Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  Dravus settled into a crouch and put his hands in front of him. Nemm was four or five inches shorter than him, and he had at least fifty pounds of muscle on her, so it wasn't absurd to think that he could beat her, so long as she didn't have use of her daggers. What's more, he could feel his newfound power, a speed and strength that would be easy to tap. The whole city must know his name by now. The story of the fight in the plaza would have spread to every home and every tavern. He wasn't on her level, but physical strength was still supposed to count for something.

  "My god you're a fool," said one of the sailors. Dravus realized only belatedly that they were being watched, not just by the faraway hopefuls, but by the men and women that made up the crew. The sun had set some time ago, and the deck of the ship was lit by lanterns. It was easy for him to see, almost as though it was daylight, and that would give him an advantage over Nemm.

  "Seaman," said Nemm. "Give us a count."

  "Three," said one of the sailors. Dravus's thoughts went to Korata's booming voice, and the moments before a race began. There was nothing on the line here though, nothing but his pride. "Two. One."

  Nemm launched herself towards him and kicked forward with both feet, hitting him squarely in the chest. Dravus tumbled backwards and slammed his head up against the railing of the ship before slumping to the ground. The sailors applauded, and Dravus heard a few drunken cheers from the docks. Apparently this humiliation was clear enough to be visible from there.

  "I did a backflip when I kicked you," said Nemm. "You missed it." She was smiling wide and feral. "Don't ever try anything like I just did in a real fight, by the way."

  "You're fast," said Dravus with a cough. The back of his head was throbbing, but he got to his feet anyway. "Really, really fast."

  "I am," said Nemm. "Also quite strong. I also have a decade of experience, and trained under many masters. Ready for round two, or are you going to give up?"

  Dravus spit over the side of the ship. "Ready."

  "Three," called the same sailor. "Two," Dravus was ready this time, in a more defensive position and prepared to grab her, "One."

  Nemm just stood there. She wasn't even in a fighting stance. She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side, grinning at him. "Lexari looks down on exhibition matches. He thinks it's poor form to flaunt our power. The only reason I stopped doing them was one too many dangerous people making their way past my security. You sign up to fight twenty yokels at once, and all of the sudden there's a man growing horns from his forehead, ready to gore you to death."

  Dravus responded by manipulating his domain. The lanterns were casting shadows where the panes of glass met at an iron strut, he thickened those until the light was completely obscured, as though the lanterns had been snuffed out. He was surprised by how easy it was, and smiled in the darkness. Nemm was lit only by the waning moon, and without the benefit of night vision.

  "At least you're smart enough to cheat," she said. She was still smiling, and still with her hands on her hips. It would still be bright enough for her to see him moving, but if he could catch her off guard it would be harder for her to block or dodge.

  He lunged forward and threw a right hook, and Nemm calmly took the hit, right in the cheekbone. Her head moved only fractionally. She grabbed his wrist and ducked down to push her shoulder into his stomach, and before he knew it, he was sailing up over her, through the air. He landed on the deck of the ship, and Nemm pressed her boot lightly against his neck. Again, the sailors applauded.

  "I don't know how much you think I'm boasting about my abilities, but you have a very long way to go until you can match me," said Nemm. "It's my hope that this will teach you some humility, but if not, at least it's fun to beat you up."

  "Again," said Dravus. Nemm raised an eyebrow, and pulled her foot back. "Rule of three," said Dravus as he climbed to his feet. "The third time, I have to win."

  "Depends on the story we're telling," said Nemm. "Are you the new recruit who gets his ass handed to him by a waif? Or are you the new recruit who beats one of the strongest illustrati on his first night aboard the Zenith and thereby shows his worth? Which story is more plausible? Which is more true? Is the third time special because you finally get the better of me? Or is it special because I hit you hard enough that you can't get back up?"

  Dravus didn't wait for the count this time, and moved towards her. For a moment he thought that he might be able to land a solid hit, one she wasn't prepared for, even if it was sloppy. It was foolish for him to think that he could catch her by surprise. She slid to the side, letting his punch sail past her, then punched him in the shoulder to knock him off balance. She followed this up by kicking his feet out from under him, and he landed on the deck of the ship with a loud thunk. The shadows he'd been maintaining faded away as he lost his focus, and the lantern light returned in full. The sailors cheered a third time.

  "I yield," Dravus groaned from the ground. "I can only hope that beating me so badly has helped you to relax." He rubbed his hip, which had taken most of the weight of his fall. "Are you faster than Lexari?"

  "Not usually," said Nemm. She wasn't even breathing heavily, and had dropped from her fighting stance to get into a squat and watch him. "My standing reaches a peak around Velen's Feast, and I believe I'm higher than him then. There are other seasonal variations, and sometimes a new piece of news or work of fiction winds its way into the public consciousness enough that there's some measurable impact. For the most part, he's my superior in terms of raw standing." She cocked her head to the side and smiled. "Just as you're my clear inferior."

  "Consider my lesson learned," said Dravus. He was thinking about the bruises he would have tomorrow, then remembered that he would only have to ask Wenaru for them to be removed.

  When he looked at Nemm, she was stock still and tense.

  "Stay out of the way," she murmured. She kicked at the pieces of armor that were laying on the ground, and the glass flowed up to her. It solidified into place around her torso and limbs, and quickly extruded spikes at the joints. When the process was finished, moments later, not an inch of Nemm's skin was bare, just as she'd said. The armor grew thicker with every passing second. When Dravus looked around, he realized that the sailors had all moved, huddled into corners or gone down beneath the deck of the ship.

  Dravus's one prior experience with a battle between illustrati had made him expect that there would be a grand entrance, and banter between Nemm and whoever she had sensed. That was how it always went in the stories. Instead, the fight began with little fanfare. A cloaked figure leapt up from the water and landed on the deck of the ship; Nemm fought him at once, with her daggers flashing out towards him. He was armed with a whip of water and lashed out at her, driving her back before her blades could find flesh. Dravus's mind was racing, and he held his hand out to the side, trying to summon the shadow into a physical thing. If Lexari could do it with light, then surely it could be done with shadow as well. He grasped at the air and felt nothing.

  The whip of water cracked forward and struck Nemm's armor, which shattered and then reformed in an instant. She threw one of her daggers forward, but her assailant leapt out of the way. Nemm pushed towards him, and this time managed to plunge the dagger into his chest. The glass dagger cracked and then made itself whole in her hand again, and she jumped back to dodge under the water whip. The assailant was wearing heavy armor beneath his cloak.

  Dravus grabbed at the air again, and this time found himself holding a dagger of his own. It was a thin, nearly insubstantial thing, and he could see straight through it. He had no armor, and given how tenuous his dagger was it would have been a miracle for him to summon some. Nemm continued to fight against her assailant, and he had no way of knowing which of them was winning. Dravus remembered Lexari's fingers being cut off, and how quickly the fight had shifted. He imagined that this would be the same, their combat decided by a quick, decisive blow. Another crack of the whip hit Nemm's armor and broke it, but this tim
e it didn't pull back together so quickly. Dravus began to move into position, extending the shadows to cover him.

  The cloaked figure raced towards Nemm as she began to form a dagger to replace the one she'd thrown. He seemed not to care about her weapons. The thin tendril of water he'd been holding onto became a thick sphere around his hand, and he got in close enough to press it against her helm. It was clear enough that he was trying to drown her, to force the water down her throat until she choked to death. Her daggers kept hitting him, but beneath the cloak he was wearing something of impeccable make, and though her daggers were razor-sharp, they couldn't get through steel. She was stabbing at his joints, trying to find a chink in the armor, but he had the sphere of water surrounding her head. Even if the helm was sealed tight, Nemm wouldn't have much air. Dravus moved forward, creeping silently, keeping his concentration on his shadow-dagger. He was only going to get one chance, and maybe not even that.

  Nemm dropped her daggers entirely, and began tearing at the man's armor with her bare hands. She began ripping off pieces of it, wrenching the metal apart and sending links of chain rolling across the deck of the ship. Dravus could see water within her glass helmet. She tore the cloak from her attacker, and Dravus saw a spot on his left side that was now almost bare of plate or mail. He darted forward and swung his dagger in from the side at the exposed flank, and a man's soft cry of pain seemed louder than it truly was. From there he wasn't long for the world. Nemm punched him squarely in the face, crumpling his armor there, and darted around, out from beneath him. When the figure stumbled, Nemm pulled a glass dagger from the material of her armor and stabbed him in the side, over and over, with a grimace on her face, until she was halfway supporting him with a hand beneath his armpit.

  When he slumped to the ground, Nemm finally let her helm of glass part and spill water onto the deck. She spit a mouthful of water to the side and let out a low hiss. Her arm was covered in blood up to the elbow where she'd been stabbing him.

  "That's what you get," she said. She stepped forward and kicked the corpse, which produced a loud clang. "That's what you get!"

  There was a muffled sound from the cabin, and Dravus barely had enough time to think two of them before Nemm was racing off again.

  * * *

  Wenaru had been watching Lexari sleep. All of the fleshly damage had been fixed, which just left the cuts to his skin, his broken bones, and a deficit of blood. Wenaru itched to open Lexari up. All it would take was a cut across the abdomen. Wenaru could push the muscles aside, taking the major blood vessels with them, and get a look at the intestines, kidneys, liver, and every other part that his power didn't touch. It was the fastest way to diagnose a perforation or a puncture. Internal damage could be insidious. He had asked, while Lexari was conscious, but Lexari had said no, and that was that. Still, Gael felt the urge in his fingertips. It was a nagging feeling, the need to make sure that nothing was seriously wrong. He touched Lexari's bare skin, and again made sure that his friend was still as healthy as possible, given the circumstances. Lexari's hand was going to be the biggest problem into the foreseeable future. Wenaru could have rebuilt the hand, but not the bones within it, and it would have been red flesh, without skin to cover it. Beneath the bandages there was a swollen line where the hand simply ended instead of continuing on. Nemm hadn't been able to recover the fingers to reattach them, so Gael had stitched together the ragged flesh as soon as Lexari went unconscious.

  He heard something behind him, and turned around to see a man in full wooden armor. Behind him, the hull of the ship gaped open.

  "No," whispered Wenaru.

  Being an illustrati normally meant knowing the name of every person who came to kill you, but this man's face was covered with an oaken helm, and there were a half dozen illustrati with the right domain and the proper amount of power to push through wood like that.

  "Please," said Wenaru.

  The man held a length of wood in his hand, and stalked forward with it held high. It was thick at the end like a club, the weapon that the domain of wood most lent itself to. More important than that, a club was the sort of weapon that you used against someone with the domain of flesh. Wenaru could heal damage to his muscles almost instantly, but a club was best for breaking bones and cracking skulls. The man's wooden armor covered him fully, with no place to lay a hand on bare skin. That was the best protection against the bodily domains, everyone knew that. The mask of wood had a vent at the front for air, and two small holes around the eyes, styled like knots of wood. The eyes were intent as the illustrato stalked closer, ready to bring his club down the moment Gael was in reach.

  "Turn around," said Wenaru. "Leave, please, just go, I won't even tell anyone you were here."

  The man raised his club, and Gael stepped forward quickly, to put a hand against his chestplate.

  Everyone knew that you had to be careful going against the bodily domains, and that became more and more true as you moved up the ranks, until you arrived at someone like Wenaru Mottram. A single touch could kill you. Everyone knew that the solution was to cover yourself from head to toe, so that there was no bare skin for them to find contact with. Lesser illustrati couldn't kill so quickly, but for someone like Wenaru or the Bone Warden, it was the only way that you had a hope of winning. Deprive them of the ability to touch, and you didn't have so much to worry about.

  Everyone knew that.

  But you had to be careful about what everyone knew.

  Wenaru's power reached straight past the wooden armor. He could feel the yellowish-white fats and the thick red fibers of muscle, and in the first split second of making contact he brought everything to a halt. The arm that was holding the club jerked back, dropping it to clatter against the floor of the corridor. The man's eyes were wide, and Wenaru looked at them with pity. He had to imagine that the paralysis was unpleasant. Before his attacker could get any clever ideas, Gael formed new muscles in the neck and used them to gently squeeze the carotid artery, a quicker, more violent variant on what he'd done to Lexari. The changes in blood pressure caused a baroreceptor nerve response, and the man was out like a light. It had taken an enormous amount of practice to be able to do that without it being lethal, and years of study to understand the mechanism behind it.

  When the man fell to the ground, Gael used his power a second time, reshaping the muscles one by one until every important muscle had been detached from its joint, not bleeding or otherwise harmed, but incapable of producing any movement. Gael had watched people try before. You could see the muscles moving beneath the skin, like enormous creatures trapped there.

  "I told you not to," said Wenaru to the still form. He tried to keep himself mournful, and to not think about the thrill that came with having another person under his control. It wasn't something a person was supposed to get their pleasure from. He looked back toward where Lexari still lay in his bed and said another small oath.

  * * *

  Dravus came down into the ship to find Nemm and Wenaru standing over a man in wooden armor.

  "This is why they hate me," said Wenaru. "This is why they curse my name."

  Dravus stared at the body. Nemm tore the wooden mask away and looked down at his face. He was a handsome man with sandy brown hair, taking in shallow breaths. Dravus didn't recognize him, though that didn't say much. The only illustrati he could really put a face to were those stamped on his money.

  "Wake him up," said Nemm. She was still in full armor from head to toe. "I have questions."

  "Promise not to hurt him," said Gael. "Promise me."

  "There might be a third," said Nemm. "We don't have time for this."

  Gael crouched down and touched the man's armor, and he woke back up with a gasp. Nemm's dagger flashed forward and into his mouth, where she pressed it against his tongue. He went completely still and watched her.

  "Wealdwood. Try to use your power and I'll stab straight into the base of your spine," she said. She ground out the words and stared deep into his eyes. "
Your muscles have been rendered nonfunctional. Even if you warped the wood of this ship to make an escape, you would drown when you hit water. Cerulean Bane is dead. Answer my questions, and I'll let you live." She held up something that would have been nearly invisible in the lantern light save for the fact that Dravus could see clearly in the dark. "Illustrati-forged. Expensive stuff. And you both kept yourselves cloaked. Who is your employer?" The object was a ring of metal, a single link from the chain mail that she'd torn off during the fight. She slowly removed the dagger from Wealdwood's mouth.

  Dravus wracked his brain trying to connect something to the names. After some reflection he realized he heard of both before; Cerulean Bane had rescued treasures from the depths of the ocean with the help of Aspect, and Wealdwood had been part of the Flower Queen's court before his exile. Neither were villains, and Dravus couldn't imagine either traveling with Zerstor. Nemm had asked her question with authority, but it had to be a guess on her part.