The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  He didn’t feel any sympathy for them.

  One of the Skein muttered a warding against evil as they started to descend to where the others had gathered. Jan wondered if this prayer was directed at what was sleeping within the Burrow, or the demons arrayed outside the door.

  Five ragged children stood there, tiny compared to the great gray slab of stone rising above them. A group of Skein stood a ways away, the black-robed priests of the Skin Thief with their masks of cured flesh. They looked like a flock of carrion birds inspecting the Burrow, as if it were a particularly large and rich corpse to feast upon. Jan grimaced as he noticed Hroi and Lask among them. The Skein king’s face could have been carved from granite, and he was staring at the Burrow with such a look of intense concentration it seemed he was trying to crack open the door through an act of will alone. His mottled cloak stirred in the cold wind, and both his hands rested on a pair of sword hilts, the blades thrust into the snow. The strange metal of one of the swords almost resembled amber, and Jan knew that this must be the legendary Night’s Kiss. But it was the sight of the other sword that sent a pang of surprise through Jan. Set in the carved silver hilt, a fire opal burned like a fallen star – there was no other blade like it in the world. Somehow, the Skein king had acquired Bright, the sword spell-forged for Jan by the weapon-smiths of Nes Vaneth.

  His shock melted away before the heat of his anger. How was this possible? Bright had been taken from him when he’d been imprisoned by Cein d’Kara, and he’d assumed the sword had been added to the collection of ancient artifacts she’d shown him in Saltstone.

  “You look angry, sorcerer.”

  Jan tore his gaze from Bright’s rune-inscribed steel to find the shaman smirking at him.

  “That’s my sword.”

  Lask arched a pale eyebrow. “Did you hear that, my king? The Min-Ceruthan says your blade is his.”

  Hroi’s cold gaze settled on Jan. The thane of the White Worm stared at him for a long moment, then dismissed him by looking away.

  “He does not recognize your claim, sorcerer. The sword was taken from the queen of Dymoria after her defeat – if you have a grievance, perhaps it should be with her.”

  Lask withdrew his hands from the long dagged sleeves of his robes and indicated something behind Jan.

  He turned to find Cein d’Kara stumbling across the snow towards them, three of the Skin Thief priests shepherding her on. They were keeping a good distance from her, as if wary of what she might do, though to Jan it looked like she was barely keeping herself from falling. Her face was pale and drawn, the red hair spilling from under her fur hood dirty and tangled. But still she held her head high, and her eyes flashed defiantly as she caught sight of Lask and the Skein king.

  Cein stopped, drawing herself up, but then the priest behind her lunged forward and shoved her hard from behind so that she went sprawling face-first in the snow. Grating laughter issued from the other priests as the queen pushed herself to her hands and knees. She was trying to stand, but her arms were already trembling with the effort necessary to stop herself from collapsing again.

  Jan went to her and gently helped her to her feet. Cein clutched at him, but her face was hard as iron. “You consort with demons, Skein,” she spat, finding her balance.

  “Careful, witch!” barked one of the Skin Thief’s priests. “You speak of a god’s servants!”

  Cein jerked her chin towards where the ragged children stood in the snow facing the soaring door. “They are not divine. Your god is a lie.”

  Scattered gasps and angry muttering rose up from the priests. Jan heard a few shouted cries to kill the queen here and now.

  The Skein king chuckled, swinging his amber-bladed sword up onto his shoulder. “You may claim our god is not true, Dymorian.” He pointed with Bright towards the Burrow. “But here its dreams soak this land. It is waiting to be awoken.”

  “That thing is not a god,” said Jan.

  Hroi snorted. “No? What could be more god-like than the creature beneath this hill? We are gnats to it. When it finally slithers forth after so many ages it will devour this world and bring about a great reckoning.”

  “Why would you wish that?” asked Cein, her voice fractured by pain. She was trying to be strong, but Jan could tell she was suffering from some injury.

  “We worship the Skin Thief,” Hroi replied, “but we are the clan of the White Worm. We have always dwelt in the shadow of the Burrow. All our lives it has squirmed deep in our thoughts – we’ve felt its blind hunger, the vastness and beauty of its presence. Long have we wished to usher the Worm into the light.”

  “And let it destroy the world?” Cein asked, incredulous.

  Lask stepped forward, and the priests of the Skin Thief stopped their muttering. He seemed to command even more respect that the Skein king. “When a thing is consumed, it is not destroyed, Dymorian. I showed you that. It changes, and its strength is passed to what devoured it.” He lifted his emaciated face to the hazy sun, his eyes narrowing. “This world will end, but something will come after. And we who are prepared to seize that moment will feast richly and grow stronger.”

  “The Skein have long dwelled in the ruins of a lost world,” interrupted Hroi. “Scavenging among the bones of the past. When the Worm wakes, it will feed upon the south, crushing kingdoms and empires. My people will follow in its wake and make ourselves masters of what remains.”

  “You wish to rule over an empire of dust,” Cein said sneeringly.

  Hroi seemed undisturbed by her mocking tone. “I do, Dymorian. Would you rather be a queen of a shattered land and a broken people or a peasant toiling for rich men in a realm of wealth and plenty?” He turned away. “I know what your answer would be, even if you would not admit it to yourself.”

  “You do not—” Cein began, but then she gave a pained cry. One of the demon children had appeared behind her – Jan hadn’t seen it move – and laid its twisted hands upon her. She fell to her knees, torn from Jan’s grip.

  A moment later agony flared in his spine, and he too was forced to kneel in the snow. He tried to lift his arms, but all strength had fled from his limbs. Points of piercing cold drifted across his back as one of the children ran its fingers across his body. It had reached up beneath his furs and laid its hand upon his skin. Jan’s head spun and he nearly retched from the pain.

  Through the haze, he sensed Lask approaching. “Hold them,” the shaman said, and to Jan it felt like a great fist was squeezing him, tearing the breath from his chest.

  Fingers were at his throat, and then to his immense surprise he felt the collar around his neck snap open. He gasped as his sorcery returned in a raging flood, and he reached for the strands that were once again within his reach . . . but the pressure holding him from moving was somehow also keeping him from seizing his power. Cein grunted in frustration beside him, and he knew she could not claim her sorcery either, even though her collar had been removed. The paralysis stemmed from the touch of the demon children, a coldness spreading from where that small palm was pressed against his back.

  Another hand, much larger, settled upon the top of his head. Fingers tangled in his hair, gripping him roughly, though the pain was a distant echo compared to the agony radiating from where the demon touched his spine.

  From the corner of his eye he saw that Lask now stood beside him; the shaman had one hand on his head, and the other clutched Cein d’Kara’s scalp, so tightly that blood was seeping from where his nails pressed against her brow.

  What was happening?

  It almost felt like . . . yes, the shaman was opening himself to them, ready to receive their power. But of course they would not send their strength into this man– whatever great act of sorcery he wanted to perform was somehow related to the slumbering Ancient. Jan would die before giving the Skein what they wanted.

  Deep within him, something shifted. The paralysis that
was keeping him from grasping his sorcery suddenly loosened. He clutched for the twisting threads flowing up from his connection to the Void, but once they were firmly in his grasp he found himself unable to weave them into a spell. He struggled, sweat beading on his face. The queen moaned beside him as she also strained to use her returning power.

  Small cold fingers pried at the clenched fist within him that held his sorcery. This jarred him, and he nearly let go; the feeling of something else trying to release his power was shocking. He fought against this force, but it was immeasurably strong, and gradually he was forced to relinquish what he held. It was the demon children, he was sure of it, but it was nothing like he’d experienced before. It shouldn’t be possible!

  Cein screamed, a wordless howl of rage and frustration. He might have done the same, as the implacable fingers of the demons forced open his hand so that the strands he’d gathered lay there in his palm, exposed. And then there was the shaman reaching down inside him to take up his sorcery, gathering Jan’s power into himself. He’d never experienced a violation like this before, his sorcery seized by another with cold indifference.

  “Yes,” Lask murmured, his voice thick with stolen power. “I have it.”

  twist it into the shape we showed you.

  Many ragged whispers spoken as one, booming inside Jan. The demons were within him, their black roots sunk into his body, their spirits floating alongside his own consciousness.

  He sensed the sorcery swelling in Lask as the shaman drained them. Then he was manipulating it, crafting the torrent of energy into something that seemed familiar, the edges sharpening as Jan watched in horrified fascination—

  A key.

  With a snarl, the shaman lashed out with the sorcery he had braided. Jan could see no physical representation of the spell, but with the eyes of a Talent he watched it sink into the huge door like lightning striking the sea. Power coruscated across the stone surface, glimmering shards that flared and then faded into nothing.

  Jan gasped. He felt hollowed out, like Lask had reached down and scooped out his insides. Darkness pressed on the corners of his vision.

  The door . . .

  Jan waited for the sound of grinding, or for the stone to explode outwards in a shower of stinging fragments.

  But the door did not open.

  Lask staggered, leaning heavily on Jan where he still clutched at his skull.

  “It did not work,” he said softly, sounding exhausted.

  it shifted. we felt it. you must try again.

  The shaman shook his head. “I used everything they had, along with my own power. We must wait for them to recover their strength.”

  Through his numbing weakness Jan felt the cold metal closing around his neck again. Lask crouched in front of him, his face sallow and drawn, and then the shaman patted him on the cheek.

  “We try again on the morrow, Min-Ceruthan.”

  She was being stalked.

  At first, it had been a nagging sense of being watched. Cho Lin had paused as she slogged through the snow drifts, peering into the trees, hoping for a glimpse of whatever was making the back of her neck prickle. But there had been nothing except the snow softly falling between the bone-white trunks of the birch trees and the dark, bristled branches of the pines. She’d dismissed it as her imagination, chiding herself for allowing these wilds to fray her nerves. With the supplies she’d scavenged from Nes Vaneth running low, she had much more important concerns.

  Then she’d heard it: the snap of wood breaking. It might have been a branch giving way under the weight of winter, or a stag rubbing its antlers against a tree. Two mornings ago, Cho Lin had emerged from the little shelter she’d constructed to find a magnificent buck watching her from deeper among the trees. If only she’d been wise enough to keep searching the Skein longhouses until she found a bow – the thought of fresh venison had taunted her as the great deer had turned and picked its way among the trees. Even with the strength of the Nothing she had little chance of running down a stag; later, though, as she chewed on her dwindling rations of salt fish, she’d wished she had at least tried.

  Perhaps the sound was a family of deer. But then it came again, a faint crackling. Deer would not keep pace with her. Something that was hunting her would, though. Cho Lin’s pulse began to quicken and she watched the forest with a sharpened intensity.

  There were dangers out here. Ghost apes, or wraiths as Verrigan had called them. She remembered the severed head of the wyvern the Skein king had brought back from his hunt, its jaws large enough to swallow her arm whole. Then there was the beast that had ambushed her and slain her poor horse. And of course the Frostlands must teem with other threats she could not even imagine.

  Very faintly, she heard the crunch of snow. Whatever was stalking her was not the most careful of hunters. Which only made her heart beat faster – if a predator did not care if its prey was aware of it, that was because it had confidence in its speed and strength to catch the animals that tried to run away. Cho Lin let out a long, slow breath. She wasn’t about to be dragged down from behind. No, if this thing wanted her, it would have to face her with her claws out.

  Cho Lin ducked behind the stump of a large dead tree. Quickly, she flung her pack on the ground and slid her butterfly swords from their sheaths, the coldness of the ivory burning her fingers. She waited, her back to the scarred bark, listening for the approach of the hunter.

  Every day was the same in the north: trudging across snowy plains and through silent forests until he could hardly tell one morning from those that had come before. The wonders he had hoped to glimpse in the Frostlands remained stubbornly hidden. He saw no dragons wheeling among the distant peaks of the Bones, or wraiths slipping between the trees. He flopped onto his bedroll each night with his legs burning and his ears numb, and woke the next morning still sore and tired.

  Some evenings he lay swaddled in the furs he’d scavenged from the battlefield, and watched the sky pulse with strange lights, rippling veils of green and purple. Vhelan had surmised that farther north was where the bounds between realities frayed, the energies of the Void leaking into this world. Alyanna had snorted when she’d heard this and tartly informed him that there was nothing magical about the light; that it was a purely natural phenomenon investigated by a Kalyuni scholar a thousand years ago. Keilan knew she spoke from a well of knowledge deeper than any who lived in this day, but still he felt a surge of wonder as he watched the colors dance across the heavens.

  His headaches were growing worse. Well, perhaps not worse, but certainly different. Ever since being cut by the black dagger he’d suffered from flashes of pain like sudden lightning storms, vicious enough for him to momentarily lose his vision or fall unconscious. Now the discomfort was constant, though not as intense. It felt like sharp nails were being scraped inside his head, and while he could still keep pace with the marching soldiers, he found that he had to keep his eyes on the ground so that the sunlight wouldn’t sharpen the pain.

  One morning, not long after they’d left camp, Nel noticed the tightness in his face and nudged his shoulder gently. “Keilan, do you feel sick again? Should we stop for a while?”

  He shook his head curtly. “I’m fine.”

  “Let me see your arm,” she asked, already rolling back the sleeve of the too-large fur jerkin he’d taken from a dead Skein. “Hm.” Her brow furrowed as she inspected his forearm. “There’s a little blackness, but nothing like before.”

  “Really, I’m all right,” he said, sliding the sleeve back down. She frowned when she heard the slight annoyance in his voice.

  “Go talk with the sorceress,” she told him firmly. “Let her know what you’re feeling. The demons know there’s a connection between you now, and only the Silver Lady knows how they might strike at us next.”

  Keilan sighed and rolled his eyes, but still he sought out Alyanna at her usual place in the col
umn, a dozen paces behind the last soldier and reclining on the chavenix. She looked like a satrap’s wife being carried on a palanquin through some decadent eastern city. Alyanna lifted an eyebrow and sat up when she noticed Keilan standing there.

  “You finally wish to join me?” she asked, patting the shimmering metal beside her.

  “No.”

  Alyanna had offered him a spot on the chavenix before, but Keilan had always declined. He would have felt too guilty watching the others trudge along in the cold and snow while he remained warm and rested on the disc. After all, many of the soldiers bore wounds from the battle, though the worst of the injured had remained behind in the caves. Alyanna, of course, had no such qualms.

  “I have a question for you, though,” he said as he fell in alongside the chavenix, matching its leisurely pace.

  She cocked her head to one side, waiting for him to continue.

  “I feel . . . different. My head hurts, but it’s not like the spikes of pain from before. It’s more of an . . .” He paused, struggling for how to describe the sensation.

  “Irritation.”

  “Yes,” he replied, surprised.

  “I feel it too, Keilan. It has nothing to do with the bond you share with the Chosen.” She stared off towards the north, squinting at the Bones looming on the horizon. “It’s the White Worm. I honestly don’t know how the Min-Ceruthans remained sane with its presence always intruding on their minds. We Talents are particularly sensitive, but the others will take notice of it soon enough, particularly in their dreams. And it will get worse for them the closer we get to its lair.” Alyanna rummaged in her bag for a moment and pulled out a thin book bound in red leather. “This was written by a fallowmancer of Vis who lived for a year just outside the great Burrow where the Worm is entombed. He recorded all the visions and dreams he experienced that he thought could be ascribed to the Ancient. Mostly they were so alien in nature he struggled to put them into words – there are pages of descriptions about feeling his coils pushing through substances that have no parallels in this reality, esoteric relationships with things that our human minds cannot comprehend. Very literally the dreams of the Worm seeping into his own.”