Shadowprey: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  “How in the world did they find one so fast?”

  “I think instead it’s Rith doing the call. She is a master of sound.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Trendel. “How crafty.”

  “I believe the credit goes to Ky for thinking of it, and to Rith for its execution.”

  “Clever people, these syldari,” said Trendel.

  Arik smiled and then looked at the tiny bow and said, “See if you can find some dead branches. Try to find a particularly straight one a foot long or so and no bigger ’round than an arrow. Oh, and I’ll need some twigs and dead grass, too.”

  As Trendel stepped away from the campsite, Arik brushed off a space on the ground for the camp fire. Then he stepped to the creek and picked up a flat rock and examined it, then found another to his liking, and brought both back to the cleared spot. From the creek he collected modest-sized rounded rocks and placed them in a ring to contain the fire. He put the largest flat rock in the middle of the ring.

  Moments later, Trendel returned with woody branches and dried twigs and a bit of sere moss.

  More drumming sounded off in the forest.

  Trendel handed Arik a straight branch from among those he had brought back, and Arik wrapped the string of the small improvised bow about it to make his spinning-stick. He placed some of the dead moss as tinder on the central flat rock, and then set one end of the spinning stick into the moss and braced the other end with the small flat rock and began sawing the bow back and forth. After a while, a wisp of smoke curled up from among the moss, and Arik leaned down and softly blew. The tinder began to smolder, and moments later, a tiny flame appeared. Arik fed it twigs and then a few larger branches, and shortly the campfire was ablaze.

  “We’d better fashion a spit,” said Trendel, and he took Arik’s sword and stepped again into the woods and hewed off two forked branches.

  Now the drumming sound came from several directions, the territorial instincts of competing wood grouse coming to the fore.

  Just before the sun reached the zenith, Ky and Rith returned to camp, Ky bearing a string of seven of the mottled brown birds.

  Rith gutted and plucked the fowl, and Trendel spitted them and set the birds to cook above the fire.

  “How did you do it?” he asked Rith.

  “Well, I called them,” said Rith, “and then Ky cast darkness over them, and they went to sleep. Then I, um, harvested the poor drowsy creatures.”

  “That hardly seems sporting,” said Trendel, grinning, even as he turned the spit.

  “In Foxes versus game birds, hunger trumps fair play every time,” said Ky, and then she broke into laughter.

  Eventually, the birds were ready to eat. “Leave two for Kane,” said Ky. “He’ll be ravenous when he awakens.”

  “Let’s hope it’s soon,” said Rith, tearing off a wing. “There’s Lyssa to find.”

  “I’m going to do a casting,” said Trendel around a mouthful, “right after we eat.”

  “We can’t leave Kane,” said Ky.

  “We won’t. But if Lyssa is near, Arik and I will go looking.”

  Rith frowned and wiped the heel of a hand across the grease running down her chin. “That might be very dangerous. Remember how drained she was after her battle with Atraxia. And if any of us get too close, she could sap us completely of life.”

  “If Lyssa is near, it would be better if all of us go,” said Trendel between chews. That way, there’s more of us to, um, replenish her.”

  Rith nodded and said, “I’ll join you. Ky should remain behind to tend her heart’s desire.”

  Ky glanced over at Kane and said, “Come on, you big galoot. Wake up.”

  “Here. I’ll wave a drumstick under his nose,” said Trendel, reaching out. “Perhaps that’ll waken him.”

  Kane made no response whatsoever, but remained in a comalike state, breathing slowly, his pulse strong, as if he had taken on a major wound.

  Trendel sighed and resumed eating.

  “He’s not yet healed enough,” said Ky. “And the problem is, with whatever it was the Dark God did to him, well, it might be a long while.”

  They washed their faces and hands in the stream, and then Arik looked at Trendel in expectation. “Ready?”

  Trendel nodded and frowned in concentration and said a word. “Hmm . . .” he murmured, puzzlement on his face.

  “What is it?” asked Rith.

  He pointed leftward, westerly. “Lyssa is that way some three hundred fifty paces”—then pointed northerly—“and that way an unknown distance.”

  What? asked Rith and Arik and Ky together.

  “I get two readings. —And before you ask, by Luba’s teats, I have no idea whatsoever it might mean. And as for the second of those readings, this is the first time ever that I got a response where I didn’t know exactly how far away something could be.”

  Ky stared at the ground, her brow furrowed. “Two Lyssas?” Then her eyes flew wide in startlement, and she looked up at Arik. “Her spirit and her body?”

  Arik cocked an eyebrow at Trendel, who said, “Perhaps. Let me narrow the spell.”

  Once again Trendel concentrated and then spoke a word. He grinned and looked at Ky. “Again I say, clever people these syldari.” Then he pointed. “Her spirit is three hundred fifty paces to the west.”

  All gazes turned that way.

  There sat the barrow mound.

  19

  Courthouse

  (Adkins)

  Frowning as if pondering, Judge Marshall looked at Toni without really seeing her. Finally, he focused on her and said, “You are right, Ms. Adkins. The definition of a human is indeed vital to my decision. —Please proceed.”

  Exasperated at the direction the hearing was taking, Finster Coburn looked at his cousin, Charlotte, and then turned to Mark Perry and said, “Do something, Mark. Do something.”

  Mark got to his feet. “Your honor—”

  Without even looking at Mark, Judge Marshall made a gesture of dismissal, and Mark sat back down.

  “That’s not fair!” blurted Charlotte, her voice tight with ire.

  Now the judge turned and stared at Mark. “Control your clients, counselor.”

  Mark sighed and whispered something to Finster and Charlotte, and, though clearly upset, they settled back in their seats.

  Marshall then turned again to Toni. “Please proceed, Ms. Adkins.”

  “Well, your honor, the definition of a human is not quite as straightforward as some would believe or desire. Yet let me approach it from this angle.” She looked at Finster Coburn. “Let us say that Mr. Coburn is a human.”

  “What?” snapped Finster. “Of course I’m a human.”

  “How ridiculous,” declared Charlotte.

  “Ridiculous that he’s a human?” asked Toni.

  The courtroom burst into laughter.

  Even Judge Marshall smiled as he gaveled the chamber to silence and then once again admonished Mark to control his clients.

  “Perhaps I put it badly,” said Toni, looking at the panel of experts. “Of course, Mr. Coburn is human; on that I think we can all agree”—she swung her gaze to Charlotte and smiled—“though perhaps some might not.”

  Charlotte started to speak, but Mark shushed her with a simple palm-out gesture.

  “In any case,” said Toni, “those who disagree would be wrong.” Then she went on:

  “But what if Mr. Coburn lost an arm? Would he still be human? Again, I say, yes, he would still be a human.”

  Some on the panel of experts smiled to themselves and leaned back in their chairs, their fingers interlaced and resting on their ample stomachs, for they deduced where Toni was leading them.

  “How about if Mr. Coburn lost both arms and both legs? Still human? I say, indeed.

  “How about if Mr. Coburn were kept alive on machines, but without a stomach or heart or liver or—?”

  “Your honor,” said Mark Perry. “It is obvious where we are headed.”

  “E
ven so,” said Judge Marshall, “she may continue.”

  Mark sighed and looked at his clients and shrugged.

  “And what if Mr. Coburn, being kept alive by machines, lost everything but his brain, or in extremis let us say he lost that, too, but his thoughts were yet alive and evolving? Indeed let us say that Mr. Coburn has lost everything but his mentality. I claim that he is still a person, is still a human.”

  Outside the court house, Frankie Roberts stood under an umbrella as heavy rain pelted down. And when the red light on Steve’s holocam lit, she looked into the cam and gravely asked, “When Toni Adkins says ‘Mr. Coburn,’ is she speaking of Finster or of Arthur Coburn instead? And if it is Arthur Coburn she refers to, then do you think he’s still alive? Still a person? Still a human being? These questions will be argued in the days, the weeks, the years and perhaps even the centuries to come. In fact they might never be settled.

  “This is Frankie Roberts, News Holo-4, at the Pima County Courthouse in Tucson, Arizona.”

  20

  Itheria

  (Black Foxes)

  “All right,” said Arik, hefting his sword, “let’s go.”

  “Wait,” said Ky, drawing the shadowblade from her scabbard. She held it out to Rith. “You don’t know what you might come across, and perhaps will need this.”

  “I have my silver daggers,” said Rith.

  Ky smiled. “You might need to throw them all away.”

  Trendel frowned. “Throw them all— Oh, ah, I see. When she runs out of daggers to throw—”

  “—I have my silver-flashed long-knife,” said Rith, patting the hilt of the weapon strapped to her thigh.

  “But silver isn’t proof against all things,” said Ky, “whereas my shadowblade seems to be. So, Rith, trade me.” The syldari glanced at Arik, and then looked back at Rith. “Besides, you might need to keep Lyssa at bay, and this blade is even more effective at discouraging ghosts than silver will ever be.”

  Arik sighed and peered at the ground and nodded a reluctant agreement, and Rith unstrapped her long-knife and exchanged it for Ky’s blade and scabbard, which she belted to her waist.

  “Ready?” asked Arik.

  Ready, replied Rith and Trendel together.

  As they set off for the barrow mound, Rith said, “We have a problem, you know: finding Lyssa will be difficult; she is not visible in daylight.”

  “I will cast a seeing,” said Trendel, stepping across the small stream after Arik.

  “Speaking of seer’s spells,” said Arik, “if Ky is right about your two readings being Lyssa’s body and soul, after we’ve found her spirit, we’ll need you to do another casting, this time for her body.”

  “Actually,” said Trendel, “she was a ghost the first time I saw her, and that’s all I’ve ever known her to be. I’ve never really seen her in the flesh. —I say, perhaps that’s why I only got one distance reading.” Then he frowned. “No, wait. Even though I’ve not seen any number of things in reality, merely a good depiction on a tapestry or painting, or even a well-worded description, is enough to tell me how far away a thing is. You’ll have to portray her to me: hair color, eyes, other such things. Then I’ll try again.”

  On they strode toward the barrow mound, Arik remembering the first time he had seen it:

  In the last candlemarks before dawn they came through the groaning, clutching Kalagar Wood to the base of a broad treeless hill. Like a huge barrow mound it was, high and rounded and windswept. And in between clouds, by the light of waxing Orbis, they could see on the crest a broad archway, seemingly made of dark stone.

  Onto the slopes they rode, yet as they started upward a wailing filled the air, as pale wraiths rose up from out of the ground and started downslope toward them.

  Kane drew his spear from its saddle sling and then looked at Rith. “There, methinks, are your wind wolves, bard, howling unto the sky.”

  Lyssa, in the fore, glided upslope and stood to bar the way, her light bright, theirs but a pale reflection. And she held up her arms and opened her mouth and called out to the ghostly throng, but the only thing the Foxes heard was an eerie lamentation, like the weeping of an abandoned spirit. Some wraiths paused and called to Lyssa, others turned back, but many came onward still.

  “Take weapons, Foxes,” barked Arik, drawing his silvered sword. Trendel set his shield to arm, and hefted his argent war axe. Rith pulled two silver daggers from her bandoliers, and Ky took her dark main gauche in hand.

  And their weapons gleamed argent in the light of the twin moons shining through rifts in the clouds, all but Ky’s which reflected deadly black.

  And seeing this silvered and ebon display, wraiths fell back and aside, retreating from this shining glimmer.

  Even Lyssa drew apart.

  Trendel looked at Ky and said, “Now we know what will kill a ghost,” then he tossed her his silver dagger.

  But she tossed it right back, saying, “I need no silver to protect me, seer. My blade is more than enough.”

  Once again Lyssa spoke to the wraiths—the weeping of ghostly wind the only sound she made—and the phantasmal throng retreated before her hollow wail. Back upslope they drifted, some more slowly than others, until at last they were gone, sinking back into the ground.

  As Lyssa turned and came downslope, Arik and the others resheathed blades and reslung axe and spear. And the Foxes could see that Lyssa was weeping.

  “What is it, my love?” asked Arik.

  And Lyssa, whose earthly voice had been lost to her, gestured and signed in the Black Fox code,

  “Set them free?”

 

  Arik glanced upslope. Then he turned to Rith. “If we destroy the arch, will it release them?”

  Rith shook her head. “I don’t know, Arik. Perhaps. Ghosts are often bound to a place or a thing. If the arch is their focus, then, yes, I would believe that its destruction would break the bond which binds them to this plane.”

  Arik looked grimly at the black arch and said to Lyssa, “When we finish our mission in the demonworld, we will see what we can do to set these spirits free.”

  Arik gazed up at the ruins of the Kalagar Gate and murmured, “And set them free we did.”

  “What?” asked Rith.

  “I was just remembering the first time we saw this mound,” said Arik. “Then we swore to find a way to set free the spirits of those who were sacrificed to power the gate. And you did, Rith. You did.”

  “When we were trapped yestereve on the mound, and the wraiths were draining us,” said Rith, “that’s when I remembered we had speculated that if the arch were destroyed, they might be released. And so I did what I thought might shatter the portal.”

  Trendel beamed a smile at her and said, “Thank all the gods you remembered, my love, else now we’d be among the wraiths.”

  “Oh, wait,” said Rith, her eyes flying wide in alarm. “Did the destruction of the gate also— No, hold on. She wasn’t one of those sacrificed to power the gate. Besides, you said Lyssa’s spirit was still here. —She is still at the mound, right?”

  Trendel nodded. “Unless my second spell somehow also failed, yes, she is still at the barrow.”

  They reached the foot of the hill, the mound itself some three hundred feet through, some thousand feet around at the base. Arik turned to Trendel. “Where?”

  The seer closed his eyes and spoke a word and then said, “There, fifty paces away.”

  He was pointing straight into the mound.

  “Are you certain?” asked Arik.

  “I’m aiming directly at her,” said Trendel, frowning.

  “Why would she be inside the hill?” asked Rith.

  “Because,” gritted Arik, “that’s where the Dark God put her when he expelled us from the demonplane.”

  “It must not be a solid hill,” said Trendel. “At least, let us hope
not.”

  “We know that Lyssa can move through walls,” said Rith, “but if it’s solid, we can’t reach her.”

  “Have you a way to find an entry?” asked Arik.

  “Assuming there is one,” said Trendel, “then yes, though it could be anyplace on the mound, and that’s a lot of ground to go over.”

  “How about you, Rith?” asked Arik. “Have you any way of finding how we might enter—a door, a passage, or ought else?”

  Rith pondered a moment and then said, “Perhaps I can narrow the search somewhat by looking for hollow spaces.”

  “How will you do that?” asked Trendel.

  “Like this,” said Rith, and she drew Ky’s shadowsword and stabbed it into the base of the mound.

  “Won’t that dull the cutting edge?” Trendel asked Arik.

  Arik shook his head. “Not that blade.”

  Rith gripped the hilt and emitted a deep-throated sound, one that seemed to travel down her arm and into the ebon sword. After a moment she said, “I get a faint echo.”

  “Meaning . . . ?” asked Trendel.

  “Somewhere farther ’round exists a hollow space.”

  They tramped a quarter way about the base, to the eastern face, and Rith repeated the spell. “Weaker,” she said. “I think we need go directly opposite.”

  They circled to the western face of the mound, and again Rith cast the sound spell. Almost immediately she said, “There,” and she pointed slightly up and to the right.

  Trendel spoke a word and looked, and then spoke another word. Suddenly, in a large boulder embedded in the mound almost at the foot of the slope, a door blinked in and then out, and once again the stone stood unbroken.

  “I but momentarily dispelled the illusion,” said Trendel, moving toward where the door stood. “It’s strong. But now that we know where it is, if I place my hand on it, I think can hold the illusion at bay, at least for a while. Were I a true illusionist, instead of knowing a few simple spells, well then I could make it vanish permanently.”

  Trendel then placed a hand on the rock. “This is a good one, for it feels just like stone.” Then he said a word, and this time the door appeared and did not vanish.