Despiris might be his queen, his starlight faerie, his dark angel – but to the rest of the city she was a faceless demon, a sinister woman-wraith stalking the streets.
As far as Fairoway was concerned, there was a new nightmare in town.
*
Despiris found, atop her bed, a bouquet of fresh-cut roses, and a box tied with black satin ribbon. Giddy and girlish, she crushed the petals to her face, drinking in their cloying scent.
Then her curiosity got the best of her. Setting the roses aside, she untied the box and lifted the lid. Nested inside were two objects. The first – a perfume-like spritzer bottle filled with black liquid. The second – a perfectly round crest of wood, a little wider than fist-sized, carved to elevate the Shadowmaster’s emblem.
Despiris ran her finger over the raised, intricate edges of the carving – a black rose with wings ensnared by a spider web. Lifting the crest out of the box, she found a thick, squat knob attached to the back.
She’d seen Clevwrith use the equivalent of these two items before – spritzing ink onto the emblem and then stamping his signature onto things – but she’d never been granted the privilege. It had always been his sole right, to leave the mark of the Master of the Shadows.
Now, evidently, it was her right as well.
And she couldn’t wait another moment to try it out.
Among the relics that littered the room, a stack of old framed portraits was leaned against the wall in one corner. Lighting the rare candle, Despiris took a knife to the first portrait, tearing the canvas away to reveal the plain wooden backing. Then, spritzing a few puffs of ink onto the carved crest, she stamped it into the blank space.
With a flutter of anticipation she pulled back the stamp. Slightly crooked from her haste, the emblem gleamed center-frame, black and wet, eerie and elegant. A feeling both sentimental and sly moved through her, making her first mark. With the initiation of the token, she felt a shift in the wind, an evolution inside her.
The Shadowmaster’s apprentice had been unleashed.
7
A Long-Awaited Moment
“I will not deign to waste resources on this frivolous intrigue. He is no more than the grasping last of his species, Crow, a desperate straggler trying to remain relevant. And in lending him your time and attention, you are granting him that.”
*
His Majesty King Isavor Guildheart of Cerf Daine had long dismissed Crow’s interest in the Spylord. Worse, he’d implied on more than one occasion that Crow’s interest furthered the problem, granting the Shadowmaster exactly what he wanted. But recent events had proved things had evolved, and it was with no provocation from Crow.
Well, he had put up the wanted posters. But that hadn’t inspired the Spylord to go out and recruit an apprentice and pass on all his shadowy ways in the course of a week. No, the Shadowmaster’s agenda had been on the rise before Crow decided to dabble, so he did not think it would be productive to suggest he’d played any part in provoking this turn of events.
“I would not bring this up again if I did not believe utterly in its importance, your majesty,” the Lord Advisor promised, adamant this time. “With every fiber of my being, decaying and decrepit though any such fibers may be, I wholeheartedly believe this is a rising threat. While at times you might consider my input old and outdated, I can only assume I am not your advisor merely for decoration – decaying and decrepit qualities previously established – and as frequently as I present as outdated, you would be remiss to ignore the wisdom that is the only redeeming quality about being this old.”
He had to be careful not to go on a full-blown tirade, aware that one of the less-redeeming qualities about being a grumpy old man was the risk of having his tangents dismissed as mere temper tantrums. And let’s be clear – this is a tangent. Not a tantrum.
“What was discussed at this council?” Isavor asked, taking at least a fragment of interest in the fact that the Spylord had intruded on royal business. “Was there any subject which you can deduce might have been of particular interest to him?”
Mosscrow tried to remain patient in light of the king’s logical, pointless approach to the situation. “Who can guess at what interests the Master of the Shadows, sire? He is a riddle. A proven creature of both tedious calculation and wild impulse.”
“What makes you so certain it was him? Could it not have been some…fluky cathedral squatter?”
An ache in Mosscrow’s jaw alerted him to the fact that his molars were grinding together. Consciously, he released the tension building in his head. “The cathedral is…fairly secure, your majesty. He could only have gained access through the roof. No fluky squatter squats his way up the sheer face of a towering fortress to find a cozy nook for the night. And fluky squatters don’t take on apprentice squatters.”
An indentation formed between the king’s wide-set hazel eyes. “When did the Shadhi straggler take on an apprentice?” He had an annoying tendency of refusing to call the Master of the Shadows by any of the titles that glorified him. Just another sign that he wasn’t giving the trickster enough credit. This underestimation was a mistake, Mosscrow was certain of it.
“It was not the council spying on the Master of the Shadows, your majesty, but quite the other way around, which is rather the point.” There those molars went again – bearing down on one another. “We know nothing. He knows everything. He could tell you which pillow you favor the most when you sleep, I’m sure, or the color of Lady Ambermoth’s underskirts.”
“Crow!” Isavor scolded, aghast at the crude example. “Don’t be vulgar.”
Mosscrow resisted rolling his eyes. Rolling his eyes, crossing his arms, grinding his molars to dust in his gums. There were terrorists at large, and the king was more worried about decorum. Uhk. Why do I bother.
Composing himself, Isavor returned seamlessly to the matter at hand, that apathetic air maintaining he was unconvinced. “The Shadhi do not meddle with royal affairs.”
“Well…as you said, he is trying to remain relevant. And I believe he would go to any end to do so.”
Slouching to the side, the king rested an elbow on the arm of his throne and propped his chin in his hand, drumming his fingers against his clean-shaven cheek. A lock of wavy mouse-brown hair had escaped his ruby-studded silver circlet, flourishing down next to his eye. “And this…secondary figure. How do you know it’s an apprentice?”
“What else would it be? Unless we have been wrong all this time and there has been more than one straggler. But sightings have been of a lone figure for years. And this secondary figure is smaller in stature, suggesting a youth in training.”
“Wouldn’t an apprentice be…contrary to the narcissist we have figured him to be? If anything we’ve ever deduced about the Shadhi straggler is true, he wants the notoriety, and he wants it for himself.”
“Please, your majesty,” Mosscrow implored, barely suppressing a sigh. “You do us a disservice underestimating him. Call him by his name.”
Isavor adopted a patronizing air, mimicking a shiver as if mock-spooked. “The ‘Master of the Shadows’?” he asked, unable to say it seriously.
But it was serious, and Mosscrow maintained his grim countenance, refusing to let the king make him feel sheepish. “That one will do.”
“The Master of the Shadows, then, for the purpose of this conversation. I make no promises beyond. He is a narcissist. Why would he wish to share credit with an apprentice?”
“As I said. He is a creature of both calculation and impulse. I cannot guess at his reasoning. Perhaps he is planning a heist the scope of which he simply cannot pull off by himself. Perhaps he is so much the narcissist that he craved having someone to call him ‘master’ to his face, on a daily basis.” Mosscrow shifted position, his feet beginning to ache from the hard marble of the throne room. “This is the point, your majesty. We do not understand him enough. I wish only to investigate, to determine whether he truly is a mere nuisance or in fact a threat. I am not asking to s
tage some elaborate hunt, some all-consuming operation to the negligence of all else. Simply…allow me to investigate. Please.”
He hated to have to beg, but if it would cause the king to give in at long last, he could suffer the humiliation.
Isavor drummed his fingers in consideration, the suspense nearly undoing Mosscrow. Consideration was more than the king had given the matter before. Could this time…possibly…be different?
Mosscrow felt like an adolescent with a crush, so heady were the butterflies that rushed through his bloated old gut.
Then it happened. The moment he’d been waiting a handful of years for. With a gusty sigh, the king relented.
“Very well, Crow. If you are intent on it, I will give you a short leash of freedom to do a little digging.” There was still no enthusiasm in the king’s voice, but it didn’t matter – Mosscrow harbored enough enthusiasm for the both of them. He barely tamed the hungry, maniacal grin that rippled across his face into a more poised, sensible expression of appreciation. But he could not suppress the eager wringing of fingers inside of his robe sleeves as Isavor finished the delectable, long overdue sentiment, “I hereby grant you permission to investigate the Shadhi strag – the Master of the Shadows.”
8
Butchers, Wolves, and Ghouls
“You’ll hear it said, if you want to best your opponent, you have to stay one step ahead of him. This is neither ambitious nor foolproof. You must stay five steps ahead.” – Shadhi Fundamentals, page 57.
*
It wasn’t often that Clevwrith worked during the day, but options for gaining access to the palace grounds were limited, and while one might think sneaking into such forbidden territory was a task best committed under the cover of night, Clevwrith found the most ideal technique to be hitching a ride on the king’s own carriage, in broad daylight.
Each morning, Isavor Guildheart took an early ride through Galivant Park to clear his mind before the administrative drudgery that cooped him up in the palace all day. He sipped his tea from the privacy of his carriage car and watched the misty landscape roll by, sometimes trading conversation with a choice noble he’d adopted as a friend, sometimes riding alone for the meditative benefits.
It didn’t matter to Clevwrith if there was a seat free in the carriage, however, because it was the underbelly of the vehicle that he’d purchased a ticket to ride.
To purchase a ticket to the underbelly of the king’s carriage, you first had to know your way around the underground station that was the sewer. Once you reached the boarding platform, you traded currency in the form of bread crumbs to lure the rats away from your stake-out beneath the access lid. King Isavor had at least had the presence of mind not to allow sewer access inside the palace gates, but putting the access point right outside the gates was almost as convenient, if you were the type of intruder with guts and coordination and the conditioning necessary to cling to the bottom of a carriage for a short amount of time.
When the king returned from his park ride, Clevwrith was in place, lurking and ready. The carriage paused over the access point while the gates opened – not long, but long enough for Clevwrith to shift the access lid aside, reach up through the opening, and find his hold along the carriage axle. When the carriage continued only a moment later, he let it pull him fully from the hole, quickly hooking his toes around the stone disc to slide it back into place before pulling his feet up out of view.
And thus, he rode onto palace grounds in broad daylight, only a faint, dissipating layer of mist for cover, the king totally oblivious to the stowaway he’d spirited in right under his own two feet.
Equally oblivious was the king to the fact that Clevwrith listened in on his meeting with the Lord Advisor that morning, and was the first to learn about Mosscrow’s release to pursue him.
So, then, all he needs is a little invitation, Clevwrith thought at the meeting’s end. He was happy to oblige.
While Mosscrow was rallying his troops and briefing them on their new objective, ensuring everyone was sharp and ready to jump on even the smallest lead, Clevwrith took a quick visit to the Lord Advisor’s personal office. Not so sure he wanted to give away that he had infiltrated the palace, just yet, he rifled through the letters on the Lord Advisor’s desk until he found one from a local butcher, and decided it would be the perfect host for his own memo.
Consulting his bag of tricks, he selected his stamp kit. Spritzing ink on his emblem, he turned the letter over and left his mark proudly upon the parchment. Blowing on the symbol to dry it quickly, he replaced the letter in the middle of the stack and stashed his stamp kit, then ghosted from the room.
When Mosscrow got to the letter and saw the mark, all he would think was that Clevwrith had intercepted the missive at or after it left the butcher’s shop, that that indirect avenue was the manner in which the Master of the Shadows had devised to ‘infiltrate’ the palace. Of course, the Lord Advisor would wonder if the butcher’s shop was random or significant, and he would have to investigate it.
And while it had been random, it would indeed become significant now. For Clevwrith would be there waiting for them, ready to taunt and tease. Ready to lure them on a glorious chase through the dark carnival they had no idea they’d stumbled into.
*
When Clevwrith had been a shadeling, there had been one rite of passage among the Shadhi that stuck with him in particular. There was an herbalist in the marketplace that moonlighted as the more arcane version of her front – an alchemist, a mystic, a conjurer of wonders which might or might not have been natural, but which likely would have gotten her burned at the stake had King Tutaunus caught wind. The Shadhi had employed her to concoct a number of potions and tonics, one of which was the clever Wolf Musk perfume. A scent devised to mimic that of a wolf so closely, that you could walk among them while they slept and not be detected.
At least, if you possessed the skills of stealth that you should as a Shadhi, you wouldn’t be detected. And that, of course, was the test.
Clevwrith had passed. Despiris had passed. Clevwrith had never known anyone who hadn’t, but there was a story about a shadeling who was carried home to the Cob torn nearly to bits, a poor soul who had mis-stepped and awakened the pack. Clevwrith had never been able to determine if it was a true account or just a horror story to scare shadelings into applying themselves lest they meet the same fate. But it had rendered the stunt an infamous one, and Clevwrith had never been able to shake a sense of morbid fascination with it. And so, even as a full-fledged Shadhi, even as the last of his kind who answered to no one, with zero obligation to take such symbolic risks, he still visited the wolves on occasion.
Preceding his impending encounter with the Lord Advisor was one such occasion.
He had donned the Wolf’s Musk at first merely as a tactic for his shenanigans with the Lord Advisor. When the king’s men descended on the butcher’s shop, Clevwrith had little planned for them there except a clue that would lead them on to the next locale. But, while they were en route, he thought it would be fun to pull a little irony and amuse himself stalking his hunters. The horses would catch wind of ‘wolves’ on their heels and grow restless, uneasiness would spread through the group – and Lord Mosscrow, Clevwrith was certain, would know.
Having donned the Wolf’s Musk and realized he had some time to kill, Clevwrith used it as an excuse to take a detour beyond city limits, into the wilderness. He tracked the wolves to the base of the Jaggeth mountain range, then a short hike up the slopes to a grassy glade where they slept.
He treaded silently into their midst, stepping over twitching paws and snouts, wondering what glorious conquests and exhilarating hunts they dreamed about. He was past the point of marveling at his own ability to creep undetected through their midst, cautious but confident as he made his way to the center of the pack.
There, hemmed in by a labyrinth of predators, he crouched. Idle jaws and deadly senses created a dense obstacle course between him and safety, and yet…he was
safe, there at the center. For the wolves slumbered on, uncaring, unaware, the stealth that Clevwrith commanded erasing him from the scene.
He didn’t marvel at the fact that he could do this, but he did enjoy it. It would be safe to say he reveled in it.
In all of it.
Gloated silently about the fact that he possessed the ability to evade a thousand captures like it was child’s play, to bend the ordinary landscape navigated by humans into a nearly alternate-dimension of sensational maneuvers, to transcend reality and practically will the world to balance beneath him, to shift around him, to turn away and to pass him by.
Oh, how clever was he to merge with the night as if they were one and disappear like he had never been. To tread without caution into a pack of sleeping wolves, knowing that even nature’s deadliest predators would ignore his presence.
And if ‘clever’ should mean he’d only found a thousand and one ways to be alone in the world, sealing his fate as a solitary soul, so be it.
Because that’s what ‘cleverness’ was, in the end, wasn’t it? Both the gift and curse of one who could stand in the center of a crowd, and forever be immersed in the very essence of loneliness.
*
It didn’t take long for the Lord Advisor to swoop in like a vulture on the butcher’s shop. Evidently, he got through his queue of letters mid-afternoon, and once he saw the Shadowmaster’s emblem, he didn’t waste time pursuing the goad, rallying his gold-uniformed fleet and riding through the city as if leading an army to war.
Confused but compliant, the butcher admitted the king’s men and let them poke about, biting his tongue when they didn’t hesitate to turn the place upside down. Not opposed to getting his hands dirty, at least in this instance, Lord Mosscrow even joined the search, inspecting cleavers and prodding at carcasses hanging from the ceiling and swatting at hooks that snagged his hood. He was determined to leave no stone left unturned, and was rewarded when one of his men – Hensley, he thought his name was…Hensley or Hexworth – went through the parcels queued for delivery and found another emblem stamped on one bound for an inn called the Hither and Yawn.
Girl of Rooftops and Shadows (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 1) Page 6
