Lord of Shadows

by Alix Rickloff

  If Brendan was correct and the veriest scrap of memory was enough to loosen the mage’s hold upon Daigh’s soul, what would a deluge of memories beget? And would she be strong enough to hold herself in this time and place long enough to create them?

  There was no way but to try. Failure meant death.

  The air thickened and condensed with rain and cloud. Fog muffled her footsteps, creating ghostly specters of the wooded Welsh glen. But he was just as she knew he would be. Eyes sparkling soft and as gray-green as the fog, untouched by shadows, body bearing none of the jagged edges of his present blighted existence. He reached a hand for her. Wide. Callused. Warm. It enfolded her fingers. Drew her in.

  “I know you,” he whispered. “Cariad.”

  She smiled, stepping into his embrace.

  Daigh’s mind fractured like a fist through a mirror. A million shards. A million crystalline memories. Pristine. Without flaw or fault. And sharp enough to sever the strongest prisoner chains.

  Energy flooded limbs suddenly free of the taint of Máelodor’s dark magics. The oppressive presence no longer coiled at the base of his brain. He struggled to his knees, shaking his head as if to clear it, but the memories clung like burrs to cloth. Throbbing the very air. Filling him like an empty wineskin with moments and impressions as clear as the scene before him. He knew who he was. What he was. The being known as Lazarus shed like a discarded cloak.

  “St. John. Kill her!” Máelodor screamed, spittle flecking his mouth, his eyes wild and unfocused.

  Douglas lay bloody and dazed upon the floor, Máelodor’s cane pressed to his windpipe, the master mage crouched above him like a vulture.

  St. John advanced upon Sabrina, who lay still as death upon the pallet. “What say you, Douglas? Shall we carve a few scars into your pretty sister’s face?”

  All eyes upon St. John, none noticed Daigh reach for the discarded billhook. Close his hand around it. Roll up and forward in one fluid thrust aimed at St. John’s back.

  Not until the last possible second. Then Máelodor shouted a warning as St. John swung about, the sharpened tool ripping a long gash through the fabric of his coat. “You!”

  His retaliatory spell hit Daigh like a wall of crushing stone.

  Darkness closed in as his lungs worked frantically for air, his tongue thickening, his throat closing. No gentle suffocation, but a pressing sense of panic. His struggles availed him nothing. No mage energy answered his summons. He was powerless.

  “Play fair.” Reaching out with his ruined hand, lips moving in a soundless whisper, Douglas shattered the room with a thunderous tremor of answering magic. Walls bowed, the floor heaved, and dust and thatch drifted in the fetid air.

  St. John fell, his spell dissolving while Máelodor stumbled to his knees, his face contorted with pain and an insane fury.

  But no sooner had the master mage hit the floor than his body wavered and shifted. Shadows overlapping shadows. More than human, less than snake. Eyes round and red and lidless. Mouth unhinged in a gaping fork-tongued grimace. A great hood spreading above a scaled head while his body lengthened and contorted with the striking speed of a snake.

  “He’s a Heller!” Douglas gasped.

  “Gelweth a sargh dyest. Pádraic eskask.” The words slithered ominous and black from Máelodor’s mouth. “Dreheveth hesh distruot.”

  From the center of the room, an enormous serpent took shape. A rippling, reptilian monster.

  Fangs bared, it lunged for its closest prey. Daigh.

  The fog smothered her in its damp, cloying folds. The trees and the holding and the path and the weeping left behind. Word had come. The men were dead. Word had come of the death of a prince and the slaughter of his companions.

  Keening filled the air. Rose like the thick, black smoke of the cook fires. Sabrina had stayed as long as she dared. But word had come, and there was no more reason to hold fast to this time and this world.

  Her life here had been full, the memories precious. But her lover was dead, and she was released to return to her home and her time while he slept the passing centuries in a grave, awaiting the odious spell that would summon him to a new existence among the living.

  The fog thinned to silver strands, the enormous, sheltering woods contracting to the dingy walls of a cottage, the prickle of a straw mattress beneath her cheek. Years for her shrinking down to mere minutes for them.

  He stood with his back to her. Sword-straight. Shoulders braced for battle.

  She reached with her mind, touching the heat and love and strength of a man she’d parted with in tears and pleading long months previous. But nothing else.

  She had beaten Máelodor. Saved Daigh.

  Word had come. And though she had lost him in one life, she had gained him in another.

  The great snake undulated from side to side as if assessing the easiest target. Winded and heart pounding, Daigh backed against the edge of the pallet. Weakness buckled his legs while sweat poured between his shoulder blades. Streamed into his face. He wiped it with the back of a sleeve.

  The snake took that moment to strike.

  Its tail whipped St. John’s legs from under him as it lunged at Douglas, still lying prone upon the floor.

  Daigh shoved the man out of the way, taking the fangs deep into his own arm.

  With his free hand, he slammed the billhook down and down again until the snake released him. Blood poured green from its wounds, burning Daigh where it spattered his bare flesh.

  The snake struck again, but this time St. John used the moment to launch his own attack.

  Daigh parried the snake, but was too slow to thwart St. John’s thrusting knife, which caught him a raking slash across the collarbone.

  The Amhas-draoi sought to follow up one success with another, his dagger flashing against the growing darkness, his gaze alive with a diamond’s icy fire, full lips parted in a ruthless grimace.

  Daigh’s stomach tightened with nausea, acid eating its way up his throat, but he evaded St. John’s assault by a hair-breadth, though he knew it would only be a matter of time.

  “Dreheveth hesh distruot,” Máelodor’s voice rasped low and venomous. “Ladhesh esh’a peuth. Kummyaa nagonaa byest.”

  “He’s escaping,” Brendan cried.

  Daigh dared take his eyes from St. John for long enough to see Máelodor duck out into the passage. He tore after him, but St. John stepped in his path, dagger at the ready.

  “He leaves you to die,” Daigh uttered from a jaw clenched tight against the pain in his arm. Already his fingers tingled and his vision sparkled with bursts of white light.

  St. John drew himself up. “I’m Lancelot. The battle hand of Arthur himself. Máelodor knows my worth.”

  The curse he unleashed cut into Daigh like hot knives, every breath a new horror. Then just as suddenly, the spell dissolved as the snake struck at St. John. And again.

  His focus interrupted, the Amhas-draoi bellowed, “Máelodor! Your beast. Call it off!”

  Daigh raced for the stairs, but the snake threw its coils beneath his feet. He stumbled, throwing an arm out to catch himself. Something snapped in his wrist, agony shooting to his shoulder until he almost passed out from the pain.

  The worn grip of the billhook met his throbbing fingers. “Daigh.” A whispered voice. Rejuvenating as a plunge in a snowy mountain-fed stream.

  He forced his fingers to close around the handle. Adjusting his grip, he took difficult aim. Waited for an opening though every nerve screamed for vengeance and his arm grew heavier with each passing second.

  St. John’s golden features bloodied and streaked with gore, his breathing fast, his body quivering, he bellowed curses at Máelodor while dodging the snake’s frenzied attacks. Swinging under the snake’s guard, he stunned it with a brutal crack to the skull, thrusting up into the snake’s throat, blood pouring over his arm in a blistering, green, noxious wave.

  It was Daigh’s only chance.

  Even as St. John screamed his victory, Daigh
released the billhook with a whiplike snap. Sent it thudding hilt-deep into the Amhas-draoi’s chest.

  The man toppled to one side, eyes glazing in death, mouth twisted in a cruel rictus.

  Without pausing for breath, Daigh threw himself at the door. Máelodor couldn’t be far ahead. He could still catch him. Still retrieve the tapestry.

  “Brendan!” Sabrina cried.

  Daigh spun around in time to see the snake once more lunging for Douglas, who scrambled to escape. Thrusting himself between predator and prey, Daigh felt the pierce of the snake’s fangs in his chest and back like a fiery double punch. As he was pulled from his feet, feeling flowed from his body with his blood.

  But this time and this death there was light rather than darkness filling his vision. It spread over him. Burned through him. He knew his name. Knew his life. Heard his comrades’ fond welcome.

  He was finally going home.

  “Dehwelana dhil’a islongh. Pádraic eskask.”

  Arrayed like bandraoi of old in gowns of ceremonial white, gold torques encircling their throats, heavy gold cuffs upon their wrists, the carved lines of their faces frightening in their solemnity, Ard-siúr and Sister Brigh stood in the doorway, voices lifted in challenge.

  “Boesesh nesh fellesh.” The chant seemed to reverberate in the air like a rumble of summer thunder. “Dehwelana dhil’a islongh. Pádraic eskask.” Louder. Stronger. Each syllable storm-edged and hurricane fierce.

  The serpent froze, its glittering, maddened gaze focused upon the two women approaching it with slow, even steps. Yet it made no move, as if they’d charmed it into submission.

  “Boesesh nesh fellesh!” The words splitting the air with lightning ferocity.

  The great snake dropped Daigh to the floor on a shuddering, writhing, hissing scream. Its tail lashing furiously from side to side. Smoke billowing from its mouth, flesh melting from its bones until naught remained but ash drifting upon an oily breeze.

  Sabrina wasted not a second, ripping free Daigh’s shirt, laying bare long twin gashes slicing through muscle and bone. Blood bubbled with every panting breath, his skin a sickly pale green. “It’s not working. He’s not . . . why isn’t he healing? What’s wrong?”

  “He’s free of Máelodor’s taint.” Brendan lent the last of his feeble strength to her frantic attempts to keep Daigh from slipping back to Annwn’s underworld. “Free of his mage energy. And free of his protections.”

  “He’ll die.” Her hands hovered above his chest as she sought to calm the frantic race of her heart. Concentrate upon the surge of the mage energy within her. Shape it to her needs.

  “Your powers saved him once,” Brendan urged.

  Daigh’s breathing slowed then stopped, the silence deafening. “I’m not strong enough,” Sabrina gasped, weeping. “I’m not—”

  “You’re more than strong enough,” Ard-siúr replied sternly. “More than ready. A true High Danu bandraoi forged in fire and blood and magic.”

  “Do it, girl, or he’s dead,” came Sister Brigh’s scold.

  Drawing upon her training and her love, she concentrated on the mage energy. Felt it seep into every cell and nerve. Every corner of her mind and body infused with Brighid’s healing fire.

  Behind her, voices floated through her consciousness.

  “. . . do not run . . . confess . . . protect you . . .”

  “can’t . . . Sabrina thinks . . . she’ll hate me . . . flee . . .”

  A loud clatter in the passage then a voice from the grave, sardonic as ever. “Brendan . . . look bloody awful . . . passed them outside Glenlorgan . . . no more dallying.”

  Wouldn’t Aunt Delia and the tragic Miss Rollins-Smith be surprised? But Sabrina dared not turn around. Not even to confirm her guess.

  The mage energy poured like water from her hands. Filled Daigh with a shimmer of Fey-wrought healing. He jerked once, inhaling on a shallow, gurgling breath. The way to Annwn closed and barred. Though not forever. Mortality was his once more. He would die. But not today.

  A fluttering roll quickened her womb. Not butterflies this time. But something infinitely more precious. Conceived in one life to be brought forth in another.

  A girl child. We shall welcome her together.

  Daigh’s words muttered in the security of Gwynedd’s vast forests. She would see to it he held to them.

  Tremors shuddered through him, chattering teeth, making fingers numb and jittery. Even his skull ached as if his brain had rattled itself loose. He tried swallowing, but his throat felt scraped raw, his tongue swollen and useless. He opened his eyes, squinting against a blinding glare. Sending new shocks of pain through his sloshy, scattered mind.

  Slowly his sight returned. His surroundings fading into a cell-like room lined with cupboards, a low shelf running the perimeter. A sink with a pump. His pallet jammed into one corner. A cane-backed chair drawn up close.

  But this time he remembered.

  Everything.

  “Back where I started,” he croaked, attempting a smile.

  “Not quite.” Sabrina leaned forward, face aglow, tears sparkling upon her dark lashes. “You are free of Máelodor.” Her hand found his. “We are free of Máelodor.”

  Her lips found his. Her kiss intoxicating as wine. His body stirring with heat separate from the mountain of blankets heaped upon him.

  “The life I remembered,” he murmured. “You really were there. It was true because you made it so.”

  “It was. And it can be again.”

  Movement caught the corner of his eye. A shadow against the wall. A body in the corridor. Listening. Awaiting his answer.

  His smile faded as reality burst the dream like sun through cloud. He eased her away, his heart breaking at the doubt surfacing upon the gem blue of her eyes. “Nay, Sabrina. You have given me my life. But I can offer nothing in repayment of such a debt.”

  Lines furrowed her brow, tiny creases beside her down-turned mouth. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s simple. My crimes against your family remain unanswered. I’m a man without hearth, livelihood, or country. It’s best if you simply forget.”

  Her hand fell to her stomach as if he’d punched her, her gaze hard. “Best? For who? You? Me? My brother?”

  He rolled away from her, wincing at the echoes of old pain beneath his tightly wrapped chest. Stared at the wall, hoping she’d leave before he changed his mind and to hell with the honorable thing. He felt her glare like a push against his temples.

  Her final words came brittle with confusion and pain. “I told you once that my body and my love were mine to bestow where I chose. I had thought you were worthy. I thought wrong.”

  He did not reply.

  Lady Sabrina Douglas.

  Sister and daughter to earls.

  Bandraoi priestess.

  How could he let her throw herself away on a landless, penniless sword for hire?

  He couldn’t. And so he lay hunched with tension until the door closed quietly and he was once again alone.

  They had gathered in Ard-siúr’s office. Sabrina, a reluctant addition. She had not wanted to come this afternoon. Despite her bold words, she had wanted only to curl up in her bed and be gloriously sick. But Sister Brigh had not taken a polite no for an answer.

  So instead, Sabrina had donned her baggiest gown, a camouflaging apron, and walked with rounded shoulders, hoping to disguise her condition. She had counted up the cycles. Checked her math. Five and a half months gone. It wouldn’t be long before no amount of disguise could conceal the child within her.

  Daigh’s child.

  The gods must be truly laughing at her. She had but to open her mouth and Aidan would repudiate her. Release her from the stranglehold of familial ties. But it was far too late. She’d snared herself in her own conniving and now must pay the price.

  Miss Roseingrave parted the curtains, glancing out upon the feathery afternoon clouds. “We searched east and north as far as Cork and Macroom. West to Baltimore, but no sign o
f him. He could have sailed from any harbor or simply faded into the west country.”

  “And Máelodor?” Aidan asked, pacing the room in impatient circles.

  “We found his abandoned coach on the Kinagh road outside of Ballyneen, but he wasn’t aboard and his coachman had been killed. No sign of the Rywlkoth Tapestry either.”

  “But you finally believe me.”

  The Amhas-draoi seemed reluctant to admit it, but she nodded. “I do, Lord Kilronan. But there will be many among the brotherhood who remain unconvinced of Douglas’s innocence and Máelodor’s survival. St. John had many years to sow his lies and half-truths. It may take as many years to root out them out.”

  “Years we don’t have. Hell, we don’t have bloody months. Not if Máelodor’s obtained the tapestry and the diary. He needs only to discover the Sh’vad Tual to summon Arthur and launch his war.”

  Cat’s voice broke into the argument between Aidan and Miss Roseingrave. “Brendan hid it, and Brendan’s not talking. Sabrina told you so.”

  “But if Máelodor catches him again . . .” The sentence trailed away as each of them envisioned Brendan’s fate should he find himself once more subject to Máelodor’s mercy. Only Sabrina need not delve into her imagination. She’d lived through it. And still woke sobbing from fear.

  “Are you sure Brendan didn’t tell you anything, Sabrina? Where he might go? Where he’d hidden the stone?” Aidan asked.

  Unexpectedly the center of attention, she slumped farther into her seat. “No. Nothing.”

  “And how did Douglas escape?” Miss Roseingrave prodded. “You say he was ill and wounded. How could a man so gravely injured disappear so completely without assistance of some kind?”

  Sabrina lifted her gaze to stare upon the Amhas-draoi’s dangerous beauty. Forced herself from glancing toward Ard-siúr or Sister Brigh, who remained silent as the arguments raged. “I don’t know.”

  Miss Roseingrave returned her gaze unflinching. “Though if you did, I wonder if you’d tell us.”

  Sabrina’s lips curved in a cool, enigmatic smile.

  Dropping the curtain back in place, Miss Roseingrave dismissed her with an annoyed toss of her head. “We’re getting nowhere. I leave for Skye. Scathach and the leadership must be informed of St. John’s treachery and death. We must look to who else among the Amhas-draoi Máelodor may have turned.”