by A. Attanasio
"If what I've done offends you, young master, crush this evil thing with your magic." She bowed her head contritely. "Only heed what I have told you and flee the Shadow Eater. His arrival here promises evil, of that much I am sure."
Reece bowed down to look into her face. "I'm not offended. You have come to me out of love—the same love that made me climb here to find you." He looked with disdain at the dazzling crystal. "But clearly we must free you from this wicked thing and get you back to the Abiding Star."
"No." She moved as if to seize him, and the hood fell back and revealed her worried aspect. "The Shadow Eater descends from there. No, you must escape in another direction."
"But to where?" Reece set his jaw and decided, "I will confront him."
"No—Caval has warned us." Lara looked frantic. "I saw it in the light of the Beginning. Something disastrous is stalking you. Caval sent me to warn you."
"Caval is dead," he said distractedly, peering into the diamond distances. "We can't trust what his wraith calls out from the Dark Shore. The old master is gone."
"Am I not also?" she reminded him, and moved to catch his eye. "Yet even in this bodiless state, my love for you remains."
Reece returned the prism to the ghost. For a moment, as the physical object passed from him to her, a tangible but fleeting vibration connected them, like a ripple of electric current. He met her beseeching look and held it. "I came to this world to find you, Lara. And now that I have found you, I'll not leave you to suffer anymore. I swear, I will get you back to the Abiding Star."
"What of the Shadow Eater?"
"I do not fear the Shadow Eater..."
"Who is the Shadow Eater?" Jyoti interjected unexpectedly and stepped onto the patio. "I heard you talking." She strode to Reece's side, removing her flight helmet and shaking loose her blond-streaked hair. "I thought someone was here with you."
Reece passed a baffled look between Lara's ghost and Jyoti. "There is, and I'm speaking with her."
"Your disciple? The witch from the Dark Shore?" Jyoti gave Reece an anxious look, then searched around the light-stippled patio and saw no one else.
"She stands right here beside me," Reece swung his hand through the wraith. "Do you not see her? She's ghostly pale, I'll admit, but as clearly defined as you and I."
Jyoti fingered the niello eye charms on the shoulders of her amulet-vest. "Reece, I don’t see her."
Lara smiled sadly. "Only you can see me, young master. I am a wraith from the Dark Shore. This far from the Abiding Star, only those from our world can see me unless I show myself. And I have little strength for that."
"She says you can't see her," Reece muttered unhappily.
Jyoti studied the magus' face deeply before answering, "Come, lie down, and we'll talk about her."
"I don't want to lie down." He looked to Lara. "Let her see the crystal prism."
"Young master, I dare not." Lara spoke with alarm. "You could hold it for you are of the Dark Shore. I dare not expose it to her. If I lose it, I will fall into the Gulf."
"Let me hold it and show her," he said but recognized her helpless expression and relented. He faced Jyoti with a frown. "There's no use. I think you'd best leave me alone with her for now."
"Alone?" Jyoti gave him a puzzled smile. "I just canceled two neighborhood conferences to be with you. Don't send me away."
Reece rubbed the tension from his forehead, wondering if he was hallucinating. He peeked sidelong at the phantom, and she remained there, watching him with worry. "I'm sorry, Jyo. You're just going to have to believe me. Lara is here."
Jyoti agreed with a conciliatory nod and motioned to the elegant wooden chairs stained by daylight. "Sit down and let’s talk."
They sat, and Lara drifted bodiless through a rhomboid of daylight to the darker, herringbone shadows under the arbor and stood there watching.
"I'm taking her back to the Abiding Star," Reece announced firmly.
Jyoti blinked with surprise. "You're leaving Irth?"
"To bring her back to where she belongs," he answered, and stared at the ghost even as she began to protest. "She came here to warn me."
"You must flee, young master." Lara beckoned to him beseechingly. "Please, heed me. I have seen the Shadow Eater, and he cannot be faced."
"Warn you about what, Reece?" Jyoti searched the dark corner of the dazzled patio where he focused so ardently and still saw no one.
"Caval has called her out of the Abiding Star," he said, "because a radiant being is stalking me. She calls it the Shadow Eater."
"You told me about troubling dreams you've had about her," Jyoti reminded him. "Is it possible that your brain is playing tricks on you? You've worked so hard these many days. Perhaps you have worked too hard."
Reece's lips paled as they tightened over his teeth, holding back a cry of frustration.
Jyoti wanted to touch him with Charm and gentle his overwrought mind, and she took his hand in her strong grip. "Just think this through with me, Reece. Caval is dead. He was ripped apart by cacodemons, and his soul was swept away into the Gulf. Even he, master wizard that he was, cannot call across such an abyss."
Briefly, Reece entertained the thought that she was right, that he was addled. His magic had been depleted, and he felt hollow within. And yet, clearly, Lara watched him with her bright stare.
"The Dark Lord and all his cacodemons are gone," Jyoti continued, her voice pitched to comfort him. "You slew them all when you killed the Dark Lord. We have no more enemies among the worlds, Reece."
"Tell her that the Shadow Eater comes from World's End," Lara spoke.
"Do you know of World's End?" Reece asked, and studied her face for reaction.
"It is the world closest to the Abiding Star," she answered matter-of-factly. "It is a wilderness fraught with dangerous creatures—squid monkeys, bull lizards, more dangers than any other world. No one lives there. Only elves. Sometimes pilgrims go there for religious rites."
"Lara says that the Shadow Eater comes from there," Reece reported.
"Ask her who sent this Shadow Eater," Jyoti suggested.
"Even in the Abiding Star, I did not know," Lara admitted to Reece. "I know less now. The farther I descend from that radiance, the less I remember. Memory is dimmed. Only pain is sharp and clear out here."
"Pain?" Reece stood. "You're a wraith."
"I suffer even so." She stepped back, almost vanishing. "But that's not important, young master. I have come to help you. Listen to me. I do not know who sent the Shadow Eater. There are two others, as well. A gnome and an elf..."
Jyoti came up behind Reece and took his arm. "If only you will rest, your magic will return."
Reece ignored her and asked the ghost, "Where are this Shadow Eater and the others?"
"I have been watching them through the crystal prism," Lara replied. "They are on an ether ship out of Hellsgate bound for a city carved out of giant sea cliffs."
"Saxar!" Reece recognized at once. He told Jyoti what the ghost had said.
"And she sees this in her crystal?" Jyoti inquired dubiously.
"It is a crystal taken off the Necklace of Souls," Reece remembered from Lara's story.
"Dwarvish magic—" Jyoti mumbled, surprised to hear mention of that ancient device. "It's the charmwork of a devil worshipper."
"Duppy Hob—yes." The ghost nodded. "She knows this history."
"Duppy Hob?" Reece squinted inquiringly at Jyoti. "You know of him?"
"Every schoolchild knows," Jyoti answered. "Duppy Hob was thrown into the Gulf by the dwarves he fashioned from dragon-maggots. He used them as slaves to make demon harnesses, devil cages, and soul-catchers—like the Necklace of Souls." She tilted her head inquisitively. "You never heard that before?"
"No," he answered earnestly. "Lara just told me."
A cold finger traced a line down Jyoti's spine. "Maybe you heard and forgot—and your fatigued mind has called it forth."
"Jyo—Lara is right here, I tell you." He took Jyot
i's shoulders and turned her to face a shadowy corner of the patio marbled with daylight. "Everything I've told you is true. It's not a delusion."
Jyoti backed away and sat down. "Tell me everything she told you."
Reece complied, pacing before her, shooting glances to the ghost for confirmation. When he was done, he sat and stared hard at the margravine. "Do you believe me now?"
"I believe we have to be cautious about what we cannot see," Jyoti replied. "You've pushed yourself hard, Reece. I think you should rest a few days and assess all this at a later time, when your magic is fully restored."
"There is no time!" Lara cried.
"The Shadow Eater will arrive soon in Saxar," Reece said. "Lara does not want me to wait."
Jyoti reached over and took both of Reece's hands. "Lara may well be here," she conceded. "Yet even if she is, can she be trusted?"
"I know her," Reece strongly insisted. "I've known her since she was a child."
"You knew her when she was alive." Jyoti squeezed his hands. "She's a wraith now. She can't even remember what she knew in the Abiding Star. She could be wrong."
"Wrong or not, Jyoti, this is Lara, the soul Caval and I shaped on the Dark Shore. I cannot ignore her. I am going to return her to the Abiding Star."
"And the Shadow Eater?" Jyoti pressed. "What are we to make of that?"
Reece hung his head. "I don't know."
"I think we must learn more about this party from World's End," Jyoti declared. She released his hands and sat taller. "I'll go as a diplomat to Saxar and represent you."
"I can't let you." Reece showed his worry. "I told you what Lara said about this entity and what it did to the demon at World's End. It's too dangerous."
"I'm not going to attack him, Reece." She spoke confidently. "I'll contact this Asofel and the others with him—the gnome and the elf—and find out who has sent them and why. Meanwhile, you should rest. I'll report back to you by aviso, and you'll know in a few days."
"We cannot stay here." Lara stepped out of the shadows, transparent to the shrubs behind her. "We must get away as quickly as we can. We must flee this place, for they know you are here, and they will come."
Reece stared through the ghost and out the arbor gate across leagues of afternoon that illuminated the Kazu sand streams. "You have work to do here, Jyo. And this being is dangerous. It eats lives." Reece grabbed the back of his neck and wrestled with a decision. "Lara has seen it coming after me. Perhaps it's best that I confront it directly."
"We don't know enough yet," Jyoti countered. "How real is this threat? Let me find out."
He looked to Lara. "Will Asofel let her approach?"
Lara's pale eyes shifted, trying to see through her confusing pain to her remembrance of World's End. "The gnome and the elf have courage and compassion. I saw that myself. With companions such as those, does this Shadow Eater not merit some respect? Trust her to go to him, and let us get away from this place."
Jyoti rose to her feet and spoke with determination. "I have my city to rebuild. And my young brother still needs me. I don’t intend to die. But I will find out why you are stalked."
Reece stood and bowed his head sadly. "I can't wait here for you."
"You're determined to return her to the Abiding Star?"
"I must."
Jyoti frowned. "How will we stay in touch? How will I find you?"
"Between your Charm and my magic, we will not lose each other." He took her shoulders and pulled her to him. "I will never lose you, I promise."
Jyoti hugged him tighter against herself. "We have so much to share, Reece. I couldn't bear to be without you."
"I'm not so easy to misplace. I got here from the Dark Shore, remember?" He stepped back. "Go," he agreed. "But don't do anything daring."
She smiled, so full of life, vibrancy, and daring that his heart hurt.
He did not want to be apart from her, but Lara needed him. For her alone, for the history they shared and the love that had grown between them, he would use everything his magic offered, even his friends and his lover. "Get in touch with my old partner, Dogbrick," he instructed, taking her toughened hand between his soft palms. "He's established in Saxar now. He'll help you. But remember, don't endanger yourself or him."
"Where will you go?" she asked. "How will you find your way to the Abiding Star?"
"The Spiderlands. There are caverns there that connect by charmways with all the dominions—and the other worlds." He released Jyoti's hand and took his place beside the phantom. "Lara and I will find our way back to the Abiding Star—and as soon as I can, I will return for you."
Down in Saxar
Dig Dog Ltd. occupied the penthouse suite of a glass tower set into the rock face overlooking Cold Niobe Plaza. Dogbrick had selected this site in the affluent center of Saxar's commercial district, because from here he could see down Everyland Street to the impoverished industrial warrens where he had grown up.
On this thirty-sixth day in his new offices, he had not yet weaned himself from standing at the wide sheet-glass windows and gazing down into his past. He ruminated philosophically about the trajectory of his fate and the demise of so many others during the brief, bloody reign of the Dark Lord.
Occasionally he turned about to overlook the long suite of comfortable, stylish furniture, where a score of operators strolled among hanging plants or sat on plump sofas sipping tea while talking on their headpiece avisos. They coordinated trade orders and distribution routes for many of the largest factories in Saxar. One hundred and sixty-seven days ago, he had been a thief preying on those very factories. Now, they were his clients.
Dogbrick's friendship with the magus, Reece, slayer of the Dark Lord, had won him numerous lucrative contracts, and Dig Dog Ltd. proved a prosperous enterprise. Yet rarely was the large, beastmarked man unaware of the many who had died during those evil times that had changed his fortune.
Jyoti found him with his back to the busy suite, dressed in the elaborate amulet-shawl of a successful businessman. At first he did not notice her. He stared morosely at the factories that crowded the sea cliffs and daily released a pall of noxious smog over the impoverished leeward districts. He had once lived there or, more accurately, survived.
"Your honest life has made you inattentive, Dog," Jyoti greeted warmly.
Dogbrick swung his long head toward her, and his smile showed fangs. "Margravine—I didn't expect to see you until the trade conference in Moödrun next season..." He read the concern in her face and broke off.
"Reece needs your help," she began.
His big hand took her by the elbow and led her to a private office festooned with gem-strings of muting amulets and big rope knots connecting copper-plated talismans of silence. They sat facing each other on a circular bench at the center of the carpeted room, and she told him about Lara's wraith and the coming of the Shadow Eater.
"Assuming that Reece has not snapped and is telling the truth, when do these emissaries from World's End arrive?" he asked with a hint of malice in his gaze, piqued at the very thought of a threat to his old partner in crime.
"The ether ship docks at the sky bund later this morning." Jyoti reached over and placed a caring hand on his shaggy arm. "I have come to believe that we must trust Reece, for his sake. That being the case, it may be very dangeous. I've brought a security squad with me, but we have to avoid using firecharms if we can. Reece says the ghost has informed him that this entity can erase beings. If you'd rather not be there, I understand."
Dogbrick's amber eyes did not blink. "What can I do to help?"
She smiled and thanked him with a gentle squeeze of his thick arm. "You know Saxar far better than I. I'd be glad to have you nearby when my squad and I board the Star of Fortune."
Dogbrick agreed readily, and, after turning over the day's business to the office manager, they departed Dig Dog at once for the sky bund. In the air van that Jyoti had flown to Saxar from Arawar Odawl, Dogbrick leaned over, assumed a confidential air, and aske
d, "Now you must let me in on everything—is she beautiful? That is, now that you've seen Lara, does it makes sense that Reece crossed over from the Dark Shore for her?"
"First of all, I've not seen her myself. But if you're asking if I'm jealous, I'm not." Jyoti gave him a stiff look across her shoulder as she pulled the air van off the roof of Dig Dog Ltd.'s glass tower.
She banked so sharply, Dogbrick's furry face pressed against the pod window, and he watched the near-vertical city tilt crazily below him. "I believe you," he grunted. "I was just curious…"
"What's that over there, Dog—that smoke?" Jyoti leveled the van into a slow ascent above the steep avenues and pointed to a flare of green fire billowing orange smoke. It gusted out of a warehousing lot where fumes from smelters and refineries already clouded the air. "That's charmfire!"
Dogbrick had not often seen charmfire, the green flames that erupt when concentrated Charm explodes, but he knew it meant danger of an even greater explosion among those sheds and hangars where the factories stored Charmed and volatile materials. "Get away! Find out what happened on the security band."
Jyoti tried to raise a coherent signal on the van's aviso and received only static. "That's a raging charmfire down there! It's interfering with communications." She turned the van toward the column of orange smoke.
"Hey! Not that way!" Dogbrick yelped. "That whole lot could go up!"
The van sliced through the factory exhaust, and the control pod's eye charms revealed the streets below. An industrial silo had collapsed into a sinkhole.
Out of the hole, a host of squat, white creatures with segmented bodies strapped in amulet harnesses and motley pieces of armor swarmed among the lanes between the warehouses. Security officers fired at them from rooftops. They had slain several, but too many of the grotesque invaders swarmed.