Sevenfold Sword: Shadow

by Jonathan Moeller

  “A long and arduous journey,” said Rion.

  “Nevertheless, it is what we must do,” said Ridmark.

  “I hope you will be our guests this evening, Lord Ridmark,” said Rion.

  “I would be glad to provide rooms,” said Melex.

  “Thank you,” said Ridmark. “A rest would be welcome. It was a long journey from Aenesium.”

  “Tamara,” said Calliande. “Might I speak with you?”

  Tamara blinked her mismatched eyes. “Of course.”

  Calliande offered a smile. “Perhaps we can help clear up some of the mysteries that have plagued you all your life.”

  Chapter 11: Memories & Dreams

  The Javelin Inn was simple, but clean and pleasant.

  The room Calliande would share with Ridmark tonight had a bed, a pair of chairs, and a wooden table. It also had its own hearth, which was nice, but it was warm enough that Calliande doubted they would need it. She had spent enough time sleeping on the ground in the wilderness to always appreciate the chance to sleep in a proper bed.

  Right now, she sat on the bed. Tamlin Thunderbolt sat in the chair on her left, his back against the window looking into the inn’s yard, and Tamara Earthcaller sat in the chair on Calliande’s right, her back to the door. Her staff had been propped in the corner, and her arms were folded tight across her chest. She looked tense, but also excited.

  “I suppose,” said Calliande, “that you have several questions for us.”

  “Yes,” said Tamara. She swallowed. “Yes, I do.”

  “Ask me anything you will,” said Calliande, “and we will answer the best we can.”

  “Very well,” said Tamara. She took one long breath, and then another. “Can you tell me about my nightmares? Why I’ve been dreaming of death for so long?”

  “You’ve been dreaming of six different deaths, haven’t you?” said Calliande, remembering what Tirdua had told her back in Trojas. “In one, urvaalgs kill you. In another, you are shipwrecked and drowned in a storm. In the third, you’re burned alive. In the fourth, your throat is cut. In the fifth, you’re stabbed through the heart from behind, and Sir Tamlin is there.” Tamara nodded. “The sixth one started just about a month ago unless I miss my guess. In this one, you’re burned alive in a courtyard, and Sir Tamlin is there as well.”

  “Yes,” said Tamara. “I mentioned the nightmare of fire in the great hall…but how did you know about the other five?”

  “Because,” said Calliande, “I think another part of you told me about them.”

  Tamara blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Tamlin, “and I’ve been wondering about it for years.”

  Tamara blinked, laughed, and covered her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just…I feel like I know you so well, Sir Tamlin. Yet I met you a few hours ago.”

  He gave her a sad smile. “I feel exactly the same.”

  “But…it makes me happy to know it, strangely,” said Tamara.

  Tamlin blinked. “Why is that?”

  “I’ve had these nightmares for so long,” said Tamara. “I’ve known how to use magic for most of my life, though no one taught me. I always thought I was insane, or that I was going to go mad. It was why I’ve been able to take risks.” She shrugged. “If I was killed fighting a muridach or a dvargir, at least I wouldn’t live long enough to go mad. I wondered if it had something to do with the Tower of Nightmares, if it had warped my mind when I was a girl.”

  “No,” said Calliande. “No, the Tower of Nightmares had nothing to do with it.” It seemed that the people of Kalimnos called that gray elven ruin the Tower of Nightmares and claimed that anyone who entered the ruins would either disappear or go insane. Calliande saw no reason to put that to the test. “You never entered the ruins, did you?”

  Tamara shook her head. “No, never.” She let out an unsteady laugh. “I thought about it sometimes. I was so curious. I wanted to know what had happened to me and where I had come from. I thought maybe that I could find the answers inside the Tower, but I was never foolish enough to look. Thank God for that! I would have gotten myself killed for nothing.” She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “But can you tell me more?”

  “Yes,” said Calliande. “Are you familiar with the power of the Sight?”

  “I am,” said Tamara. “It is a rare magical power. The Sight allows its wielder to see the currents and flows of magic, observe far-off places, and sometimes glimpse the shadows of future events. The High Kings of Owyllain once possessed this skill with their mantle of power, but that mantle was lost when Kothlaric Pendragon was imprisoned within Cathair Animus.”

  Calliande blinked. Tirdua had said the same thing, perhaps even the exact same words, when they had spoken in Trojas. Yet Tamara seemed far more confident and collected than Tirdua. Perhaps it was because Sir Rion was a more benign ruler than Taerdyn had been, and Tamara had not grown up in terror of the Necromancer.

  “Granted, I don’t actually know how I know that,” said Tamara, “but I’m certain it’s true.” She gestured with her right hand, calling a pale blue ball of light over her palm, and then gestured again and made the sphere disappear. “I don’t know how I learned to do that, either, but I can do it.”

  “As it happens, you’re right,” said Calliande. “The Keepers of Andomhaim all possess the Sight. When I met Tirdua in Trojas, I had a vision. I saw one woman, but she had been fractured into seven different shards. The same soul, but split between seven bodies.” Calliande tapped her fingers on her knee. “Based on what Melex told us, I think Rhodruthain is responsible for this. Somewhere, he met the original woman, the original woman that you were, and shattered her. Her soul was reborn into seven different baby girls, and those girls grew into women. And one by one, the Maledicti hunted them down and killed them.”

  “Why?” said Tamara. “Why would Rhodruthain do that? For that matter, why would the Maledicti hunt down those other women…my other selves, I suppose?”

  “I don’t yet know,” said Calliande. “For Rhodruthain, he’s the Guardian of Cathair Animus and the Well of Storms at its heart…”

  “A source of terrible magic power, capable of tremendous devastation in the wrong hands,” said Tamara. She blinked and then smiled. “Oh. Something else I didn’t know that I knew.”

  “I think everything he has done has been to protect the Well,” said Calliande. “All his actions only make sense in that light. That’s why he brought my husband and me here, to protect the Well. Somehow, he thought that splitting you into seven pieces would protect the Well, God only knows why.”

  “Logically,” said Tamara, “that means the Maledicti think that killing all seven of my selves will help to summon the New God.”

  “Yes,” said Calliande.

  “Khurazalin said that I was not a threat to him,” said Tamlin, “but he said that you…ah, rather, that Tysia was a threat to him.”

  Tamara thought about that for a moment. “My other selves. At least, the two that you met. What were they like?”

  “They both looked just like you,” said Tamlin. “Identical, save for the eyes. Tysia’s left eye was blue, and Tirdua’s was silver. They had the same mannerisms, the same gestures, the same way of speaking…” His voice grew hoarse, and he stopped and cleared his throat. “They were a little different. Tysia was more…diffident, less confident, than you. Tirdua was quieter, more reserved.”

  “But Tysia was a slave,” said Tamara, “and Tirdua grew up under the Necromancer of Trojas. Take the same woman and raise her as a slave, or raise her as a queen, and the slave and the queen will be different people even if they are the same woman.”

  “Yes,” said Calliande, impressed by Tamara’s insight. “That’s exactly right. You were the same women, but different.”

  “But we must have been linked somehow,” said Tamara. “Else how could I recall their memories?” She shook her head. “Their deaths. My deaths, I suppose. I didn’t e
xperience them firsthand, but I lived through them again and again and again in my dreams.”

  “I am sorry,” said Tamlin.

  Tamara blinked. “For what?” She smiled. “We haven’t known each other long enough for you to do anything offensive, Sir Tamlin.”

  “I am sorry I could not save you,” said Tamlin. “I mean…I am sorry I could not save Tysia. Or Tirdua. And that you have to experience their deaths in your dreams.”

  “You couldn’t have saved them,” said Tamara. She looked at the floor. “I remember that from the dreams, at least. The man with the gray eyes couldn’t have saved me.” She looked at him. “I felt…I felt sad that I was leaving him, that he would have to suffer.”

  The two of them stared at each other.

  Calliande suddenly felt like she was intruding on a private moment.

  “Thank you, Lady Calliande,” said Tamara.

  “For what?” said Calliande.

  “For explaining the truth to me,” said Tamara. She blinked a few times and wiped her eyes, and Calliande saw that she was crying. “My whole life, I never knew. I always wondered. I thought I was becoming a madwoman. I still don’t understand everything, or why this happened to me. But at least…at least I understand better. But I need to understand more.”

  “There is only one way to find more, I’m afraid,” said Calliande.

  “Yes,” said Tamara. She took a long, ragged breath. “To come with you. To find Tamlin’s mother and learn her secrets. To discover what the New God is, and to keep it from rising.” Her voice hardened. “And to find Rhodruthain and discover why he did this to me.”

  “I’ll have some questions of my own for Rhodruthain when we find him,” said Calliande. Yes, indeed, she had questions for Rhodruthain. He was going to explain why he had put her children in danger, and he had damned well better have an excellent answer.

  Tamara rose. “I…should talk to my father, my lady, Sir Tamlin. I’ll…be right back.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Calliande. “Take as long as you need.”

  Tamara rose, offered a polite bow, and disappeared through the room’s door.

  Tamlin leaned back in his chair with a sigh and rubbed his face.

  “That was difficult, wasn’t it?” said Calliande.

  “It was,” said Tamlin. “Difficult…but good. She is Tysia. She is Tirdua. A little different, but…still the same woman. Somehow.”

  Calliande smiled. “I think she likes you.”

  Tamlin barked out a laugh. “God! Would it be unfaithful to Tysia to court her?”

  “Tysia is dead, Tamlin, and you cannot be unfaithful to a dead woman,” said Calliande. “For that matter, I am certain that Tysia and Tamara are somehow the same woman.”

  Tamlin sighed. “Then I suppose I was unfaithful to her in Aenesium while I thought she was dead. But she was dead. Or at least part of her was dead.”

  “You believed that your wife was dead,” said Calliande. “I’m not going to condone all your behavior.” He had tried to seduce her on the first day they had met. “But you had every reason to think she had died. There was no reason not to seek companionship with another woman.” Or three or four or five, but she kept that thought to herself. With the obvious anguish on Tamlin’s face, it would have been cruel to mention that.

  She felt sorry for him. He had been enslaved and spent years as a gladiator, and he had lost his mother and his wife, only to find that his mother had been imprisoned and that his wife had somehow been reborn. Yet he had kept going. And without his help at Trojas, the Necromancer would have won the battle and killed them all. Tamlin had flung himself into the wards around Taerdyn’s corrupted heart, fully intending to sacrifice his life. If Kalussa had not been there, and if Kalussa had not found the strength to wield healing magic, then Tamlin would have died in the Blue Castra.

  “Keeper,” said Tamlin in a quiet voice.

  “Yes?” said Calliande.

  “Thank you for…helping with this,” said Tamlin. “First Tirdua, and now Tamara…it is much easier to face this with friends.”

  “I know this has been brutally hard for you,” said Calliande. “But we will get to the bottom of this, Tamlin. The mystery of the Seven Swords has marked your entire life, and we will find the secret.”

  “I have no right to complain,” said Tamlin. “None. I have suffered because of the Seven Swords and the Maledicti, yes…but Tamara has suffered far more. Her other selves died six times.” He snorted. “And I haven’t even died once.”

  “Most people only have to die once,” said Calliande.

  “Her magic,” said Tamlin. “How close do you think it is tied to the Seven Swords?” He swallowed. “Or the Maledicti?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “You noticed that too? There are Seven Swords, and each one controls a different aspect of magic. The Maledicti all call themselves the Maledictus of Fire or Death or Earth. And Tamara…”

  “Tysia could use water magic,” said Tamlin. “Tirdua knew air magic. And Tamara can use earth magic.”

  “Powerfully,” said Calliande.

  “Do you think she’s linked to the Seven Swords?” said Tamlin. “Or was it something that Rhodruthain did to her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “Perhaps your mother will know more when we free her. Or perhaps Tamara herself will remember in time. She obviously has some of the memories of Tirdua and Tysia and her other selves. And she remembers things from her first life, before she was split asunder – how else did she learn to wield magic?”

  “I hope you are right,” said Tamlin. “I’m…not sure what to do.”

  “What do you mean?” said Calliande.

  “I love her,” Tamlin admitted. “But…she is both my wife and not my wife. What do I even say to her?”

  “I think she remembers you,” said Calliande. “Be kind to her. Talk to her. I know this is strange for you, but it is just as strange for her.” Tamlin nodded. “Patience and kindness. And for God’s sake, don’t try to seduce her tonight.”

  Tamlin blinked and then laughed. “No. I…a little early for that, I think. She…”

  The door opened again, and Tamara stepped into the room.

  “I spoke with my father,” said Tamara. “He agrees with me. He…thinks I that have to do this, that this is the only way to find out the truth about myself. That I will have a chance to help Owyllain.”

  Calliande smiled. “We’ll be glad to have you along, Tamara.”

  “You know, I’ve never been more than fifteen miles from Kalimnos in my life,” said Tamara. “And now I’m going to the Tower Mountains, and God knows where else. It’s terrifying. Exciting. But also terrifying.”

  “Often something can be both terrifying and exciting at the same time,” said Calliande.

  Tamara nodded. “Ah…Sir Tamlin?”

  “Yes?” said Tamlin, gazing at her.

  “Would you like to go on a walk with me?” said Tamara. “I think we should talk.”

  “Yes.” Tamlin stood. “And I would very much like to talk with you.”

  ###

  The sun was setting over the hills to the west as Tamlin walked with Tamara through the streets of Kalimnos.

  Quiet activity bustled through the town. The farmers and herders who lived inside the town were returning from their fields and pastures, and the craftsmen were stopping work for the day. A few people glanced their way, and some nodded to Tamara. The townspeople seemed to hold her in a mixture of fear and respect. Given how effectively she had fought against the muridachs in the Pass of Ruins, Tamlin understood that. Yet it annoyed him that they feared her so much. She had fought in their defense.

  The scriptures said that a prophet had no honor in his hometown. Tamara was not a prophet, but perhaps the same principle applied.

  “Would you like a chaperone?” said Tamlin, remembering how Third had followed Calem and Kalussa on some of their walks.

  “Oh?” said Tamara. She smiled at him. “Do y
ou think we need one?”

  “I…” Tamlin shrugged. “I don’t want your reputation to suffer…”

  Tamara laughed. “I doubt it will.” She tapped the end of her staff against the ground. “I can probably defend myself better than anyone else in the town save for Sir Rion. And the people of Kalimnos already think I am a madwoman.” Her smile widened. “Which is why your coming was something of a relief, to be frank.”

  “Really?” said Tamlin. “I would think that surprising. Strangers turn up to tell you that you have died six times already, and it’s comforting? I shudder to think of what you would find uncomfortable.”

  “Well,” said Tamara. “I know I’m not a madwoman. I feared that all my life, that I would lose my reason. Now…well, I do not know who I am. Or what I am.” Her voice filled with resolution. “But I know that I am not insane. I cannot tell you what a comfort that is. I am not mad, and my dreams, horrible as they were, were not delusions. They were real. And I would rather face real things than delusions spun up by my own mind.”

  “That is understandable,” said Tamlin. “I suppose no one in Kalimnos really understood.”

  “No,” said Tamara. “Not really. Magatai came the closest. Though he insisted the dreams were visions of my ancestors trying to guide me. I suppose he was half-right. They were visions of my other selves, not my ancestors.”

  “You are friends with Magatai?” said Tamlin.

  “Good friends, for years now,” said Tamara. “It must seem odd, I know, but in his own way, he is as much of an outsider as I am.”

  “How so?” said Tamlin.

  “You saw those tattoos upon his arms?” said Tamara. Tamlin nodded. “Those are the marks of a Blood Quest. A man of the Takai tribes can take a Blood Quest to the ruins of Cathair Avamyr and confront the guardian spirits within. If he survives, the guardians mark those tattoos upon his arms. They bring him great honor, and give him some resistance to magical forces…but they mean the Windcallers cannot speak into his thoughts with magical speech. That sets Magatai apart from the other Takai, just as my magic set me apart from the people of Kalimnos.”