Shadowless

by Randall McNally

  Laying him on his back, Qarvéss saw a six-inch-wide hole in Grundar’s chest. Smoke still rose out of the charred area, filling the cave with the smell of burnt flesh. The blast had punched through Grundar’s chainmail armour, melting it to his body and shattering his ribs and sternum, vaporising some of his organs.

  Qarvéss sobbed uncontrollably at the death of his friend bending over him in grief. It was then that he noticed the mushroom lying on the ground.

  I have to get this out of here, he thought. This is the only thing that can save Stefra.

  Grasping the fungus in his left hand he began to drag his body up the steep, gravelly incline that led to the mouth of the cave. Wracked with pain and losing blood he finally reached the top and collapsed onto the ground. He crawled the remaining distance on his stomach, scraping dirt and stone into the freshly opened wounds, as he struggled out of the cave onto level ground.

  The moon sat high in the night sky, casting a pale, ghostly light on the clearing as Qarvéss pulled himself over to where Stefra lay. She was face down on the grass; there was no sign of Dorrin. The ranger shook her shoulder but got no response. He then noticed the blood on the ground next to the cleric’s head.

  ‘Stefra, please,’ Qarvéss said, as he turned her head towards him. Stefra’s face had been smashed in.

  Qarvéss screamed Dorrin’s name with as much power as he could muster. ‘Brethil. You bastard, where are you?’

  ‘I am right here,’ a calm voice said from above him.

  Qarvéss looked up towards the voice, as high as his broken body would allow, and saw the silhouette of the man against the night sky.

  ‘Why?’ the ranger cried. ‘Why have you done this?’

  ‘But you already know the answer to that question, my dear fellow. It is like you told your friend earlier – I am completely insane. Besides, I needed you to get me a mushroom,’ Dorrin said, grinning manically.

  ‘You couldn’t get it yourself?’ Qarvéss asked through his tears.

  ‘Goodness gracious me no, you have seen what those crystals can do. They could kill me, then what would I do? I would not be able to carry out my research,’ the herbalist protested.

  ‘But why kill Stefra?’ the distressed ranger asked.

  ‘Sorry about that, but I need her. I need all three of you,’ Dorrin said.

  ‘Need us? What the hell for?’

  ‘Fertiliser,’ Dorrin replied, as he emerged from the shadows with Stefra’s mace in his hand.

  Dorrin yawned and stretched his arms as high as he could.

  He could hear the bees buzzing around the flowers in his window boxes, collecting pollen before flying off into the woods, and the birds pecking at the insects in the reeds on his thatched roof.

  Once he was dressed, he skipped down the creaking staircase and into his kitchen. Here, he ate handfuls of purple and blue nuts from a glass jar, and picked some wild berries from the bushes that grew in through the cracks in the walls of his home.

  Dorrin then walked from room to room checking on all the seedlings and shoots he was growing – trimming or pruning the ones that needed it, while watering the others.

  The inside of the cottage was a tangible manifestation of Dorrin’s mind, with vials and potions strewn everywhere, clumps of herbs hanging from the ceilings, and earthen crockery, some filled with soil, some with seeds and some with both on the furniture and the floor.

  Passing through the low hanging doorway into his study, Dorrin gazed with pride at the large glass jar on the table. It contained a mushroom submerged in a clear yellow-green liquid. When he had put it in, the fungus had been green, but the liquid was drawing out the pigment, changing the colour of the solution and bleaching the fungus white.

  Standing at his workbench he rotated the jar, inspecting the fungus from every angle. Then he glanced at the bloodstained mace leaning against the wall, which still sported clumps of hair and fragments of bone.

  Not for the first time, he grinned as he recalled the previous night’s events.

  Putting on his travelling hat and his green jacket, Dorrin stepped onto his front doorstep and took a huge lungful of morning air. Then he ambled down the cracked stone path, in between bushes of lavender and sage, and hopped over the wooden gate at the end of it. Meandering around to the side of his rickety house he opened the door to his tool shed and started to load up with equipment.

  ‘Hmm now, let me see. Grappling hook and rope: yes, I need you. Wheelbarrow, yes: I definitely need you. That should be it for now,’ he said, putting the items in the barrow and pushing it out of the shed.

  The cottage was a simple two-storey structure, with wattle and daub walls, constructed between four oak trees, which served as its corner-supports. It had weathered to a silvery grey colour, camouflaging itself with the rest of the forest. At the back of it, beside the tool shed, was a large, cultivated forest garden filled with exotic flora laid out in rows, bordered by a hedge of eight-foot-tall holly and hawthorn bushes.

  Dorrin set off with his wheelbarrow through the woods, whistling and humming: a man totally at peace with the world.

  Emerging from the treeline into the clearing, he pushed his barrow up the hill to the cave and took out the rope and grappling hook.

  The bodies of Stefra and Qarvéss lay face down on the grass, both with their skulls crushed.

  ‘Looks like some of the local critters have started to take an interest in you, chaps,’ Dorrin said as he examined the small bite marks around the fingers and ears of the corpses.

  Slinging the rope over his shoulder and carrying the hook he approached the cave and crept inside, moving carefully down the steep incline towards the faintly glowing light, waiting to see what effect his presence would have on the crystals.

  The second the light got brighter, he stopped.

  Hunkering down where Grundar’s corpse lay, he dug the grappling hook up through the bottom jaw, straight through the tongue and into the roof of the mouth.

  He then tied the rope to the bottom of the grappling hook, pulling on it to make sure it was tight enough. Looking around the cave, he picked up the shards and hilt of Grundar’s sword.

  Must get everything ready for the next ones, he thought, and scurried back to the mouth of the cave.

  Having put the fragmented sword into the wheelbarrow, he pulled Grundar’s corpse from the cave. It was not easy, as he was not a strong man, but once the body reached the incline, the loose stones helped negate the friction and he had soon pulled the body clear. Next was the arduous task of getting all three bodies back to the cottage.

  First, he loaded the dead woman into the barrow. Whistling he set off through the woods. The sunlight was creeping through the thick, imposing canopy of Blackwood Forest, casting its rays on the wild bluebells and foxgloves that grew around Dorrin’s house.

  Moving the corpses took most of his time that day. Grundar’s was especially heavy because of his armour. Once he’d got all three of them home, Dorrin went through the familiar task of converting them into fertiliser. After stripping them of their clothing, armour and equipment, which was safely put away for later, each corpse was taken to the garden and a large saw used to remove the head, arms and legs. These peripherals were then loaded into a heavily weathered copper grinder, as big a wardrobe.

  ‘This will hasten the process,’ he chuckled, as he poured a blue noxious-smelling liquid over them.

  A handle in the side of the grinder was then turned. After several minutes of use, which included the sound of the cracking and crunching of bone, Dorrin’s fertiliser was ready to be disgorged into an appropriately placed bucket.

  Wandering through the garden with his bucket, Dorrin stopped at a section where some four-foot-tall, thick-stemmed plants were growing. The leaves were wide and striated with red veins and the flower-heads were the size of anvils and looked like huge, unopened rose bud
s.

  As he approached, the heads of the plants on either side of him began to turn, moving slowly and pointing. Taking out a shovel he reached into the bucket and began scooping up some of the foul-smelling mulch within it.

  The plants reacted accordingly with the sepals from their heads retracting, showing rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  Shovelling the material into each one of their mouths in turn, Dorrin fed his carnivorous plants then skipped up the garden back to his house.

  Later that day Dorrin sifted through the three dead people’s backpacks and helped himself to a nice meal of dried beef and trail rations in his kitchen. Afterwards, he went back to his forest garden.

  That is the devil’s nightshade taken care of, now for the snakewort, he thought, as he took a handful of red-and-yellow seeds from a jar in his tool shed and loaded the first torso onto the wheelbarrow. Walking past plants with eyes that blinked as he went by, and bushes with black and red leaves that hissed – to which he hissed back, Dorrin made his way to the bottom of the garden. Offloading the headless torso he moved it into position at the end of a row of several others, all in various stages of decay.

  ‘That’s it now,’ he muttered excitedly. ‘Get in beside the others, nice and tight.’

  When he was satisfied that the torso was in the correct place, he took a tiny curved dagger from a sheath in his belt and made a small incision below the sternum. Taking one of the seeds from his pocket he popped it into the hole he had made, pushing it upwards towards the chest, and closed it over. Having cleaned his hands Dorrin returned to the other bodies and repeated the process twice more, filling the hole left in Grundar’s chest by the explosion with some of his homemade fertiliser.

  ‘Now let me see if any of you little beauties are ready to be released into the wild,’ he said, walking up and down the line of torsos, inspecting the barbed plants, venom oozing from their spines, which had burst from several of the chests.

  ‘Hmm, you look like you might be ready to catch me a few stray travellers,’ Dorrin said to the biggest of the snakewort plants, and set about slowly and carefully transferring it from the torso to a pot of soil without setting off its trap.

  After popping another seed into the torso, flattening it down and packing it with leftover fertiliser, he took his plant and wheelbarrow to the top of the garden and decided to retire for the night.

  As the daylight started to fade Dorrin sat in his living room and took out his map of the woods, wondering where to place his next snakewort plant.

  The next morning, Dorrin went to each of the markings on his map and inspected the corresponding snakewort plant for signs of damage. Happy that each was still in good health he moved on to the next and, when he got to the location where the new plant was to be positioned, he dug a hole for his newest trap.

  Transferring the plant from the pot into the ground Dorrin filled it in, brushed some of the long grass that grew beside it over the spikes, took loose leaves from the nearby trees and covered the distinctive red-and-yellow markings. Standing back he folded his arms and admired his handiwork before putting the trowel back in his pocket, picking up the empty pot and turning for home.

  As he walked back through the woods, Dorrin heard the wind whistle through the trees and watched the squirrels running along the upper branches. The strong rays of the midday sun came through the trees and warmed his skin as he strode between clearings in the canopy. Periodically he stopped and turned his face to the sun before staring in wonder at the shadows it cast across the forest floor: shadows from everything except him.

  ‘One day I will have a shadow,’ he said quietly.

  Some time later, when Dorrin was sitting in his kitchen eating a slice of bread, he was surprised to hear something at his front door.

  A knock.

  In the three centuries that he had lived in the cottage he had never had a single visitor. To his knowledge, no one knew that either he or his dwelling existed.

  Jumping to his feet he ran to his larder. The tiny room was crammed full of his victims’ suits of armour, backpacks, bedrolls and weapons.

  Another knock; louder than before.

  He grabbed a short sword and ran to one of the windows. A figure dressed in black robes with a cowled hood and a rucksack stood with his back to the door.

  Dorrin opened the door a crack, ready to strike.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  The figure turned, pushing back his hood. Dorrin saw the face of a young, black-haired man with a goatee beard. He looked to be in his early twenties.

  ‘I’m looking for directions,’ the man said.

  ‘Directions?’ Dorrin asked. ‘Directions to where?’

  ‘To the home of the famous and quite brilliant, herbalist, Dorrin Brethil,’ the young man said with a smile.

  Dorrin tightened his grip on the sword.

  ‘How exactly do you know of this herbalist you seek?’

  ‘Because Mister Brethil and I have a lot in common,’ the robed man said and he moved from the shade of the cottage into the direct sunlight. He pointed down to where his shadow should have been.

  The sword fell from Dorrin’s hand.

  ‘But… how?’

  ‘Come out and see for yourself,’ he said, taking a step back further into the direct sunlight and holding his arms out.

  As Dorrin emerged from his home, he checked all around for signs of danger. Not finding any he walked cautiously towards his visitor, trying to get a better look at where his shadow ought to be.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘And what do you want?’

  ‘My name is Amrodan and, as I said, I am looking for the herbalist Dorrin Brethil. I think you must be he,’ the young man said, extending his hand in friendship.

  Like a wild animal seeing a human for the first time Dorrin edged closer and then stopped, sniffing the air and looking about him, wide-eyed and fearful. He looked at Amrodan’s hand and then at his own, before slowly extending it.

  Amrodan grasped Dorrin’s hand and pulled him into the full sunlight, embracing him warmly. ‘Come now, brother, why not invite me inside? We have much to talk about. I think we need a good meal for the talk that lies ahead.’

  Dorrin indicated that Amrodan should go into the house. Following, he quickly picked up the dropped sword and hid it behind a chest of drawers next to the door.

  ‘Who did you say you were?’ Dorrin asked as his visitor walked into the kitchen and began opening cupboards and taking out pots, knives, herbs and fresh vegetables.

  ‘Amrodan, from the realm of Delathorn. I am here to learn from the greatest herbalist the world has ever seen.’

  Amrodan took a pot over to the metal pump, where he half-filled it with water.

  How rude of him to start using my things without being asked, Dorrin thought. Rude people usually end up as fertiliser, Amrodan of Delathorn.

  ‘How did you know about me and where I could be found? This forest covers thousands of acres. I have never had anyone come to my front door before,’ Dorrin said, mystified.

  ‘I had a vision,’ Amrodan said. He picked up a knife and began chopping up the vegetables.

  ‘What sort of vision?’

  ‘A dream, telling me to travel to Blackwood Forest and seek you out. It was not easy, you are a tricky person to find, Mister Brethil.’

  ‘I cannot believe there is another like me. I was convinced I was the only one.’

  Amrodan put the vegetables into the pot, sprinkled in some herbs, and set it on the fire. He then sat down in Dorrin’s high-backed, cushioned chair, put his hands behind his head and puffed out his cheeks.

  ‘I realise this may all be coming as a bit of a shock to you, and I do not blame you for hiding out in the middle of the forest like this; we are, after all, being hunted, are we not?’ Amrodan said. ‘How long have you been out here a
lone?’

  Dorrin walked over to the chest of drawers set against the back wall and took out a book with a pencil wedged down the spine. He opened it and flicked through the pages until he found the entry he was looking for.

  ‘I have seen three-hundred-and-seventy-one summers, over three hundred of them from the safety of this cottage. I cannot remember where I lived before here. I do not remember a family. All I remember is living in these woods and tending to my plants.’ Dorrin looked up from his book and stared out of the window.

  ‘What do you know about who you are?’ Dorrin asked.

  ‘Well, I have been alive for one-hundred-and-twenty-one summers. Unlike you, I have been travelling around for most of my life, trying to keep ahead of the soldiers and assassins whose job it is to kill me. Part of my gift is that I receive visions when I dream, informing me of the existence of others of my kind. When I can, I try to seek them out and help them, sometimes to learn from them,’ Amrodan explained.

  ‘There are others?’ Dorrin asked, his voice becoming high-pitched.

  ‘Oh yes. A few hiding like you, others constantly on the move like me. They refuse to reveal themselves for fear of persecution: spies are everywhere. Do you know anything of your parents or your home?’ Amrodan enquired.

  ‘No,’ Dorrin replied, looking into space. ‘By the sounds of it if I had continued living in a town or village then I would have been slaughtered for not having a shadow. I’m glad I came to live in the woods. The plants and the trees do not judge me.’

  ‘Your eyes are turquoise,’ Amrodan stated. ‘The colour of Wymtilimön, the God of Plants.’

  ‘What has the colour of my eyes got to do with anything?’

  Amrodan just smiled. ‘So you have a gift for horticulture, then?’ he asked.

  ‘It is more than a gift,’ Dorrin stated. ‘The plants talk to me, not in the way that you and I are talking, but more subtly. We have found a more fundamental way of communicating – their voices are like songs echoing through my mind and I feel what they are thinking and transfer my thoughts and emotions to them. They, in turn, can do the same to me.’