Reign of Shadows

by Deborah Chester

  “Sit up, please,” Agel said coldly. “If you’re too weak, I’ll assist you.”

  Caelan levered himself slowly upright, finding himself absurdly weak. Pain flared across his back, making him suck in a sharp breath, and with it came clear recollection of his attempt to join the army, the soldiers who had robbed him and speared him, leaving him for dead in a ditch.

  Meanwhile Agel had started undoing his dressings. Caelan tried to catch his cousin’s eye.

  “I remember,” he said. “The soldiers tried to kill me.”

  Agel’s hands went on working with gentle skill.

  “How did I get back?” Caelan asked.

  Agel said nothing.

  Caelan sighed, then winced. At once Agel stopped and reached for a damp sponge to soak a place where the dressing had stuck to skin.

  “I asked you a question,” Caelan said.

  Agel evaded his gaze and made no answer.

  Footsteps outside the screen made both boys look up. Master Grigori entered with his hands tucked austerely inside his sleeves. His white robe was stained with blood splatters. His eyes held the cool blankness of severance.

  Agel stepped aside, and in silence Master Grigori examined Caelan’s back. His fingers were warm on Caelan’s skin. His probing was gentle, pausing at each place when Caelan winced. His touch drew away the pain, leaving behind a gentle tingle. A sense of well-being seeped through Caelan. He felt stronger already.

  Finally Master Grigori stepped back. “That will do,” he said, glancing at Agel. ‘The wound is closed and will finish healing quickly in a day or two. Bandage him so he doesn’t forget to protect the area, then arrange his release from the infirmary.”

  Agel bowed. “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Master Grigori,” Caelan said, but the healer turned on his heel and left without another glance at Caelan.

  “So it’s to be the silent treatment, is it?” Caelan muttered angrily.

  Saying nothing, Agel rebandaged him with quick efficiency. “Your clothes are in the basket,” he said, pointing at the foot of the cot.

  Resentfully Caelan flung off his blanket and dug out his clothing. He found a fresh shirt and leggings and a replacement novice robe, all clean items from his quarters.

  He dressed while Agel stripped the bedding from the cot and removed it. By the time Agel returned, rolling down his sleeves, Caelan was ready.

  In silence they left the infirmary and walked across the courtyard. The day held the warm golden light of mid- afternoon. Serfs were baking bread in the large, outdoor ovens. The fragrance of the loaves was intoxicating. Caelan closed his eyes and drank it in.

  “I could swoon from hunger,” he said. “How long have I been unconscious?”

  Agel walked steadily beside him, not looking at him, not replying.

  Caelan’s anger flamed higher. He grabbed an apple from a basket and munched on it as they entered the hall, shadowy and silent, its vaulted ceiling soaring high above their heads.

  Novices were arranging the long trestle tables and benches for the evening meal as part of after-class chores. Some of them looked up at Caelan with open mouths and astonished eyes. Others turned away with frowns.

  At the entrance to the quarters stood a hooded proctor. Caelan tensed involuntarily, but the proctor let them pass without question. They climbed the broad staircase to the fourth floor and walked down the silent corridor. Agel pushed open the door to Caelan’s room, and Caelan walked inside.

  Agel started to shut the door on him without entering, but Caelan gripped him by the front of his robe and pulled him inside. Slamming the door with a bang that echoed down the corridor, Caelan released Agel and stood with his back to the door.

  “Now you can talk,” Caelan said, glaring at him. “How was I found? How long have I been unconscious?”

  Agel compressed his lips, but Caelan strode over to him and gripped him by the arm. Agel jerked away from his touch, and the two boys glared at each other, nostrils flaring and eyes hot, for a long moment.

  “Talk!” Caelan said.

  “It’s forbidden.”

  Caelan snorted and swung away. “So I’m to be shunned now by everyone. Even you.”

  Agel’s face whitened with rage. “What you did was unforgivable.”

  Caelan shrugged, but doing so brought a faint twinge to his shoulder. “I ran away. What of it? Anything was better than freezing to death.”

  “Even now you have no shame, no remorse,” Agel marveled. He sent Caelan a horrified look. “I thought I knew you. But your kind heart and decency are gone.” Shaking his head, he stepped past Caelan. “There is nothing to say to you.”

  “Wait!” Caelan said, reaching for his sleeve.

  Agel shoved him hard against the wall.

  Pain shot a sickly web of yellow and gray across the world. Caelan caught his breath and sagged against the wall, trying to hide how much it hurt. The expression of contempt on Agel’s face made it hurt even more.

  “Agel,” he said, making it a plea.

  His cousin averted his eyes. “You have shamed your father,” he whispered, his throat working. “You have shamed me. I cannot forgive you. No one can.”

  “But—”

  Wrenching open the door, Agel stormed out and left Caelan there, too stunned and bewildered to go after him.

  Caelan rubbed his face with his hands and slowly straightened himself. Agel was only overreacting like everyone else around here. Running away was a worse offense than most, but it was hardly a calamity.

  A faint rustle of sound made him look up. Me saw a proctor standing in the open doorway.

  Warily Caelan faced it. “What do you want?” he asked rudely.

  The proctor said nothing, but only closed and bolted the door. The sound of the lock shooting home made Caelan bite his lip.

  His temper heated up, and he paced slowly around his small room twice before plopping down on his cot. He didn’t care what kind of punishment they handed out this time, he told himself. As soon as he got the chance, he was running away again. And this time he would be properly prepared.

  In the morning Caelan awakened to the sound of silence. The usual dawn bell was not ringing. He listened a long while, his body attuned to the regimen of Rieschelhold.

  Silence. No work in the courtyard. No shuffling of sleepy boys along to the washrooms. No bell of assembly. No smell of breakfast cooking.

  Getting up, Caelan dressed and paced the floor hungrily. He felt stiff and sore this morning, but when he flexed his right shoulder there was no discomfort from his wound.

  The continued quiet made him nervous and uneasy. So what were the proctors doing, punishing all the boys for his infraction?

  Defiance and resentment hardened in Caelan. If they thought to make him penitent, they had misjudged him. Caelan could be persuaded, but he did not like to be pushed. The more they tried to break him, the more he vowed to defy them.

  Outside in the corridor, he heard doors opening slowly, the hinges creaking with hesitation. Boys shuffled out, their queries to each other low and apprehensive.

  Caelan listened at his door with derision. No bell, he thought. Without a bell to tell them what to do, the novices were stupid and helpless.

  That’s what the masters wanted them to be. But he wasn’t ever going to become mindless and blindly obedient. Rote learning, cruelty, and fear were the tools of lazy teachers. They didn’t want the novices to think or grow. They considered inquiring minds dangerous. Instead, the masters wanted trained monkeys, silent and respectful monkeys, who would heal only the simple cases and be baffled by anything requiring innovation.

  He hated them, hated them all.

  “Watch out! Proctor on the floor!” called someone in warning.

  The voices and footsteps outside hushed immediately as though everyone had frozen in place. Caelan pressed his ear to his door gain.

  “No bell. No breakfast,” a proctor’s hollow, unnatural voice said into the quiet.

  Voice
s broke out in consternation and protest.

  “Silence!” the proctor ordered, and they quieted at once. “No classes are held. You will remain in quarters until further notification. That is all.”

  There came the repeated slam of doors up and down the corridor. Caelan heard the bolt to his own door slide back, and he stepped away from it just as the door was pushed open.

  Two proctors stood looking in, their faces hidden deep within their cerulean hoods.

  One of them pointed at Caelan with his carved staff.

  “Come.”

  Wary, expecting a beating, Caelan made no move to obey.

  “You have been summoned to the chambers of Elder Sobna. Come.”

  Caelan’s mouth went dry, and for a moment he was frightened. He’d actually spoke to Elder Sobna only once, on the day he first came to be enrolled. The Elder had eyes like glaciers, a white beard, and a soft voice as quiet as falling snow. He had made a dry little speech about welcoming the son of Master Beva. Caelan, anxious to avoid favoritism, had said all the wrong things. Since then, the Elder had not acknowledged his presence again.

  Caelan straightened his shoulders and told himself not to worry. There was no punishment worse than what he’d already faced. Maybe he was going to be expelled. But as soon as that hope was born in Caelan, it died. No one was ever disrobed from Rieschelhold. He’d probably have to poison a master or something.

  Wearing defiance like a cloak, he swaggered out into the corridor with his silent escort.

  It was strange walking down the staircase at that hour of morning to find the place still and empty. The air smelled of peat fires and wood polish. But not even the serfs were to be seen.

  Caelan looked around. “Has everyone been confined to quarters?”

  “All,” said the proctor on his left.

  The other glided stoically on his right, close by, his staff held out as though to steer Caelan.

  “But why?” Caelan asked. He’d never expected to find himself grateful to be talking to proctors, but even they were better than no one. “What’s going on?”

  The proctor on his left turned slightly toward him. “None is to look upon a transgressor.”

  “But—”

  The proctor on his right lifted its hand. “Silence.”

  They walked on, pausing only while the proctors unlocked the doors to the building without touching them. Outside, they paused again, and Caelan heard the bolts shoot home without being touched by the proctor’s hand. He shivered, feeling spooked and increasingly nervous about this.

  Caelan gazed up at a pewter-gray sky, then across the snow-draped expanse of garden and courtyard. The air lay still, not a whisper of wind stirring the quietness. The courtyard had been swept of the fresh snow that had fallen in the night, but it might have been twilight instead of day, for not a soul was to be seen anywhere.

  I have vanished, Caelan thought with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold sinking through his wool robe. They can do anything to me now, and no one will ever know.

  With difficulty he forced his alarm away, drawing on his own anger for strength. This place thrived on fear, using it as a tool, a weapon to coerce the students into obedience. There was no joy here, no light. Dreams and ambitions faded into the mind-dulling miasma of hard work, stern threats, and punishment.

  Caelan refused to let fear conquer him now. He had faced soldiers and lurkers and the unknown. He had even risked meeting a wind spirit. Yet somehow, the silence surrounding him now seemed far worse. For courage he sought memories of his home, E’nonhold, which shone like a refuge in his mind. He thought of days of unhampered freedom when he’d raced his pony up through the valley pass of the Cascades and climbed out on top of the glacier. He thought of the cold wind whipping his hair back from his face and the feathery soft feel of snowflakes on his eyelashes. He thought of hawking—his version of it, not the swift bloody sport of the rich. No, to reach out and share identity with the great predator bird. To feel the rush of wind through its wings. To feel the weightlessness of its body on the air currents, circling, circling, keen eyes alert. To dive in one great, swift, heady rush, the earth hurtling straight at him. Then pulling out seconds before the strike, earthbound and separate once again, gasping with the forbidden exhilaration of it.

  Ah, sevaisin, the joining. So different from severance. So much fun, yet absolutely denied. It was supposed to take years of training among the Vindicants in order to learn the technique. Caelan didn’t know how he did it, and he didn’t care. It seemed to be as natural as breathing, unlike severance, which was a strain.

  At that moment they passed near the gates. He saw no warding key hanging over the small pass gate. A momentary pang of guilt shot through him, yet at the same time he had to bite the inside of his lips to keep from grinning. Wonder what old Master Mygar thought of him now? Who said he couldn’t sever? He could when he had to. He’d proven it.

  With a swagger back in his step, Caelan entered the Elder’s house. The entry was lined with the burled wood of Carpassian walnut, very rare and costly to import. No carving adorned it. The lovely grain of the wood was its only ornamentation. Large oil lamps of plain silver cast a steady illumination to supplement the weak morning light crawling in through the narrow windows.

  A servant attired in a plain tunic of heavy fawn-colored wool with a narrow band of dark fur at collar and cuffs stood by to receive them. The servant was clean-shaven and old. His blue eyes regarded Caelan without expression.

  In silence the servant led Caelan and the proctors up a staircase. Lamps hung from brackets on the walls, lighting their way.

  On the second floor, the air hung heavy with the scents of snow-dampened wool, old carpets, and crushed borage. The same oppressive silence was to be found here as every where else. It seemed, as Caelan’s feet moved soundlessly over the carpet running the full length of the hallway, that all he could hear was the loud lub-dub of his own heartbeat, growing louder and faster with every step.

  He swallowed, but his mouth grew no less dry. His confidence wavered, but he forced himself to keep his shoulders straight and his head high. He was the son of a master healer without equal in all of Trauland, not some nobody they could frighten.

  The servant tapped softly on a heavy door at the very end of the passage. Caelan heard no response, but the servant opened the door, then stepped aside. Caelan entered alone, the proctors and servant remaining outside. The door closed quietly behind him.

  The Elder sat at his desk, writing on parchment. He did not look up at Caelan’s entry.

  Sighing, Caelan looked around. The walls of the office were smooth white plaster, very austere. Cold northern light from large windows on one side made the room seem even bleaker. A modest fire hissed and crackled on a small hearth. It failed to warm the room.

  The Elder’s desk, fashioned from plain native spruce- wood, held tidy scrolls of parchment rowed up on one side. His ink stand was carved simply from buta horn, as was his pen. On the other side of the desk, balancing the harmony, stood a small triangle, the symbol of severance.

  Finally the Elder’s pen stopped scratching across the parchment. He read what he had just written, sanded the ink to dry it, then shook the grains away into a small receptacle and rolled up the parchment.

  Only then did he lift his gaze to Caelan. He quirked up one eyebrow, and Caelan walked forward.

  The Elder was a thin, white-haired man. His robe was white, indicating the level of his powers as well as his rank. His face curved in a crescent, ending in a pointed chin made more prominent by his short white beard. His skin was very pale, translucent enough to show a faint tracery of veins pulsing at his temple.

  It was said that any follower of severance eventually grew progressively paler throughout life, until the very ancient practitioners were practically transparent. They were said to die like beams of light, shining bright, then slowly fading as they finally achieved total severance from life.

  “You do not answer my q
uestion, Novice Caelan E’non,” the Elder said in a displeased voice.

  Caelan blinked and realized he’d heard nothing. He flushed. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I did not hear.”

  “It seems you make a habit of living with your mind unfocused.”

  Caelan lowered his gaze. He could not protest.

  “You have caused much trouble since your arrival here last term.”

  Caelan kept his head bowed. So far, this wasn’t too bad.

  The Elder’s pale thin hand fluttered over certain of the scrolls on his desk. “These are lists of your various transgressions, offenses, and errors. They have been compiled by the masters who have charge of you.”

  Caelan looked up. “I guess there’s a lot of them.”

  The Elder’s expression grew even more severe. “This is not a matter of amusement, Novice Caelan.”

  Caelan hastily rearranged his own expression. “No, sir.”

  “Nor pride.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You are from one of the finest Traulander families. You have been brought up according to principles of harmony and perfection. You have been taught severance, witnessed it practiced in your home. You have enjoyed the advantages of private tutors. You have never known want or lack. Is this true?”

  Caelan shifted uneasily. He wasn’t enjoying this. “It’s true, Elder Sobna.”

  Harmony and perfection, he thought bitterly. Yes ... if he made no noise, asked no questions, never ran or leaped or stretched, never sought independence, never searched for different answers. Private tutors like jailers, droning on and on, holding accounts like money changers, running to share the results with Beva, telling, tattling fools. No, Caelan had never known any lack at home, unless to crave love and understanding was a lack.

  He could feel his emotions churning up, stinging his eyes. Furiously he held them back.

  “Why did you run away?”

  Caelan lifted his chin. He didn’t answer.

  “Have we mistreated you here, Novice Caelan?”

  Caelan opened his mouth, then checked the hot words on his tongue.