Nihim firmly.
Taeris gave the ghost of a smile. “Then we should move.” He turned to the others. “Keep the talking to a minimum. Whatever’s in here, we want to do as little as possible to attract its attention.”
Without anything further they headed down the stairs from the bridge and into the city itself.
After a few minutes of walking in uneasy silence, Wirr found himself next to Taeris. “So you’ve been through the city from Narut,” he said conversationally, trying to provide himself with a distraction.
Taeris gave an absent nod, never pausing in his scanning of the road ahead. “The Narut and Desriel bridges are actually quite close together,” he said quietly. “Unfortunately, the Andarran bridge is on the other side of the city. According to the maps, anyway.”
“You’ve never been there?” Wirr kept his voice low, but he couldn’t stop it from taking on a slightly panicked note. “How can you be sure you know the way?”
Taeris shrugged. “Now you mention it, I’m not sure I even recognize the layout of these streets. Don’t tell the others, but I think we may be lost.”
Wirr’s eyes widened, then narrowed as the corners of Taeris’s mouth twitched upward for a brief moment, betraying the scarred man’s amusement at Wirr’s expense.
“That was not funny,” Wirr grumbled.
Taeris did not take his eyes off the road ahead. “It was a lit
tle funny. Now be quiet.”
Wirr lapsed into silence.
Despite his admission, Taeris walked the route they were taking with confidence, and whenever he made a turn it seemed to be because he recognized certain landmarks along the way. They progressed in almost complete silence, none of them straying farther than the reach of the torches, fixing their eyes on the road ahead. Everyone walked with their heads slightly bowed, as if trying to ignore the buildings in their peripheral vision.
Wirr found himself doing the same; looking too closely at his surroundings only fed his unease. Every road was clean and every building looked as if it were newly made, with not a hint of rot or decay. As if it was being maintained.
“I’m beginning to think the sha’teth had the right idea,” he whispered to Davian. “This place makes my skin crawl.”
A sharp look from Nihim silenced Davian before he could reply, and they pressed on mutely.
They made their way mainly along the one road, which was wide enough that their torchlight barely penetrated the mists as far as its edges. Soon they came to a giant archway that, like the rest of the city, was still wholly intact. Sitting atop the arch itself was a pike; impaled on it sat a leering skull, the bleached white seeming to glow in the surrounding gloom. It was the only skeletal remains they had seen since entering the city.
Wirr felt a chill as he looked at it. There was something… wrong about it, aside from the obvious. Something disturbing, though he couldn’t put his finger on what.
Davian had noticed it, too. “Creepy,” he muttered to Wirr, shivering.
Caeden stepped toward them, having overheard. “This is the entrance to the inner city,” he said, staring at the skull. “The Door of Iladriel. When we pass through, we will be in Deilannis proper.”
Wirr raised an eyebrow at him. “How do you know that?”
Caeden shrugged. “I just do,” he said distantly, gaze shifting to the stone structure itself. Then he frowned, turning to Taeris. “I… would not have thought this was the fastest way to the Andarran bridge.”
Taeris had stopped in front of the archway. He looked at Caeden for a long moment, his gaze inscrutable. “You’re right,” he said. “This is the southern entrance to the inner city. I only know the way from maps—the originals of which are almost two thousand years old. I didn’t want to get lost.”
“What lies in there?” asked Aelric, eyes searching the darkness beyond the archway for any sign of movement.
Taeris shook his head. “No one knows. I don’t believe anyone has passed through this part of the city since Devaed’s time.”
The group was silent as it digested this information. “We could go back,” suggested Dezia.
Taeris shook his head. “The sha’teth are not fools. They will have split up, one of them staying on the Desriel side to ensure we don’t double back.”
For a moment everyone hesitated, then Dezia stepped forward.
“Then I suppose we shouldn’t delay,” she said. Before anyone could stop her, she was striding through the archway.
Davian exchanged a look with Wirr. Taking deep breaths to steel themselves, they moved beneath the archway’s grinning skull and into the inner city.
* * *
Davian beckoned to Caeden, who was staring at the enormous archway as if mesmerized.
“Caeden!” he hissed in a harried whisper. The sound jerked Caeden into action; the young man took a last look at the archway and hurried after them into the inner city.
Davian took a long glance at the archway himself, wondering what Caeden had been looking at. The Door of Iladriel, he’d called it. A memory. Had there been something else, though? Something he wasn’t telling them?
He shivered again as he looked up at the skull piked atop the stones. If Caeden was concealing something, he was probably doing them a favor.
Everyone was deathly silent now as they walked; Davian often found himself holding his breath, so intent was he on hearing any sound that was out of the ordinary. As they crept closer to the center of the city, he began to notice subtle changes in their surroundings. The mists thinned, and a gray light gradually became apparent, illuminating everything in drab monochrome. The buildings here were mostly the same as in the outer city, untouched by the ravages of time—however, some had smashed windows or doors crumpled inward, and others bore the scars of fire.
Occasionally Davian thought he caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, but every time he spun, there was no one there. He could see his tenseness reflected in the faces of the others, including Taeris. Something about this place felt very wrong.
Soon he began to notice that the structures in this section of the city were less cramped, grander and far more distinctive than the close-packed houses they had already passed.
Dezia suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” she whispered, staring at Caeden. The others stopped, too, all turning to Caeden curiously.
The young man bit his lip. “I… know this place,” he said, keeping his voice soft. Despite some uncertainty, there was also excitement in his tone.
He took a couple of steps forward, pointing to an enormous building with giant columns of white marble. “We are in the main street of the city. That is the Great Library of Deilannis.” He pointed to a structure a little farther down the road. “That is the Ashac Temple, where worshippers would go each Seventhday to hear the word of the One God preached.” He pointed again, confident now, this time to a wide roadway that curved off to the left. “That road is known as the Scythe. Follow it for another five minutes, and you would come to a massive marketplace.” He smiled, a flush of excitement on his cheeks. “I think from here, I could even guide us to the Northern Bridge.”
Taeris placed his hand on Caeden’s shoulder. “That’s good, lad.” Davian could see a mixture of fascination and concern in his eyes. “I don’t wish to dampen your enthusiasm, but—do you actually recall being here? I’ve not been into the inner city before, but I do recognize many of these buildings from the texts I’ve collected over the years. Are you sure you’re not simply remembering things you’ve read?”
Caeden shook his head, still staring around, absently rubbing at the wolf tattoo on his wrist as he did so. “I don’t think so.”
Taeris gave Caeden a considering look for a few moments, then just nodded. “Let me know if anything else comes back.”
They moved on, drawing ever closer to the center of the city. Soon they came to a fork in the road, and Taeris led them without hesitation to the left.
Caeden stopped in his tracks.
“Taeris,” he called quietly, uncertainty in his voice. “I think that’s the wrong way.”
Everyone paused, and Taeris turned to Caeden. “I know where I’m going,” he whispered firmly, so that everyone could hear. “I know you think you remember this place, but I am quite certain.”
Caeden didn’t look convinced, but eventually inclined his head. “If you’re certain,” he said, reluctance still clear in his tone.
They walked for a few more minutes until Taeris abruptly signaled a stop, looking up at an unusual structure on the side of the road. It was less a building than a spire, twisting at impossible angles as it stretched skyward and only twenty feet wide at its base, just large enough to accommodate the broad double doors set into its facade. Davian couldn’t quite see, but he suspected it stretched well back from the street.
Suddenly a piercing shriek cut across the silence. Davian spun, trying to determine the direction from which it had come, but all was still.
“What was that?” asked Aelric, his voice thick with apprehension.
Taeris shook his head. “Stay alert,” was all he said, casting a longing glance toward the building. He took a deep, steadying breath. “And stay here. I’ll return soon.”
“What?” whispered Wirr in disbelief. “You’re going in there? Why?”
Taeris didn’t have time to respond before another cry came. This time it was deeper,
clearly a man’s voice; the sound was so full of pain that Aelric’s sword was out of its sheath before anyone else could even move. He held it for a moment, wary, scanning the road ahead before slowly sheathing it again. No one chuckled at the reaction. Davian felt blood pounding in his ears, his muscles tensed.
Then he strangled a yell. He’d been looking at one of the buildings, and for the briefest of moments there had been someone standing in the doorway and staring straight at them. The expression on the man’s face had been… quizzical, with neither alarm nor malice in his gaze.
Then the stranger was gone again. Vanished.
“What?” hissed Taeris, his tone a mixture of fear and anger at the comparative loudness of Davian’s cry.
Davian didn’t take his eyes from the building. “There was a man in that doorway,” he said, gesturing toward where he had seen the figure.
Taeris’s eyebrows rose. “Are you sure?”
Davian nodded mutely.
Taeris grimaced and looked about to say something else when Caeden gasped, pointing in a different direction. They all spun to see a young woman standing in the middle of the road, looking at them with an expression of curiosity. Taeris made to step toward her, but even as he moved, she was gone again.
“Illusions,” muttered Aelric. His comment was punctuated by another scream, though this one sounded farther away.
Taeris shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so.”
Suddenly Wirr let out a roar of warning, and Davian spun to see a figure standing only a few feet away from them. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. At first glance he thought it was a man, though it stood head and shoulders above even Nihim, who was the tallest of the group. Then he saw the reptilian visage, the cold black eyes regarding them with undisguised rage.
Davian’s eyes traveled down its body and he saw that rather than legs, it stood erect on a thick tail that trailed out behind it. Its skin was an oily dark green, almost black in the dull light of Deilannis. Thick, well-muscled arms stretched toward Dezia, who was closest to it.
Everything happened at once. There was an odd ripple of white light in the gray; Taeris screamed “No!” as the creature turned, distracted, a look of what could only be called surprise on its ugly face. Then it vanished.
The Shadow of What Was Lost Page 31