The Truth of Shadows

by Jacob Peppers

  “An army,” Rion said flatly. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?” He stood, making a show of reaching into the pockets of his tunic and trousers.

  Alesh sighed, glancing at Katherine who shook her head, rolling her eyes at the man’s antics. The sarcasm was apparently lost on Darl though, for he frowned. “What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help.”

  Rion glanced up at the Ferinan, raising an eyebrow. “An army. I’m sure I had one here somewhere.”

  Darl’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he studied the man, going over his words as if they were a puzzle he was trying to solve. Then, finally, he bellowed a loud laugh, grinning. “Ah. You joke.”

  “Maybe,” Rion said sourly, sitting back down on the log, “but it’d be a whole lot funnier if the punch line wasn’t us all winding up murdered.”

  The Ferinan sobered at that, turning to Alesh. “This army you speak of, Dawn Chosen. How many men do you need?”

  He watched him intently, as if Alesh had spent the better part of his life leading troops on some distant battlefield instead of scrubbing pots and pans and getting chased by a head cook and her spoon. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem likely we’ll find enough to meet Kale and Tesharna head-on and, besides, I don’t want to do that. I’m sure a lot of the troops that follow them have also turned to the Dark but…” He hesitated, his thoughts drifting to Captain Farren, the man who had picked him up when he’d fallen in the street, the man who had stood up to Par when he meant to kill Sonya and the others. The same man who Par had killed before Alesh’s eyes, and according to what the leader of the Redeemers had said, it had been done on Tesharna’s orders.

  Alesh felt his mouth twist into a snarl. If it were within my power, Par, I would reach into the Keeper’s hands and pull you away, bring you back just to make you suffer. Yours was a fate met far too quickly.

  “…You were saying?”

  Alesh glanced up to see the woman watching him, a look of concern on her features matched by the others. He cleared his throat again, rubbing idly at the scar on his shoulder. “Sorry…I was just saying that some of those troops who follow the Chosen are innocent. To answer your question,” he went on, turning back to Darl, “fifty? A few hundred? I…I’m just not sure. I know little of such things, but I know that three men, a woman, and a child don’t stand any chance considering what’s poised against us.”

  “Might as well ask for wings,” Rion muttered. “Good luck finding a hundred fools who—”

  “Enough,” Katherine hissed, and the man cut off in surprise. “You do not want to be here—we get it,” she went on. “None of us do. Yet, here we are. Instead of complaining, why don’t you try helping us come up with a solution?”

  “Solution?” the man said, looking at her incredulously. “Oh, lady, there’s a solution, alright, and only one so far as I can see. But I don’t think you’re going to like it. I’ll say this—it’d be wise to start picking out where you want to be buried. And as for ‘complaining,’ I haven’t even started yet.”

  “Oh?” Alesh said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, let us know when you do—I’d hate to miss it.”

  Rion blinked at that, and Darl laughed again, a great, bellowing laugh that showed no fear of the darkness or any army. Katherine’s scowl faltered then fell apart altogether, and she began to laugh too. Even Rion gave a small grin, shaking his head. “You’re all insane.”

  Alesh felt his own smile slip at that, and he nodded slowly. “Maybe…” he said, remembering the way he’d cut the Redeemers down in Ilrika, when they’d been beating on the priest. A priest who, as it turned out, had been Amedan, the God of Fire and Light, but Alesh had not known that then, and saving the priest had had nothing to do with his reasons for killing them anyway. “Maybe,” he said again. “Either way, our problems haven’t changed.”

  “Son of the Morning, if I may,” Darl said, bowing his head. “I think I may have just the solution to what you’re looking for, and mine, at least…” He paused, glancing at Rion before continuing. “Well, it does not require a shovel.”

  “I’m listening,” Alesh said.

  “My people are and have always been dedicated to the Light. From a young age, we are trained of the dangers the darkness presents, trained to protect ourselves against it, to run, to hide and, yes, to fight, when need be. We are not many, only a few hundred, but if I am understanding you correctly that is exactly what you want.”

  “Wait a damned minute,” Rion said, leaning forward. “Are you saying that we should, what? Travel all the way across the country and then brave the southern deserts—stretches of wilderness where no food or water can be found—to get a few hundred troops?”

  Darl gave him a small smile. “Stretches of wilderness without food or water…it is strange, friend Rion, but I do not remember seeing you there. When, exactly, did you visit?”

  Rion scowled at that, saying nothing, and Alesh shared a grin with Katherine before his thoughts went back to the trouble at hand, and he sobered. “Still, Rion isn’t wrong. It’s a long way, and I doubt Tesharna will just let us go.”

  “Do you think she knows?” Katherine asked, and Alesh didn’t miss the worry in her tone.

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. But if she doesn’t, she will soon enough when Falen Par and the other Redeemers don’t return to the city.”

  She nodded. “So what should we do?”

  Alesh rubbed at his chin, considering. They could leave tonight, sneak off into the darkness, hoping that they put enough distance between them and Valeria before Tesharna realized they’d survived. The problem, of course, was that traveling in the darkness was a fool’s errand—the death of his parents had proved that much—and he didn’t trust his newfound powers enough to stake not just his life, but the lives of the others on them. Not unless there was no other choice. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning.” He was suddenly overcome with the need to think, to be alone and escape their gazes, gazes that asked him questions to which he had no answer. “I’ll take first watch.” He rose and started away, but paused at the sound of Rion’s incredulous voice.

  “Wait, you’re going back out…out there?” the nobleman said, gesturing to the darkness as if it was a monster meaning to swallow them whole.

  And isn’t it? Alesh thought. Isn’t that exactly what it is? It swallowed my parents, after all.

  “And what about the damned nightlings?” Rion demanded.

  Alesh considered that, gazing out into the night. “They will not be back. Not tonight.”

  “And you know that how, exactly?”

  He looked back at the man, and there must have been something in his gaze, for Rion seemed to shrink away from him. “I just know. Now, get some sleep. With any luck, we’ll be past Valeria before Tesharna thinks to send anyone after us.”

  Rion snorted. “Luck. With any luck they’ll all fall dead or forget we ever existed at all.”

  “Funny coming from the Chosen of Javen, the God of Luck,” Katherine said, her aggravation clear in her tone. “And do you have a better plan?”

  Rion sighed, saying nothing, and finally Alesh nodded. “Alright then, that settles it.” He hesitated, meaning to say more, to give some answer to the worry he could see in Rion and Katherine’s faces, but he could think of nothing. “I…I’m sorry,” he said finally, looking at Sonya in the woman’s arms. “For getting you all into this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Rion muttered with obvious reluctance.

  Alesh didn’t say anything to that, only turned and started into the darkness, away from the light. A hand on his shoulder brought him up short, and he turned to see the Ferinan smiling at him. “Everything will be well. You are the Son of the Morning, and nothing is so far wrong that it cannot be set right. There is a reason you were chosen.”

  Because Amedan’s a fool? Alesh thought. Or is it because I am? In the end, does it even matter? “Thank you,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. They
were all watching him again. What did they see, he wondered, when they looked at him? A savior? A monster? “You…you should all get some sleep,” he said, carefully controlling his voice. “Tomorrow will not be an easy day.”

  With that, he turned and started back into the night, feeling the weight of their stares as he did.

  “Yes, Mother,” Rion said, but Alesh barely heard it. His thoughts were on the darkness before him, seeming to stretch into eternity, and each step he took carried him further into its depths.

  ***

  “You are scared of him.”

  Rion glanced at the Ferinan, raising an eyebrow. “You’re damn right I’m scared of him. Just like I’d be scared of a wild animal, and I’d be a fool not to be.”

  “Shut up, Rion,” the woman hissed.

  He frowned at her. “Look, lady, don’t act like I’m the only one here thinking it. You saw the way he killed those men, the way he killed those nightlings. You saw how he enjoyed it. And what of the scar on his shoulder, the one he keeps rubbing at like it’s a damn glass he means to polish?” The man’s shirt was torn from his fighting, if what he’d done could be called fighting, and it had taken all of Rion’s will power to keep from asking about that puckered, shadowed scar, the black, twisting lines spreading out from it, as if the man’s very insides were diseased.

  “And you think what exactly?” she demanded. “That he’ll turn on us? Those men tried to murder him, Rion, in case you’ve forgotten. And not just him but us too. You can say what you will, but if not for him, if not for…” She hesitated. “If not for what he did, then we would all be dead right now. He had to kill those men.”

  “Maybe,” Rion said quietly, staring back into the darkness. The man was beyond his sight, but he was out there somewhere, and that was another thing Rion did not like. The only ones who traveled the darkness without fear, after all, were those who belonged to it. “Maybe,” he said again, “but he didn’t have to like it so much.”

  Darl stepped to stand beside him, following his gaze into the night. “It is strange, Rion, but you do not strike me as a foolish man.”

  Rion snorted. “Give it time, Darl. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “What I mean,” the Ferinan said, “is that although you do not strike me as a foolish man, you yourself have likened the Dawn Bringer to little more than a wild beast. And yet, you seem to provoke him at every opportunity.”

  Rion frowned. “Well, damnit. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, Ferinan. But smart isn’t one of them. Now, goodnight.” He walked to the campfire and lay down, pointedly turning away from the others. He was done with talking now; nothing he said would make any difference—and considering the fact that they’d most likely all be dead tomorrow, it didn’t matter much in any case.

  ***

  The shadow watched them from the darkness, as still, as quiet, as the night itself, a part of it. He listened as they made their plans, and as the one rose and headed off into the darkness, the shadow pulled the night around himself like a cloak, for it would not do to draw that one’s attention, not yet. The shaping had begun in earnest, the god doing his work with a perverse eagerness, but it was not yet complete, so he watched warily as the man traveled off to sit in the darkness, watched with eyes that could see him as clearly as most did with the sun high in the sky.

  Then, when he was confident the man had not noticed him, he turned back to gaze at the campfire, at the figures huddled around it. So confident in it to keep them safe, so trusting in one blaze to drive back the night, to stand as a shield against the shadows. The fools. The truth of shadows was that they could never be conquered, not truly, and each shifting of the light, each dying ember, brought them closer. After all, no light was able to intrude on that void forever, and, in time, the world always came back to what it really was, what it must be. Darkness.

  He watched the woman berate Rion, and the part of him that remained after his changing could not help but notice that she was beautiful. A woman he once would have sought after, lusted after. But the man who had done such things was largely gone. Largely, but not completely. His good hand drifted to his face, feeling what remained of his once handsome looks, running a finger along the gouges the nightwalkers’ claws had left, finding despair and a strange sort of pleasure at once in touching the mangled flesh. And that was as it should be, for though the darkness always brought despair, so, too, did it offer its own pleasures, its own…recompense.

  He would have smiled then, at the thought, had he still been the man he once was. But he was not that man any longer, had become something different. Something…better. And his face, his new face, was not one given to smiles.

  They finished speaking, then Rion moved to one side of the firelight and lay down, turning his back on the others. Do you fear, Eriondrian? the shadow thought, watching him. Oh, I think you do. And you are right to fear. But even your worst nightmares do not approach the truth of what is coming to you. All the suffering I have endured, you will feel ten times over. I will visit such pain upon you that you will beg me to end it. You will beg as I begged, and oh how you will suffer.

  The shadow stared at the sleeping form for several long moments, images of what was to come, of the revenge he had been offered, wriggling and squirming in his mind. Then, despite his earlier thought, he did smile, a gruesome savage thing, one that would have sent children running, that any sane man or woman would have known for what it was and, in seeing it, been afraid. But the shadows did nothing so well as hide the truth of things. As he turned and glided away from the small fire into the darkness, he thought of Rion.

  And his thoughts were dark ones indeed.

  ***

  “Darl?” Katherine asked.

  The Ferinan turned from where he’d ventured to the edge of the firelight, gazing out at the night with an intentness that Katherine did not like. “Yes?”

  “What is it? What do you see?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Something has been created tonight, Katherine. An evil, I think, has come upon the world.”

  Katherine felt a shiver of fear run down her spine at the man’s words, so certain. “And why not tell it to go back to wherever it came from? This world has evil enough of its own,” she finished, as she lay down, gently placing the still sleeping girl beside her.

  She had meant it as a joke, if a dark one, but the Ferinan did not laugh, only continued to stare into the night. “I do not think it would listen, Katherine.”

  It was a long time before she slept.

  Chapter Three

  Odrick paced the quiet street of one of Valeria’s richest neighborhoods, feeling—as he always did when work or some other errand brought him to such places—like an impostor. He had grown up poor, after all, had spent his childhood walking through filthy streets, listening to the calls of prostitutes and the desperate pleas of the homeless begging for coin. At least, that was, until his father’s blacksmithing had become so popular, and with popularity came wealth. Yet although Odrick had spent the second half of his life surrounded by rich people and rich things, he had not yet grown accustomed to them, and the immaculate streets felt strange, alien. It was all he could do to keep from looking over his shoulder to see if any of the guards that regularly patrolled the city’s better streets were chasing him down to throw him back where he belonged.

  So far, at least, nothing of the like had occurred, and the guards he passed—on this trip as well as the several others he’d made in the last couple of days—were always kind and civil. Yet despite their friendly nods and waves, Odrick couldn’t shake the feeling that they sneered at him when his back was turned, he as unwelcome as a wild dog sitting down in a fine dining room.

  He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, his wide shoulders slumping, keeping his eyes on the ground as he made his way toward Eriondrian’s house. He had not seen the nobleman since that strange encounter in the poor district when he’d been being chased by criminals that Odrick—being from
that part of town himself—knew were the kind that hurt first and asked questions later, if they bothered at all.

  When Rion had first disappeared, Odrick had figured his friend was only lying low. After all, being chased through the streets by men intent on doing you harm, men who also just so happened to work for the city’s most powerful crime boss, was the sort of thing that would make a man want to bury his head in the dirt and only come up for air. So when Eriondrian hadn’t shown up at the tavern where they all usually met, Odrick had told himself that it was nothing, just the reasonable caution of a man with dangerous enemies. And, at least then, he had mostly even believed it.

  But when one day led to another, still without any sign of his friend in any of his usual haunts, Odrick had begun to grow concerned, asking Armiel and Bastion, both of whom seemed to have had no idea about the man’s whereabouts. Of course, Odrick thought the noblemen—like most—lived in a constant state of drunken confusion, but that had done little to quell his growing worries. Worries that had come to a crescendo when, without explanation, Sevrin had also gone missing. Lord Aldrick’s son was not a humble man, and Odrick couldn’t imagine him stopping his usual strutting like a peacock for anything small. Adding to his concerns, Odrick knew that Sevrin and Eriondrian did not get along and had almost come to blows on more than one occasion. Was it really so crazy to think that they’d had another argument, a worse one? One that had maybe ended in someone being hurt—or killed? He forced the thought down, telling himself to stay calm.

  Eriondrian was not a stupid man, after all, and though Sevrin clearly got on his nerves, he wouldn’t put himself in a situation he couldn’t get out of. But, of course, that wasn’t entirely true, was it? After all, the last time Odrick had seen Rion, that was exactly the kind of situation he’d been in. His worries and concerns crowded in his mind, making him forget, for a time, how uncomfortable he was on this street, and soon he found himself standing in front of the Tirinian house.