by William King
“Good,” Tamara said, her voice seeming to come from a great distance away.” You have completed the first part of the sending. Now you must complete the second. You must open the way.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” he asked. Forcing each word from his lips was like lifting a very heavy weight. He would not have believed how much the effort would cost him if he had not experienced it.
“Let yourself feel the space around your shadow-self. Be aware of it, as you would be of water around your hand if it were plunged into a pool.”
“I am doing that.”
“If you concentrate hard, you will become aware of something else, of a sensation of things underlying what you can feel, of a somehow distant chillness.”
He was immediately conscious of what she meant. It was as if his shadow were on the outside of something, part of the final layer of skin on an onion, and he was aware of something beneath, a different space, a tunnel into elsewhere. It was like rapping with his hand on a secret panel and becoming aware of the echo beneath. He could feel the energy there as he sometimes could when he was working sorcery.
“Do you have it?” Tamara asked.
“I think so, yes.”
“Tear a hole between your shadow self and the shadow realm.”
“Are you sure that is wise?”
“Wise or not, it’s the only way you will open the gate.”
“Is this how you do it?”
“It is how I did it originally. Now the whole process is so smooth that I don’t really notice how it’s done. But everyone and everything has to start somewhere.”
Rik tried to do as she said, but found that he could not. He simply had no idea of what he was doing. It was like asking a blind man to paint. He tried though and he kept trying until his frustration built. He felt obscurely humiliated that Tamara was here to witness this and angry with her as if she were deliberately asking him to do the impossible to make him feel foolish.
She sensed this, and he could almost picture her sardonic smile when she said, “It’s not always about you. I am trying to teach something in weeks that it took me years to learn.”
“I appreciate the effort,” he said. “I could only wish for more success.”
“Observe,” she said.
He felt another presence close to his shadow-shape and he knew it was hers. A tenebral hand reached out to cover his, and he felt that other presence guiding him through what had to be done. Suddenly there was a small gap, through which chill energy poured, widening itself. Within moments, it had suffused his shadow self.
He sensed the ebb and flow of secret energies, and then as if a key had turned in a lock, the parting of the veil that separated the Shadow world from his own. There was a sense of immense coldness and of alien presences whispering on the edge of the world, of things looking in from somewhere else. For a long moment his grasp on reality teetered. The way was open.
Tamara’s presence guided part of the shadow-self back to him, to where his shadow should have been and suddenly it was there, his shadow, in two places at once. More than that, there was a connection, a corridor between them that ran from one place to the other.
“Step forward into your shadow,” she said. “But be very careful, hold the opening at the other end open, otherwise you may be lost. I will do my best to guide you but do not rely on me being able to save you if things go wrong.”
What did she mean by that exactly? Was this the moment of crisis at last? Was this where treachery would occur? He told himself not to be so stupid. If she had planned to kill him she could have done so a hundred times before now. Ah, but this way she would have an explanation to give Asea. It would not be her fault if something went wrong with the way he cast the spell. He would be entirely to blame himself. He paused for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Stay or go?
He moved forward. There was a feeling such as he sometimes had in dreams of taking a step and beginning a fall down an infinite well. He was surrounded by blackness and grasping presences, the whisperers he had heard before, so like the ones who resided within his head, but which seemed to be native here, the natural inhabitants of this dark cold place. He sensed vague echoes of the world from which he had come, the bleak presences of shadows of trees and plants and small animals.
He put out his hands to steady himself, aware that somewhere ahead was an exit from this strange foul place. His lungs felt like balloons in a vacuum, as if all the air within him were threatening to explode outwards. His eyes stung and he felt the cold kiss of the void on his flesh.
He had no idea how long he fell for. He seemed to be outside time, in a dream space where events that lasted hours could be over in seconds and things that should have taken a heartbeat held the leaden touch of eternity.
Then he emerged from wherever he had been and stepped into the shadow of himself that anchored one end of the path. Time seemed frozen for an instant, as if he had stepped from a reality in which things moved much faster and to which his senses were still attuned. He was aware of a moth caught frozen in the air. It seemed as still as if it has been painted and he was certain he could have reached out and caught it if he so desired.
The shadow coated him like a film, surrounding him. He was it and it was him, and it was as if he had no more reality than it. He sensed possibilities there, of becoming like a shadow, of remaining in that strange half-realm between worlds and for a moment, sought to maintain the form and take a few steps. It was a strange feeling, as if he had suddenly become much lighter, or travelled to a world where gravity was far less and so was his mass.
He felt more like he was flowing over the surface of the world than walking on it, as if he were invisible and intangible as a shadow in darkness. He could not hold the form though, and his concentration slipped and somehow he was back in his own world, slumping to his knees, feeling gross and heavy and made of flesh and clay, with blood flowing sluggishly in his veins and his heartbeat ringing in his ears. His breath came from his lungs like a hurricane and he felt more real and yet more like a dream than ever he had in his life.
In another heartbeat Tamara was standing beside him, without having passed through the intervening space and without any part of the expenditure of energy it had cost him, or so it appeared. She stood over him, and looked down, at once worried and appalled.
“What did you do, there at the end?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I felt the gate open because I was linked to you when you created it but you were not there where it emerged. I am not sure what you did, but I thought something had gone wrong, that you were struggling to emerge, that you had failed and were gone forever.”
So he had been invisible to her. Rik considered telling her what he had experienced, the sense of the strange possibilities that he had encountered. It seemed apparent that she had no idea of what he had encountered. Tamara was a very good actress but he could not see what she had to gain by pretending ignorance of what he had just been through. If it was not something she knew about, it was not something she could help him with, and the knowledge might prove useful to him, give him some advantage over her if she planned treachery so he said, “I do not know. I felt like I was drowning and had to force my way back to the shore, and fortunately I succeeded.”
“It’s as well,” she said. “Staying too long in the shadow world can kill you. Natural laws are different there and you can run out of breath or heat or life. It is best to spend as little time there as possible and make your escape when you can.”
“Doubtless you are correct.” He allowed himself a smile as the realisation sank in that, whatever else he had achieved this night, he had performed his first successful shadow-walk. He had proved he had the gift, even if he had required her guidance at first to use it. He cast his thoughts back over the procedure and he thought he understood what she had done, and how he could duplicate it. “I did it,” he said. “I walked through the shadow.”
She nodded, obviousl
y troubled by what had happened and not nearly as elated as he. “That you did. That you did.”
“I want to try it again, on my own this time.”
She shook her head grimly. “Not tonight. You have used up enough of your energy for one night. A second time and you might not make it.”
He felt oddly disappointed but he could see the sense of her words. He had barely enough energy to get to his feet and he had to place both palms on the ground and push himself up. He really did feel like an exhausted swimmer pulling himself from the sea.
“You did well,” she said. “It took me months to master what you have learned today.”
He concealed his inward feeling of triumph, and clutched his secret revelations close. He felt like he had touched on a source of power independent of Asea and of her, one which would be his alone, and in that moment became aware that he was feeling the lure of Shadow.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sardec studied the ruins. There were bodies on the cobbles. Whole streets had burned to the ground; it looked as if the fire had started somewhere and there simply were not enough people to get it back under control. There had been rain since then and water puddled in the streets. His small party moved amid the desolation like the last survivors in a dying world.
The children looked around them with wide, wondering, frightened eyes. The adults had the same childlike quality about them.
Sardec wondered if there was anyone left alive in this place, if there was anyone left alive in the entire world. Where had all the people gone? Where could they possibly have fled to? Surely it was not possible that they were all dead?
"There's an apothecary's shop on the corner, sir," said Weasel. "We can look in there for some healing herbs and sleeping drafts. We'll probably find lead for bullets as well."
"Go to it, Sergeant," said Sardec. "And keep your eyes open for any survivors. I'd like to talk to any locals that you can find. We need to find out what's going on in this country. We need news. We need information."
Weasel gestured for the Barbarian and Toadface to follow him, and loped off towards the building he had indicated. Sardec sat down on the remains of a tumbled down wall and indicated to the rest of the party that they should stand easy.
"I don't like this," said Rena, coughing. "It's like everything and everyone has died. It's like we’re the last people in the world. I'm starting to believe all those folk who claimed that the end times are here."
"I can understand how you would see things that way," said Sardec.
"Whatever happens now, I don't think the world will be the same."
Sardec nodded. "They say it was like this during the last days of Al’Terra. The Princes of Shadow unleashed all manner of strange sorceries. I always thought those things were exaggerations, but now I think they might have understated the reality."
"I wonder if the plague has reached Talorea. I wonder how the people I know in Redtower are doing."
Sardec reached out and stroked her hand in an attempt to reassure her. It was the first time a long time she had mentioned the town in which she had grown up. She had lost many of her family to a previous plague. He was surprised that she was holding up as well as she was.
Weasel’s shout was terrifyingly loud when it came and he realised then how quietly they had all been speaking. It was as if they were standing in a graveyard, talking respectfully of the dead.
Weasel had managed to find some survivors. He was pulling them out of a cellar. There were two of them, an emaciated looking man and a woman who looked as if she had once been much fatter, judging by the way the folds of skin flopped on her face and neck.
"Who are you?" Sardec asked.
"My name is Pteor, your honour, and this is my wife, Karin."
"What happened here, man?"
"The plague, sir. It swept through the town and killed most of the people. Too many to burn or bury. Then the dead started rising. Lots of people fled. Some of them fought. The fires started. The town burned to the ground. I don't know what happened next but all the dead men left. It was as if something summoned them."
"How did you manage to survive?"
"I'm not sure, sir. By the grace of God, I think. The herbs helped and the fact that we hid in the cellar probably didn't do any harm either."
"The herbs?"
"When my wife started to show symptoms of the plague I tried red berry root. It’s not something I would normally have tried since red berry is more for pregnant women than anything else but the colour reminded me of the plague spots and nothing else seemed to be working so I thought – why not? It helped and then the fever broke and she got better. She did the same thing for me when I started to go down."
"Are you saying you found a cure for the plague?" Sardec felt suddenly excited. He told himself not to get to hopeful.
"I tried the paste on other people and it seemed to cure all the symptoms as well. Of course some of them died from complications, or hunger or simply just the strain. But none of them rose from the dead."
"Are you sure, man?"
"I can't be certain, your honour, since I only tried the herbs on half a dozen people. However, if I did come down with plague again, I would want my wife to try the same cure."
"You think it's likely that you might come down with the plague?"
"Who knows, sir? We've not shown any symptoms since we recovered."
"Do you have any more of these herbs? Quick, man - answer me!"
"I have a sack of the stuff in my basement. It's always been cheap. Who would've thought it would be so useful? It might not prove to be so cheap in the future!"
"Will you give us some?"
"Are you sick?"
Sardec nodded and indicated the children and the limping, weary soldiers. Rena coughed a little too and he widened his gesture to include her.
“What about you, your honour?”
“I am not sick.”
“It’s true that the Terrarchs are blessed by the Light then, sir, and that the plague passes you by.”
Sardec did not feel blessed but he could see how things might look that way to a mortal so he simply nodded. “How long does this cure take to work?”
“A few hours, sir, if the victim is in a really bad way.”
“Might it be worth those men who don’t have the plague taking some of the drug anyway, as a preventative?”
“I don’t see how it could hurt, sir, other than by exhausting the berry paste when we might need it later.”
“If this works, Pteor, I will see that you have your weight in gold. You will go down in history as the man who found a cure for the greatest plague in history. You and your wife had better come with us. Pack up what you need. You’re going to be rich and famous!”
The mention of the gold made the man perk up. He hustled off and got busy, and Sardec offered up a prayer for his endeavours.
It was night and for the first time in a few days, there were no signs of illness among Sardec’s small command. No one was kept awake by coughing. All of the people who had seemed to be getting ill slept peacefully. Sardec sat within the abandoned Palace and watched some more antique furniture burn. Once he would have despised the waste but now they needed the warmth more than they needed the beautiful old chest of drawers. He looked down on Rena and thought he detected the faintest signs of improvement. There was more colour in her cheeks.
“They look healthier, sir,” said Weasel. The Barbarian grinned and nodded his head emphatically.
“Do you really think that old alchemist has found a cure for the plague?” he asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see, but it’s starting to look that way.”
“If we can get this knowledge home we’ll all be heroes,” said the Barbarian thoughtfully.
“If we can get this knowledge home I’ll see you all decorated by the Queen and with a pension for life.” Sardec realised he was making very free with the rewards but he felt sure such munificence would be more than justified. In some
ways it would be the discovery of the age. Who would have thought that a simple medicine used to ease women to childbirth would prove to be the cure for the worst scourge ever unleashed on this world?
He told himself to calm down, that it had not been established yet and even if it was the cure might only work for some people or prove only temporary. He felt hopeful though and that brought fear – of failure, of death. More than just the safety of his small party rested on him now. The lives of every human being in Talorea or quite possibly the world now did.
Perhaps Fate had just done this to torment him, to dangle the possibility of success and triumph in front of him just to yank it away. He told himself not to be so self-obsessed. All he could do was try and complete the task set in front of him and leave others to worry about the machinations of destiny.
Rena’s eyes opened and she saw him looking down on her.
“Hello,” she said.
“How do you feel?”
“Better than I have done in days.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You look better too. So do the others.”
“You look thoughtful. What were you thinking about?”
He told her. “You worry too much,” she said.
“I have a lot to worry about.”
“You’ll do your best. You always do.”
“What if I fail?”
“What if you don’t? All you can do is try. You can’t let worrying about the consequences stop you or make you second guess your decisions. You’re right – this is potentially the most important thing in the world now. You need to bring knowledge of it back to Asea or Lord Azaar.”
He saw the realisation flicker across her face – they did not even know where Asea was or whether she was still alive. “There are others who will know what to do about this. The important thing is that it works and we bring it back to the West. Then we might have a chance to overcome this plague and win this war. And now you had better get some rest. We still have a long way to go and you need to recover your strength.”
