Ward of the Philosopher

by D. P. Prior

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Traces of the Ancients

  Prayers for Nub

  The Philosopher's Eyes

  First Steps

  Reavers

  The Fourth Ship

  Thank you for reading

  WARD OF THE PHILOSOPHER

  Shader: Origins

  A 15,500 word novella introducing the SHADER series:

  1. Sword of the Archon

  2. Best Laid Plans

  3. The Unweaving

  4. The Archon’s Assassin

  Copyright © 2015 D.P. Prior. All rights reserved.

  The right of D.P. Prior to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

  PROLOGUE

  Graecia, World of Urddynoor, Time of the Ancients

  Eumelia checked on the the baby again. She knew from the snuffling, little Aris was fine tucked up in his furs, but she still had to look.

  With her husband, Vassilis, not yet back from the Plains of Fire, her nerves were frayed. The army had been victorious, but still the stragglers were coming home. Every time the hoplites went out, she was a tortured mess until Vassilis walked through the door and seated himself by the hearth. Without either of them needing to utter a word, she would tend his wounds and pour him wine. Any other man might have stopped off at a tavern to get drunk and boast of bloody deeds on the battlefield, but not her Vassilis. He’d learned his manners and his morals at the Academy. His duty was to his family first, and the city-state next. Anything that got in the way of either was dross and vanity, to his way of thinking.

  Aris stirred when she pulled his covers up, but he was soon lightly snoring once more. Eumelia turned down the oil lamp, leaving the alcove that served as the baby’s bedroom wreathed in flickering shadows from the hearth fire. With a will, she took herself across the hut’s single room and straightened the bed she and Vassilis shared for the umpteenth time. After the stress of battle, the last thing he needed was to return to an untidy house.

  She moved from the bed to the hearth, threw on another log. Filling Vassilis’ goblet with watered wine from a jug, she set it on the low table by his chair. The act of doing so made it easier to believe he was coming home. She entertained the thought of taking a sip to calm herself, but Vassilis would taste it on her lips and accuse her of intemperance. Once he was deep in his cups, he’d encourage her to do the same, and then they’d fall upon the bed until he’d spent himself, so long as the baby didn’t wake up.

  Green light flashed through the lone window, and she crossed the room to see what it was. Outside, the dusking sky was an unbroken sheet of gray. In front of the house, the top of the olive tree swayed in the gathering breeze. Eumelia was about to close the shutters, when she noticed a pooling of the darkness beside the trunk. The window misted from where she pressed her face to the glass.

  There was a figure beneath the tree.

  A man.

  It had to be Vassilis, but why was he just standing there?

  With a sudden rush of dread, she realized he must be injured.

  She ripped open the door and ran to him. Within ten paces, she slowed and came to a halt. It wasn’t her husband. This man was older. Much older. Vassilis had developed a widow’s peak these past few years, but the old man was bald and bearded. He wore a toga in the style of the philosophers at the Academy. Green light limned his frame. It flared briefly then guttered and died.

  He licked his lips as he met her gaze. Eumelia took a step back. His eyes were smoldering embers. He advanced, and she threw an arm across her face.

  “Calm, Eumelia,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”

  His voice… It could have been her father speaking, only he’d been dead more than ten years.

  She lowered her arm and looked again. The fire fled his eyes, to be replaced by icy blue. They were Vassilis’ eyes, and the nose, the cheekbones. But she knew her husband’s father Demetrius, and there had been no mention of Vassilis having an uncle.

  “Who are you?” Eumelia asked. Frost-formed ants skittered across her skin.

  “A ghost,” he said, brushing past her and gliding toward the house.

  Eumelia stood staring at the olive tree for a long moment, but then she remembered the baby, and charged back through the front door.

  “Get out!” she screamed, but the words lodged in her throat.

  The old man crossed to the alcove and leaned over the sleeping child.

  Eumelia tore across the room and flung herself at him. With a deftness that belied his age, he swayed aside and clamped an arm around her neck. With his free hand, he applied pressure to her head. She choked and gasped. Her vision began to blur.

  “It is not my intention to hurt you,” the man said.

  A shadow fell across the room.

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  It was Vassilis.

  Eumelia only saw his ragged silhouette against the half-light outside. He drew his sword and strode toward them.

  The old man swung Eumelia in the way, but Vassilis still raised his blade. In that instant, the old man released his choke hold and turned to snatch up the baby. Eumelia screamed and fell to her knees.

  “Please,” she begged. “My baby. Please.”

  Vassilis pushed past her and swung his sword. The old man ducked beneath its arc, holding little Aris against his chest. Vassilis went for a punch, but again, the old man was too quick. He slammed his shoulder into Vassilis and tripped him as he pushed past.

  Eumelia made a grab for the hem of the old man’s toga, but he spun and kicked her in the chin. The room careened, and she slumped to the floor.

  Vassilis made it to his feet and charged. This time, the old man held the baby under one arm, and struck Vassilis in the sternum with the palm of his free hand. Vassilis grunted and dropped like a stone.

  “My baby!” Eumelia wailed. “Where are you taking him?”

  The old man looked at her, eyes full of pity.

  “Another place, another time. But there is no need to worry. I have it all planned out for him, Mother. It’s for the best. Trust me.”

  A corona of green light flared around him, and then the old man and baby Aris were gone.

  Eumelia shuddered with sobs that refused to come. Her head swam from where he’d kicked her. Beside her, on the floor, Vassilis groaned and rolled to his back, gasping for breath.

  Her baby…

  Baby Aris was gone.

  But the thing that struck Eumelia like a knife to the heart was the uncanny feeling that she knew this man who had taken her child from her, this man who had called her Mother.

  TRACES OF THE ANCIENTS

  Isle of Maranore, Urddynoor, Year of the Reckoning: 878

  Sunlight lanced through golden leaves, dappling the loamy earth that sucked at Deacon’s new boots. Scarcely out of their brown paper wrapping, they were already spattered with mud. A sweet scent wafted from the vining honeysuckle in the hedgerows that marked the bounds of home. Twenty yards from the garden, and you were beneath the roof of oak and alder; thirty, and you were in another world.

  Friston Forest in the autumn was the only place in the whole of Urdd
ynoor he wanted to be right then. It would have been perfect, if his father hadn’t been up on Craven Head with the Coastal Watch, patrolling the cliffs in search of reavers. It was the first time Jarl Shader had missed his son’s birthday.

  Deacon’s bulldog, Nub, yipped and was off into the bracken with a waggle of his stumpy tail. Deacon cast a worried look back toward the garden gate. His mother, Gralia, wouldn’t know if he went a bit farther than he was allowed, would she? It wasn’t like she was keeping watch, and anyhow, he was seven now. All the other kids his age went about the forest by themselves; he could hear them laughing and screaming from his bedroom window after they came back from the schoolhouse.

  He touched the prayer cord dangling from his belt. That had been Gralia’s gift to him on waking; that and the boots she was going to scold him for now. He fingered one of the knots you were supposed to unpick when you prayed. It was best way to grow closer to the Lord Nous, his mother had told him. The thought flooded him with warmth, quickly replaced by a tinge of guilt.

  His eyes flicked between the big hedge at the back of the house and the undergrowth the bulldog had disappeared into. It wasn’t just the rule about not wandering off that was worrying him; the tutor was coming today, just like they’d always known he’d come. Seven was the age they’d set, his mother and father. It wasn’t fair. The other kids got to learn together down in the village. Why did he have to have some old philos… He could never say the word. All he knew was that a man no one had seen for years was to teach him, and that was an end to the matter.

  It was finally Nub’s growl that made the choice for him, and Deacon was off through the thicket, briars snagging at his jerkin, branches whipping back in his face. He ducked beneath an overhang and stepped onto a faded trail. His heart lurched, and his breaths whistled in and out of his lungs.

  Sucking in a gasp of crisp autumn air, he hollered, “Nub! Here, boy!”

  The rustle of bracken told him the dog was in the thick of it, so Deacon broke himself off a dry branch and used it to beat a path after him. He felt like the explorers Jarl sometimes spoke about by the fire on those nights he was home, the ones who’d made their way to Sahul on the other side of Urddynoor. They’d gone to talk sense into the savages that lived there, the heretics who hated Nous. Not that Jarl was much for the faith of the Templum; he just put up with it for Gralia’s sake.

  Nub’s shabby butt poked above a grass clump. The tufted tail of a gray squirrel flashed past him and scurried up a tree. Nub waddled to the base of the trunk, barking like he did at dinnertime. His open jaws made him look such an ugly mutt, which Deacon supposed he was: squat and muscly, with a face that was all wrinkles and sags. Slobber sprayed from his mouth, and his hindquarters wagged furiously.

  Nub stopped and sniffed the air. He looked at Deacon with his watery eyes, gave a hesitant yap, and then he was off again, back the way he’d come.

  Deacon followed him out onto the trail, and this time, Nub stuck to it, scampering ahead and stopping in fits and starts to check Deacon was still behind him. The dog turned a circle, chasing his own tail, then cocked his head, whining insistently. When Deacon tried to calm him, Nub snarled and darted through the trees. He kept on running, faster and faster, and it was all Deacon could do to keep up. For a moment, he thought he heard voices—kids laughing and yelling—but it was so far off, he could have imagined it.

  Nub scampered across a clearing and straight up the bank of a grassy knoll. Deacon balked at the base. The place gave him the shivers. It was a tumulus, one of the burial mounds Jarl spooked him about on the Night of the Spirits. Rabbits had made their burrows in the sides, and chunks of flint riddled it like the fossilized scales of some long-dead dragon.

  Nub went over the top and let out a peal of barks. Forgetting his fear, Deacon scrambled up and spread his arms wide, like he’d conquered the world’s tallest mountain. But then he swooned, and the eggs he’d had for breakfast came back up his throat. He dropped to his haunches and clutched the grass to steady himself.

  Keeping low to the ground, he scrabbled down the other side on his butt, until he got halfway and felt brave enough to stand and run. His foot snagged in a burrow, and pain shot through his ankle. He flipped into the air, coming down hard on his shoulder and tumbling the rest of the way. He hit a slick patch of mud and went skidding into a tree trunk, bouncing off and ending up face down in the dirt.

  Everything hurt, his pounding head most of all, but he was more worried about Nub.

  The dog had stopped barking.

  Deacon could hear a faint whimper deeper into the copse. He rubbed his aching shoulder, spat out a mouthful of dirt, and stumbled after the sound, wincing each time he put any weight on his bad leg. His britches clung to him, caked in mud.

  He picked up another trail, this one barely visible. It didn’t look like anyone had come this way for a long time. His ankle loosened with each step, until the pain was little more than a dull throb.

  The track snaked through the trees till it reached a steep bank. He caught sight of Nub slipping and sliding to the bottom, but Deacon had to go more slowly, grabbing onto the thin trunks of saplings to stop from falling.

  At the foot of the drop, a brook chattered and tinkled, and Nub ran up and down its length, looking for a way across. Hard-packed earth formed a natural bridge a short way upstream, and they went over it together, the dog nuzzling Deacon’s leg.

  “Maybe we should turn back, Nub,” Deacon said, crouching to pet him behind the ear. He felt sick to the stomach. There was something about this place that pricked at the base of his skull. He told himself it was the quiet, or that it was because he’d disobeyed his mother by straying so far from home, but the feeling refused to go away.

  Nub licked his hand and went on ahead. Deacon let out a long sigh and listened for the children he thought he’d heard playing.

  Nothing.

  Silence.

  He couldn’t even hear the scurrying of squirrels in the branches, the chittering of birds. Then, from somewhere deep in the forest, came the muffled rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker.

  Nub had stopped at the edge of a broad clearing and was scratching away at the earth with his paws. As Deacon drew nearer, he could see a large mossy stone poking up from the ground. He knelt beside it and helped Nub scrape away the soil. Bit by bit, he uncovered the top of a weathered cross. The earth became too hard to dig it all the way out, but as he cleared some of the mud from its surface, he could just about make out numbers at the cross’s center and letters above them. His reading wasn’t good yet. They were saving that for the tutor, but he knew numbers well enough and sat down to squint at them: 1815-1837. They had to be dates from the time of the Ancients, because the Nousian calendar his mother taught him only went up to 878. So, this was what had got Nub all upset. He must have sensed there was evil here.

  Deacon stepped away from the half-buried cross. Things like this were why he wasn’t allowed to wander far on his own. It wasn’t just the burial mounds he had to watch out for; his father had told him there were reminders of the Ancients’ world poking up out of the ground all over the Downs. Gralia said they were demons, the Ancients; that they never even knew Nous.

  Something tickled the hairs on the back of his neck. He shot to his feet and spun round.

  Back up the slope, a shadow moved between the trees, and a chill seeped beneath Deacon’s skin. He caught a glimpse of a masked face—piebald like a cow. He stood for a long time, staring at the spot he’d seen the figure, scarcely daring to breathe. There was nothing now: no sight, no sound. It could have been a ghost or a spirit, but then again, it could have been his mind playing tricks on him.

  Nub barked and sped across the clearing. Deacon couldn’t help himself; he had to follow, if only to catch the dog and carry him home. He knew he was pressing his luck. Gralia might have been a soft touch, but if Jarl got to hear about him going off alone, there’d be the Abyss to pay.

  Nub scampered toward a pile of rock. As Deacon c
aught up, he realized it was the ruins of a flint building. The grass all around was littered with broken stone crosses. Those that had been uprooted had triangles for bases.

  A snigger cut through the stillness. Nub grew excited and ran back to investigate, but Deacon was far too interested in the rubble to care.

  He clambered over what was left of the foundations. The roof had collapsed and fallen off to one side. A flat metal bird caked in rust jutted from beams of rotted wood. It was perched atop an arrow. To the rear of the wreckage, there were long stone boxes set within tangles of weeds and creepers. The lids of a few were cracked clean in half, and set among them were winged statues of robed men and women—all of them headless. The heads stuck out of pockets of wildflowers, covered with lichen and crawling with snails. Deacon drew back when he caught one staring up at him with empty eyes—eyes that had probably not seen a living person in hundreds of years.

  And that was a thought: why did no one come here, not even the grown-ups? The track was so faint, it can’t have been trodden for ages, and yet the ruin was only a stone’s throw from the village with all its families and roving children. Someone must have known it was here.

  Nub’s yipping reached his ears. It was shrill, mixed in with taunts and laughter.

  “Nub?” he called.

  He heard the bulldog rip out three or four sharp barks. There was a muted thud, and then Nub whimpered and went quiet.

  “Nub!”

  Mocking voices answered from where he’d last seen the dog headed: “Nub! Nub-Nub. Here, doggy, doggy.”

  It was Brent Carvin and the Dolten girls.

  Deacon clenched his fists. Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Every time his mother took him into the village, they’d start. She thought they were just playing, but he knew better.

  He ran toward the laughter but froze when he came back round the ruin and saw a lump amid the shrubs. Brown fur twitched, and he knew right away it was Nub. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he lurched toward his dog. Bright blood speckled the blades of grass Nub had fallen on, and there was a gushing hole between his eyes.