Plague of Shadows

by Michael Wisehart

  Things were moving too fast. She was the daughter of the overlord, and he was the son of her father’s gamekeeper. This whole trip to find the lost Keep of Aero’set was beginning to look more and more like the perfect solution. They needed some time apart.

  Ty managed to pull himself away from Lyessa’s gaze.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Breen finished his goodbyes with a warm kiss.

  “I’ll see you at the meeting,” Lyessa said, releasing Ty’s arm and planting a quick peck on his cheek before he could get away.

  Ty nodded, doing his best not to look too embarrassed as he walked down the steps toward his brother. He hoped Breen chalked up the redness in his cheeks to the cold.

  The ride back to town was a quiet one. Ty’s head was swimming with the possibilities of what lay ahead, not the least of which was their invitation to attend the Sidaran Assembly. What would the assembly do when they found out he was not only a wielder but also a faeling? Probably spend the rest of the meeting arguing which form of execution to use.

  Crossing into the merchant district, Ty spotted a figure down one of the alleys, tossing a bucket of scraps from the back of one of the shops. The person was wearing a dark cloak with the hood pulled back. The figure turned and looked at him. Ty’s breath caught in his throat, and his hands clenched the reins.

  Mangora.

  He looked again, then realized the figure was too tall to be Mangora. Whoever it was turned and walked back inside. It took Ty halfway to Wood Lane to calm down, but just thinking about the possibility of having seen her again had him wondering if anyone had been by her shop since the battle.

  Ty twisted in his saddle. “I just had a crazy idea.”

  Breen turned, took one look at Ty, and sighed. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  Chapter 34 | Ty

  WITH THE SIDARAN ASSEMBLY meeting still a few hours away, Ty decided to show his brother where he had first encountered the old witch. He wanted to see what all she’d left behind and if there were any clues as to where she had gone.

  He had never wanted to kill someone before, but there was nothing he wanted more than to look her in the eyes and watch the spark of life fade away. He didn’t like the feeling—a constant pressure in his chest, threatening to crush him—but the witch needed to die. He doubted his mother was the only person to have died because of her.

  The sun was out and shining but doing little to lessen the sting from the early winter’s bite. They had seen their first sign of snow two days earlier, a mere dusting, but it was a sure indication that there would be more on the way.

  “Your hood,” Breen said.

  “What?”

  He pointed to Ty’s head.

  “Oh.” Ty lifted his hood a little higher to cover his white hair. He needed to find a cap to wear around town. Crazy stuff was becoming a nuisance. He wished he had thought to ask Nyalis to change the color back while they were in Meerwood. It would have made things much easier. But with everything that had happened, it had skipped his mind completely.

  River Street was busier than usual. The closest spot for tethering their horses was outside the lamp-wright’s, a few buildings up from the small lane where Mangora kept her shop. Ty didn’t mind the walk.

  Seeing all the people scurrying about their daily lives, completely oblivious to the danger that had recently threatened their very existence, was a calming salve to the dark emotions he was battling. It gave him hope that maybe things could be normal again. He almost laughed. He was a faeling, hunted by the White Tower, now responsible for finding and returning some ancient wizard keep. Who was he kidding? Things were never going to be normal again.

  They reached the alley between the spice merchant’s and the fuller’s, and Ty took a moment to study it. Even in the middle of the day, the narrow street appeared to absorb the light. Above their heads, darkened windows of three-story buildings peered down on them like malevolent eyes.

  Ty pulled his cloak tighter. It was cold, but the alley felt colder still. No sign hung over the door, which was no surprise. Mangora had told him the place was spelled. Only those with magic could find it, and most of those would have stayed well clear. Ty wondered how she had managed to scrape up a living all these years.

  He inched closer. With each step, he could feel the hairs on his neck rising.

  “This is it,” he said as he stepped up onto the porch. But instead of opening the door, he stared at the tarnished copper knob. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. What if that spider was in there?

  “Are we going in or what?” his brother asked.

  Steeling his nerves, Ty turned the handle and gave it a slight push. The door uttered an eerie whine before catching the brass bell that hung above it. Ty jumped at the sound; his hands rose defensively in case he needed to call on his fire.

  The shop was silent.

  He took a step back and checked the alley, making sure they were alone, then closed his eyes and summoned his magic. It was easier this time. It only took a couple of tries before the warmth in his gut spread up through his chest and out his left arm, where it manifested in blue flame rising from his palm. The flames weren’t hot, at least not to him, but they did cast a reasonable amount of light on the entryway.

  “Cheerful place, isn’t it?” Breen said, looking over Ty’s shoulder. “After you, little brother.”

  “Why do I have to go first?”

  “Because you’re the one with the light.”

  Ty released a little more magic, and the flame brightened. He stepped through the door, and Breen followed him in, neither moving as they let their eyes adjust to the darkness.

  Ty wrinkled his nose. “This place stinks just as bad as the last time I was here. Smells like death wrapped in fungus, with a touch of decaying old woman thrown in for good measure.”

  Breen chuckled.

  Ty kept his ears tuned for any sign of danger as they made their way around the room. Everything appeared to be the same. The long glass cabinets that lined the wall still held all the same odd knickknacks and curios he had seen before: curved daggers with jeweled handles, gold and silver chalices trimmed with exotic stones, sealed boxes with who knew what inside, crystal vials with strangely colored liquids, glass jars with large ugly insects, some gaudy jewelry, and a few crystal orbs. Ty spotted the display of shrunken heads still hanging in the corner, which he pointed out to Breen.

  “She sure has some peculiar tastes,” Breen said. “Guarantee you won’t find another shop like this in all of Sidara.”

  Ty grunted. “That’s probably a good thing.”

  They continued on around the shop. The opposite wall held a large assortment of weaponry, including some Ty had never seen before. Breen lifted a black recurve bow and tested its pull. “Good tension.” He held it out in front of him, testing its balance. “It’s perfect.”

  The bow was beautifully made, though Ty didn’t recognize the wood it had been carved from.

  “I wonder if any of these have magical properties,” Breen mused aloud, not seemingly expecting an answer. He did that sometimes whenever he found something especially puzzling.

  The idea of these weapons being magical hadn’t even crossed Ty’s mind. It was an interesting thought, though. He wondered if one of them could be used to kill Mangora. It would be worth investigating, but not right now. Something else was calling to him: the small shelf of books at the back. It was one of the reasons he had come in the first place. He wanted to get his hands on something he had seen the last time he was there.

  He scanned the stack of old tomes. The books, even though ancient and rather on the dusty side, showed little wear. He wondered if they had been spelled to keep them from deteriorating.

  Ty thumbed through the spines. He recognized most from his last visit: The Foresight of Divination, Poison: The Lost Art, Reshaping the World, Elixirs of Life, but the book he was most interested in seeing again, The Hidden Magic of Fae, was not there. There was a volume he didn’t remember seeing before, sm
aller than the others, almost small enough to fit in his hand. He read the title out loud. “Hidden Perceptions.” What did that have to do with magic?

  He pulled the book out and blew the dust off the front cover. It seemed plain compared to the others. No decorative markings stamped into the binding. No raised designs or protective corner pieces. Just a simple kettle stitch across the spine, gold lettering for the title, and a small clasp in the shape of a hand to keep the boards closed.

  Ty unhooked the clasp and opened the cover. The first page was blank. He flipped through the rest of the pages, but they were empty too.

  “Why would Mangora keep an empty book on her shelf?”

  “What did you say?” Breen asked, still perusing the weapons cache behind him.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking out loud.” He scanned the pages once again, this time from back to front.

  “I think I’m going to keep this bow,” Breen said.

  Ty stopped about halfway through the book and looked up.

  “It has a good feel in my hands. And this Tallosian bow is worse than useless.”

  Breen’s bow had been broken during their fight with the Northmen, forcing him to make do with one of the leftovers the savages had carried. Breen hung the Tallosian bow where the black one had been. “What do you think?”

  Ty shrugged. “I guess. It’s just going to go to waste around here.”

  “Yeah, but knowing where it came from . . .”

  “A bow’s a bow,” Ty said. “You could always try it out when we get home just to make sure it shoots straight.”

  Breen stared at the sleek curvature of the dark bow before finally nodding and slinging it across his shoulder along with a nearby quiver of black arrows that appeared to go with it. “Wouldn’t want it to go to waste, now would we?” His smile was almost giddy. Ever the hunter.

  Ty couldn’t help but chuckle as he continued flipping through the pages toward the front cover. Empty. Empty. Empty. He flipped the last page and stopped, his eyes widening. There was something written on the page that hadn’t been there before. Only two words: They’re coming . . .

  Ty was about to call out to Breen when the front bell rang.

  “What do you think you’re doing in here?” a voice called out.

  Ty’s first thought was Mangora. Without thinking, he twisted around and threw a ball of fire at the front of the shop.

  “What the—” A gust of wind hit the flames, toppling items off the nearest shelves. Loose papers flew around the room as the fire was sent into the rafters and snuffed out.

  “What the blazes do you think you’re doing, boy? Get ahold of yourself!”

  This time Ty recognized the voice. “Feoldor?”

  “Who else would be stupid enough to be here?” the man growled. “Other than the two of you, obviously.”

  “What’s wrong, son?” Orlyn asked in back of Feoldor as he tried to smooth the wrinkles from his robe. “You can’t tell friend from foe?”

  “Sorry, Master Orlyn, I guess I’m a little jumpy.” He looked down at the book. Had it somehow known that the two men were coming? Or was it referring to something else? He opened it back up to the page. It was empty. The hairs on his neck rose again.

  “Jumpy! My mama’s green toe, you were!” Feoldor said in his usual charming way. “You nearly baked us in our skins. If you can’t control your powers, you shouldn’t be using them.”

  Orlyn laid a hand on Feoldor’s shoulder, then grabbed one of the lanterns hanging on the wall next to the entrance. Producing a small tinderbox from his robe, he lit the wick. “Ah, much better,” he said, turning back to Ty and Breen. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes, I was asking what you two were doing in here.”

  Breen, still wearing the black bow and quiver he had found in the back, moved alongside Ty. “Ty was just showing me where he first met the witch. We wanted to see if there were any clues as to her whereabouts or what she’d been up to.”

  Orlyn studied them with a careful eye. “And what have you found so far?”

  “Not much,” Breen said nervously. “Did you know she has shrunken heads? They’re over in the corner. I’m not sure if they’re real, but pretty interesting either way.”

  “Yes, we are aware.” Orlyn followed Feoldor around to the far side of the shop as they began inspecting Mangora’s wares. “You boys need to be very careful handling anything in here. No doubt most of it has been laced with dark magic. No telling what it might do to you.”

  Breen glanced at Ty.

  “We’ve been careful,” Ty lied as he quickly stuffed the little book he’d found inside his coat while their attention was diverted. He didn’t want to leave the book behind. If what he’d seen was real and the book could somehow predict danger, he wanted to spend more time studying it. Glancing to his left, he caught his brother running his fingers across the smooth finish of the black bow, probably debating whether to put it back or not.

  He didn’t.

  “My, what a collection.” Orlyn bent over one of the counters and scanned the crystal vials and glass jars of liquid and herbs. “Look at this, Feoldor. She has Juniprus hydrogolis. I’ve only ever read of them. Never actually seen one up close. Their medicinal value is said to be incomparable. What I could do with a plant like that.”

  “Yes, yes, very impressive,” Feoldor said, admiring the ruby-lined daggers and gem-studded jewelry. The gold practically shimmered in his eyes as he pressed his nose against the glass.

  “Watch it,” Orlyn warned with a nudge from his staff. “Don’t let yourself get drawn in. Remember who owned this shop. I’m sure everything in here has a dark purpose. Well, most everything,” the apothecary said as he went back to studying the exotic herbs. He reached for one of the glass jars. “What I could do with some of this . . .”

  Feoldor slapped the old man’s hand before it reached its destination. “What do you think you’re doing? You just got done telling me how dangerous this stuff is.”

  Orlyn shook his head, looking a little embarrassed. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “You’re right. How silly of me.” He moved on down the aisle. “It looks like we’ll have our work cut out for us,” Orlyn said.

  “What do you mean?” Ty was curious about what they were going to do with it all. He would have liked to continue looking through the books, but he couldn’t do that with the council around.

  “We’ll need to inventory the shop and make sure everything is cataloged before we box it up and place it somewhere safe, away from prying hands. There’s no telling what kind of damage this stuff could do.”

  Breen cast another wary eye in Ty’s direction, and Ty felt for the book hiding in his pocket. It might not have been the smartest idea to keep it, but if it could possibly help him defeat Mangora, it would be worth it. And who knew? If the book could actually see the future, it might even help him find Nyalis’s missing keep. Either way, he felt it was worth the risk. He could always put it back if something didn’t feel right.

  “Have either of you checked in the back or upstairs?” Orlyn asked.

  Ty shook his head. “No, we’d barely made it around the room before you arrived.”

  “Well, no worry. We’ll make a more thorough examination later this week. But for now, Feoldor and I have a meeting at the Assembly Hall. It’s a rather historic day,” he said, tapping his rune-covered staff on the floor in front of him. “Overlord Barl has asked the wielder council to address the Sidaran Assembly. Can you imagine that? The ruling body of Sidara wanting to talk to a group of ven’ae?”

  “Yes, we’ve heard,” Breen added.

  “Oh. You have?”

  “Lord Barl asked us to attend as well.”

  “Ah, a wise decision, especially since this all seems to be revolving around our young Master Ty here anyway.” He offered Ty an encouraging pat on the back. “It might be beneficial to hear what our illustrious, and rather aloof, wizard had to say about all of this as well.”

  Feoldor snorted and crossed hi
s arms. “Illustrious, my hiney. Where was the man when we needed him during our battle with the bulradoer?”

  “Where do you think?” Ty mumbled under his breath. What a stupid question. “He was busy saving my life.”

  Everyone turned and looked at Ty.

  Had he just said that out loud? He cleared his throat. “Sorry, Master Feoldor. Something about this place has me on edge.”

  “Understandable,” Feoldor said, fluffing his side whiskers as he glanced around the shop. “This place is giving me the jitters as well.”

  “Let’s be going, then,” Orlyn said. “Don’t want to linger in here any longer than necessary.”

  Breen was the first out of the shop, followed by Ty and the two older council members. Orlyn stepped back a few paces from the building, and after scanning the alley to make sure there was no one watching, he raised his staff and mumbled something under his breath.

  Ty watched with astonishment as the front of the shop began to sparkle, very similar to the way Nyalis had constructed his protective barrier around Meerwood to keep out unwanted visitors. The shimmering in front of the old shop quickly faded and then vanished altogether.

  “What was that?” Breen asked, following Orlyn up the alley.

  “That was a protection spell. Something the wizard showed me before he left. It’s meant to keep out vandals. It will also let me know if someone tries to get in.” He passed a quick glance in Ty’s direction.

  Ty smiled. He was thankful he had managed to at least get the one book out before they had shown up. But there were others he still wanted to look through.

  “Impressive,” Breen said.

  Orlyn smiled. “Yes, I had no idea I was capable of something like that. Definitely opens up a whole new world of possibilities.” The tall apothecary stopped at the head of the alley and started rummaging around in one of the many interior pockets of his shapeless robe. After a while, he produced a small knit cap and handed it to Ty. “Here, this might help around town.”