Taeris rounded on Wirr, whose hands were still outstretched, his expression frozen in shock. The ripple faded, but Davian could see clearly that it had emanated from his friend’s body.
“You tried to use Essence, didn’t you!” Taeris hissed, looking as though he was about to strike the boy.
Wirr nodded, his face pale.
Balling his hands into fists, Taeris groaned as a cry went up from somewhere in the city. Unlike the other sounds they had heard, this was completely inhuman, a high-pitched keening that made Davian’s blood freeze.
Taeris turned to Caeden, and Davian knew the older man was now genuinely frightened.
“You know the way to the Northern Bridge?” he asked.
“I think so.”
Taeris pushed Caeden into motion, back the way they had come. “Then run.”
Caeden stumbled into a quickly accelerating jog, and Taeris turned to the others. “All of you, follow him and do not let him out of your sight! He knows the way out.”
Caeden was already disappearing down the street, and Davian didn’t need a second invitation. Wirr, Aelric, and Dezia set off at a dead run; Davian was close behind as another shriek sounded, this time much, much closer. Whatever was coming, it was moving faster than should have been possible.
Suddenly he realized that he could not hear Nihim or Taeris behind him. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw Nihim gripping Taeris by the arm, the two men talking in low tones. Davian hesitated, then turned, sprinting back toward them.
“Let me go, Nihim,” said Taeris furiously.
Nihim shook his head. “No.” He tugged on Taeris’s arm. “There will be other chances, but if you leave those children to their fate, you’ll never forgive yourself.”
Taeris hesitated, his face a mask of frustration. “El damn you.” Then he spun, spotting Davian. “What are you doing?” he bellowed. “I said RUN!” He followed his own advice, and then the three of them were sprinting after the others.
The mist, which had barely been in evidence a moment earlier, abruptly thickened until Davian could see only a few feet ahead. Taeris and Nihim were lost to view. Suddenly Davian heard a muffled cry in front of him, and he had to leap to one side to avoid stumbling over a body writhing on the ground.
He stopped, kneeling. It was Nihim; the priest was holding his ankle, face twisted in pain.
There was another cry. The creature couldn’t be more than a few streets away now.
“Can you stand?” Davian asked in an urgent whisper.
Nihim sat up and pushed him hard in the chest. “Run, lad!” he said, wide-eyed. “There’s no point us both dying!”
“Neither of us is going to die.” Davian said the words more as a prayer than as encouragement.
The mist was so thick now that even breathing felt difficult; he felt more than saw Nihim’s form, at one point stepping clumsily on the man’s arm. Muttering an apology, he grabbed the priest under his armpits and hauled him into the shelter of the nearest building, wincing as he dragged him over the shattered remains of the door.
This was one of the buildings blackened by fire, though the roof and all the walls were still intact. He propped Nihim up against the nearest wall, facing away from the street and hidden from the view of anything outside. Davian collapsed beside him, trying to slow his breathing, straining for any sound of approaching danger. There was nothing, though. The silence was eerie.
They stayed that way for several seconds. Then the dark mists swirling around them thickened even more and the shriek sounded again, this time so close it seemed to be right on top of them. Davian and Nihim sat motionless, barely daring to breathe.
After a few moments, Davian risked glancing out the door. The mist was getting… darker, eddying and churning until it was more of a cloud of black smoke than fog. He shuddered. The swirling darkness spoke of nothing but death and decay.
The air grew colder as Davian watched the darkness coalesce in the middle of the street, distending and contracting until it finally formed itself into the silhouette of a man. It was unlike any man Davian had seen before, though; its skin was completely black and glistened in the dull gray light. Its hands were curved and elongated, more clawlike than anything else, and its limbs and torso were unnaturally thin.
A horrible snuffling sound erupted from it; it turned toward him and Davian sank back, covering his mouth in horror. Though its face was distorted by the fog, he could see that the creature had no eyes, a mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, and a gaping, circular hole where its nose should have been.
It raised its smooth, hairless head. The snuffling sound came again, and Davian realized with mounting terror that it was sniffing out a scent.
Then it opened its mouth wide and keened in triumph, a sound so loud and shrill that Davian and Nihim both had to put their hands over their ears.
It came into the building slowly, deliberately, as if it knew its prey was nearby and didn’t need to rush. It moved for Davian with unhurried, almost lazy steps, a blade coalescing in its hand. In the corner of his mind not consumed by fear, Davian realized that the blade that was about to kill him was the same blade he’d seen the sha’teth use.
Nihim moved before Davian could stop him. He stumbled awkwardly to his feet, throwing himself between Davian and the creature.
“You cannot have him. He is not supposed to die,” he said, lifting his chin in defiance. “You cannot—”
The blade moved forward in slow motion. Nihim screamed.
The following moments passed in a blur for Davian. Nihim crumpling to the floor, blood spilling from the gaping wound in his stomach. The creature moving forward through the mist as if nothing had happened.
Then it stood in front of him, its hideous, eyeless face studying his. Davian braced himself for the death blow, but the creature stopped, cocking its head and sniffing the air.
“Ilian di,” it said in a low, gravelly voice. It sounded angry, perhaps even disappointed. “Sha di Davian.” Davian’s eyes widened when he heard his name, but he did not move.
Suddenly the creature exploded apart, disintegrating back into its wraithlike form, merging once again with the surrounding mists.
The unnatural, awful chill vanished from the air. They were alone once again.
Chapter 25
Stunned, Davian didn’t move until a moan from Nihim spurred him into motion.
He knelt beside the priest, whose eyes were tight with pain. Davian looked at Nihim’s wound in despair. He tried to cover it with his hands, but the hot, sticky blood just pumped out between his fingers.
“What can I do?” he asked, knowing he was powerless to help.
Nihim exhaled, his breath bubbling, taking a moment to compose himself. “It knew your name,” he said eventually. His tone would have been conversational had it not been forced out through gritted teeth. “That’s odd.”
“Yes.” Davian rubbed his eyes, still trying to process what had happened.
“You made it leave,” said Nihim, his voice weak. “How? What did it say to you?”
“No! No, I didn’t do anything. It sounded… it sounded like Darecian, but I don’t know what it said.” Davian ran his hands through his hair, mindless of the fact that they were still covered in blood. “We need to get you back to the others. Taeris will be able to help you.”
Nihim laughed, though it came out as more of a hacking cough. “You need to get back to the others,” he corrected him. “I fear I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
Nihim coughed again. Already he looked paler, weaker. Then he drew a deep breath, putting a hand on Davian’s shoulder. “You’re a brave lad,” he said. “A good boy, and I appreciate the effort. But there’s no point. I’m fated to die here.”
Davian processed the statement in silence. “You mean… this was Seen?”
Nihim nodded, even that small movement causing his face to twist in pain. “By an old Augur friend, more than twenty
years ago. I’ve been wondering for a long time when this day would come.” He gave a short laugh, a desperate, almost delirious sound. “It seems it’s finally here.”
Davian shook his head in disbelief, cradling Nihim’s head so that the priest would not hurt it against the cold stone floor. “Then why come?”
“To prove a point to Taeris,” wheezed Nihim, a rueful smile on his lips. He held up his hand preemptively as Davian opened his mouth. “No time,” he said in a whisper. “Go.”
Davian half stood, then gave an angry shake of his head, crouching down again. “Fates take it. I’m not going to leave you here.” He grabbed Nihim and lifted him as gently as possible.
Nihim gave a soft laugh, which turned to a moan as Davian began walking. “Stubborn,” he gasped.
Davian crept out into the street again, barely able to carry the weight of the priest. He began moving in the direction in which he had last seen Caeden running, trying to ignore the blood still flowing freely from the gash in Nihim’s stomach. He didn’t know much about such wounds, but he was certain that Nihim would not survive long without assistance.
“I need to rest,” groaned Nihim after a couple of minutes. “Just for a moment. I swear.”
Davian considered protesting, but in truth his arms were ready to give out anyway. He came to a shaky stop, seating the priest on a nearby piece of rubble and turning to face him, careful not to let his emotions show. Nihim was dying, and there was nothing, nothing he could do about it.
Nihim looked up at him. “Listen, lad, there are some things you should know. Taeris hasn’t told you everything.”
“You should save your strength.”
Nihim shook his head. “He’s been waiting for you, Davian. He knew you would come,” he said weakly. “There’s a text from the Old Religion, written by a man called Alchesh, an Augur from two thousand years ago. It talks of the man who will one day stop Aarkein Devaed from destroying the world. Taeris believes that man is you. He thinks that…” He trailed off into a coughing fit, blood seeping from his mouth.
Davian frowned; delirium was clearly setting in. “We can talk about this when we see Taeris,” he said gently.
Nihim shifted, groaning at the motion. “Don’t condescend to me, boy. Listen. The Augur who told me about today… he told me I’d be with someone very important. At the end.” He coughed again, more weakly this time. “Someone whom the Augurs had seen on so many occasions in their visions, over the years, that they considered him to be the center point of this time—the fulcrum on which things in this era turn.”
Davian stared at Nihim with determination. “This clearly isn’t the end, then.”
Nihim gave a weak chuckle, though it quickly died out. “An optimist. I like that.” He paused for a second. “There’s something else, Davian. Taeris has a link to you. It’s dangerous for him. You need to break it, else he will die.” His breath was coming shorter and shorter now. “When you…”
Nihim trailed off. His eyes had gone wide, and he was staring over Davian’s shoulder with an expression of disbelief. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out, and for a moment Davian thought he had passed away.
Too late, he realized that something was coming.
He turned, but the blast caught him in the side. Suddenly he was spinning wildly, tumbling through space. There was agony, as if a hand had reached into his skull and begun squeezing. A scream ripped from his throat, though whether it was from the pain, the terror, or simply the shock he wasn’t sure.
It was like nothing he had ever felt before, ever imagined before. It was as if he had been cast into a raging river of gray smoke, a river of emptiness, of nothing—and the currents were trying to crush his mind, tear it apart, do whatever they could to utterly destroy him. He felt pulled in a thousand different directions at once, but unable to go anywhere. The buildings, the road, Nihim—they had all vanished, dissolved into the endless torrent of twisted void.
He struggled to breathe. It was impossible to say how long he had been in this state—seconds, minutes, or hours—but Davian was filled with a sudden certainty that if he did not escape, he would cease to exist.
Acting on pure instinct he found himself trying to calm his mind, employing every technique he’d ever learned while trying to use Essence. For a terrible moment, he understood that Essence did not—could not—exist here.
Suddenly there was something else. Cold and dark. Flowing though him.
He immediately felt an easing of the pressure on his mind. The sensation was still terribly unpleasant, but what had been a raging torrent around him now moved more slowly, flowing almost calmly past in comparison. He floated in the void, composing himself, the chill substance coursing through him like blood. Looking too closely at the gray smoke streaming past hurt his head, but he tried anyway.
Soon enough he noticed something. A gap, an area lighter than the space around it. He gazed at it, trying to focus in on it, ignoring everything else. It was a beacon in this surreal place—but how to reach it? He knew without looking that he had no physical body here, no legs to carry him.
Instinctively he fixed the light in his mind, then willed himself toward it…
… and the light was directly in front of him. Whether he had gone to it, or it had come to him, he did not know.
He studied the gentle glow. It was… familiar. Inviting. He stared into it for what seemed like only a moment…
… and groaned.
Davian’s head felt as though someone had taken to it with a hammer. He lay still for several seconds, eyes closed, as he tried to assess the situation.
What had happened? He had been in Deilannis, and then… the void. That torrent of gray emptiness. He shifted, feeling cold, chiseled stone beneath him. So he was no longer in that place, at least. He had his body back. That was something.
Slowly he forced his eyes open. A high stone roof greeted his gaze, sturdily made but otherwise unremarkable. It was dim in here, though the light was still bright enough to hurt his eyes until they adjusted. How long had he lain there? Had he been returned to Deilannis, or was he somewhere else? A jolt of adrenaline ran through him as the memories started to come back. Nihim. With an effort he raised his head and looked around.
He was lying atop the altar of what appeared to be a vast temple. Columns stretched away into the darkness in all directions; Davian could not see any walls, any edges at all to whatever this room was. The illumination was coming from a skylight in the roof, but it must have been the only one in the room, for outside the small pool of light—in the center of which Davian now lay—nothing was visible. Everything in the room had a cold grayness to it; though there were no mists, Davian had the immediate sense that he was still somewhere in Deilannis.
“Welcome, Davian. Be at ease. No harm will come to you.”
Davian scrambled to his feet, looking around apprehensively for the source of the words. “Who’s there? How do you know my name?”
The disembodied voice chuckled, though it was a joyless sound. “That is a story.”
Davian slowly stepped back, until he was pressed against the stone altar. “Show yourself.”
There was movement from the shadows, and a man stepped forward into the light. His appearance was unremarkable—mousy-brown hair cropped short, a plain, slightly lumpy face, neither tall nor short, fat nor thin. Yet he carried himself with an air of authority.
There was something else, too, something almost unnoticeable but definitely there. Though there were no physical signs of it, the man’s eyes were old. Weary beyond reckoning.
The stranger slipped something into his pocket, frowning at Davian. Davian tried to shift, to place the altar between himself and the other man, but suddenly found he could not move his feet.
“Do not try using your powers. They will have no effect on me,” said the man absently as he walked closer, squinting as he stared into Davian’s face. He wore a puzzled expression. As he drew near he stopped, a sharp intake of brea
th making a hissing sound as it passed through his teeth.
“You have only one scar,” said the man in disbelief. He looked shaken.
“Yes. One scar. Now tell me who you are and what I’m doing here!” Davian tried not to let panic seep into his tone.
The plain-looking man appeared not to hear him. “Impossible,” he muttered, now standing only a few feet from Davian, who was still powerless to move. The stranger began circling him, staring at him with morose fascination. “I was so sure. So sure. Perhaps the old fool was right after all.” The energy went out of him.
“Are… are you going to kill me?” Davian asked, unable to keep the nervousness from his voice. The man seemed completely mad.
The stranger stopped at the question. He gazed long and hard into Davian’s eyes, then let out a loud laugh, a raucous sound that echoed off into the shadows. “I’m hoping we can avoid that,” he said with a wry shake of his head.
Davian swallowed, not entirely comforted. “Then what do you want of me?”
The man did not reply, continuing to study Davian with an intent expression. Finally he sighed. “I will release you, but only if you swear not to run.”
Davian nodded. “I can do that.”
The man moved to stand directly in front of him, placing a hand against Davian’s forehead. He closed his eyes. “Now repeat after me: ‘I swear I will listen to what you have to say, and judge it fairly. I swear I will not harm you or try to escape from you.’”
Davian felt his brow furrow in confusion, but seeing little alternative, repeated the words. A jolt of energy flashed through him, and there was a brief burning sensation on his left forearm. He jerked, glancing down.
For the first time he realized that his Shackle had somehow fallen off and was lying on the altar next to him; where the Gifted mark had once been on his arm, there was now a simple circle of light. As he watched, the circle faded, dissolving into his skin and vanishing.
The Shadow of What Was Lost Page 32