Shadowborn

by Joseph DeVeau

  Aeryn was convinced that everyone involved knew the truth. At the same time however, everyone went to great pains to avoid it and even encourage the lie. The vendor wanted the father’s coin, the girl wanted the doll, and the father wanted to see his daughter happy. The only one that would be upset would be the mother. But by that time it would be far too late to do anything about it without infuriating all three parties.

  To the Voices, Nameless was that mother. The all-knowing and all-seeing protector in good times. The scapegoat in bad. In short, Nameless allowed the Voices to do anything their hearts desired with complete impunity. It was genius. There was no way the Voices could lose.

  That was the thorn in the plans. No, it was more like a squad of cavalry cutting a swath of destruction through their plans. Everything had relied on cutting off the head off the enemy and letting the body wither and die.

  In hindsight it seemed too simple and easy by far. Laughable, really. But now. . .

  Aeryn hit the edge of the large square that sat before the Lord’s Gate. She began pushing her way in toward the platform the Voices spoke from at the far end. How could they, how could anyone, fight an idea? Especially one that could never be wrong? It was downright impossible.

  A person appeared in Aeryn’s path. Born by long years navigating thick, hostile crowds, she instinctively stepped forward and to the side to thread past. She was even with the person before she realized it was not just some random housewife or cook out to purchase supplies for their household, but a small girl who could not have been older than ten. The child stared at her.

  Aeryn moved to hand over her remaining bread as she had done so many times in the previous days and weeks. The motion, one so familiar to street urchins and beggars everywhere, drew the attention of an even younger girl and a boy, who appeared to be siblings.

  Aeryn came up empty; she had already passed out everything she had purchased.

  “Sorry,” she said as a fourth body joined the trio. “Sorry,” she said again. “I don’t have any more.” Seeing those large, innocent eyes gleaming with hope become clouded with despair, a feeling she knew intimately from her time on the street, broke her heart.

  “I don’t have anything right now,” Aeryn said. “But if you wait here, I’ll be right back with more.” She looked around the market square for the nearest vendor. Meatpies, bread, fish, fruits gave her lots to choose from, even if they all had turned brown and rancid from storage over the winter.

  The boy turned and walked away, head down. The brother and sister followed a moment later.

  “Wait,” Aeryn said, throwing up a hand. They were already gone, leaving her alone with the girl she had first encountered. The same scrawny girl Aeryn realized she had fed a week or so ago. The girl turned to leave as well.

  “Wait,” Aeryn said again, softly this time, belatedly realizing she would not have believed her prior words anymore than the street urchins had. A Lady dressed in silks telling them to wait while she bought them food? It was like a Voice telling all of Maerilin they no longer had to pay their tithes for protection from the lurking Shadows. “Come with me.”

  The girl remained rooted in place. Aeryn could almost see thick walls spiked on top with broken glass spring up to guard against a trap.

  “What’s your name?” Aeryn asked gently.

  “Katelyn,” said the girl.

  “Well, Katelyn,” Aeryn said, taking a new tactic and extending her hand slowly, “you remember me, don’t you?”

  The girl nodded hesitantly.

  “Good. Then you know I don’t want to hurt you. I’m looking for a place to get something to eat. The problem is, I don’t know where I should go. Do you think you can help me? If you do, I’ll give you my leftovers like I did last time.”

  Katelyn nodded vigorously. Rays of hope started to peek through the growing cracks in her walls. Even though the girl had likely never heard those words strung together before in her life, and by a Lady no less, it was much more believable than said Lady going off on her own and returning with food.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  Katelyn led Aeryn arrow-straight to a hawker standing over a display of rotting vegetables, fruits and spoiled meats Jynx would balk at. At least he would now, anyway. Aeryn could remember a time not so long ago that the wares before her would have been a feast fit for a king.

  “How about something a little better?” Aeryn asked, earning a disproving glare from the hawker. Following her nose, she found a baker’s shop a block away and entered, Katelyn in tow.

  “Shoo! You can’t be in here. Get lost, you filthy rat,” said a portly baker nearly as wide as Mareen.

  Aeryn raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry, my lady, I did not mean you,” the baker said hastily. “I meant her.” She pointed an accusing finger at Katelyn.

  Katelyn turned to leave. Aeryn grabbed the girl’s and held on tight.

  “She leaves and I leave,” Aeryn said.

  That got the baker’s attention. “Fine. But if that rat steals or breaks anything, you’re paying for it.”

  Aeryn rolled her eyes. “How much for everything?” she asked. Everything in the shop would cost far more than the gold she had in her purse. The baker did not know that. Besides, Aeryn felt like getting a touch of payback after how the woman had screeched at Katelyn.

  “For everything?” the baker replied, confused.

  “Everything,” Aeryn repeated.

  The baker looked even more confused if that were possible. “Everything?”

  Aeryn grinned. “Yes, everything,” she repeated once more, and swept her arms to encompass the freshly baked breads, the pastries lining the counter, the sweetrolls, buns and poundcakes staked on platters atop the counter.

  “I—I don’t know, my Lady, perhaps, thr— three gold?” the baker said.

  Aeryn’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?” Three gold? For everything in the shop? She had been spending so much time in the nobles’ market she had forgotten how far a single gold piece actually went.

  “Two gold,” the baker said, obviously mistaking Aeryn’s slack-jawed stare for disbelief of a different kind. “I’ll even throw in the nearly finished loaves in the oven.”

  “Deal,” Aeryn said before the baker could change her mind. She turned to Katelyn. “Do you have any friends?”

  The girl nodded. “Mindy and Bree and Th—“

  Aeryn cut her off. “Go fetch them quick as you can.” Expecting the narrow-eyed look Katelyn gave her, Aeryn pressed a silver into the girl’s palm after handing over two gold to the wide-eyed baker. “That’s yours just in case you come back and I’m not here.”

  Katelyn was gone in a flash. She was back scant minutes later, trailed by a good dozen boys and girls.

  “I don’t believe you, Kat,” said a baby-faced boy almost as large as Ty. “Why would a Lady give you a silver and then tell you to find us? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “She did,” Katelyn protested. “She is the nicest Lady I’ve ever met. She gave me food before and she—”

  “Ha,” said the boy. “That proves it. Ladys are not nice. They are—“ he cut off as he came face to face with Aeryn. Actually, his shoulder stopped before her face; he was a good head taller than her and three times thicker.

  “Nice to meet you too,” Aeryn said.

  “I—I didn’t—“ the boy stuttered.

  Aeryn grinned. “Katelyn, do you trust those three?” She pointed to the three largest boys in tow.

  Katelyn nodded vigorously. “Those are my brothers, Gil and Ren and Lu.” Street family. Aeryn nodded in understanding.

  “I’ve bought everything in the store. Everything edible, mind you,” Aeryn added. “It’s all yours.” She held up a hand to keep them from rushing forward, “If,” she looked to the baker and back again, “no one breaks or steals anything, pushes or fights with one another, or causes any problems for the baker and her store. Do you think you can do that?”

  Eyes gleaming, the group bobbed
their heads as one. Aeryn flipped a silver to each of the three boys she had singled out earlier. “Keep them in order and I’ll double that when the shop is empty. Of food,” she added quickly. Eyes wide, all three formed crude bows. “Well?” Aeryn asked.

  A stampede of nimble legs and fingers, hungry eyes and hungrier stomachs swept past Aeryn in a fit of glee.

  Hours later and all the coins from Aeryn’s purse were gone. In total, she had visited more than a dozen shops, her following expanding as she had bought out the inventory of each. At the end, word had traveled ahead and a few shops had actually prepared for their arrival.

  One thing that always had remained the same was the shopkeeper’s reactions going from outright horror at the charging wave of street urchins to face-splitting smiles upon seeing the pure and simple joy written across their faces. Well, as long as someone was paying for everything, of course. More often than not, Aeryn had had to throw in a few extra gold because all the “dirty little rapscallions” messing up their shop.

  Most amazing of all was that only two scuffles had broken out despite the sheer number of street urchins. The Bigs as she called them now—there were too many names to remember, so she had simply started calling them Bigs and Littles—had quickly and efficiently broken them up with help from a score of Littles. No one wanted to risk Aeryn’s generosity and all had banded together for the common good.

  Aeryn turned her purse inside out in front of the expectant faces. “I’m all out, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow, I promise.” That was a given considering how enamored Annette was with Ty. Annette was becoming less of a handmaiden everyday and more of a little sister that needed looking out for as she charged about blindly, experiencing everything for the first time.

  “See? I knew it was too good to be true,” came a voice from the back.

  “Yeah,” said another, “Ladies always have gold. She must be hiding it somewhere.”

  A third spoke. “And if she has so much gold, why can’t she pay our tithes and keep us safe? I don’t want a Shadow to kill me at night.”

  “Me either,” came a couple shouted agreements.

  Aeryn sighed. So much for that.

  The owner of the latest shop chimed in from behind the counter. “Ungrateful little brats. They should be prostrated in front of her kissing her shoes.”

  An ear-piercing scream made Aeryn clap her hands over her ears or risk going deaf. All heads turned to the source, a little girl of perhaps ten, and one of the few Aeryn knew by name. Katelyn.

  “What has Nameless ever done for you?” Katelyn said into the silent wake of her scream. “For any of you?”

  “He protects—“

  “Nothing!” Katelyn screeched. “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!” She grabbed Aeryn’s hand. “Lady Aeryn has done more for you in one day then Nameless has done for you your entire lives.”

  “But the Shadows,” protested a lad. “Fen didn’t pay his tithe last week and the Shadows got him that very night.”

  One of the Bigs spoke. “Thale, you know Fen starved to death better than anyone.”

  “But he—“ Thale began.

  “But he nothing,” said the big. “He was skinny as Katelyn at the end and had the shakes.”

  Katelyn stomped a little foot on the wood floorboards and shouted, “I hate you all,” she said at the top of her lungs. All eyes jerked back to her. “Bless you, and thank you, Lady. The others thank you too, even if they are too stupid to realize it.”

  That brought more than a few hung heads.

  “She’s right,” said a Big. “What has Nameless ever done for us?”

  “Nothing,” spat a Little.

  Aeryn heard the sharp intake of the shopkeeper’s breath as the goober landed on the floor.

  From another, “I’d rather fill my belly than give my copper scrapings to a god that doesn’t even know I exist.”

  “Me too,” came a chorus of replies. “Me too!”

  “Who needs a god when we have the Lady Aeryn?” shouted one over the din. “I’d follow her over Nameless any day!”

  “You got that right,” said someone else, which an upraised cheer immediately drowned out. Aeryn felt tears well in her eyes.

  The shopkeeper let out a gasp. “Out of my shop. Now!” she shouted, breaking the reverie. Aeryn turned to find the woman standing proud with her hands on her hips. “I mean it, Lady. I will not have Nameless blasphemed in my shop. Not by you, not by a good-for-nothing rag-tag band of street urchins, not by anyone!”

  The “good-for-nothing rag-tag band of street urchins” let out a fierce growl that rocked the shopkeeper back onto her heel. She picked up a baking roller in self-defense, but Aeryn shooed them out before it could come to blows. It would not do to have soldiers, Shades, or god-forbid, Voices, called down on her.

  “We’ll find places worthy of you tomorrow,” one of the Bigs said, spitting back towards the shop. A score of others followed suit, eliciting a steady stream of curses from within.

  Something Merek had said so very long ago hit Aeryn and she barely heard. “People tend to hide their greatest weakness behind their greatest strength.”

  Absently promising to come back tomorrow, Aeryn tied her shawl around Katelyn’s neck, the girl could obviously use it against the night’s cold, and rushed off in a swirl of silk and lace.

  All was not lost. Not yet. If the Voices’ greatest strength was Nameless, a God of their own design that was everything they wanted and needed him to be, why couldn’t he be their greatest weakness as well?

  The rote intonation that she had never spared a second thought to before floated back to the surface. He. The Voices themselves had called Nameless He. “May He shelter and protect us.” “May He live forever.”

  Aeryn picked up speed, dashing in and out of wagons, dodging horses, porters, and hawkers, soldiers and Shades alike. No, she thought, we don’t have to fight an idea that can never be wrong. We have to become the idea.

  That was the key. They simply had to make the idea wholly and fully theirs. Then they could turn it against its creators. It would not be honorable, but since when were wars honorable? Because when you got right down to it, that is what they were doing here: waging a war.

  Wars were about winning, plain and simple.

  Aeryn knew just the way to win. After all, Drifting was Drifting. The only difference between a Shadow, Shade and Voice was the connotation the Voices had applied to each over the centuries. All could, with enough practice, experience, and the right tools, Drift just as well as any of the others. Aeryn, Merek, and Asher had proven as much.

  Aeryn burst into the blacksmith workshop. She caught an eyeful of Annette blushing from within Ty’s corded arms.

  “Come on Annette,” Aeryn said. “We’re leaving.”

  “But Ty and I were just getting to know each other,” Annette protested.

  Getting to know each other indeed, Aeryn thought with a raised eyebrow. She did not have time for this. “You,” she said to Ty. He pointed to himself and she nodded. “You have work to do for me. So do it. You,” she said to Annette, “your mother wanted you to break out of your shell, not become a mother yourself.” Both Ty and Annette turned positively crimson at that. “We’re going. Now.”

  Annette sheepishly followed, blowing Ty a kiss just as she left the workshop. Ty, the massive apprentice blacksmith, actually blew one back.

  Aeryn did not even pause to smirk. She had details to figure out. Layers upon layers of details. She needed to talk to the Lord, Lady, and Shade that had decades of experience forging plans, even if their grandest one had not come to pass. Yet.

  She knew how to topple the Voices.

  20

  Unlikely Allies

  A grappling hand flew through the air toward Aeryn’s neck. Instincts, honed to a razor’s edge from life on the streets avoiding the clutches of merchants and soldiers, sent Aeryn spinning away an instant before the Shade grabbed hold and finished her off.

  A
eryn did not have a moment to spare. There was no time to think about how her nightly outings these past few weeks might have disrupted their plans, no time to contemplate how offing cutthroats, thugs, and now Shades would throw Maerilin into chaos, and definitely no time to dwell on how furious Mareen, Merek, and Asher would be when they heard about tonight’s events.

  There was only time to whip around, blade held in her fist, and send droplets of blood cascading down the edge and into the eyes of the latest Shade.

  The Shade threw up a hand to block. Aeryn struck, plunging the point hilt deep into his side. The lance of pain disrupted his concentration and he stumbled away, snapping back fully into the Physical Plane.

  Eschewing honor, Aeryn pressed her advantage and kicked hard, smashing her foot into his groin. As he doubled over in agony, Aeryn kicked again, this time connecting solidly with his kneecap. The Shade dropped to the ground with a scream.

  Before she could regain her balance from the kick, a weight crashed into her from behind and drove the air from her lungs.

  Aeryn’s head hit the ground. Her vision began to blur. A hazy image of her bleeding out on the cobbles flashed before her eyes as the copper-tinged scent of pooled blood hit her nostrils.

  She rolled to the side before it could come to pass.

  Steel struck the cobblestone where her head had been. The force of the blow cracked the cobblestone and shattered the blade, sending out a shower of sparks. She scrambled backward, desperately trying to buy time for the fog over her mind to clear.

  “Come here,” the Shade growled. He stepped forward.

  Aeryn’s back hit a wall and she pushed herself to her feet. She brought her hands up to her lips, intending on whistling for Jynx. Her hands made it halfway before she had to reach out and hold the wall just to keep herself from collapsing back to the ground.

  Where are you Jynx?

  The Shade stepped into range. Double her size and easily four times her strength, he wrapped a meaty hand about her throat and hoisted up her until her feet dangled inches above the cobbles.