Unbroken Chain

by Jaleigh Johnson

  “Not for long,” Traedis said. “My brethren are confident that he will not survive the ordeal. Uwan has too much faith in Tempus and in Ashok. Ashok will fade, and it will be but the first of many blows we strike against Tempus and Uwan. Be patient, Vedoran, and you will have the satisfaction you crave.”

  “You don’t know Ashok,” Vedoran said. “If there is a way, even the slightest hope—”

  “There is none,” Traedis said, growing agitated. “I am a servant of Beshaba and I know the face of hopelessness. You’ve won your battle against Ashok. His guilt and shame eat at him, and the shadows will do the rest of the work. You must trust me.”

  “That was my mistake,” Vedoran said. He turned to leave. “You won’t see me again.”

  Ashok passed the rest of the day and the next in darkness and silence. He awoke on the third day, but it may as well have been the fifth. He was numb again and had no sense of himself beyond the breath moving his chest. The blood had drained from his arms, and his legs wouldn’t move no matter how much he tried to shift his position.

  Once, wakeful, he bit his lip. He needed to taste the blood in his mouth, to feel something. He found an already festering wound. The pain and infection shuddered through his body, and Ashok wondered how many times he’d woken with the idea as if it were new. He sweated fever, and chills wracked his body. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  The worst came when he began dreaming.

  He stood chained in his cell, blind, yet somehow he could see. His father and brothers walked through the wall and stood in the corner of the cell.

  Ashok stared at them. Shadows swirled around them and grew faces and emaciated hands that plucked at their arms and legs. They ignored them and stared back at Ashok. Whispering to each other, they pointed at him.

  Ashok couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he saw the condemnation on their gaunt, dead faces. He strained toward them and was shocked when the chains fell away from his arms. The shadows swallowed the cage bars and the cave until Ashok walked in a void toward his family, who continued to talk to each other as if he wasn’t there.

  “Why have you come here?” Ashok demanded. “Speak!”

  His father stepped apart from the rest and took some of the living shadows with him. They scurried around his feet and laid their heads against his boots. Ashok tried not to look at them and their ratlike movements.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” his father said.

  “For a long time,” said his brother Lakesh, stepping forward with shadows caressing his hair.

  “You’re dead,” Ashok said. “There’s nothing left for you here.”

  “You’re still here,” his father said. “We have no other link, no other amusements, and no god calls us from the void.”

  “You have to go,” Ashok said. He backed away, but the void was limitless, black, and swirling. It was madness to watch it, for above and below him the faces swelled out of the shadows and reached for him.

  “Where else can we go?” Reltnar said as he stepped out of the shadows to join Ashok’s brothers. “What place would have us?”

  “You’re in my mind,” Ashok said. “You’re not welcome here.”

  His father laughed. “How do you know this is your place?” he said. “How can you know you haven’t crossed over to our domain, the nothingness after sleep?”

  Ashok recoiled. Was it over then? Had he already lost his soul to the shadows? “Father,” he said, “you, all of you didn’t fade. You were killed.”

  “You killed us,” Reltnar said, and a shadow skull nuzzled against his neck. He batted it away like a fly. “No god calls us home.”

  “No one wants us anymore,” Lakesh said, “so we’ll stay with you.”

  “No,” Ashok said. He looked down and saw the shadow figures swimming up toward him through the void. They reached for his boots, and he danced away from them. He smelled foul breath and in the distance heard the constant Shadowfell wind. “I don’t belong here,” he said.

  “You were always going to end up here,” his father said in a mock-soothing voice. “Didn’t you ever think of that?”

  “I …” Out of the corner of his eye, Ashok saw a figure dressed in black striding through the void. The shadow was just as small and emaciated as the rest, yet it stood apart from its brethren. Silver light outlined its body, and when it came near Ashok saw the other shadows shy away from the light and the waves of heat emanating from its body.

  “What is it, son?” his father asked.

  “I saw something,” Ashok said. He looked again, but the figure was too far off for clarity. “We’re still in the Shadowfell,” he said. “I can hear the wind. But I’ve never seen this place before.”

  “This is the veil between one life and the next,” Reltnar said. “You can’t see beyond it.”

  “Then who are these?” Ashok said, swiping at the shadows that were clinging to his clothes and hair.

  He searched for the figure in black, and found it still walking toward him, though it might have been a mile or a century distant. But its course was set to intercept them, and it walked patiently, unhurried by shadows. Ashok felt the urge to go to meet the figure, but he did not want to be cast off like one of the ghastly shadows.

  “They are waiting here,” his father said. He put his hand through one of the shadow skulls and shook until the thing dissolved into smoke. “No god calls them home.”

  Ashok saw a vision of himself as a grasping shadow—thin, lifeless and pathetic. He wished he could see himself. He held up his hands, but they appeared normal. The pain in his lip felt real.

  “Give it time,” his brothers said, their voices mingling. “You haven’t been here long enough.”

  Ashok felt hysteria creeping in with the shadows. They were all over him, and he couldn’t take a breath that was not foul. Dead things and cold hands all over his skin—he cried out, and his father and brothers mockingly cried out with him. His own voice was lost in the chorus and laughter.

  “Damn you,” he told his father, and allowed the hatred to course through him. “If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened. You might be alive. Our enclave might have flourished.”

  “To what purpose?” Reltnar said. “Didn’t we survive? Didn’t we live by our own will, as you have done?”

  “It’s not enough,” Ashok said, but they couldn’t hear him over their own laughter. “Damn you all, it wasn’t enough. All you cared about was yourselves.”

  Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Into the ensuing silence walked the figure in black with its tail of silver light. It walked into the space between Ashok and his family. His father and brothers stared in awe.

  Ashok recognized the figure then, and a wave of profound relief washed over him. The figure turned and walked to his side, away from his father and brothers, and cleared the shadows that clung to Ashok.

  “Ilvani,” he said.

  The witch smiled. “I told you I’d come with you when you went to the Veil,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  ILVANI WAVED THE SHADOWS AWAY FROM ASHOK, AND HE COULD breathe again.

  “You shouldn’t pay them so much attention,” she said. “They’ll stay if you do.”

  Ashok looked at his family, but his father and brothers had been rendered mute by Ilvani’s sudden appearance. They stared at her as if she were a beacon they were afraid to touch.

  “This is the end, isn’t it?” Ashok said. “I’m going to the shadows. My soul will be gone.”

  “This is the unknown,” Ilvani said. “Domain of fear. Will I die bravely? Will my god find me among the shadows? Will I lose my soul? That’s where you are now. You’ve always been here, all your life. Why should you be afraid of it now that it has a face?”

  “Is this the fate of all shadar-kai?” Ashok said.

  “This is their fate,” Ilvani said, pointing without looking at Reltnar and Ashok’s family, who cowered from her. “Are you with them, or d
idn’t you make another choice?”

  “I tried to,” Ashok said. “But it all went wrong.”

  “Are you certain?” Ilvani said.

  “I deceived the companions I trusted,” Ashok said. “I slaughtered the only family I ever knew.”

  “So your punishment is to exist here with them in the void,” Ilvani said. “No matter that Ikemmu forgives you, or the gods, because there is no forgiveness in Ashok for himself.”

  “Yes. I exist here because I deserve to be here,” Ashok said.

  “You have always existed here,” Ilvani said, “in fear. Now you have an excuse to stay.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Ashok said. “I accept my fate.”

  Ilvani reached up and touched his cheek. “You are selfish. You lay down to fade while others fight for you.”

  Ashok felt the warmth of her hand, and a vision of Uwan flashed into his mind.

  You are stronger than you know. Tempus believes you can bear this burden, and so do I.

  Skagi’s face came next, and Cree’s. Olra in the training yard. Chanoch in his cell.

  The gods be with you, my friend.

  He blinked the vision away and saw Ilvani again with the court of shadows behind her. “Do their words mean nothing?” she said.

  Ashok swallowed his grief. He felt the weight of their acceptance of him, and for the first time he felt warmed by more than Ilvani’s presence. “What of you?” Ashok said. “I was ready to give my life to make it better for you.”

  “I am not who you think I am,” Ilvani said. “But if you decide to leave this place, you will see what you need to see.”

  Ashok closed his eyes. “I don’t want to be here anymore,” he said. “Please …”

  Pain swamped him then, so much at once that he thought he would explode from it. He gasped and opened his eyes.

  He was back in his cell, unchained and unhooded, lying on the cold floor. He tried to move, but his joints were so cramped that every muscle in his body screamed.

  Fighting to stay conscious, Ashok pushed himself up on his elbows. He saw, on the floor in front of him, a small object. He picked it up and saw that it was a small box made of velvet-covered wood. He recognized it as one of Ilvani’s many containers she’d spilled out of her bag that day he’d gone to see her.

  The lock was open. He raised the lid and saw within a pile of ashes. He scooped them out with a finger. A few of the blackened scraps had unburned edges, scraps of parchment. He recognized his own writing on them, the evidence Vedoran had taken from him while he was unconscious.

  “Ashok box,” Ashok said. “Full of ashes.” He closed the lid and held the box in his hands.

  “I wondered what she’d done with them,” said a voice that Ashok knew well. He looked up and saw Vedoran standing outside his cell.

  “Are you real?” Ashok said. It was the first thought that came to his mind.

  Vedoran laughed without humor. “I can see why you’d ask that. No one thought you’d survive the tenday, but I told them you were strong.”

  “Has it been that long?” Ashok said.

  “You wouldn’t have felt the passage of time, after a while,” Vedoran said. “You still look faint, like you’re not truly present in the world. I wonder if that will make you easier or harder to kill.”

  “Is that why you’ve come?” Ashok said. He didn’t feel surprise or betrayal, only a sense of pervading calm that grew stronger by the breath. He’d survived the worst of it. He wasn’t afraid. There were no shadows here.

  Vedoran unlocked the door to his cell and tossed the keys aside. There was blood on them. “We won’t be disturbed,” he said.

  “You know I’m too weak to fight you,” Ashok said. He was too weary even to stand before Vedoran.

  “I told you, if I kill you, I kill Tempus,” Vedoran said. “It doesn’t matter what Ikemmu thinks anymore.” He drew his sword and came forward, his movements methodical, with none of the grace Ashok had once seen in him. That was all gone. He positioned his blade for a strike that would take off Ashok’s head.

  “Vedoran!”

  Ashok and Vedoran both jumped at the shout. Vedoran turned, giving Ashok a view of Uwan standing in the dungeon doorway, the bodies of the guards at his feet.

  “What have you done, Vedoran?” Uwan cried.

  “I have become everything I was made to be,” Vedoran said. “A Blite on Ikemmu.”

  Uwan stared at him in disbelief. “This bloodshed is not you,” he said. “The Beshabans have poisoned your mind, taken away your honor.”

  Vedoran laughed. “No, my Lord,” he said. “My mind was a foul place before the Beshabans found it. I have you to thank for that. When I kill your emissary”—he swept a hand at Ashok—“you will have no one but yourself to blame.”

  Uwan drew his sword, but he did not enter the cell. There was no room to fight there, and Vedoran was dangerous in close combat. Ashok remembered his skill in the tunnels when he’d been hounded by enemies from all sides.

  “I didn’t think Vedoran would allow himself to be ruled by envy,” Uwan said. He paced outside the cage bars.

  “You think that’s what this is?” Vedoran said. He took a step away from Ashok. He’d not fully grasped Uwan’s bait, but he was distracted.

  Ashok tried to get up. He made it to his knees and fell hard on the stone floor. He cursed his weakness, but his faint voice was drowned out by Vedoran’s laughter.

  “Stay still, little one,” Vedoran taunted him. “I’ll come back for you soon.” He turned his attention to Uwan. “Did you ever see the vistas of the empire, Uwan?”

  “Netheril has no place here,” Uwan said. He backed up to let Vedoran exit the cell and took up a defensive stance.

  “Now who speaks with envy in his voice?” Vedoran said as he struck his sword off Uwan’s. But the leader did not flinch. “Isn’t that what you would create here—an empire of your own, with shrines to Tempus in every hall?”

  “We can’t forsake the gods entirely, Vedoran,” Uwan said. “The shadar-kai need guidance.”

  “Tempus’s guidance, and everyone else be damned,” Vedoran said. “That was the law you made, and that is the law that will break you as it broke Natan.”

  He surged forward, and steel rang off steel. Uwan absorbed Vedoran’s slash off the edge of his blade, and the bitter shriek hurt Ashok’s ears. Uwan countered with a low thrust aimed to hamstring Vedoran. Ashok knew the blow would never land, and he marveled anew at Vedoran’s speed as he leaped back, pushed himself off the wall, and came into the fray again.

  Ashok dragged himself to his cell door and used the bars to lever himself up. He had to put weight on his feet and get the blood moving through his dead limbs. Pain shot up his arms as he strained to climb the bars. He finally got his feet under him and let his weight drop. The pain was excruciating. He gripped the bars and shook.

  The pain—he hadn’t inflicted so much on himself in over a month, but his body remembered what it was, and his mind cleared of every thought but staying on his feet. He would endure the pain, use it, and then go after Vedoran.

  Outside the cell, Uwan’s fight continued. The leader had worked Vedoran around into a corner. With his back to the wall, Vedoran teleported in a blur of shadows that flew around Uwan and coalesced behind him into a wraithlike image of Vedoran.

  Uwan turned and thrust automatically. The weapon was an extension of his instincts, and when it passed through Vedoran’s shadowy form, Uwan lost his balance. Fortunately, in his incorporeal form, Vedoran couldn’t take physical advantage of the misstep. He laughed at Uwan instead.

  “You wanted to end this quickly,” Vedoran said. “I can see it in your movements. But this isn’t that kind of fight. You’ve forgotten I didn’t start out training with your military. I was trained by the sellswords of Pyton. We don’t fight with fever in our minds.”

  “True,” Uwan said. He eased back to catch his breath. “But I’ve seen the fighters of Pyton and Hevalor. They fight with grace,
but it’s a soulless dance. That’s what holds you back from being a truly great warrior, Vedoran. You don’t fight for anything but your own survival.”

  “Survival isn’t enough,” Ashok said. Speaking was a chore, but he could feel his quivering muscles beginning to balance him again. He didn’t dare let go of the bars yet, but he was gaining strength.

  Ashok caught Uwan looking at him, assessing his condition. He gave the leader a quick shake of his head, a warning to keep his head in the fight.

  Vedoran’s shadows fled, his body solidified, and Uwan waded back into the fight as if it had never ceased. They drove each other round and round, into corners, trapping blades, and just when it seemed one would take the other, someone would teleport to escape death.

  Ashok couldn’t count how many times they repeated the duel cycle, nor did he know how long they could maintain their pace. Both showed signs of fatigue. Uwan’s hair stuck to his face in soaking ropes, and Vedoran’s breath came fast and loud in the quiet chamber.

  “Would it make any difference, Vedoran, if I told you I was wrong?” Uwan said when he’d taken on his own wraith shape for a brief respite. “I wronged you and the other warriors who do not stand for Tempus. If you would let me, I would make amends.”

  Necrotic energy sizzled in the air around him. So much shadar-kai magic in one place seemed to draw the energy of the Shadowfell to them.

  Ashok thought of the living shadows pulling at his body and shuddered. He flexed his muscles and released the bars, testing himself. The room tilted and spun. He grabbed the bars before he fell, ramming his palm against the metal in frustration.

  Meanwhile, Vedoran regarded Uwan in amusement. “You don’t have Natan to whisper in your ear anymore. If I’d have known his death would bring about such clarity, I’d have killed him long ago.”

  Uwan shook his head, refusing to take the bait. “It was never Natan. He wouldn’t punish anyone for not sharing his beliefs. I made the choice, because I thought it was best for Ikemmu to be united, and what better banner of strength could we have to stand under? I thought the rest of the city would see it my way eventually.”