Shadow Over Kiriath

by Karen Hancock

  Then they plunged into the thick, cold-lard sensation of a Shadow-woven illusion and came out still in the channel, but with the mist dramatically thinning. Ahead he saw where grassy shallows gave way to a wide, calm bay beneath a flat ceiling of mist. The two ships they had followed glided ahead, almost out of the channel now as lanterns flared on their decks. More vessels stood out on the bay beyond them, deck lights glowing against the dark hulk of an island, tiny red lights sprinkled along its shoreline.

  “Khrell’s Fire, sir!” cried the helmsman. “You did it!”

  Abramm restrained himself from expressing his intense relief and subsequent flush of triumph. Thank you, Eidon! The men needn’t know how unsure he’d been all this would work out. Nor how unsure he remained. He merely gave the man a nod, then glanced over their stern in time to see Katahn’s vessel burst out of the mist on their tail.

  “What now, sir?”

  “Follow after those two that led us in. If Eidon’s hand stays with us, maybe we’ll find a suitable moorage before they realize we’re here.”

  The oarsmen went back to work, and the bulk of the island soon towered over them. As they drew closer Abramm could pick out lighted arched openings along the bottom of the cliff face, and it was into one of these that their unwitting guides disappeared. The guano smell grew stronger as Yverik glided along the wall toward the openings he assumed led to various moorages. A backward glance showed his small fleet had made it through the enchantment intact. Instinct guided him past the first opening, and the second, as well. He chose the third one, so dimly lit as to be barely discernible.

  Dark rock walls pressed close about them as a faint light shone ahead. The oars’ gurgle-splash took on a hollow quality as the sound bounced off the rock. Then the walls fell away and the boat slid into a large shadow-hung grotto lit with a single lantern and ranked with piers and moorages, all of which looked newly constructed, and all of which stood empty.

  ————

  The sound of the gulls had alerted Maddie earlier that same afternoon to the fact they were approaching their destination. Their cries echoed in the mist, growing steadily louder, more frequent, and greater in number. Soon she saw the birds themselves, winging alongside the galley, a few coming so close she could see their eyes. The men on deck threw out bits of old biscuit, which they caught in midair before veering away, apparently an amusing shipboard pastime the gulls were as accustomed to as the men.

  Then the light faded and the birds winged away. The women received their nightly biscuit and water, and soon darkness had obscured the view. Maddie settled onto her bunk, anxiety simmering in the pit of her stomach. It was nearly impossible now to stop the stream of speculations that flowed into her mind, nor the terror they aroused. And knowing that Eidon often used suffering to make his children stronger did not help in the slightest. Why did she need to be stronger? Hadn’t she had enough suffering? Wasn’t it sufficient to remove Abramm from her life with no possibility of his ever coming back into it?

  Nor did it help that, as the darkness deepened, their mysterious purple guide light became more manifest. She did not think it ever went out, but in the darkness its power magnified into a heavy oppressive evil that increased with every day. It seemed to fuel her fearful speculations, until they became more real than the cabin walls around her. From the gulls and the strong sense of oppression tonight, she feared very soon there would be no need for speculation.

  Still, she didn’t anticipate it all to come upon her as swiftly as it did. Against all expectation she’d finally drifted off to sleep in what must have been the wee hours of the night, only to be startled awake when the cabin door flew open. Warm light rushed in to blind her as she was yanked from her bunk and shoved out the door. Behind her, Liza screamed as the same was done to her, and she stumbled into Maddie and clung, hysterical with terror.

  “It’s all right, Liza,” Maddie assured her, patting her back. “Eidon will take care of us.” But she doubted the girl could even hear her, and anyway, the assurance hadn’t sounded nearly as confident as she would have liked. As she blinked around to see where they were, she realized it was not morning, after all. Rather, she stood in a lanternlit grotto filled with moored galleys like the one that had borne her here, now also snugged into its berth. She stared around in shock, for there were at least twenty of them, and maybe more. This is the Gull Islands, she thought. The Esurhites are here. Just as Abramm feared.

  They were escorted off the ship in the wake of the Broho—whose name she’d deduced was Xemai—along with a burly, bare-chested giant who followed after them, pushing a wooden, two-wheeled cart with a canvas bag in it. Sounds echoed confusingly in the great chamber, and the guano stench was now compounded with that of wet wood and rope and rock. As they climbed a moisture-slicked wooden stair, Maddie spied their sister galley gliding out of the entrance tunnel and heading for the last open slip in which to moor. Then the stair gave way to an upward-sloping tunnel and she saw no more.

  Small red fires tucked into wall niches lit their way but did nothing to alleviate the damp and cold. She felt the darkness here, a creeping up her spine, a sense of minds not human watching her. Another stairway led into a gallery whose arched openings overlooked a vast, lanternlit chamber filled with uniformed men and the stink of sweat and waste and stale cooking grease. They appeared to be preparing for battle—until a few of them spotted her and Liza. Before long the crowd chattered excitedly, coarse voices rising above the general rumble to hurl what she supposed were vulgar suggestions.

  More corridors and stairs led them outside again, where an ancient walled walkway overlooked a dish-shaped valley sloping down to a nearly landlocked cove of water. Red fires lined its shore among ranks of dark-clad soldiers. A column of violet light shot up from the water into the misty ceiling, looking very much like an etherworld corridor, though at least five times wider than the one Maddie had seen Abramm destroy in Graymeer’s last fall. Between it and the near shore stood a tall, square-topped platform with a wide wooden ramp sloping into the water, its midpoint passing directly through the violet column. Atop the platform a cluster of robed priests droned in chant, hands uplifted, and she could feel a crackling expectancy in the air.

  The walkway curved around a cliff wall to a small circular chamber. Typical of ancient Ophiran villas, its outside wall was a filigree of arched openings that looked out on the valley, while inside it sported a high domed ceiling and three distinctive levels. The lowest and centermost was tiled in blue and white and surrounded a central, recessed basin of coals. Torches on long poles added light to the purple glow that filled the chamber and, as in the valley outside, dark-faced, armored soldiers stood guard. On the middle-level landing, seated on a padded bench directly across from the outer entrance, was an Esurhite wearing a gold-threaded tunic. Several others in plainer tunics attended him, and behind them all hung a series of long, vertical banners, purple with gold edges and bearing the dark orb of the Black Moon.

  As Maddie’s party entered, the purple light flickered and a puff of air blew in around them, causing the men on the landing to look over sharply, staring not at the newcomers but at the valley behind them. When nothing more happened, however, they went back to their conversation, which seemed to be heated. Finally one of the men hurried off and the leader in the gold-threaded tunic turned his attention toward Maddie’s captors. A short, stocky man with powerful chest and shoulders, the Esurhite’s broad, swarthy face was scattered with dark moles, and his left cheekbone bore the crescent scar that marked him as a member of the Brogai warrior caste. His dark hair was pulled tightly into the standard warrior’s knot, revealing one ear lined with gold honor rings and the other torn half away, the earlobe missing entirely.

  He addressed the Broho gruffly. Xemai threw out his chest and rattled off something in the Tahg as he gestured at the canvas in the cart, then at Maddie and her maid. The Brogai lord looked at her in surprise before leaning back to speak to one of his aides, who immediately h
urried away.

  Having dismissed Maddie for the moment, the leader turned his attention to the cart, indicating the giant should open the canvas bag and remove its contents. But though the strongman’s face reddened and his great muscles corded with the effort, he could not lift it from the cart. In the end, two of the soldiers had to help him upend the cart, and even then it teetered out of control to send its canvas-swathed contents crashing to the tile.

  The Brogai spoke sharply and the strongman stood hunch-shouldered. Another sharp word spurred the man to continue, and finally he pulled enough of the canvas back to reveal what Maddie knew at once must be the guardstar from Avramm’s Landing.

  It looked exactly like the one at Graymeer’s—the same size, same pebbled, leathery surface, same black streaking. That they had brought it this far seemed to answer the question of whether a guardstar could be taken from its fortress. Although she didn’t recall the one at Graymeer’s being quite so heavy.

  The Brogai lord immediately came to examine it, touching it gently, seeking to push it with his foot. A casual nudge did nothing, of course, and he seemed unwilling to compromise his dignity by trying anything more. One of the guards was told to cut the leathery covering off, but that only produced a dulled sword.

  Irritated now, the Esurhite commander turned upon his Broho subordinate, peppering him with questions. Several times during their discourse Maddie heard the word Avramm, which seemed to confirm her conclusions as to the orb’s origins.

  Then another breath of wind gusted through the arched openings from the valley, and out in the cove the purple column flickered erratically. The priest’s distant chanting broke off, and no one moved, though Maddie’s skin tingled with a sense of anticipation not altogether fearful. . . .

  The column soon regained its bright and steady state, and after a moment, the chanting resumed. Plainly discomfited, the men in the chamber returned to their investigation of the orb until, shortly after that, the Brogai’s aide returned with a blond man in Kiriathan garb. Maddie thought him at first to be a captive or a slave, but when the commander spoke to him in flawless Kiriathan, she realized he was something else entirely.

  “You told us the Chesedhan First Daughter was caught in adultery before the wedding,” said the Esurhite. “That Abramm did not marry her, but sent her in disgrace back to her own land. Eastward by a land route, you said.”

  “That is so, my lord Uumbra,” the man continued, though Maddie heard him as from a great distance, stunned by the Esurhite’s words. “. . . caught in adultery . . . didn’t marry her. . . .”Oh,my Lord Eidon . . . what have you done?

  “How is it, then, that Xemai has captured her from a Kiriathan vessel just outside of Avramm’s Landing?” Uumbra held out the ring that the Broho Xemai had taken from Maddie that first day. “Is this not the signet of Chesedhan royalty?”

  The Kiriathan took the object from him, examined it briefly, then turned to look at her, frowning. Finally, though, his face cleared and he handed the ring back. “It is indeed the signet of Chesedh. And she is Chesedhan royalty— just not the First Daughter. The First Daughter is blond and very beautiful. This is the Second Daughter, Madeleine.”

  The Brogai lord frowned at her. “This one is certainly no beauty. . . .Second Daughter . . . that is the one the royal lineage bypasses, is it not?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  There followed a sharp rebuke of the Broho, which Maddie could not deny she enjoyed. Xemai’s words of defense were irritably cut off, but before the dressing down could really gain momentum, the Kiriathan spy interceded.

  “This might actually be a good thing, my lord.”

  Uumbra turned a scowl on him. “How is that?”

  “Everyone in the court knows this is the daughter Abramm really loves. If he knew you had her . . .”

  He trailed off suggestively, as Maddie reeled again. The daughter Abramm really loves? It was true, then. Everything I thought was true. . . .

  Uumbra was now thinking furiously, his dark eyes fixed upon Maddie. Then the frown faded as his lips pulled back in a smile—and another gust of wind rushed through the room. Simultaneously the orb shifted off its cracked landing spot, moving maybe a half turn away from the Brogai lord. Every man who stood near it leaped back as if it were alive.

  Another gust whooshed around them, rattling the bushes on the slopes outside and rippling the banners hanging behind the Brogai’s bench. Again Maddie felt that sense of something approaching, something the Light within her was responding to.

  One of the soldiers raced into the room and uttered a brief statement that clearly infuriated the Brogai lord. A series of commands sent his underlings scurrying away moments before he strode from the room himself, leaving only Xemai to help the giant wrestle the orb back into its cart—and Maddie, for the moment, ignored.

  CHAPTER

  31

  Abramm stared in pleased surprise at the empty piers around him. Part of his intent in pretending to drop anchor for the night with Leyton and the frigates was to tempt the Esurhites into making a preemptive attack. That this grotto lay utterly deserted two hours before dawn could well mean his enemies had taken the bait. And in so doing had provided the perfect refuge for him and his fleet. If he’d questioned Eidon’s hand in this endeavor before, he did no longer.

  They were here, against all odds—safe and apparently undetected. He had only to get some idea of what they were up against, then find a likely spot on the island above and see if the scepter really would start up the winds that would drive the mist away. Which it had better do, for the sake of Leyton’s frigates, since, becalmed and with their guns inoperable in the mist, they would be easy targets if an Esurhite fleet did attack. Leyton had refused to return to wind-stirred waters, however, insisting the scepter would work and wanting to be close enough he could move in swiftly when it did. He planned to sail round to a wider, deeper entrance to the bay shown on the old maps to lie southeast of the shallows. There he would bring his guns to bear on the Esurhites’ fortress and tip the battle swiftly to the Kiriathans’ favor. First, though, Abramm had to remove the Shadow’s mist.

  The moment Yverik touched dock, four Esurhite crewmen jumped ashore, hurrying along the wooden pier and up a short stair to a tunnel opening that looked as if it might lead to the rest of the complex. Being Esurhite and dressed in the right uniform, they hoped to be ignored by any they might encounter. As they disappeared into the tunnel, other men scurried about, seeing the ship snugly moored. By then Katahn’s vessel had slipped into the moorage beside Yverik, and soon the Gamer stood with Abramm and Channon atop the stair at the tunnel’s mouth, watching the other five galleys nose into adjoining slips.

  Trap, clad in black with his features darkened like Abramm’s, leaped to the dock even before his ship made contact with it, hurrying up the stair to join them. Barely had he done so when one of the four scouts returned to report the tunnel was secured and that two of his fellows had gone on in search of a route to the top of the island.

  “I don’t know where everyone is,” the man said, “but they sure don’t seem to be expecting us. There’re no guards, and they haven’t even locked their gates.”

  Which was just what Abramm had hoped to hear. Leaving most of his men in the grotto, he took Trap, Katahn, Channon, and Philip, along with a small party of Esurhites, and set off for the island’s surface. He had mixed feelings about taking so small a group of men. On the one hand, he didn’t want to tip their hand before he could attack the Shadow, since its removal would protect his men from the arcane weapons it enabled his enemies to use: fireballs, fearspells, the power of Command. On the other hand, destroying it would surely bring down all the men in this fortress upon him, and the dissipation of the mist would not diminish the effectiveness of sword and shield and stone and arrow.

  Not long after, they met another of their scouts coming back to report they’d found the way out. The man led them the rest of the way, and even though he’d told Abramm what the
y’d found in the wide, rock-rimmed valley that formed the top of the island of Chakos, it was still a shock to see it for himself: the fire-rimmed cove with its platform and ramp and massive purple corridor. The question of why the halls had been so deserted was answered, as well, for it seemed that all the men in the fortress had turned out to line the cove alongside the torches.

  “Looks like they’re bringing something through right now,” Trap murmured in the Tahg at his side.

  “And as big as that corridor is, with the ramp and the water— Plagues! I’ll wager they’re bringing whole galleys through.”

  “That would explain all those rowboats lined up along the side of the cove . . . and why there’s so many men out here. It’s a sure bet they’re not just guards.”

  Most looked to be unarmed and were facing inward toward the corridor rather than outward in the direction from which a threat would be expected to come. Abramm scanned the valley’s rocky, guano-whitened rim, and sure enough the few sentries posted up there were all watching the proceedings below. He drew his men’s attention to them, outlined the plan that had just taken form in his mind, and shortly they were heading up to the rim themselves as two from the group headed back to the grotto to bring up the rest of the men.

  Impersonating a senior officer, Katahn rebuked the Esurhites for their laxity in guarding the fortress and sent them off in the custody of two of his own. By the time the disciplined pair realized what was going on, it would be far too late. As two of Abramm’s men took over the post of the disgraced guards, those on the rim’s far side hurriedly turned themselves back to their jobs, leaving Abramm relatively unobserved.

  He’d selected the highest ground available, both as the best defensible position and thinking the scepter might work better the more exposure it had. Turning his back to the ceremony, he drew the scepter from its sleeve on his back, gripped the base of the rod with both hands, and swung it back and forth before him, approximating the moves he’d made with it during the battle at Graymeer’s.