Shadows Return

by Lynn Flewelling

  The tub wasn’t large enough to stretch out in. Huddled there with his knees under his chin, he dipped the washcloth and scrubbed weakly at his face and chest, then squeezed it over his greasy, tangled hair, longing for a sliver of soap. A little lantern on a hook by the door cast a warm glow over the room. Alec was glad of that; he couldn’t have stood being locked away in the dark.

  It was no use. He didn’t have the strength to do any more. Leaning back against the side of the tub, he tucked his chin to get a look at the wound on his chest.

  It was tiny, and seemed to be healing well. The skin around it wasn’t even bruised. He wondered if the golden tap had gone all the way to his heart, and if Yhakobin’s strange purifications had aided the healing.

  He turned and scrutinized the door. This one had a keyhole! Alec’s lips stretched in a thin, slightly crooked grin as he looked around again at the host of new possibilities the sparse little room offered to a trained eye.

  His gaolers were getting careless.

  Khenir returned with a tray, towels, and a large book under one arm. He set them on the bed and locked the door from the inside, then knelt by the tub.

  “Is that more meat?” Alec asked hopefully.

  “Yes. Do you need some help?” Khenir asked, noting the abandoned washcloth.

  Alec colored and glanced away. “Yes. What did he do to me? I can hardly move!”

  “He bled you. We gave you what nourishment we could but he kept you asleep, to make it easier on you.”

  Alec grimaced. “How thoughtful. So, do you know what that creature is, or what it’s for? I thought he said he was going to make some kind of medicine, not a monster!”

  “I’m a slave, just like you. Ilban does not confide in me.” He scrubbed gently at Alec’s back. “But he did agree to let me care for you here.”

  “You asked him?”

  “Yes. And look!” Khenir rose and went to the tray, lifting a bowl for Alec to see. “Boiled chicken and turnips! And he’s sent you a new book to pass the time.”

  “He must be very pleased with me.” Alec’s mouth was already watering again, in spite of the broth still warming his belly.

  Khenir finished with Alec’s bath and helped him into a clean robe. When Alec was settled in bed with his back to the headboard, Khenir lifted the tray onto his lap.

  Alec let out a small moan. Besides the chicken dish, there was warm bread, a wedge of blue-mottled cheese, and a mug of cider, too. But he didn’t dare eat any of it. “What if it’s drugged again?”

  “I’m sure it’s not,” Khenir assured him. “I watched the cook myself as he prepared it. As Ilban said, he doesn’t need you at the moment.”

  “But when he does?” Alec cocked an eyebrow at the other man. “Will you tell me when the drugs go in again?”

  “I swear to you, I didn’t know!”

  Alec shrugged, then grabbed up the horn spoon and dug in. Food had never tasted so good.

  As he mopped the last precious drops of gravy from the bowl with the bread, he said without looking up, “You have the key to this room.”

  “Yes.”

  Alec let the pause that followed ripen.

  Khenir’s eyes filled with fear. “By the Light, Alec, don’t ask that of me!”

  “But I can get away, if I get the chance. I could help you, too.”

  Just then they heard the sound of footsteps crossing the workshop overhead, then the low murmur of a deep voice.

  “Keep your voice down! He’ll hear you,” Khenir whispered, trembling now. “I’ve survived this long with both my feet, Alec. I mean to keep them. There are slave takers out there, just waiting for fools like you. Not to mention the common, everyday folk who’d grab you in a heartbeat, for the bounty. I told you before; you won’t get half a mile with that face of yours, and that yellow hair. And even if you did, all you’d have to do is open your mouth and they’d know what you are. No, don’t think of it. You’re too weak to get out of bed, much less out of the house.”

  “So you’ve just given up?” Alec hissed back. “I can’t! There’s someone…” He caught himself and held his tongue. “You have the key in your pocket, right? I can make it look like I attacked you, overpowered you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” Khenir replied miserably, unable to meet his eye. “I’m sorry. So sorry. Go to sleep.” He hurried from the room, locking the door securely behind him.

  “At least you left me the lamp,” Alec muttered. With light, he could make a thorough search, take the bed apart if he had to, to find something to work the lock. He tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness overtook him, and he fell back against the pillow. Yhakobin’s foul blood magic had left him too weak to move.

  His eye fell on the tray Khenir had left behind. The horn spoon still lay in the empty soup bowl! He grabbed it and tested its strength between his hands. It was thick and sturdy.

  Had it been an oversight, or was this Khenir’s way of helping him? It didn’t really matter to him. Alec found a loose seam in the side of the mattress and slipped the spoon inside. A little sleep and I’ll be fine, he thought, eyelids already slipping down.

  He slept deeply and dreamed that the door swung open and Seregil was outside, grinning that crooked grin of his and gesturing for Alec to hurry. He started awake, expecting the door to be open, and felt crushed when it wasn’t. He had no idea what hour it was, but the tray was gone. His throat and mouth burned with thirst, and he was glad to find a fresh pitcher of water beside the bed. He took small sips until his belly was steady enough, then drank half of what was left in long, thirsty gulps.

  Feeling a bit better, he climbed stiffly out of bed and began a search, looking for anything that might help him get out of this wretched room. The bed was solidly pegged and the bed ropes were too thick to get free without a knife. He gave the frame a frustrated yank, then stopped, heart missing a beat.

  The spoon. Did I dream that, too? He hurriedly felt along the side of the mattress, looking for the loose seam, and found it. With a shaky sigh of relief, he felt the spoon’s hard outline through the coarse ticking.

  “Thank the Light!” he whispered, leaving it there for now.

  Other than that, he had a covered toilet bucket and the water pitcher.

  Further searching only left him frustrated. He used the bucket, and then settled on the bed with the spoon, trying to break it lengthways into usable splinters.

  He was still at it when the sound of a key in the lock startled him badly. He hadn’t heard anyone coming. He managed to stuff it back into the mattress and pull a quilt down over the rent just as the door opened. He threw himself back against the pillow and tried hard to look as if he’d just woken up.

  Khenir came in, carrying a covered tray. “Ah, you’re awake at last.”

  “It’s morning?” Alec asked.

  “You missed morning by a long shot and the sun’s down again. You slept the day away, my friend. I tried to wake you earlier, but you were too deeply asleep. I have supper for you, if you’re ready.”

  Alec’s belly let out a very loud grumble as he caught the scent. A thick slice of brown bread was covered in melted cheese, sharp and tangy. And there were two apples, and a mug of tea slaked with cream.

  He fell on the food like a starving dog again, too hungry to be embarrassed. Khenir sat on the end of the bed and smiled, watching him. “I can bring you more. Ilban said you’re to have all you want. But you must drink all the water in the pitcher first, then more. You gave him quite a lot of your blood.”

  “Gave? What will he do with me, now that he’s got his—what is it called?”

  “A rhekaro. And I’m sure I don’t know. But he’s been locked in his shop with it since the unearthing and hasn’t eaten or slept. Whatever it is, he seems enchanted by it, even if it doesn’t have wings.”

  “Wings? Oh yes, he said that, didn’t he?” Alec rubbed at his eyes. “It all seems like something I dreamed.”

  “It’s real, Alec. Here, gi
ve me the tray and I’ll fetch you some more food.”

  “No, I’m full for now.” Alec lay back and threw an arm over his eyes. He wondered if he should thank Khenir for leaving the spoon. But what if it had only been an oversight? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “If he’s got what he wanted from me, do you think he’ll sell me to someone else?” The thought had haunted him since he’d woken up.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re far too rare. That’s good, though, really. You’re lucky your first master is a kind one. Be satisfied with that.”

  Never, thought Alec, but he didn’t feel like arguing with Khenir right now.

  They talked a little, then Khenir wished him good night, giving him a quick kiss on the brow. Before Alec could react, he was out the door.

  Shaking his head, Alec levered himself out of bed again. He was still unsteady, but too rested to sleep anymore. After a few turns around the room, he settled down to read the book while the lantern burned, and shut his eyes when it finally failed.

  He did sleep then, and dreamed of Seregil again, coming to save him.

  “You always find me,” he said, throwing himself into his lover’s arms.

  “Not always, talí. And when I don’t, you take care of yourself,” Seregil whispered in his ear.

  Suddenly a scream ripped the air around them. Seregil was gone, and in his place stood Alec’s father, maimed and bloody as he’d been the day Asengai’s torturer finished him off.

  “Father!” Alec cried out, fifteen again.

  Another cry woke him and brought him bolt upright in the bed. It was coming from the workshop overhead. Terrified and disoriented, Alec shuddered uncontrollably as the cry came again, a high-pitched, ragged screech, like the sound of a wounded rabbit. But it was no coney Yhakobin was tormenting up there; it was the pale creature.

  He lay back against the pillow, heart hammering under his aching wound. It’s not a person. It’s a monster. An abomination. It doesn’t matter.

  As the cries grew louder and more frantic, he pressed the pillow over his ears and curled into a ball, trying to stop the rising rush of horror and pity the sounds wrung from his heart.

  Unnatural the thing might be, but hearing anything suffer like that was unbearable! And what monster made sounds like that?

  The cries subsided gradually to childish sobbing, overlaid by Yhakobin’s low, dispassionate voice.

  Is it over? Please Dalna, let it be over!

  Another scream dragged Alec from the bed. He stumbled to the door and beat on it with his fists. “Stop hurting it, you bastard! Leave it alone.”

  Mercifully, the cries did stop. Alec slid slowly down the locked door and came to rest with his head on his knees, unable to stop shaking. He sat there on the cold stone floor, feeling more miserable and impotent than ever.

  Since I listened to my father dying…

  “No,” he whispered miserably. “It’s not human. It’s not even real—”

  But the whisper of the oracle stole into his mind again. A child of no woman…

  He pressed his fists to his temples, shaking his head. “No! No, no, no!”

  All went silent upstairs, but he stayed where he was, straining his ears for any sound. Presently he heard footsteps approaching and a key thrust into the lock. He crawled away as the door swung open. It was Ahmol.

  “Ilban say come.”

  Alec went cold all over, but he was too weak to fight as the man lifted him effortlessly and climbed the stairs to the workroom.

  The pale creature lay on the slate table, its slight body bound down with wide leather straps. The alchemist was washing his hands in a basin at the end of the table, still clad in his leather apron. The duke was there, too, looking rather ill. Two warders stood guard at the door.

  “Ah, Alec. I need you. I’ve had some unexpected complications with this one.”

  Alec approached slowly, apprehension growing with every step. He’d reached the edge of the table before he could make himself look down at the creature. When he did, all his worst fears were realized.

  At some point, Yhakobin had washed the filth from it. Its pale skin was a dull, dust grey. The matted white hair had been cleaned and raggedly shorn. What was left wasn’t white, after all, but the palest silver, like moonlight on sea mist.

  But Alec only noticed those details in passing, focusing instead on the atrocities that had been practiced on that little body. Where the left eye had been there was only a slanted, empty socket, weeping yellow fluid. Three fingers were gone from the left hand, and strips of skin had been flayed from its arms, legs, and chest. There was no blood, just torn white flesh, like that of a fish, and a little white fluid. Alec’s stomach turned over as he noted the neat row of covered jars arrayed on a small table beside the alchemist.

  “Why are you doing this?” he whispered, unable to look away from the ravaged little body. And it was gazing back at him with its single remaining eye. Alec thought he saw a sort of hopeless beseeching there, though otherwise the rest of the face was a masklike as before. But that eye! It was so much like that of a real child’s that it broke his heart.

  “How can you do this?” Alec demanded, glaring up at Yhakobin now. “Why did you make it, just to kill it?”

  Yhakobin shook his head as he wiped his hands on a cloth. “I must admit, I did not expect it to have a voice. The writings indicated quite the opposite. I can only assume that your purification was not as successful as I’d thought.”

  “This—” Alec swallowed hard. “This is my fault? I’m not the one cutting it to pieces!”

  “The rhekaro is not a pet, or a plaything, Alec,” Yhakobin remonstrated gently, as if speaking to a stupid child. “They are created to be used.”

  “You cut off its fingers. And its eye!”

  “And I may accomplish great healings with them, and strong spells. Or I might have, if it was better made. I won’t know until I test them. But for now, I must ask you to give it another few drops of your blood.”

  Alec stepped back, but Ahmol was there, keeping him in place and reaching for his wrist.

  “You’re so concerned with its pain. Are you saying that you begrudge it a healing? I must know if that much is true. Give me your hand.”

  “A healing?” Alec clung to the only thing he’d understood so far and let Yhakobin prick his finger. As before, the alchemist guided the hand to the rhekaro’s lips, and this time Alec did not resist as they closed around his fingertip.

  It suckled harder this time, and Alec felt a strange twinge run up his arm. He’d have pulled away instinctively, but for the change that happened almost instantaneously.

  The raw wounds on its limbs closed as he watched, leaving only the thinnest of scars. Where the three fingers had been severed, tiny white buds were already taking form, growing back like a lizard’s severed tail.

  The grey skin took on its former pale glow and, strangest of all, the fine hair also seemed to be growing; within a few minutes, it lay like a silvery white cloud around the thing’s head.

  The duke, whom Alec had quite forgotten about, suddenly appeared at his elbow, saying something to Yhakobin in hushed, awed tones.

  “It is not human, for all that it may appear so,” Yhakobin warned, studying Alec’s face carefully. “It would be a great mistake for you to think otherwise.”

  “It screamed when you hurt it.”

  “Metals ring under the smith’s hammer. It’s nothing more than that.” He pulled Alec’s hand away.

  Two blue eyes fluttered open as the rhekaro tried to follow the finger with questing lips. The hair was down to its shoulders now. Alec couldn’t resist testing the feel of it between his fingers. It was silky soft, like Gherin’s.

  “If you’re done with it, it can stay with me,” he offered, remembering this time to add, “Ilban.”

  The alchemist raised an eyebrow at him, then chuckled softly. “Good night, Alec.” He gave an order to his men and they escorted Alec back to his new cell. The smell of the cel
lar wafted up from below, damp earth, old blood, and the sweet stink of the “birth.” It was almost a relief when they slammed the door and shut out the stench of it.

  Alec curled up on the bed and stared at his pricked fingertip. His blood had helped create that thing, and now it healed it. How was that possible?

  Not just his blood, but Hâzadriëlfaie blood. That must be why they’d left Aurënen and disappeared into the north, all those centuries ago. They must have known what could be done with their blood, and they fled, far out of reach of Zengat and Plenimar. But what was the rhekaro used for, that the Hazâd would go to such lengths to keep such things from being made? And was it really going to be used to make medicine for the Overlord’s child? And how? Would they cook it or boil it or drain its blood?

  Oh Illior, why didn’t you warn me? What’s the use of an oracle, if not to keep something like this from happening?

  There’d been no warning, though. He’d gone over the rhui’auros’s words endlessly, trying to glean their meaning, but he couldn’t see any way they’d hinted at such a horror.

  Pondering this, he dozed off again, only to be roused by more sounds of pain from the workshop.

  He pulled the pillow around his ears, trying to shut out the pitiful cries. When that proved impossible, he frantically pulled the horn spoon from its hiding place and staggered over to the door to inspect the lock.

  Seregil had taught him many things over the years, and among the first of those lessons had been lock-craft. With his tool roll in hand, he could open just about anything, but Seregil had also taught him to make do with what he had, and for just such situations as this.

  The lock hole was small. He put his eye to it first, but the light was wrong to make out the workings, and he couldn’t get even the tip of his little finger inside to feel around. He went back to the bed and turned the horn spoon over in his hands, noting how the grain ran lengthwise down the handle. If he could snap it just so, it might yield the beginnings of a usable pick.

  Upstairs the cries started again, weaker this time.

  Don’t listen. I can’t do anything, not unless I can make this work. Just use what I have.