Shadow War

by Deborah Chester

  Tirhin frowned and turned his back on the priest. In doing so he faced the back wall, and Caelan could see his face clearly. There was torment in the prince’s eyes, torment overladen with anger and a dawning look of purpose. Caelan could see the decision in his master’s face long before Tirhin drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

  The prince swung around and faced the other men. “Very well. I agree.”

  The Madruns grinned and slapped each other on the back. Even Sien permitted himself a faint smile of intense satisfaction.

  “Now,” he said in his deep voice, “you become the ruler you were born to be.”

  Tirhin shrugged angrily, still visibly tense as he accepted the assurances of the Madruns. The civilian crossed to the horses and took down two bulging saddlebags. He flung these on the altar, and gold coins spilled from beneath the flap of one.

  “Here is our first way of giving you support,” he said eagerly. “Bribes for officials. Bribes for officers. Bribes for the palace guards and those who protect the woman. Our army will stand ready. Prepare an order for those who man the post towers at our border—”

  “My priests can persuade the soldiers to let you cross the border,” Sien said.

  Tirhin threw him a sharp look, but the Madruns smiled.

  The soldier leaned forward. “Give us that, and army will stand at Imperia’s walls in these days.” He held up his hand, all five fingers spread wide. “We help you take city.”

  Tirhin gestured in repudiation. “You move too fast. If you think I will let you through the city gates, you—”

  “There have been too many delays already!” the civilian Madrun said fiercely. “Had you accepted our proposal last year, there would be no empress in the way now.”

  “A mere detail,” Tirhin retorted hotly. “First you want the border, and our strategy plans, then the palace, now the city. What next will you demand from me?”

  “Gently, gently,” Sien said in quiet warning.

  Tirhin looked as though he might choke, but he silenced himself.

  “We do not beg you,” the soldier said with gruff dignity. “We offer deal. You take it. Or you not take it. You decide now.”

  Tirhin looked ill. “I have already given you my decision.”

  The soldier shoved the saddlebag at him so that the coins spilled in a heavy golden stream to the floor. “Then take! And give what we ask. Do not wring your hands like woman, moaning about honor. In war, there is no honor. Only victory, or defeat.”

  Cocking his head to one side, he glared at the prince.

  Tirhin drew a folded piece of parchment from inside his tunic and handed it over. The Madruns fell on it eagerly, and Tirhin turned away. He walked over the coins unheedingly, his face bleak and empty.

  Sien spoke very quietly to the Madruns, who laughed, but took their horses and weapons and left.

  Caelan grimaced to himself and stole to the corner of the hut. Watching unseen, he saw the two men mount up and ride away into the darkness.

  Torn, Caelan wondered whether to run after them. With luck and the element of surprise, he might be able to slay them and recover the plans the prince had given away. But the Madruns galloped away, too fast to catch.

  That left his master the traitor.

  Caelan’s frown deepened. He felt sickened by what he’d witnessed. His former admiration for Tirhin now felt like cheap delusion.

  To betray Imperia to its direst enemies, out of spite and ambition ...

  Disgust filled Caelan. He vowed to put a stop to Tirhin’s plots, but how?

  Uncertain of what to do, Caelan returned to his spyhole and peered in just as Sien lifted a smoking pot from the fire and poured its dark liquid contents into a cup. He proffered this to Tirhin, who was sitting dejectedly on a stool.

  “Here,” the priest said. “It is time to finish what you have begun.”

  The prince waved it away without glancing up. “Do I poison her or merely stab her in the throat? Do I bribe my way into her chambers and smother her in her sleep? Any suggestions for how this infamy should be conducted?”

  “You are tired,” the priest said soothingly. “Do not think of those details now. There are other matters that should come first. Drink this.”

  “One of your potions?” the prince said. “No.”

  Anger crossed Sien’s face. “This is a gift. Not from my hands, but from he whom I serve. It will give you strength. It will make you greater than any other man. It will start you on the path to immortality.”

  Reverence filled his voice. He held the smoking cup between his hands as though it were something to be worshipped. “The cup of Beloth,” he intoned, his face radiant. “The gift of life.”

  Tirhin glanced up, his interest caught at last. “My father’s drink,” he said. “What my father bargained with the shadow god for, and won.”

  Sien smiled. “Yes.”

  Tirhin’s face hardened. “Once again I walk in my father’s footsteps. Am I only to follow? Never to forge my own path?”

  “You have begun your own path tonight,” Sien assured him. “Your father’s road is ending.”

  “And all I have to do to live for a thousand years is drink this?” the prince asked, his voice harsh with disbelief. “Don’t I have to go before the god and make my own bargain?”

  Sien put down the cup and frowned. “You fool! You jeer at what you do not understand.”

  “I am not an idiot. I know nothing is that easy.”

  “You are mistaken,” Sien said angrily. “The path to Beloth is very easy. Once fear is put aside—”

  “So I am afraid, am I?” Tirhin said with equal heat. “Why? Because I am a skeptic? I am not of the same superstitious, primitive era as my father. What did he do to awaken the shadow god?”

  “That, you may not know,” Sien said. “But I brought him the first cup, as I have brought it to you tonight. If you spurn this, then you are not worthy of—”

  Tirhin jerked to his feet, knocking over his stool. “It is not for you to decide that!” he shouted. “You are no kingmaker, for all your power. You do not rule the empire. You never will. Get that clear, for I will not be your puppet.”

  “Events are already set in motion,” Sien said. “You cannot undo them now.”

  “No, but I shall control them as I wish. Not as you wish.” As he spoke, Tirhin took the cup and dashed it to the floor.

  The dark contents splashed out, hissing before the tamped earth absorbed them.

  Sien cried something, but it was lost in a loud rumble that shook the earth.

  Caelan scrambled upright and clung to the outer wall of the hut for support. This sudden violence from the ground was terrifying. Caelan found his heart slamming against his ribs. If Beloth did indeed live inside this mountain, then the prince’s defiance had angered him.

  Ash and smoke belched from the top of the mountain. The ground went on shaking violently, as though it would split open. Part of the hut’s roof began to fall in. Caelan could hear the horses neighing in terror.

  Racing around to the front of the hut, he shouldered open the door with a slam that nearly broke it off its hinges.

  “Get out!” he shouted. “If you don’t want all of it coming down on your head, get out now!”

  Seeing freedom, the horses bolted past him. Caelan grabbed at one’s bridle, but it knocked him spinning. Winded and stunned, Caelan struggled upright. By the time he regained his feet, the ground had stopped shaking, but the prince was standing over him.

  “Sir—” Caelan began.

  Without warning, the prince struck Caelan a harsh blow across the face.

  Caelan went staggering back, and managed to catch himself against the hut. He straightened slowly, his cheek throbbing with pain. He could feel a hot trickle of blood down his jaw, and guessed he had been cut by the prince’s signet ring.

  Tirhin advanced on him and struck him again. “You followed me. You deliberately disobeyed my orders.”

  He lifted his han
d a third time, but Caelan brought up his sword and held the point between them.

  Caelan’s own temper was running hot now, and he let it show in his eyes. “I came to help you. To protect you from what has followed you tonight.”

  Illuminated by the torchlight spilling outside through the open door, the prince kept a wary, furious eye on the sword in Caelan’s hand. “The only one who has followed me is you, you filthy spy. This is the end of you!”

  Caelan refused to back down. He intended to drag Tirhin back to the palace and denounce him before the emperor for his crimes. But if he said so, Tirhin would fight him. Better to lie and be crafty for now.

  “Your highness promised me I should be your protector,” Caelan said. “That is why I am here.”

  “Stop being so damned noble. I am sick of your honor. Sick of your loyalty. You are like a dog that is kicked but still comes cringing back for more.”

  “Where is the priest?” Caelan asked, interrupting. “We must go, and quickly. There is danger here. It—•”

  A shriek, similar to the one he had heard before, but much closer, cut across his sentence. The hair on the back of Caelan’s neck stood up. For an instant his bowels were water. He did not know what it was, but it was not of the earth.

  The prince whirled around, his eyes bulging. “Shyrieas!” he said in a strangled voice. He made a clumsy sign of warding and stumbled back into the hut. “Sien!” he shouted. “Sien!”

  Caelan followed him, and stood blinking on the threshold. The priest was gone as though he had never been there. Even the cup that Tirhin had thrown on the floor had vanished. The fire on the hearth had been put out. Only the torches still burned.

  The prince was buckling on his sword with a wild look in his eyes. “Damn him,” he muttered, thrusting his dagger into his belt sheath. “This is his way of punishing me.”

  Caelan barely listened. He was eyeing the hole in the roof where the earthquake had broken it. Kicking the debris across the floor, he circled, feeling edgy and trapped. “This could have been a refuge. Better than taking our chances outside. But with that hole, I don’t think we should stay here.”

  Prince Tirhin nodded grimly. He glanced at the door and swallowed. “They hunt in packs. The blood on you will draw them.” As he spoke, he gave Caelan a second look and blinked. “In fact, you’re covered with blood. What is all that?”

  “I killed something,” Caelan said shortly, picking up a torch. “I don’t know what it was.”

  “Something that was following me?” Tirhin asked.

  Nodding, Caelan tossed the torch to Tirhin, who caught it deftly, and picked up the other. “Ready?” Caelan asked.

  “These torches will help, but they won’t last long.”

  “It’s less than an hour till dawn,” Caelan replied grimly. “That is our hope.”

  Shoulder to shoulder, armed with torches and drawn swords, they left the hut and began to run.

  It was crazy, running like this, struggling up the steep hill, stumbling over the sharp, cold lava that sliced through footgear. Ducking tree branches and avoiding puddles of hot bubbling mud, Caelan ran until his lungs began to heave, until his stomach felt as though it would spew the evening’s rich dinner, until his freshly healed side ached. He ran, hearing the prince’s breath sounding harsher and more ragged. He wondered if he was a fool to fear so much, when as yet he had seen nothing.

  Yet they were coming, the dreaded guardians of the Forbidden Mountain, and all his instincts knew it. Fear filled him, clouding his mind. He remembered the night he’d been caught by the wind spirits, and knew the shyrieas would be somehow worse.

  They splashed through the warm stream, and a little ray of hope lifted in Caelan. Better than halfway to the main road now. He did not think reaching it would save them, but at least it meant they would be off the mountain, in the clear, and on better defended ground. They would make it to the road, he told himself, and there they would fight.

  The scream rent the air, right on top of them, so startling, so unworldly that Caelan cried out with it. His heart was pounding as though it would burst. He was out of breath, out of strength. Sweat poured off him in a river. His sword weighed a thousand pounds, and he was too weak, too spent from running to lift it.

  Caelan severed, leaving his weariness behind. A part of him knew he was taking a risk, severing so close to the prince. Tirhin might suspect his secret, yet what did it matter right now? Surviving was more important than anything else.

  Whirling with all the speed he was famous for, Caelan lifted his torch aloft, just in time to ward off the creature rushing at him.

  It was a wind spirit, he thought, feeling fear return. Yet the detachment and heightened awareness of severance was already telling him differently. The shyrieas swirled and circled about them, long misty entities half seen in the darkness. Some seemed to have the faces of women; others were too fearsome to describe. They shrieked, and the sound was horrible enough to drive a man mad. Caelan heard Tirhin scream.

  The prince dropped to his knees, and in a flash the shyrieas were on him, swarming in silent flight, rending with claws and teeth.

  Caelan waded into them, feeling as though his skin was being sanded away. His clothes billowed in the wind of their passing. He felt the cloth tearing into shreds. His sword passed through them without effect, but everywhere the torch touched, a shyriea screamed and shied back.

  Grimly Caelan could think of only one thing to do. He focused on his torch flame and shifted to sevaisin, joining himself to the flame, becoming flame, becoming heat.

  Fire shot down the length of the torch and along his arms. He screamed in the flames as they consumed him, yet when he opened his mouth, fire burst from him and blazed across the shyrieas. They parted in a frenzy, melting and dissolving as the flames drove them back.

  Caelan’s hair and clothes were on fire. Flames shot from his fingertips, from his eyes, from his open mouth. He could not stop it, could not control it. He was burning in the fire, dying in it even as the spirits were dying.

  He felt the earth scorching his feet as though he were drawing fire from what seethed below its surface. From far away, he heard a rumble that grew in volume as though the whole mountain stirred.

  Then from the top of Sidraigh-hal behind them, molten lava spewed forth a shower of red and gold. The rumbling grew more violent, shaking Caelan off his feet.

  The fire in him went out, and somehow he was able to reach for severance. It snapped the last connection, and he was free, blessedly free, back in the icy safety of nowhere at all.

  “The void,” he mumbled, and lost consciousness.

  * * *

  He awakened in the cold grayness of dawn to find himself sprawled on the ground while a fine mist of rain fell on him. His clothing was sodden and plastered to his skin. Across the canyon, the mountain still belched smoke, indistinguishable from the mist at this distance. The air smelled of sulfur and wet ashes.

  Caelan groaned and managed to roll over until he could sit up. His clothes hung on him in filthy tatters. His hands were streaked black with soot and grime. His hair smelled as though it had been singed. Still, as bad as he felt, he could have been dead. He should have been dead.

  His amulet pouch swung heavily against his chest. He held it a moment for comfort, then frowned. It felt wrong. With sudden foreboding, he shook the contents onto his palm. Before, he had had two small emeralds. Now they were fused together into a larger whole, as though somehow they had grown. He did not understand what had happened. His memories of fighting the shyrieas were unclear. Yet clearly there had been much magic wrought.

  He ran his fingertips over the gem and frowned. It worried him that the emeralds had changed. It was as though he was losing a piece of his last memories of Lea.

  Finally he put the emerald back in the pouch. It barely fit there now. He secured the top of the pouch tightly and frowned, still disconcerted.

  His sword was a melted lump of metal, useless. He climbed stiff
ly to his feet and stamped around unsteadily, observing the ring of charred grass around him. What had he done this time, he wondered dazedly. He could barely think, much less remember.

  Then he saw a crumpled figure a short distance away. Caelan’s breath caught in his throat. He stumbled over and dropped to his knees beside the prince.

  Tirhin lay on his side, unmoving. His clothes were as torn as Caelan’s. The rain had streaked the bloody stains, washing them to pink. Cautiously Caelan touched Tirhin’s shoulder and turned him onto his back.

  The prince’s face was pale and drawn with pain. He was unconscious, but not dead. Caelan did not waste time trying to rouse him. He remembered that men attacked by spirits often went mad. It would be easier to handle Tirhin this way.

  Kneeling, Caelan pulled the prince’s weight over his shoulder, then stood up, staggering a little. His feet sank into the mud, and he found it hard to get his balance, but little by little he made it up the hill to the main road.

  There, the mire was deeper than ever, but Caelan trudged steadily southward. Sidraigh-hal grumbled and belched threats behind him. Caelan was glad to turn his back on this evil place. He hoped he never saw it again.

  It would be a very long walk back to the city. If the gods were kind, Tirhin would not die on the way. To live was not what the prince deserved, but Caelan might as well run for his own life as bring home a dead master.

  “Traitor,” Caelan said aloud, grimly ignoring the ache in his muscles and the prince’s heavy weight. He forced himself to walk steadily and slowly. He had a long way to go. “Master traitor, what will I say about you when I get you home? What will I do with you? Bargain for my freedom in exchange for silence? Pit my feeble word against your exalted one? Hope to gain an audience with the emperor, which is as likely as learning how to fly? What am I to do? Who will believe me? As a slave and a foreigner, I am nothing, and you are all. There is no one who will believe me, for I have no proof of your infamy.”

  Every word he spoke aloud depressed his spirits. Would the prince be grateful for having his life saved? Caelan no longer believed in fairness, not from the man slung across his shoulder.