The Shadow Watch

by S. A. Klopfenstein

  The Mynah servant boy helped Salla to his feet. The High Priest was shaken for a moment, but he managed to recover quickly. He strode over Mynah’s body to Salla. He raised the prince’s hand in the air.

  “There can be no denying what the will of the Sol must be. I present to you the Chosen of Arayeva, your Great Soltayne, Salla Burodai.”

  28

  What followed was largely a blur for Kale. Guards rushed into the temple. Ilya, masked as members of the City Watch, swarmed around the newly crowned Great Soltayne. Salla instructed his followers to bring the Mynah servant boy and his female companion with them.

  Kale found himself being ferried along with the Ilya leading Salla Burodai from the Red Temple. Great doors opened to a long hall—the throne room of the Red Palace. The Ilya formed ranks at the door, leaving Kale and Ashi, the Mynah servant boy, the Southern Islander, the High Priest, and Salla alone in the royal hall.

  Salla grinned, gazing up at the Golden Saddle, the throne of the Great Soltayne. He turned upon the High Priest, his hand flying to the holy man’s throat.

  The priest spluttered a plea, and Salla released him with a shove. “Surprised, are you, Jondif?” said Salla.

  “My chief, I implore you—”

  “Spare me your groveling. We both know you had your hands in Mynah’s pockets long before the Choosing. You’ve been stabbing my family in the back for a decade. But I wanted you to see how I managed to thwart your schemes. Boy, step forward.”

  Salla addressed the Mynah servant boy who had saved his life. The boy bowed his head respectfully.

  “Not even my Cerebro foresaw that sacrificial blade, my friend. The Sol has blessed me with your skill.”

  “Thank you, milord,” said the boy.

  Salla turned to the priest. “Meet Darien,” said Salla. “The one who thwarted Mynah’s attempt at my life.”

  “I swear to you, my chief,” the priest pleaded. “I tried to wrest the blade from Mynah. I would never defy Arayeva’s Choosing. The boy was right to kill him!”

  Salla smiled, regarding the priest coolly. He turned to Kale. “You will remember him as the guard who brought Kirra to you last night.”

  Kale had paid the boy little attention then, but now he realized he should have recognized the inconsistency. The boy was not Yan Avii. He had brown skin and brown eyes, but his dark hair was too straight for a boy of the Steppe. This boy came from the mountain tribes of Klavash. But even more disturbing was the sense of familiarity that came over Kale as Salla took the boy’s hand. He had seen this Morph in Tori’s dreams in the Haunted Forest of Ghen. He was the Gallows Boy.

  Salla turned to the Southern Islander. “Meet Valeria,” Salla said to Jondif. “The boy’s comrade, and the woman you saw as Kirra yesterday,” he said, turning to Kale.

  The High Priest regarded the Morphs, not with shock, but with anger and disgust. His eyes fell upon Kale like a pair of searing suns.

  “Meet Kale,” Salla said. “My Cerebro, who detected Mynah’s full scheme and concocted the idea of letting your precious chieftain drink his own poison. Your service will be repaid as promised, I assure you, old friend.”

  “You are a disgrace, Salla,” said the High Priest, finally. “How dare you defile these halls with Sky Blood filth?”

  Salla’s loftiness fell away briefly, revealing a vicious hatred toward the priest. Then he smiled. The hate, which lingered in Kale’s senses, seemed to drip from Salla’s words. “Oh, I am not done defiling!” Salla took hold of the holy man’s shoulder, roughly, and turned him toward the empty Golden Saddle. “Now, Jondif, let me introduce you to the final piece of your undoing. The one who switched your stones for the final lot. The one who made all of this possible.” He gestured toward the Golden Saddle.

  Kale’s heart raced, his eyes following Salla’s gaze up the high steps to the throne. Kirra was here in the palace. Right here.

  “What exactly should I be seeing?” said Jondif, his timidity apparently having left him with the revelation of the Morphs.

  Salla chuckled. “Reveal yourself, old friend.”

  The invisible person upon the Golden Saddle unmasked and descended the steps from the throne.

  It was not Kirra.

  It was a man with pale skin and glacier-blue eyes, clothed in fine Oshan robes, who walked with the most assured and commanding stride Kale had ever seen. His lips spread in a wide smile.

  “Meet Cyrus Maro, the sixteenth Chancellor of Osha, and my closest ally.” Salla and the chancellor clasped shoulders in a warm greeting.

  The High Priest lit with rage. “You traitorous bastard, Buro—”

  Jondif’s protests were stopped short by Kale’s fist. The priest collapsed in a heap, unconscious, blood trickling between his teeth.

  “Enough!” said Kale. He strode straight at Salla, who backed away timidly, with a glance at the chancellor. But the chancellor stood back, an amused expression teasing his lips. Before the Ilya could descend upon him, Kale had a blade at Salla’s throat.

  “Stand down,” Salla cried, and the Ilya lowered their weapons. “It’s no hard feelings to your brother,” he said to Kale, “but I must pick wars my people can win.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your alliance,” said Kale. “Where is Kirra?”

  “Come now, old friend. Lower your—”

  Kale pressed the blade hard on Salla’s neck, drawing a line of blood. “You bastard! You never had her!” His hands were shaking.

  “Don’t be absurd, Kale.” It was the chancellor. Cyrus Maro spoke with a smooth, steady voice that seemed to fill the room with a wisp of calm.

  Kale’s grip slackened. “W-what are you talking about?”

  “Kale Andovier. The Exiled Lord. Yes, I remember you. Got your own mother killed, and then you fled Osha to save your own skin. And now you’ve joined up with your traitorous brother and his little Shadow Watch. Don’t tell me that after your time with the Gallows Girl, you don’t know how I derive my powers. I used Lumeni power to switch the Choosing stones, just as Kirra would have done. I could only have attained that ability through the blood of a Lumeni.”

  The room was suddenly filled with a chill that shook Kale with shivers. A swirl of mist had formed around the Golden Saddle. Kale’s grip fell away from Salla’s neck. From the mist, as though stepping from behind a waterfall, two figures appeared. The first was a strange-looking woman with ghostly skin dressed in dark silks.

  The second figure was thin and haggard, but there was no denying who it was. As soon as he saw her, Kale felt the presence of the mind he had so longed to sense again.

  Kirra.

  Kale forgot about his hatred for Salla entirely. He rushed to Kirra as the mists swirled and evaporated away. Kirra’s face was drawn, and her eyes were dark and seemed to sink into her skull, as though she had not slept in weeks. Kale wrapped her in his arms. Her body went limp. Kirra slumped to the ground, and Kale went with her to cushion her fall. Leaning against the Golden Saddle, he held her, tears blurring his vision. But he had her back, finally. Kirra was here. She was alive.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kale sobbed, stroking matted hair from Kirra’s face. Her eyes were closed, but she was shaking her head back and forth, muttering unintelligibly.

  “Shh, shh,” Kale murmured. “It’s all right. Everything will be all right.”

  The strange pale woman, who had brought Kirra through the mists, descended the steps. “Welcome to the festivities, Medea,” said the chancellor.

  Medea gazed about the room as though there was much more to see than the sandstone walls, as though she was looking beyond them. “Your stones, my lord,” she said at last. Medea’s voice was airy. She held out a pair of green gemstones to the chancellor.

  The godstones!

  The chancellor had found them. That was how Salla had known about them, how he had enticed Kirra, how she had disappeared so completely from his sense, and how she had now appeared from nowhere. The legends were true. His mother had been right all a
long. And this knowledge filled Kale with sick dread.

  Kirra’s grip went suddenly tight on Kale’s arm and her eyes went wide. “You shouldn’t have come!” Her voice was but a fragile whisper. “You have to go! Now, Kale!”

  Kale held her tight. Gods, what have they done to you?

  He delved into Kirra’s mind, and she did not resist him. Kale saw the chancellor harvesting her blood through long tubes of something like intestines. But there was more. The woman, Medea—Kirra bore incredible fear of her. Kale kept sensing an image of the woman’s bony hands clasping around Kirra’s forehead, and then a rush of memories. She had been tortured, as the woman probed her mind for something Kale could not place.

  “I am not going anywhere without you,” Kale whispered.

  Kirra’s eyes closed again, but her head kept wagging back and forth.

  “What have you done to her?”

  “She will be fine,” said Salla. “Her body is weak from the bloodletting. A few days with one of your healers, and she’ll be better than ever. I am a man of my word, old friend. I am sorry for the theatrics, and I am sorry she is weak, but I couldn’t very well have you communicating with her through your mind, could I? So, the chancellor had Medea take her someplace far away, until all the madness was over.”

  “Where did she come from?” said Kale, pointing at Medea.

  “From the Old World, of course.” The chancellor smiled, stepping to Medea’s side. “Medea has merely confirmed what you already believed to be possible. That the godstones might lead anywhere.” He laughed. “You are not the only one who wishes they could change the past. My ancestors were fools to exterminate magic. But we can change all that. Even… bring back the dead.”

  Kale held on to Kirra, who was muttering incomprehensibly again.

  Could it be possible? Death was permanent. Of course it was. There was no coming back from that! Was there?

  “That is why you sought the stones, Kale, is it not?” said the chancellor. “Yes, you told your brother it was a weapon. The key to your revolution, I don’t doubt. But you longed to undo the past. To bring poor Lady Andovier back.” Kale did not respond. His grip tensed around Kirra’s fragile form. “You and I both know that your brother is no king. You have doubted his little resistance from the start. Your brother is a charismatic fool, and he will lead all those Watchers to their deaths. Which would be a shameful waste of magic. And that is why I am prepared to spare them, Kale. If you lead me to the Watchtower.”

  Kirra stirred in Kale’s arms. Her grip went tight on his wrist, and her eyes opened wide. “No, Kale. You have to... fight!” Her eyes closed. She coughed violently, a trace of blood trickling from her lips, and her body went limp once more.

  “You can see where resistance got Kirra,” said the chancellor.

  Kale shook with anger, but he knew he could not resist. He lowered Kirra to the floor of the throne room and stood to face the chancellor. He descended the steps from the throne. He glanced at the Morph named Valeria, but the girl who had wanted to prevent this alliance, who had wanted him to kill Salla, now would not meet his gaze. She stared forward, the boy, Darien, at her side. The Gallows Boy. This was where resistance had gotten him.

  Ashi stood beside Salla. She looked up and watched him. Had she known all along that the chancellor would not break his alliance? About what he was doing to Kirra?

  Everything had been part of the game. All so he would give up the location of the Shadow Watch. Ashi looked down at her feet. He had been a fool in their hands. And they had all been fools in the hands of the chancellor. There was nothing he could do.

  But then, Kirra’s mind reached out to him.

  And he saw the Isle of Jallaa, the commune of newly discovered Watchers. He saw the garden where they’d spent their first night together—the night of the slaughter. In his memories, the garden had always felt dark and cold, tinged with guilt and blood. But when he saw it through Kirra’s mind, the garden glowed like something from a dream. It had felt like the very best of dreams that night. It wasn’t a mistake, he felt her say. That night was the last light before the darkness. We couldn’t stop it then. But we can now.

  Kale turned back to her and saw her lips form the silent words: I love you, Kale. Now, run!

  And then Kirra was on her feet. She’d not been as weak as she had let herself seem. Her body flickered and disappeared.

  The room fell into chaos as the chancellor bellowed for his Morphs to find her, as Medea shrieked, as Salla stumbled back and fell to the floor. And in the chaos, Kale took to the air. He soared over them all, landing at the ledge of a high window above the throne, ready to fly to freedom, when he heard Kirra cry out in pain.

  Darien had not been so easily fooled. Kirra knelt, now visible, beside the chancellor, the godstones in her hand.

  Gods, why did she go back?

  Darien had a vicelike grip on Kirra’s wrist, and Valeria rushed forward and took hold of the other. The chancellor took the stones and struck Kirra across the cheek, launching her head back. Blood poured from her emaciated face.

  “Please, no!” cried Kale.

  “Kale, run! Warn the—” The chancellor punched Kirra again.

  Kale leapt to the floor of the throne room. “Please, I will do what you want! Just spare her! Please!”

  “Kale, n-no,” Kirra said, through sobs.

  “I’ve had enough of these games!” roared the chancellor. “Release her!”

  Darien and Valeria obeyed, and Kirra slumped to her knees. A burst of energy emerged from the chancellor’s fingertips like a bolt of lightning, a light greater than anything Kirra could ever have manipulated with her Lumeni power. The bolt struck Kirra’s face and launched her back. She writhed on the floor in pain. When the next bolt came, she shrieked like an Old World heathen set aflame. Her body seized violently and then went still.

  The chancellor let up, and Kale was at her side in an instant. Her face was raw with burns. He felt at her neck. She was unconscious, but alive. Thank the gods, she was alive.

  Kale did not resist when the two Morphs took hold of his arms. Nor when he felt Medea’s long, needlelike fingers clasp around his head.

  “Medea is a Cerebro far more powerful than you, Kale. She is going to enter your mind. And you are going to reveal the exact location of your brother’s stronghold, or by the gods, I will wait until Kirra wakes, and then I will torture her again, and again, and again. Until she dies, slow and in agony, before your very eyes. And I will let you live so that you remember the look in her dying eyes until the day it drives you mad, knowing you could have saved her.”

  There was no hesitation in Kale’s mind as he knelt with Kirra lying prostrate before him, the look of agony still etched on her face. She was alive yet, and he had to save her.

  “I will hold nothing back,” said Kale feebly.

  He felt Medea’s mind enter his own, like water through a hole in the side of a dam. Slowly, the water seeped in, and the hole expanded, and the dam broke. Medea’s mind filled his own, and he let her see everything. All his walls were destroyed in the deluge.

  When she was finished, Kale’s mind was an empty vessel. When she released him, his body slumped to the ground in a heap beside Kirra’s.

  The last thing Kale heard before he lost consciousness was the chancellor’s delighted voice. “Now the Watchtower will fall.”

  Part XI

  Night Of Gods & Monsters

  In the Old World, the Rulaqs ruled the White North. The proud race of monsters was matched by no creature nor god, and few dared venture into their harsh domain. The Rulaqs’ return to their kingdom could mean nothing but death to those caught in their wake.

  —from New Histories of the Old World

  29

  The creature’s shriek split the night as the Rulaq lifted its two enormous heads to the sky, its fangs glinting in the glow of the Sisters. Its twin necks were the size of trees, supported by an immense body of muscle and thick white fur, and its paws w
ere as large as Tori’s entire body. Wicked claws the size of daggers extended from each paw.

  The beast was more terrifying than any tale Tori’s mum had ever told, for the tales had been but ancient myths. No one alive had ever seen a Rulaq. The creatures had endured only in terrible memory, passed on from generation to generation since the end of the last age of the world. But this was no myth. This creature was very, very real.

  The Rulaq crushed a felled tree beneath its weight, with a crack like thunder, and lumbered into the clearing.

  “RUN!” Tori screamed. She grabbed Fallon’s arm and jerked him after her. This was her punishment for acting like a prissy noble girl back in the tavern. Now she had to make sure this poor Ytalan boy didn’t die, along with dealing with a savage monster from the Old World. Tori and Fallon darted across the clearing, the ground shaking as the beast pursued them.

  “Come on!” cried Mischa, whose face had gone as pale as the midnight snow that had begun to fill the sky. Ren stood beside her, at the edge of the clearing, but his face was calm and set, his eyes focused on the creature.

  Suddenly, the rumbling of the earth ceased.

  “TORI! DUCK!” cried Mischa.

  Tori threw herself and Fallon to the ground. A cold wind rushed over them, and then, without warning, it stopped. Tori looked up. The creature was frozen in the air.

  Ren had summoned a power stronger than Tori had ever seen, holding the creature in mid-attack with his Conjuri power. Mischa took hold of Fallon’s other arm, jerking him to his feet. Ren’s face scrunched with sheer willpower as he strained to hold the beast.

  “Take your time, please,” he grunted. Tori and Mischa dragged the Ytalan boy to the edge of the clearing. With a surge of magic, Ren launched the Rulaq away, and it slammed into two trees, knocking them over like they were kindling.