Halcyon Rising_Shadow of Life

by Stone Thomas

  “Loyal?” I asked. “To him? They pledged fealty to you though. I’m sure they just need time to adjust. They’ve been through a lot.”

  “Time’s not a luxury they’ll have,” Lana said. The lighthealer leaned against the doorframe that separated the infirmary from the temple’s sanctuary. “Did you see what Kāya is building in the center of the city?”

  “Barely,” I said. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “It was dark when we escaped, and Kāya had only just moved in,” Lana said. “The folks you brought back today make it sound like things are progressing very quickly. Duul has some of the men cursed, but not all of them. Others are acting as a gestapo, forcing everyone to build a giant metal spire. There are bolts of cloth, barrels of resin, and old scraps of metal everywhere. No one knows what the structure is for yet.”

  “But chances are,” I said, “we should stop her before it’s finished.”

  “Yes,” Lana said. “And I’ll stand ready to heal anyone that gets hurt doing it.”

  She should be exhausted by now, passed out in a bed somewhere recovering from the tireless work she did, but her eyes weren’t drooping. There was steely determination there, mixed with something warm and kind that remained despite all the fear and suffering she had seen. “Keep up the good work,” I said.

  As she turned to leave, Yurip brushed past her, bounding through that doorframe from the infirmary in a huff.

  “Hmmph. He thinks that being unconscious absolves him from the survey,” he said. “He can go back to his precious coma when he’s finished with my questions!” He walked toward me and held out a clipboard with a long list of questions.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “The initial survey was just a census,” he said, “but people were grumbling so much I realized there was a morale problem here. I will not be the chief administrator that allowed a revolt his first week on the job, so I’m polling to find out everyone’s feelings about life here and what everyone thinks would make it better. Now, I’m taking a consensus with my census!”

  I looked at that clipboard. It asked for my name, date of birth, and other personal information. Then came three pages of other questions in small printed handwriting.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to recommend Halcyon to your friends?” I read out loud. “How is this supposed to help?”

  “There are other questions,” he said. “Health, occupation, recreation, governance. I’ll tally the results for you when it’s finished.”

  “Yurip,” I said, “you were supposed to zone the entire hill.”

  “I did that,” he said. “The cartographer is making a zoning map to memorialize my efforts. The blacksmith’s output is up, the residential district is prepared to rejuvenate the residents that move in there once the houses are complete, and I designated the clearing in the center of the hill as public space in case we put in a fountain or a fancy plaza. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the census and consensus must go on.”

  The officious little man left the temple. Nola just shook her head and shrugged.

  “I worry about him sometimes,” I said.

  “Don’t,” Nola said. “He’s in his element. It’s Cindra I’m worried about. Her vibes used to be big and juicy, easily one of our tastiest residents. She feels off though. Like her soul isn’t as wiggly as it used to be.”

  “Maybe she’s coming down with something,” I said. “She was lacking her usual vibrant energy this morning. I’ll make sure to watch out for her.”

  “Good,” Nola said. “Now, I’m going back to the tiring work of lying down while standing up inside my evolution crystal. Unless you want to watch that premonition again, maybe consider how you can alter your terrible fate?”

  “No need,” I said. “You can premonit all you like but fate won’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “You know ‘premonit’ isn’t a word, right?”

  “Premonish?” I asked.

  “You poor illiterate bumpkin.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but I’m your illiterate pumpkin, so that has to count for something.”

  +10

  Banging all night.

  Vix had assigned construction crews for eight-hour shifts around the clock to reconstruct our defensive wall, front gates, and energem towers. As I lay in my bed that night with one arm behind my head and the other curled around Mamba, I had to wonder how the elven gypsy could possibly sleep through the ruckus.

  Then I remembered that I was the one that tired her out in the first place, and I should take it as a compliment.

  Still, the longer I lay there hoping for sleep, the more active my thoughts became. An image of that rift woman was still burnt into my mind. Her long white hair like silk, and her deep wide eyes like polished coal. Did she appear to us from across the world, or from a world of darkness unto itself?

  Then there was Nola’s premonition about my supposed death. It really weighed on her, and I wasn’t sure what I could possibly do to relieve her of that.

  And there was the Great Mother, who had tasked me with killing Kāya but I wasn’t sure how to pull that off without actually killing her.

  One thing was certain. I couldn’t just lie there while a city full of innocent people suffered under Kāya’s demands.

  I sneaked my arm out from under Mamba, pulled on my clothes, and pushed open the door that led from my private chamber to the main room of Nola’s temple.

  The goddess slept with her arms folded up inside her crystal shell with her feathered wings wrapped around her body. I stopped to admire her for just a second, when the sound of a stifled sneeze caught me by surprise.

  I froze in place, but she didn’t say a thing. She had sneezed in her sleep. She’d be sad to learn her untamed bush wasn’t the problem after all.

  I walked outside and climbed the steps that led to the top of our hill to find a curvy green woman with her hand on her hip and her head tilted toward the night sky.

  “Why am I not surprised to find you stargazing when you should be asleep?” I asked.

  Cindra stood alone in the clearing near our portal arch. She spun back toward me and smiled. A few scattered torches cast light on work crews across the hill and I could see the faint flickering of those flames through Cindra’s semi-transparent body.

  “How could I sleep on such a beautiful night?” she asked. “All day I’ve felt so drained, but tonight I’m full of life. It’s like my soul has been renewed.” The slime woman rolled her shoulders and thrust her chest out as she extended both green arms forward.

  “That’s a relief,” I said. I peeked at her skillmeister menu, and everything looked in order.

  She sat down on the ground and patted the dirt with her hand. “Come here. I want to show you something. Just give me a second.”

  I sat next to her and leaned back while she closed her eyes.

  At first nothing happened. I stared at the stars, thankful for the warm, mild air. A shooting star trailed across the sky, then vanished before its light reached the horizon.

  As I waited for whatever Cindra planned to show me, another star shot across the sky. This one was larger, and brighter. Then two more stars lit up, crossing each other’s paths as they burned through the night.

  I sat up straighter. While Cindra reclined with her eyes closed, more and more stars, or comets, or meteors erupted in the sky. One burned brighter than all the rest, and it grew in size as it moved through the night. It was coming right toward us.

  “Cindra,” I said. She didn’t stir. “Cindra, we have to move!”

  A ball of fire churned in the space above the hill. Whatever was destined to crash down on us was too big to avoid. It would blow our hill to pieces.

  “I can stop that,” a woman said. I jumped to my feet and turned toward her voice. She had long red hair and was dressed in a white robe. “But I need your spear. Give me your spear, there’s no time!”

  I did as she said, handing the stranger my weapon. As I releas
ed it, the metal fell to the ground. The woman vanished. So did the enormous orb of fiery doom.

  “Well,” Cindra said, still sitting on the ground. “That was satisfying. All my time studying the stars has finally paid off.”

  “Wait,” I said. “That was you?”

  “You opened this skill for me earlier,” she said. “Illusions of Grandeur. I’ve been experimenting with it. Confusion and fear work well together to get someone to follow orders. Controlling the perception of reality makes for a pretty good bargaining position, though it’s still a gamble.”

  “That was amazing,” I said.

  “It only works on one person at a time,” she said. “And when someone realizes I’m manipulating what they observe, they can break free of the illusion at will. I don’t expect anyone will react well once the illusion shatters, so trickery is not a negotiating tactic to use lightly.”

  “Keep experimenting,” I said. “Weaponize that beautiful imagination of yours.”

  “And what are you doing awake?” she asked. “It’s well after midnight. Does Vix have you on construction duty?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m just worried about what’s in store for us in Valleyvale. Where is Vix?”

  “Curled up under the stars in a clearing in the middle of the hill. She doesn’t want to leave her siege tower project unprotected. She said she didn’t quite trust the workers that were helping her. I offered to flatten out and let her sleep on top of me, but she said sleeping on the ground was second nature to a foxkin like her.”

  “She works so hard,” I said.

  “She’s just trying to keep up with you,” Cindra said. “And before you tell me you don’t work as hard as she does, tell me this — what are you about to do right now?”

  “I… was thinking about taking the portal back to Valleyvale in case I could catch another glimpse of the strange structure Kāya is building there.”

  “Mmhmm,” Cindra said. “At this hour, on no sleep, and with bruises all over your torso. When this is over, promise me you’ll take a vacation.”

  “All of us,” I said. “We’ll find a beach somewhere and just lie out and relax. You, me, Mamba, Vix, even Nola if she’s up for it. And the kids, of course.”

  My heart leapt into my throat when it hit me, again, that I’d be a father soon. That realization was always as terrifying as it was thrilling. I felt some small part of my brain try to say something about taking Nola’s premonition seriously, but the rest of my brain was like, nah man, don’t do that to yourself.

  “I’ve never been to a beach. I wonder if I would float upon the ocean waves,” Cindra said. “Any chance you’ll let me come to Valleyvale with you?”

  “No need,” I said. “It’s dark and probably pointless. Keep working on those illusions and I’ll be back soon.”

  I walked a few paces to the stone arch that linked us to every city that still had a portal gateway intact. With a single word, “Valleyvale,” it lit up green.

  My foot landed on the soft ground between the two ancient trees that flanked Valleyvale’s arch. Nighttime was my ally as I stalked through the bushes and peered toward the city.

  A few torches burned near the front gates, casting fickle light on a handful of men. One held a rock in his hands that glowed a deep purple. It was an energem.

  Three more energems lit up, the same pale purple of Kāya’s anibombs. They illuminated the frail wooden towers they sat atop. So, we weren’t the only ones building around the clock. Those new structures were skeletal, but they could be reinforced soon thanks to the stream of workers carrying lumber into the night under the guidance of torchlight.

  I placed my hand on a tree branch and lifted my leg for another step closer when someone hissed, “Don’t move.”

  I normally don’t take orders that people hiss at me, but this one time, I had to agree. Not moving was the right call. I was so focused on the activity in front of the city’s gates that I hadn’t surveyed the ground closer to the forest’s edge. In the darkness, only a faint glint of light reflected off the smooth surface of three creatures sitting a dozen yards away. Anibombs.

  The furless creatures, shaped like rabbits but smooth and glistening like polished jade, sat idly in the clearing before the city’s front gates. Their eyeless faces were blind to the torchlight, and their solid ears were a deaf decoration. Somehow though, they could sense movement. If I got too close, they would explode in a burst of fiery lilac magic that would cause considerable damage.

  “Who are you?” I whispered into the night.

  “Imperial daggers,” one woman whispered back, stepping closer in a low crouch. “The Great Mother sent us to make sure you play your role once you get into Kāya’s stronghold.”

  “I don’t need supervision.” I turned gradually, careful not to strike any quick movements that might attract the anibombs’ attention.

  “The Great Mother gets what the Great Mother wants,” a second woman said. “One way or another. You turned tail earlier in order to save a few individuals when you should have charged ahead and found your mark. Kāya is building defenses. The longer you wait, the harder she’ll be to kill.” She waved her arms wildly as she spoke, making me nervous that she’d accidentally set off the anibombs a stone’s throw from our hiding spot. It was like she wasn’t even worried about what they’d do.

  I peered into the darkness, but it was hard to make out the shape of either woman. I expected “imperials” to wear all white like the imperial army I had seen in my visions, but they didn’t. They seemed to wear skintight leathers from neck to toe that were blacker than the forest’s shadows. As my eyes adjusted, I thought I saw an insignia of a long knife stitched onto their chests.

  “Can you help me liberate the city?” I asked.

  “No,” the first woman said. “That’s unnecessary. Just get in, kill Kāya, and leave.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said. “There are people in there, good innocent—”

  “It is that simple,” the second woman said. “Strike down our enemy, mourn the casualties later.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I asked. “You could be any old rogues out for your own purposes.”

  “Arden Hochbright,” the first woman said, “you’d do well not to trust us.”

  “Telara!” the second woman whisper-hissed.

  “Trust no one,” the first woman, Telara, continued. “Not Father Cahn who raised you, not the goblins who toil away under your hill, not even the goddess you serve. The Great Mother is your only hope. Trust her alone.”

  “In the meantime,” the second woman said, “we’ll help you with your mission to kill Kāya. We act tonight, before she completes her defenses. Are you ready?”

  “My people are building our army,” I said. “We’ll be stronger then.”

  “No time,” the second woman said. “There are archers posted in the front and the back of the city at night, but the side walls are unguarded. I’ll take care of the first round of familiars here, then cross the clearing and scale the side wall before more show up.” I barely opened my mouth to protest when she held up a hand and said, “There’s nothing to discuss. I have tools for climbing the smooth stone walls. I’ll throw down a rope for you both to follow.”

  She jumped to her feet and charged into the clearing. Brass knuckles were her only weapon.

  “No!” I yelled. I reached out to snatch her arm, but she was too quick. “They’ll explode!” I yelled.

  “Wait,” Telara said. “Wait!”

  As the black-clad woman sprinted toward the lilac creatures, all three cocked their heads toward her. In only a moment, they erupted into balls of heat and fury, blasting her body back. She rolled toward us and then lay still as pale purple smoke filled the clearing.

  “You have no idea what you’re up against, do you?” I asked. I ran toward the fallen woman while Telara chased after me.

  “That’s not what her familiars do,” the first woman said.

  The explosions drew
the attention of Kāya’s army. Men charged from the front gate, some with weapons and some with torches that added an orange glow to the lilac haze from the explosions.

  As a wave of attackers raced across the clearing, a man with a flowing head of hair stood in the doorframe of the city’s front gates. “There are three of them,” he called out. “One male, standing. One female, standing. One female, fallen.”

  I recognized that flat, methodical voice. It was Brion, the lionkin that wormed his way into Nola’s temple pretending to be her botched first attempt at appointing a head priest. The same Brion that had stolen the energems we charged after Duul’s last assault on Halcyon.

  Now he was using our energems to pump out Kāya’s familiars. Last week, Nola wanted to fix him. Now, I was going to neuter him.

  “Open the portal,” Telara said, tugging at my arm. “I saw you do it before, get us out of here!”

  “I’m not taking you into Halcyon,” I said, shrugging her off of me. The woman on the ground started crawling toward us, but the task was too much. Her arms gave out and her face landed in the dirt.

  I stepped toward her. Another rift tore open in the space above her collapsed body.

  There she was again. The dark, mysterious woman from the void. Her eyes were unusually wide, but she narrowed them at me nonetheless. Before I knew what I was doing, I was jogging, then sprinting toward her. I wouldn’t miss this chance.

  She held a ball of light in both hands. It bucked against her grip, fighting the same way as the others had. As she lost her battle with that brilliant globe, I yelled, “No!”

  My feet skidded to a stop as I approached her. I dug my spear’s handle into the ground and reached into the rift. I lunged my arm forward, offering her my hand.

  I wanted to help prevent another historic warrior from invading my world. I wanted a moment to speak with this mysterious woman and lure her out of the darkness.

  I certainly didn’t want to inadvertently graze her supple, shadow-cloaked breast, so I didn’t. I full-on accidentally cupped it.