Shadowfall

by James Clemens

  She wended her way through the maze of corridors to reach Perryl’s cell. “Over there,” she said, pointing out the proper door. She glanced to make sure she had the letter and that the name upon it was not smudged. Satisfied, she crossed to the door and knocked upon it.

  Barrin and Hern took up posts on either side, all but filling the hallway. Lorr kept behind her.

  There was no answer. Maybe he was gone, off with friends.

  She knocked harder.

  A scuffle of noise sounded beyond the door. Someone was home.

  “Perryl . . .” she called through the planks of the door.

  Silence answered her.

  “Perryl, it’s Kathryn.”

  A moment of silence, then a muffled response. “Come inside . . . but be quick about it.”

  Kathryn tried the door. It was unlatched. She shoved it open. A small hearth crackled to one side of the greeting room. Beyond an archway, the bedchamber lay dark.

  A cloaked Shadowknight stood by the hearth, facing the flames. “Close the door. Latch it.”

  She obeyed, though she knew instantly the figure was not Perryl. The shoulders were too broad, the figure sturdier of frame. Even cloaked from head to foot, Kathryn knew the stranger was far older than the young man she had come to see.

  “Where’s Perryl?” she asked.

  “Gone . . . disappeared . . . no one knows where . . . but there was blood on his bed.”

  Kathryn pictured the slain knight in the Fiery Cross. Fear gripped her. If Argent knew of her letter, did he know whom she planned to send?

  “Wh . . . who are you?”

  The Shadowknight turned, his face hidden by a wrap of masklin, his stripes plain to see. “Don’t you know me?”

  Kathryn stared into his eyes. The room spun, her knees weakened. Time slipped from the past to the present.

  “Tylar . . .”

  FOURTH

  GODSWORD

  Lo, the skies darkened with heavy clouds and ’round the last sun, the great fell driven, riven, sundered

  Lo, the ground shook with a mighty roar and within the last mountains, the great fell driven, riven, sundered

  Lo, the oceans boiled with black blood and under the last seas, the great fell driven, riven, sundered

  Lo, the fires went cold and died to ash and in the glow of the last flames, the great fell driven, riven, sundered

  —Canticle of the Godsword, ann. 103

  17

  SHADOWPLAY

  “AGAIN?” LAURELLE ASKED, SEATED BY THE HEARTH TO her room. She bent over a lace stocking, darning it with silk on a silver needle. “Is your room too cold at night? If we keep bedding together, folks will begin to speak out of turn.”

  Laurelle’s words were softened by a smile.

  Dart felt a blush rise to her cheeks. Still, she did not retract her plea to share Laurelle’s room. Dart feared sleeping alone since waking two mornings ago, knowing someone had been in her bedchamber. Even now she imagined Yaellin de Mar leaning over her sleeping form, the streak of silver in his black hair aglow in the dark. She hid a shudder.

  Laurelle must have sensed her fear. She sighed. “What is this all about?”

  Dart glanced to Pupp. He lay in front of Laurelle. His fiery eyes watched with fascination as she knit a hole closed in her hosiery. Firelight danced behind him, but he cast no shadow. Dart tired of all her secrets, so many now she felt near the point of bursting.

  She could stand it no longer. The secrets so filled every space inside her that she found herself unable to eat. Sleep came fitful, even while sharing Laurelle’s bed. She felt worn so very, very thin.

  Laurelle stared at her with genuine concern. She set down her darning and reached over to take Dart’s hand. “You’re trembling.” She scooted over, drawing Dart closer. “What is troubling you so?”

  Dart shook her head—not so much in refusal as in confusion.

  Laurelle leaned until her nose was almost touching Dart’s. “You can speak to me.” Fingers squeezed. “Whatever you tell me can stay between just the two of us.”

  Dart felt something loosen deep inside her, shuddering free. A sob rose to her lips and burbled out before she could swallow it back.

  Laurelle pulled her into an embrace. “Dart, what’s happened?”

  She shook her head, then mumbled in Laurelle’s ear, “Something horrible . . .”

  Laurelle sat back. “Tell me. What one can’t bear alone, two may carry more easily. Share.”

  Dart stared at her friend. For all her life, she had lived with secrets. She watched Pupp crawl around them, tail tucked, low to the ground, sensing her turmoil but unable to comfort. For so long, she had found security in silence, keeping her true self hidden away. What would it be like to end all that? To live her life openly? She didn’t know what distressed her more: to speak or not to speak.

  Laurelle waited for her to decide, holding her hands.

  Dart knew she had no choice. The secrets inside her had become a great ocean of dread, and Laurelle was a moon, drawing a tide. Dart felt the shift inside her. She couldn’t let it all pour forth. To be that empty and exposed was too frightening, too shameful. She could not speak of what happened in the rookery; that was too deep, the darkest part of her inner ocean. But on the surface roiled her most immediate fear.

  Yaellin de Mar.

  Laurelle seemed to sense the flow before Dart even began speaking. She settled herself as a swordsman might set his footing before an attack. She nodded to Dart, ready.

  “It all started in the Eldergarden,” Dart began slowly. Her words came out haltingly, then grew in pace as she related the murder of Jacinta and the Hand that held the blade.

  “Yaellin de Mar?” Laurelle’s eyes had grown wide. A trace of disbelief shone there.

  Dart stared back at her friend. She had found strength with the telling of the story. She allowed it to shine forth. With her conviction, the glint of disbelief slowly faded from Laurelle’s eyes.

  “Why hasn’t he spoken of it?” Laurelle asked. “I’ve heard no whisper of such strange events.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe all were sworn to secrecy.”

  “And this woman . . . this Jacinta, have you inquired who she might be?”

  “I dared not ask. If Yaellin found that it was I who was spying upon them in the gardens . . .”

  Laurelle reached out and took her hands again. “And you’ve kept this corked up inside you all along.” Her eyes shone with a mix of awe and respect. “You’ve more steel in your blood than I.”

  “I . . . I had no choice.”

  “You could’ve told me earlier.” A twinge of hurt entered Laurelle’s voice.

  “I didn’t want to involve you. If there was danger, I wouldn’t have you come to harm.”

  Laurelle squeezed her hand. “We’re sisters now. Serving here together. What you face, I will face, too. Together.”

  Dart so wanted to believe her. Hope swelled through her.

  “Is all this why you wish to sleep here?” Laurelle asked. “Are you scared of Yaellin?”

  “Something else happened,” Dart said. She told of her waking two mornings ago and finding a brazier still hot, smelling of strange alchemies.

  Laurelle covered her mouth with one hand. “Someone was in your room.”

  “I think it was Yaellin.”

  “Why? Surely he doesn’t know it was you in the gardens. You’ve spoken to no one about it.”

  “It was the dinner, after our first harvests from Lord Chrism. You told the story of Healer Paltry and the exploding illuminaria. For some reason, this drew Yaellin’s attention to me. He kept watching me.”

  Laurelle nodded. “I remember that. I thought he was just infatuated with you. You were looking lovely in that dress.”

  Dart was taken aback. “Lovely? Me?” She shook her head. That was not the point. “No. It was your story of the illuminaria. He was watching me so intently as we left the dinner. I know it was him in my room. Who else could it
be? He works in secret, tells no one, dabbles in dark dealings, like in the gardens. Then the very night Yaellin’s attention is drawn to me, someone sneaks into my room, burning strange alchemies.”

  “But why would he do that? What did the alchemies do? Do you remember anything from that night?”

  “Dreams . . . bad dreams.” Her voice drifted back to the strange flight and escape from some dark wood, chased by unknown pursuers.

  “Nothing more?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t see we have any choice,” Laurelle said.

  Dart frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “We must tell Lord Chrism all that happened. He’ll know what to do.”

  Dart clutched Laurelle’s hand. “We mustn’t.”

  “Why? He should know of Yaellin’s strange actions.”

  Dart feared the attention such an accusation would raise. She would be singled out. She would most likely be soothed to prove her testimony against one of Chrism’s respected Hands. And when soothed, how much else would be revealed? Her dark secrets could not withstand such a bright light. To expose Yaellin meant exposing herself.

  Laurelle continued to stare at Dart, eyes questioning.

  “I cannot.” Dart stumbled over her words. She had no way to explain to Laurelle without revealing her deepest shame.

  “Well, I can.” Laurelle stood. “I’ll tell Lord Chrism. I can explain to him it was I who saw Yaellin in the Eldergarden. That should raise enough of a tumult to sanction him. He’ll not be able to sneak into your room after that. The truth will come out.”

  “No. You’ll be soothed. They’ll find out you were lying.”

  “And by that time, Yaellin will be under scrutiny. It will be safe for you to come out of hiding.”

  Dart realized Laurelle had misinterpreted her reticence to expose Yaellin as a fear of reprisal.

  Laurelle gained her feet. “We should wait no longer. I noticed that Chrism keeps a light burning in his room till past the ring of the final bells. I could go now and tell him what you told me.”

  Dart stood. She had an urge to deny everything, to tell Laurelle it was all a fabrication, a fireside story, nothing more. But fear and exhaustion kept her silent. A part of her wanted this secret taken from her. Dart found her voice. “No.”

  Laurelle pulled a silver robe over her nightclothes. “We must tell Lord Chrism. Yaellin may even be tied to the assassination of poor Willym.”

  Dart nodded. “I know. But it should be I who tells him. It is my accusation to speak.”

  Laurelle handed Dart a second robe, a crimson one. “Are you sure?”

  She certainly was not. But she had no choice. Laurelle was right. If Yaellin was pursuing some vile purpose, Dart would have to risk herself to expose him. Others, like Willym, might die if she kept silent. With the decision made, she felt a surge of relief. Come what may, it would finally be over.

  Laurelle helped her into the robe. “I’ll go with you.”

  Dart found her hand in Laurelle’s. Tears rose in Dart’s eyes.

  “We’re sisters,” Laurelle said.

  Dart quickly hugged her friend . . . her sister. She wiped her eyes on the hem of a sleeve. In the distance, the final bells of the night chimed.

  “We’d best hurry,” Laurelle said, crossing to the door.

  Dart went with her, continuing to hold hands. Pupp left his hearthside roost and trotted after them. They made a strange company, two robed girls, one in silver, one in crimson, and a fiery companion with no substance.

  Dart’s confidence in her decision persisted, but she sensed she had forgotten something significant. Something that tickled a warning across her skin. Before she could ponder it further, Laurelle opened the door and stepped out.

  The bells echoed away.

  But not her trepidation.

  The pair stood in front of the golden doors. The High Wing was dark, painted in ruddy hues from the giant iron-and-bone brazier at their back. The few lamps hanging on the walls had been wicked low and half-shuttered.

  Silence was complete. No voices rose from the common rooms at the end of the hall. Everyone had retired to their respective rooms.

  Including Lord Chrism.

  In the gloom, firelight flickered from beneath the jamb of his wide doors.

  “Maybe we should wait until morning,” Laurelle said, sounding scared for the first time this night. “You could spend the night in my room.”

  Dart could not count on her determination lasting until sunrise. “I’ll knock . . . announce us.” She took a deep breath and pictured Chrism’s warm green eyes, his easy, lazy smile. She regretted bringing bad tidings to his door in the night. She remembered the haunted words, lost and concerned. We must be watchful . . . all of us.

  She had no choice.

  She slipped her fingers from Laurelle’s and crossed to the doors. A silver knocker, carved into a flowering branch of a wyldrose, hung on the door. As she reached, she sensed movement beyond the door, a shift of shadows at her toes. Someone had moved across the hearth.

  Lord Chrism.

  Her fingers hesitated, trepidation flaring.

  In the silence, the unhitching of a latch rang sharply.

  Off to the left.

  Dart flew back. A door opened.

  Her door.

  Laurelle stared, mouth open. Dart grabbed her arm and drew her down behind the brazier. Two figures stepped from her doorway. The first was a woman, her lithe figure decked in leather from boots to waist-length riding cape, the only dab of color, a blouse of ruby silk. The ruddy glow from the brazier lit her face as she glanced up the hall.

  Dart recognized her.

  Mistress Naff.

  She served as the Hand of Chrism’s Seed.

  Behind her came a taller figure, outfitted in shades of green, wearing brown boots. About his shoulders was a cape of tanned leather framed in black fur. His eyes glowed in the darkness, full of Grace.

  It was Lord Chrism.

  “She must be bedded down again with your Hand of Tears,” Mistress Naff said as Lord Chrism pulled closed the door.

  Both glanced in their direction, not toward the brazier but toward Laurelle’s door. Dart ducked fully away, ears craned to hear every word.

  “She should be safe enough for the moment,” Lord Chrism said.

  “So how long do we dare wait?”

  “Until all show their true colors,” Chrism said.

  The scuff of boots sounded, moving away.

  Dart risked a glance around a corner of the brazier. The pair headed down the length of the High Wing. She watched until they vanished through a door that opened to the lower stair, taking a lamp with them.

  Dart turned to the side. Laurelle had also watched them depart, peeking through the legs of a fanciful animal sculpted from the iron of the brazier.

  Dart stood up, drawing her friend’s eye.

  “Why did we hide?” Laurelle whispered, her voice tremulous. “It was Lord Chrism . . . whom we had come to find.”

  Dart had no cause for such caution, except simple habit. “Maybe we should leave our own accusations until the morning,” Dart said.

  Laurelle nodded, her features pale even in the reddish glow.

  Pupp sniffed at the brazier, slowly checking out each sculpted beast.

  Dart stepped away when another bolt slid free of a lock. This time, Laurelle needed no encouragement to dive behind the far side of the brazier. The door to Chrism’s rooms pulled open as they ducked away.

  Dart peered under the brazier and spotted a pair of black boots. Only now did she remember the movement beyond the door to Chrism’s chambers. If Lord Chrism had been in Dart’s room, who was this other?

  She risked sliding to the side to spy around the edge of the brazier.

  The interloper headed down the hall, aiming to follow Lord Chrism and Mistress Naff. His figure was indistinct, fading into and out of the gloom, appearing as ghostly as Pupp. It took a moment for Dart to recognize the re
ason why. She watched the shadows seem to swim around the retreating form. A shadowcloak. During Dart’s schooling, knights periodically visited the Conclave. She had witnessed their blessed ability to move through shadows unseen.

  The figure pulled up the hood to the shadowcloak, vanishing completely for a breath, swallowed by the gloom, then reappeared briefly on the far side of the High Wing. He vanished down the same stair, following after the earlier two.

  Despite the shadowplay, Dart had gotten a good look at the man’s face before it disappeared under the hood of the shadowcloak. She could not mistake the ebony hair split by a shock of white.

  “Yaellin de Mar,” Laurelle mumbled at her side, aghast.

  He had been in Chrism’s room while the god had been in Dart’s.

  Why? What was the meaning of all this?

  Dart stood up. All she knew for sure was that she had to follow after them all. She started down the High Wing. Pupp danced after her.

  Laurelle hung back. “Dart, what are you doing?”

  “I must warn Lord Chrism,” she said, her steps hurried.

  “Wait,” Laurelle urged. “We don’t know what’s going on.”

  Dart could not argue. All she knew was what she had spotted in Yaellin’s hand as he crept down the hall, before he vanished into the shadows.

  A blade.

  A black blade.

  The same as had murdered the woman Jacinta.

  “I must go,” Dart said.

  Dart climbed down the stairs, moving as cautiously as a titmouse, staying close to the wall. She hiked up the edge of her robe to keep the hem from brushing the stone and alerting the others of her presence.

  Laurelle followed after, moving in Dart’s footsteps, mimicking her careful progress.

  Pupp continued ahead of them both, blazing a path onward. His fiery form illuminated their path, at least to Dart’s eyes. Laurelle kept one hand on Dart’s shoulder. Distantly the meager glow of the retreating lamp carried by Chrism and Naff flowed back to them.