A Dance of Shadows

by David Dalglish

  “Nathan?” she heard Stephen ask from the other side. His voice was gentle, as if he were embarrassed to impose. “Nathaniel, it’s me, Stephen. Are you awake? I need to tell you something about your mother.”

  She clutched her son tighter.

  “Nathaniel?” More knocks, heavier. His voice took on a firmer edge. “Nathaniel, I said open the door. This is important.”

  Alyssa’s mind raced. There was the window, but it was fairly high, and only Nathaniel could fit through it. She held little doubt that after her death, Nathan’s would follow. Guards crawled along the outside. Could her son escape, especially without her help? She didn’t think so. She commanded a presence, an implied threat of house-against-house warfare. Nathaniel was a small boy with a severed arm, born of a disgraced father. His disappearance would bother no one.

  But would Stephen hurt Nathaniel if he wasn’t certain about her own fate? It was a horrible gamble, but she saw no other way.

  “Listen,” she whispered into her son’s ear, desperately praying that Stephen would not hear through the door. “My life depends on you. Get in bed, and pretend you’ve had a nightmare. No matter what, I am not here, you understand me? I’m not here.”

  He nodded. She kissed his forehead as Stephen banged on the door.

  “Nathaniel! Open the door this instant!”

  Though her son was small, his bed was still plenty big, and Alyssa crawled underneath and backed as far as she could against the wall. Despite every logical part of her telling her this was her best hope to survive, she still felt a horrible guilt smothering her, crushing her chest. If Stephen did something to Nathaniel while she hid under his bed like a damn child…

  No time. Taking in a breath, she held it as Nathaniel undid the bolt. The door opened, and she heard footsteps as Stephen entered.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard her son say. “I was scared, I had… why are you dressed like that?”

  A pause before the answer. “I, um, it’s just a game, Nathaniel. A game adults play. Is your mother in here?”

  “I was hoping you were her,” Nathaniel said. “I keep dreaming of him, of that horrible man…”

  A good lie, thought Alyssa, especially off the cuff. Should they get out of this alive, she knew she’d have to watch him more carefully.

  Stephen stepped farther into the room. She could see his feet from where she hid, and for some reason it horrified her to see a shaven leg in a high-heeled shoe. Was it just a disguise, or something more? Did she truly know so little of the man whose house she’d been living in? And what was the reason for his hatred of her household, and of the Spider Guild?

  “I thought I heard whispering,” Stephen said. “Was that you?”

  “I… was praying.”

  “Praying? To who, Nathan?”

  He seemed to have no answer. Stephen continued farther into the room, out of her sight. The closet door opened, shut. Still she waited. The lighting was incredibly poor, just what little moonlight came in through the curtained window. Perhaps in the darkness, he would not see…

  Stephen knelt before the bed. Her whole world froze. He was looking right at her. Everything about him was solid black, just a feminine shape peering underneath the bed. Alyssa didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t even dare think. She felt like a rabbit cornered by a wolf. And then, after a few agonizing seconds, he stood.

  “Just checking for monsters,” he said to her son. Slowly she let out a breath as tears ran down her face.

  “Is it safe?” Nathaniel asked as Stephen headed for the door.

  “No monsters,” Stephen said. “Go back to bed. Oh, and Nathan… if you’re to pray, pray to Karak. He’s the true god of this world. You’re old enough to be accountable for such things now.”

  “Yes, milord.”

  Another pause, and then the door shut. Alyssa clutched the carpet with her fingers, trying to push away her lingering terror. Her son sat on the bed, his feet dangling off. Rolling out, she got to her knees and wrapped her arms about him. She was still embracing him when the door reopened, and Stephen stepped inside, a terrible smile on his painted face. Alyssa froze, too stunned to act. Something so simple, so stupid, had cost her terribly.

  Nathaniel hadn’t relocked the door.

  “Hello, Alyssa,” Stephen said, lifting the crossbow.

  Zusa flew through the streets, legs pumping and head bobbing with her gasps. Too much, she thought, she was pushing herself too much. She’d undergone hunger and torture, her right hand mostly numb as it clutched her dagger, yet she dared not waste a precious second resting, or recapturing her breath. A hundred images flashed through her mind, and every one of them was too painful to dwell on for long. She saw Alyssa lying on her bed, or the floor, or out in the garden of the estate, her eyes open but empty, silver coins staring up at the stars.

  Through it all, Daverik’s words echoed in her head. The Widow had a meeting, but only after.

  After killing Alyssa Gemcroft.

  She ran, and prayed to any god other than Karak to let her beloved Alyssa be safe, and Nathaniel as well. She’d promised him she’d always be there in the shadows to protect him. What if it wasn’t just Alyssa she found with eyes of silver, and a tongue of gold…

  Zusa stumbled, her concentration broken by such nightmarish daydreaming. The empty streets spun before her, and she landed on her shoulder hard enough to elicit a cry of pain. Lying there, tears swelling, she saw a shape flying through the air behind her, solid darkness but for the faint gray of the cloak trailing after.

  No pause, no hesitation. Zusa rolled to her right, her cloak wrapping about her upper body. Ezra landed, her knee and dagger striking where Zusa should have been. Zusa kicked at Ezra’s legs, but the woman leaped over, diving toward her with both daggers leading. Zusa’s arms trapped by her thick cloak, she pushed the fabric outward. Ezra’s daggers punched through it, but the handguards snagged when Zusa twisted and shoved to the side. Again she kicked, this time connecting with Ezra’s midsection. The faceless woman fell back so she might regain her balance. Zusa staggered to her feet, let her ragged cloak unfurl about her.

  “Did Daverik decide it was time for me to die?” Zusa asked.

  “He still loves you,” Ezra said, crouching down as she circled, looking like a strange animal ready for the pounce. Even her eyes were wide and wild behind the thin white cloth upon her face. “But even he knows that the loyalty of our faith must come before those we love.”

  “Some faith,” Zusa said, grinning to hide her exhaustion and worry. “Is that what they told you when they stripped you naked and forced you into the faceless? Loyalty before love?”

  Ezra thrust, but pulled back when Zusa moved to block. Another thrust, this one equally prepared for. Ezra was testing for an opening, gauging Zusa’s reaction speed. Zusa felt her nerves fraying. She didn’t have time for this.

  “You don’t deserve his love,” Ezra said.

  “You’re wrong,” Zusa said. “He doesn’t deserve mine.”

  She took the offensive, and was surprised when Ezra did not move to block. Instead she remained still, even when the daggers closed in on her neck. But Zusa did not cut flesh. Instead her daggers moved right through, as if hitting a mirage. From behind her she heard laughter, and spun to find Ezra there, twirling her daggers in mockery.

  “I have Karak’s blessing,” she said. “Behold his gift.”

  As Zusa watched, Ezra’s form grew still, then blinked away, just an afterimage. It was like staring too long at the sun, seeing something burned into the eye that wasn’t actually there. Zusa tensed for an attack, but could only guess where it would come from.

  “I prayed,” Ezra said, off to her left. Zusa spun, but again there was just an afterimage that quickly vanished. When Ezra spoke again, she was on the right. “All night I prayed for the strength to defeat you. And now I have it.”

  The image of her shifted, and suddenly she was mere inches away, leering at Zusa.

  “I can move fa
ster than the eye,” she told Zusa, laughing. “What hope have you now?”

  Zusa swung at her, and their daggers connected. For a moment it was a familiar dance, a giving and taking of position that Zusa knew she could easily win. But when she tried to finish her opponent, to thrust through an opening to pierce Ezra’s heart, Ezra’s form turned blurry, and then she was ten feet away down the street.

  “Damn it,” Zusa whispered. She didn’t have time for this, but she had to remain calm, had to think. Slowly Ezra approached, reeking of confidence.

  “Will you always run?” Zusa asked her. “Stand and fight, and stop using Karak’s gift as an excuse to hide your cowardice.”

  Ezra shook her head, still walking toward her. Every slow footstep ate away another second, any one perhaps the difference between life and death for Alyssa. And Ezra knew it, too. Zusa could see it in the mocking glint in the woman’s eyes, in the exaggerated swish of her thin hips.

  Zusa flung herself forward, a rash attack that Ezra would expect from her. With her skill, it might have been enough to overwhelm Ezra, but Zusa had something else in mind. At the last moment, just before their daggers clashed, she dove to the side, making a run toward the mansion. Ezra spun, and Zusa trusted her to react on instinct, to believe Zusa frantically running toward her loved ones.

  A mere two steps toward the mansion, Zusa flipped her left dagger so the blade faced downward in her fist, then dug her heels in so she might fling herself backward. It was a blind stab, a gamble, as her dagger thrust through her own cloak. Ezra collided with her, caught unaware of the sudden change in her direction. The blade of the dagger punched through cloth, flesh, then belly. Ezra gasped, her upper body collapsing against Zusa, her head on her shoulder. Zusa twisted, keeping the position awkward and their bodies entangled so Ezra could not thrust.

  “Zusa…” gasped Ezra as her body shivered.

  “You should have listened,” Zusa said, pulling her dagger free. “You could have found freedom. You could have prevented this.”

  When she pushed away, the other woman had nothing to lean against, and no strength of her own to stand. Zusa ran on, leaving Ezra to die alone, slumped over in the dirt and darkness.

  CHAPTER

  34

  Alyssa lay on the floor of Nathaniel’s room, slowly breathing in and out as blood trickled down the side of her chest to the carpet. The small bolt had caught her right breast, and with each breath it flared with pain. Despite every desire to move, to scream and fight, she could do nothing, immobilized by the poison coursing through her veins.

  “Don’t cry, Nathan,” Stephen said, a second bolt readied in the crossbow and aimed straight at him. “I know you’re young, but you’re a bright child, a wise child. I think you’re ready for this, ready to see the ugly truth behind the lies of this world.”

  A tear ran down Alyssa’s face. She could see her son crouched on his bed, struggling not to cry. His entire body quivered with fear. A fresh wave of seething hatred flushed through Alyssa, and she tried to stand, to move her disobedient limbs. Still nothing.

  “Don’t hurt her,” she heard her son whimper.

  “Shush now,” Stephen said, lowering the crossbow. Odd as it was, it seemed as if he meant the comforting words he spoke. “I didn’t say this would be easy. But this must be done. It must. Do you love your grandmother, Nathan?”

  Nathaniel glanced at her, their eyes meeting. The terror there was so deep, but he was still fighting, still trying to think of what to do and what to say. She’d never felt more proud, and her heart ached with the thought that she’d never see what type of man he’d become.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I love her too,” Stephen said. He straddled Alyssa’s waist while on his knees. The crossbow he placed beside him, and from his pocket he pulled out a slender knife. He leaned close to Alyssa, peering down at her with heavily painted eyes. The wig hung loose from his head, and at such a close distance, she could see flakes of dead flesh.

  “I love her more than your mother does,” he continued. “More than anyone ever has. Yet do you know what your grandfather did? Do you know what he put her through?”

  Alyssa thought of the story she’d been told, of Maynard giving Melody over to Leon’s gentle touchers. She tried to make the connection, to understand.

  “You don’t know,” Stephen whispered, leaning closer so that their noses touched. “You’re trying, but you don’t know. Leon loved her, just like I loved her, but he couldn’t do anything. How’d you put it? Your father would have killed my father if he’d found out? Such a sick man. Sick! And do you know what’s worse, Nathan?”

  He glanced at her son.

  “Your grandfather paid for your grandmother to be tortured. Paid like she was just another common whore needing to be put in her place. Do you know how much he paid?”

  Alyssa’s terror deepened. She knew the amount, knew it before the words even left Stephen’s lips.

  “Two gold, and two silver.”

  The knife slipped closer, pressing against the underside of her left eye. Panic flushed her mind, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t move…

  She looked to her son, knew it was the last time she’d ever see him.

  The knife pushed in, twisted, cut. The pain was white-hot, and she felt tears and blood pour down her face. With a plop the eye came free, and Stephen held it in his soft, delicate hand. Nathaniel let out a cry, and Stephen whirled on him with a fury.

  “You watch!” he cried. “Damn you, you little child, you watch! They left me in darkness when I was your age, just like they left her. I had to listen to her screams as they tortured her, sticking her with their pins like it was all a game.”

  “Mom,” Nathaniel said, face red, nose and eyes running. She wanted to go to him, wanted to hold him. But Stephen was not yet done.

  “Darkness,” he said, turning back. He was speaking to her now, not her son. He twisted the bolt back and forth in her chest, just to make sure it still hurt. “Years and years in darkness, always alone but for Melody’s beautiful songs. You don’t deserve her, not now, not ever. She’ll be mine, just mine.”

  In went the knife. Her vision swirled with a brief rainbow of colors that slowly drained away, becoming nothing but black streaked with orange and red that throbbed with the beating of her heart and the horrible spikes of pain. Drool spread down her lips as she struggled to speak, to say anything, as she heard Nathaniel’s sobs.

  Hot breath blew against her ear.

  “I should leave you like this,” Stephen whispered. “Put you in my dungeon to rot. I still have my gentle touchers. They could spend years on you, years without running out of new ways to…”

  Alyssa heard a gasp, followed by a heavy thud.

  “You bastard!” Stephen cried.

  It was too horrible, not knowing what was happening. Had Nathaniel attacked Stephen? She heard a sharp intake of air, and then something hit a wall.

  “How dare you strike me?” Stephen asked. Her son had defended her, it had to be.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded. The words came out a slurred moan, but it seemed to steal Stephen’s attention back to her.

  “Don’t?” he asked. “Don’t what? Your son struck me, woman. Blessed as he is, I think he needs to learn his place.”

  “I’ll scream,” she heard Nathaniel say.

  “Scream, and I cut your throat to silence it. Your choice.”

  If Lord Gandrem heard, or Melody, what would happen? Would he kill them, or would they talk him down? Alyssa didn’t know, didn’t want to know, but it seemed her son was braver than that. He let out a single bloodcurdling scream, at such a high pitch and volume that it pierced the night like a siren.

  “Damn it, stop!” Stephen said. She waited for the killing blow, but before it came, something heavy blasted open the door, and then Stephen let out a cry. An object, perhaps a body, slammed against a wall. She heard the sound of metal, then a cracking of a bone.

  “How dare you?” she h
eard Zusa ask. “Where is Laerek? Where is your master hiding?”

  Stephen let out a moan, and it ended abruptly with a wet smack.

  “Where!”

  “He… he’s waiting for me by Eddleton’s.”

  “What street?”

  “Songbird!” Stephen cried.

  Alyssa heard crying, and then she felt a soft hand take hers. It trembled. Despite the poison, she gently curled her fingers about it, the weakest support she could offer. Nathaniel’s face pressed against her chest, then lifted back, no doubt as he realized how close he was to the arrow still embedded there.

  With an abruptness that startled her, Stephen’s cries came to a halt.

  “Alyssa,” she heard Zusa say, and then wrapped hands touched her face. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never should have left you.”

  “Zusa,” Alyssa managed to say, but that was it.

  Lips kissed hers, and then out came the arrow. Her scream was a pathetic whisper of air exiting her lungs.

  More movement at the door, plus a surprised gasp.

  “What insanity is this?” asked John’s booming voice. “Oh gods… Alyssa! Stephen!”

  “You’re safe now,” Zusa whispered hurriedly into her ear. “He’s dead, but one monster still runs loose. I have to find him. Please understand, I have to.”

  Zusa left her. More voices, more people, cries for a priest or a healer. Nathaniel stayed pressed against her through it all. At some point Melody arrived, her sharp feminine cry easily discernible.

  “Stephen!” she heard Melody say. “Alyssa! Oh you dear, you poor dear…”

  Nathaniel clutched her tighter. Despite the soothing words, and her mother’s hand brushing against her forehead while she whispered comfort, all Alyssa could think of was Zusa’s absence, and how it had been Stephen’s name Melody cried first upon seeing the bloody carnage, not hers.

  Haern dragged the unconscious Bloodcraft through the alleys, knowing it would only be a matter of time before the city guard arrived to investigate the noise and chaos that had been their battle. And despite his trust in Antonil, Haern didn’t want the city guard to be the ones to discover the name he sought. No, he wanted that for himself. Whoever it was had made things personal in attacking the Eschaton, and he’d deal with them personally in return.