Shadowfall g-1

by James Clemens

  The world swam at the edges, watery and loose. “I’ll live.”

  “That’s not my concern.” Realizing what she had said, she quickly corrected herself. “Rather that’s not my only concern. We need pure, uncontaminated blood to fuel the Fin. But we can’t risk taking more now. You’ve wasted so much of it.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She slipped a fruit-paring knife from a pocket and sliced off his tunic with deft strokes. She used the strips to bind the cut on his upper arm, then had him hold a wadded piece of his own shirt atop his head.

  “We must free the arrow.”

  He nodded. “Break the iron head, then withdraw it backward.”

  “It’ll bleed afresh.”

  “Then you’d best collect it,” he said with a tired smile.

  She kept her eyes down. “Sorry… after so long with Meeryn. Every drop is precious. To see it spilled to no purpose…” She shook her head.

  “Then you’d best find a bowl as you work the arrow out.”

  “Only glass will preserve the Grace. Any other vessel will allow it to seep out.”

  Tylar focused on her words as she worked the wooden haft behind the head of the arrow with her knife, scoring the wood to snap it clean. Each scrape stoked the pain in his wrist. He felt it in his teeth. He spoke to keep from screaming, his voice strained with the effort. “Why glass? Why not stone or metal?”

  “Stone, clayware, bronze, steel, all come from the ground, from the aspect of loam. Grace wicks into it.”

  Crack.

  Tylar gasped out as Delia suddenly broke the arrow’s haft. She had given no warning. “But glass comes from sand,” he said tightly, riding down the pain. “Is sand not loam, too?”

  “Yes, but glass has strange properties.”

  “How so?” He used his curiosity like a crutch.

  “Glass, though seeming solid, actually flows… like water.”

  Tylar’s disbelief must have been plain.

  She shrugged. “Despite appearances, alchemists insist on the nature of glass. It’s this constant flow-too slow to see- that keeps the Grace preserved and protected behind glass.” She reached to his wrist. “Now let’s see about removing the rest of this arrow.”

  Tylar waved his bloody wad of shirt toward the bow. “Help me to the Fin’s tank. You were right a moment ago. We’ll need the fuel to make landfall.”

  He allowed Delia to wrap an arm around his bared midsection as he climbed to his feet. The world went black for a moment. His heart thudded in his throat. Then after a breath, vision returned.

  He hobbled forward, leaning more upon Delia than he had intended. Shame was a useless emotion at the moment, and he was still unaccustomed to his hale form-yet to lose it again discomfited him.

  They reached the tank. Rogger eyed him, true worry shining.

  “Shall I pull it out?” Delia asked softly.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Maybe you two need a bit of privacy,” Rogger snorted, but his humor sounded forced.

  Ignoring him, Tylar yanked the arrow free. His knees buckled. He hadn’t expected that. But Delia was there, catching him, struggling with his weight.

  Maybe there was a use for shame. It returned strength to his legs.

  He positioned his arm over the open spigot atop the crystal tank. Blood poured copiously into the vessel. He felt it drain from him with each heartbeat.

  Again darkness squeezed his vision to a narrow point. He found himself no longer standing, but slouched in one of the rear seats, head lolled back.

  He craned back up, assisted by a hand from Delia. Her palm was so warm against the back of his neck. A moan escaped him.

  “There he is again,” Rogger said.

  Delia held a cup in front of his face. “Drink,” she insisted.

  Water flowed down his throat. He choked on it. Before he drowned, he pushed her arm away. He saw his wrist was bandaged. How long had he been gone? Delia tried to dote on him. He waved her away, more gently this time.

  “I… I’m better.”

  Delia sank into the other seat. Her words were for Rogger. “We must get him to a healer.”

  “Fitz Crossing is closest,” the thief answered at the wheel. “We could be there by morning. But no doubt that Shadowknight and his corsairs will guess our course and head there, too. They may even reach the island before we do.”

  Delia wrung her hands. “We must take the risk.”

  “No,” Tylar croaked. “We make straight for the Steps. We can reach the First Land in two days’ time.”

  Rogger stared back at him. “Of course, there’s a third choice. We’re free… with a boat. Why not head to some distant backwater where no one knows us?”

  Tylar met the thief’s gaze. A part of him was drawn to this dream. But his mind’s eye kept coming back to Grayl, bare toes swinging overhead. He slowly shook his head.

  “Why not?” Rogger asked. “Live our lives with no past.”

  “Or future.” He swallowed hard, a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’ve been there before… the place you say you want to go.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Where I came from. Where I’d been hiding. Some distant backwater. A place like Punt. I don’t want to go back.” As he spoke those words, he felt a noose around his own neck cut free. Something loosed in him and dropped away. “We go,” he said, putting every last bit of firmness in his voice.

  Rogger slowly nodded.

  Delia looked less convinced. “More than anyone, I want to expose what happened to Meeryn, but you must rest. I found a cache of supplies, old from the look of them, at the back of the Fin. There was powdered nyssaroot for pain.”

  “Nyssa? I’ll sleep for days.”

  “Exactly. You’ll leave your wounds undisturbed and give your body time to mend. I insist.”

  Tylar frowned, sensing a core of determination in her that he didn’t have the strength to fight. He nodded. The world spun with even that small motion.

  “Good. You should be feeling the numbness in a few moments.”

  “What…?” He glanced to the abandoned cup. “You already-”

  The world rolled backward, darkening.

  “Sleep,” she urged him.

  He had no choice.

  A timeless span later, Tylar woke to snoring. It was not his own. He turned his head.

  Rogger curled on the floor beside him, nestled in a pile of netting. Each breath rattled in and sputtered out, regular as a well-wound clock. The thief smelled ripe-or maybe it was Tylar himself.

  He shifted.

  The only light in the cabin was the perpetual glow of the skeletal tubing. Beyond the Fin’s window, the waters were inky dark, except for the speckling of spinning bits of phosphorescence. Tiny sea sprites chased and harried the stranger in their midst.

  Delia stood silhouetted against the window, chewing on the knuckle of one finger as she inspected the tangled mekanical heart of the vessel. She was mumbling, in midargument with herself.

  Tylar shifted, aching all over, but it was a wooly discomfort. Not sharp. He tried sitting. The world shivered, but it settled quickly.

  Delia turned.

  “You’re awake.”

  “I think so… Ask me again in a few moments.”

  “Would you like some water? Do you need to relieve yourself?”

  He nodded to both but asked only for water. He couldn’t face her trying to preserve his morning humours. Delia helped him up into a seat. The effort was like climbing a mountain with a full pack of rocks. He sat heavily with the cup in hand.

  “This is just water, right?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Through an entire day. It’s night again. But the rest has done you well. You look good.”

  “I wish I could say the same about how I feel.”

  Concern crinkled her brow.

  He held up a hand. “No, I’m doing better. Truly. Don’t worry.” />
  Her face relaxed. In this moment, her simple beauty shone. A softness and clarity that was pleasing to look upon.

  Tylar cleared his throat, suddenly awkward with such thoughts. She was near to half his age. He glanced to the mekanicals. “How is the Fin holding up?”

  Delia sighed. “We lost a few tubes. Shattered away. But if we don’t press the works, the rest should hold.”

  “And the blood?”

  “We’re fine. Plenty. But it’ll take another two days to reach the Steps.”

  Tylar didn’t complain. They were moving, safe for the moment. And much of it was due to the woman seated across from him. He was impressed with her resourcefulness and skill.

  He motioned to the crystal tank. “How did you come to know so much about alchemy? Were you schooled in it?”

  She shrugged, shook her head, then glanced to her knees, pulling into herself. “My… my father had an interest in alchemy.”

  From the hunch of her shoulders, there was more history than the words implied. Something unhealed. Only now did Tylar realize how reticent Delia had been about her past. Then again, he had been no more forthcoming, having been orphaned himself, birthed as his mother drowned, his father dead. His own past had no family stories or histories, so he had not missed the same from Delia… until now.

  “Where did he practice his alchemy?”

  She seemed to shrink further. “He was not an alchemist, only a dabbler. But his interest became mine when I was very young… before my mother died of the pox. She was a healer.” She added this last quickly, proudly. “She caught the pox during the Scourge, going into places others wouldn’t tread for fear of contagion.”

  Tylar did a quick calculation. That meant she lost her mother when she was only eight birth years.

  “After that, something died in my father. He sent me off to my mother’s family, a land away, a family who hardly knew me. He took back his name and left me my mother’s. I was not the easiest child at the time.”

  Heartbroken and angry, Tylar guessed. He could relate. He had been bounced around from home to home himself. But he recognized a deeper pain in her. He had never known his family, long dead and buried. Hers had cast her away like so much refuse. A cruelty that surpassed tragedy.

  “How did you end up in the Summering Isles?”

  She shrugged. “My mother’s family could not control me. I was sent to the Abbleberry Conclave, where I was eventually chosen.” A small smile broke through the gloom. “One of the happiest days of my life.”

  “And what became of your father?”

  Her smile vanished.

  “I’m sorry. I’m intruding…”

  “No, it’s just… we haven’t spoken since I was sent off. I doubt he even knows what became of me. The only thing I have left from him is my interest in alchemical studies.”

  “Yet he wasn’t an alchemist himself?”

  “No.” She glanced to Tylar, her voice bitter. She pointed three fingers toward his face, toward his stripes. “He was a Shadowknight. Like you.”

  Tylar felt a sting from her words, old anger glancingly aimed at him. He fumbled for words. “What was his name?”

  Delia shook her head. “I won’t speak it.”

  “What of his family name then? The one he took from you.”

  She answered leadenly. “It was Fields.”

  What little blood that still coursed in Tylar’s veins drained to his feet. He fought to keep from yelling. “Not Argent ser Fields?”

  Delia’s gaze darted at him, eyes going hard. “You know him?”

  Tylar pictured the long bench in the Grand Court of Tashijan, the line of adjudicators, soothsayers, and representatives of the Council of Masters and Order of Shadowknights. In the center of them all reigned the overseer of the trial. Beyond this knight’s masklin, only a single eye glowed, the other covered in a patch of bone, earning him the nickname One Eye.

  Argent ser Fields.

  “How do you know him?” Delia asked again, almost a demand.

  Tylar could not face her. “Your father… he sent me into slavery.”

  THIRD

  LANDFALL

  Tashijan? founded in 129 (new ann.) by First Warden Kreier ser Plumas, the Citadel houses both the Order of the Shadowknights and the esteemed Council of Masters, uniting Myrillian might, justice, and wisdom to the service of high and low. It is said of Tashijan: “The Nine Lands are only as strong as the corner-stones of the Citadel. As Tashijan stands, so does Myrillia.”

  — Historicals, Treatise of Annise, ann. 3291

  12

  CROSSROADS

  “Castellan Vail!”

  The call drew Kathryn’s attention around. One hand still rested on the latch to her new rooms, chambers that once belonged to Mirra but were now hers. She turned to find a stick figure of a man striding down the hall toward her. He was dressed in the blue-and-white of the livery staff; as he neared, Kathryn recognized him as the personal manservant of Warden Fields. The fellow reminded Kathryn of the long-legged mantis bugs that frequented the fields around Tashijan: wide startled eyes, arms always moving, jerky motions of the head.

  He offered half a bow as he stopped beside her. “Excuse me, Castellan.”

  “What is it, Lowl?”

  “Warden Fields requests your immediate presence for a private counsel.”

  Kathryn glanced to her door. For the past several days, she had feared and dreaded this summons. Until now, the few occasions when castellan and warden had met were overseen by various knights and masters, when matters of rule and writ had to be decided, matters of succession and appointment delegated. They had yet to meet alone. But at each meeting, Argent had caught her eye, a glint in his own promising further discussions would follow. It was a look laced with menace, almost leering.

  And now the summons had finally come.

  She glanced down at herself. She was ill suited for such a visit, just back from an early-morning ride, sweat stained and smelling of horse and saddle. “I will see to the warden as soon as I’ve adjusted myself properly.”

  Her hand pulled the latch to her door. She would need a few moments to steel herself for the coming meeting with the leader of the Fiery Cross, the man said to have had a hand in the murder of Ser Henri and perhaps Mistress Mirra. The former castellan still remained missing, despite days of searching. Trackers with black ilk-beasts sniffed throughout the Citadel.

  “Mistress… Castellan, I must insist you come with me now. I’ve been searching for you since the full ring of the Sunrise Bells.”

  “Then a few moments more will make no matter, will it not?”

  A heavy sigh escaped Lowl. She had not thought such a weighty sound could come from such a thin man. “The news is most urgent.” He glanced up and down the hall, a mantis searching for prey. He leaned closer. Kathryn backed up a step. “It concerns the godslayer.”

  Kathryn’s hand fell away from the door latch.

  Lowl nodded. “Warden Fields knew you would want to hear the tidings from his own mouth.”

  Her heart thudded in her throat, threatening to choke her. If there was fresh word, then Tylar must have been spotted, found, rooted out. And if that were true, he was surely slain. A mighty bounty had been placed upon his head, with or without his body attached; word had been sent by a flock of ravens to all the cities of the Nine Lands, even out into the few semi-tamed areas of the hinterlands.

  “What has happened?”

  Lowl shook his head. “I’ve perhaps said too much already, but I needed you to understand the urgency and follow me at once.” He turned on a toe and continued back down the hall.

  Kathryn was drawn after him. How could she not be?

  Lowl led her to the double doors that opened into the Warden’s Eyrie, formerly the abode of good Ser Henri, now the lair of his likely murderer. The manservant tapped the silver knocker on the door. The sound reverberated off Kathryn’s ribs.

  The door opened before the echo faded, opened by the hand
of the new warden of Tashijan, Argent ser Fields.

  Lowl bowed deeply. “Warden, I present Castellan Vail, as you requested.” He sidled back, making room for Kathryn.

  Argent filled the doorway, dressed informally: black boots, trousers, gray shirt with silver buttons. His auburn hair had been pulled away from the hard planes of his face and tied up with a spiraling loop of gray leather that matched his shirt. One dark green eye studied her, the other was a blank plate of bone. It was hard to say which was warmer.

  Kathryn stepped forward, hands behind her back. “Ser Fields, you summoned me?”

  A tired sound met her words-not so much a sigh as an exhalation. “Here in the Eyrie, Argent will suffice. We can forgo the formalities.” He moved aside. “Please come in.”

  She passed through the doors, unsure what to expect. She held her breath, eyes alert. She still wore her cloak and sword from her ride-no knight left Tashijan uncovered. She had to restrain herself from pulling up her hood and hooking her masklin in place, an instinctive reaction to threats.

  The main chamber was vast with its own terraced balcony overlooking the inner gardens. The view of the giant wyrmwood tree matched her own in the neighboring castellan’s hermitage. The door to the balcony lay open to the morning sunshine, allowing a freshening breeze into the room. The appointments to the chamber were simple yet elegant: tapestries that dated to the founding of Tashijan, goose-down settees and chairs, a tall hearth still aglow from the prior night’s fire. Thick rugs warmed the bare stone, though one had been rolled back in a corner section of the room. There, a stand of swords and staffs stood racked. Plainly it was a small practice space for Argent to keep his skills honed.

  Nowhere about the room was there a trace of menace or ill purpose.

  Lowl closed the door and crossed to a small table and chair. A bowl of sliced yellow sweetapples and bunched grapes sat beside a copper tray of cheeses and a loaf of bread. The manservant poured two mugs of steaming bitternut from a silver flagon.