Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  “I live to serve,” the boys said simultaneously.

  “Do not mistake my leniency for kindness,” the stern voice said. “For every leaf on the ground, for every blemish I find, for every flower that fails to bloom, you will receive a lash.”

  Aeryn just barely made out the boy’s reply to his companion’s sigh, so hard was she trying not to cry out and fall to the ground against screaming muscles.

  “It’s not that bad. Maybe while we’re in the gardens we’ll see a Voice. Their quarters do look out to the gardens.”

  Aeryn’s breath caught as she plucked the boy’s name from her mind. A pious, chunky stable boy she had once called her friend. Rickon.

  The other boy let out a squeal. “Do you think?”

  “We can hope, can’t we?” Rickon said, his voice fading into the distance.

  It was nearly impossible to wrench her mind away from the swirling possibility of being found perched helpless like a ladybug on a window. Being found by Rickon was somehow even worse. A street thug or cutthroat she could fight. And kill. She had proven that. She was even prepared to face a Shade or a Voice. Not Nameless. Not yet. She was here to find out what, if any, weaknesses the God had. But a former friend? Could she silence him if she had to? Her hesitation at answering that question said volumes.

  Aeryn saw it flash before her mind’s eye. Rickon coming to tend the garden and running headlong into her. Him screaming, “Shadow!” and bringing an army down on her head all while she stood there, frozen in silence.

  All in all, she was not surprised Rickon was serving the Voices. He had worshiped them his entire life.

  Her hands slipped on the rope, reminding her of her precarious perch. She had to do something quickly or her sweaty hands and burning muscles would break her neck for her without Rickon’s help.

  She began counting the seconds, breaking her thoughts of Rickon and the memory of his incriminating, reproachful eyes at finding out she was a Shadow by studying the vine.

  Were its flowers actually pink and purple? Or had that just been something Asher had said to draw her attention? For that matter, did this vine even have flowers? Aeryn shook her head. It would be foolish of Asher to lie about something so obvious to anyone listening in.

  She switched and studied the wall and the garden itself. What were the chambers of the Voices like? How many Voices were in there? Were there any other hiding spots in the garden?

  Ninety-nine, one hundred.

  Aeryn took a breath and with searing, screaming arms, started up the rope once more. Reaching the top, she flipped over, lay on her back and hauled the rope up.

  The second she had caught her breath, she hooked the metal barbs on a merlon at the opposite side of the wall, tossed the rope over and slid down its length.

  A flick of her wrist dislodged the hook. A flick of her foot covered it with dirt at the base of the wall. It would not escape unnoticed if anyone came within twenty feet, but if someone came that close, she would have more problems than them seeing a metal hook lying on the ground. Signs of her passage for one. Unless she spent hours scouring everything clean, she could not completely erase all signs that she had come through the area. The only thing worse would be someone seeing her standing around in plain sight.

  Keeping her head low, she dashed towards the castle. Crossing an eerily open and quiet courtyard, she crept forward, concealed behind one of the massive flying buttresses that soared up to the castle proper. In the gaps of the impressive stonework, she could just make out the lofty rose window and arcade high above.

  Looking to the right, then the left, she darted forward. Thanks to Gerald’s uncompromising training and her years on the streets, her feet fell silently, deftly avoiding scores of dusty stone chips littering the floor. Squeezing between a door cracked open and half again as high as her, she sprinted to the side to hide in the deeper shadows and allow her a moment to get her bearings.

  Sliding to a stop, Aeryn coughed against a puff of rising dust. The sound echoed with abandon around the stone hall and back to her ears.

  Her mind caught up to her feet. Looking about at the emptiness, Aeryn’s heart dropped into her stomach even as her stomach’s bottom dropped out.

  This was not what she had expected. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  19

  Street Urchins

  Nothing?” Merek asked. “What do you mean, ‘nothing?’”

  “I mean,” Aeryn said, sounding exasperated, “nothing. As in the opposite of something.”

  “Nothing?” Asher asked, half incredulous statement, half skeptical question. “You were gone for less than ten minutes. The original plan, if you remember, was for you be in there for hours. Days if necessary. Are you sure you did not get spooked and run away before you found something?”

  Merek looked at Aeryn to gauge her reaction. He did not know what excuse his one-time son-in-law-to-be had used to personally escort Aeryn back to his house, but right now he did not care. They had bigger concerns. Like the fact that Aeryn had found nothing. It had to be some elaborate rouse. It had to be. Surely there couldn’t be nothing in the entire castle!

  Aeryn sighed, looked down at Jynx, who yawned mightily, then began ticking off fingers. “One,” she said, “I was not spooked. Two,” she ticked off another finger, “I did not ‘run away.’ Three, you don’t need to remind me of the ‘original plan.’ I know it quite well. It was, after all, my neck on the block. Four—“

  “My neck was on the block more so than yours,” Asher said. “If I had been caught, I would—“

  “Four,” Aeryn said, forcefully cutting Asher off as he had cut her off a moment ago. “I found nothing because there was nothing to find.”

  Asher frowned. “Are you sure you didn’t miss—“

  Aeryn threw up her hands. “You go in there then. You’re the bloody Shade after all!”

  “Quiet,” Merek hissed, hoping the storeroom’s solid doors and the thick piles of hay about would muffle her shout to anyone passing within earshot. “You too,” he said to Asher when the boy growled at Aeryn.

  “I know what I saw, and I saw bloody nothing! Deserted. Empty. Not a servant, soldier, Shade, Voice, or a bloody God, just centuries of dust covering everything from the floors to the ceiling. Hell,” she exclaimed, “there weren’t even any rats because there was nothing for them to eat, and aside from a few dry-rotted timbers, there wasn’t even any wood.”

  “Perhaps I should go,” Asher mused, face scrunched up in disbelief. “I bet the Voices were walking around a foot away from you, fully immersed in the Etheric Plane. You just didn’t see them.”

  Aeryn whipped out her belt knife, the one made by that blacksmith friend of hers who had also made the grappling hook she had used earlier. She pointed it at Asher’s chest. Jynx’s fur rose in a razor sharp line on his back. The draven’s mouth opened again, only this time not in a yawn.

  “Disbelief is one thing; I can scarcely believe it myself and I saw it firsthand. But you call me a liar one more time,” Aeryn tapped his chest with the dagger’s point, “and I’ll send you to meet your God face to face.”

  Asher’s eyes widened. An instant later, they were but dim gray orbs along with the rest of his body. Aeryn and Jynx Drifted to match.

  Bloody hell. Drifting as well, Merek jumped forward and planted himself between the face off. Aeryn was refreshingly straightforward, preferring to speak her mind rather than play word games like all the other nobles, but this was quickly getting out of hand. The last thing they could afford right now was infighting.

  “Stop it,” Merek shouted. He put a hand to both of their chests. “Both of you.”

  Time stretched dangerously thin. Merek could almost feel the fury radiating from the trio. He knew not to discount Gerald’s hounds, and with Jynx now twice the size of Raker and in his prime, discounting the draven would be suicide.

  Asher backed down first. Aeryn and her draven followed a good ten seconds later.

  “Merek,
are you sure we can trust—“ Asher began.

  “Silence!” Merek said, giving Asher a hard glare. “Now Aeryn, I believe you when you said you saw nothing. But—“

  “But nothing, I—“

  Merek turned his glare on her. “Let me bloody speak.” Surprised at the curse, she cut off. He barreled on before she could start up again. “Did you see any footprints? wheel tracks? scuff marks? sections clear of dust? Anything that would indicate that someone, anyone,” he left that intentionally opened ended, “had been there recently?”

  Aeryn shook her head and slammed her blade back into its sheath. “No. I can’t track as well as Gerald, but a child could tell when a place hasn’t seen a human footstep in centuries. Shade, Voice, God, or otherwise,” she added with a glare directed to Asher.

  Asher opened his mouth. Merek cut him off by placing a hand on his shoulder. “No, lad,” Merek said, “I wasn’t lying when I said I believed her. The only explanation is that there really was no one there.”

  Aeryn rolled her eyes as if she had not said exactly the same thing a dozen times over.

  “What do we do now?” Asher asked, his shoulders slumping as an invisible weight bore down on them.

  Merek pursed his lips. “I don’t know. Not in a thousand years would I have considered that Nameless didn’t exist. But I do know one thing,” he raised a hand to Aeryn’s shoulder, then looked them both in the eyes one at a time. “We’re not defeated. Not by a long shot. We think. Reevaluate. Ask careful questions. Keep our minds open and ponder every answer, no matter how farfetched it may seem. Because if we have learned one thing from today, it’s that we have been blinded by our complacency in what we all think we know. We will not let that happen again.” Asher and Aeryn nodded in unison, both with thoughtful expressions on their faces.

  Merek closed out their hastily gathered meeting before the wrong person stumbled in on them. He sent Asher back beyond the Protector’s Gate, Aeryn beyond the Lord’s Gate. Having them both in the places they were the most comfortable would hopefully give them a chance to mull over what they had learned. It would give Merek a chance to do likewise.

  Only, hours later and very little to show for the passage of time, Merek looked up as Reeve opened the door to his study.

  “My lord,” Reeve said, “Lady Mareen has arrived as you requested.”

  “Thank you. See her in.”

  The chamberlain bowed and stepped back to admit the rotund Lady Mareen. She wore a scowl on her face like she was born to it.

  “This better be good,” Mareen demanded the instant the door clicked shut behind her. “Sending for me in plain sight like this? What were you thinking? Not to mention that I was in the middle of a luncheon with Cedric and his wife Isolde. Why I almost convinced them to. . .” she trailed off, sensing the mood that hung heavy in the air.

  Merek gestured to a seat opposite the small reading table before him. “Take a seat.”

  Mareen raised an eyebrow and took the offered seat. “What has happened? Tell me everything.”

  Merek smiled grimly and started going over the day’s events. If there was one person in all of Maerilin that could piece together a puzzle that spanned a thousand years and affected a thousand times as many lives, it was Mareen.

  Except, the instant he finished his recount, she exclaimed, “Nothing? What do you mean, nothing?”

  Sighing, Merek shook his head. “Exactly that,” he said. “Nothing. From what Aeryn told us. . .” He sighed again, deeper this time. It was going to be a long day.

  Annette giggling in glee while Ty flexed his corded muscles, Aeryn left the pair to their devices and wandered Maerilin’s streets. To the left and right, the buildings closed in on her, as did the people buzzing about on their daily business. After the open emptiness of Nameless’ castle and rich interior of the Voices’ buildings, everything out here seemed cheap and oppressive. Like the buildings were Maerilin’s teeth, molars which ground all those that walked its streets to dust. She wondered how she had never noticed that before.

  Because you didn’t know any better.

  It was true enough. Living in refuse piles and eating rats and pigeons made the most base building seem grand in comparison. Not to mention that you could ill afford to open your eyes to the injustice and deception that kept you there, to the plight of others, or to the reality of the world around you. It took everything you had to survive the brutal grindstone of life. Just to keep moving forward.

  She almost tripped over an urchin curled up beneath scraps of cloth held together by various bits of string. Aeryn could hardly believe that had been her once, struggling to survive day to day; it seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Shame washed over her as the weight of that thought hit home. She was stronger than this. She had to be stronger than this. Giving up then would have cost her her life. Giving up now would cost untold thousands their freedom.

  Pulling a gold coin from her purse, Aeryn tucked it beneath the blanket, far enough within that it was concealed from passerbys, yet far enough away from the girl that she could not miss it upon waking.

  Straightening her back, she continued. She wondered if “freedom” was too strong a word. It was not like the people around here were slaves.

  Aeryn frowned. They weren’t, were they?

  The words of the Voice, standing on a podium in the square, delivering a sermon to the gathered masses at the anniversary of Nameless’ rule came back to her. A few weeks and the Voice would be there once more, this time for the grand, thousandth year anniversary. She saw the Shades and soldiers, all standing guard, protecting the Voice, not the people.

  “In return for his protection and shelter from the Shadows of the world,” the Voice had said, “all Nameless asks is that you support his disciples and obey their guidance without reservation.”

  One particular string of words, which at the time had barely registered, now screamed at her. The Voices had always ended with that simple yet weighty rote intonation, “May he live forever.”

  It was quite sickening looking back on it. Like sheep, the Voices had everyone line their pockets at the will of an ironically nameless and nonexistent God. That was their golden scepter, sword, and crown all wrapped up into one nice package: do what Nameless—a God, our God and yours—asks, and he will shelter and protect you. So what if the only thing the God asked for was gold. As if a God had any use for gold! It did not take an entire city tithing a good portion of their income to clothe, house, and feed a couple hundred soldiers, a score of Shades, and less than a dozen Voices.

  On cue with her thoughts, three Shades, each surrounded by knots of soldiers, marched past. Word had spread like lightning that a mutilated and mangled body had been found down by the docks. One that matched a Shade that until then only a select few had known was missing.

  This time however, when urchins, beggars, and commoners failed to move in a timely manner, the processions did not slow. They steamrolled over the top of the poor souls, grinding them into the cobbles, all while proclaiming that they were doing their duty to Nameless. Those that dared interfere were hampering his will.

  Aeryn bought a loaf of sweetbread from a vendor, and idly bit off hunks. Her mind swirled in turn with events that whirled and spun, rapidly circling the drain. She barely noticed the sweet caramelized molasses that glazed the sweetbread. She—they—had to move forward. The question was how?

  A half-dozen winding streets later and Aeryn had nothing to show for it but a fresh roll, this one coated in powdered sugar that she had not remembered buying. She sighed and handed it to the nearest urchin she saw. If she ate the things hand over foot she would be Mareen’s size in no time.

  Start at the beginning, she said to herself. Strip away all the plots and schemes, all the grandiose ideas, the dreams and the “what-ifs.” What do you know?

  The answer was easy. While the others were so preoccupied with their disbelief and skepticism, Aeryn knew what she had seen. And she had seen nothing. So while the
others wasted their time trying to figure out why she had to be wrong or what she had missed, Aeryn would—nay, had—to start with one simple truth. Nameless did not exist. He had probably existed at one point, likely as a conquering hero or series of men ruling in his name rather than as a god, but that was a discussion for philosophers and historians. Aeryn lived in the now.

  A number of thoughts cascaded forth from that one simple truth. First, someone had to keep the idea of Nameless alive. Combined with the fact that neither Asher nor Merek knew the truth, the former a Shade and the latter a Lord, pointed to the work of the Voices. No one else had enough power. That placed the Voices squarely in charge; a theory bolstered everywhere she looked. From them being the right-hand of Nameless, the only ones allowed past the God’s Gate, which from the lack of footprints in the layered dust, had not happened in centuries, to being the only ones able to know his will, hear his commands, and speak in his stead.

  The question then became: why bother with the lie? Why keep up the charade for so many centuries?

  The answer eluded Aeryn for a good while. But when it came, it came in a flash and from the unlikeliest of places. She had been walking by a little girl no older than six who began tugging on her father’s sleeve.

  “But Momma said I could have it,” the girl cried.

  The girl’s father raised his eyebrow. “She did?”

  “Yes. Yesterday before you came home she said I could have it if I promised to do my chores,” the girl said in a rush, her eyes twinkling with innocence.

  “Well, alright,” the father said. “If you’re sure your mother said it was ok.”

  The girl’s head bobbed rapidly. “She did. Yes. She did.”

  The father handed a small stack of copper to the girl, who promptly gave it to a vendor in exchange for a stitched and stuffed cloth doll. Squealing with delight, the girl hugged her father fiercely, sandwiching the doll between the two of them.