The Shadow Within

by Karen Hancock

  Abramm wrenched free of the other’s mind, trying to master the trembling in his own limbs, and the shadows of fear and guilt that sought to over- whelm his soul. “Gillard, this is stupid. That thing is killing your own men! Let me face it.”

  “I thought they were your men.” Gillard bared his teeth, circling the tip of his rapier in Abramm’s face. “It’ll be here in good time, little brother.”

  “And then it will kill you, too.”

  “No, it will kill you. And once you’re dead and it’s vulnerable, then I will kill it—avenging the loss of my brother as I rid the realm of yet another dangerous enemy.” He paused. “It’s close now. Can you feel it?”

  He leaped onto an outcropping, his powerful hindquarters launching him from there onto the back of a fleeing man. His fangs sank deeply into his prey’s flesh, and he sucked up the scarlet flame of his life energy even as he sucked up the blood.

  Of course Abramm could feel it! Breathing down upon his neck, a dark oppressive presence filling his mind with visions of carnage that were no longer portents but reality. But how did Gillard know—

  As Abramm grasped the implication of his brother’s words, Gillard capitalized on the shock they produced to launch a combination of thrusts and feints that nearly relieved Abramm of his dagger. Then Abramm’s sword tip caught the top of Gillard’s breastplate, a hair’s breadth from jumping the edge, and stopped his momentum. They returned to circling, moving slowly across the porch.

  “So you’re part of it, too, then,” Abramm said. That day at Graymeer’s when Gillard’s palm had been slashed just like Abramm’s: Rhiad had needed his blood, too. The morwhol had been birthed by the hatred not of one man, but two. Gillard must be linked in the same way Abramm was. He had known all along that it was coming and what it intended to do.

  Gillard laughed. “Surprised you, did I?”

  No wonder he let that left line of the funnel be so weak. He meant to draw me up here, away from the others. And now through that mutual link with the morwhol, Abramm grasped the rest of the plan, as well: Gillard’s alliance with the Mataio had never been sincere. He was only using them, knowing the morwhol would go after them and that many of them would be killed. When it became evident they had not aided him in his battle against the beast, he would not be beholden to them in the aftermath, the alliance dissolved, all obligations nullified.

  “Everything Rhiad promised me is coming true,” Gillard went on, flashing that feral grin again. “I can feel your shock, Abramm. I can feel your fear, your helpless fury. Soon it will get even better. Soon I will feel your pain.” The grin turned to a snarl as he drove in with his rapier, aiming for Abramm’s throat.

  Abramm brushed the lunge off. “If you can sense it, you must know it’s already killed your partner. Two nights ago, north of Brackleford.”

  “Rhiad’s not dead, brother. He’s simply been transformed.”

  “Absorbed, is how Carissa described it. Screaming all the way.”

  “Yet he is alive, and no longer the crippled ruin you made of him. In fact, he’s more powerful than ever.”

  “Powerful, indeed, since he must know you mean to kill him, yet that has not stopped him. Why is that do you suppose?”

  With a snarl, Gillard went after him, too confident, too fast. Abramm caught the blade between dagger and sword and flicked it from his brother’s fingers. Gillard staggered back, eyes wide, his hand opening and closing as if he could not believe the blade was gone.

  “Now get out of here, Gillard. While you still can.”

  Gillard staggered forward a step, looking dazed. Then anger hardened his face. “No! I told you—this one’s mine!”

  On the misty hillside above the knoll, he flung a lifeless body aside and lunged for another victim. He was delirious now from the screams and the blood and the terror—and all the scarlet life flowing into him. “They’re so stupid! Just like the woolly ones, running all together, making it so easy.”

  Gillard dove at him. Caught still in the morwhol’s perception, Abramm was bulled to the ground, where the force of his fall slammed his hand into a stone paver and he nearly lost his rapier. His grip tightened, the stars faded from his vision, and as Gillard started to pull himself off him, Abramm slammed the butt of the rapier hilt into the side of his head, then shoved his brother away and rolled free, gaining his feet and backing away. Gillard arose likewise, only to charge again, and this time Abramm was ready. His rapier slid over the edge of the breastplate and just under the collarbone, while his dagger sank into Gillard’s left thigh. The blades slid out again instantly, Abramm already leaping out of range. But Gillard launched no counterattack, staggering back with a howl as his left leg collapsed and he dropped to one knee, gripping his shoulder.

  And then a throaty breath and the click of toenails on stone somewhere in the mist to his right told him the morwhol was here. He turned from Gillard, backing farther to keep his brother in his line of sight while he sought to find the beast. The temple façade appeared through the mist, the doorway flanked by a pair of pillars. Portions of a low curved wall extended concavely from the outward sides of those pillars, perhaps having once encircled the area in front of the opening. Beyond the walls stretched the flat of the porch, littered with fallen pillars, the fragments of the once great stone sculptures that had sat atop them and a scattering of small dark-leafed bushes. From around the back of the façade, the beast slunk into view, prowling beyond the opposite wall, its ugly, blood-covered snout aimed toward them as it watched them with eyes no longer green, but dark against white, and eerily human.

  Abramm was horrified by its size, for it was vastly bigger than when he’d last seen it, bigger even than the description Carissa had just given him. Its hunched and hairy shoulders were massive as a bull’s, and the sleek, brindled hindquarters rippled with powerful muscles as it prowled, the tip of its tufted tail flicking back and forth. It was far too big to face with only a rapier, and seeing it now, Abramm realized it would be considerably more formidable than the kraggin. It had a man’s mind, like the veren, but linked as it was, it also knew Abramm’s own thoughts as he had them. Worst of all, like Gillard, it knew his weaknesses. All the ways to provoke and intimidate him, so as to give the Shadow within him ascendance.

  Even as he realized this, he saw Gillard laughing at him, enjoying his dismay.

  And just seeing that laughter kindled Abramm’s anger. It flared briefly, before it was overwhelmed by a barrage of horrific images and sensations and rising fear as the Shadow within him took control. He put them down, barely, clinging to the Light, reminding himself that none of the awful ends he’d just been shown could happen without Eidon’s permission.

  The beast continued its circuit around the outside of the wall, Abramm turning to follow it, careful to keep aware of Gillard. Behind the façade it went, and he sensed its presence without seeing it, tracking its estimated position with his eyes. It passed briefly behind the opening and was gone, only to emerge a moment later on the other side, leaping onto the low wall and seeking to engage him again. Failing that, it turned its gaze upon his brother.

  A shiver of fear, not Abramm’s own, went through him, and it struck him suddenly that if the beast absorbed Gillard, it would be stronger still, physically and otherwise. No sooner had he thought it than he jammed dagger and rapier into their sheaths, then released the sling from around his wrist as he fingered three stones from his pouch. He barely had the first loaded when the morwhol sprang, clearing the twenty feet between it and Gillard as if it were nothing. It bowled the big man over as if he were a child, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. Abramm heard his screams two ways, felt his terror only one. But he did not let it disrupt his concentration, seeking the Light and letting fly with the stone. Already Gillard’s body glowed faintly with scarlet light. The stone flew true, turning to a white fireball in the air and hitting the beast square in the side of its head—without effect. The second one hit, as well, and in its wake came a narrow, jagged bo
lt of Light that crawled over the beast in a netlike flash the moment it hit. The morwhol convulsed, released its victim with a yowl, and bounded away into the mist, leaving Gillard sprawled unmoving on the stonework.

  Abramm’s own shock kept it from fleeing far, for he had not expected to throw the Light at all, had not even tried, and had no idea how he had accomplished it. Which, of course, the morwhol now knew. Worse, he’d apparently done no more damage than to break off its attack upon Gillard, which may or may not have saved his brother’s life.

  Grimly, he slid another stone into the sling, had just grasped the end of its leather strap, when the morwhol burst out of the mist in front of him, a great snarling shadow bearing down so fast he hardly had time to fling his stone. White fire slammed into the morwhol’s head, right between the eyes, a killing blow for a lesser creature. This one only recoiled with a snarl and returned to its circling. But at least it had recoiled. Maybe his spindly burst of Light had done something, after all.

  Back around the broken pillars and freestanding portions of wall it went. He readied another stone, then stiffened as voices hissed in his ears, soft as the sighing of a breeze. You should not have come here, Abramm Kalladorne . . .your people will die because of you.

  Glancing up, he saw a ribbon of red light sidling through the mist near what must have been the top of the Temple façade. Rhu’ema. The morwhol’s “friends” come to watch. And help? You should not have come, the voices hissed. They’ll die, and their blood will be upon your hands.

  Toenails clicking on stone made him turn. The morwhol stood in the opening of a low wall, and the dark man-eyes snared his own the moment he looked at them, drawing him into them like a snake striking from its hole. Again the horrific visions poured into him. Again the Shadow within him rose in response, and terror claimed him. The thing stepped toward him, its jaws gaping. He couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe. It took another step.

  This is the end. . . .

  And somewhere deep within him a Presence stirred, a Light flickered, and he remembered he was not helpless after all. Shaking off the fear and the binding of the silent Command, he slung—and hit. Likewise a fourth time. Then a fifth, the accuracy of his aim filling him with awe. But at the same time he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. The stones were doing little damage, and soon he would run out.

  He let it get closer the next time, only to see his seventh stone miss entirely. Shocked, he dropped the sling, whipped out the broadsword, and dove over the wall, the morwhol right behind him. It must have expected him to scramble away rather than dive for the ground, for it sailed clean over him, stumbling on a fragment of stony wing as it came down. Abramm, meanwhile, had landed on his side, sword clutched in both hands. He rolled back to brace against wall just as the creature pounced upon him, impaling itself on his blade. With the steel plunged deep into the rough-maned chest, he sent the Light flooding into it. The monster’s shriek of shock and pain nearly shattered his eardrums. Stinging spittle flew across his face as the beast scrambled to free itself, dark blood gushing down the hilt, eating through his leather gloves on contact. The Light pulsed again, burning away the tainted blood in a wild, hissing sizzle. Screaming and frantic, the creature wrenched itself off his sword, stumbled across the pavement, then collapsed, panting in rough deep grunts.

  Abramm shoved himself up, knowing he must seize the moment while it lasted—too late. At his first movement, the beast rose on three legs and trotted away, leaving dark blood pooled on the pale stone. Yowling piteously, glaring at him all the while, it went back to circling, limping heavily at first, but, as with the veren, healing all too soon. Abramm began to feel truly afraid.

  How am I supposed to kill this thing, Eidon?

  But the only answer he got came from the voices whispering in his ears, feeding the fear at the back of his mind. You’re going to die . . . you should not have come . . . it will end as you have seen.

  Around behind the façade it went, and Abramm glanced up again toward the rhu’ema. The mist had risen and thickened overhead, revealing the top of the façade, squared off above the rounded summit of its entry arch, and flanked by a pair of stone dragons rearing up from the stone pedestals beside it. The sight of them transfixed him with a stunning chill of portents, the shock so great he had to look away and then back again, to be sure he hadn’t imagined them—nor the way their eyes glowed with red fire.

  The dragon and the shield. They lifted the hairs on the back of his neck, and he knew it was no accident he was here, knew there was far more going on here than him simply meeting this morwhol.

  The broadsword kept it away for a time, but that, too, only delayed the inevitable, wearing him down as the creature played with him, feinting and dodging to draw him after it, only to turn and attack. It fed the fear and the reckless angry frustration that kept him swinging and missing until the sweat ran off his brow and his arms shook. His fear rose in choking waves and made him swing the sword wildly as he kept reaching for the Light, the blade before him firing and fading, firing and fading. He did not understand it. He had fought the fear off here already. Had fought it off even in his fleshly strength in the Esurhite arenas. Now he carried the Light within, had served Eidon with a whole heart these last four years, had come in obedience and at least a measure of trust. Why wasn’t it working? Why was it so hard now?

  Because you have more to lose than you ever did in Esurh, my son. Because you are much too attached to the man you have become and the blessings you have been given. Because you will not trust me.

  But I am trusting you! I would never have come if I didn’t trust you.

  Then cast your blades aside!

  Cast them aside? It will kill me for sure.

  The beast attacked, snarling and spitting, and he swung the blazing sword yet again, saw it evaded almost lazily. You’re going to die, the rhu’ema whispered. And all your people, too.

  Another lunge. Another swing. He didn’t see the column until the broadsword collided with it in a great ringing clang, the force of impact jarring into palm and wrist and shivering the hilt loose in his fingers. He tightened them frantically, just managed to keep from dropping it.

  Cast your blades aside. To throw the Light, he knew he had to trust only it. To become vulnerable, knowing Eidon would do the work through him. Even with something so small as the staffid that had been hard, and right now it would be easier to fling himself off the cliff beyond the temple and trust Eidon to catch him than to cast aside this blade with the morwhol slavering in his face.

  You have to be willing to lose it all, Abramm. To give it all to me and trust me to treat you fairly, to do you good. Have I ever let you down?

  No, my Lord. But . . .

  It is the Shadow within you that fears. Trust the Light.

  The beast circled round the low wall, past the tiered benches, dark eyes upon him, tail flicking.

  Very well, my Lord Eidon, I will trust you. It’s obvious I’ll get nowhere otherwise. And setting his jaw, he flung the broadsword away, the blade clanging as it hit the stone pavement and slid to a stop.

  The morwhol attacked at once. And here were Abramm’s rapier and dagger, leaping to his hands as if they had life of their own. And if they were feeble, silly weapons for the beast he faced, at least he could maneuver them quickly and skillfully, tired as he was. I should have used these at the start, he thought.

  But it didn’t take him long to realize he was again delaying the inevitable. He would never kill the beast this way, for while he was growing more and more tired, it was growing stronger, almost as if it were sucking the energy out of him. Cast your blades aside.

  It was harder now, because he knew he had nothing to replace them with.

  Trust me.

  His throat was raw from his panting. Sweat ran off his brow, stinging his eyes. Rivulets coursed down his side, and his arms shook all the time now. His back and shoulders were starting to cramp as stars flashed at the edge of his vision. He had used up all h
e had, had come to the very end of himself. Just as he had in that cistern four years ago when he’d finally come to Eidon in the first place. With nothing.

  And that is the only way you’ll walk through the door of your destiny, my son. You must trust me completely, no matter what sight tells you. Put aside your own ideas and plans and let me do as I wish with you.

  He glanced up again, the undulating ribbons of light coiling and uncoiling as they strained toward him, driven back by flares of white and silver and gold. As in Jarnek he felt their hatred. Even more than the crowds in Esurh had, they despised him, lusting to watch him fail and die, would have fallen upon him themselves were it not for the power of Eidon, stopping them.

  Trust him.

  And so for the second time, he made himself stop and stand straight and fling both weapons away, the ring of their blades on the stone making him cringe. I will trust you, Lord.

  The morwhol emerged from the doorway of the temple gateway, Rhiad- eyes fixed upon him, jaws split as if it were laughing. Abramm waited for the Light to roar through him and blast it away, but nothing happened. Then, in the blink of an eye, the creature lunged, swiping his chest with its claws, the force of the blow knocking him ten feet. He landed on his back, the breath driven out of him, his leather jerkin slashed to flapping strips that let the folds of the scarf he’d tucked within come billowing out.

  Flat on his back, stunned and struggling to regain his breath, he stared up at the rhu’ema-wreathed dragons on their pedestals, heard their laughter in his head. So much for your destiny—loser! A dark shape loomed over him, blotting them out. Hot, stinking breath rushed over his face and the eyes that looked into his own were a man’s eyes, brown irises on a white orb, long lashed, familiar. Rhiad’s voice rasped in his ears. And now, my Golden Prince, you will know what I have known. First we will take that handsome face . . .