The Wounded Shadow

by Patrick W. Carr

  He gave himself a small shake. “Just the musings of a very tired old man.” That last part was an understatement of colossal proportions. The fight within Elieve’s mind had taken everything from Igesia and almost all of it from him. His bones and mind ached with a weariness that he doubted rest could cure, a wound that would scar and ache for the rest of his life. “You have a choice before you, Mark, if Aer will allow you to make it.”

  “The Vigil or Elieve?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you offering me the right to choose, Eldest?”

  Pellin nodded. “Insofar as I can, Mark, but remember, Bronwyn offered Fess the same choice before she died.”

  “And the gift came to him anyway.” Mark took a deep breath of the smoky air inside the inn. “He scares me, Eldest.”

  Pellin’s brows rose at this. “Fess? He is much changed, I’ll warrant, but—”

  “Not Fess,” Mark said. “Aer.”

  His first impulse was to brush away Mark’s statement with some wry observation, an almost-jest to lighten the mood, but his apprentice’s objection ran too deep. Regardless of Mark’s decision, he should receive the most honest, most truthful answer Pellin could offer. “He scares me as well, Mark. Perhaps for different reasons, but He does.”

  “You, Eldest?”

  Pellin put his hands on the table, accepting the invitation. “I have served the Vigil for centuries, yet in many ways I’m still the stuttering, stammering boy who encountered Aer in his youth. I learned something that day that frightened me and often still does.”

  Mark leaned forward. “What, Eldest?”

  “That something perfectly good can be just as frightening as something perfectly evil. That day, as a boy, I learned how far I was from Aer. And the difference terrified me. I’ve never recovered, Mark. I don’t think I’m supposed to.” He lifted a hand to point at Mark’s chest. “What is it about Him that frightens you?”

  “He’s like a thief, Eldest,” Mark said. “He doesn’t ask. He just takes what He wants.”

  Instead of arguing, Pellin nodded. His apprentice grew up in the urchins. Naturally, he would see and describe the world from that experience. Who was he to deny Mark his fear, his intuition? Yet, he felt compelled to help his apprentice frame it. “I can see that,” he said, “with Lord Dura and even more with Fess. Yet, there is a difference between Aer and any other thief.”

  “What’s that, Eldest?”

  “Aer already owns it all.”

  Mark nodded. “That’s cold comfort.”

  “Agreed,” Pellin said. “When I decided to take you as my apprentice, I used it as a temporary solution only. I wanted someone more like me, someone raised to be a priest, to receive my gift. Now I see I was wrong, but if you do not wish the gift, I will not try to force it on you. If you take it, Elieve will age and die while you remain young. Her life will pass you by with a speed you cannot imagine.”

  Mark looked at him, the clear blue of his eyes earnest in his young face. “You would let me choose?”

  He nodded. Inside, he had no idea which choice he hoped Mark would make. “I would, but in the end it isn’t really up to me.”

  “How much time do I have to decide what I want?”

  Now, Pellin laughed. “I’m not planning to die anytime soon, but ‘Death comes for us all . . .’” he began.

  “‘And some sooner than others,’” Mark finished.

  Seven days later, Pellin fell into a bunk on Captain Onen’s ship, spent from the ride. His old man’s heart fluttered in his chest like a bird desperate to escape the hand, but more than exhaustion assailed him. No amount of coaxing or volume had been sufficient to make contact through his scrying stone. Yet he could hear a slight buzzing from it at odd moments, a sign, he hoped, that he might eventually reach the others.

  The pop and boom of sails filling as Onen brought about his ship gave him some measure of comfort. Favored with a southerly wind, the ship leapt from port. Dukasti had been as good as his word, paying the price for Onen’s ship to make the return trip empty. The journey across the sea would be quick, but even afterward, they would have to ride for days more to reach the forest.

  Chapter 49

  We made the trip from Localita to Vadras in three days instead of four, thanks to Mirren’s knowledge of the roads that covered Aille and Caisel like a spider’s web. On the final day, we hit the coast road, a broad affair built to handle the heaviest merchant traffic on the continent, and came upon the city from the south. Riding through a wall of air that shimmered with heat and humidity we got our first glimpse of Vadras sitting at the mouth of the Mournwater, ascending from the delta like a mountain that had risen from the deeps—and stopped. Soldiers blocked the gates. We queued up with the rest of the travelers and waited.

  “Any idea what this is about?” I asked Bolt.

  He shook his head. “I could spend days speculating about what Boclar is thinking and never come near the mark. His mind was a labyrinth when I met him twenty years ago. It’s doubtful he’s gotten easier to understand since then.”

  “There’s your answer.” Rory pointed.

  At first I didn’t understand. Our thief pointed at the soldiers, but nothing seemed out of place until I looked closer. Though the practice had pretty much died out on our continent, it wasn’t unheard of for some officers to have pages accompany them to help take care of their mount and equipment. But the young men and women—hardly more than children, really—weren’t attending their superiors. They were scanning the crowd, and every one of them kept up a running commentary to the soldier beside them.

  “They’re looking for dwimor.”

  Bolt nodded. “Good. That means someone has alerted the kings and queens to be on their guard.”

  “And bad,” I added. “It’s going to take us forever to get through.”

  My guard shook his head. “Perhaps not.” He pushed his horse through the press of the crowd—unmindful or uncaring of the comments aimed his way—and dismounted in front of one of the soldiers, a man with a bit more decoration on his uniform than the rest.

  After a brief exchange, the man signaled the rest of us forward. “I am Lieutenant Astyrian.” He bowed. “You will accompany me to the palace.”

  Perhaps my experiences in Cynestol had made me overly wary, but I stepped back to give myself room enough to draw steel and nodded to Rory and Gael. Daggers appeared in Rory’s hands as if by magic, but Gael didn’t move.

  Nearby soldiers, seeing Rory’s ostentatious display with his daggers, closed in around us, wary.

  “Not here,” Bolt hissed. “Didn’t you see him bow?”

  I blinked. “I don’t understand.”

  The lieutenant waved the other soldiers away and bowed again. “King Boclar has been expecting you. I’ve been ordered to conduct you to him with all speed.”

  “Expecting us?” I asked.

  The lieutenant nodded. “His exact orders were to conduct any to him who were aware of the purpose behind the roadblock.”

  As we approached the gates, I looked up to view the massive wall and the city beyond. Though not quite as intimidating as Cynestol, its walls were thicker, and it definitely dwarfed Bunard.

  “Agin’s legacy,” Bolt said. “He regarded everyone with suspicion, even his family.” He shrugged. “Especially his family.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked. To me, the Wars for the Gift of Kings were ancient history, buried over five hundred years in the past.

  “Pellin knew him, remember?” Bolt’s expression might have shifted from stoic to wry, or maybe the light had changed. It was hard to tell. “Whenever Pellin grew tired of his books and wanted to talk, he would tell me about the war and speculate on the reason behind Agin’s insanity.”

  I’d heard discussions of it in my time as a novice in the Merum order. “Did he attribute it to alchemy or inbreeding?”

  Bolt cocked his head to one side. “Pellin’s theories ran in other directions.”

  Maybe I
saw him glance north, toward the forest. Perhaps I caught the hitch in his speech. For whatever reason, I pulled in closer to my guard, driven by an irrational fear that filled me. “He thinks Agin went to the forest?”

  Bolt didn’t nod, but for a few seconds he looked at me without blinking.

  “Does he know he went there?”

  “There are few secrets that can be hidden from the gift of domere.”

  I had to remind myself to breathe. “That casts a different shadow. What did Agin hope to gain?”

  “No one knows,” Bolt said, “and thanks to the men and women who killed him and his family, no one got a chance to find out.”

  I couldn’t tell if my guard was being sarcastic or not, but in the end I decided it didn’t matter. Agin had been defeated, and we were left with the dwimor as the price of our victory.

  Lieutenant Astyrian set a pace through the crowded streets that had those on foot jumping out of the way. The city walls straddled the river on both the west and east side. Massive ironwork sealed access to the city from the river, preventing traffic.

  Bolt pointed at the gates, black and pitted with age but still staggering in size. “Boclar’s serious about the threat of assassination. The river is the lifeblood of merchants in Vadras. Blocking water traffic through the middle of the city and diverting them around is costly business.”

  If possible, the heat and humidity within Vadras were even worse than Cynestol, but after weeks acclimating to the southern sun, I ignored the weather as best I could. I needed to convince King Boclar to accompany me to the Darkwater and his reputation for seeing through people’s motives worried me. Would my flaws cost us his favor?

  After thirty minutes, we rounded a corner and came in sight of the citadel, a squat building surrounded on all sides by water.

  “It’s always reminded me a bit of Bunard,” Bolt said. “Not nearly as effective—the land in this region is too flat to make the moat more than a last desperate gesture of defiance—but it also means that Boclar could close off the citadel and the city at a moment’s notice to keep anyone from getting out.”

  “Not exactly a cheerful thought,” I said.

  Rory laughed. “And you still swim like a rock.”

  At the far end of the bridge we dismounted. A dozen soldiers, with pages again, waited in the heat. Their blue linen shirts and trousers looked as light as craft and gift could make them but every man kept a waterskin as well as a weapon.

  Instead of allowing us to pass through, the soldiers at the gate relieved us of our weapons, and we waited until another twelve men and women with pikes came to take charge before we were herded into the citadel.

  The artwork decorating the walls consisted of complex designs and intricate patterns instead of scenes depicting battles or history that I had seen in other courts. Even the sculptures strove for geometric complexity rather than depiction, but it was the music that truly caught my attention. We passed through a hall where a group of merchants or lesser nobles attended a quartet of musicians practicing their art. Instead of the lilting strains that accompanied the formal dances of the north, I heard complex rhythms and dissonance that resolved in unexpected ways.

  “Intriguing,” I said out loud.

  “A different music for a different people,” Bolt said.

  The music faded, but even after the echoes of the last notes vanished, I kept listening, as if they would somehow continue into the expected finish if I just waited long enough. We kept walking, and in the end, we never turned. The hallway we’d entered from the south gate led us as unerringly as the flight of an arrow to the center of the citadel, the massive domed hall of the King of Caisel. When I remarked on it, Bolt nodded.

  “I’ve always preferred the tor in Bunard. That craggy flat-topped peak forced the builders to use their imagination.”

  Boclar’s court was nearly empty. A few functionaries passed through with the floor-focused gaze of those who have no time or inclination to engage in idle conversation, and no music, juggling, or entertainment of any kind filled the domed space. The lieutenant exchanged a few words with a man in dark blue with a yellow sash on his right shoulder. Together, all of us stepped toward the center of the hall and the round dais that filled it.

  “It’s empty,” Rory said.

  Mirren nodded. “It’s customary to acknowledge the seat of power in Caisel, even if it’s unoccupied.” At a look from Rory, she shook her head. “When we get to the dais, just bow toward the throne as though King Boclar were sitting on it.”

  “Strange custom,” he said.

  “Most of them are until you learn the history behind them,” she answered. “Then many of them just seem outdated.”

  As soon as we made our bow, the functionary, the lieutenant, and all the soldiers guided us toward the east exit of the hall.

  “Our crowd is growing, yah?” Rory said. “If we keep this up, we can just bring the whole kingdom to see him.”

  A few of the guards eyed Rory with a narrowed gaze, and Bolt reached out to pull him closer. “You might not want to use your fake accent here. It’s from Caisel, in case you didn’t know, and it’s usually a bad idea to offend someone with a pike.”

  East of the throne room we entered a smaller audience chamber filled with enough people to create the sensation of crowding. Bolt nodded toward the north end, toward a gray-haired man who appeared to be slowly collapsing in on himself. “That’s him. This should be interesting.”

  That last comment caught my attention. I would have asked for clarification, but by that time our escort had formed up in front of the king. Boclar had the same coloring I’d noticed on his countrymen, a swarthy shade between those of Elania and Aille. When he lifted his head, his gaze had difficulty finding purchase. One eye regarded me, while the other roved over my companions. Disquiet threaded its way through my chest as my heartbeat copied the staggered rhythm of Caisel’s musicians. Boclar reminded me too much of Myle and Aellyn.

  A woman of some forty years stood to his side. Her hair held hints of auburn in the light, but her eyes were a dark, almost violet, shade of blue that fit her expression. She eyed us with the air of someone prepared in advance to be offended.

  I hadn’t known what to expect, and in the absence of experience I’d assumed some commonality with the only king I’d met. But the only thing Boclar had in common with Laidir was the royal guard. Eight men with drawn swords ringed the king in four groups of two, and four pages filled the gaps at the points of the compass, pointing and speaking to the guards on either side.

  Herregina took a step forward, but Gael pulled her back with some whispered advice that brought the girl up short.

  The king’s gaze refused to focus, and he stared around the hall in wandering patterns. “Light, Erendella,” he whispered to the woman at his side.

  “Father”—she shook her head—“it’s too soon.”

  For a moment his head dipped, the weight too heavy for him to sustain. Then, trembling with effort, he raised it and managed to force his gaze to serve him. “Now,” he said.

  With a nod and a glare for our company, the king’s daughter snapped orders, and we were herded from the audience hall into a smaller chamber, where we waited until the king, assisted by servants, took a seat at the far end. Instead of being called forward, we were made to wait, the minutes creeping by while King Boclar struggled to make his body obey him and his daughter eyed us with unspoken imprecations.

  I stepped forward to speak, but Bolt caught me by the arm. “Wait,” he whispered. “It appears Boclar’s daughter runs the citadel. If you push too hard, she’ll have us thrown out and even the king’s personal guards won’t gainsay her.”

  As he finished speaking, a man and woman, each with the narrowed gaze of those who rarely looked beyond the work of their hands, entered the room. They carried a large polished metal bowl and an iron stand. “My apologies, Your Majesty,” the woman said to the king, bobbing her embarrassment. She turned to the king’s daughter. “Yo
ur Highness, I didn’t expect your summons for another three hours.”

  Erendella glared at us, her eyes as hard and brittle as slate. “I didn’t expect to send it, Helioma.”

  The king’s hands trembled in a way that Helioma interpreted as a command. “This will take but a moment, Your Majesty.”

  After the bowl had been set on its low stand, pointing toward the king, Helioma brought forth a bag and measured a quantity of powder into it with enough care to make it seem priceless. I grabbed Bolt’s arm. “That’s—”

  “I know.”

  With a quick word, Helioma ordered her assistant to retrieve one of the candles that lit the room and with deft movements she touched the flame to the powder in the bowl. I turned away as light like the sun flared in the king’s audience hall, throwing the people and objects within it into painful contrast.

  Limned in radiance, the king straightened in his chair, his eyes narrowed to slits against the brilliance of the alchemist’s art. But his gaze was clear. Clear. “How long?” he asked Helioma.

  The alchemist looked from the king to his heir before her gaze settled on Boclar’s feet. “About fifteen minutes,” she said. “Any more than that and we’re cutting the margin too close tonight.”

  “Excuse me, Your Majesty.” I stepped forward and Erendella’s gaze latched on to me. “My name is—”

  “Willet Dura,” the king finished for me. I must have looked startled. “Your likeness has been given to every king and church head on the northern continent.” He smiled. “I see this is news to you.”

  I took another step toward the king, trying to be subtle, but the king’s gaze, clear under the burning light shifted to my hands. With a shrug, I surrendered my pretense. “You’ll forgive me, Your Majesty, if I seem cautious at your sudden revival. I know of no disease that solas powder can cure.”

  “Guards,” he ordered. “Leave us. Return in a quarter of an hour.”

  After the door was barred, Boclar spared just enough time to nod. “What is it you wish, Lord Dura? Time is short, as I’m sure you heard.”