Tracing the Shadow

by Sarah Ash

  So the prince had learned his secret. “I beg you, highness, please don’t tell a soul.”

  Eugene broke into delighted laughter. “And even if I did, would anyone believe me?” Then he added earnestly, “Don’t worry; your secret is safe with me. But have you flown far?”

  “I went to collect more aethyr crystals,” said Linnaius. “Your father plans to establish a linked information chain, with devices in every embassy.” He stumbled and the prince steadied him.

  “You look exhausted. You must take better care of yourself.”

  “I think I shall find plenty to occupy my time here, highness. I don’t plan on using my craft for a very long while.”

  “Teach me, my lord.” Rieuk went down on his knees before Lord Estael. “Teach me how to become strong enough to destroy Kaspar Linnaius.”

  Lord Estael put out one hand to Rieuk’s face; Rieuk flinched as the Magus stared probingly into his eyes.

  “You are no match for Linnaius,” said Lord Estael bluntly. “He would crush you. And your desire for vengeance is not nearly as strong as your desire to find death.” He let go of Rieuk, who slumped to his knees, drained. “You are the Arkhan’s Emissary now, so I must forbid you to go anywhere near your old master.”

  Rieuk could not hold back the sob of frustration that burst from his throat.

  “You lost Imri before your training was complete,” Lord Estael said, a little less harshly. “I will take you on as my apprentice and prepare you for the Arkhan’s mission. After that, we will see if you are ready to confront the most powerful of our order.”

  “Y—your apprentice, my lord?” Rieuk had not anticipated that Lord Estael would suggest such an arrangement. Before he could stammer out another word, Lord Estael raised him to his feet and briefly pressed his dry lips to his forehead.

  “There is so much you need to learn, Rieuk. Follow me.”

  Ormas followed Lord Estael’s Emissary, Almiras, deep into the Shrine at Ondhessar until both shadow hawks hovered above the white statue of Azilis, the Eternal Singer. Rieuk gazed down on her through Ormas’s eyes while Lord Estael began to tell him the secret the order had protected over the centuries. “Your countrymen know her as Azilia, the mortal woman who achieved sainthood through her good deeds and self-sacrifice. But they are ignorant of her true story. And Enhirre has paid dearly for their ignorance. If the Commanderie knew her real identity, they would pull down her shrines, for she is one of those they regard as the Enemy.”

  “The Enemy?” Rieuk repeated, not understanding.

  “One of the Transgressors. The Rebels. She is the child of a forbidden love: a love between angel and mortal. An act of rebellion that brought about the downfall of her father and his followers, and led to their eternal imprisonment.”

  “So she was half mortal, half angel?”

  “And she, in turn, fell in love with a mortal and bore his child. But years passed and her body, which was mortal, began to fail. Yet her spirit endured.”

  “But who sealed her spirit within the Lodestar? Who committed such a cruel act?”

  A sad smile passed across Lord Estael’s face. “Can’t you guess, Rieuk? The Angel Lord, Prince Galizur. She was sealed here, in this world, so that she could not be reunited with her rebel father, Nagazdiel.”

  “And I set her free?”

  “It seems, Rieuk,” Lord Estael was regarding him with a quizzical expression, “that you are quite unique. There has never been a crystal magus with such potential in our order before. In fact—”

  A Guerrier came into the Shrine and began to light votive candles.

  “Return, Almiras,” commanded Lord Estael. The Guerrier glanced upward as the flames flickered wildly in the breath of the hawks’ wings. Ormas retreated, flying swiftly after Almiras.

  Lord Estael greeted his hawk as Almiras alighted on his shoulder. To Rieuk’s relief, Ormas came fluttering down out of the darkness a few moments later.

  “Our order, Rieuk, was created to guard her crystal prison, in the hope that one day we could reunite her with her father. All true magi—all elementals like you, Imri, and Linnaius—we are all descended from that first, forbidden union that created her.”

  “We are?” Rieuk heard the words but could not begin to grasp the immensity of their meaning.

  “We have angel blood in our veins.”

  Angel blood. The words sent a thrill through Rieuk’s body; they resonated with the promise of unspoken, unimaginable mysteries. “But if our magi powers are angelic powers, why does the Commanderie persecute us? I thought they revered angels.”

  Lord Estael gave a short, bitter laugh. “The Commanderie seeks to destroy us because their founders allied themselves with the Warriors of Heaven to defeat Prince Nagazdiel and his followers. As we are Nagazdiel’s children, they are bound to destroy us, too. I believe that there is a whole chapter of the Sacred Texts devoted to that subject. Yet the chapter you were taught at school is not the original. The original was suppressed.”

  “B—but how can that be?”

  “The truth about our origins is the secret knowledge that we have guarded here over the centuries. Secret, because the followers of Sergius and Argantel have burned every copy of the original Texts they’ve laid hands on. The Guerriers of the Commanderie are dedicated to the destruction of magic and all who use it.”

  Rieuk’s mind was spinning. He knew himself now to be the descendant of an angel. But his angelic ancestor was one of the Fallen—a rebel whose tremendous powers had not saved him from a terrible punishment.

  CHAPTER 11

  Père Albin’s voice droned on, dull as the buzz of the fly trapped against the narrow classroom window. Jagu tried not to sigh too loudly as he dipped his pen in his inkwell and dutifully scratched down the dictation. The pen nib was slightly bent and, try as he might, he could not write with an even hand. He stopped, trying to pry the crossed prongs apart with a fingernail, dirtying his fingertips in the process.

  An ink pellet suddenly flipped over his head, spattering his work with drops of black, and landed with a small splotch on Père Albin’s desk. The elderly teacher paused and gazed down at the pellet. There came a smothered laugh from behind Jagu. Kilian! Never able to resist a prank, even in Père Albin’s catechism lessons.

  The boys waited, breath bated, to see how Père Albin would react. Glaring over the top of his spectacles, he reached for the cane with one gnarled hand. He brought the cane down on the desk with an ear-bruising whack. Jagu winced. Père Albin’s fingers might be knotted with protruding veins and distorted with rheumatism, but he could still deliver a painful dose of the cane that his pupils did not forget in a hurry.

  You idiot, Kilian.

  “Which boy was responsible?”

  Silence. Jagu stared at his blotted work, not daring to raise his head.

  Père Albin walked between the desks, slowly tapping the end of the cane on his palm. Jagu had no love for the master who somehow contrived to make the most inspiring and beautiful verses of the Holy Texts dull, but he was in awe of his considerable scholarship.

  “Own up now, and your punishment will be brief. Remain silent, and the whole class will suffer for your impudence.”

  Jagu could hear the old man’s testy breathing as he approached from behind. He crouched lower over his work.

  “What’s this, Rustéphan? Splashes of ink?” Jagu could hear the barely restrained choler in the master’s voice. “Show me your hands.” He glared round at the cowering boys. “Whoever made that pellet will have ink on his fingers.”

  Jagu slowly raised his hands and turned them over for the master to inspect. Père Albin let out a cry of triumph. “Aha! Just as I thought!” He grabbed hold of Jagu’s right hand. “Inky fingers!”

  “It wasn’t me—” Jagu began, but down came the cane on his outstretched palm. The pain made his eyes fill with tears.

  “Sir,” piped up Paol, “he’s got organ practice at four.”

  Jagu bit his lip, praying the
tears would not spill out and disgrace him in front of the other boys. He tasted blood as the cane came down again and again,

  Quicksilver ripple of air…strange stillness…everything ceases…

  Père Albin’s arm froze in midstroke, and Jagu felt his heart stop.

  The cane dropped to the floor with a clatter. Jagu blinked. The burning pain in his hand brought him back to himself. He saw Père Albin make a sudden move and instinctively ducked out of the way. But Père Albin’s attention was diverted. Where his jowled face had been red with anger, it was now a pasty white. The master staggered toward the window. The sky outside was black with a sudden swirl of crows, as if all the birds in the seminary garden had erupted into crazed flight.

  “May the Heavenly Ones protect us,” Père Albin muttered under his breath. The other boys were gazing at one another, mystified. Paol nudged Jagu. “You all right?” he whispered. Jagu nodded, nursing his swollen hand. He was still aware of the strange, stilling sensation that had seemed to stop his heart. Even now, there was an odd, unsettling taint to the air.

  Kilian, who was nearest the window, let out a piercing whistle. “Will you look at that!”

  Suddenly all the boys forgot Père Albin and scrambled toward the window, pushing and shoving to get a better view. And what was most extraordinary was that Père Albin made no move to stop them. He seemed for the moment as fascinated as they. Jagu, taller than his peers, gazed out over their heads, while agile Paol wriggled his way through to the front of the throng.

  The dark flock of birds swirled over the ochre-and-grey-tiled roofs of the town of Kemper like thunderclouds, scattering a hail of jet feathers. The classroom door banged open and other boys came rushing in, jostling Père Albin’s class to get a better view.

  Jagu stood his ground, fascinated in spite of himself. The unpleasant feeling emanating from the darkly swirling birds was growing stronger. He felt a disorienting sense of nausea, as though the natural order itself had been disrupted.

  “Thaumaturgy,” Jagu heard Père Albin say in a strangled voice. “And here, in our very own town.” The chapel bell began to clang—a fast, frantic clamor.

  “Père Albin!” Jagu turned to see the imposing figure of Abbé Houardon, the seminary headmaster, in the doorway. He was glowering at their form master. “Bring your class down to the chapel at once. And Jagu, run to the library and fetch Père Magloire. If I know our librarian, he won’t even have heard the warning bell.”

  Unlike most of his rowdier friends, Jagu was usually pleased to be sent to the seminary library. He liked the calming silence, and the dusty smell of old books entranced him with the promise of amazing tales and arcane secrets to be discovered within their faded bindings. Even though Jagu was one of the younger students in the seminary, the elderly librarian, Père Magloire, had begun to recognize him and nod kindly—if a little absently—at him whenever he was sent on an errand. The library overlooked the seminary gardens, and the many old and rare trees that had been brought from across the seas by a keen botanist priest over a century ago. Bookcases of varnished oak lined the walls and tall ladders could be wheeled along the sides on a rail so that Père Magloire could reach the highest volumes. Although of late, Jagu had always offered to scale the ladders in his place, fearing that the frail, wisp-bearded old man might fall.

  When Jagu entered the library, Père Magloire was not at his desk. Blinds had been pulled down to protect the books from the sun, yet daylight still penetrated the faded linen, coloring the air with a yellowish tinge. The bell had stopped. But the disconcerting sense of wrongness still permeated the air; if anything, it felt stronger in here.

  Jagu hurried along each row of bookcases, searching for the librarian. A fresh breeze and a splash of daylight made him notice that, unusually, one of the blinds was rolled up and the window gaped open. He reached the far end of the lofty room and gazed around, perplexed.

  “Père Magloire?” he called, disturbing the silence.

  There was no reply.

  And then he felt it again: that horrible, unsettling sensation of nausea. The air in the library rippled before his eyes, as if an invisible layer of gauze were being peeled away. Every instinct told Jagu, “Run!” Yet when he tried to turn and flee, he found that he could not move.

  A shadow skimmed the top of his head, drawing his gaze upward.

  Père Magloire was tottering on the highest rung of one of the library ladders. As Jagu watched, helpless, the shadow took shape, revealing itself as a swift-flying smoky hawk, making straight for the elderly librarian.

  “Mon père!” Jagu felt his mouth frame words of warning, but only a strangled sound issued from his throat.

  Père Magloire turned to stare at him. But instead of the old man’s customary rheumy, benevolent gaze, Jagu felt himself transfixed by eyes that were blank and empty. The librarian pulled an ancient volume from the top shelf, releasing a little cloud of brownish dust. The hawk seized the book in its outstretched claws and darted away, making for the open window.

  Jagu gave chase. “Thief! Come back!” But the hawk had already swooped out the window and was winging swiftly away.

  Frustrated, Jagu leaned out, trying to trace where it was going.

  There, in the seminary gardens, stood a stranger beneath the spreading branches of one of the ancient trees. Jagu froze, hands clutching the sill, as the smoke-winged hawk flew straight toward the man, the book still grasped securely in its claws.

  He saw the stranger raise his hands to take the book. He saw the hawk alight on the man’s wrist. The air rippled…and then a cloud passed across the sun, plunging the garden into shadow. Jagu blinked, rubbed his eyes. The hawk was gone. But the man was still there, his head raised, staring directly at Jagu.

  And he was smiling.

  Jagu slowly backed away from the window. The intruder had seen him. He could identify the thief, but the thief knew who he was.

  “What am I doing up here?”

  Père Magloire’s voice jolted Jagu out of his stupor. The old priest was wobbling dangerously, trying to regain his balance.

  “Mon père, hold on!” Jagu hurried over and grabbed hold of ladder. “Can you climb down by yourself? Shall I help you?”

  “I feel a little dizzy,” quavered the old man.

  “What on earth is going on, Rustéphan?” One of the final-year students appeared around a stack of books. On seeing Père Magloire, he launched himself forward to take his weight just as the old man loosened his hold and slid downward. All three ended up in a heap on the floor. As Jagu extricated himself, he recognized the student from his hazel-brown curls as Emilion, the senior prefect—a studious, conscientious young man destined to rise high in the priesthood.

  “Go and get help,” ordered Emilion, untangling himself from the unconscious librarian. Keen to escape, Jagu sped off.

  “You saw the thief, Jagu? You actually saw him?” The boys whispered together excitedly in the chapel pews as they waited for Abbé Houardon to address them.

  Jagu nodded numbly. He had been grilled by the priests in the headmaster’s study for over an hour and was exhausted.

  “What was he like? What did he do?” Paol kept pestering him with questions. “D’you think he really was a magus?”

  “He put a spell on Père Magloire.” Jagu felt a chill as he remembered the old librarian’s expression. “His eyes were…weird.”

  Kilian was not convinced. “Père Magloire’s always weird. Is it so surprising, after working here all these years? He must be getting on for a hundred.”

  “And he stole a book.”

  “From our library? Huh! Good luck to him, then,” said Kilian with a shrug. “Every book in there is as dusty and dry as Père Albin’s sermons.” He leaned back and propped his feet over the pew in front, causing the younger boys sitting there to squeak with annoyance.

  “But which book?” persisted Paol as Kilian continued to torment the little boys.

  “It was from the shelf where Magloire
keeps the books about the missionary fathers. Remember? He showed us after he gave us that talk about his work in Enhirre.”

  Paol mimicked the librarian’s quavering voice. “‘Bringing the heathen unbelievers to the light is the noblest cause a young man can devote his life to.’”

  “Why would anyone want a book about missionaries?” Kilian yawned widely.

  “Maybe it was a book one of the missionaries brought back.” If only he had managed a closer look before the dark bird flew straight at him, clutching the book in its talons.

  And there, in the green garden below, stands the waiting figure of the Magus, the breeze stirring his long locks of hair, unmoving, yet terrifying in his stillness.

  Would I recognize him if I saw him again? This thought had been troubling Jagu since he had seen the intruder. And, worse still, would he recognize me?

  “Stand up, Kilian!” Abbé Houardon strode down the aisle in a swirl of grey robes, stopping to glare at Kilian, who sullenly removed his feet from the pew and stood up with the rest of the boys. “See me after chapel,” muttered Père Albin to Kilian as he followed in the headmaster’s wake.

  Abbé Houardon positioned himself below the tall statue of Argantel, the seminary’s patron saint; the other masters took their places on the steps below. The headmaster cleared his throat and glared intimidatingly at all his students. “After today’s incident, we must all be vigilant. I never thought that any servant of darkness would be so rash as to attempt to infiltrate a seminary, but it appears that our enemies are becoming bolder. The Commanderie has warned all devout believers to be on the alert.”

  Kilian raised one eyebrow in an expression of bored cynicism. This lecture was not a new one; the fathers were always warning the boys that they were entering an age of uncertainty in which their faith would be tested to the limit.