The Wounded Shadow

by Patrick W. Carr

  His amused disgust sobered me. Before I left that room, I knew what I needed to do. Stepping around the table we’d used as our puny defense, I approached Gehata where a handful of soldiers held him. “With your permission, Bishop Serius, I would like to ask a question of the man who killed my friend.” The description I used for Peret Volsk stopped me for an instant. Had he been my friend?

  Serius bowed his assent, but I saw his gaze turn intense. He knew what I meant to do. Gehata recoiled, but the guards held him fast. Perhaps I enjoyed his fear, taking it as some measure of recompense for what he’d done and had intended to do. I slowed my approach.

  “Who holds the gift of kings for Aille, and where are they?” I asked. The question was mostly a ruse to satisfy the demands of the scene we played, but I hoped it served to bring the information closer to the surface of Gehata’s mind.

  He didn’t answer, of course, but that only made my part easier to play. I stepped forward, my hands outstretched, my fingers tense, grasping. I didn’t have to pretend to anger, but I walled it away. I needed as much information as I could pull from Gehata’s mind, and finding the heir was only the beginning.

  The bishop shook his head as he pressed himself back against his guards. With a savage wrench that belied his soft bulk, he freed an arm. His hand flashed to his opposite sleeve and steel glinted in the light.

  Somewhere behind me, I sensed as much as heard my friends exploding into motion, but they were too slow. In a cool detached part of my mind, I noted that Gehata must have acquired some portion of a physical gift.

  I stood within his reach. Recoiling and knowing it was useless, I watched in horrified fascination as the edge of his knife swept a glinting arc through the air. Blood fountained from his neck as his eyes filled with triumph.

  The fading light in his gaze leapt at me as I put my bloodstained hands on his throat. I tunneled through his eyes and into his thoughts, racing through his memories in my panic. The knowledge was here. It had to be!

  I filled myself with his life while all around me the color of his memories faded to black. Gehata was dying fast. His last memory flickered and his fleeing spirit trapped at me like an undertow. I’d stayed too long in his mind. My vision receded to a point as I raced toward eternity. With my last conscious thought I willed myself to let go of Gehata’s neck.

  Nothing happened. I hurtled away from the ruin of Gehata’s body, but I couldn’t sense anything beyond that numbing speed. No sight or sound or intuition intruded upon my flight. I worked to move my hands, but I couldn’t feel. I tried to blink, but my sight and senses had been severed. Only the rushing sensation remained, but no destination revealed itself.

  In the onward rush, I sensed a presence that might have been Aer or Ealder and a voice that warmed me like an answered prayer. You have work left to do.

  The headlong rush slowed until I hung suspended.

  I blinked against torchlight that hurt, my arms and legs twitching as if I had no concept of how to control them. Hands held me and a buzz of noise resolved into Bolt’s growl and Gael’s weeping.

  Memory returned.

  Gehata’s body lay before me, blood everywhere. The bishop’s suicide had managed to keep many of his most important memories from me, including the location of the heir, but not all. “That’s wrong,” I said out loud before I could keep from speaking. Blinking, I found myself the center of attention.

  Bishop Serius spoke into the crowded silence. “Place the cosp who worked with Gehata in the lower cells.”

  I cleared my throat. “I think the bishop had a hold on many of them to ensure their loyalty.”

  Serius nodded. “Captain, please inter Gehata’s men into separate cells until we can make some determination as to their fate. Errant Consto, would you and your friends accompany me to my quarters? There is much we need to discuss.”

  Chapter 36

  Coming again to the quarters allotted to Bishop Serius, I noted the resemblance to those of Gehata. But there were subtle differences in the atmosphere that I could only attribute to the attitude of the men who occupied them. Serius’s quarters held an air of gratitude and acknowledgment, whereas Gehata’s had held those same gifts as rightful acknowledgment.

  Bishop Serius—I hoped he would be the next Archbishop—waved us to chairs and, without asking, served us wine, including Rory. For some inexplicable reason, watching the bishop drain his glass and refill it before speaking comforted me. “I think you should begin, Lord Dura. I’m especially keen to know what sort of information you found floating in the detritus of that contemptible little man’s mind.”

  Bolt nodded his approval of the insult, but what I’d seen in Gehata’s mind disturbed me for reasons that had nothing to do with the man himself. “The dwimor who came for the queen,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Dwimor?” Serius asked. “Are you telling me a phantom tried to kill Queen Chora?”

  “The dwimor are assassins who can’t be seen except by children,” Bolt said, “fashioned by people who share Lord Dura’s gift. It requires a gift of devotion.” He turned to me. “What about it?”

  “He was huge,” I said recalling the testimonies given to Gehata. “According to the witnesses who saw him, he was built like a blacksmith.” The bishop started to shake his head but stopped almost immediately, and my estimation of him rose a notch, perhaps two.

  “That seems at cross purposes with creating an assassin who can’t be seen,” he said.

  Possibilities swirled in my mind, and I cursed my ignorance. I needed to get to the witnesses who’d seen the attempt on Queen Chora. Fortunately, I didn’t have to depend on my intuition. Gehata’s memories told me he had sent them both to a farm outside the city, ostensibly to do penance, but the girls had never been part of the church. The sun had risen enough to light Serius’s stained-glass windows, and though the thoughts in my mind still flowed like mud and my eyes burned with the need for sleep, I wanted to get to the farm.

  “Thank you for your aid,” I said to the bishop.

  Serius pursed his lips. “That sounds as though you’re taking your leave, Lord Dura.” He held up a hand in forbidding. “What of the heir? Who holds the gift of kings for Aille?”

  “If I am successful, Your Eminence, the throne will be filled.” I bowed. “I hope you will come to rule the Merum order. You seem to me to be a man who would do the job well.”

  “If the council of bishops wills it,” he said.

  I smiled. “Even if they do not, anyone will be an improvement over Gehata. Sometimes we have to settle for avoiding the worst choice instead of making the best.”

  Bolt cocked his head. “With a little bit of work I could use that.”

  We left the cathedral, and I resisted the urge to look behind me every few steps to check if we were being followed. If Serius had insisted on sending a company of soldiers to escort us, I would have been hard-pressed to come up with a plausible reason for refusing.

  “What’s going on in that mind of yours, Willet?” Gael asked after we’d procured horses.

  It felt good to be a whole company again, or mostly whole—though I had difficulty sorting through Volsk’s death. Mirren accompanied us in his place. There were things I needed to tell Mirren, or possibly Gael, in case I never got to Toria. She would want to know. I thought so anyway.

  “The throne room,” I said. “You tried to touch me. Why?”

  “Gehata told me to scramble your memories.” She swallowed. “He was going to insist on having his healer tend you.”

  “You weren’t trying to delve me?”

  She shook her head. “He said it was too dangerous, that if I stayed in your mind too long, it would leave me open to attack.”

  “It doesn’t work quite that way,” I said. “I’m going to have to train you—as much as I can, anyway. Volsk misled Gehata and you regarding the use of our gift. It was brilliant. That’s how we managed to escape.”

  She shook her head, and I had to remind mysel
f that Gehata had found her by chance, his habit of intercepting the Archbishop’s correspondence leading him to her. She didn’t know anything of her ability, except for the half-truths that had been beaten out of Peret Volsk. “Gehata didn’t want to let you delve anyone within the Vigil,” I told her, “until he was ready to take the gift himself.”

  “It would have exposed the lies he’d fed me,” she said, but without anger. Instead, her eyes held cold calculation. I would have placed a large wager that at least one of her talents tended toward logic, and her temperaments toward observation and thought. The newest member of the Vigil didn’t appear interested in wasting her time on meaningless vengeance.

  “Gehata didn’t have a clue as to how skillfully he’d been played. He decided the best way to get you the skills he needed for your gift was to torture it out of Volsk and Custos. He started with Volsk, of course. He’d been the Vigil’s apprentice for years.” I stopped for a moment, forced myself to replay each scene where members of the cosp beat Volsk for the truth.

  “Each time they appeared on the verge of giving up and torturing Custos instead, he pretended to crack—not so much as to make them suspicious, but enough to keep them occupied.” I smiled. “I think Fess and Mark would have appreciated his artistry. What he told you,” I said to Mirren, “was almost true, but he changed it. He had you muddle the memories of those you touched instead of destroying them.”

  Her eyes widened. “You . . . I . . . can do that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “For something so destructive, it’s ridiculously simple. What Volsk taught you created confusion within the minds of those you touched. You put your hand into the river of their thoughts and stirred them, mixing the threads the way a fisherman’s clumsy steps stir mud from the bottom of a stream, but their memories weren’t destroyed. Like the stream, the memories and emotions settled and cleared after a time.”

  “He kept Gehata pinned,” she said, “occupied with the same task over and over again.”

  I nodded. “Volsk counted on the hope that sooner or later you wouldn’t be able to keep everyone’s memories muddled, and that we would prevail before you realized the truth of your gift.”

  Custos nodded, the sun glinting off the bald dome of his head. “I wondered why no one came to question me.”

  Gael reined her horse closer to mine. “You didn’t tell Serius where we’re going or why,” she said.

  “No,” I replied. “As much as I want to trust him, as much as I believe he’s a good man, we might find ourselves at cross-purposes very soon. As a matter of fact, I can probably guarantee it.”

  Bolt grimaced, which from anyone else would be the equivalent of screaming in terror. “Aer have mercy,” he growled. “What are you planning now?”

  Chapter 37

  Two days after they’d cleansed the outpost infiltrated by Cesla’s men, breaking the vaults and minds of all who’d been to the forest, Toria and Fess arrived at their destination—a camp situated on a hillock offering a clear view to all points of the compass. She nodded her approval. “It’s defensible, at least in the customary sense.”

  Fess pursed his lips in thought. “Would that alone account for their success?”

  “No,” she said. “Any squad leader with a thimble’s worth of experience would situate his camp thus. Wag, do you smell the forest here?”

  No, Mistress, only men and females. He chuffed. Their scent is very strong.

  She smiled, turning to Fess. “The camp is clean, but Wag says some of the soldiers need a bath.”

  They entered the camp, the guards at the gate snapping to when they spotted their rank. A runner sprinted off to the center of the stockade, and moments later, the ranking officer, wearing lieutenant’s bars, emerged. Most of his uniform had been replaced with black clothing, and his buttons and buckles had been smeared with lampblack. The color of his hair was impossible to determine, smeared with mud as it was. Even the pores of his skin showed its residue. “How may I serve you?” His voice carried the sharp edge of fatigue.

  She nodded. “I’m looking for information, Lieutenant. Your command has suffered fewer casualties than any other and not by a small amount. King Rymark wants to know why.”

  Fess called her name and pointed around the camp. “Lady Deel, there’s almost no one here, yet there are enough cook fires burning to feed five times the men I see.”

  She turned back to the officer. “Where are the rest of your men, Lieutenant?”

  “I assure you all my men are accounted for. They’re sleeping.”

  Fess touched her on the elbow before she could respond. “Look there.”

  Her apprentice pointed to a tent in the middle of camp. At first, she noticed nothing odd about it other than its larger size, but the breeze that ruffled the other canvas tents around the compound seemed oddly muted. It was then that she noticed the color and the coating of mud.

  “Why would . . .” she began, then noticed Fess nodding in appreciation.

  “Clever,” he said, “but I doubt the lieutenant is the source of the inspiration. How long has it been since your men have seen daylight?”

  “It varies,” he said, nervous.

  Then she understood. “You keep them in perpetual dark so they can see at night.”

  He nodded, but his expression still lacked the pride in the accomplishment she would have expected. “Our night vision isn’t as good as theirs, but you may tell the king that our outpost will hold.”

  “Will it, Lieutenant?” she asked. “You’ve accomplished what no other outpost in the defense of the forest has, and yet you receive praises as if they were condemnations.”

  He licked his lips. “Even we have suffered losses, Lady Deel. I must have reinforcements.”

  She shook her head. “Have your superiors not sent them to you?”

  Instead of answering, his gaze darted to the tent. “You have the authority,” he hissed. “You could order her back to the main camp. Tell her the king wants her to teach the other camps how to fight them.” His words spilled out of him in a rush, his tongue struggling to keep pace with his fear.

  Her. A stab of premonition cut across Toria’s chest. “Shall I go talk to the soldiers in your tent?”

  His head jerked. “No.”

  “When will they come out?”

  He fought to pull a breath. “Just before sunset. There’s a window of time at dusk we use to get them in position.”

  Fess glanced at the sun. “Two hours, maybe a bit less.”

  “Unless you have something more to tell me, Lieutenant, we’ll wait,” Toria said.

  He swallowed. “She doesn’t like strangers.”

  “Your point is taken,” she said, “but I’m not sure we are strangers. Please have one of your men tend our horses.”

  Toria seated herself on a nearby bench and settled herself to wait, Fess standing guard over her and Wag lying at her feet. She closed her eyes and entered the construct in her mind—a copy of the vast library in Cynestol. As the weight of a thousand different memories manifested, a sigh ghosted from her, insubstantial because it wasn’t real. At the speed of quickest thought, she checked the doors, found them all secure, and then placed herself before the one she sought.

  She opened it and memories spilled out.

  “Go ahead,” Bronwyn said as she dabbed at her cheeks with a damp cloth in an effort to mitigate the heat of Cynestol’s summer. “The paverin sap will keep him calm.”

  Toria reached, leaning to make contact so she could dart back if he woke, her fingers coming to rest on the man’s hand. She plunged down into his memories, the memories of a murderer. New to the gift, less than a year, she had just begun to fathom the depth of her ignorance. Colored strands raced past her in a rush as the condemned man’s memories ran their circuit.

  She plunged beneath them, searching at Bronwyn’s instruction until she found it—a scroll, not black but gray—that had been leached of any hint of color. It was closed, tightly curled to protect its secrets. W
ith a shudder of revulsion, a spasm that she felt in her stomach as well as her mind, she reached out to destroy the vault.

  And stopped. That wasn’t her purpose. Swallowing her distaste, she examined it instead, searching for entrance or writing that would give her a clue as to its origin or purpose. After an indeterminate amount of time she gave up.

  “What did you see?” Bronwyn asked her.

  “A vault,” Toria said, “but it was gray and without writing. Why did you order me not to destroy it?”

  Bronwyn’s eyebrows rose, a gesture of both questioning and displeasure. “That is not our purpose, Toria Deel. We fight the Darkwater and dispense justice where needed. That man is a murderer.”

  She shook her head. “Surely not,” she said. “There was nothing of violence in his memories. Did I misread him?”

  Bronwyn shook her head. “No. Had I delved him, I would have seen no more than you. There are two men before you. A second man is contained within that vault. Violent. Savage. A tavern full of patrons saw him stab another man to death—a man they say resembled his father.”

  She swallowed. From the first day, the instruction of the Vigil had taken her to depths that frightened her, had taught her the fragility of the mind. “Would not destroying the vault restore this man?”

  Bronwyn gazed at her, her green eyes placid. “A good question, but think on what you’ve learned, and ask again.”

  She stared at the man, the silence growing until it loomed over her, a fourth person in the room. “It’s been tried, and more than once.” She met Bronwyn’s gaze. “That we have not taken it upon ourselves to intervene in that way says each attempt was unsuccessful.”

  Bronwyn nodded. “Better. Continue.”

  Toria followed her train of logic until she came to a split and found herself considering two possibilities. “Either the destruction of their vaults destroyed them, or they re-created them later. Which was it?”

  “They each occurred, depending on the person,” Bronwyn said. “We never found a pattern we could use to determine which would happen. In the end, it hardly mattered. Our gift is insufficient for the task.”