by Alec Hutson
The demons. Whatever was beneath his eye-flap itched at the thought of those monstrous children. He remembered the intense shock he’d felt as one of those ragged children had moved out from behind a statue in the throne room. He could not escape those things. When he had hunted them, they had eluded him. It was only when he thought he’d abandoned the chase that he had found them. A lesson was there, somewhere.
Jan ran his tongue over his cracked lips. He was hungry and thirsty, but someone must have been feeding him and dribbling water down his throat while he slept. The Skein had been keeping him alive. To what end?
He came awake as his prison shuddered to a stop. Dusk had fallen outside, plunging the interior of the wagon into its own gloomy twilight. He heard faint voices, growing louder, and then a clanging sound from the other side of the far wall. Rusty hinges squealed as a door opened, and Jan blinked and shielded his face as brighter light flooded the room. Shadowy shapes milled at the entrance.
Someone spoke in the grating Skein tongue. “There’s no more chains. We used them all on the—”
“They are not needed,” came the soft reply. It was a familiar voice, and it sent a shiver through Jan.
“The king said—”
“Are you challenging my command?”
An awkward silence followed. “No, no.” Jan could hear the speaker’s fear as he stumbled over his words, though he tried to hide it. “It will be as you say, shaman.”
Snow crunched as more figures approached the wagon. “Throw her in there!” barked the harsher voice, his nervous deference replaced with angry authority.
The wooden floor creaked as a pair of burly Skein climbed into the wagon. Jan slumped motionless, pretending to still be unconscious. Through his barely open eye he saw the barbarians toss a small limp body among the scattered rushes, and then they hurriedly exited the wagon without glancing back.
The soft voice came again. “Any strange noises from inside, or if the man becomes lucid, send for me immediately.”
A grunt of agreement, and then the wagon’s doors swung shut and Jan heard the sound of an iron bolt being replaced. Darkness rushed in to fill the interior once more.
He lay there for a few long moments as the wagon lurched into motion again, breathing quietly and studying this new prisoner. She was a shapeless mound in the blackness, unmoving.
“Hello,” he finally ventured, but the shape did not stir.
Jan edged closer until the chain connecting him to the wall pulled taut. He could almost reach out and touch her, but in the fading light her features were lost in the shadows. She had long dark hair, slightly curled, and from what he could see her clothes seemed of expensive make. One of her outstretched arms lay in a sliver of light, and he saw to his surprise that she was wearing a bracer of fine white leather. What skin he could see was ghost-pale.
Jan chewed on his lip, uncertain what he should do. Let her keep sleeping, and hope she roused before whatever madness had gripped him returned? Or wake her now and learn what was happening outside?
He sighed, pushing himself backwards so that he could lean against the wall again. Best to let her rest. Who knew what terrible ordeals she had suffered? Surely he could wait a while, he told himself, drawing his knees up to his chest.
He lasted about a hundred heartbeats before his curiosity gnawed through his resolve.
Jan scooped up a handful of the dry straw covering the floor and packed it as tightly as he could, then lightly tossed it at the unconscious woman. He was aiming for her midsection, but instead he struck her squarely in the head, the ball of straw exploding.
“Apologies,” he murmured. Had she stirred? He thought she might have shifted slightly.
He wadded together a larger clump of straw, and was just raising his arm to throw it when she spoke.
“Stop.” Her voice was fractured by pain. It sounded familiar.
“Your Highness?” Jan whispered, incredulous.
With agonizing slowness, the woman pushed herself into a sitting position. She was in pain, Jan realized, with maybe even a few broken bones, given the way she flinched and shivered when she braced her arm against the floor.
“Jan,” Cein d’Kara said. Her voice was flat, purged of emotion. The queen of Dymoria dragged herself closer to the wall and leaned her head against it exhaustedly.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed, forgetting his manners in his surprise.
She was quiet for a long moment. “I came for you,” she finally replied.
“By yourself, Your Highness? Where is your Scarlet Guard? Your magisters?”
“Dead,” she said with hollow finality.
Jan’s mind reeled at the implications. “The Skein defeated your army?”
“Not the Skein,” she said softly. “A sorcerer and his demon allies.”
Whatever was under Jan’s eyepatch began to itch again. “You mean the children . . .”
She nodded, moving her head against the wall. He thought her eyes were closed.
“My armies were about to slaughter the Skein. But they would have had no defense against sorcery after I fell, and my magisters . . .” Her voice trailed away. The pain he heard in her words might not be from an injury, Jan realized. She grieved for what had happened and who she had lost.
“They have collared me,” she said angrily, her hand going to something around her neck.
Jan had less sympathy for her in this, given how she had been the one to put a collar on him first.
“My sorcery . . . I can feel it, hovering there, just out of reach.”
He knew her frustration. For an accomplished sorcerer, the loss of power was like going blind or deaf. A fundamental way of interpreting the world had suddenly been lost to her. It was a terrifying sensation, and had reduced many great magi to tears. She was taking it fairly well, all things considered.
The silence stretched again. Jan’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness, and he could see her more clearly. He was struck by how young she looked – in Saltstone, she had caked her face with whitening powder to make herself seem older, and carried herself with such confident imperiousness that even the oldest and most powerful nobles had afforded her respect. Now, though, that veneer had been scraped away, revealing the young woman beneath.
“You must hate me,” she said softly.
That surprised him, enough that he did not know how to respond.
She took his silence another way. “I don’t blame you,” she continued bitterly. “Collared and imprisoned like an animal. As I am now.”
“What happened on Ravenroost . . . I promise you it was an accident.”
Her mouth twisted. “I knew that, even at the time. I was angry, though. Many of my oldest friends died when I blundered into that trap the Kalyuni sorceress had left in your mind. I wanted you punished. And I hoped she would come for you.”
“Alyanna,” Jan whispered. “I wonder where she is now.”
Cein opened her mouth, but then hesitated for a moment before speaking. “On her way to the Frostlands,” she said, and Jan sensed she wasn’t sure she should be telling him this.
“She’s coming here?”
“Perhaps. If her word can be trusted.”
“So you’ve spoken with her?”
The queen nodded. “She sought me out in my dream. She claimed to want a truce between us; that there were dangerous creatures loose in the world, and that they would cause great harm if they were not opposed.”
“The child demons,” Jan said.
“Aye. And as chance would have it, I had just witnessed one of those things strike you down beneath Nes Vaneth.”
“You saw that? How?”
“A simple scrying spell.” She waved her hand weakly, as if it had been no great feat.
“You cannot trust her. Alyanna only acts in her own self-interest.”
&n
bsp; The queen laughed quietly, a rasping chuckle. It sounded like there might be fluid in her lungs, and that concerned Jan. How hurt was she?
“I will never trust her. But our interests were aligned on this. The Oracle of Lyr gave a prophecy that foretold that these demons could bring down the end of the world, and so they must be destroyed.” She raised her slim hand and pressed it to the wood. For a moment her mask slipped, and Jan saw the pain in her face. “I have lost, though,” she murmured. “I can only hope Alyanna or others have the strength to stop them.”
“If Alyanna truly is their enemy now, they could not have a more ruthless or implacable foe,” Jan said, trying to put as much confidence into his words as he could muster. “I’ve learned that she always wins, in the end.”
“That’s madness.”
Alyanna ignored Nel’s outburst, staring at Keilan with an intensity that made his skin crawl. The wizardlight she had summoned when they’d moved farther away from where the remnants of the Dymorian army were encamped painted her face with a spectral radiance, as if she were a ghost emerging from the utter blackness of the caves.
Keilan shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. “I don’t understand.”
For a brief moment, frustration flickered across her pale features. “You don’t have to understand how it works, Keilan,” she said with what he suspected was forced patience. “This is a sorcery that should take many years to master, but with my guidance, it is within your capabilities.”
“And it’s safe?” he enquired dubiously. Nel snorted and crossed her arms.
“There will be a brief moment of danger. I will be nearby, though, and if anything goes wrong, I promise to pull you back into yourself.”
“And what will this accomplish?” the knife asked.
Now Alyanna did glance at Nel, and her cold disdain at being questioned was evident. “We are all masters of what happens in our own minds. Keilan would gain some measure of control over the child by drawing it into his dreamspace. We could learn much about these creatures, perhaps even how to sever the connection that binds this particular Chosen to Keilan.” The sorceress shrugged. “I have my suspicions about the nature of these demons. Have you heard them speak, for instance?”
The question surprised him. Keilan thought back to the ruins of Menekar, the demons arrayed outside of the unholy temple they’d constructed. Their voices had been the hoarse whisperings of many children layered over each other. He nodded.
“At first I believed that the reason they speak as one is because they are truly one entity manifesting itself in several forms.” She frowned, as if uncertain about her own speculations. “But after glimpsing the mind of the Chosen through the bond you share, another possibility has become more likely. Perhaps they speak with a single voice because one of the demons dominates the others. If we could draw another of the spirits away from the rest, I might be able to better understand how they are linked, and then apply this knowledge to cutting what binds you to them . . . or sundering their own souls from each other.”
“The risks—”
“Must be taken,” Alyanna interjected sharply, silencing Nel. She gestured towards the dark shapes farther out in the cave, clustered around the flickering oases of light. “These are desperate times. The queen is dead. Her armies are destroyed, and the broken men here cannot help us. Forget the Skein king and his horde for a moment.” She raised three fingers. “We must contend with the Chosen, along with a sorcerous Talent strong enough to humble Jan duth Verala, and the genthyaki, which – even wounded – is a power that must be respected. We need to be bold, or we will fail.”
Keilan floated in the black. The substance sliding across his skin was cool, but he did not feel cold. It was thicker than water, clogging his nose and mouth, and for a brief moment he couldn’t contain his rising panic, as he feared he would surely suffocate if he did not surface. He thrashed about, his arms and legs churning the darkness, until suddenly he arrived at the realization that he did not need to breathe. Keilan mastered himself, calming his racing thoughts. Hovering there in the void, he was reminded of when he had used his sorcery – his dowsing trick, his father had called it – to find fish a lifetime ago.
There were other similarities. Under the water, Keilan had never been alone. The ocean had seethed with life, swarms of motes like fireflies in the dark, glimmering at the very edge of his vision. And although the sensation was different, he knew that this abyss was inhabited as well. This time, it was not lights in the distance, but pockets of even deeper blackness imbued with cold intelligence. And there was something else . . . a great presence pressing on the edges of his awareness, as if he was an insect hovering near something too vast to fully comprehend.
Keilan was frightened, drifting in this alien place. All that kept him from panicking was the feeling of the thread linking him with where he had come from. It stretched backwards, passing out of this strange realm; as Alyanna had explained it, she held the other end tightly. When he gave the signal, she would pull him back into his own sleeping mind and safety.
At least, that was the hope.
Tamping down his nervousness, Keilan began to orient himself in the black. Now that some time had passed, he could tell that the dreamscape of the Chosen was not seamless: in some areas darkness bloomed like spilled ink, while others pulsed with muted purple flickerings that suggested mysterious shapes lurked in the dark. It reminded him of violet lightning illuminating the bellies of storm clouds – as a child, he’d thought this was the Shael stalking the sky, watching the seas below for the Deep Ones. He wasn’t sure even his most outlandish imaginings could guess what the colors truly were in this place.
He reached out with his consciousness as Alyanna had shown him, searching for that hint of familiarity. At first there was nothing, just the swirling coldness as he pushed through the black. The thread behind him grew more tenuous, stretching until he feared it might break. He was just about to turn and swim back to his own mind when he felt her.
She was nearby, and he willed himself to her.
Hello? It was a single soft whisper, the darkness trembling around him.
“Hello,” he replied. As he spoke, a patch of deeper blackness shifted, as if something had turned towards him.
Are you a new brother?
“No,” Keilan replied as the shadowy shape floated closer.
Who are you?
“My name is Keilan.”
Kay-lan. That is a strange name.
“What can I call you?”
The black shape rippled. It was quiet for a long moment.
I don’t know.
“But you had a name?”
I think so. I have been here a long time.
“How did you come to this place?”
A more violent spasm passed through the shape. I don’t remember.
If he could feel his heartbeat, Keilan was sure it would be pounding. “Come with me,” he said, reaching into the roiling blackness.
His fingers brushed something cold and clammy and soft. It trembled, as if afraid, but it did not pull away. His hand moved down the length of this thing, until he found where it tapered, and there he took hold of it. He felt hardness, sharp protrusions blunted by a smooth covering layer.
A wrist. He was holding a small, delicate wrist.
“Come with me,” he repeated, feeling lightheaded. The thing he held did nothing, so he took this as agreement.
With his other hand he reached behind himself and found the thread that extended beyond this place. He gripped the warm, faintly vibrating strand and tugged, like a weighted pearl diver asking to be drawn back up.
The pull was sudden and violent. He would have screamed as he was yanked backwards if he hadn’t been so surprised. The darkness swirled and eddied around him, and then it was gone, light rushing to fill the void. Streams of shimmering colors surged around him for t
he briefest of moments, and then a blinding white light obliterated his senses.
Dark swells rippled into the horizon.
He stood on a beach. Small waves broke upon the shore, then slid hissing across the sand. The cool water rushed around his ankles and retreated. In the gray sky, a crescent of honking birds flew towards a hazy copper sun.
He closed his eyes and breathed deep of the sea air, the familiar smell bringing back a rush of memories. What had he been doing before he came here? This was where he belonged. This was where—
His fingers were closed around a thin, bony wrist. He opened his eyes and turned, expecting to see Sella standing there, her mismatched eyes narrowed as she stared out across the waves.
Cold surprise churned his stomach when he saw it wasn’t her.
He held the arm of a girl even younger than Sella, maybe eight or nine years old. Instead of a tangle of dirty-blond locks, this girl’s hair was smooth and black and glistened like water at night. The strange child turned towards him, and with another jolt of shock he saw that she was Shan: her dark eyes were uptilted, and her nose was small and broad.
“This is the ocean?” she murmured, brushing away strands of her hair that the wind had pushed across her face.
“Yes,” he replied softly.
“It is beautiful.” She returned her gaze to the water. Keilan saw a tear slide down her pale cheek.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Her brow crinkled while she stared out across the sea, as if she was thinking hard. “My name is . . . Yan. Ko Yan.”
Keilan swallowed. Awareness of who he was and where they were was slowly seeping back to him – along with the knowledge of what she was. He let go of her wrist, letting her arm fall, but she did not seem to notice.
“My brother is Ko Xien. He teases me sometimes. We live by the river with Mother.” The lines of confusion on her face deepened. “No. The men took me to the red towers. My master now is Lo Jin.” She glanced around, as if looking for this person. “Where is he? He will be angry if I am not there to fetch his tea.”