Reign of Shadows

by Deborah Chester

  Beva stepped back and drew himself up, very erect and austere in his white robes. His eyes might as well have been chips of stone. “I was wrong to try this alone,” he said with plain disappointment. “You are stronger than I suspected.”

  Caelan’s disappointment was crushing. Beva hadn’t even bothered to deny it. “Why do you hate me so much?” he asked.

  “Hate you?” Beva said with a blink. “I do not hate.”

  “You want to destroy me.”

  “If you are not turned from the path you walk, you will become something reprehensible. I am trying to save you, boy. Let me.”

  Caelan’s eyes widened. He thought of how he had handled the warding key, and remembered he had somehow brought it back to life. Despite its awesome power, he had used it, directed it.

  He started to shake again. “People die when they hold warding keys. What am I?”

  Beva looked at him coldly, offering no comfort or sympathy. “It is said that in the west there are men who walk both worlds, using severance or sevaisin as they will without regard for the patterns of harmony they destroy. It is also said they are not truly men, that demon blood must run in their veins for them to have such unholy powers. They are welcomed in the west, put to use in the evil worked by the emperor and his court of blasphemers. Many join the order of Vindicants and perfect their mastery of the shadow arts.”

  Caelan listened to this with growing dismay. He did not want to believe what his father was saying. “But I’m not like that.”

  “Perhaps you are. Or will become so.” Beva’s harsh tone was like a slap.

  Caelan frowned, wanting to deny it, wanting his father to deny it. “But I am your son. I have your blood. I’m no demon! Just because I won’t obey you—”

  “Rebellion is one gateway to the dark path,” Beva quoted without mercy. He gestured at Farns’s unconscious form. “You have endangered my watchman, a servant of long devotion. He will probably die of the madness because of you. What were you leading him to, Caelan?”

  “Nothing,” Caelan said, appalled by this newest accusation. “I was only trying to collect my bow from the—”

  “Weapons are the handiwork of destruction,” Beva said. “I have had all of them broken—”

  “Yes, I saw,” Caelan broke in angrily. “This hold now lies unprotected and vulnerable to anyone who chooses to attack it. How could you be so irresponsible? Thyzarenes don’t believe in the pattern of harmony. If they come here, are we to drive them off with our bare hands?”

  “The gods protect us because we live on the path of good,” Beva said.

  “The gods protect those who stand prepared to defend themselves,” Caelan said in disgust.

  Beva scowled. “I will not have disrespect in my house.”

  “Fine. I plan to leave your house.”

  Beva’s head snapped up. He looked at Caelan with alarm.

  “That’s right. I’m going,” Caelan told him.

  “But you are my son,” Beva said. “Your place is here, with me.”

  Grief, anger, and disillusionment twisted inside Caelan. “When I go to sleep tonight, will you try to purify me again? Make me a mindless, obedient slave? You’ve already called me a demon. As if the insult to my mother wasn’t enough, I know you care nothing about me at all. Why should you want me?”

  “You are my son.”

  “Your pride be damned!” Caelan shouted at him. “I don’t want to be your son! I don’t want anything to do with you!”

  Color flamed in Beva’s face. “You are not of age. You must obey me. You must take the apprenticeship I assign you. The law supports me in this. If you leave, I can summon you home. And I will do it.”

  “Disown me! Forget about me! It’s Agel who wants to be a healer and work with you. Just leave me alone, because I will never give in. Never! And you won’t trick me again.”

  Caelan swung away, but before he’d gone two steps his father called after him.

  “You cannot go.”

  “Watch me,” Caelan muttered, seething.

  “You cannot go! My son, if you do not stop this rage that fills you ... if you do not learn to submit to the inward path, you will become what I most fear.”

  Caelan stopped and looked back. “What?” he asked with deliberate insolence. “A free man?”

  “No, a donare. An abhorrence. Son, it lies within you. It grows into a twisted evil. You must be stopped. You must be saved. If you cannot crush it within yourself, then let me sever it from you—”

  “No!” Caelan said, his fear returning. He backed away from his father, fearing the fanaticism burning in Beva’s face more than anything. “Stay away from me! I don’t believe you. I don’t—trust you.”

  With that break in his voice, he rushed from the ward. By the time he reached the passage connecting the infirmary to the house, he was staggering on weak, unsteady legs. Tears streamed down his face.

  There was no love in Beva. There would never be.

  A sob choked Caelan’s throat, but he held it down. His father had called him a monster, one of the demon-blood, all because he wouldn’t submit blindly to Beva’s wishes.

  Unfair, but so was all of life. He refused to feel sorry for himself. That way led to weakness, and he might even find himself crawling back like a shivering dog, willing to take whatever abuse Beva wanted to give in exchange for acceptance.

  There was no question of ever pleasing his father. He never had. He never could.

  And now ... and now ... he choked again, and wiped the tears from his face. He thought his father was half afraid of him.

  Fear, not love.

  Control, not compassion.

  Hatred, not acceptance.

  Why?

  The question branded him, burning deep, never to be erased from his soul.

  Had he been a changeling of some kind or even an orphan of mysterious origin adopted by his parents, he might understand what was happening to him. But there had been no fateful discovery of an infant son by Beva during his travels. There had been no unexpected arrival of an infant son at the hold gates, left by the spirits. There had been no secret trade of an infant son with the Choven who migrated through the Cascades during the summer months.

  Caelan had been born in the bed where his father still slept, as Lea had been. He was an E’non, able to count his ancestors back for twelve generations. There was no strange or foreign blood in his veins, nothing to support his father’s cruel accusations. No soothsayer in the towns of Meunch and Ornselag had ever decried his destiny on a street corner.

  Yet he had held a warding key three times, and he still lived.

  What did it mean?

  What did Lea’s unusual gifts mean?

  Beva had more than the usual talent for healing. What talents had his bride possessed? What had the two of them created in their children?

  Or was it all a growing madness in Beva’s mind? Were his own talents and beliefs driving him too far? People thought him so wise and good. Why couldn’t he show that wisdom and goodness to his own son? Why did he have to be so harsh and unyielding? What did he want?

  Something Caelan could not give.

  Safe in his room, Caelan slammed the door and slid down it to the floor.

  There, in the quiet shadows, he sobbed.

  Chapter Nine

  THE NEXT DAY brought Caelan’s chance for escape.

  Strangers came to the hold, more Neika tribesmen to fetch the two who were already there. Clad in furs, their long blond hair braided at the temples, ice frozen in their thick mustaches, they carried axes in their belts and freedom in their eyes. The Neika entered warily, forever uneasy within the confines of hold walls. They stood knotted together in the courtyard, fingering their axe heads and mumbling beneath their mustaches until their comrades emerged from the infirmary—one rushing out in greeting, the other limping with a broad grin.

  There was much shouting and back-slapping Squalling in a large ring in the courtyard, they began to talk formally
, using ritualized sign language to supplement it.

  Everyone in the hold except Beva and Gunder found an excuse to venture by and stare at the newcomers.

  The Neika spent winter months following the nordeer that migrated across the glacier. They also cut wood and sold it to craftsmen in the lower towns. Sometimes, in lean years when the nordeer were scarce, the Neika cut peat and brought it to holds in exchange for food. In the summer they cut ice, packed it in meadow grass, and brought it down through the Cascades to the towns on large skids drawn by tame nordeer.

  Brawny and tall, the tribesmen looked fierce. In reality, however, most were shy. They rarely fought among them selves and were aggressive only in protecting their herds and families.

  These men had been to E’raumhold while waiting for their brother’s leg to mend. Now they were hack, having successfully sold their bundles of beaver pelts and nordeer hides. And they had an order for stripped logs for the building of a new barn at E’raumhold. Red-cheeked with prosperity, they talked rapid-fire, hands flying with gestures as quick as their words.

  When Anya came forth with a tray of apple cakes, they accepted with hesitant pleasure.

  Caelan approached them cautiously and took the piece of cake Anya handed to him.

  “Have you heard about any raids?” he asked them.

  The oldest man of the group glanced up. “Naw,” he said gruffly. “We been to and fro along the river all this moon. No raiders. None since E’ferhold was burned out.”

  Caelan and Anya exchanged a glance. The housekeeper looked relieved. Smiling, she gathered her empty tray and headed back into the house.

  “No sightings of Thyzarenes anywhere?” Caelan persisted. “I guess that means the army is gone?”

  “Um,” the Neika said around a mouthful of cake. “Talk in E’raumhold full of it. Bad, they say. Bad to let army plunder loyal provinces. Will be more war if army does not go.”

  Caelan’s ears perked up. Trying not to act too interested, he said, “So the army is still in Trau?”

  “Um. Talk be of it. Army camped near Ornselag. Waiting for transport ships. Too many fighters for waiting. Much trouble.”

  The Neika exchanged solemn glances, grumbling beneath their mustaches.

  “We stay far from towns. No trouble for Neika. Talk say, raiders eager to go. When thaw comes, they take the fire-breathers home for breeding. Have a big festival after thaw. Got to divide spoils. Got to let fire-breathers breed and the raider folk breed too.”

  He glanced around, his eyes as untamed as the woods beyond the hold, and brushed cake crumbs from his mustache.

  Beva came out, slender and tall, his white healer robes immaculate, his gray eyes cool.

  The tribesmen rose to their feet in nervous respect.

  Beva held out a small pouch, which the injured man took warily. “Mix that into a weak tea and drink a cup of it with each meal. The leg is healing well, but this will keep fever away.”

  “Um.” The tribesman who had answered Caelan’s questions dug into his money purse for coins.

  Beva accepted them without expression. “I have taken away his pain, but the leg will heal straighter if he does not walk on it much for another week.” He held up his left hand, fingers spread wide. “This many days.”

  The tribesman nodded, and Beva walked back into the house.

  “We go,” the Neika said.

  Almost in unison, they headed for the gates, braids swinging around their wide shoulders.

  Caelan hurried after them. “Wait!” he said. “I want to barter.”

  They laughed above his head, strong teeth flashing in the sunshine.

  “No barter,” the tribesman said kindly. “All goods sold. We go back to camp.”

  “Wait. Please.” Feeling breathless, Caelan looked up into his blue eyes. “How much for an axe?”

  The Neika’s laughter faded abruptly. He set his hand protectively on his axe-head and frowned. “Axe is blessed. No sell, ever.”

  Caelan held up his hands. “Sorry. I didn’t understand. What about a dagger?”

  The man squinted thoughtfully with his head tilled to one side. “What healer need with fighting dagger?”

  “I’m not a healer.” Caelan glanced over his shoulder at the house. “My father has nothing to do with this It’s for me.”

  “Little warrior.” The Neika laughed and said something in his own language that made the others laugh too.

  It reminded Caelan of how the soldiers had laughed as they circled him. Anger steeled him, and he vowed to himself that he would become a man at whom no one laughed ever again. But for now, he needed a weapon if he was to make his plan work.

  “What can I offer you?” he persisted. “Which of my possessions would most please the Neika?”

  “You have bargained with our people before. This is good.” Nodding, the man squatted.

  Caelan crouched beside him while the others stood patiently. Caelan’s heart quickened with excitement. Carefully, he tried to be polite and wait for the big man to think.

  Lea, bright in her scarlet wool cloak, came running up. “Caelan!” she called, elbowing past the tribesmen. “Are you coming? You promised—”

  Caelan frowned and shook his head at her, but she settled herself beside him anyway. “You promised,” she said with more urgency.

  “Soon,” he told her. “Wait until I’m finished with this.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Hush.”

  The tribesman beside him drew a long dagger from his belt and laid it carefully on the cobblestones between them. It had a bronze blade decorated with intricate carving worn in places. The hilt was a plain cross, long and tapering, with a round brass knob on the end. Wrapped in fine wire, it looked very old and nothing at all like the weapons the Neika usually carried.

  “You trade for this?” the Neika asked.

  Caelan nodded.

  Beside him, Lea tensed. He squeezed her hand to keep her quiet.

  “You give ... medicines for this dagger.”

  Caelan looked up in dismay. “But I can’t—” He caught himself, breaking off in mid-sentence, and thought about it. His father’s herbal cabinets were kept locked. No one but Gunder was allowed near them. Caelan thought about what his father had tried to do to him and hardened his heart.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Looking satisfied, the Neika rocked back on his heels. He stood up, leaving the dagger on the ground.

  “But, Caelan—”

  Caelan frowned at Lea. “Don’t say anything. This is my business.”

  “But it’s a bad thing—”

  “Lea, either keep quiet or I’m not going with you.”

  She frowned, looking hurt, and marched away.

  He stared after her, sorry to be so harsh, but he didn’t need her pestering him right now.

  He picked up the dagger and turned it over in his hands, running his fingertips along the flat of the blade. It didn’t come close to the dagger he’d left behind at Rieschelhold, but it would do.

  Holding it out to its owner, he said, “I’ll bring the remedies as soon as I—”

  “You keep. We have made bargain. We go outside walls.”

  Pleased by the man’s trust, Caelan smiled and quickly tucked the knife out of sight beneath his tunic. “Wait, and I’ll bring them to you as soon as—”

  “There is pine tree with fork in trunk,” the Neika said. “Forty strides from gate. You know this tree?”

  Caelan had climbed in it throughout his childhood. “Of course.”

  “You leave bundle there before nightfall. We get.”

  “Agreed.”

  The tribesmen gathered themselves and headed for the gates. Raul let them out.

  Caelan stood there in the sun-drenched courtyard, glowing with pride. They had treated him like a man. Now all he had to do was figure out how to sneak into the storerooms of the infirmary and get what was needed without Gunder catching him.

  A tug on hi
s sleeve interrupted his thoughts. Lea had returned, and she was staring up at him with open disapproval. “Why do you want that horrible old knife?”

  “I need it.” Caelan cleared his throat. “Every man needs a dagger.”

  “You are hiding yourself from me again. You trust the Neika, but not me. And now you won’t keep your promise.”

  He bent down and gripped her by the shoulders. “Of course I’m going to keep my promise. I need—I want to go to the ice caves with you. We’re going this afternoon.”

  Her face lit up. “Really?”

  “Yes. You tell Anya that we want to take our lunch with us. We’ll needs lots of food because I’m really hungry.”

  “I will. Oh, Caelan, I can’t wait. Why can’t we go now?”

  “Because I have to do some things. Run along and get ready.”

  He did his best to keep his voice light, but Lea was not easily fooled.

  She stopped jumping up and down and gripped his hand with both of hers. “Don’t bring that dagger with you, promise?”

  He shook his head. “I’m going to carry it all the time. It’s a part of me now.”

  “Don’t say that!” she cried in genuine distress. “It’s bad; I can feel it. Long ago, it killed. The metal is tainted with—”

  “Stop it,” he said harshly, pulling free. “You’re making this up.”

  “I’m not!” She stamped her foot. “You don’t want to listen because you’re angry at Father. You’ve changed inside. Since the wind spirits hurt you, you’re different.”

  He frowned. “I’ve grown up, that’s all.”

  She shook her head. “I’m just trying to help you. Throw the knife away.”

  “I need it.”

  “But it’s bad—”

  “Look,” he said impatiently, “whatever it was used for in the past has nothing to do with what I’ll use it for. Remember that pouch Anya made for you to keep your treasure in?”

  Reluctantly Lea nodded.

  “Remember I told you it needed a leather lacing threaded through the top so you could hang it around your neck?”