A Shadow's Tale

by Jennifer Hanlon

  Armen took me through the outskirts of the city to a small house where a lamp burned with a silver flame. He knocked three times on the door. It opened immediately to show a pale-looking Arellan. She wrapped me in a bear hug so fierce I thought my bones would crack under the pressure. Ushering Armen and me into the house, she quickly shut and barred the door. Only then did I realise that there were tears streaking down my face once more and that my limbs were still quivering in shock. Arellan knelt down in front of me, rubbing my arms in reassurance.

  ‘It is okay, Alexai, it is okay. It is over now. He cannot hurt you. You are safe.’

  She took my hand, leading me up the stairs to a bathing room. She directed me to sit on the raised side of the bathing pool as she began running water into it. Taking out a small chest from one of the many storage holes in the walls, she knelt in front of me, gently taking my face in her hands and turning it so as to be able to see the wound better. I flinched as she touched it, instinctively pulling away. She softly shushed me, murmuring reassurances as she took a small jar from the chest, using a finger to gently use the cream to clean out the wound as I tried not to squirm.

  After bathing and eating, Arellan took me to a small room close to hers. I nestled under the blankets, clean, warm and fed. She gently dropped a kiss on my forehead, smoothing my hair and checking the dressing she had put over my wound before straightening up, moving towards the door. I squeaked in fear, suddenly afraid of being left on my own again, jumping out of bed and racing to her side.

  ‘Please don’t leave me,’ I begged, knotting my fists in her robes.

  ‘It is okay, Alexai,’ she said quietly, leading me back and tucking me under the blankets again. Instead of leaving, she sat on the edge of the bed, stroking my hair. ‘I will not leave you.’ I felt my eyelids droop as she began to hum softly, then to sing in a quiet voice. ‘Sleep well, my little one.’

  I stayed with my mother for almost a month. I had been away in Aspheri for nearly a week, according to Arellan. Time passed differently between the dimensions. Now that Arias knew I was no longer in Aspheri, regular patrols of the City Guard searched the streets and houses. Armen thought it better that I didn’t go to see Merlas as he didn’t know who he could trust in the stables. I missed her terribly. He and Arellan had found a dimension I could go to, and Armen taught me several languages I may have to speak to be understood. When the patrols came round to search Arellan’s house, he took me to the Great Library. He said that it was in another dimension, the one I was going to be moving to, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the Library to see what it was like outside. Armen was terrified of losing sight of me. I settled down into some semblance of a normal routine, learning with Arellan and Armen. She taught me about different cultures and helped me learn how to behave with other people, reversing my somewhat stinted education in that area. Armen taught me how to defend myself. I never wanted that time to end. But all good things must.

  He came late one night. Arellan was just tucking me into bed when he knocked on the door. She ruffled my hair, saying that it was probably just Armen coming back without his keys. I giggled quietly, snuggling down under the blankets with the cuddly wolf toy Arellan had made for me. I listened to her start to walk down the stairs. It felt as if an icy hand had touched the base of my spine. Something was wrong. Something very wrong. I slipped out of bed, following Arellan. I paused at the top of the stairs, watching her cross the floor towards the door. I watched her open it. Her scream pierced the air. She slammed the door shut again.

  ‘Arellan!’ I yelled, running down the stairs to her.

  ‘Alexai, you have to run. You have to get away. Far away from here, okay?’ she said, bracing herself against the door as she slid the bolts home. I raced to her side, desperate for her reassurance. I could sense fear in her mind, hear the rapid beat of her heart, smell the cold sweat that had begun to break out over her skin.

  ‘What is happening, Arellan? Who was that?’

  Arellan looked down at me, kneeling down and hugging me tightly, burying her face in my hair for a brief moment. She straightened up, holding my arms tightly as she looked at me. Only one word, one name escaped her lips: ‘Karthragan.’

  Something thudded against the door again. He was losing patience fast. Black magic surrounded the wooden door, crushing it to charred splinters. Standing in the dark, red eyes gleaming, was the creature of my nightmares. Arellan took my face in her hands, resting her forehead briefly against mine before pushing me towards the back door, begging me to run, to hide, to get away from here. I crouched behind a dresser, terrified. Arellan turned to face him, preparing herself. I have never seen a sight so beautiful yet so terrifyingly lethal as Arellan readying herself for battle. Her magic created a whirlwind around her, lifting her black hair into a halo around her head, her robes twisting and writhing like some sort of living creature. I could feel the magic in the air, the dry and static feeling that put my hair on end. A fierce angel. A warrior angel. The Messenger Angel. But even her white magic wouldn’t be a match for Karthragan’s determination. I couldn’t let her fight alone.

  I raced back towards her, calling up my own black magic. I threw bolt after bolt at him. Nothing made any difference. Arellan begged me to flee. I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave her to face him alone. Not when I knew what he had done to her. What he had done so that he could continue the prophecy. I ducked a bolt of his magic, retaliating with one of my own. He then turned his attention fully to me, ignoring Arellan completely. I dodged another bolt. But I hadn’t realised he had shot two. The second was so close. I couldn’t move. My eyes were fixed with terror on a flash of light that could end my life. A blur of white masked my vision. A blur I recognised a heartbeat too late.

  ‘Arellan, no!’ I screamed. Too late. She fell to the ground with a thud. A black scorch marred the front of her robes. I knelt beside her, shaking her shoulder. ‘Arellan? Arellan, please get up!’ The room blurred as tears clouded my eyes. Why wouldn’t she respond? Her blue eyes were staring at the ceiling, unseeing, uncaring. From somewhere far above me, Karthragan’s cruel laughter echoed. Arellan’s robes turned red. Anger boiled up within me, surging through the dam that held my emotions back. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about keeping my magic under control or not being noticed by the Senate. I cared for vengeance. Vengeance for my mother’s death. Arellan, who had done nothing wrong. I straightened up. A growl scraped the back of my throat. Karthragan raised a hand to strike.

  ‘You are no match for me, Wolf. Tonight, the prophecy ends.’

  Unleashing a feral snarl, I leapt at him. Black magic gathered behind him, forming a black disc in the air as I barrelled him backwards. The portal closed, sealing him on the other side. I blinked until my vision returned to normal, kneeling beside Arellan.

  ‘Arellan? Please, Arellan, wake up!’ I begged, shaking her shoulder. Her head rolled limply to the side. With my vision blurring again, I crawled under her arm, snuggling up to her body. Beneath my cheek, her robes grew wet as her icy hand cradled me to her.

  Sometime later, Armen burst into the house. He scooped me up into his arms, running back out into the streets. I screamed, clawing at him to let me go back to Arellan’s side. The shoulder of his robes tore beneath my claw-like nails, but it didn’t deter him, not even as his blood began to drip down to stain the shredded cloth. He strode into the stables, not stopping until we reached Merlas’s stall. The doe shot to her hooves, nuzzling my hair.

  ‘What has happened, little one?’ she asked in deep concern. I said nothing, clinging onto her mane as I tried to breathe through my sobs. Armen threw the saddle over Merlas’s back, quickly doing up the straps. Disentangling my hand from her mane, he hoisted me up onto the doe, grabbing the guidance loop and running out into the field.

  ‘Shadow, it’s time for you to leave. To go to that other dimension. Now that Arellan is gone, you will have no one to protect you from the Senate. You will be blamed for her death. So run. R
un as fast as you can. Stay close to Merlas and she will protect you.’ He slung a satchel across my torso, reaching up to hug me one last time as he whispered a quick blessing of good luck. Pulling back, he slapped Merlas on the rump, sending her forward in a full gallop before the jarring transition to flight. In a single flash of light, she flew through a different night’s sky.

  * * *

  We hid in a cave for several days, the walls soon turning a charred black as I released wave after wave of magic in my grief. Merlas attempted to get me to eat during these times, bringing me her fresh kill and fruit she had found. I rejected each notion forcefully, throwing the food back at her. Often, she threatened to leave and not come back, but she never did. She would fly off in a huff before returning and tucking me under a wing while I cried myself to sleep.

  A week passed before I opened the bag Armen had given me. I found a book of magic he had put together for me, Arellan’s brooch and some sort of small booklet with a picture of me and details I didn’t understand. A note in Armen’s careful, spiked handwriting called it a ‘passport’. It would allow me to start my life here, and it was time for me to start living again. Merlas agreed. Using a spell from the book, I cloaked Merlas’s wings so that she could pass as one of the wingless ‘horses’ of this dimension. She dropped down onto her knees so that I could scramble up onto her back. Standing up again, she shook herself energetically, raising a cloud of dust from her coat. I grabbed onto her mane.

  ‘Please don’t do that,’ I gasped. Merlas snickered quietly to herself, walking forwards at my command.

  We found ourselves in a town not far away from where we had been hiding. People stopped to stare as we walked through the streets. I touched the pendant that had been in Armen’s bag, a nugget of silver enveloped in bronze. It kept my magic in control without causing me pain while also casting an illusion to make me appear human, turning my purple hair black and my eyes blue. Hopefully, it would be enough to fool the humans. Strange metal things that I had read to be ‘cars’ rushed past. Merlas shied away from them, starting to prance, rearing slightly. I gripped the guidance loop tightly, trying to stay calm for her sake. I tugged on her mane twice, signalling to her to put our plan into action. There was no way I could just go up to the City Guard and present myself. Armen had suggested in the letter that we stage an accident. The City Guard would be more accommodating of any questions I couldn’t answer if I appeared to be in a state of shock.

  Merlas acted perfectly. A car roared past her at some speed. She squealed, rearing and pawing at the air. I screamed, clutching at her mane. People began to fuss around us. A couple of humans trying to grab hold of Merlas, but she danced out of her grasp. Her front hooves touched the ground only long enough for her to charge forwards, bucking madly. I screamed again, letting myself slide from her back.

  The ground seemed infinitely softer from atop Merlas than landing on it. The black coating on it was as hard as a rock. I whimpered from my heap under my cloak where I had landed. Humans swarmed around me, asking if I was okay. Someone managed to catch Merlas, or rather she allowed someone to catch her. A man in a blue uniform crouched over me.

  ‘Hey there, are you okay?’ I looked up at the man, a human male, blinking a couple of times as I tried to refocus my mind. The fall had shaken me more than I had anticipated.

  I didn’t need to pretend to appear unfocused as I asked the question most likely to be the first to cross a person’s mind.

  ‘What happened?’ I murmured.

  ‘You fell off your horse. Don’t worry, we’ve got her. Come on, let’s get you checked out at the hospital.’ A team of people with a stretcher moved all of the humans out of the way before helping me onto it. I had to admit that I hurt all over. My back was killing me. I made a mental note to remember to check the surface of any ground I was planning to landing on.

  The healer shone a bright light into my eyes. I flinched away, squeezing my eyelids shut to stop the glare hurting, trying not to growl at him. Someone had taken away my cloak and clothes, replacing them with a flimsy, backwards robe sort of thing that was open at the back. It was highly uncomfortable as well as being undignified. I lay on a bed with railings around the edge, being examined by these people for injuries. I heard some muffled swearing as one of the healers ran a hand over the scars on my back, remnants of Meran’s actions and my rigorous training. The healer withdrew from the small, curtained cubicle I was in to talk to someone else. I strained my ears to listen to their hushed conversation.

  ‘Apart from a few bruises and a very minor concussion, there seems to be nothing wrong with the girl, she just won’t, or can’t, tell us who or where her parents are, nor where they live. Social services have done a check on her name, but they couldn’t find much in the way of information. No school records, no medical records, just a birth certificate with both parents listed as ‘unknown’.’

  ‘What do you think caused those scars on her back?’

  ‘We can only guess. The child isn’t very forthcoming with information. Hardly surprising, she’s still in shock. My guess is that she has been abused somehow. It would also explain how she came to be on a horse in the middle of Forfar.’

  ‘Fear would certainly give a child enough confidence to get on a horse far too big for her in order to flee.’

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘I guess we hand her over to a children’s home. Not much we can do for her.’

  Arellan’s Lullaby

  Dreamweaver

  Dreamweaver walks alone at night,

  Travelling though his realm of dreams.

  In his hands, he holds a world,

  Shimmering softly at his touch.

  He comes to you, softly stepping,

  To weave his web of dreams.

  The pegusi fly through the sky,

  beating wings, the rhythm of the dream.

  Dreamweaver comes to comfort you.

  Chasing, running with the wolf,

  Racing through his world of dreams,

  Dreamweaver comes to set you free.

  Dreamweaver walks alone at night,

  Travelling though his realm of dreams.

  In his hands, he holds a world,

  Shimmering softly at his touch.

  He comes to you, softly stepping,

  To weave his web of dreams.

  The raven’s wings, gleaming bright,

  Soaring through the warmth of sunlight.

  Dreamweaver weaves his spells for you.

  The panther stalks his prey at night,

  Returns at dawn to his belov’d.

  Dreamweaver weaves his world

  Dreamweaver walks alone at night,

  Travelling though his realm of dreams.

  In his hands, he holds a world,

  Shimmering softly at his touch.

  He comes to you, softly stepping,

  To weave his web of dreams.

  PART 2

  EARTH – THE ACADEMY YEARS

  Eight years later

  I hit the wooden floor of the children’s home with a resounding thud. My cheek stung from the hit Stone had delivered. I glared up at him through the curtain of black hair that fell over my face. My skin burned under my fingers as I touched the reddening flesh. Eight years, I had put up with this. Eight whole years to the day since Arellan died. Eight years since my world was turned upside down by the dimension transfer. I ran my fingers over the pendant in the shape of an angel that I had never taken off since the day the police had found me. A last gift from the people who had cared for me even though I was not even worth the dirt on the bottom of their shoes. And though no one in this dimension knew who I really was, I was still no better than the lowest of the low. A child no one wanted. A nothing.

  Stone stood over me, fists clenched, daring me to get up. Normally, I would have stayed down and accepted it. But not today. Today I fought. I scrambled to my feet, launching a punch of my own. My fist hit his nose, blood spurting onto my hand, the cartilage
giving way easily under the impact. His eyes narrowed. The fight was on. His cronies backed off as we circled each other. Demoness against human. Son of Man against daughter of Evil. They didn’t know that, but I did. That’s all that mattered. I would not back down from this fight. Memories of sparring with Armen surged through my mind. The moves, the grace, the fluidity as each punch and kick flowed into another. The other children gathered in a wide circle, egging us on. More specifically, egging Stone on. They knew that whoever won, if they didn’t support Stone, their lives were going to be miserable for a long time. My nails scraped his cheek, leaving three bloody scratches. His foot collided with my stomach, winding me. I launched myself at him with a renewed anger, screaming in Synari, not caring about the pain in my gut. All I cared about was winning this fight, proving myself to be just as good as they were. The housemothers broke through the circle of children, grabbing at Stone and me, dragging us off each other. I still screamed, fighting against their hold.

  They hauled me away, throwing me through a door into a tiny room. The time-out closet. Didn’t I know it well. There were two such closets in the home, for children who got a little out of hand and needed to cool down. I had managed to go a whole year without having to be shut in one, and with good reason. No one wanted to be stuck in there. The room was about a metre squared. The door only opened from the outside. The floor and walls were hard. There was no way out. I leant my back against the wall, letting myself slide down until I was sitting on the floor. Wiping my bloody nose on my sleeve, I hugged my knees to my chest and I rested my head against my arms, toying with a lock of black hair. I kind of missed having purple hair. It defined who I was, but I didn’t dare take the necklace off in case my magic went haywire, or someone walked in. Sighing heavily, I started to use one of the breathing techniques Arellan had taught me. My anger began to drain away, leaving the strange feeling of heartache I always experienced when I thought of my mother. Curling up tighter on myself, I let my mind wander back to those few weeks I had spent with my mother, getting to know her, learning from her, imagining what it would be like to still be with her. Losing myself in this land of make believe, I waited until the housemothers came to let me out.