by William King
There was a strange tension in the air. Rik wondered what it was. They seem to have exhausted whatever business was between them, but she seemed oddly reluctant to go.
“He is really dead?” she asked. There was no need to ask to whom she referred.
“Yes.”
“Then I am finally free.”
“If that’s what his death means to you then yes.”
“I find myself not sure what to do now. I have lived in his shadow for so long.”
Rik thought of his own life, the dead mother he had never known, his abandonment, his life in the orphanage and as a soldier, his confrontations with Malkior. “We both have,” he said at last. “We’ve both lived in his shadow.”
“I will bid you farewell,” she said, and stepped back. The shadows extended to greet her, and he was aware of the sensation of reality tearing. A moment later the darkness folded in on itself and she was gone. He waited for a second to be sure that no attack was coming and then began to edge away towards the exit.
He wondered if he would ever see her again.
Briefly Tamara fell through a cold airless place in which alien things waited. She stepped from the shadows and into the small room she had taken overlooking the old necromantic lab. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs then let out a long sigh of relief.
A quick glance around told her that no-one waited in ambush. None of her wards had been disturbed.
She felt weak at the knees. She was not sure whether it was from emotional distress or the toll that shadow-walking always took from her. The greatest of efforts sent stumbling across the room to slump down in the single chair.
Elation, fear and relief fought a three way battle in her mind. Her father was dead. At long last the old monster was gone. She was free of him, and his schemes, free of the ancient evil he represented.
Carved ikons left by the previous occupants leered down at her mockingly, and she reminded herself just how false their promise of salvation was. This world was in the grip of the Shadow. Evil was the true lord of the universe and there was no escape from that. Her father might be gone, but there were others like him, and worse things waiting to take his place.
How odd, she thought, that one so deadly should meet his fate at the hands of a mere youth, one who had not possessed a thousandth of his knowledge. It seemed that Malkior had forgotten his own lessons in the end. He had never tired of telling her that even the most expert swordsman can be killed by a fool that gets lucky.
Rik was no fool though. He was calm and calculating and there was something quite chilling about him that had not been there only a few months ago. She supposed the human part of him that was responsible for that. He had their trick of changing very quickly, of growing and learning almost before your eyes. He had succeeded in frightening her and not many people had ever managed that.
Perhaps it had not been him but the things that looked out of his eyes. She had sensed them there, the Elder world demon and its victims. He had partaken of its forbidden knowledge and she wondered whether it would destroy him in the end.
It was such knowledge that had really destroyed her father. Malkior had become ever more erratic in recent years. No mind, human or Terrarch, was capable of devouring another one and remaining completely sane. There was no way to integrate so many conflicting memories. Even Terrarchs, whose vastly longer lives meant more memories than humans, could not do that, and humans went insane swiftly when they practised thanatomancy. It would be interesting to see which part of his heritage won out. Perhaps it would be the true test of whether Rik was human or Terrarch.
She forced herself to rise and walk over to the pack she had stowed with her travelling gear. Within it was a silver flask and within the flask was moonglow wine. She took off the stopper and drank some, letting the cool rich taste run over her tongue and down her throat until it settled, burning in her belly. A morsel of strength returned.
She returned to the chair, set the bottle beside her and the runic dagger on her lap. Malkior was dead, she thought. Her father was dead. And she was glad although it was a gladness alloyed with many other emotions.
She remembered him from when she was a child, watching her proudly as she spelled out the runes in her book, and telling her wonderful tales of the world the Terrarchs had lost and would one day have again. He had been bad to the bone even then, but she had not known it, and had merely looked at him with the eyes of a doting daughter.
She fumbled with the locket at her breast and opened it. Within, in opposite faces of the casing were two miniature portraits of her parents. The likenesses were good, showing their ageless Terrarch beauty.
He looked poised and confident, the soul of charm, and she was sure that there had been a time when her mother had loved him. It had most likely been finding out what he really was that had driven her mother mad in the end. Lady Alysa had married a monster and given birth to another and it had been one of her father’s pleasures at the end to torment her with this knowledge, when she was too sick to tell anyone, and even those servants who listened to her ravings had thought her mad. There was sadness in the features the miniature portrayed, as if even then her mother had known what was to come.
She remembered the kindly, beautiful woman of her early years and supposed she must have loved her too once before her father had turned her against Alysa with his subtle words, his silent disrespect, the things he did not say that were more damning than the things he did. Her mother had spent many years trapped in the huge echoing mansion on their enormous estate, cut off from her friends and family, surrounded by servants who were her fathers slaves, watched constantly even by her maids. For decades, she had been unable to think of her mother except with contempt. It had taken a long time for her to realise how much her father had encouraged her in it. He brooked no rivals in her affections.
Why had they married? Her mother had loved her father she knew and perhaps there had been a time when in his own twisted way, he had loved her. Perhaps that’s why he had kept her a virtual prisoner, taken the time to subject her to his most exquisite mental cruelties, returned home after his many affairs. Of course, there had been other reasons. His mother was the last survivor of an ancient line, immensely rich, inheritor of many magical treasures, and her father had been a collector of such things, as many powerful sorcerers were. Perhaps her mother had merely been another thing he had collected.
She looked down at the blade. It had come from her father’s trove, part of the dowry her mother had brought, a product of the ancient magical arts of Al’Terra. It had their exquisite beauty as well as their potency. It could slice through magical protections, slay demons at need. It was woven round with protective spells to shield its bearer against death magic.
Strange, her father had not died from a blade, but from a weapon that had not existed on the home world; a truesilver bullet fired from a weapon that most Terrarchs thought obscene, the bane of their age, the herald of the end of their dominion. A gun had ended Malkior’s life. It was a new weapon for a new age, an age in which humans were rising against their betters, and had the tools to work the overthrow of even the most powerful of sorcerers. With truesilver bullets they need have no fear of demons. Even the Shadowblood could fall before them.
Perhaps Rik, half-human, half-Terrarch, as comfortable with guns as with sorcery was the symbol of this new age, and of the bastard culture that would grow out of it. She thought of his mixture of arrogance and fear, and wondered what would become of him. Perhaps he would survive. Perhaps Asea would use him up and then discard him as she had done so many others. Perhaps he would fall to the Shadow, the first of many like him, who would become its agents in this world. Like Asea, the Shadow used whatever tools it found most useful.
Something irritated her eyes. Her face was wet. Her father was dead. He was dead and all the things she had wanted to say to him would remain forever unsaid, all the questions she had wanted to ask would never be answered. All the complex knot of emotions would
never be untangled.
Thinking about her father and about the Shadow she felt oddly adrift. She had served both, but she realised now that she had really served her father, seeking always to please him, to gain his attention even when she had defied him. Until recently she had possessed no real knowledge of what the Shadow was like. She had thought she had known, but she had not, not in the way that he had.
Malkior had been one of the First. He had come through the gates from an older, purer world. He had experienced the Shadow first hand, had served it since childhood, had bowed before its glory willingly, had been touched by it and granted power. He had not thought of it as demonic. He had talked about it as liberation, of freedom from the tyranny of Adaana, of the old Angels who had held back their people for so long.
She had known such things only through him, his stories and his faith. He had been its prophet and its embodiment and now he was gone. There was nothing left for her to serve. She felt more loyalty to the Queen-Empress of Sardea than she did to the Shadow’s cause. Without the physical anchor of his person, the Shadow’s was merely a side on which she found herself by accident.
Doubts she had long suppressed beat black wings around her skull. In a way she was glad that her father was gone, his plans to use the Black Mirror and open a gate to Al’Terra unfulfilled. For all his certainty of their glory, she had found the idea of the Princes of Shadow manifesting in this world a frightening one. It was one thing to work towards such a goal in the long distant future. It was another to live with the knowledge that soon the world would be utterly and irrevocably changed. She was not like him. She had grown up in a world where everyone thought of the Princes as the embodiment of purest evil, and it had tainted her with a suspicion from which she could never entirely be free.
She was merely putting things off, she told herself. She really ought to be going. Her work here was done, and the longer she stayed the greater the danger to her would become. There was no guarantee that Rik would not report her to Asea or to the authorities, and with a High Inquisitor in the vicinity, things could become very dangerous very quickly.
She needed to get back to Sardea and report the failure of her father’s plan to the Queen Empress and to Malkior’s former associates.
She stayed slumped in the chair, sipping liquor from the flask until eventually, red-eyed from weeping, she fell asleep.
Chapter Four
Rik waited behind the curtain in the alcove, hardly daring to breath. He kept very quiet and very still, two things at which he had a lot of practise. Through a slit in the drape he could see the plush leather covered chairs. Asea welcomed High Inquisitor Joran and bade him take a seat. It had not taken long for the High Inquisitor to come calling. He had barely been in Halim a day.
“This is a pleasure, Lord Joran,” Asea said. “It does my heart good to see you here. We shall soon need all the help we can get.”
“It is through the mercy of the Light that I am here. The way was long and beset with peril.”
“We live in troubled times.”
“You speak the truth.” A note of subtle irony sounded in the statement. Joran had a wonderful voice, and he used it with the skill of a virtuoso.
“You must tell me of your journey.”
“Winter is a bad time of the year for travelling- the mountain passes were closed. It was deemed inadvisable to sail through Harven so that meant landing at Westport and overlanding it. After that snow, bandits, poor food, abominable roads. I will not bore you with the sordid details.”
“You could not bore me.”
“I have read your letters to the Queen with great interest. It is one of the reasons I am here. Queen Arielle has asked me to look into the matters you refer to.”
I have read your letters to the Queen. There was an assurance of power, of familiarity with the monarch, a hint of confidences betrayed, of a grasp of the upper echelons of power in Joran’s voice. Rik was unsure as to why the Inquisitor had taken that line. He was as out of his depths here as a Terrarch would be in the rookeries of Sorrow.
“I am glad she takes you into her confidence as well. It reassures me that one so wise should have her ear.” Asea’s voice too held hints of other things. She had been the Queen’s confidante for much longer than Joran, or so she implied.
“You flatter me, Asea, although my vanity welcomes your words.”
Asea’s tone changed. Bonhomie evaporated. There was a clipped menace to her delivery. “Since you are privy to my private correspondence with Arielle, you know that I fear someone seeks to open a Gate to Al’Terra.”
Joran’s reply was as easy as his previous statements. “It is one reason why I am here. That is a matter of the utmost gravity…if a Gate has been opened then it heralds the end of the world as we know it.”
“And yet you said the Gate is only one of the reasons you are here.”
“You are correct. Her majesty is very disturbed by rumours concerning the death of her cousin, Queen Kathea. It almost beggars belief that Lord Malkior was the killer. He was a Terrarch of the old blood, one of the First. Hardly an assassin.”
“I believe we can be frank with each other, Inquisitor Joran. Lord Malkior was a follower of the Shadow.”
Rik suppressed a shudder. That information was not something he wanted revealed to the Inquisition. It might lead to questions about his own heritage.
“You are asking me to believe that one of the First, a high noble of the Terrarchy was a servant of the Princes of Shadow?” Joran’s tone was good-humoured but Rik heard the subtle mockery in it. He wondered whether it was real, or merely intended to goad Asea into saying more. He had known thief takers who used similar such techniques. Her response was dry.
“It has happened before.”
“On Al’Terra.”
“Your order has accused others of being followers of Shadow on this world.”
“Indeed it has. I suspect a lot of those charges with trumped up for political reasons.”
“You seem remarkably cynical about such things for an Inquisitor.”
Joran sighed. “I have been a seeker after truth for a very long time, Milady. You and I are both aware of how these things work. Times were bad during the Conquest. Questionable things were done during the Schism as well.”
“You are saying you do not believe me?”
“That I did not say. I am merely saying it’s a disturbing thing to hear talk of things emerging from our darkest legends to walk in the light of day.”
“Such things have happened before.”
“I would prefer to believe, as some of my generation do, that the Shadow is a mere metaphor for the darkness in our souls.”
“You were not born on Al’Terra. You did not see the wars we fought.”
“I lack that privilege.”
“You may not lack it for long. If the Gate is opened.”
“As you have said, we can be frank with each other. One reason I am here is to find out if there was any reason for you spreading these disturbing tales, if you hoped to gain something from telling these things to the Queen.”
“What could I have to gain from it?”
“From our invading Sardea? Your animosity towards the Queen-Empress is well known.”
“As is Queen Arielle’s.”
“The fate of nations is rarely decided by one person’s likes or dislikes; rational calculations of self interest usually intervene.”
“One would like to believe so. I have seen it otherwise.”
“In your letter you hinted that you knew who killed Her Majesty’s mother.”
“Malkior did that.”
“Many people suspected your hand in that.”
A flat silence descended on the room. Joran was only saying what many people thought, but Rik guessed very few people had ever said it to her face. After a beat the Inquisitor continued. “It certainly lets you off the hook if it’s true.”
Asea did not reply and Joran was the first to break the silence that ens
ued.
“I am merely reporting what has been said. What happened to Malkior? I have heard rumours of his body being cut up and buried in separate pieces.”
Joran had certainly acquired a lot of information in the short time he was here. It might be a good idea to find out who the Inquisitor had talked with since his arrival. There were informers everywhere.
“Hanging, drawing and quartering is the usual fate of regicides.”
“But according to what you told the Queen, Malkior was already dead.”
“That does not alter the penalty.”
“True, and it would prevent any unfortunate attempts at resurrection or reanimation. I understand it was your acquaintance, the half-breed Rik who killed him.”
“Along with the Palace guard.”
“I would like to talk to the youth.”
“I am sure that can be arranged.”
“Let us hope so. I am keen to hear his side of the story. I have not summoned him yet for he is under your protection and I wanted to discuss matters with you first.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I would like to talk with him- soon.”
“You shall. He has nothing to hide.”
“We all have something to hide.”
“That statement includes yourself, Inquisitor.”
“As a member of the Inquisition I have a special dispensation for my sins. They are committed in the service of church and state. This is very fine wine by the way.”
“It comes from my cellar in Redtower.”
“I understand you have petitioned the Queen to be allowed to adopt this Rik into your House.”
Although she had told Rik she had done this, the Inquisitor’s words confirmed it. He felt a thrill pass through him. In this, as in other things, she appeared to be keeping her word.
“I trust the Queen has approved.”
“It is a most unusual request. He is a half-breed.”
“That is the case, but he is as gifted as many full Terrarchs. He has more raw talent for sorcery than anyone I have ever encountered, and it would be a dangerous thing to leave him untutored.”