The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  “Keilan,” his mother said, and his insides turned to water.

  “Ma,” he managed numbly.

  “Oh,” she murmured, and whatever else she was going to say was lost in a choked sob. Her cheeks glistened as she rushed towards him, her arms wide.

  This was a trick. A trap. But before he could summon his sorcery or draw his sword she had reached him, enfolding him in an embrace.

  “You’re so tall,” she whispered into his shoulder, her hands clutching at his back. He could feel her hot tears trickling down his neck, pooling in the hollow of his collarbone. With shaking hands, he gripped her shoulders and pushed her away. This thing smelled just like his mother. Even the way she cocked her head slightly to one side as she gazed at him was the same, her unbound silver hair falling over one shoulder.

  “You’re not my mother,” he said hoarsely, and despite knowing this was true he still felt a stab of pain in his chest as her face crumbled at his words.

  “I am,” she said, holding his arms tightly.

  “She died.”

  “I did. I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you a ghost?”

  A flicker of confusion passed across his mother’s face. “I . . . I don’t know. I remember drowning, the water filling my chest.” She blinked, taking in a shuddering breath, and then she focused on him again. “My last thoughts were of you. You must know that.”

  He couldn’t help himself. Illusion or spirit or whatever, the question he had always wanted to ask forced its way out. “Why did you go with them?” he asked, his voice breaking.

  “Oh,” his mother said softly. She let go of his arm and reached up to touch the side of his head. He thought he would flinch away; he did not want to not give in to whatever this thing was, but he could not help himself. “I was so scared for you. I could see the murder in their eyes. If I fought, if I tried to run, I knew it would only bring their blood up. I told them . . . I told them I would let them take me down to the sea and I wouldn’t scream or fight, but they had to leave you alone.”

  Keilan bowed his head, tears coursing down his cheeks. His mother’s hand moved behind his head, stroking the nape of his neck, just like she used to do when he was small.

  “Why are you here?”

  She raised a finger to catch his tears, her soft eyes filled with love. “To save you, Keilan.”

  The others were gone. With her senses augmented by her grasp on the Nothing, their sudden absence had been jarring. It had happened in a heartbeat – one moment she had heard them blundering through the mist beside her: Keilan’s heavy breathing, the rustle of Alyanna’s robes, the scuff of their footsteps on stone . . . and then nothing. Only a silence like that which descends after the fall of a headsman’s ax. They were simply no longer here . . . or, she supposed, she was no longer where she had been. Were they casting about in the mists looking for her even now? Or were they dead?

  Well, there was little she could do now except find her way through this cursed mist. She should have already reached the far wall, so some other strangeness was happening. Quickening her pace, she held the strange black knife in front of her so that its glistening point carved the thick murk.

  Soft footsteps disturbed the quiet. It did not sound like the scrape of Keilan or Alyanna’s leather boots – rather, this was the slither of fabric on stone as someone glided closer. The Betrayers? Only those already dead could wear silken slippers in this frozen land. Cho Lin tensed, ready to lash out if one of those demon children emerged from the mist.

  A shape swelled within the haze. Too large to be one of the Betrayers – could it be one of her companions? She was just about to call out when it spoke.

  “Lin.”

  She nearly dropped the knife in shock.

  “Father?” she whispered.

  He stepped from the mist, glowing tendrils clinging to his imperial robes and circular scholar’s cap, his hands thrust into his long sleeves.

  Cho Lin staggered back, her hold on the Nothing dissipating. This was impossible.

  “Who are you?” she hissed, brandishing the black knife menacingly.

  Her father watched her with the same look of calm judgement she had seen countless times before, his thin lips set in a considering line.

  “I am Cho Yuan. You dishonor me by not recognizing your own father.”

  “You were killed.”

  The thing that looked like her father inclined its head slightly. It was a mannerism she was familiar with.

  “I am dead.”

  “Then how are you here?”

  Cho Yuan withdrew his hands from his robes and passed them in front of his face, rippling the mist. “This place, it is a crossroads. The Veil infringes upon the living world here, and so my spirit can speak with you. Before, I could only watch.”

  “You have been watching me?” she said softly.

  Again the small nod, the tassel of his cap slipping forward. “Our ancestors have watched everything you’ve done.”

  She had to remember this was not real. Yet still she found herself responding to the apparition like it was truly her father. “And what do you think of what is happening?”

  Her father held her fast with the strength of his gaze. “We are shamed.”

  Despite her attempt to harden her heart against whatever this thing said, still she felt a pang of sorrow at its words.

  Her father shook his head sadly. “You gave up the Sword of Cho willingly, and it was destroyed. You were captured by the Betrayers and proved too weak to escape their prison.” His jaw hardened, anger flaring in his eyes. “And now you ally yourself with the one who ordered my murder!”

  “She is trying to stop them,” Cho Lin said numbly.

  “The sorceress freed them! She was the one who stole the chest from the bone-shard towers. She unleashed this plague upon the world for her own petty ends! Yet you stand beside her, follow her commands, and would fight to save her if she was in danger. You disgrace the Cho name.”

  Cho Lin’s thoughts whirled. She had suspected that Alyanna had been responsible for more than she claimed ever since the shapechanger’s cryptic comments, but she had held fast to the idea that the monster had been trying to sow discord between them. If what this spirit said was true, though, then she had truly failed her family and her father.

  “What would you have me do?” she said bitterly. “I cannot stop the Betrayers by myself. I need the sorceress’s strength.”

  “Leave this place,” he replied with harsh conviction. “Take the weapon they gave you and return to Shan. Present it to the emperor and the warlocks and let them give it in turn to the greatest warrior in the empire, so that he can slay the Chosen.”

  He. Of course.

  “But they will wake another Raveling!” Cho Lin cried, stepping closer to her father.

  “In the north!” her father spat back. “Shan is on the other side of the Broken Sea, and this creature cannot cross the water. It was how our ancestors fled the destruction long ago. The northerners brought this calamity down upon themselves, and your loyalty must be to Shan!”

  “You want me to flee?” Alyanna said, a shiver of cold surprise going through her as she met Demian’s placid gaze.

  “I want you to survive, Weaver,” replied the swordsinger. “This is not a fight you can win. The Ancient is already stirring; nothing can stop its awakening now. The Chosen and the Skein sorcerer are too strong for you alone to oppose.” She retreated as he moved forward a step. “Please. You will die if you stay here.”

  “I will die if I leave,” she spat back.

  “Only if you stay in Araen. This land is doomed, but remember what the Shan did long ago. They fled the ravages of an Ancient and found a new life on distant shores. You can do the same. Go to Xi and explore the ruins hidden deep in the dark jungles. Travel south to the burning oases of the black sand deserts. S
ail the western ocean to the Sunset Lands and see what mysteries wait there to be discovered.”

  “And let the world I know be destroyed?”

  A slight smile quirked the shadowblade’s lips. “As you did before. Except then, you were the one that wielded the sword.”

  “I knew it would not all be lost, and that much would survive.”

  “The same will happen here,” Demian replied calmly. “The Ancients are like fires in the forest. When too much bracken and dead wood chokes the land, keeping new life from growing, the Ancient scourges it clean. It is the natural way of things. Other creatures will rise to take the place of man. It has happened countless times before.”

  Something about what Demian had said did not ring true. “Wait,” she said, gathering her sorcery. “You once told me that you chose immortality because you wanted time to discover the meaning of existence. And now you suggest it is nothing but a cycle of death and rebirth.”

  Demian shrugged. “I was wrong. There is no great mystery. All we can do is hold out against the darkness.”

  “Those are my words,” Alyanna said, stalking closer. The sorcery thrummed within her, wanting to be released. “You know what I wish to hear. But it is not Demian who would say such things. You are not Demian.”

  “Weaver—” the phantasm began, but Alyanna had already unleashed a wave of shimmering sorcery. When it struck Demian he wavered, his face contorting, and then he dissolved into colorless wisps that quickly merged with the eddying mist.

  Alyanna drew in a deep, steadying breath. Whatever that thing had been, it had preyed on her guilt over what she had done to Demian and had tried to use her secret innermost thoughts to turn her from her path. It had known her so intimately. She couldn’t conceive of how that was possible. What if she found Keilan or the Shan, and they were in truth simply flawless simulacra intent on stopping her?

  The mist in front of her roiled and fled, revealing a wall of mottled white flesh broken by a ragged wound. Black metal barbs had been sunk into the skin to keep the injury from scarring over, and from the gray-green crusting of scabs at its fringes Alyanna could tell that this wound was ancient, perhaps as old as this city. No blood or ichor leaked forth, and there seemed to be emptiness beyond it. Alyanna approached cautiously. She ran her hand lightly over the pebbled wall; it felt like lichen-spotted stone, but she knew she was touching flesh, and she couldn’t hold back a shiver.

  She ducked down, peering within the open wound. There was no mist, but a dull light infused the space beyond, radiating from everywhere and nowhere. It revealed a tunnel crudely hacked from the flesh, curving away into the distance. Black pustules hung from the ceiling like corrupted fruit, and a bile-green liquid flowed behind one of the walls in rhythmic pulsings. Far away a distant, mighty heartbeat thundered.

  She slipped one leg through the gaping wound, her boot sinking slightly into the soft floor. The air was much different here – the coolness of the mist-shrouded city was gone, replaced by a slick, oppressive humidity and the smell of freshly butchered meat.

  Steeling herself, Alyanna pulled herself fully inside the great beast.

  “Save me from what?” Keilan asked, closing his eyes as his mother’s fingers continued to stroke the back of his neck.

  “From all this,” she said softly. “You’ve done so well, Keilan. And so much. But you’re just a boy. This place would be dangerous to the greatest of sorcerers – even my mother would have feared to tread here. You must flee while you still can.”

  Keilan grimaced, looking at her again. “I can’t. There are so many who will die if we cannot stop the Chosen.”

  “You will die!” his mother cried, her voice wrenched by fear and sorrow. “What can you do, my son? The sorceress has power that has been refined for a thousand years. The Shan has a weapon forged to end the miserable existence of those tainted children. You have nothing!”

  “I have something,” Keilan said, and held out his forearm so that his mother could see the faint black lines spidering beneath his skin.

  Pity swelled in her face, fresh tears glimmering. She withdrew her hand from his neck and lightly traced the swollen veins with her finger. “Oh, my sweet son. What have they done to you?”

  “I am bound to one of them. I have felt its rage and fear and confusion. She’s lost and lonely. Maybe I can help her.”

  “You were always so kind,” his mother murmured, enfolding his hand in hers. “And for a soul so pure it is hard to see the wickedness in others. But there is evil in this world, and however innocent these children once were, they have been corrupted beyond redemption. They will kill you if you go forward.”

  “Then I will go to my death,” Keilan said sadly, pulling away from this thing that might have been his mother. “I cannot run from this.”

  “Please, Keilan!” his mother cried, and he felt her fingers clutching at him as he moved past her. “Please!” Her sobbing ripped at his heart, but he forced himself to ignore it. Even if this truly was her, he must continue. The lives of Nel and Sella and his father hung in the balance.

  After a few steps, he turned and saw only swirling mist where his mother had been. But he thought he could still hear her anguished cries somewhere far away, pleading with him to turn back.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as the mist suddenly cleared and he found himself staring at the blackened, festering edges of a great wound set into white flesh.

  Cho Lin stepped away from this creature that looked like her father, her lip curling in contempt. “Your words betray you. My father would never show such callousness, even towards the northern barbarians.”

  “You do not truly know me, Lin,” the phantasm said angrily. “I thought of Shan above all else. The counsel I gave the emperor was always for the benefit our people. Why should I care what happens to these savages?”

  “And you believe allowing the Raveling to come again would be in the best interest of the empire?” Cho Lin stepped closer to her father, scorn dripping from her words. “Allow millions of innocents to perish while we ready our fleets to abandon this land as well? You think I should turn away when our ancient foe is here, and I have a weapon that can end their curse forever?”

  The creature drew itself up taller, glowering down at her with the same expression of disappointment she had seen countless times when she was young. The familiarity of this look sent a shiver through her, but she held fast to her belief that this thing in front of her was not truly her father’s spirit. “Such disrespect! You must obey me, Lin!”

  “You are trying to turn me away,” Cho Lin said. “And it will not work.”

  Holding the creature’s outraged gaze, she stalked forward, her butterfly sword extended in front of her, but before the point could touch its robes the phantasm trembled and split apart into shreds of coiling mist.

  Cho Lin slashed angrily at the drifting tendrils. How dare they try to use the memory of her father against her? But she was not so easily fooled; whatever tricks and traps infested this cursed place, she would persevere. Even if it killed her.

  A few steps beyond where the illusion of her father had vanished, she caught sight of the wall she had expected to reach much earlier. A fissure large enough for her to slip inside marred the mottled white flesh, held open by barbs of black metal.

  “Keilan!” she shouted once more into the mists, though she did not expect an answer. They were not here anymore, and she did not have the time to search for them. She would push on, towards where the Betrayers waited, and hope that if her companions still lived they would do the same.

  Seated upon a glistening black knob that sprouted from the spongy floor of the tunnel, Keilan stared at the wound he had passed through and wondered if he had made a terrible mistake. He had been praying to every god he knew of: the Deep Ones, Ama, the Silver Lady, the Ten – even the Four Winds he had heard Cho Lin entreating, though he wasn’t sure
if those were actually divine beings – hoping that the Shan or the sorceress would emerge from the roiling murk and join him inside the Ancient. Yet there was no sign of his vanished companions, and the fear wriggling within him was growing harder to ignore.

  Inside the Ancient. The thought that he was sitting on a chunk of organic matter in a space carved from the flesh of a beast was almost beyond his comprehension. This place was a nightmare made real, seething with life. Iridescent beetles the size of his fist scuttled across the craggy walls, and webs of ropy filaments spread across the ceiling. Clusters of dark, broad-capped fungi shivered in the steamy air, and black globes swollen with foulness hung ponderously above his head. More noxious liquid flowed behind the walls in places where they grew membrane-thin, gurgling and hissing as it rushed past.

  His own body was vibrating slightly in time to the heartbeat of the beast, and the oppressive presence in his thoughts seemed to be squatting just behind his eyes. He kept shaking his head, as if that could clear it. A silvery centipede that looked to be of the same ilk – only much smaller – as the creature they had seen in the stone city slithered across his foot and disappeared into a tear in the wall.

  Keilan shivered. He stared at the churning mist that stopped at the threshold of the Worm and willed the others to appear. He considered venturing outside again, but he was afraid of what else he might encounter in the mist. Continuing deeper into these tunnels was not an option. Without Alyanna’s sorcery or Cho Lin’s strength, there was no way he could stop the Shan demons.

  Had they also encountered something within the mist and been turned away? Or had they already arrived where he sat now, and after waiting for him had finally decided to push on? Alyanna had said it was only a matter of time before the Chosen successfully roused the Ancient. But surely she and Cho Lin would have left some note or marker so that he would know they had been here? Should he do the same? Keilan peered down the curving passage, its far reaches choked by feathery fronds stirring in a breeze he could not feel, wondering if he dared press on without them.