Shadeborn: A Book of Underrealm

by Garrett Robinson

  Xain smiled. “Fortunate for us both, then, that I am not searching for such a position.”

  Torik threw an arm toward the gangplank. “I would guess you seek passage, and that is something we have plenty of room for. I can take you aboard and show you his quality if you wish.”

  “I can see for myself from here, but we will gladly take your offer.” Xain turned to the others. “Come aboard. I think this ship will do nicely.”

  “You haven’t even asked him where he is sailing!” said Gem.

  “He makes for the High King’s Seat and then to Dulmun,” said Xain. “It is the usual route for Dulmun ships that sail from the coast of the Great Bay. Is that not the truth, Captain?”

  “Certainly enough,” said Torik. “Give your horses to the boy. He will tend them well, on my word.”

  A young deckhand ran up and reached for their reins. Another stood expectantly nearby. Torik caught his eye. “Run and tell the boys guests are coming aboard. Make sure they keep the sheep guts out of sight.”

  The boy’s eyes widened, and he scampered up the gangplank. Annis looked uncertainly at Loren. Xain spoke first to reassure her.

  “In Dulmun, a ship is considered blessed if its decks are regularly polished with the insides of a sheep. But worry not, fair girl, you have already heard the captain means to keep such gruesome sights from you.”

  “I am not afraid of sheep guts,” Annis snapped.

  If Loren had thought the ship impressive from the dock, it was doubly so upon the deck. The mast stretched into the sky, longer from one end to the other than some of the largest buildings she had been inside. A mighty crew ran about from one end to the other, pulling lines and doing things she could scarcely guess at. Torik took them from one side to the other, here and there pointing things out. Loren was soon lost in his many strange words, though the wizard nodded appreciatively and seemed to be listening with rapt attention.

  “Now let me take you into his hold,” said the captain. “We have many fine cabins below—and some not so fine, if you are short on coin. I can show you where you would stay, if indeed you wish to secure passage.”

  An open hatch awaited, with a staircase leading down. Loren did not find the darkness inviting but swallowed her misgivings and followed the captain. The passage hooked around immediately, leading into a long hallway with doors on either side. It looked for all the world like the upper floor of an inn. Metal grates in the ceiling let the light in, and the place seemed far warmer and more inviting than she had expected.

  Torik opened a door and said, “If you all step in here.”

  Still looking about in wonder, Loren stepped inside. The others followed close behind.

  The door slammed shut behind them with a snap. The air filled with the hiss of steel, and Loren saw half a dozen swords pointed toward them. Behind them stood broad men and women in red cloaks.

  Loren shouted and reached for her dagger. Beside her, Xain muttered words of power, and his eyes glowed white. But the magic sputtered almost as soon as he reached for it, and his shoulders sagged. At the other end of the cabin, which was spacious enough, Loren saw a Mystic woman with her hands twisted to claws. Her eyes glowed white, and Loren felt herself unable to move, held in the mindmage’s grasp.

  “Stay your hands,” said the woman. “You shall find no choice in the matter.”

  “Stand down,” said a deep and booming voice. “You will not be harmed if you stay your hands from those blades.”

  Another Mystic appeared behind the group. With a glance, Loren knew him for their leader. His shoulders were broad and his beard long. Care and worry colonized his face with deep lines and deeper scars. The other Mystics parted before him, as if on instinct. He marched forth to stand before Loren, glowering down. Her resolve crumbled, and she slowly moved her hand.

  “You will forgive us our surprise,” said the Mystic. “Or mayhap you will not. ’Tis no matter either way. I am Kal, of the family Endil, Chancellor of the Mystics in Dulmun, and I have been searching for you for some time. Word has it you were last seen traveling with Jordel.”

  She was momentarily too surprised for speech. From the corners of her eyes she saw the others looking toward her, wondering. Her mind raced, trying to guess at the right words to mayhap save them all. In the end, Loren did not know which lie to tell, so she settled for the truth.

  “I am Loren, of the family Nelda. And yes, it was our honor to travel at Jordel’s side, for a time. We have come to Dorsea at his bidding.”

  “I am not one to take a woman at her word,” said Kal. “If you rode with Jordel, where is he? And why would he send you rather than come himself?”

  “If I may show you proof?” Loren reached slowly for her cloak pocket. The other Mystics tensed, but Kal stilled them with a look. Loren retrieved Jordel’s badge, the mark of office she had seen on his chest when they met. She had retrieved it from his fallen body, thinking that one day it may have a use. That day seemed to have arrived.

  Kal’s eyes fixed on the badge then narrowed to slits. “Jordel would not have placed this into your hands, not even if you were his messengers.”

  Despite his flat speech, Loren heard his question.

  “I am the bearer of ill news, it seems. Jordel fell in the Greatrocks, passing from this world to the next. We have carried on in his memory.”

  Kal did not move, nor did he make a face at her words. Not a single muscle twitched. Yet Loren saw the words strike him like a hammer, turmoil raging in his eyes, though he made no sound. Indeed, he gave no sign that he had heard her. Then finally, he reached out and took the badge from Loren’s hand, gently, as though lifting a babe from her arms.

  “Sheathe your blades.” Again, the air whispered with steel, and in a blink the Mystics were standing at attention, any hint of threat vanished. Even the woman in the back had loosed her magic hold.

  For a long while, Kal looked at the badge, turning it over and over in the firelight before placing it back in Loren’s hand.

  “Very well, Loren of the family Nelda,” said Kal, his voice both soft and gruff at once. “Come and sit. It seems we must have words, and more than a few, I wager.”

  twenty-one

  He led them to a small table inside the cabin, which Loren assumed must be his. There were two seats beside his own, so she took one and gave the other to Xain. The children and Chet sat on the floor around the room’s edges. Two of the Mystic swordsmen stayed with the wizard, but all the fight seemed to have left them.

  “I was Jordel’s master,” said Kal. “Taught him from a young pup, I did. And when he took his knighthood and went on his sojourns, I would often command his stronghold of Ammon in his stead.”

  “Ammon!” said Loren in surprise. “But that is where we are bound.”

  “So I guessed. I thought nothing of it when I had not heard from Jordel for a while, for often his journeys take him far, and word only travels with time. Then I heard he was exiled by our order. Still, I feared to leave Ammon, for I thought he would make his way there. But when more months passed, and still I got nothing so much as a letter, I decided to act. Too late, it seems. We left Ammon two weeks ago and just arrived here. I had sent word through the ship’s captain that we sought you. He recognized you the moment you appeared on the dock.”

  “It was good fortune, then, that we came when we did,” said Xain.

  “I shall call nothing good fortune that begins or ends with the death of Jordel, nor has it somewhere in the middle. And I will hear the tale of that now, as quick as you can, girl.”

  At Kal’s urging, and with Xain’s help, Loren told him of their journey: how she had first met Jordel in Cabrus, and how he had urged her to confide in him from the first. Then she told him of all that had happened in that city, and how he had smuggled her beyond the walls and into the south of Selvan. When she spoke of joining Jordel in Wellmont, she stopped suddenly, looking warily at the wizard.

  “I know he is Xain Forredar, and called by some an abomin
ation for eating magestones,” Kal said. “I see also that he suffers from the sickness. You may as well carry on, for I suspect that plays some part in what took place after.”

  Still, Loren looked to Xain. But he only shrugged, so she continued, keeping nothing back. She spoke of the magestones but made the whole thing sound like her idea, hoping to divert some of the blame from Xain. But she could think of no way to gloss over the wizard’s madness on the King’s road, when he had coated Vivien and the other Mystics in darkfire. Kal’s face grew stony, and she heard the room’s remaining Mystics shift. But she barreled on, telling them how Jordel had insisted that they spare the wizard’s life, then about the road they had taken into the Greatrocks.

  When she came to the Shade fortress, Loren’s voice faltered, and she bowed her head. But the cabin only sat silent for a moment or two before Kal slapped his hand atop the table.

  “Say on, girl. Don’t stop talking for favor of weeping, for you are not so young as all that. There is no shame in grief, only do not get it on my rugs.”

  Loren told him all they had seen in the mountains, aided here and there by Xain, who had some knowledge of the Shades from what Jordel had told him in Wellmont. They came at last to the final battle, where Jordel had given his life to stop Trisken atop the bridge, and she wept her way through the tale’s remainder. She heard Annis and Gem quietly sobbing behind her. Even Xain lowered his head in sorrow, though his shoulders did not move.

  Loren held no great wish to dwell on death in Wellmont, nor the villages in the Birchwood and Dorsean plains. She finished, and Kal studied Loren for a long while, clearly displeased.

  “These are dark tidings,” he muttered under his breath. “Far, far darker than I had imagined.”

  “Would that they were anything but,” said Loren. “They have been a heavy burden, delivered at great cost.”

  “Aye, and too slowly,” said Kal. “What madness made you wait in Northwood for so long before setting foot upon the road?”

  The words were a punch to Loren’s gut. She heard Chet shifting behind her. Kal raised a hand to wave away the hurt.

  “Spare me your doe’s eyes. ’Tis already done, and no use in anyone harping on—including me. Only you cannot blame me for wishing I had known of this sooner.”

  “Jordel always urged us to haste,” Loren said. “I should have heeded those words, even after he was no longer there to say them.”

  Kal’s fist clenched on the table, and he rapped his knuckles twice against the wood. “I was his captain once. Long before I became Chancellor—curse the title. Jordel was a bright and eager young knight. I taught him to hunt mages.”

  Xain stiffened beside her. The Mystic wizard sat straighter, but Kal continued with his story as though he had not noticed. A glitter in his eye said that he had.

  “I have never been called aught but a tough man. ’Tis what is best for men in a commander’s care. Anyone who says different will get his soldiers killed. Jordel took it as well as any mage hunter I have trained before or since, and never once a hint of insubordination. And more, when I would rip into one of his fellows for being a blamed idiot, Jordel would take them aside and piece them back together after I had shattered their fragile pride. He had a way of making the soldiers feel they could succeed, that they could become mage hunters even when I knew they never could. But once in a while—a long, long while, mind you—he was right, and I was wrong.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, planted his elbows on the table, and glowered at them all. “And now I have been saddled with his latest flock of novices. We have a task that is likely too great for me, and certainly too great for the likes of you. Yet we have little choice but to use the strength we have. And the appearance of Shades may prove a boon. Mayhap now, at least, my useless brothers in arms will get off their arses long enough to do what they have been meant to do for centuries.”

  Loren balked and looked uncertainly at Xain. But the wizard seemed equally confused. “Who do you mean?” she said.

  “Why, the other Mystics, of course,” growled Kal. “Useless layabouts though they are, now that we have some proof, mayhap they can trouble themselves to lift a finger where they never could before.”

  “I have met many Mystics,” said Loren. “Never one would I call a layabout.”

  “Oh, they get riled up enough when they think a wizard has taken magestone or when they think they smell some petty intrigue in which to dip their fingers.” Kal was fairly spitting in disdain. “But they have all but forgotten our intent—the purpose that drove Jordel, and which brings you here now. Even the so-called greatest among them, the ones who imagine themselves my masters, would sooner bury their heads in palace intrigue than seek to find the dark master.”

  Loren shuddered. “You mean the Necromancer.”

  “Aye, him,” said Kal. “And the dark master, and lord of death, and a thousand other prettier names that he has worn through the ages. Scores of years I have warned them of his return, and never will they listen. Mayhap now that will change.”

  He sat up straighter, and reached for a flask hanging from the wall by its strap. The stopper came out in his hand, and he took a long pull. “Right. You have more road ahead, though less than what is behind. You must tell the Lord Chancellor of the Shades—fop that he is—and the High King as well.”

  “What?” said Loren. Beside her, Xain looked ready to fall from his chair. “What makes you think they will listen to us, more than even you?”

  Kal’s perpetual frown deepened. “For one thing, I have no time to sail for the Seat. Now that I have learned of Jordel’s fate, I must return to Ammon with all possible speed. Our actions in the northern kingdoms must be coordinated, in Dulmun most of all. ’Tis the oldest land, and likely our greatest point of strength if indeed the Shades should make open war. Moreover, every redcloak at my command must be dispatched, at once, to find where the Shades may be gathering in strength. Worst in all this news is that they have been able to gather in such numbers, and all of us unaware. That speaks to traitors within our ranks, and rooting them out will be a dark business.”

  “The Lord Chancellor will never give us an audience,” said Loren.

  “He will if I tell him to,” said Kal. “But such audience would be useless. He would still never raise the Mystics to war. Not unless the High King herself commanded it.”

  “And there you speak madness,” said Xain with a harsh laugh. “If an audience with the Lord Chancellor will be hard to come by, the High King will be impossible. Not unless you wish to see my head decorating a spike on her palace wall, and our tale still untold.”

  Kal’s mouth twisted in a grim smile—an utterly alien expression upon him—and made Loren squirm in her seat. “Yet that is the great beauty of it. Who better than you, Xain Forredar, to get the High King’s attention? Doubtless you will be taken straight to her throne room if you show your face upon the Seat. It is a much faster route than any other courtesan, who would have to wait weeks or months for an audience.”

  “They will kill him,” said Loren angrily. “And then how will he help your cause?”

  To her surprise, she saw a grim resolution settle on Xain’s face. The wizard sat straighter in his seat, and his hands were steady upon the table.

  “He sees it. Here, boy, drink up.” Kal slid his wine skin into the wizard’s hand. Xain took a long drink. “I think you have little reason to fear, girl. Those who hate Xain upon the Seat are many—the Dean and the Lord Chancellor among them—but rumor has it the High King is not among their number. She may have issued the decree for his arrest, but she has put no word in writing to call for his death. That was done by the Academy when that young whelp Vivien told them of the magestones.”

  “You guess that the High King will pardon him?” Loren snorted. “That is quite a risk to take with someone else’s life.”

  Xain dropped his wineskin on the table with a sharp clap. “Yet it is a risk I will take.”

  Loren stared at the wizar
d. “Xain, you cannot be serious.”

  “I am, Loren. Kal is right—it is the fastest way to see the High King. There, I can tell her my tale. Whatever may happen afterward is not important.”

  “It is important! I did not drag your wasted hide across all of Selvan and half of Dorsea only to see you throw your life away now. And what of your son, Xain? Have you lost all hope of recovering him?”

  The wizard stared at Loren, his eyes cold and dark. “Do not bandy my son about before me in hopes of changing my will. There are duties higher than even the bonds of family, like the promise made to a dying friend. Especially when that promise was made in payment for sins forgiven.”

  The anger left Xain as suddenly as it came. “By my hands many have burnt. Jordel forgave me that, though those I slew were his brothers and sisters. Now I must earn that forgiveness. And if fortune smiles, mayhap Enalyn will let me see my son. One last time before the end.”

  twenty-two

  As Kal told them often and loudly, they had little time to waste. Still, he allowed them a day on the ship to recover from the road. Besides, the Long Claw needed to stock itself for the voyage, while Kal had his own plans for the return to Ammon.

  “I will be taking another ship,” he told them. “No use delaying passage home just to swing by the Seat when there’s much work to be done at the stronghold.”

  He was sending four Mystics with them—good men, he said, ones he trusted. From what Loren had seen of Kal so far, his trust did not come lightly, and she was grateful for his offer. He brought the Mystics by on the day of their arrival, while they were preparing themselves to sleep in the cabins belowdecks.

  Loren recognized three from Kal’s cabin, though they had been behind swords when she had last seen them. Their leader was a man named Erik. He was a hale warrior with red hair and a beard that nearly bested Kal’s. With him was a large young man named Jormund, and a woman named Gwenyth. Erik spoke easily enough, and was more polite than Kal, but the other two barely said a word beyond their simple introductions.