The Complete Twilight Reign Ebook Collection

by Tom Lloyd

  ‘My mother was, for much of my life, frightened – frightened and sad. When I was younger I thought it was my fault. I still remember the day I described losing my sight as a shadow falling over me. She wept for two whole days, all the grief for my father that she’d hidden from up until then.’

  ‘You’ve no idea the effect your birth had, Daken. Yes, you too Ethia, my mother never saw you born but you were on the way and it was the final touch that allowed her to let go of the fear she’d carried half her life. I’d always wanted a family, a proper one that was more than just my mother and I – one full of happiness rather than loss. The two of you made us complete, but you did something else I didn’t expect. You gave me my mother back, the one I remember smiling down at me in my early years. The woman who’d been full of joy, returned to me for that last year of her life. For that I can never thank you both enough.’

  ‘My father? Yes, this is about him. You know he died when I was very young, don’t you? I don’t suppose anyone said anything more than that though.’

  ‘They did? An accident in Narkang? Well, of a fashion, I suppose. I, ah – I probably shouldn’t tell you this, not until you’re a little older, but I think you deserve an explanation for my temper. Before I do, mind, both of you just remember this is all over – there’s nothing to fear now. That’s what brought back my mother’s happiness, the sight of Daken alive, whole and happy. It’s over and there’s nothing more to fear.’

  ‘Yes, I know I’m repeating myself. Thank you, Ethia, but it’s important you understand. Very well, where to begin?’

  ‘At the beginning, yes, Ethia. Something you will learn in class soon enough is that history is a complicated beast, and the beginning is often hard to discern. For a start, not everything they will teach you is quite the truth, sometimes there will be little details left out.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ll get to the point. My father was called Darayen Crin and he was a merchant. Two years before the Menin invasion – do you remember when that was? Good, well, two years before that a man and a woman died in mysterious circumstances in Narkang.’

  ‘No, I don’t know what those circumstances were, no one knew. That’s why they were mysterious. You have to understand, this story was told to me by my grandparents when I was a boy. I’ll tell you what I know, but I just don’t know everything. All I can say is that the old king was involved; the man who died was a friend of his and one memory I do have is of a King’s Man standing in the parlour talking to my father. He was the tallest man I ever saw, tall with blond hair and a long scar down his face. That man frightened me, enough that I had to be taken out of the room by Kolus while they spoke.’

  ‘Kolus? He was the estate foreman; already an old man by the time I was born. I don’t remember much about him, only that he was always very gentle and had a gravelly voice. He was a soldier once I believe, during King Emin’s wars of conquest, but he never even raised his voice to me. Anyway, the King’s Men – there were two, but I don’t remember the other – they had come to tell my father to stop writing letters and asking questions about the deaths in Narkang.’

  ‘They were called Marshal and Lady Calath, I believe. Marshal Calath was my father’s cousin; I think the family still live up in Inchets, not too far from here. As for his wife, she was related to the king’s first minister, a powerful man called Count Antern. I don’t think we ever found out what happened, but once I spoke to a travelling minstrel from Narkang about it. He remembered the matter because the city had been aflame with rumour for a few days; all sorts of ghostly talk about them being murdered in a locked room, but then a common thief confessed and was executed for the crime.’

  ‘He laughed about it at the time – said the whole instance had become a byword for the power of rumours. I don’t know if it exists today, but at the time he said the phrase “a marshal’s reflection” was used to describe something repeated so many times it became distorted beyond all recognition. Why the King’s Men felt the need to travel here and warn my parents about such a distortion I’ve never understood, but in some ways I think my mother was as frightened of them as much as anything else in the Land!’

  ‘Now, my father had been very close to the marshal despite being many years younger. He had, in fact, visited the couple mere weeks before their murder. He was on his way home when a rider caught up his wagon train and gave him the news, asking him to return to Narkang to answer some questions. On his way back a second rider cancelled the request and told him the culprit had been executed so he returned here, knowing he wouldn’t arrive in time for the funeral and having a family of his own to attend to.’

  ‘Stop interrupting, Daken. Now where was I? Ah yes, he returned home and life went on as normal. I assume my father was grieving, but I was too young to remember, I’m afraid. I do know that one day, a few weeks after he came home, a letter arrived from a distant aunt in the city he’d seen briefly during his stay – some gossipy old spinster, nothing like your aunt at all of course.’

  ‘Hah, yes indeed, but don’t tell your mother that! Anyway, after receiving her letter my father became very depressed, he refused to attend to the estate’s affairs and spent most days locked away in his study. He wouldn’t speak to my mother for long periods, I remember her being very upset and hugging me while she wept. What was said and what happened I don’t remember, but he started writing to city officials and the Watch commander about the murder, which of course prompted the visit by the King’s Men.

  ‘After they came and warned him off, intentionally frightening Mother in the process I’m told, Father became even more withdrawn. He wouldn’t eat, he refused to sleep or work. He became obsessed with this murder, quite forgetting his own family. Out of desperation my mother took me to visit a mage called Archelets who lived nearby. He owned Beller Hall, you know the one?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. He was a rich mage who didn’t have to work for the city guilds or anything, he was of a good local family and my parents knew him well. My mother went to Mage Archelets and begged his help. He agreed, naturally, and suggested my father come and help him with his experiments. My father was an educated man and, while he wasn’t a mage of course, he was skilled with his hands and the mage needed some practical assistance.

  ‘I’m told a mage is a difficult person to refuse – but all I remember of his visit was the tricks he performed for me, far in excess of anything some hedge wizard at a fair would be able to manage. Needless to say I was as delighted as I was terrified of the man, but I’m told my father took a lot more persuading. What transpired has been lost to history, but eventually my father agreed to work with the mage and the next morning travelled to Beller Hall to begin.’

  ‘It seemed to work; he came back after sundown and hugged me for the first time in weeks apparently. Whether because of the activity, distraction, or a stern telling-off from Mage Archelets, my father remembered he had a family to take care of and did so. He had moments of melancholy and was frequently exhausted by the work he was doing for the mage – of all things, carpentry, glass-blowing and overseeing work by the blacksmith over in Garranist – but much of the man he had once been returned and life started heading back to normal.’

  ‘No dear, it didn’t turn out that way. The mage was conducting experiments with mirrors – the details I never heard, but somehow he was using magic to etch an image onto the silver-back of special mirrors.’

  ‘No, not like the one your mother has, mirrors he and my father made especially for the process. I never saw it myself of course, but my mother for a time had kept one of their early successes – not very detailed but my grandparents said you could clearly make out the lines of my father’s face in the mirror. He’d posed before the fireplace in the mage’s study, grinning with joy at the shared success.’

  ‘Somewhat like a painting, yes, but more accurate and only in the finest shades of grey. The process was to expose the mirror before whatever scene they wished to have etched and use some magical process to set that into th
e mirror. How exact it all was I don’t know, but I do know they discovered something strange the more they experimented with the process. The greater amounts of magic they used, the worse the images turned out. The pictures were blurred in parts, on occasion some details hadn’t been etched at all – it was as if they didn’t exist.’

  ‘No, not Father – a vase was the only one I can remember. The picture showed the line of the panelling on the wall behind, unbroken as though nothing was there. Another had a blur across most of the mirror, from one side all the way across to where my father stood at the fireplace. The image of him was poorly etched, as though he had been moving throughout the process, but he was very careful to be still. The process was not a quick one and neither of them had any desire to waste the mirrors they had to make themselves – it was a costly and time-consuming process.’

  ‘What was the cause? Well they didn’t know, they couldn’t understand it. In desperation they tried to increase the magic used even further, at which point something very strange happened. The next image was of my father as usual, but there was another figure in the room. It was indistinct, but at the window there stood a woman where of course there had been none in real life.’

  ‘Yes, so they realised. Mage Archelets recognised the figure at once, despite the lack of detail. It was his mother; a woman dead some thirty years by then, before the conquest. Both men were terrified, this hadn’t been their intention at all. Mage Archelets realised the increasing levels of magic used was bringing out echoes of the past. The more they used the further back they could reach. The vase had stood there not long before they started work so it had left only a small impression on the Land – he described it as ripples on a pond, the biggest of which might last for years. His mother had often stood at that window, looking out over the gardens beyond, and some echo of her had remained.

  ‘To my father this awakened only one thought, the obsession he had tried to bury those past weeks. For what could leave a greater impression on the Land than a murder? All this he kept from his friend, but his sullen nature returned and he left for home early that day.

  ‘That night my father broke in to the mage’s house and stole the apparatus and several plates they had already prepared. He never came home again, but travelled with all speed to Narkang – determined to discover the identity of his cousin’s murderer.’

  ‘Yes, Daken, I’m afraid he did. Mage Archelets was naturally distraught, but beyond sending a message on to a friend of his in Narkang there was little he could do. He was an elderly man, my father in the prime of his life. With a heavy heart he went on with his experiments with the remaining equipment he had, pursuing them further still.

  ‘What he discovered prompted him to send a second message, this time by fast courier to the king’s uncle with whom he was acquainted. They acted with all haste but it was too late, they didn’t reach the former home of Marshal Calath in time. Watchmen broke in and discovered my father in the upstairs study – dead on the floor with some hedge wizard he’d hired in Narkang a few hours previously, both lying amid the smashed wreckage of the mage’s equipment.

  ‘They had to break down the study door as well; it had been barred from the inside. Mage Archelets told my mother the last pictures he’d created had used greater magic still and in them could be seen my father.’

  ‘Yes, my father who was by then on the king’s highway to Narkang. My father who was standing there in the same pose as he always adopted in the pictures, for ease of comparison. But he wasn’t alone in the pictures – there were other figures. One was Archelets’ mother, another a man he guessed from the stature to be the Hall’s previous owner.

  ‘Except now, each was facing my father – looking straight at him and reaching out. In the very last, the other figure had almost touched the image that was my father’s echo. My mother never discovered what was etched in the pictures in Narkang, only that there were three of them. The last was still in the broken picture-box when my father’s body was found. He never saw what was on it.

  ‘Around that time I came down with a fever. For a week I sweated and raved, close to death. When I recovered, my sight was already failing, but of that week I had only one memory. It was the dream of a room where the furniture was all covered by dust-sheets and a figure stood facing me – a shadow with claws, reaching for my eyes.’

  SHADOWS IN THE LIBRARY

  Gennay Thonal got up from her desk and stretched. Somewhere behind her, muffled by a heavy drape, a window shutter rattled its bolt under another gust of winter wind outside. On her desk the flame of her oil lamp leaned slightly away, as though under the breath of someone who’d been sat beside her, but Gennay was quite alone in the still library.

  The fire nearby hissed lazily and for a moment the curtain of shadows around the walls drew back, before settling comfortably back into position. It was dark there with only two lamps and a fading fire to light the large, empty room, but neither the chilly breath of night nor the gloom on the ground floor were enough to disturb Gennay a shred.

  She reached up towards the timbered ceiling with a slight moan of effort, but the stiffness in her back wasn’t enough to stop a smile from stealing over her face. Young and supple, Gennay felt the ache fall away as she continued the movement around and down again until her fingers brushed the rug underfoot. The exercise was one she’d done most days for more than a decade and proved no difficulty even now.

  As a little girl she’d nagged her father into allowing her professional training rather than the staid, formal version girls of breeding were normally permitted. It had instilled an athletic grace few of her peers possessed and even fewer of their mothers would approve of.

  ‘Ah, Father, you dangerous progressive,’ she said with a grin, looking over the balustrade beside her with a burgeoning sense of pride. ‘First allowing such unwomanly behaviour, now bringing learning to the unwashed masses.’

  On the floor below there was a mess of boxes and workmen’s tools, but in Gennay’s eyes it was a dream slowly taking shape. Shelves on the walls, drawers waiting to be filled – she could picture the finished product in her mind and had been able to for months now.

  On the point of collapse less than a year ago, the old building had been derelict and damp. This winter might have seen it all fall inwards under the stinging ocean breeze and freezing temperatures, but the roof was now repaired and strong once more; the marauding cold of Narkang’s streets tamed to a manageable chill.

  ‘New life,’ Gennay whispered to the hush of the empty building, ‘we’re breathing new life into this city, whatever they might say about us.’

  The young woman pulled her shawl back up over her shoulders and stepped closer to the fireplace. The library was a massive building and from her desk Gennay could observe proceedings in the large central hall around which everything else had been built. Despite the repairs, Gennay still worked with a shawl over her head and fingerless woollen gloves. After nightfall the fire took an edge off the cold, nothing more, but that made all the difference to a woman forced to work later than her employees.

  Once a guildhouse for shipping merchants, the building was in three distinct parts – not quite forming three sides of a square, while an eight-foot wall penned the remaining ground to form a cobbled courtyard. This part, the largest of the three, consisted of the oversized hallway over which Gennay now looked, to serve as a library in conjunction with what had once been a large meeting chamber just off the main room. Behind Gennay were another few rooms to be used for private study, while the newer north wing would house the three school rooms where the best and brightest of the city’s children would be educated.

  The oldest part of the building, the guildsmen offices, would house the scribes and copyists who would earn the money required to keep the library going, penmanship and learning always being in demand in a trading port. Gennay’s father, Count Bastin Thonal, had bought the building and paid for its renovation, in addition to amassing the books and scrolls for the libr
ary, including copies of his entire personal collection.

  It was to be his legacy, his gift to the city he’d found wealth in, but – ever the businessman – he’d decided against an annual drain on his income, preferring to force the library to be self-sufficient whether or not his eldest child was its administrator.

  Gennay reached out to the fire and warmed her hands for a moment longer before returning to her desk to pack up. It could easily be left for the morning, the night watchman would not disturb anything, but still she tidied every night. She ordered and stacked her correspondence then arranged the books and papers so even the strictest of her childhood nannies could have found no cause for complaint, all ready for her return. One pile for each of the library’s functions with a fourth for the building works, each consisting of half-a-dozen or more sheaves bound with coloured ribbon.

  Before she stood again from the desk, Gennay’s eyes lingered on one of the piles, the one concerning the school. The matter grew more complicated every time she considered what would be taught, how and by whom. Narkang was not presently a centre for learning and even finding capable secular teachers was proving a struggle.

  ‘A shame my brother doesn’t have patience for the efforts of others,’ Gennay said to the library at large. ‘He would make this so much easier.’

  She spoke without rancour, loving Emin unreservedly, but the young man had always been irritated by people failing to grasp concepts as quickly as he did, let alone his few attempts to teach anyone. When Emin was young his father had been forced to beat him for throwing an apple at a cousin, because the man hadn’t been able to keep up with an explanation given so rapidly it was barely intelligible.

  ‘And that’s typical of my brother,’ Gennay said with a laugh as she lowered an iron cover over the fire’s embers. ‘How many beatings are given with a slight sense of pride? At the age of twelve Emin blackens a man’s eye from over a dozen yards away – earning himself a new bow and the finest instructor the following week.’