‘Why?’ he asked, after a long silence.
In reply, Bralvadier pointed behind Lauterbur.
Lauterbur turned to see the reflected flames from the campfire dancing on the bare rock face.
‘No shadow.’
Lauterbur turned back and stared into the fire. Memories trickled through his mind like grains of sand; a feeling here, an emotion there. He strained to remember anything from the last two days: all he could recall was the pain.
Moving under the rock overhang Lauterbur lay down on his bedroll, his mind turning in circles, going over what he had just been told. As he was dozing off, a faint recollection came to him.
A silver head, he thought, no wait, a skullcap, and an accent. A silver skullcap and an accent, and red clothes. Robes, that was it. These memories meant something.
He awakened Bralvadier, now snoring softly beside him, and told him the thoughts that had crept into his mind.
The boy smiled eagerly. ‘That was the high priest who had you executed, Master Hess,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Each kingdom sends out guards, ex-soldiers and mercenaries to hunt down people who don’t have shadows. Like you. They’re the ones in the light-blue cloaks. The Shadow Watchers, they’re called. The high priests travel with them and carry out the executions in the way they think the gods will be best pleased with. You see? Your memories are startin’ to come back already. They come back quicker each time. So what do we do now?’
‘What happened to the bandits who killed me outside your farm?’ Lauterbur asked, with a confidence and composure he had not previously exhibited.
‘You went after them and killed them, Master Hess, every last one of them,’ Bralvadier stated giddily, barely able to contain his excitement.
‘Then that is what we do next. We find this priest and make sure I’m the last person he burns at the stake. Give me that parchment and a quill and ink.’
At first light, the two packed up their equipment and, after eating the last of the dried meat, headed for the path. They came across a track and followed it onto one of the main trade routes. Waiting until the sun was covered by thick clouds, so as to mask the fact that Lauterbur had no shadow, the pair circled back towards the town of Coingdale, crossing back over the River Thôl, and searched the surrounding area for signs of the guard unit’s whereabouts. Hess’s memory was returning rapidly with the help of Bralvadier, who filled in any gaps.
On the second night, they saw a light in the distance. Approaching it stealthily, they were relieved to find that it came from a caravan of merchants carrying wine and silk to Perethos, the capital city of Varahil. The merchants were receptive to strangers, once they knew they were not carrying swords, and sold them some of their food and clothing.
The traders told them that they had seen a unit of guards with blue cloaks and a prison wagon, travelling east to the boundary crossing, heading towards Denowai’s Keep.
When the merchants retired to their tents for the night, Lauterbur and Bralvadier grabbed their backpacks and marched up the road. They knew that if the high priest made it to Denowai’s Keep he would board a boat and be out of reach in a matter of hours. The pair travelled into the night, as quickly as they could. By sunrise, they had reached the boundary crossing between the realms of Varahil and Tantoräc.
Using the trees as cover they moved parallel to the road, halting whenever they noticed merchants or traders coming down the track. When all was clear, they would hurry and make up as much ground as possible. This stop-start motion carried on all day until the sun arced low in the sky and they reached a large hill. From the top they gazed down across the river and saw the high walls and tower lights of Denowai’s Keep.
The current custodian of the keep was Braxil Denowai, the latest in a long line of lords to own the tower. Built on a large rock pinnacle in the middle of the River Thôl, the keep was only accessible via a narrow stone bridge. This bridge and the fast-flowing river made the keep virtually impregnable, as testified by the military forces that had tried to overthrow or besiege it throughout history. The Denowais knew this, of course; they also knew that the Thôl was an arterial trade route for river-based commerce and so nothing passed up or down the river without their say-so – and a small tariff.
With this income the Denowais had become rich and powerful, but with power comes corruption, and the family had a reputation for being vicious and cruel. With each generation seemingly more wicked and merciless than the last, it was said by the locals that Braxil Denowai was the most heartless lord of the keep there had ever been. His sadistic deeds and tyrannical acts were known throughout the realm, causing many of the other lords to shun him.
Yet there was an even darker side to Lord Denowai: a morbid fascination with the occult and an enmity towards life itself that led many to say that the very walls of the keep oozed the malice and contempt of their master.
Lauterbur and Bralvadier stood at the edge of the forest beside the road that led to Denowai’s Keep. In the fading light, the keep and its high towers presented a silhouette that looked like a mutated, skeletal hand, reaching towards the night sky.
‘It looks like a scary place, Master Hess,’ Bralvadier exclaimed, chewing his lip.
‘I am more concerned about getting in there.’
‘Maybe they’re not there,’ the boy said.
‘They’re there,’ Lauterbur said firmly. ‘I can sense them.’
‘How do you suppose you’re gonna get in then?’ quizzed the boy.
‘The only way I know how. Now give me your dagger and the parchment and quill again.’
Lauterbur scribbled on the parchment and then placed the dagger in his belt. He untied one of his boots and placed the parchment inside with a few sharp-edged stones, before putting it back on and tying it tightly. The two sneaked down to the keep, ensuring they kept off the road and in the undergrowth at the side of the verge.
Flitting between bits of cover, they got to the bridge and stood close to one of the support columns.
Lauterbur turned to Bralvadier and spoke in a whisper.
‘We only have one go at this, so I need you to get it right. We creep up to the doors of the keep. You take this dagger and plunge it into my back, hard, straight through my heart. Then you kick the door three times and run as fast as you can back to safety. Got it?’
Bralvadier looked at him, eyes wide open and mouth agape.
‘You want me to kill you?’ he asked, making sure he had heard the plan right.
‘I have to find a way of stopping that high priest getting back to his temple. If he makes it back, there’s a chance he could learn who I really am. If he finds that out, he will come after me. When he sees that I’m alive and not burned to death, the Shadow Watchers will take me to the capital and if that happens then I’m finished. They will find a way of summoning Salamoc and the god will do what they couldn’t. Do you understand?’ Lauterbur asked in a sincere tone, hoping it would convey the seriousness of the situation.
‘Are you sure about this? I mean, I know you come back to life and all, but still.’
‘This is the only way of getting me into that tower,’ said Lauterbur.
The two ran across the bridge to the keep. Upon reaching it, they stood with their backs flat up against the iron-bound doors and waited to see if an alarm was raised. There was only silence. After a minute Lauterbur handed the dagger to Bralvadier and turned away from him.
‘You definitely know where to stab me, yes? Right then, on the count of thr—’
Lauterbur felt the cold steel of the blade pierce his back accompanied by a sharp pain. He howled as the dagger slid between his ribs, severing flesh. Falling to his knees, he gasped for breath. He felt his heart beating more slowly as shooting pains coursed down both arms and he trembled from the shock of the stabbing. As he collapsed to the ground his body twisted and he felt the sharp blade inside slicing
him open further.
Bralvadier watched Lauterbur fall to the ground. He looked around him quickly, panicking in case the guards from the keep had heard the commotion. Taking a few steps back, he ran at the door and kicked it. He repeated his kicking twice more before taking off across the bridge as fast as he could.
Reaching the other side, he ran up the road to the safety of the forest edge. Hiding in the thickets, out of breath and sweating, he watched the huge doors of the keep swing open.
Two guards emerged and started to inspect the body.
Bralvadier saw Lauterbur move slightly at which the guards swiftly slung their shields across their backs, put away their weapons and half-lifted him, one at each shoulder. They dragged him inside and the heavy iron-bound doors slammed shut behind them.
Bralvadier looked at the keep and wiped the sweat from his face. There was nothing he could do to help his friend now: he was on his own.
Lauterbur opened his eyes and sat up. He was lying under a white linen sheet on a wooden workbench between two others. The light from the rising sun crept in through the ill-fitting shutters, partially illuminating the room. Lauterbur looked around.
As well as the workbenches there was a writing desk, bookcases and cabinets.
I’m in some sort of study or workshop, he thought.
A tingling feeling in his fingers drew his attention. Inspecting his hand, Lauterbur was amazed to see a grey light shining from the back of it outlining the number twelve, before quickly fading.
Twelve? he thought. Twelve what?
He looked around, bewildered, and saw books, tools, and what seemed like an alchemist’s apparatus, including copper machines containing liquids and powders, with water pumped through tubing that encircled them. The benches on either side of him were also covered in white linen sheets and he could make out the outline of bodies under them.
Confused and disorientated, he swung his legs over the side of the table and stood up to get a better look at the paraphernalia. The second he put weight on his legs he felt a sharp pain in the sole of his right foot. He took a step forward and it happened again, in fact it happened every time he put weight on his right leg.
Bending down, he took off his boot and looked inside. He found some stones and a piece of folded-up parchment. Putting his boot back on and placing the stones on the bench he unfolded the parchment and read it quickly.
I know you cannot remember much, but your memory will return. Your name is Lauterbur Hess and you are the son of Salamoc, the God of the Wind. You are two hundred and eighty-nine years old and you are immortal. Each time you die, or are killed, your body returns from death with the first rays of the rising sun. The only thing that will prevent this is if you are slain by the god Salamoc himself.
You are in a keep with a high priest and a unit of Shadow Watchers from Perethos, the capital city of Varahil. Their job is to hunt you down and kill you. They have already done this once. If they capture you, they will take you to the capital and summon Salamoc. You must find the priest as quickly as possible and kill him. You are looking for a small fat man wearing a silver skullcap and dark-red robes. He is a seer so he may know you are coming.
Lauterbur stood staring at the note. Was what the parchment said true? Surely he could not kill this man just on the strength of this letter. The note could be from anyone. He walked over to the writing desk and, taking a quill from the inkwell, wrote the first few words from the note on a loose piece of paper. The writing was the same.
This letter was written by me, he thought. If that’s the case then the information must be true; I really am the son of a god, and I have to kill this man before he gets to Perethos.
He folded the parchment and placed it in his pocket, still contemplating the information.
He looked around for something he could use as a weapon. In the cabinet beside the window were dozens of jars with paper labels stuck to their outsides.
‘Brimstone… Antimony… Crananx… Quicksilver… Bismuth… Darconium… Praxitör… Praxitör?’
He read the titles on the glass jars slowly and out loud, recognising only some of them. The final jar contained a thick, dark-green liquid. He picked it up and swirled it around, noting its viscosity. The liquid barely moved. Intrigued, he removed the glass stopper. Tilting it he watched as the liquid worked its way down the side of the jar, oozing towards the rim. He rotated the jar slightly so that only a small amount would drip out. A dribble of the slime slid over the lip of the jar and down on to the wooden bench.
Upon making contact with the bench’s surface, the liquid sizzled and boiled. A low hissing sound was audible as a mixture of white smoke and steam began to rise from the contact point.
Lauterbur watched in amazement as the slimy substance ate its way through the wooden workbench in seconds before dripping on to the stone floor below. When it touched the stone it continued to fizz and steam, but at a much slower rate.
Placing the glass stopper back in the jar, Lauterbur returned to scanning the room.
Beside the table closest to the door there was a tray of blood-stained knives and saws on a black metal stand. As he picked up a long, vicious-looking blade with a serrated edge, still boasting strands of flesh from its last victim, he noticed a bucket at the base of the table containing congealed blood and organs, presumably from whoever lay under the linen sheets.
He shuddered and moved towards the door, holding the jar and the knife.
Opening the door quietly Lauterbur slipped into a short, dark corridor ending in a spiral staircase leading downwards. Creeping down the stairs he saw light spilling from an entrance below.
Edging closer to the opening he could hear faint footsteps. As they got closer, he retreated into the shadows of the staircase with his knife at the ready. He watched and waited, the sound of the footsteps getting louder until the figure of a young chambermaid walked past the doorway totally oblivious to his presence.
He breathed a silent sigh of relief and then surmised that if anyone knew where the priest was it would be her.
The chambermaid was about to open the door along the corridor when a cold blade was pressed to her neck and a hand covered her mouth. Her eyes opened wide in panic and a scream rose in her throat, but as she took a deep breath, the blade was pushed tighter.
A low, well-spoken voice whispered to her.
‘Take two steps back from the door and walk towards the spiral staircase.’
She did as the voice asked, and it continued: ‘Do as I say and you will not be harmed. There is a man staying here; a fat priest, wearing dark-red robes and a silver skullcap. Take me to his room, and I will let you live.’
The voice was calm. The serrated knife that could slice open her throat at any second, was a little less benign. After a moment’s hesitation, she complied.
The sun sat low in the early-morning sky as the chambermaid led Lauterbur through the keep’s winding stairs and narrow corridors.
Lauterbur kept the chambermaid close to him, placing the knife in her eye line in an attempt to quell any thoughts of trying to escape as they crossed the intersection of two corridors, After a few minutes, they arrived at a door at the end of a hallway.
‘This is it,’ she stated.
‘Open the door, quietly, and go in,’ Lauterbur instructed.
The girl lifted the latch and edged the door open. With his knife at her neck again, Lauterbur moved forward until they were both in the room. Someone was snoring on a large bed beneath thick woollen blankets.
Looking around, Lauterbur saw a set of dark-red robes draped on a chest beneath the window. A silver skullcap rested on top of them.
He moved closer to the maid and whispered. ‘Leave quietly and close the door behind you, tell no one of what happened here.’
The girl nodded and backed towards the door, slipping out and closing it behind her.
&nbs
p; Lauterbur crept over to the head of the bed with the knife in one hand and the jar of green slime in the other. The face of his target brought memories flooding back about his execution. Remembering the man’s speech in front of the people of Coingdale and the manner in which he had condemned Lauterbur to his death, he gritted his teeth and looked down.
The high priest was mumbling something as he slept.
Lauterbur stood above him. Knife or slime? He weighed up the pros and cons of a violent, protracted death against a quick silent one. A choice he had not been afforded.
‘Help, help, there’s an intruder in the keep,’ a young female voice shrieked in the hallway.
‘Bitch,’ he muttered.
The priest opened his eyes and started blinking rapidly. The expression on his face was one of confusion, quickly followed by shock. Whether it was at seeing a man who was back from the dead or whether it was the blood-stained knife poised menacingly above him was unclear to Lauterbur, all he knew was that the time for deliberation had passed. He plunged the knife downwards.
In an attempt to dodge the attack, the high priest rolled his head to one side so the blade only caught his cheek, slicing through muscle and into his jaw bone. Lauterbur felt his initial strike split the priest’s gums and cleave out several teeth. He jumped on the priest and pinned him to the bed, pulling out the knife and attacking again.
The high priest screamed in pain and frantically grappled his assailant’s weapon arm as blood ran from his severed cheek.
With no time to waste, Lauterbur rocked the priest to the right and brought his left hand up, smashing the jar on his victim’s head. Slime and broken glass smeared the priest’s head and face. Lauterbur fell back and watched.
The corrosive slime reacted with the high priest’s skin almost immediately. Howling in pain, he tried desperately to wipe away the acid, but immediately his hands started to dissolve. The priest thrashed on the bed blindly as he began to choke on seared, melted flesh.
Shadowless Page 5
