The Outstretched Shadow

by Mercedes Lackey

  I’ve never been anything more than an object to him; a trophy, something to show off to the other Mages. The proof that his bloodline breeds true.

  The realization carried with it a sense of loss so intense it shocked him, for Kellen had thought he had nothing left to lose, and the realization that he did took him by surprise. But it was true. Lycaelon did not even treat his servants as badly as he treated his only son. He only ignored his servants, and sent them away if they displeased them. He’d showed his son no such mercy. For Kellen there had been no escape from that constant torture in all the years of his life.

  Until now.

  Now Kellen saw an escape. And he was going to take it.

  “HAVE you nothing to say?” Lycaelon said, his voice growing harsh and impatient. “I see,” he said after a pause that Kellen did nothing to fill. “You persist in your ignorant defiance. No doubt you have some childish romantic notion of Banishment, of making a life for yourself outside the City. Allow me to disabuse you of one more infantile delusion. I shall explain to you precisely the terms of your Banishment, and you shall have one last chance to recant.”

  You’d like that, wouldn’t you? After all, if I don’t recant—you lose. You lose the game, you lose face, and you lose me. Surprise, Father. You lost me a long time ago.

  “At sunset, you will be stripped of your Talisman, don the Felon’s Cloak, and be set outside the walls of the City. The terms of Banishment are these: that you have until sunrise to be outside the boundaries of the City lands, or face the Outlaw Hunt. At dawn, the City gates will open again and the Outlaw Hunt will fare forth to hunt you down and tear you to pieces if you are still within our bounds. But I will tell you one thing more: the Outlaw Hunt will certainly reach you.”

  Lycaelon took a step nearer. Another. And his voice descended to a sinister growl.

  “Do not delude yourself about that. No power under the heavens could carry you to the edge of the City lands in a night—not the fastest horse ever foaled, were you permitted to claim a horse from the City stables, could bear you beyond the boundaries of the City lands. Banishment is a death sentence. No one has ever escaped an Outlaw Hunt. No one!”

  Kellen glanced up then, shocked at the triumph in his father’s voice, and caught Lycaelon’s smile of victory. The Arch-Mage was certain he’d won, certain that now Kellen would give in, give up, submit tamely to punishment and public humiliation.

  But he hadn’t counted on the depth of Kellen’s anger.

  “I’ll die then! I’d rather die—it’s better than living on your terms, as your lackey, as your nothing, as less than a dog that eats your scraps!” Kellen shouted. He took a step forward, unable to control himself any longer, fists clenched until they ached.

  In the cool azure Magelight, he could see the dark blood fill his father’s face until Lycaelon’s complexion was nearly purple. The Arch-Mage took a step backward, raising his hand.

  “By the Light, I should have known you’d live down to your bad blood!” Lycaelon roared, his voice thick with fury. The Arch-Mage whirled, flinging the cell door open with a gesture, then cast a killing look over his shoulder at Kellen. “There’s bad blood in you from your mother’s folk—you’re just like your sister, and you’ll come to the same end!”

  Lycaelon stepped out into the hallway. The door of Kellen’s cell slammed between them so hard the wood groaned and protested, the sound deafeningly loud in such a small space. The echoes of its crash blotted out any sound Lycaelon might have made in his departure.

  Kellen stood where he was for a long moment, his heart hammering in his chest until he thought it might burst. At last he drew a deep breath and moved shakily over to the stone bench, sitting down carefully. He’d won—he thought he’d won—but it didn’t feel like it. The unleashed anger of Arch-Mage was more than a temper tantrum. It could have serious consequences for everyone in his presence. Kellen felt ill with more than the aftermath of his own fury. He leaned his head against the cold stone of the wall and tried to slow his racing heart.

  After a few moments he felt better. Lycaelon hadn’t been trying to hurt him at the last. Why should he? According to him, by morning, the Outlaw Hunt was going to rip the Arch-Mage’s inconvenient son to pieces.

  Just like it had his sister.

  Sister?

  Puzzled, Kellen forced himself to concentrate on Lycaelon’s parting words, setting aside his other painful thoughts. “You’re just like your sister,” Lycaelon had shouted … but Kellen didn’t remember having a sister, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you just forgot.

  Although she’d probably died before he’d been born. Died, another victim of the Outlaw Hunt, probably spending some of her last bells in this very cell.

  He wondered what she’d done. He hoped, whatever it was, that it had been something really, truly excessive. Not something like theft or murder—but something bold and brave, a strike against Lycaelon and for freedom.

  Something worth dying for.

  He looked up. The Magelight was still there, hovering near the ceiling. Lycaelon had been so furious when he left that he’d forgotten to summon it to follow him. Well, it would have to stay there until Lycaelon or some other Mage came back to retrieve it.

  Kellen grinned irrepressibly, his spirits recovering a little. Maybe it would stay there forever. Lycaelon had been so furious when he left that he’d probably forgotten about it completely, and nobody was likely to remind him.

  He guessed whatever his lost sister had done to merit Banishment, it had been pretty annoying after all.

  Chapter Eight

  By the Light of the Moon

  A SHORT TIME later, two Constables in the deep scarlet uniform of the City Watch opened the door to Kellen’s cell once again. Both carried the long halberds that—along with the truncheons slung at their belts—were the only weapons of the Watch. Kellen supposed he ought to be grateful the Council hadn’t sent the Guard and a couple of detachments of the Militia as well. Then again, there wouldn’t be enough room for them down here.

  “Time for you to go, boy,” the older one said, not unkindly. Despite the gentleness of his tone, Kellen noticed the man did not look directly toward him. Neither of them did. It was as if Kellen had already begun to cease to exist.

  The Constable tossed a leather day-pack to the floor of the cell. It skidded across the smooth stone floor until it bumped gently against Kellen’s feet.

  “Best you check that all’s accounted for there. I’ll have no one saying that prisoners are ill done by on my watch.”

  Because it seemed to be expected of him, Kellen leaned over from his seat on the stone bench and picked up the pack. It was cheap leather, held shut with crude horn toggles. He opened it. Inside was a flat loaf of penance-bread—of the sort that minor criminals condemned to bread-and-water punishments were forced to subsist on—and a waterskin. He hefted it experimentally. It sloshed, full.

  Kellen replaced both items in the pack and closed it, and put it back down on the floor, his throat suddenly tight. He looked up and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  This was no game. They were really going to do it. This was supposed to be food and water for the journey, to preserve the fiction that there would be a journey of Banishment, one that didn’t end with sunrise and the release of the Outlaw Hunt.

  He wondered if either of the Constables knew that every Banishment ended in death. He wondered if either of them would believe him if he told them. Or care. After all, he was a lawbreaker, or he wouldn’t be getting Banished right now, so how much consideration did a lawbreaker deserve?

  “And this.” The Senior Constable tossed a bundle of bright yellow cloth toward Kellen. It landed in the middle of the floor. Kellen got slowly to his feet and picked it up. His legs were still a bit shaky, and he took a deep breath, refusing to show these two strangers any hint of what he was feeling now.

  It was a thin hooded cloak of coarse weaving, its fabric of the cheapest possible material. The black sy
mbol of Felony had been painted on its back with thin tar, making the fabric there stiff. It tied at the throat with a drawstring.

  “You’ll be wanting to put that on before we go. But first, we’ll be needing your Talisman. You don’t belong to the City anymore,” the Senior Constable said, a little less patient now.

  Slowly Kellen worked the golden rectangle up from beneath his clothes and slipped the long golden chain off over his neck. He tossed the Talisman, chain and all, to the floor. It struck the stone with a high sweet ringing sound, and even though he knew what the Talisman really represented, being without it made Kellen feel oddly naked.

  The Junior Constable reached out with his halberd and scooped the Talisman across the floor to where he could pick it up, transferring it to a pouch that hung at his belt. His face was set in firm lines of disapproval. The Senior Constable just looked tired and old.

  Kellen felt paralyzed with inertia. As if, as long as he just stood here, it wasn’t real, and nothing would happen.

  “Well, go on, boy. Sun’s westering, and you’ve got to be out of the City by dusk,” the Senior Constable said. He stared, not at Kellen, but at some place on the wall just behind Kellen’s shoulder.

  Setting his jaw, Kellen bent down and picked up the pack, slipping it on over his shoulders. He picked up the cloak next—shoddy workmanship, the coarse cloth barely suitable for sacking vegetables, for all its lurid color, but at least it was clean, having obviously never been used before—and flung it over his shoulders. He resisted the momentary urge to pull the hood up over his face. He had nothing to hide. It was the Council that should be hiding their faces in shame, not him! He’d done nothing he was ashamed of, while they—they’d lied, cheated, stolen … and the worst of it was, most of their victims didn’t even know it.

  He straightened and faced the two Constables once more. Both of them held their halberds in front of them, as if they were afraid he might be tempted to attack them. The Junior Constable was unable to keep from flicking suspicious glances upward at the ball of hovering Magelight, as if he suspected Kellen of having something to do with it.

  Not me. Blame that one on the Arch-Mage.

  Silently they stepped back, indicating he should go before them through the open door of the cell.

  In silence, Kellen preceded the two Constables down the hallway along which he’d been dragged by the stone golems such a short time earlier. He felt numb, still unable to completely believe this was happening to him, even with the harsh dye-smell of the Felon’s Cloak tickling his nostrils, and the lying weight of the day-pack tugging at his shoulders, filled with rations for a journey he would not live to complete. He, Kellen Tavadon, was being Banished from the Golden City!

  Only it wasn’t really Banishment, was it? It was execution, a death sentence carried out in such a way that the High Council could pretend to be merciful, so that their victims could cherish hope until the very last moment, so that the citizens of Armethalieh would never know that they were being governed by a pack of murderers.

  At the foot of the stairs that led to the surface he stopped, wanting to say something, to tell them the truth, only to receive the sharp prod of a halberd point in the small of the back.

  “None of that,” the Senior Constable said quietly. “Don’t say nothin’, lad. You’re not to talk to us.”

  In mutinous silence, Kellen climbed the stairs. He wasn’t surprised to find that this time they led directly to the outside world. He was in the courtyard directly outside the Council House, a short walk from the Delfier Gate. The lesser gates of gilded bronze, set into the Great Gate that hadn’t been opened in all of Kellen’s lifetime, stood open, glowing gold in the last rays of the setting sun, and as he took a step toward them, the bells of the City began to ring the Evensong.

  First one bell—the great crystal bell in the Main Temple of the Light—began to toll, in long ringing notes that hung in the air, and then, at its signal, every bell in the City joined in, each with its own special tone and cadence, until the air was filled with sound. Last of all, the deep-throated golden bell of the Council House itself joined in, so close that Kellen’s bones vibrated with every stroke.

  If he turned and looked, he could see Tavadon House from where he stood, but another jab in the back discouraged that impulse before it was fully formed. Herded forward like a pig to market, Kellen approached the Delfier Gate, feeling more alone than he’d ever felt in his life.

  Beneath his feet were the usual eight-sided granite cobblestones that covered most of the better City streets. At the gate, they stopped abruptly, as if to underscore the fact that here Civilization ended. Beyond was a wide well-used dirt road, hammered smooth by generations of trade caravans and farm carts. Conscious of the two Constables at his back—and the round dozen uniformed City Guards waiting to close and bar the gates—Kellen walked out of the City.

  For the first and last time.

  THE lesser gates—together only large enough to admit a single cart at a time—clanked shut behind him, and through, the chiming of the City bells, Kellen heard the booming of the bolts being thrown home, cutting him off from the City forever.

  He looked back.

  On the inside, the walls and gates of Armethalieh were lavishly ornamented. The gates were gilded bronze, covered with bas-relief sculpture depicting the joys of living in the City. The walls themselves were glazed and colored tile. Even in the poorest quarters of the City, the City wall itself was a work of art, beautifully painted if nothing else.

  Outside was a different matter, so it seemed.

  Here the gates were plain unadorned bronze, the wall itself plain dark stone, its true color difficult to tell in the twilight. Automatically, he pulled the thin yellow cloth of his Felon’s Cloak tighter around him and shivered, although he wasn’t really cold. Not yet.

  This was the face that the City showed to outsiders. And Kellen was an outsider now. Cast out by the City, cut off from the only life he’d ever known. He’d never felt so completely alone in his life.

  As he stared at the blank forbidding walls, out of the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of movement high above him. He glanced farther up, and saw one of the City Guards staring down at him, grinning nastily.

  Kellen quickly turned his back to the City, blotting out the sight of the guard’s gloating expression. The sunset was a thin line of gold through the trees toward the west. In less than a tenth-chime more, the sun would set completely.

  He was cast out. Banished—from the City and all its lands. And in the morning, when the first rays of the sun rose to gild the dome of the Council House, the Outlaw Hunt that the Mages would have spent all night enchanting would be sent forth through the very gate he had just walked through to rip him to shreds if he was still within reach.

  Without conscious thought, Kellen began to move, heading down the Western Road at a fast trot.

  This was the road the farmers from the villages used to bring their produce to the City. Though it was only used during harvest season, it should be smooth and even enough for him to make good time on, even in the dark. And the moon was full tonight—that was another stroke of luck. It would be rising in a bell or two, and a full moon would surely give him enough light to travel by.

  Kellen winced, listening to the direction of his own thoughts. He slowed to a walk, and then stopped, realizing it had become too dark to see, at least for running. He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The Evensong Bells were silent now, and he could no longer make out the City behind him, though he knew it would probably be visible in daylight. The walls blocked off all sight of the buildings—and their warm and comforting lights—from outside.

  All at once the enormity of his situation seemed to settle over him like a far heavier version of the Felon’s Cloak. Who was he trying to kid? Even if he could manage to run full-out all night long there was no way he could reach the edge of City lands by dawn. He didn’t even know how far they extended—or where this road led. He could use th
e moon to keep himself heading due west, though there was no guarantee that the road would oblige him by going the same way.

  For once his father had been telling the simple truth, just as Perulan had. “My dear young Kellen, have you ever heard of anyone who simply LEFT the City?”

  No, Perulan. Not even you, Kellen thought mournfully.

  Banishment wasn’t banishment—it was murder. Banishment was just a convenient and innocuous way for the Council to explain how they got rid of troublemakers. A bloodless death sentence that the Council could claim—assuming anyone ever dared to ask—represented a fair chance for the victim. And until his father had told him the truth down there in the cell, Kellen would have believed them, just like everyone else in the City believed in the myth that the Banished just went elsewhere to live. Of course they did. The High Council was wise and kind; the Mages wouldn’t condone anything that wasn’t in the best interests of everyone involved. As for the Outlaw Hunt, well, that was just to make certain that the Banished didn’t sneak back inside the City with the farmers to make more trouble, of course.

  But Lycaelon had given him the reality behind the pretty myth. And no matter how much Kellen was inclined to doubt everything his father had to say, there was something about standing all alone in the middle of a dark forest on a road that led to nowhere that made Lycaelon’s words ring with truth. “Banishment is a death sentence. No one has ever escaped an Outlaw Hunt. No one!”

  Banishment was murder.

  How could anyone find the edge of the City lands when no one knew where they were? In all his fruitless days of searching the City Library for information about the lands outside the City, Kellen had never even encountered one scrap of information about the extent of the City lands beyond the City walls—nor had anyone volunteered to provide that vital piece of survival information to a Banished Outlaw.

  So that much of what Lycaelon had told him must be true.