by Alec Hutson
“She needs to get warm, or she’ll die right here in the snow,” he told the shaman.
Lask glanced at them with disinterest, but a moment later a blanket of pulsing heat wrapped Jan. He nearly cried out in relief.
“Can you imagine?” the shaman continued, as if he had not been interrupted. “A newborn babe, abandoned in the depths of the Frostlands? What mother would do such a thing?”
“P-p-perhaps one who knew what you are,” answered the queen, and Jan’s heart fell. Surely the shaman would withdraw the cloak of warmth he’d cast over them.
Instead, Lask’s mouth twitched in a slight smile. “What I am,” he repeated, as if amused. “The huntsman did know what I was, it seemed. He did not throw me in the snow, as my own mother must have done. He brought me deep into the wilds, to the hut of a woman who was known to be a witch. He offered me to her, and later she would tell me that she accepted me because I did not cry, despite the coldness of the day and the trauma I had suffered.” Lask tilted his head, as if reconsidering what he had said. “Or perhaps even then she could sense the power coiling within me.”
“Your sorcery would not have manifested itself so early,” Jan said.
Lask fixed piercing blue eyes on him. Even coddled by the magical heat, Jan felt a chill.
“I am not a sorcerer like you,” Lask said, with such apparent seriousness that Jan could not hide his surprise.
“Of course you are.”
The shaman shook his head, and Jan glanced at Cein d’Kara in confusion. The queen looked wary, as if unsure what the Skein meant by this. Clearly he was a sorcerer.
“I am not,” he said simply, and turned back to the wagon. He climbed the wooden steps, and with a sweep of his hand a metal bolt slid away and the door swung open. “Come,” he commanded, and then moved into the darkness within.
Jan hesitated, unsure of what he would find inside. Cein took a step forward and he reached out to grasp her robes, unable to tamp down his fear. The shaman was mad, that was clear.
Lask’s voice floated from within. “The witch raised me. Sometimes she showed me such affection I thought I must truly be her child; at other times she lashed me with a whip of thorns and forced me to sleep outside. She was like the weather in winter: one moment the sun shines, the next a flensing wind cuts to the bone. I loved and hated her, it is true, but above all else I envied her.”
The wizardlight drifted within the wagon, and Jan saw that the shaman was standing just inside the entrance. Beyond him, the far wall was still shrouded in darkness, but Jan sensed that something was there.
“I envied her power. The way the birds dipped their heads to her on the branches as she moved among the trees, the way she summoned fire from nothing, the way all the beasts and the men feared her. But I had none of her gifts. I was different; I could not weave the invisible forces of the world as she could. Yet living in the wilds had taught me a very important lesson: life is a circle. Strength is passed from one creature to another in an endless cycle.”
Beside Jan, the queen sucked in her breath, as if she knew what he would say next.
“And so I killed her. I shattered her skull with a rock as she slept, then I ate her heart, as the bear eats the salmon or the falcon the mouse. And I felt her power bloom within me, and I knew that what I had done was a good thing. A true thing.”
“You were always a Talent,” Jan insisted, overcoming his shock at what the shaman had shared. “Sorcery does not pass like that from one to another.”
“Perhaps,” Lask mused. “But the witch was not the last sorcerer I consumed, and each time I felt my power grow. She was the strongest, though . . . until I tasted you, Min-Ceruthan.”
Jan felt dizzy, his fingers going to his eye patch. The memories he had suppressed sharpened, and his gorge rose. They were at the mercy of a madman.
“And sorcery is not the only thing I can gain. How old do you think I am?”
Jan blinked, surprised by this sudden question. Lask looked to only have seen twenty or so years, his skin smooth and unblemished. Rather than say anything else, though, Jan merely shrugged.
“Nearly fifty winters,” the shaman gloated, holding up his hand as if flaunting his youth. “I have barely aged since I consumed my mother.”
He was lying. He must be. Such a thing was impossible.
“Come,” Lask repeated, beckoning them inside the wagon. “Let us see how similar we truly are.”
The force pulling at Jan became more insistent, and reluctantly he went up the steps and entered the wagon. As he stepped inside, the wizardlight flared brighter, revealing the far side of the space.
Jan staggered backwards, and if not for the shaman’s sorcery he might have fallen. No. This was impossible. Ever since he’d realized that he was not truly a crofter in the Shattered Kingdoms, his life had been a litany of surprises and revelations . . . but nothing – nothing – had prepared him for what huddled against the far wall.
The cold wizardlight slid over the spines and claws and black chitinous flesh of a genthyaki. The creature was draped with chains, a half-dozen thick manacles of black iron encircling its limbs and torso and neck. Streaks of dark ichor encrusted its body, and its face had been scarred by fire. One of its clawed hands was missing, lopped off at the wrist; the injury was ghastly, as the stump had been cauterized crudely. For a moment Jan thought the monster was dead, but then he saw its nictating lids slide over its yellow eyes and he realized it was watching them.
A genthyaki. They were supposed to be extinct, destroyed by the combined power of the Star Towers and the holdfasts over a thousand years ago.
What was such a creature doing here?
“What is that thing?” Cein d’Kara asked. Her voice was remarkably steady given what a shock it was to see one of the shape changers in their true form for the first time.
Lask stepped closer to the genthyaki, and to Jan’s great surprise, the monster flinched away from him.
The shaman turned to face them again, as if unconcerned by the span-long claws and barbed tail of the monster. Even hindered by the heavy chains, Jan thought it could reach out and impale Lask. Yet it did not.
“That is the question, Your Highness. I thought it was the Skin Thief himself, at first, the way it wore the form of other men.” He crouched beside the monster and pressed a hand to its glistening flesh; his fingers came away streaked with black ichor, and he showed them to Jan and the queen. “But do gods bleed? If they do, I claim that they do not deserve our worship.” Lask wiped the creature’s blood off on one of its curving spines. “It came to me when it was near death. Weak.”
Jan wondered why the genthyaki was not using its sorcery – every one of the creatures had been powerfully strong, a few even as gifted as the greatest of human Talents. Then he caught sight of the tarnished dark-metal collar. The genthyaki’s neck was far too thick for it, but someone had placed the magic-inhibiting artifact around its wrist as a bracelet. Even wrapped in chains and robbed of its sorcery, Jan knew how deadly these creatures were. He wondered if the Skein shaman understood what he had imprisoned.
“God or not, it has power.” Lask bent down and picked up a dark-stained wooden bowl. A dagger had appeared in his other hand.
The genthyaki whimpered, baring its rows of fangs. Its tail lashed, thumping the floor, but it did not try to strike the shaman.
Lask approached the monster, then casually slashed its sunken chest with his dagger; black blood gushed forth, flowing down around the spiny thorns covering its flesh. The shaman held out the bowl so that some of the ichor spilled inside. The genthyaki panted, trembling in terror, a line of drool suspended from its open jaws. Jan had never realized that these things could even feel fear, and to see such a predator reduced to this unnerved him like nothing else he’d ever encountered.
Lask sheathed his knife and stepped away from the cowering monster, holdi
ng the bowl with both hands. “I thought the children served this beast, but in truth it served them. And it failed in its tasks.” He raised the bowl to Jan and the queen, then closed his eyes and drank from it. A dribble of black blood escaped from the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin. Behind him, the genthyaki whined and writhed. “I asked, and they gave it to me, so that I might grow stronger for the challenges ahead.”
Color bloomed in the shaman’s cheeks. As he lowered the bowl, Jan saw his lips were painted black. Jan felt lightheaded, the strangeness of this moment pressing down on him. The walls . . . the walls of the wagon seemed to constrict and expand in time with the shaman’s slow breathing. It was almost like reality was threatening to be torn away, revealing . . . something else. The shaman’s eyes flicked open, and to Jan it seemed like their unnatural blueness had deepened even further.
“Drink,” Lask said, holding out the bowl.
The horror and disgust in the queen’s face mirrored what Jan was feeling at the invitation.
“Drink,” the shaman repeated, coming closer. “I told you I want to see how similar we are. I have never met others with power like mine. But are we the same?” He offered up the bowl to Jan.
“No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I won’t.”
Lask’s expression did not change as he drifted closer to the queen. Steel rasped as he drew his dagger and pressed it to the queen’s neck, just above the metal torc that suppressed her sorcery. “Drink, or I will empty her next.” He brought his face closer so that his mouth nearly brushed her ear. “She will be sweet.”
The queen’s face was carefully blank, but Jan saw the hate and hopelessness in her eyes. She would not beg, he knew.
Jan raised his trembling hands, and the shaman gave over the bowl. He stared at the thick, inky liquid, his stomach churning.
A line of blood ran down the queen’s throat and slid along the metal collar. He saw her flinch in pain, blinking away tears.
He raised the bowl to his lips and drank. It was warm and bitter, and he nearly gagged before he managed to swallow. Shuddering, he held out the bowl for the shaman. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting – a rush of power, clenching pain – but he felt nothing except a faint nausea. The walls did not breathe, the world did not ripple.
Interest was evident in Lask’s face. “So we are not the same,” he mused as he turned to the queen. “Now you,” he said, holding out the bowl. “Perhaps the young are different than the old.”
“Unacceptable.”
Lord d’Venish delivered this pronouncement with cold finality, and Keilan’s heart fell. Vhelan, though, appeared undeterred as he stepped closer to the glowering commander, spreading his arms wide.
“Please reconsider, my lord. Our situation calls for bold action.”
D’Venish’s eyes bulged, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Bold action, Magister?” He threw out his arm, indicating the lights scattered about the great cave and the men huddled around them. “The time for action, bold or otherwise, is long since passed. I have fifty men, barely half of them fit enough to march. Out there are barbarians and monsters in a vast frozen wasteland.” He crossed his vambraced arms over his cuirass, his mouth set in a thin line. “No; the very idea is unthinkable. We would have to leave the injured behind.”
Vhelan sighed, placing his hand on the officer’s shoulder. D’Venish regarded this affront in mild astonishment. “You are correct, my lord. Our situation is dire. But eventually we will have to leave these caves; our rations are nearly used up, yes?”
“We can scavenge more from the battlefield,” d’Venish said, shrugging away Vhelan’s offending hand.
“To what end? How long can we persist in this place?”
“When I do decide to abandon this bolt hole, we will make a dash for the Serpent,” d’Venish replied angrily. “In the opposite direction to where those bastard Skein have gone!”
“There is a great threat in the north—”
The Dymorian officer cut Vhelan off with a sharp slice of his hand. “Absolute raving madness. Demons waking gods to bring about the end of the world? What foolish nonsense. No, I won’t listen to this anymore.” He turned away as Vhelan opened his mouth again, showing his back to the magister. “Make yourself useful, sorcerer, and think of a way your magic can help us get out of this mess. I’m finished speaking on these matters.” He beckoned for one of the soldiers waiting nearby to approach.
Vhelan looked like he was going to make another attempt at convincing the commander, but before he could, Keilan tugged on the sleeve of his robe and motioned with his head that they should leave.
The sorcerer considered this for a moment, then gave a little shrug and moved to follow Keilan as he clambered down the rocky mound that served as d’Venish’s command post in the cavern.
“Unfortunate but understandable,” Vhelan said when they reached the bottom and set off towards the fire where they’d left Nel.
Keilan glanced behind them at the shadowy silhouettes of the officer and his soldiers, their heads bent together in conference. The thought that d’Venish would ever even entertain the notion of accompanying them as they went off in pursuit of the Chosen and the Skein had always seemed to him exceedingly unrealistic. But Vhelan and Nel believed that having an armed escort would greatly increase their chances of making it through the Frostlands – especially if Alyanna’s anger did not abate and she decided to truly leave them behind.
Nel was sitting cross-legged near a smoldering pile of kindling, dragging a whetstone along one of her daggers. A selection of small lizards and rodents were thrust close to the flames, impaled on wooden skewers. The sight made Keilan’s stomach turn.
Nel looked up as they approached, then snorted when she saw their expressions. “I told you.”
Vhelan settled beside her and reached for one of the skewers. He examined the leathery, crisped creature dubiously, then set it back down. “This was but the opening gambit,” he said, with far more cheer than seemed possible. “Allowing us to take all the men always seemed a bit far-fetched. I fully expect that given enough time and patience I can wheedle at least a few of the rangers out of him.”
“We’ll need them,” Nel grumbled, examining the edge of the dagger Keilan thought was Chance. “It might take weeks to get where the demons are going, and I have about as much chance of catching game as you do of finding winter grapes and squeezing them into wine.”
At the mention of wine, Vhelan’s expression turned wistful. “Ah. I was actually hoping we could look about for the supply wagons and see if any bottles survived the battle. I think a bit of drink might lift everyone’s spirits.”
Nel stared at him flatly as she sheathed her dagger. Vhelan offered a weak smile, shrugging. “Just a thought.”
Keilan doubted very much if wine would be enough to improve the mood of the men. Most seemed broken, spending their days huddled around the flames, staring blankly out at the darkness. Keilan couldn’t imagine what horrors they had experienced on the battlefield, but it must have been terrible indeed. Or perhaps they were wallowing in their hopelessness, having lost their queen and companions and certain that they would also die far from their homes.
Keilan certainly could sympathize. Vhelan and Nel were making plans like they thought there was still a chance of destroying the Chosen with Niara’s dagger, but without the Crimson Queen or Alyanna helping them, Keilan had no illusions. The Skein sorcerer alone could destroy them all without lifting a finger.
If only Alyanna would return. The sorceress had stormed off in a rage after Nel interrupted her attack on the Chosen, taking her flying disc and sack of deadly artifacts and leaving the cave. That had been two days ago, he guessed; Keilan had found it very hard to keep track of time while inside the mountain. He was surprised she hadn’t also taken the black-metal dagger, but maybe she had even more fearsome weapons. Or she b
elieved that the dagger wouldn’t be as useful as they’d hoped.
“The Crone was asking for you,” Nel said, drawing him out of his increasingly bleak thoughts.
“Oh?”
Keilan had gone to visit her several times since that first day in the caves, but she had always been asleep or lost in deliriums brought on by whatever they were giving her for her pain. The soldier caring for her had confided in Keilan that he thought she only had a few days to live. That saddened him greatly; yes, Lady Numil was very old, older even than Mam Ru, but her mind had still been stiletto-sharp.
A stir from the soldiers around the nearest fire distracted him. When he saw what it was, he grabbed Vhelan’s shoulder excitedly.
“It’s her!”
Alyanna was striding towards them, bathed in the pale radiance of her wizardlight, the chavenix trailing behind her. Nel and Vhelan scrambled to their feet, both eyeing the approaching sorceress with wary apprehension. Keilan noticed that the knife’s fingers hadn’t left the hilt of the dagger she’d been sharpening.
Alyanna halted a few paces away and crossed her arms, her face serious. “I have news.”
“Where did you go?” Keilan blurted, relieved that the sorceress had returned to them.
“I went out to learn what I could about our enemies. I thought it best to keep away from that one” —she jerked her head in Nel’s direction— “while my anger was still hot. I went to the battlefield and the . . . sculpture, hoping to find some clues about the Chosen, perhaps an insight into their natures.”
“What did you discover?” Nel asked.
Alyanna scowled at her. “Only that a tremendous amount of sorcery was unleashed here, and that you were exceedingly foolish to stop me from destroying that creature.”
“Keilan might have died,” Nel said quietly through gritted teeth.
“It was a risk I was willing to take,” Alyanna replied tartly. “For all we know, the death of one of these things would destroy them all. Even the boy agrees with me.” She glanced at Keilan expectantly.