The Dark Shore (The Dominions of Irth Book 1)

by A. A. Attanasio

  Yet wonder persisted amid her bewilderment. Two days ago, when she met Owl Oil, the charmwright had enabled her to see a shadow shape, a specter within the hut. Was that Drev? She wanted to ask Owl Oil and remembered the wizard's admonition that she must speak to no one of their meeting.

  And Dogbrick. How could she not tell her protector?

  Another husky shout descended on her from the ogres on the dunes, and she bent more strenuously to her task. Currents of air swept off the sea's dark shoulders and circled her. A faint smile touched her worried face. The futility of the future had been broken and out had spilled hope—and danger.

  Part Two

  The Abiding Star

  19

  Above Irth blazes the Abiding Star. Its radiance dazzles the primal darkness like a door standing open on heaven. That is the Beginning.

  20

  Below and beyond Irth yaws the Gulf—the eternal night, the vast predacious blackness that devours the luminous Beginning and grinds its glorious fire into dim stars and frozen planets. Those cold worlds hung in the silence, adrift in the vacuum where the light fails, they range the Dark Shore.

  —Origins 2:19-20

  Everything watches.

  —The Gibbet Scrolls

  Thief of Shadows

  At night, Ripcat tied himself into the top branches of the tallest tree he could find and slept. In his dreams, he visited a peculiar world without Charm. Though the sky there shone blue and clouds moved in herds on the migratory paths of the wind as on Irth, he observed no floating cities, no dragons, griffins, or basilisks in the air.

  The cities of his dreams rose directly out of the ground in steel and glass towers and houses sprawled around them for many miles in grids of asphalt and concrete. He sensed that he lived in one of those cities, on one of those tree-lined streets, in a pink house with white trim and a sloping lawn of hedges and shrubs. A discreet sign with calligraphic lettering on a wrought iron lamppost beside a flagstone walkway welcomed boarders.

  The people there seemed to know him, though he could remember no names. He saw them only briefly on his way in or out of the house. And always, as he climbed the left-hand stairway, footfalls silent on burgundy carpet. When he approached the landing where a dark doorway of solid mahogany stood at the end of a corridor, the dream shifted. He sensed that this heavy door with its glass knob and brass hardware opened upon his room. But the dream never admitted him there.

  In this strange world, he did not know what to call things, like the blue vehicle with four rubber wheels and iron breath that he rode when he left the house. These vehicles crowded the streets, and he spent many dreams simply sitting in this machine turning the guidance wheel before him. He paid little heed to these surreal episodes.

  The dreams he remembered most vividly had the same sable-haired woman in them. He met her usually in the city among clamorous streets jammed with smoking carriages. He wanted to learn her name, and sometimes he actually spoke it but always forgot it upon waking.

  The happy news of this other world had a dark limit. He drove with this woman out of the city of glass towers, out beyond wide acres of packed houses, past tilted and vacant lots toward a blue seam of mountains. They rode through the deepening shade of forests and pulled over beside a grassland of goldenrod. And there, they shared the contents of a picnic basket.

  Against autumn woods, they walked and laughed, and she ran ahead to trespass a fairy ring of mushrooms.

  "Let me dance and worship with you," she called to him from the fairy ring.

  A sharp scream cracked in the distance as if lightning spat. Time and space exploded. The forest plunged into night, and this lovely woman lay on her back naked in moon-dappled grass, pale flesh covered with mysterious sigils—and gashing wounds. Blood streaked her face.

  Her gruesome death poisoned his sleep. At intermittent and unexpected intervals, with each subsequent recurrence of the nightmare, a harder pain congealed in him, all the dull ores of grief. And he woke from those dreams as from a world lost.

  On one such dawn, waking stained with sorrow, Ripcat found himself where he had lashed his body to a treetop. He was not alone. Others thrashed below on the forest floor. Seven men in raptor hoods and combat vests crashed through briar bushes pursued by a voracious basilisk.

  Ripcat had seen the spike-winged creatures circling in the twilight and had taken the precaution of fashioning a twig-and-leaf awning to hide from their hungry gaze. The troopers below had obviously been spotted while crossing a nearby glade of wildflowers, where, from his height, he could read the trampled grass of their passage.

  The crimson and black beast slithered among the trees with a rasping cry. The men had probably hoped to elude the winged predator in the cramped spaces of the forest, but they had underestimated its nimble attack. One of the fleeing men spun about and drew a sword of silver-gold. And though the weapon obviously shone with Charm, Ripcat doubted it would offer much defense against the swift strike of a basilisk's claws.

  The swordsman held the blade to shield his eyes from the basilisk's mesmeric gaze and shifted his stance to deliver the sole stroke upon which his salvation depended. With agile anticipation, the beast reared back from its assault and tensed to lunge.

  A blue bolt of charmfire seared over the swordsman's head and struck the pouncing creature's breastbone, splitting its torso. The basilisk collapsed under a parched scream, its rib cage ablaze.

  "Leboc!" the swordsman shouted. "I could have taken it through the heart."

  The hooded man who had fired lowered his weapon. "It looked too chancy, my lord."

  "And what chance do you think we have now against the cacodemons?"

  At the sound of that fearful word, Ripcat lifted his gaze immediately to the sky and its confetti of dawn clouds.

  "You, up there in the tree, come down!" the swordsman commanded. "Don't think you can hide. We saw you with our eye charms a league off."

  The burned stink of the fire-gutted basilisk wafted through the boughs, and Ripcat swung down with limber ease. He landed soundlessly at the side of the tree, out of sword's reach, and regarded the masked and hooded men with a cool green gaze.

  "Who are you?" the swordsman inquired sternly.

  "A thief."

  "From where do you hail, thief?" asked the trooper who had shot the basilisk, the hooded one called Leboc.

  "Saxar."

  "Saxar?" Leboc's voice curled with incredulity. "You crossed the Qaf? Without Charm?"

  "Your charmfire has alerted cacodemons," he reminded them. "We should hide."

  "It may already be too late." The swordsman spoke, looking into the dark prism of an epaulet. "Three cacodemons are circling overhead." He unsnapped one side of his mask and let it dangle by its ebony cords, exposing a wide, swarthy countenance of sharp planes and bony hollows, a severe mien whose deep sockets held a gentle gaze of ethereal blue. "If we are to die together, you should know with whom you share your fate. I am Drev, and these others are Marshal Leboc and the five who remain of our Falcon Guard."

  "You are Lord Drev," Ripcat said with surprise. He recognized these harsh features and kindly eyes from the news kiosks. "You are regent of the seven dominions."

  "That means nothing anymore. What is your name, thief?"

  "Ripcat."

  "Then we will face death together, Ripcat." He sheathed his sword and turned to his men. "Quickly, then. Seek cover." When he looked back, the thief was already gone.

  Ripcat had leaped straight upward into the tree. He ran among interlocking boughs, keeping pace with Lord Drev, who dashed through the shadows below. That sword the regent carries, Ripcat realized, This is the weapon that those scavengers, the Bold Ones, made infamous. Am I a victim of that rebellion? Or am I one of the rebels? This man is a wizard. Is he the one who made me a beast? And now has his Charm drawn me to him once more, this time to fulfill a blood debt?

  Waking from the dismal and murderous depths of his recurring nightmare to find himself thrust i
nto the lethal presence of cacodemons, Ripcat felt prepared to believe in the mysterious consequences of chance. He leaped from tree to tree with adroit swiftness, bounding among thick boughs soundlessly and with barely more flutter of leaves than the wind.

  So silent was his shadowing of the wizarduke that the cacodemons did not see him as they dove claw first toward the treetops. They smashed through the canopy only paces ahead of him, their screaming descent splintering boughs in a tumult of slashed branches and leaves. He hugged a trunk under an explosive spray of flying twigs and bark and swung sideways and nearly lost his grip before the splash of wind.

  Through the rent hole in the forest awning, he peered at two troopers squashed under cacodemons' claws to bloody paste. Lord Drev stood backed against an enormous tree, sword drawn, open mask revealing a glaring expression of rage.

  That defiance inspired Ripcat.

  This is the moment of death.

  The dead woman in his dreams was his soul, presaging this very instant where his own blood would spill. He had seen it all before, disguised as a sable-haired woman he loved dearly as his very life, which she was. Thus, he had woken from one nightmare into another and knew it would end here in ultimate and dreamless dark.

  With a shriek, he unsheathed his boot knife and dove. The cacodemon confronting the wizarduke lifted its long head at the pealing cry, and the thief dropped onto its horrendous face. With maniacal speed, he drove the blade into an upturned eye till the hilt struck bone. The momentum of the wounded monster flinging its head dislodged the blade and tossed Ripcat upward, only to have him twist about adroitly in midair and drive the blade hard into the second eye. Again hurled off by the creature's throes of agony, he spun about, hooked his knife behind the beast's jaw, and let gravity seize him and rip a long gash to the monster's shoulder before he pulled his weapon and dropped feetfirst to the ground.

  A convulsive lash of serrated tail forced him to duck and then leap over its backward swipe. The cut cacodemon collapsed in an upheaval of leaf dust, shivered violently with scalding screams, and lay still and silent.

  Lord Drev yelled triumphantly at Ripcat's victory, though his voice could not be heard above the bellowing of attacking cacodemons. He leaped atop the dead monster and brandished his sword at the roaring beasts. Leboc and the three troopers had drawn their assault knives and affixed them to the muzzles of their firelocks. They attacked with battle cries, surrounding the two enraged creatures.

  Ripcat, both arms slathered in blood, dodged among the snaking tails and leaped upon a cacodemon's back. It bucked to heave him, and he pierced its hide with his knife and hung on with legs flailing.

  Lord Drev exploited this frenzied distraction, ran boldly forward and plunged his sword into the mouth of an abdominal face.

  Claws slashed for him, and he kicked away, pulling his sword with him. When the creature toppled, he advanced quickly and skewered the monster through its eye.

  Leboc and the troopers with their fixed knives fended off the lone cacodemon remaining. And it jumped into the air and flew toward the rip in the canopy. With a slap of his hand, Leboc unlocked his assault knife, aimed, and fired.

  The burst of charmfire carried the knife with it, and the blade drove deep into the back of the cacodemon's skull, pithing its brain. The beast caromed among the trees, small faces wailing, before it dove to the ground and convulsed to stillness.

  "Haiii!" Leboc cried jubilantly in the sudden quiet, and the three Falcon Guards shouted with him.

  Lord Drev stood panting for breath over the dead troopers. He rubbed the stunned flesh of his face with his leather-strapped hand, and when he found the breath to speak, he mourned. "So many have been lost. Lost to our fear. Lost to our habit of relying upon firecharms. We forgot how to fight with our blades!"

  "We must alert everyone!" Leboc spoke exuberantly and bowed to strip the corpses of their amulets. "We must broadcast this news on the aviso."

  "No." The wizarduke shook his head. "The cacodemons will swarm. They have spared most of our cities so far, because Irth has capitulated. But if we fight, there will be terrible war. Many more will die."

  "This news must be known." Leboc spoke from where he knelt over the crushed bodies. "The cacodemons can be destroyed by our own hands!"

  "We know that now," Lord Drev agreed, and he looked at his men and the thief with a steady, measuring gaze, wondering if they were up to the resolution shaping itself in him. "We know the vulnerability of Wrat's army. Now we can take the fight directly to him."

  "Cut off the head!" Leboc stood and his voice conveyed through his mask the excitement he had caught from his lord. "As a small force we can move quickly and unseen directly into Wrat's camp and destroy him!"

  "Along the way, we will gather enough fighters from the dominions to penetrate his defenses," the wizarduke said and faced the thief. "Fighters like yourself. Beastfolk with the physical power to wield ancient weapons. Will you help us, stranger?" He extended his sword arm, hand grimed with demon blood. "If not for you, we should all be dead in these woods this morning. Will you fight with us?"

  Ripcat stared at the proffered hand crossed with hex-leather and stained with ichor. "Before I can take your hand," he said, "I must know a thing."

  Lord Drev drew back his hood, lifted his chin, and crossed his hands on the hilt of the sword embedded in the ground before him. "Ask."

  The thief shifted his weight uneasily. "Did you summon me here with your Charm?"

  "No," Lord Drev said at once. "We saw you during the night with our eye charms. We did not summon you. Fate alone brought us together at this dire time."

  "Then"—Ripcat spoke hesitantly, wanting to know the truth yet almost afraid to ask—"you are not the wizard who—who put these beastmarks on me?"

  The wizarduke's dark eyebrows tightened. "You are not beastfolk?"

  "I don't know." The blue fur of his brow furrowed. "I—I have human dreams. Of a human place without beastfolk or even Charm. But I don't remember how I came to be as you find me."

  "I have never inflicted beastmarks on anyone. My enemies I have slain or cast into the Gulf." He rocked his head repiningly. "Better I had slain them all. Wrat would not now be among us." From beneath his cloak, the wizarduke produced a roll of flexible gold mesh studded with theriacal opals. "With this amulet, I can undo whatever sorcery has been worked upon you."

  The sight of the hex-woven gold nubbled with iridescent gems shrove a unique fright in him. "And if I am an animal some other wizard or sorcerer has made a man?"

  "You will become again the animal," the wizarduke confirmed. "I will not be able to return you to Ripcat."

  "Put aside your amulet, my lord." Ripcat offered his hand. "I will serve you best as what I am than what I might be."

  "Well said, Ripcat!" Lord Drev seized his wrist, and his austere features broke into a broad smile. "You are a lethal fighter. With you at our side, we will bring death to Wrat and his cacodemons."

  Leboc undid his mask and dropped his raptor hood, showing a brutal face seamed with scars. He clapped the thief on the back and grinned with gruesome glee. "You are a demon slayer, Ripcat! And we are proud to have you among us."

  Drev read the surprise at the sight of Leboc's stitched-together face and laughed. "Our marshal is a man who wears his scars as emblems."

  "Why erase with Charm what I suffered?" Leboc explained. "Let the world read my pain—and my enemies beware."

  The Falcon Guard removed their hoods and offered the new recruit amulets and weapons.

  Ripcat accepted an assault knife. His blade, a fishmonger's gutting tool with a chipped edge and wooden handle that he had stolen in Saxar for protection against alley dogs, had no joy in it for killing demons. He was glad to replace it with green curved steel of Charm-honed razor.

  Over the bodies of the two dead troopers, Lord Drev offered mournful petitions to the Abiding Star. The corpses, abandoned to wild beasts and the eventual tide of night, set out on their journey, and the wizar
duke and his fighters continued theirs, south through the hill forest.

  Along the way, they cleansed themselves with hex-gems. Ripcat, freckled in fetid blood, did not object. Since departing the Qaf, he had been bathing in streams, risking the bite of water-adders, and was glad to feel again the cool electrical shimmer of Charm as the hex-gems sloughed the day's grime.

  At nightfall, Leboc gave Ripcat a power wand to fend off exhaustion, and the thief fit it to the loops along the waist at the back of his black cord trousers. He had grown weary of dreaming. From his sleep, he had hoped to extract memory and knowledge of his past. Instead, all he had attained was enigma and sorrow.

  If the dead woman was not his soul, as he had expected when he met Lord Drev at the juncture of life and death, then was she truly remembrance? How could he love someone as dearly as this dusky woman and not know her name? For that matter, how could he recall a whole other world, replete with unique cities and machines and a house where he lived, and yet not know his own name?

  He posed these questions to the wizarduke as they hiked through the night forest. The dark-skinned man watched him with ghostly eyes and said somberly, "The first lesson of sorcery is that every gesture of beauty bears an exact equivalent of pain."

  Ripcat puzzled over this. "You sound like a friend of mine, a philosopher."

  "I mean only to say that whomever this woman is, dream or flesh, your profound love for her exacted a mortal cost." Drev spoke softly for his ears alone. "You see, only one's inmost destiny is worthy of such love—for that destiny has already been paid for in full by the truth of birth, which is ever nothing less than death. Do you understand? Everything else is sentiment. Only one's fate can offer true love."

  "Could this woman be my fate?"

  "You say she is slain. And slain on a world far unlike Irth. Your fate you carry with you, Ripcat. If she were alive and in one of these dominions, she well could be your fate. I know. I myself am bound by such a destiny to a woman in this world." He told the thief about Tywi, and the bestial man stopped walking.