Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5)

by Robert J. Crane

  The necromancer did not stir. “Dealing in absolutes is infantile.”

  “Well,” Terian said, letting the chair legs squawk against the floor as he stood, “compared to you, you old bastard, I’m probably an infant.” He held up three fingers and saluted in rough style. “Go molest a corpse, okay?”

  “Such unkindnesses—”

  “Are part and parcel of who I am,” Terian said, watching the cloaked necromancer as he backed toward the bar, toward the exit. “I thought you wanted me to join you?” He gave off his best, most infuriating smile and stopped by the bar. Rosalla waited just behind it, her arms folded and her lips puckered as though she’d had the Lockjaw spell cast upon her. Terian pulled his entire coin purse out and dumped the contents on the bar. “Here. My attempt to make amends.”

  Rosalla’s jaded eyes were still narrowed, but they flitted back and forth from the pieces of bronze, silver and the one of gold that rested, gleaming, on the old, pitted wood that made the surface of the bar. “That will almost cover it.”

  Terian shrugged. “It’s what I’ve got. It’s not like I have a house on the bluffs; I guard warehouses for a mercenary company. You want it or not? Because I’m pretty sure they’ll take it at the Silken Robe if you don’t—”

  Rosalla lunged and put a hand over it, but not before Terian’s darted out and snagged one of the knuckle-length pieces of silver. She glared at him as she scraped the rest off the bar’s surface and into the pocket of her apron. “What the hell was that for?”

  “I still have to eat and drink between now and my next week’s pay,” Terian said, pocketing it. With a last look at the sullen figure of Malpravus, still sitting at the table, watching him go, Terian made a gesture at the necromancer. “You might want to clean that up.”

  “The cart will be along shortly,” Rosalla said, head down, counting the pieces of metal.

  “Not the big guy,” Terian said as the handle of the door slid into his grasp, clinking against the metal of his gauntlet. “Well, him too.”

  “I thought you were waiting for the cart,” Rosalla said, looking up at him warily.

  “I guess I’ll be walking,” Terian said with a smile, and lifted up his last silver piece. “Besides,” he gave a last look at the big longshoreman on the floor, coughing and hacking as though her were dying, “I think the cart is going to be full up.”

  Chapter 3

  A snowfall a few days earlier had blanketed the streets of Reikonos, and the usually dark avenues of the slums were even darker now. The sun shone directly on the filthy streets for only about an hour a day anyway, less in the winter, and Terian had doubts that the snow would be going away anytime before spring. He had seen the freshly scraped and shoveled streets in the commercial district, down by the docks where the warehouses lay. Even the markets were given some attention, snow pushed aside by merchants wielding shovels, trying to draw passersby to their carts by giving them clear lanes. The slums, however, remained a wasteland, with tracks cutting through the stained white blanket of the snow, and dark spots to mark where chamberpots had been emptied and animals had left deposits of their own.

  The whole city carried a filthy smell, and Terian wrinkled his nose as the door to the Brutal Hole was shut behind him. Don’t know how Cyrus lived here for so many years. He gave it a moment’s reflection. I suppose Saekaj is no picnic, either, though it’s Sovar that carries the real stench. Drawing his cloak tighter against a sudden wind, he set himself to walking against the shin-high snow that hindered his way.

  He felt the bite of the cold seeping through his armor as he walked, the familiar clank of his boots dampened by the snow covering the cobblestones. He looked over the darkened streets and saw only vague hints of any life. A few scattered souls: some beggars, a merchant cleaning up his cart. There were lamps everywhere, but only every third or fourth one was lit. It was the way of the slums, he knew, that not all of them got oil. That thought caused him to recall the magical fires of Sanctuary, and he suddenly felt a longing to be far from Reikonos, far from the home of the humans, and surrounded by a very different group of humans.

  Never going to happen.

  His breath frosted in front of him when he let a sigh of despair cross his lips. The thought of what Malpravus had offered him was fresh in his mind. I’m not nearly drunk. Not nearly. And giving away almost the last of my money? He wanted to curse himself for it, but couldn’t find the strength to do so, not huddled as he was against the cold. There’ll be more along next week. Enough to get by. He felt his teeth chatter just slightly. And that’s about all.

  Still better than going with Malpravus. He inadvertently looked right, toward the Guildhall quarter. The faint sounds of the city echoed—dogs barking in the distance, a rattling down an alley, and voices raised in conversation. The Guildhall quarter was far off, but on a clear night one could hear the revelries within, the sound of an army marching through or to it, or one of the largest guilds returning from the Trials of Purgatory. It was quiet tonight, though, or the noises of the slums were blotting it out.

  There is no way he would let me simply be an officer in his guild. There would have to be a price. His eyes flicked left and right, as though trouble was bound to dart out at him from behind the dilapidated stall that he turned past on the way back to his boarding house. A cat screeched at him and raced away into the darkness. He shrugged at the sight of its retreating hindquarters; better than rats, he supposed.

  The boarding house was in sight just now; a wooden structure mostly, sandwiched between a burned-out husk of a house and a butcher’s shop that dealt in lower quality meats of dubious origin. Terian had bought from them on several occasions; they had finer things than one would find even in Saekaj, though he knew most humans would turn their noses up at the offerings. A mad city, he’d decided, one where even the poor got a better chance than the mids of Sovar did.

  The boarding house had a worn look about it, with warped boards that let the wind in every chance they got. Lying in bed on the nights when he hadn’t enough coin for firewood was a challenge and had required him to spend precious silver on a heavier blanket, an old quilt that might have been hand-stitched during the last Elven/Dark Elven war, for all he knew. It was worn but heavy, and it kept out the chill enough for him. Still and all, he preferred to buy firewood, or if that wasn’t available, coal, though it left a film of dark ash on everything.

  He opened the door to the boarding house with a squeak, peeking inside to see if anyone was still in the entry hall. There was no one in sight, though a fire burned in the hearth in the meal room. It was low, though, and Terian knew instinctively that the proprietress—one Madame Hawthess—would have gone to bed hours earlier. She never pronounced judgment on him for the hours he kept, at least not audibly, though she did let him know by sigh and snort what she thought of his presumed activities. That he could handle, though. He had been dealing with thwarting the expectations of others for all his life, hadn’t he?

  “You are earlier than I expected,” came a vaguely familiar voice from one of the chairs turned to face the hearth. If there was someone sitting on it, Terian could not see him. He let his hand fall to his axe handle, slung as it was across his back, and prepared to pull it. His cloak would come off with it, true, but it would be clear and ready to swing in just seconds. “Don’t bother with the axe, I’m quite unarmed.” The voice was low, smooth—not like Malpravus’s—it held a dry air as though the speaker was perpetually starved for amusement, as though he had never had any in their entire life.

  “I don’t care for visitors,” Terian said. “Which is why I never have them.”

  “I had assumed it was because you had no friends left with whom to visit.” A head poked its way around the steep back of the chair. It was clearly a dark elf, that much was visible to Terian’s eyes immediately. Grey-white hair backed by the firelight shone, almost platinum in color. The rest of the face rested in shadow, however, but the shape of the head in gene
ral was elongated.

  “A foolish assumption,” Terian said, chewing his lower lip, his fingers still holding tight to the axe handle. “I have friends. Countless friends.”

  “Yes, a veritable wealth of them, I’m sure.” The man stood, drawing himself up to his full height. He was taller than Terian, taller than almost anyone the dark elf had ever met, save for perhaps Cyrus Davidon or Vaste. “In fact, I suspect every one of them that you possess surrounds you at this very moment, ready to launch themselves to your assistance, to your service at the slightest command.”

  Terian squinted his eyes to see through the light of the fire, blotting out the face of the man. A crackle of recognition caused him to shake. “It is you. Guturan. Guturan Enlas.”

  “I hoped that you would still know me by sight,” Guturan said, drawing carefully at the lines of the jacket he wore over fine clothes. He took another step toward Terian and his face became visible through the backlight of the fire. It was lined, an old face, one he had known since childhood. “But it was only a faint hope, as you never were the sharpest child.”

  “You were always such a kind soul, Guturan.” Terian let his hand leave the axe handle and ran it across his cloak to smooth it back to position to protect him from the cold. “I have so missed you these long years since I’ve been gone.” He didn’t bother to say it with anything less than a lethal dose of sarcasm, fit to kill any good intention that might have been brought into the conversation.

  “Yes, well,” Guturan said, now stepping closer, almost within arm’s reach of Terian, “I come bearing a message.”

  Terian felt a seething distaste, one only a step up from what he had experienced at the sight of Malpravus only minutes earlier. “Gods, I hope it’s a good one. Something cheerful, like a summons to my father’s funeral.”

  Guturan barely raised an eyebrow at that. “Would you rejoice at that news?”

  “Honestly,” Terian said, “who wouldn’t?”

  Guturan Enlas regarded him carefully for a moment then turned and shuffled back to the chair he had been sitting in, retrieved a cloak from where it lay over the back, and wrapped himself in it. Terian watched him do so; it was a fine cloak, made of the threads of vek’tag hair, smoother than the silk that the elves of the Emerald Coast cultivated for their finery. Wordlessly, Guturan straightened his clothing and covered himself in the cloak.

  Terian waited while he did so, and it was not until Guturan began to step past him to leave that Terian finally spoke. “What the hell does my father want, Enlas?”

  “Nothing that would appeal to an ungrateful whelp,” Guturan said with a sneer that wasn’t remotely feigned. He leaned closer to him, lowering his voice as though he had just recalled that they were in a boarding house with very thin walls. “He told me that you would be intractable about this, that I would be wasting my time, but I argued for you. I argued with Lord Amenon that times had changed, that perhaps you had grown up, you foolish, naïve boy. He told me you had certainly not, and I argued for you.” Guturan let a slight smile drift across his long face. “Once more, your father’s wisdom proves why he is the master and I am but a humble steward in his house.”

  “Stick it in the darkest reaches,” Terian said, unimpressed. “If you have some offer to make, be on with it. If all you’ve come to do is chide me in my father’s name, then I invite you to enjoy your walk back to Saekaj.”

  “Your father—!” Guturan stepped close to Terian, and there was an air of menace about him. He regained control of himself, and his expression smoothed out. “Your father … has heard about your recent … difficulties.”

  “He’s heard I’m sleeping in a boarding house at night, frightening away children for gold by day, and drinking and whoring my way through the evenings?” Terian said, amused. Guturan’s eye twitched with loathing. “I don’t know what’s so difficult about any of those things, but I suppose that my father’s view of the world is somewhat darker than my own.”

  “He heard,” Guturan said, voice crackling and scratchy, as though it were steel scraping on steel, “that you had been cast out of your former guild and were adrift on a sea of meaningless actions. Magnanimous man that he is, he consented to allow me to come here and make you a most generous offer.”

  “‘A most generous offer’?” Terian said, scoffing slightly. “This ought to be good. So what is it? I can become a member of his household guard? Stand at a post for ten hours per day staring at the empty street in front of his house? Or keep an eye on his interests down in the Back Deep of Sovar? At least that would put me near to the best whorehouses and bars; Saekaj has never been much to my taste—”

  “He has consented,” Guturan said, cutting Terian off without amusement, “to allow you something that no other member of the Sovereign’s Army would surely give.” Terian listened, quiet for once, waiting for the next verbal volley to land. “He wants you to return to Saekaj.” Guturan pulled himself up straight once more, as though to become as august as a messenger should be for this sort of news. “He wants you to take up that which you once scorned and threw back at him. He wants you to rejoin him as his Lieutenant, his adjutant. To become his right hand and serve the Sovereign once more.

  “He wants you to come home.”

  Chapter 4

  Twenty Years Earlier

  The glow of the lamp light was all Terian had to go by as he stared into the mirror. He did not consider his face youthful, not compared to his peers, but he knew how the other adults saw him. His hands shook as he fiddled with the fine cloth tunic, adjusting it over and over to find the perfect resting point on his thin frame. Today, I am fourteen years old, he thought.

  Today I am a man in the eyes of my people.

  A soft knock came at his door, preceding its opening by only seconds. He turned sharply, heart beating full in his chest. The door did not finish opening before a thin little slip of a girl snuck in through the crack, closing it behind her. She put her back against it, near breathless.

  “Ameli,” Terian said, turning back to the mirror, “I’m getting ready to go to the Legion of Darkness.”

  “For a day,” Ameli said, almost squeaking. Terian regarded her in the mirror—her black, frilly dress, her thin face. She was only eight.

  “It’s important I make the right impression,” Terian said, adjusting his collar once more. The neck was not quite right; it hung loose around his throat like a bowl with too little food in it. I’m too skinny for this tunic.

  “You know all the instructors already,” Ameli said with a scoff worthy of her age. “You know the head of the League. Father has already introduced you to everyone of consequence, and showing up in a suit that your neck rattles around in like a scabbard with too little sword is not going to impress them. They’re already impressed enough because of Father.”

  Terian froze, the truth of her words eating into him. He tugged at the collar once more. “We have … a family image to maintain. Father expects us not to shame him in front of these people. They will be my instructors for the next four years. I have to take this seriously.”

  “Puhahahah,” she said, pushing off the door and making her way toward him. Her laugh was distinctive, like nothing he’d ever heard before. She was shorter than he was, reaching only to mid-chest. “You take everything seriously.”

  “And you take nothing seriously.” He squinted into the mirror, shooting her a thin, impatient smile.

  “Because I’m eight,” she said with a guffaw. “I have at least a couple more years before I have my sense of humor magically removed.”

  “They have not invented a spell that could pull that off, or Father would have had them cast it on you long ago,” Terian said, finally reaching a rough truce with his collar. It’s not going to get any better than this. He straightened, and it tilted to the left, provoking a sigh from him. “Son of a—” He stopped himself, catching sight of Ameli in the mirror before he completed his sentence, “… Shrawn.”

&nbs
p; “Puahahah,” Ameli said, breaking into a grin that made her skinny face look like it was stretching at the bounds. “Nice catch. But the way you finished it gave it the same meaning.”

  “But I didn’t curse,” Terian said, staring forlornly at the collar, “and that’s what counts in Father’s eyes.”

  “Father, Father, Father,” she said mockingly, rolling her eyes. “Maybe while you’re in training at the Legion of Darkness, you can pick up some new people to talk about all the time? It’d be a nice change.”

  Terian stared at her in the mirror. “He’s our father. He’s the General of the Armies for the entire Sovereignty. You should show him the respect he deserves.”

  He could see Ameli look slightly chastened at that. “I know he is, but … he’s not you, Terian. He’s not like you.”

  Terian felt his brow furrow. “What do you mean?” I have done everything in my power to be like him! And who wouldn’t want to be?

  “He’s kind of … mean sometimes,” Ameli said, now mousy, like she didn’t want to show him her eyes. “He yells a lot, Terian. He’s always mad about something.”

  “But not at you,” Terian said softly.

  “No,” Ameli said, still not looking up. “Not at me. Not at us.”

  “Running the Sovereign’s Army is difficult work,” Terian said. “He’s under a lot of pressure.”

  “Now you’re just repeating what Mother says.”

  “You asked me to talk about someone else,” Terian said, letting a half-smirk out.