A Ruin of Shadows

by L. D. Lewis

  The General mainly came out for better food and hit the market stalls either early morning or late at night when the air was cool and the crowds were thin. She was a bit later than usual tonight. Flickering torch light still illuminated rooms in the tiered apartments of Citadela. Headlamps on humming driftcycles created disappearing pools of light on side roads as people returned home from late shifts. Her spy’s footfalls were lost in the noise of the city but she still felt the eyes on her.

  She watched the news of her arrival in the marketplace ripple through merchants on both sides of the street, manifesting in whispers and nods in her direction, the stoking of grill fires, the unpacking of vendors who’d just packed up for the night. Each declared something along the lines of “beautiful night, General” as she passed their stalls. She picked up a lime here, a bundle of wild cherries there, and pointed to what she wanted from grill merchants. Bits of tender boar and gator and whatever jungle beast was handy at the time made their way onto skewers with bright fruit and into grilled flat breads. The air was alive with smoke scented with citrus and burnt sugar.

  Early in her career the vendors would protest, insisting she take the wares for free while she insisted on paying. What was the point of having money if she was not allowed to spend it? And then she let it be known that the back and forth of refusing her money was a waste of her very valuable time. Now they accepted the gold coins she pressed into their palms immediately, and kissed them as if they were blessings.

  A stall at the far end of the marketplace opted for strings of etched iron and colorful glass lanterns instead of torch light. Daynja’s cachaça vendor, an old woman with skin the color of clay and a hive of gray-white braids sat beneath them at the center of an assortment of cryptically marked jugs and glass bottles. She exhaled cigar smoke from dark lips and itched her nose with a tattooed finger. Her mountain of a grandson stood stone-faced in the background as a silent threat to the belligerent among the late-night drinking crowd.

  “Beautiful night, General,” she said in a voice that sounded like she gargled gravel. She didn’t jump to her feet like anyone else might have. Her eyes were black and hard as diamonds and not at all impressed by the spectacle of General Edo. “Where you been?”

  “The world’s edge, of course,” said Daynja. “And how are you, Margot?”

  “I sell liquor. Business is always good so I am always good.” Margot reached to a shelf behind her and brought forward a dark jug just small enough to carry without much effort. “I expected you sooner. You must have moved slower through the last bottle.”

  “Well, I just got back.”

  “Mm-hmm. Or you are getting old.”

  “What?” Daynja blinked.

  “It happens.” Margot shrugged. “You get old and you drink more or you drink less. No judgment here, girl.”

  Daynja considered a scathing reply, but none came to mind which, too, could have meant she was getting too old to be that petty. She placed her coins in Margot’s outstretched hand and nodded a goodnight to her and her grandson before dropping the jug in her rucksack and heading back toward the gate. None but the merchants looked familiar so she turned her attention to the rooftops. If she’d been following someone here, that’s where she’d be. And undoubtedly someone she once trained was doing the following now.

  Cigar cherries dotted dark alleyways and rooftops washed white by the light of the Shattered Moon. Old friends gathered on high balconies to laugh over after-dinner drinks. Lullabies and lilting notes from plucked string instruments wafted out of open windows. No signs of anyone paying any attention to her.

  A younger Daynja had imagined this mundanity would someday illustrate her life. She would rise from the gutter to earn normalcy, not move so impossibly far beyond it. Yet here she was, an aging apex assassin wearing a sunhat at night to avoid the adoration of people who had once avoided her.

  An open-air tavern on one side of a four-way intersection hosted late shift tradesmen and visiting merchants who could afford to sleep in tomorrow. Tobacco smoke hung in a haze like the mists that crept in from the jungle at night. Loud, mingling conversations were punctuated by the slamming of heavy fists on hardwood tables in animated discourse or aggressive games of bones.

  Daynja was peering through the crowd for anyone who might be too interested in her passing when gradually games stopped and drinks sloshed to stillness. Heads turned a few at a time toward shouts of “brother!” growing distant down a residential street. A male figure in a dark dishdasha moved away from them at a listless shuffle either not hearing or not heeding as another man chased him down. Everyone had seen this before. It was unlikely the two men were brothers by blood or by service. It was what one called the nameless afflicted — brother, sister, dear friend. Those treated by Os Vazios as children were elders now and still alive but not living. They were prone to wandering and were looked after and treated with reverence by Boorhians who passed down inherited guilt for having allowed Os Vazios onto the land in the first place. They were walking reminders of the danger of outsiders.

  The man shouting “brother!” caught up with the wanderer and spoke gently to him, likely some offering of food, a bath, or shelter for the night, then wrapped his arm around his shoulders and led him away toward wherever home might be. The tavern patrons returned to their drinks, banging the cups twice on tabletops by way of salute before taking another swallow.

  She startled as boisterous laughter disrupted the calm. A group of gruff workmen caked thick with the day’s dirt and sweat laughed at a drunken compatriot who had managed to completely miss his stool on sitting down. He reached for a chain of lanterns to pull himself up again, but pulled them down in a crash instead. A small fire lit where the flames met spilled alcohol.

  Daynja took advantage of the distraction and ducked into a dark alley beneath striped awnings. She waited, scanning the surrounding rooftops she could see. They would not be allowed to lose her. They would have to come looking. It was unlikely anyone had been given a kill order, so she wasn’t too concerned with dying in the streets of her own city. But Negus needed to keep tabs on her until his move was ready to be made. She needed to know what that was. The tail would tell her.

  Before long, she did notice something: someone was looking over the edge of the building beside her. A dark spot, their head perhaps, ruined the clean line of the building’s shadow on the ground by popping into view and disappearing again. She kept her footfalls silent as she found and crept up the mud brick staircase to the third story roof.

  Her face grew hot and her pulse quickened when she found Two standing on the far end, peering down into the tavern lights across the street, looking for her. She expected some no one, some faceless soldier who still had a name and pledged themselves to one of Negus’s lackluster private guard. Two was arguably her favorite Shadow, with a well-rounded skillset and a whip-smart wit she felt mirrored her own. This felt like a betrayal.

  “Smart, sticking to the rooftops here,” Daynja called. She kept her senses tuned to any sign this was a trap. Two spun, surprise flickering across her pretty, dark face for only half a moment. “My hat reduced my vision to street level and made it obvious if I tried to look up. Plenty of time for you to hide or find your next vantage point. The moonlight gave you away, though. I guess I’m lucky you don’t have your rifle.”

  Two said nothing, merely stood at attention and kept her eyes focused on nothing. She was unarmed and dressed as a civilian. The brass cuffs decorating her locs glinted in the moonlight.

  “At ease,” Daynja said. “Why are you following me?”

  Two hesitated but looked her in the eye. “The Vice Minister, Xir. We have been ordered to watch you for signs of a threat.”

  “Signs of a threat? Since when do you take orders from anyone other than me?”

  “His Imperial Majesty... Xir, they want the mask. One wants the mask.”

  “I thought he might.” Daynja chuckled bitterly, staring down at the tavern where carousing had res
umed. “And you? What do you want?”

  “To do my job. And to be rewarded for it the way you have.”

  “I want that for you as well.” Daynja nodded. If there was a way forward out of this, she’d want her to lead the future of the Shadow Army.

  “I won’t have a job as long as I follow you.”

  Daynja bristled as she started back to the stairs. She knew better than to feel wounded by her Shadows’ ease of detachment. But still.

  “You tell your brother he can have the mask when he retrieves it from me.”

  ∴

  The day of Daynja’s deadline came quickly and night settled over Citadela without her turning over any plans to fulfill the mission in Eros. She’d spent the better part of two days making other preparations, cleaning the six steel barrels of Wadjet, her sniping rifle, spread like fingers over her dining room table, and braiding two kilometers of spiderwire into a loose mesh web from its compact, silver bundles of filigree. The idea was to set her trap in the Os Vazios monastery ruins well outside the city. A Shadow or two would come for the mask. She had to make sure the army came for her.

  The fortress was still and silent. She was a finger into her two fingers of cachaça when dark spots flicked across the rooftops in her window. They converged in a moonless spot just beyond the War Room’s rotunda on the edge of the drill pad. Six of them and the wooly white hair of the Chief Minister disappeared from view.

  “About time.” Daynja muttered. Frankly, she was finding this cloak-and-dagger business dull. There was much too much cloak and not nearly enough dagger.

  She stood and stretched in the window, expecting a seventh shadow to dart around in the darkness. Rifle barrels fit into back slots on her vest of forty-nine knives. The spiderwire net went rolled into a neat parcel with the remaining spools into a bag on her hip, along with a leather bladder of the cachaça she hadn’t drunk yet.

  A deep breath before she locked her door behind her. She donned her mask again, and the black armor rose smooth as cooled magma to coat her skin. She stuck to the shadows and midnight paths to the Imperial Palace. Sentries were scant in the fortress. What with the damnable allegiance saturating every sinew and synapse of Citadela, there simply wasn’t a reason to believe a threat would emerge.

  Her steps were faint, save for the jostling of clay tiles on rooftops when she sped across them. The fiery alabaster dome of the palace loomed just ahead of her when she noticed a clattering of footfalls that weren’t her own.

  “General Édo,” said an even voice behind her. It was Four. The girl’s eyes were deep and black despite the moonlight pouring itself through everything else it touched. “Where are you off to?”

  “The Hinterlands. Got a little homesick.”

  “With Wadjet?”

  “Huge rats in the country,” the General shrugged. She scanned the rooftops around them for more trouble. All was silent but the breeze. “So you're the one they didn't invite?”

  “Someone's got to keep eyes on you. You've been erratic. We're concerned.”

  “You mean One is concerned.”

  “I mean we.” Her hand moved to a holster on her hip, slowly. Casually. As if she knew the General wouldn’t attempt to outdraw her. She carried two pistols, enviably gorgeous for the elaborate carvings in their handles. They’d been a gift, even though she lacked the vanity to appreciate the craftsmanship. Daynja remembered choosing Four for her marksmanship and her pragmatic, unflinching approach to her work. None of which bode well for at least one of them in this moment.

  “Was it so easy for him to turn you all against me?” Daynja asked. Knowing they might have at least been conflicted about it would have been nice.

  “We were always of Boorhia, General. You turned against us.” Four replied.

  So that was it, then. Daynja’s hubris allowed her to hope the Shadows might —perhaps not love— honor her in some estimation close to the Empire. She’d been wrong.

  “Fair enough,” Daynja nodded. “I don’t suppose you have capture, not kill orders, then.”

  “You have nothing more of value to Boorhia.”

  Well, damn.

  Daynja frowned behind the mask, the unexpected ache of unrequited sentiment jabbing at her diaphragm. She breathed out. Her fingers twitched.

  “But the mask...” Four’s k stuck in her throat where Daynja’s blade caught it. A startle twinkled in Four’s black eyes. She swallowed and blood like indigo ink began its trickle in the corners of her mouth. She sneered and managed to draw her gun anyway. Daynja fired another set of knives into the critical points of her assassin’s arms, leaving them to hang limply at her sides. Four sank to her knees and the twinkle went out of her eyes before she toppled over onto the tiles.

  Daynja stepped toward the body. A sense of loss buzzed about her head, irritating, like a mosquito in her periphery. Surely something needed to be said. Something offered. She knew somewhere within the smallest part of her that Four and the others didn't know any better.

  The larger part of her, however, was furious. Daynja had made demigods of the little ingrates and been as much a mother figure to them as she or any of the Shadows had ever known. Without her, they’d still be toy soldiers, drowning in obscurity among the rest of the military’s masses. She’d nurtured the spirited flames roiling in their guts and dragooned them into breathing fire. Yes, for Boorhia, but more so they could rise as she had. They became through her! And so did the Emperor.

  Daynja huffed and left Four where she’d decided to die and took off again for Negus’s quarters in the Imperial Palace. She'd just reached the black stone crown beneath the alabaster dome when a whistle sounded somewhere in the city. The two once-dulcet notes were now ominous precursors to a dangerous night.

  She clung to the ornate coils of a column and peered out over city below. She couldn't see them, but she knew the other Shadows were coming.

  She began to scale the dome for a proper vantage point. Her joints creaked their begrudging function. The shallow cracks she found in the stone barely fit her fingertips, and her booted feet scraped along its surface as she dragged herself upward.

  With a final groan, she braced herself against the dome’s ornate spire and assembled Wadjet from the barrels on her back and the stock on her hip. Where was One? She wanted One.

  She scanned the rooftops again for any sign of movement, when she caught a glimmer of light as distant as the residential towers. It was unmistakably a scope mirror, but there was something else; gold flecks like the cuffs of locs.

  “Who is that? Two—”

  A sharp ping off Daynja’s mask disoriented her for a moment and she crouched behind the spire. She inspected the mask to find a bullet, still warm and smoking, was lodged in its cheek. The armor underneath it hadn't even dented.

  “Good shot, stupid girl,” she leered.

  If the General hoped to instill ambition in any of the Shadows, she hoped it would be Two.

  But now the impressive little rat had shot her in the face.

  Daynja put the mask back on and checked her sights for Two again, but the girl fired a second round, dinging off the dome near her foot. Furious, she resolved that there were still more pressing issues. But she would make sure there was time later to settle this.

  Tethered to the spire, Daynja slid down the opposite end of the dome. A cadre of guards was mustering to get involved when she landed among them. Palace guards were the least useful guard bodies of Boorhia. If an invader made it this far, they'd be met with the very apologetic nieces, nephews, and siblings of established councilmembers, trained to spar, but never to win.

  They were barely worth her attention. Daynja emptied the rest of Wadjet’s rounds into the guards who wanted them the most. And when a few were still standing, she pulled a steel barrel from Wadjet and whipped them over the heads and backs with it until they stopped getting up.

  Still using the gun barrel, Daynja broke a tall window into Negus’s living chambers and stepped inside. More upholstered
furniture than necessary was streaked with moonlight, but apart from that, darkness. It was comfortable, warm and dimly hazed with incense that smelled like sandalwood and whatever a merchant convinced him smelled of virility. Shouts outside announced the summoning of details to find the General or protect the Emperor.

  Late, all of them. He was here, somewhere.

  “Negus!” Daynja snarled, her heart pounding and back sore. She stretched and cracked those things that needed it. She barred the main chamber doors with one of Wadjet's barrels and slowly walked the adjoining rooms, flipping pillows and watching for changes in the light.

  “Where are you, you dopey, pusillanimous bastard? I'm having a very bad night and I feel compelled to share it with you,” she called.

  A click behind her in the dark. She turned halfway around before Emperor Negus fired from a shaky hand. The bullet flattened against her armor and thudded to where it singed a hole in a very pretty rug.

  “That’s twice I’ve been shot tonight and it’s starting to upset me.” She grabbed his gun and tossed it aside. The Emperor backed himself into a chair where she circled him and began binding his wrists behind his back with a length of her spiderwire.

  “They heard the gunshot. They know you’re here.” He sweat the words, panic fighting the contempt in his eyes. Daynja yanked and the knotted wire sliced like razors into his flesh. He screamed.

  “Shh. I’ll speak to them later. Right now I want to talk about you.” She sat on the edge of a couch, reloading Wadjet and glancing at the windows to make sure they wouldn't be interrupted anytime soon.

  “Your obsession with debt. Mine in particular. You see, anything I’ve owed the Empire for giving me a home, I paid to your mother. You’ve just reaped the benefits of my own ambition. I gave you all this,” she gestured to the room around him, the guards in the hall, the land beyond every horizon outside his palace windows.

  “You think of me as a pet, I know. But your throne is built on the bodies and nations I break. I made the Shadows you’re using against me. The Three Known Worlds fear Boorhia’s Imperial Warlord and her Shadow Army in their sleep. But whatever you have planned for the continued dulling of the world, I promise the Shadows won’t be around to take part in it. The Eros girl will live, as will her feisty bunch, and I hope she finds whatever Old God is still lurking around here to take back everything else I've built beneath you.”