The Truth of Shadows

by Jacob Peppers

  “I am,” she snapped back, her voice muffled from where her head—and half of her body—now hung out the window.

  Rion’s heart hammered in his chest as several of the townspeople began to drift, almost mindlessly, toward the base of the stairs, their bloody knives clutched in white-knuckled grips. “Stay back you bastards!” he yelled, and though he tried for a dangerous tone, his voice came out tremulous, afraid, and the townspeople continued forward as if they hadn’t heard him at all. The first to reach the stairs was Shek. The old innkeeper’s face was twisted in a soundless snarl, his face and hands covered in blood.

  A shiver of fear ran down Rion’s spine as he looked at the man, hardly a man at all now, but something else, something…darker. “Woman, get out of the damn way!” Rion yelled, spinning back, and was surprised to find that she was gone. Hissing a curse, he clambered up the wall. He started to pull himself through, his breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps, but grunted when his pants leg stuck on a nail about halfway. Shit. Shit shit shit.

  Tugging desperately now, straining, his own teeth bared in a grimace of expectation. How close were they? Were they right behind him, raising their knives even now? In just a moment, would he feel the sharp steel of their blades digging into him? Stuck, he thought frantically, pulling with all his strength, gods, I’m stuck. Like a fly in a spider’s web, and he knew well enough how it ended for the fly. Then, suddenly, a hand was on his arm, tugging him forward, and he let out a yelp of surprise as whatever had been stuck finally gave, and he was yanked out of the window.

  He nearly tumbled to the ground—a fall that would cripple, if not kill outright—but he scrabbled desperately and managed to grasp the windowsill. Heaving ragged, terrified breaths, he glanced over and saw Katherine watching him from where she clung to the wall as if with no effort at all. A moment later, he saw why. Apparently, homicidal townspeople didn’t have enough spare time between murdering strangers to see to something so mundane as repairing the walls of their homes and businesses, and the wood wall was pocked with indentions from weather and time.

  All too aware that he was still visible through the window and that someone need only stick a knife out of it to ruin his day, Rion scanned the wall nearest him, then latched on to several handholds that he could just make out in the moonlight. He was just beginning to pull himself away from the window when bony fingers locked around his ankle with surprising strength, and he let out a grunt of surprise. He risked a glance and saw the innkeeper, Shek, staring at him, his face still twisted in that eerie, silent snarl. “Let go, you bastard,” Rion shouted, trying to pull away, but the man held on.

  The innkeeper raised the knife he held in response, and Rion lashed out desperately with his other leg, catching the man full in the face. Shek’s nose shattered beneath his boot, his grip faltering but not releasing altogether, and Rion kicked him again, then again, until he was finally able to break free.

  Then he lunged for a handhold to the side of the window, pulling himself away from the opening only moments before knives flashed through it. “What now?”

  He turned to see Katherine watching him, her face pale and ghostly in the weak moonlight. “We have to get down to the street,” he said between his panicked breaths. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head. “You?”

  “Not yet. Come on.” He started down the wall, going as quickly as he could without risking breaking his own neck. After all, it wouldn’t take long for their would-be murderers to realize what they were doing, and the thought of them waiting somewhere below him, hidden by the darkness, was nearly enough to make him freeze. But there was no help for it—it wasn’t as if he could spend the rest of his life clutching to the wall. They could only hurry and hope that the townspeople hadn’t made it out of the inn and around the side by the time they reached the street.

  Moments later, he dropped the couple of feet to the dirt path, cringing in expectation of a blow. But none came, and a second later Katherine landed beside him. Then a scuffling, dragging sound pulled his attention, and he looked up to see shadowy forms, indefinable in the darkness, moving at the corner of the inn. “Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of here.”

  “But where do we go?”

  “I’m not that picky,” he said, watching those shadows approaching. “Come on.”

  Then they were running. Rion had been exhausted when they arrived the night before, barely able to keep his eyes open, and the truth was he’d been so caught up in his own worries that he hadn’t paid much attention to the path they’d taken through the town. Nor had he asked the driver where he was going to take the wagon and horses before they’d shuffled up to their room to go to sleep. Horses that would have been by far the best way of the two of them getting out of town with all their parts in their proper places.

  Fool, he scolded himself as they ran, you should have paid more attention. After all, he’d spent enough time in the poor district of Valeria to know that it was rarely the knife you saw coming that got you. A man couldn’t afford to be careless—not if he enjoyed breathing, anyway. He rushed down a narrow alley between two buildings, Katherine at his heels, and they emerged onto what he thought was another street.

  Something about it niggled at his mind, then with a shock he realized what it was. There were no lights, not so much as a single candle burning on the walls of the shops to keep the nightlings at bay. But he distinctly remembered seeing some when they’d come into town—not many, but some. Had those few he’d seen been only for show then, something to keep visitors to this small, evil town from being suspicious? Now he thought so. But light or no light, he couldn’t miss the shadows to their left. Some distance away now, but moving closer, taking their time. And why hurry? After all, the whole town was a trap, one that Rion and Katherine had walked right into.

  Fool, he told himself again, his heart galloping in his chest. He shot a quick look behind him and saw that the end of the alleyway—the one they had come down only moments before—was now full of more shadows making their slow, methodical way forward, gliding through the darkness like phantoms.

  “Shit,” he said. “This way.” He turned and ran to the right, and as he did, he reached into the pocket of his trousers, grabbing Javen’s coin. Javen, if you’re out there, I could really use a bit of luck right now. Not a great prayer, maybe, but to the point, and there was something to be said for that. Besides, Rion wasn’t the sort that prayed often, and hoped the God of Chance—if he was listening—wouldn’t hold it against him.

  Did he only imagine the coin growing cooler beneath his hand? He couldn’t be sure, but he ran on, taking one alleyway at random then another, concentrating on the horses, thinking of them, hoping maybe that would help. He was running so fast, concentrating so fully on the idea of the horses, on the coin in his hand, that he wasn’t paying attention to where his feet were going. The lapse in awareness cost him a moment later when he took a turn out of an alley mouth and tripped over something.

  He hit the ground hard, grunting as he went into a roll. A second later, the air was knocked from his lungs as he struck a wooden wall. Wheezing for breath, he climbed to his feet.

  He’d only just gotten there when he heard a snorting sound from close by. He spun, drawing one of the blades out of his tunic as he did, expecting the townspeople to come barreling down on them. But there was no one. “What the—”

  “Horses,” Katherine gasped from beside him. “Rion, it’s the horses.”

  Rion was still trying to figure out what she meant when the scuffling sound came again, followed by an unmistakable neigh. Either she was right and they had somehow found the horses, or one of their would-be murderers enjoyed doing impressions. The night was almost completely black now, and he was unable to see so much as his hand in front of his face. He walked forward, his arms extended, feeling along the building until his questing fingers found the latch of a door. A large barn door, big enough to fit horses and a wagon. He grunted in surprise, realizing
that the wall he’d struck belonged to the stables. Had he not fallen, he would have almost certainly missed them in the darkness.

  Rion breathed a heavy sigh of relief, telling himself that he would have to take a moment—when he wouldn’t be murdered for it—to thank the God of Chance. And maybe ask the bastard if he can help me without me having to fall on my ass next time.

  “Come on,” he said in a whisper, “in here.”

  He walked inside, so tense with anxiety and excitement that he jumped, startled by the sound of Katherine closing the door behind them.

  “What? What happened?” She asked at the sound of his strangled scream.

  “Nothing,” he said, glad she couldn’t see his face heat in the gloom. “Gods, I can’t see a damned thing.”

  “Wait a second, there should be a…there we are.” Light suddenly bloomed in the darkness. Rion blinked, shielding his eyes until they grew accustomed. “It was hanging from the wall here,” she said.

  “Do you think that’s smart?” he asked. “What, with the whole damned town hunting us?”

  “I think it’s smarter than stumbling around in the dark until they find us,” she said back, and he was surprised to find that he was glad to hear her snappy attitude return. Better that than the terrified whimpering threatening to escape from his own throat.

  “It won’t take them long to figure out where we’ve gone and come looking for us,” he said.

  “Then we had best be gone when they get here.”

  The lantern she held was small, the orange light serving to accentuate the shadows more than banish them, and most of the stables were still cloaked in darkness. “Can I see that?”

  She handed it to him, and he held the lantern aloft, stepping further into the stables. His attention was immediately caught by a wagon—the same one they’d ridden away from the forests of Valeria and into town—sitting in the center. Oddly, the horses were still attached to the harnesses, looking back at him and the light as he approached. Rion didn’t know a lot about horses, but he knew enough to know that they shouldn’t have been left harnessed but put into a stable stall and allowed to eat and rest.

  Surely the driver would have known as much as well—considering it was his business to know—so why would he leave them? Unless he didn’t, Rion thought. Unless he came out here for some reason and—He made a strangled, startled sound in his throat when he saw the driver’s form sitting atop the wagon, bent over the reins. “Gods, man, you scared the shit out of me.”

  The driver’s back was to him, and he didn’t answer, didn’t so much as turn to regard Rion. Just an ornery bastard, aren’t you? Not much of a people person. “Look,” Rion said, walking up beside him, “we have to get out of here. This town is damned crazy, and the townspeople are murderers, so—” He gasped, recoiling, as he saw the reason for the driver’s inattention.

  If the man hadn’t known the townspeople were homicidal maniacs dedicated to Shira, then he had learned it, that much was clear. His throat had been slit, and blood had poured out over the front of his jerkin, making it appear as if he wore a crimson apron.

  “What is it?” Katherine asked from somewhere behind him. “What’s happened—” She cut off, letting out a gasp of her own, as she came up to stand beside him. “Oh, gods.”

  “Yeah,” Rion said, swallowing past a throat that was suddenly terribly dry. “He must have found out something was wrong, decided to get out of town.”

  “He died because of us.” Her voice was low, little more than a whisper.

  Rion turned to look at her, a flippant remark on the tip of his tongue, but he saw the pain, the anguish, in her face and swallowed it. “I…he was a criminal, Katherine. This is how they usually end up. And don’t blame yourself for this—you’re not the one that slid the knife across his throat.”

  “No,” she said, “but if we hadn’t come…if we hadn’t have asked Sigan for help, then—”

  “Then we would all be dead,” he said simply. “And if what Amedan and the others said is true then this is bigger than just one merchant criminal, Katherine. We’re talking about the world here, about a night that comes and does not leave. One that we’re meant to stop. Maybe the gods were fools to choose us, but that part’s done, and if we keep standing here, talking and blaming ourselves, we’ll wind up dead too, and that won’t help anyone.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes then, but she breathed a ragged sigh and nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get him out of the wagon. Then we need to leave before the townspeople find us.”

  The man was heavy, incredibly so, and by the time they’d finally managed to work his bulk out of the wagon and onto the hard-packed earth of the stable floor they were both panting for and covered in sweat. “Alright,” Rion wheezed, “now we need to—” He cut off at the creak of the stable door opening.

  By the light of the lantern he still held, Rion saw that the man who stood in the doorway of the stables was none other than Shek, the rude—and homicidal—innkeeper.

  “Hi again,” the old man said, the vacant, distant look that he and the others had shared nowhere in evidence now, replaced by a hungry, almost lustful gaze. “You all aren’t thinkin’ of leaving us so soon, are you? Strellia not to your likin’? That it?”

  “Of course not,” Rion said, gripping the knife he still held tightly. “We love the idea of bastards murdering us in our sleep.”

  “Oh, not in your sleep, lad,” the old man said, grinning and displaying a row of rotten teeth. “You’d have been awake, I promise you that much.”

  “Just leave us alone,” Katherine said.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said, his eyes dancing with a dark amusement that was anything but apologetic, “but we can’t do that. The goddess wants you, you see, and the goddess gets what she wants. Now, why don’t you two come quietly? I can’t promise it’ll be painless, but it’ll be fast, anyway. If you make me call the others, you’ll regret it. Our goddess told us to get it done, but she didn’t tell us to hurry. If you make it difficult for us, we’ll take our time about it.”

  Rion bared his teeth, thinking of rushing the man anyway. Sure, there was no way of making it to him without him getting a shout off and drawing the others, but any chance was better than none at all. Better that, better to try, than to wait for his death to come to him.

  He was just preparing to charge when he was surprised to see a girl, one that appeared to be about twelve years of age, walk through the open door of the stable to stand beside the man. At first, Rion thought she was just another one of the townspeople. But unlike the innkeeper, her clothes were not dusty or bloody, and she held no knife, only stood with a slightly curious expression on her face, staring at the man beside her.

  “Wait,” Katherine said incredulous. “Marta? Is that you?”

  “Who is Marta?” Rion said, frowning.

  “The girl who delivered the note, the one I met back in Valeria.”

  “What?” the innkeeper asked, spinning and holding his knife up, searching for whoever they were talking about, but the strangest thing happened then. When his eyes fell over the girl, they only skimmed past without hesitation, as if he didn’t see her at all. Finally, he turned back, grinning. “Nice trick, that. But it won’t save you—nothing will, not now. You’ve angered the Dark Goddess, and those that anger her don’t last long.”

  “I don’t understand—” Rion began, but the girl spoke, interrupting him.

  “This fella here, he’s all covered in blood,” she said, raising an eyebrow and examining the man, apparently not frightened by the knife he held. “Is he a butcher then?”

  Katherine winced. “Um…sort of. Marta, you need to get out of here, these people, this town, they’re—”

  “Crazy? All covered in blood and walking around like a bunch of the dead that have up and risen out of their graves?” the girl asked. “Sure, and why not? I always wondered what it was the dead got up to, and now I know. Anyhow, is this fella a friend of yours?”

  “He
’s going to kill us,” Rion managed, blinking and feeling as if he was dreaming.

  “Who the fuck are you talking to?” the innkeeper demanded, all pretense of amusement gone, but he still didn’t seem to notice the girl standing directly beside him.

  “Kill you?” the girl asked. She paused, turning to Katherine. “That somethin’ you’re wantin’ or…?”

  “No,” Katherine said. “No, I would rather not be killed.”

  “Ah,” the girl said, nodding thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you just say so then?”

  “Damnit,” Shek growled, “who are you—” but he cut off, his words turning to a groan as the girl withdrew something she held in her hand—a tin water pail, it looked to Rion—and struck him over the head with it. A second later, the innkeeper collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

  Rion blinked in surprise. “I don’t…how did you—”

  “He didn’t see me,” the girl said, as if it was obvious.

  “Right…” Katherine said. “But…we see you, so how could he not?”

  The girl shrugged. “Most people don’t, you know? See me. They train themselves not to—oh, and not just me. All the poor, the homeless. Beggars. Orphans like me. That sort of thing.”

  “But…he actually didn’t see you,” Rion said. “Like…at all.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that. Well, technically, he did see me—he just forgot. Or put it out of his mind. ‘Willful disregard’ I think the old bastard called it.”

  “‘Old bastard’?” Rion said, having a hard time keeping up with what the girl was saying.

  “Yeah,” she said, as if he was dense. “You know the one. Old guy, got a limp, like maybe someone stomped on his foot a few times. All old and dirty, wearin’ rags, with an eye patch and that ring he wears, the one made of twine.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rion said, “you don’t mean—”

  “The God of the Poor and Homeless?” Katherine finished in a breathy whisper. “Do you mean that you spoke with Alcer?”

  The girl shrugged. “Might have been his name. Couldn’t say for sure. He was nice enough, I guess, but he smelled like death itself. I think he could have done with a good washing.”