When Shadows Fall

by Bruce Blake

  He wanted to sleep.

  Light. Darkness. Light. Darkness.

  Teryk’s lids slipped closed. The fragments of words quieted. The pieces of visions vanished. The burden on his soul lifted.

  The pain disappeared.

  XXII Cast Out

  The white edge of N’th Adesi Re’s red smock brushed the floor, swaying side to side as she walked, collecting dust. A leaf that must have found its way in stuck to the sole of someone’s sandal caught under the hem and dragged along for a while, its soft green surface scraping the stone, wearing away. Walking behind the Matron, Ailyssa watched the wayward leaf until it worked itself free and they left it lying in the middle of the hall.

  By itself. Alone.

  The gentle slap of their sandals reverberated along the hall, heard by no one but themselves, at least no one else who could be seen. Ailyssa remembered a time not long after her first bleed when the halls had been cleared for a Matron to escort a Mother after her reckoning. Sylla, her name was, and once she’d been called N’th Sylla Ra. Ailyssa hadn’t seen her make the dreaded walk, but she’d leaned her ear against the door to listen to their sandaled feet tread the hard, cold stone. Those footfalls echoed in her head for seasons after, but she never expected her own feet to produce the same sounds for the same reason. Three births and three deaths, two other children born dead before their time were Sylla’s crime against the Goddess. Not even a son did she bring forth to aid other Mothers in producing Daughters.

  At least I did that.

  As she thought of the expelled Mother again for the first time in so long, she realized Sylla must have scored her wall with as many scratches as did Ailyssa when she walked the empty halls. The occasion of Sylla’s walk was the only instance in recent memory of a Mother banished from the order. Until now.

  “N’th Adesi Re?” Ailyssa’s voice rang along the hall beside their footsteps, harsh in the quiet.

  “Yes?”

  “What ever became of N’th Sylla Ra?”

  “Sylla? I do not know this name,” she said, though her tone and her noticeable exclusion of the woman’s titles suggested the opposite.

  They came to the end of the hall and stopped in front of the gray-painted Mothers' door. More times than she cared to count, Ailyssa had exited through this portal with the other Mothers—at least twice a day since the birth of her first son. Before it opened, she pictured the exercise yard on the other side, the prayer gardens beyond. The courtyard past the gardens, she was less certain of, with its ramparts and great iron portcullis.

  What lay outside the gates, she hoped she’d only ever view from the seat of a Matron’s carriage, a wish never to be.

  N’th Adesi Re faced Ailyssa, her mouth titled in what one might consider a comforting smile if one used imagination.

  “Ready?”

  Ailyssa blinked, hardly believing she’d asked. Ready to what? How did she expect her to answer? Did she want her to say she was ready to relinquish the only life she’d ever known? To leave behind her friends? To be forsaken by the Goddess who gave her life and to whom she’d given hers?

  Hesitant, she nodded. “Yes.”

  Adesi pulled the door open and sunlight streamed in, hurting Ailyssa’s eyes, but she quickly grew accustomed to the light. She wanted to be happy for the sunshine and warmth of the air but, today of all days, she suspected it might be the Goddess taunting her, punishing her in so many tiny ways.

  The Matron led her across the threshold and into the sunlight. The exercise yard lay empty like the hallway. A breeze stirred a dust devil into being, whirled it around the open space, danced it toward the sky until it faded and disappeared. Ailyssa took a step and wobbled, reached out and grasped the back of Adesi’s smock to steady herself.

  “Let me help,” the Matron said and took her by the arm.

  Their feet crunched on dirt and crushed rock as they crossed the yard. Before they reached the midpoint, Ailyssa detected the scent of the prayer gardens carried on the breeze: honeysuckle and rose, lilac, wisteria, and sweet alyssum. As a small girl, she’d pretended she’d been named after sweet alyssum.

  “Whhhhere...” Ailyssa didn’t mean to drag out the word, her mouth had done so on its own. She stopped and swallowed to refocus. “Where will I go, N’th Adesi Re?”

  Adesi squeezed her arm. “I cannot say because I do not know.”

  “Can I come and vvvisit?”

  They’d reached the edge of the prayer gardens and the Matron stopped, turned Ailyssa by the shoulders to face her. For a second, her countenance became a blur lost in the sun. Ailyssa blinked and the Matron’s face returned, her expression tinged with sadness, regret, and compassion that dug a pinprick of hope into Ailyssa’s heart.

  “No, N’th Ailyssa. You will not be permitted into this or any other temple of the Goddess.”

  “N’th Ailyssa Ra,” she corrected.

  “Not anymore.” Adesi took her arm again and led her into the garden. “And you will be N’th no more once you pass through the gates.”

  “But I am Ra. Claris is my Daughter.”

  “Your daughter has done nothing to better you in the eyes of the Goddess.”

  Adesi quickened their pace, hurrying her charge through the deserted gardens. Ailyssa’s eyes darted from flower bed to flower bed, the pinks and whites, blues and yellows blending into indistinct smears of color. Her sandal snagged on an errant rock and she stumbled, might have fallen if not for the Matron’s fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arm. Righted, she blinked hard to clear the tears she thought the cause of her blurred vision, but the world remained hazy around her.

  “Adesi, what’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing, child. We are almost there. Come.”

  Ailyssa dug her feet in, halting the Matron’s efforts to continue. Her vision doubled, her thoughts tumbled through her head, dancing just outside her grasp.

  “Ailyssa,” the Matron snapped, pulling hard on her arm, dragging her along.

  Ailyssa leaned back, tears of frustration and anger distorting N’th Adesi Re’s face into a leering, monstrous visage. Another time, she’d have been scared, but too many other things frightened her about her life already for an illusion to add to her fears. Instead, one thought swam out of the murk twisting in her mind and found its way to her lips.

  “Mmmy sons. Wwwhhhere are my sons?”

  N’th Adesi Re’s hands grasped her shoulders, shook her harder than a woman of the Matron’s age should have had the strength for. Ailyssa’s teeth rattled, her head spun sending nausea into her gut.

  “You have no sons,” Adesi yelled, her breath warm on Ailyssa’s face. “They ceased to be the day they left your womb.”

  “No! I sssaaawww the youngest. He’s...he’s...he...”

  Ailyssa’s legs refused to support her any longer. She sagged in Adesi’s grip and her weight proved too much for the Matron. She floated to the ground, landed more gently than she should have, and realized Adesi had the good sense to at least lower if she couldn’t catch her, to prevent the cobblestones from injuring her.

  Her head touched the path and she lay staring at a green smudge of moss struggling for space between two of the walk’s stones. Adesi spoke words likely meant either for comfort or condemnation, but Ailyssa’s ears were beyond hearing, her mind beyond comprehending.

  “Wwwwhere’ssss my other ssssssonnn...?”

  In a haze, she felt hands upon her, more than just Adesi’s, and the ground fell away beneath her. The scents of the gardenia and jasmine growing at the center of the prayer gardens found her nose, struggled their way into her mind the way the moss forced its way between the cobblestones. As the hands bore her to an unknown destination, she wondered if she’d ever smell them again, but then their aromas faded, her head settled, and the day that might have been beautiful but wasn’t blissfully disappeared.

  ***

  The world faded in and out, carrying with it the rattle of wagon boards, the nickering of horses, indistinc
t voices. Ailyssa neither saw nor felt anything during the snatches of time the vague and distant sounds reached her ears. They came to her as though through an impenetrable fog, a dream, then disappeared again.

  The rushing of water wooshed around inside her head, came into focus, and this time remained for more than an instant. Ailyssa concentrated on it, filled with the sense of floating above it, hovering, hearing, but observing in no other way. Unease stirred inside her, the first time she recalled anything but the sounds since...since...?

  Finally, something else came to her. An odor. It took time for her muddled mind to discern it, identify it. First, she needed to understand if she truly detected a scent, then she set to recognizing it.

  Bread. Someone is baking bread.

  Someone.

  Water flowing. Bread baking.

  She sniffed deeply, heard the air entering her nostrils amongst the gurgle and tumble of running liquid, inhaled the aroma of bread and earth, the scent of water touching warm rocks.

  A tickle on the tip of her nose. An ache in her upper arm. Her stomach growled. Her head thrummed.

  They poisoned me. Drugged me. How...?

  Ailyssa's tongue grated across her parched lips, tried to swallow but found nothing to wet her dry throat.

  It must have been in the water.

  The rest of the world around her returned all at once, inundating her senses, taxing them. She pressed her eyelids closed tight lest adding vision might prove too much for her addled mind. Her breath flowed in and out of her chest, and she concentrated on this. Fill her lungs, empty her lungs, fill them, empty them, fill, empty.

  After a time, the sounds and smells, tickles and pains and itches faded to a bearable level, a background of noise that didn’t demand her attention and her body chose to ignore.

  A foot twitched. An elbow bent. Ailyssa’s fingers touched her cheek, her nails scratching her flesh lightly, startling her. It tingled, itched, faded to the background with the noises. Satisfied her mind had recovered enough, she forced her eyelids open.

  Nothing.

  Ailyssa pushed herself up to a sitting position, aware she heard no creak of wagon boards or nickering horses, and her stomach lurched with the movement, threatened to empty itself. Her throat spasmed. Once, twice. She leaned to the side, resting on an elbow, as her body worked to expel everything it found.

  Bitter-tasting bile filled her mouth. She spat it out, gagged, heaved, spat.

  Ragged breaths rattled along her raw throat and Ailyssa wiped her forearm across her lips, her sleeve’s fabric softer than she expected. She spat again, clearing the vile fluid from her tongue, and her breathing eased, allowing her to return her attention to the last of her senses.

  Slowly, she returned to sitting, careful not to set her stomach on its side again. She slid her eyelids closed, inhaled through her nose, and filled her lungs in the hope of calming her mind.

  Please let me see, Goddess. Please—

  Memory flashed in Ailyssa’s mind, cutting the silent prayer short. Marks on a stone wall, a garden for prayer, an emptiness in her heart. Adesi had told her the Goddess would no longer listen for her prayers. She’d failed to honor the giver-of-life and, in return, the Mothers and Matrons, the Goddess herself, cast her out.

  Eyes still closed, hoping time might heal her sight, Ailyssa ran her hand along her sleeve, her leg. Her fingers told her she no longer wore the thick, durable smock of the Order, but a cotton shirt and roughspun skirt. They’d taken away her titles, destroyed her faith, and they’d even stripped her of her robes. With a sigh, she let her hands fall into her lap. Her shoulders sagged and her head dipped forward.

  She sat that way for a short time, despair pressing on her and flattening her spirit, until she thought of the life yet remaining in her. If this was the life the Goddess meant for her, then this was the life she’d live and make the best of.

  “I will see,” she said, raising her head.

  A bird twittered overhead, perched on a branch of rustling leaves. A corner of Ailyssa’s mouth curved upward. Surely this was an answer, confirmation that all she needed was a positive attitude and everything would sort itself. The start of a new life; an opportunity to be whatever she wanted to be.

  Ailyssa sucked at her bottom lip, preparing herself to open her eyes and view her surroundings, ignoring the lack of light glowing through her closed lids. Her hearing and touch had come back gradually, and so it would be with her sight: dim at first, then blurred, then returning.

  “This is how it shall be.”

  She cracked one eyelid open, but saw nothing, so closed it again.

  “I have to open them further,” she said aloud. The bird above her chirped encouragement.

  She opened both eyes fully, hope bursting in her chest, then disappearing.

  Darkness. Black.

  She blinked, waved a hand in front of her face, the wind of the movement brushing her cheeks and fluttering her lashes.

  Nothing.

  Despair flooded into Ailyssa’s chest unhindered, sapping energy from her limbs, constricting her heart, clogging her throat. She tilted her head back and sobbed toward the sky. Overhead, a startled bird’s wings beat the air, fleeing the sound and the anguish she hurled into the world.

  The woman Ailyssa, formerly N’th Alyssa Ra, once a Mother of the Order of the Goddess, put her face in her hands and wept.

  XXIII Search

  The noise within the tavern was near loud enough to make a man’s ears bleed. People shouted, flagons clanked, coins jingled, boots shuffled and danced. Oily smoke from the lanterns hanging at intervals around the room swirled together with the cloud of stinking, stagnant fumes exhaled by the patrons’ sweetweed pipes, the concoction stinging Trenan’s eyes.

  A battle is a more enjoyable place.

  But they hadn’t entered the public house for enjoyment. The master swordsman contemplated the cup of mead on the table in front of him, but the knots in his stomach kept him from imbibing, no matter how parched he might be. He raised his eyes to study the princess sitting across from him as she scanned the crowd, searching for a sign of her brother. They’d both already realized he wasn’t in the tavern; she searched anyway, ever the devoted sister. Devoted enough that, in order to protect the prince, she continued to threaten Trenan with allegations that might cost him his life, but she forgot her threats may also be exacerbating the danger her brother was in.

  If Trenan told the king, he’d send a phalanx of armored men sweeping through the outer city, turning over every stone until they found Teryk. What happened after his recovery surely wouldn’t be enjoyable for the prince and princess, but they’d both be alive, and sometimes you just needed to accept the lumps you deserved.

  The irony of the thought struck the master swordsman as he found himself still seated in a noisy outer city tavern trying to avoid the lumps he likely deserved.

  “We should talk to more people,” Danya said, peering across the table at him. Her eyes darted away and back every time someone passed by close to them.

  Trenan set his elbow on the table and leaned in to better make himself heard.

  “Let me tell them we search for the prince, your grace.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He shook his head. “Danya. Someone will remember if they saw the prince, but they may not remember a blond man-child approaching the twentieth day of his birth.”

  “No. He won’t tell anyone who he is,” she said with absolute surety.

  “Perhaps he was recognized.”

  “And he’s disguised.”

  Frustration sent bitter saliva across Trenan’s tongue. He leaned against the back of the chair, rubbed his aching shoulder, and ground his teeth to keep from saying angry words to the princess he might later regret. He suspected the time to say such things may be fast approaching.

  “We have to do something,” he grated.

  “You can ask—”

  “We’ve asked,” Trenan snapped. He stood abruptly,
sending his chair tumbling backward into the man standing behind him. The man turned, a snarl on his lips, but thought better of his actions when he saw the threatening expression on Trenan’s countenance. “We must do more than describe a young man who’s one among thousands. We need to tell them for whom we search.”

  Danya stood, her own expression clearly stating that Trenan’s sneer didn’t frighten her.

  “If you do, I’ll tell father.”

  To the master swordsman, it felt as though his chest squeezed tight around his heart, choking it. He didn’t care what might happen to him if the king knew the truth, but he couldn’t allow whatever consequences his knowing would mean for Ishla. Clearly, they didn’t concern the princess. He grasped the edge of the table and leaned toward her, lowering his voice.

  “Someone is going to die because of you.”

  Her eyes widened briefly before narrowing again.

  “No, someone will be saved because of me.”

  She disappeared into the crowd. Trenan considered going after her, but doing so would likely ensure an argument and slow them further in their quest to find the prince.

  She is confident like her mother, and reckless like her father. A dangerous combination.

  He pulled the chair back to the table, legs scraping the wooden floor, and sat, heaved a smoke-filled breath. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and finger, pinched the bridge of his nose. Caring for children wasn’t how he’d imagined his life, but one long-ago heroic battle ended his warrior dreams, saving the king, losing him his arm, and ending him up here.

  Not a day went by he didn’t regret it.

  Without that one action, his life would be so different. He’d have his arm, the command of an army, and nothing standing between him and the woman he loved. If only he’d...

  “No,” he murmured and moved his hand away from his face.

  If he’d chosen differently and not stepped in front of the king and saved the regent’s life, he’d have been unable to live with himself. But the agony of inaction would have outweighed the torture of a love that could not be, the ever-present ache in an arm that no longer existed.