Shadow's Son

by Jon Sprunk

  Caim pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders as he hunched on the rooftop. Below him, a blanket of silver fog shrouded the street in front of the Frenig mansion. Moisture dripped from the iron spikes atop the walls.

  At least the rain had stopped.

  Josey sat beside him, her arms propped on upraised knees, her chin resting on her forearm. He watched her in silence, studying her profile, not wanting to break the spell of her beauty. After Parmian's interrogation, Josey had been convinced that the answers to their problems lay within her father's house. Caim had given all the reasons they couldn't return to the scene of the crime—it wasn't a smart move, the place would likely be guarded, it was precisely where he would expect them to go if he were behind this whole charade—but his arguments had withered under her intense stare. Somehow she convinced him.

  He almost suspected witchcraft.

  Since then, she hadn't said much. Sitting beside him in the dark, she could have been a thousand leagues away.

  Caim tried to put himself in her place. To find out that her late father had been the ringleader of a rebellious cult couldn't be an easy thing to swallow. It was simple for him. You lived and you died. What you did in the time between was your own business. And yet, how much of what he believed had been shaped by the uncaring world into which he had been thrust, a world that ground the weak and helpless into grist beneath its colossal wheels? Would he be so nonchalant about existence if his own past weren't so mired in brutality?

  Caim sighed and concentrated on the silent house across the way. By his reckoning, they had been hunched up here for almost two hours. Dawn would come soon. If Josey was serious, they had to go now or never.

  He whispered her name. When she didn't respond, he nudged her shoulder. She blinked as if coming out of a deep sleep.

  “You sure you want to do this tonight?” he asked. “We could come back tomorrow.”

  “No.” Her gaze returned to the spaces below. “Is this where you watched our house before coming to kill my father?”

  Caim swallowed. He would have rather not answered, but figured he owed it to her. “Here and a couple other places.” He indicated a flat-roofed brownstone down the street, and a pair of alleys with good vantage points of the mansion.

  “Have you killed many people?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Tell me how you do it. How do you kill people day after day, without regard, without feeling?”

  He took in the meager offering of stars strewn through the overcast sky and the gulfs of darkness between them. “You think I like what I do? I didn't ask for this life.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Because killing is the only thing I've ever been good at.” The answer rung hollow in his ears, but damn her. He didn't owe her anything, didn't care a whit for what she thought of him.

  “How old were you when you first…did it?”

  A cloud passed across the moon, hiding Josey's expression, but he felt her gaze in the dark. “I'm not sure. Fifteen, maybe sixteen.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was passing through some little thorp in Michaia. I forget the name.”

  He wasn't sure why he lied about that. The town had been called Freehold. It looked and smelled just like any of another score of settlements scattered across the dusty plains of Michaia, just a place to wash the road from your gullet and maybe find a woman before moving on.

  “Anyway, some men started a fight in an ale hall. Things got out of hand. By the time it was over, I'd killed two of them.”

  “So you were defending yourself.”

  “I guess. I had to run after that, but I learned a lesson. There's always someone looking for trouble. You try to avoid it when you can, but—”

  “But sometimes it finds you anyway,” she finished for him.

  “Yeah, well. Now it's just another trade to me, the same as a butcher or a carpenter.”

  Josey's face lifted out of the shadow. Her skin gleamed like polished ivory in the moonlight.

  “But pigs and wooden beams don't have feelings,” she said. “People do. Everyone you've killed had a family who cared about them, who grieved for them after they were gone.”

  He shifted a foot that had fallen asleep under him. “That makes no difference to me. I do a job and I get paid.”

  “Don't you ever want more from your life? Something bigger?”

  “Like Hubert? You've seen his band in action. A bunch of shopkeeps and pot-boys spoiling for a fight they can't win. That's not me.”

  “Why not join the army? You're good with your hands. You could lead men.”

  He didn't try to hide his disdain. “Why is it that if a lord or a king sends you to kill a man, it's somehow noble? But if you do this for yourself, it's murder. Explain that to me.”

  Josey's eyes glistened. Was it the onset of tears, or just the way the light touched her emerald irises?

  “If you asked me, I'd say you were afraid.”

  He recoiled as if she had stabbed him. The soles of his boots scrabbled on the hard shingles as he got his feet under him.

  She kept going before he could muster a reply. “You're afraid to let people get close to you. So you keep them at a distance, pretend that they don't matter to you. But it's just a ruse.”

  He peered over the side of the roof. “You don't understand the least thing about me or what I do.”

  “Fine.”

  She pulled away and sank into herself like a flower folding its petals after the sun went down. For a moment, she sounded just like Kit and he realized how much he missed his friend. Where was she?

  “Look,” he said. “I'm—”

  She reached up and pulled something out of her collar. It shined in the muted starlight, a golden medallion in the shape of a key.

  “Keep it,” he said. “I don't want payment.”

  “It's not payment. It's the answer to the mystery.”

  “How's that?”

  Josey told him the story of her childhood, how she had stumbled into a secret meeting in the cellar beneath her father's house, and how her father had given her the talisman years later.

  “I didn't realize its significance,” she said. “Not until tonight.”

  “So it's true. Your father was the head of a cult.”

  “Not a cult. A secret society aimed at restoring the empire.”

  “You believe Parmian now?”

  She tucked the necklace away. “I knew it for truth as soon as he said it.”

  “And now we're here to traipse through your daddy's secrets in the basement?”

  “Do you have a better idea? Someone killed my father for what he knew. He must have left some clue in that chamber. My father was a careful man. He would have foreseen the event of his death.”

  “All right. If we're going to do this, let's get started. I can get you inside. That shouldn't be a problem.”

  “So now you believe, too?”

  “I believe we need to find out what's going on. After that, well, we'll just have to wait and see.”

  He led Josey to the corner of the roof and showed her where to put her hands and feet. She was a fast learner. Minutes later, they crept around the side of the earl's manor house, their footsteps muffled by the swirling fog. The neighborhood was quiet, almost unnaturally still. Caim wished Kit were here and damned her for her obstinacy. But neither wishing nor damning made her appear. He had to do this on his own. For some reason, the thought was more disturbing than he had anticipated.

  The mansion looked the same as on the night Caim had first broken in. Its tall gables frowned in the darkness as if forbidding them entrance. The back gate was closed and secured by a new chain.

  Caim jumped and caught the top of the wall, lifted himself up, and, after making sure no nasty surprises awaited them inside, reached down to hoist Josey. Caim dropped to the other side first, and then helped her descend.

  Caim pulled her down into a crouch as he surveyed the yard. Everything looked clear; a
ll the windows were dark. In all likelihood the City Watch had locked up the house and left it alone. The estate would be auctioned off eventually unless a legitimate heir turned up, and Josey's enemies were determined not to let that happen. If the Elector Council was behind the murder of Josey's father, then he was setting himself up against a host of powerful adversaries. And his list of allies was pitifully short. Without Kit or Mathias, he had Josey. And possibly Hubert. A meager force against the most influential men in the realm, and their armies. Yet despite the odds, he found himself thrilled by the prospect.

  He motioned for Josey to follow, and together they crossed the grounds, which had grown over during the past few days. Weeds and tall grass brushed against their shins as they made their way to the rear wall of the mansion. He bypassed the door. He hadn't brought his line and grapnel, but he thought he could climb to the second floor easily enough. If he could find something to lower, he should be able to pull Josey up. He was studying the wall for good handholds when a faint click reached his ears. He whirled about to catch Josey opening the door.

  “Wait!” he whispered too late, and jumped in front of her as the door swung open with a shuddering creak.

  “What's—?” she started to ask.

  He held up a finger to silence her. The door entered into an empty anteroom. An archway in the opposite wall led deeper into the interior. He drew his knives.

  “What's the matter?” Josey whispered over his shoulder. “Did you expect the Third Legion to be waiting in the parlor for us to swing by?”

  “Not exactly.” All was quiet, but that didn't banish the invisible fingers plucking at his nerves. “But you didn't expect your friend's fiancé to give the order to have you drowned either, did you?”

  Chastened, Josey hung back while Caim encroached farther into the house. A quick survey of the rooms on the ground floor confirmed his hunch. The front door was locked, but except for a few muddy boot prints on the carpets there was no sign anyone had been inside in recent days.

  “Where's the cellar door?”

  But Josey had gone to the stairs leading up to the higher floors. She stared up into the gloom. “I want to go upstairs.”

  “Wait a moment. We can't—”

  “I need to see his room.”

  Caim hissed between his teeth, but didn't argue. He took the lead up the winding staircase. His feet found the soft spots in the boards out of habit; he winced with every creak she caused. To his ears they rang as clear as alarm bells. If anyone was waiting for them, they had ample warning to ready a welcome.

  On the top floor, Josey passed by the first two doors without a glance. One was a maid's room. The second led into a cozy bedchamber with feminine décor. By the large bed with its frilly lace canopy and pastel colors, Caim guessed it had been her room.

  Josey stopped at the entrance to her father's bedchamber. Caim remembered standing in this very spot, prepared to take the old man's life. The memory bothered him. Despite his hard words earlier, he couldn't deny some reservations over the direction his life had taken. In reexamining his choices, one fact was unmistakable. Yes, he had been a victim of violence, but every decision he'd made since that dire day had been his own. He had chosen this life for himself. No amount of rationalization could change that.

  Josey lifted the latch and pushed open the door. Caim stood beside her as she surveyed the room. The bodies were gone, but otherwise it looked exactly as it had three nights ago. Dark stains marred the carpet. Caim replayed the battle in his mind, matching each blemish to its maker, until his gaze came to the table and the small dots under the padded chair. Josey took a step in that direction and stopped. Burning shame rose in the back of Caim's throat. There, but for some strange chance, was the spot where he would have killed her father. He would have done the deed and left without a care for how it might affect this woman standing beside him.

  He took her arm with a gentle touch. “We have to get going.”

  She lifted her fingertips to her lips and blew a kiss at the empty chair. With a firm nod, she turned with him to leave.

  Caim's eyes darted back and forth as they descended the stairs, but his adrenaline was fading in the absence of a credible threat. On the ground floor, he let Josey lead him through a series of rooms into a side wing of the house. From the dusty smell, this part of the mansion saw little use. Paintings decorated the walls of a long hallway, portraits mostly, of old men and women dressed in the fashions of previous generations.

  Josey stopped at the end of the hall, at the opening of a narrow niche. It was empty, its paneled walls bare, although pale rectangles showed where pictures had hung in the past.

  “This is it,” she said. “The door was hidden in one of these walls. I could never find it again afterward.”

  Caim moved past her and searched the small space. He knocked on each wall. They were insulated, probably with cork. The floor felt solid enough. He was bending down to check the bottom panels when cracks in the strip of rosewood wainscoting caught his eye. He tapped the odd section with a finger. Nothing happened. Then he twisted it, and a piece of the molding pivoted away to reveal a small hole in the bare wood underneath.

  A keyhole.

  He smiled at Josey and moved aside. She approached with the golden talisman in hand. The key's smooth shaft slid into the hole without difficulty. Turning it produced a faint click, and a portion of the wall sprang open. He eased it open with the point of a knife. Stone steps wended down into the darkness beyond, flanked by walls of heavy blocks. Odors of earth and mold rose from the depths.

  “Wait here,” he said, and jogged back down the hallway to a sitting room.

  He fetched a table lamp and returned to Josey. She stood at the top of the steps with her arms wrapped around her body, staring down into the dark.

  He came up beside her. “Ready?”

  “I guess so. Caim?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He inclined his head. “Let's go.”

  Caim went first, with the lamp in his left hand, a knife in the right. The steps were steep and irregular in their spacing, almost as if they had formed naturally. Trails of niter ran down the walls like melted wax. Josey stayed close to his back. He wanted to whisper for her to give him more space, but held his tongue. This place held a lot of memories for her, most of them scary and confusing. Anyhow, he didn't expect any trouble. The hidden door didn't look as if it had been used in years.

  The steps entered into a large, round chamber. The ceiling was double-vaulted and formed with rows of square stones. Down from the center hung a cast-iron chandelier. A vivid fresco illuminated the smooth walls. In the painting, twelve figures in hooded blue robes stood under a starry night sky. Each clutched a yellow dagger in the left hand and held forth the right, dripping blood from the palm, as they gazed upon a dead man sprawled under a burning tree. It was all very strange, and probably symbolic, but he couldn't make hide nor hair of it.

  “All the years you lived in this house.” His words reverberated back to him from the walls. “You never suspected this place was down here?”

  “No, I told you. There was only the dream.”

  Shelves and casements stood against the walls. They held books and racks of scrolls, strange ornaments and miscellanea. It was like walking through an old person's memories, everything placed in no particular order.

  “Looks real enough to me.”

  While Josey wandered around the chamber, Caim went to the center, where a design had been painted on the stone flagstones. It was a yellow lion with an eagle's head and wings on a field of navy blue. A griffon, symbol of the old imperium. So it was true. Caim wondered what else Parmian could have told them about the meetings if he'd applied more pressure. Perhaps nothing. The man had sounded sincere in his desire to leave his father's schemes behind. Whatever secrets the earl had possessed in life had likely died with him.

  “Caim!”

  He hurried over to Josey's side. She stood before a
display stand. A row of ceramic plaques lined the top shelf. Josey's gaze was fixed on the center picture, which was a rather good likeness of her late father, Earl Frenig.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Her voice sounded odd, as if she were speaking to him from far away.

  He studied the plaques closer. Twelve sober faces stared back, two of them women. “So these are the members of your father's society. Not a lot of people to challenge the might of the True Church.”

  “Twelve members.” Josey ran her fingertips over the face of the shelf. “Same as the number of theocrats on the Elector Council. Father liked balance. He was a little odd that way. Making everything tidy, he called it.”

  “I wonder what came of them. Are they still alive? Or has the Church…?” He remembered her father's fate too late.

  “Silenced them?” she finished for him.

  “I didn't mean to—”

  She placed a hand on his forearm. “It's okay. I'm fine.”

  A large tome rested on a beveled table beneath the portraits. Its heavy cover was bound in smooth leather, possibly sheepskin, dyed a deep sapphire blue. Tarnished silver studs shined in the lamplight. Caim opened the book. The yellowed pages were covered in a concise scrawl of black ink. The characters were Nimean, but he couldn't understand a word of it.

  “This looks like a code.”

  Josey broke her gaze away from the picture. “You don't read Old Nimean?”

  “No. What does it say?”

  “It's a journal. It looks like my father's hand. The title says ‘Revolution Day.’” She ran a finger across the page. “‘In the eleven hundred and twenty-sixth year of the empire, a coalition of ministers and nobles from the outlying provinces gathered in secret. Dissatisfied with the influence held by the imperial court, and further motivated by liens against their properties and titles, these individuals plotted to depose the emperor. Key legionary commanders were involved by a variety of means, including bribery, blackmail, and at least one known murder of a state official. This inaugural meeting was held at the Basilica of St. Andros in the free city of Mecantia.’”