Lady of Light and Shadows

by C. L. Wilson

  The demon laughed. “Sssteel hasss no power over me.”

  “Perhaps not.” The blades flashed with sudden brightness as Gaelen spun into the Cha’Baruk form called the Song of Death. “But the five-fold threads I’ve woven around it certainly do.” Steel whistled through the air and sliced through the demon’s midsection. The creature cried out, and his insubstantial form wavered.

  Gaelen took advantage of Esan’s shock and distraction to slam a five-fold weave into the selkahr crystal. The dark stone exploded in a shower of dust, and the demon portal collapsed. There! At least no other old friends or enemies would come to join the fight.

  A hissing screech and a rush of cold air were the only warning he received as the demon swooped towards him. Gaelen spun round and fell back upon one knee, sword and five-fold shields raised to meet the dahl’reisen demon’s attack. Sparks exploded around them as magic and demon swords clashed.

  Esan was a Fey from the powerful vel Morian line, and for nearly fifteen hundred years he’d also been a close friend and sparring partner. He’d been one of the few Fey capable of laying the sharp edge of his blade on Gaelen’s skin. Alive, that posed little problem. A little torn flesh and a bit of blood never robbed Gaelen of victory in the end. But now, the sharp edge of Esan’s demon blades held the promise of death more swift and sure than even red Fey’cha. Gaelen couldn’t afford the luxury of a single mistake.

  He met Esan’s split-second lunge with a lightning-fast parry and attack. With his steel serving as an anchor for his five-fold weaves, Gaelen didn’t have to divide his concentration or expend vast amounts of energy to maintain his weaves. He could instead concentrate on the swordplay at hand, and at the moment, that was a very good thing.

  Esan had never accepted defeat easily. Even as a demon, that much had not changed. Each clash of blades shivered down Gaelen’s arms and rattled his back teeth. Esan was not holding back his blows. This was no friendly sparring match; it was a fight to the death.

  Gaelen had to work hard simply to survive each passing chime. He ducked and danced, leaping lightly from altar to floor to pew, spinning from one fluid form of Cha’Baruk to another. His swords flashed in ever-moving arcs of beauty and death. Esan countered every blow.

  “We must end this, my friend.” Each moment that passed put Ellysetta’s life in greater danger. “I can free you from this dark service, Esan.” Negotiating with a demon was futile, Gaelen knew. Yet some stubborn, unrelenting remnant of Fey loyalty made him try. This corrupt soul that now attacked him had once been a beloved friend and blade brother with a soul as bright as it now was dark. “Come, my brother; if any hint of Fey still remains in your soul, cease this battle and let me grant you peace.”

  The demon snarled and advanced, blades flashing.

  Gaelen countered with the whirling strokes of the Ring of Fire, but Esan’s attack was too fierce, too punishing. It drove him back, and he stumbled over an uneven tile in the floor. For a split second, Gaelen’s perfect form faltered. He held his blades too far apart—barely a handspan too much, but that was all the opening the demon needed.

  The shadow blade sliced down with lethal accuracy.

  And clashed in a shower of sparks against a shining, magic-girded seyani sword.

  “Your bladework’s good, but your footwork could use a little practice.” Kieran smirked.

  “Cheeky git.” Gaelen drove his five-fold-powered swords deep into the dahl’reisen demon’s heart. The demon wailed and writhed as beams of magic pierced its darkness, sundering the grip of evil that held Esan’s soul in thrall. Gaelen poured power into his weaves. The shadowy figure shimmered, its dark, smoky form growing ever more translucent, like mist burning off in the Great Sun’s light.

  “Go with peace, my brother. May the gods illuminate a path to guide you back into the Light.” When the last shadowy remnant of the demon faded, Gaelen leaned against a wall, resting his head on the back of his hands, and sucked in several deep, restorative breaths.

  “No time for napping, Uncle!” Kieran chided. “We’ve got work to do!”

  Gaelen forced himself back to his feet and sprinted after Kieran to join the others, who were once again weaving a five-fold assault on the Solarus door. “When this is done, puppy, and the Feyreisa is safe behind the Mists, I’m going to teach you respect for your elders.” He gave his sister’s son a smile dark with promise.

  Kieran grinned. “You can try.”

  “I never just try.” Tossing back the long strands of his hair, Gaelen frowned at the quintet’s five-fold weave. “That’s not going to work, vel Jelani. Five-fold isn’t enough.” His eyes met and held the Fey general’s. “Six-fold is her only chance. Will you stay your blades?”

  Bel’s mouth went grim. “Weaving Azrahn is a banishing offense.”

  “Save her first. Banish me later. Just don’t stab red in my belly until after we break through. Agreed?”

  Bel searched the former dahl’reisen’s eyes for any hint of treachery but found only honest, stoic intent. “Agreed,” he said.

  The next instant, an icy chill emanated from Gaelen, and Bel’s back teeth ached from the sudden cold and sickly sweet smell as a sixth rope of power formed.

  Azrahn.

  Bel couldn’t stop the instinctive clutch of horror that made him recoil a step from Gaelen. The former dahl’reisen’s ice-blue eyes had turned pure black, sparkling with red lights like deep, smoldering fire pits. Those nightmare eyes met his gaze for an instant, then turned to concentrate on the spiraling weave of forbidden magic gathering in Gaelen’s hands.

  Bel had never been this close to a Fey weaving Azrahn.

  Fey law demanded Gaelen’s banishment or his death.

  Instead, Bel opened his weave and let the dahl’reisen add the ominously pulsing rope of dark power into the weave.

  “Hold steady, Fey. Tighten the weave.” Shining threads condensed, magic concentrating into lines of blazing light. “Aim for the hinges. Now!”

  The six-fold weave, a thick line of pure power, shot out. The door frame screeched and sparks flew as weave met enchanted metal. For several seconds, the first hinge resisted the Fey assault, spitting defiant sparks and radiating scattered destructive slivers of the weave in all directions. But strong as the magic-resistant construction of the Solarus door was, the concentrated assault of their weave, strengthened even further by that deadly sixth thread, was stronger. Slowly—far too slowly for Bel’s liking—the metal of the first hinge began to bubble, and then to melt.

  We’re coming, Ellysetta. Hang on. Bel didn’t dare spare even a flicker of Spirit from his weave to send the thought.

  Ellysetta floated in a cool, dark void, enveloped in utter silence, free from all pain. Was this death? Or had the agony of the exorcists’ torture merely driven her mad?

  A chuckle sounded in the darkness, the gloating sound sliding over her like a snake.

  She spun in blind panic, seeking the source of the laughter, her frantic gaze finding only darkness all around her. She tried to flee, but the laughter pursued her. Mocking. Triumphant.

  “We meet again, Ellysetta.”

  Her heart clutched with familiar terror as the Shadow Man’s voice hissed across her senses.

  “Show yourself, coward!” she challenged.

  The darkness surrounding her lightened. Utter blackness became depths of gray. In it, she could make out a shadowy figure, tall and robed. A sash covered with dark, glittering jewels was tied about his waist, and beneath the hood shone a gleam of pallid, cadaverous flesh. Red flashes of light sparked from the darkness of the hood above bloodless lips. Fresh panic nearly overwhelmed her.

  “Rain was right, Shadow Man. You are a Mage.”

  More laughter. “Not ‘a’ Mage, child. ‘The’ Mage. I am Vadim Maur, the High Mage of Eld, the greatest Mage who has ever lived.”

  Ellysetta turned and ran.

  «Ellysetta! Shei’tani!» In the few seemingly interminable chimes it took to fly from palace to cathedral, Rain
continuously called to Ellysetta on the Spirit path and tried to duplicate the call on the same, deeper, soul-to-soul path she had used. She didn’t respond.

  Massive twenty-five-fold weaves still enveloped the Isle of Grace in a dome of impermeable magic. He circled the dome, looking for a weak spot. His tairen vision saw the flows of magic easily, every strand a vibrant, pulsing rope of power.

  There.

  He found a spot where the weave was thinner, and a tiny square where the threads themselves were only four-ply. Someone had started to unravel the weaves here.

  Rain filled his tairen lungs with air. A strong twenty-five-fold weave could resist tairen flame for quite a while. A four-fold weave could not.

  Wings pumping, he reared back, hovering over the weak spot in the weave, and exhaled. A fine spray of venom from his fangs mixed with tairen breath and tairen magic ignited just inches from his muzzle. An enormous jet of flame roared forth.

  More like Fey Fire than simple match-to-tinder, tairen flame could burn anything in its path: wood, rock, metal, flesh, even magic.

  The small, four-fold patch burned quickly, leaving a hole too small for a tairen to fit through but just wide enough for a lean Fey king.

  Rain’s tairen form dissolved. His Fey form plunged neatly through the opening, falling freely, rapidly. He waited until the last possible moment to summon a slide of Air to break his fall and landed running.

  Weeping, Lauriana watched her daughter’s tortured form and prayed for forgiveness. She’d witnessed at least part of the first exorcism when Ellie was a child, but this was a hundred times worse. The way Ellie screamed, as if her very soul was being ripped from her body…

  She was quieter now. Her screams had tapered off to a moaning, delirious ramble after Father Bellamy inserted the eighth of the required twelve needles. Her body was shivering violently, making the needles at her knees, thighs, hips, and shoulders tremble, and she was breathing in shallow, shuddering gasps.

  Lauriana pressed her hands to her lips. Oh, Ellie, dearling, forgive me. I never wanted to hurt you. I only wanted you safe.

  A muffled roar filled the Solarus, quiet at first, then growing louder. Greatfather Tivrest cast a frightened glance over his shoulder. “The Fey! They’re breaching the Solarus door! Flaming hells, Bellamy! I thought you said they couldn’t break through.”

  Father Bellamy stared at the melting metal. “That’s impossible! I saw the ancient designs myself. This Solarus was built to withstand a direct assault by a five-fold weave.”

  “But not a six-fold weave,” Nivane said. “Someone out there is weaving Azrahn.”

  Lauriana’s lungs stalled. The Fey were breaking in? Dread shivered down her spine. The archbishop had promised her the Fey would not be able to detect the exorcism, and he’d been wrong. He’d promised her the Fey could not break in, and now it seemed he’d been wrong about that too. She had witnessed the Fey’s fierce defense of Ellie. They would not treat kindly anyone who brought her harm. Gaelen vel Serranis had once murdered an entire family line for the actions of only one member. Oh, gods, what had she done?

  “There’s not much time, then. We must exorcise what demons we can.” Father Bellamy reached for the ninth needle.

  “You’re right, Father,” Nivane agreed. “There’s not much time. Not enough to continue with this charade in any event.”

  Before Father Bellamy could do more than look up in surprise, Nivane plunged a black dagger in his back. On the other side of the altar, the third exorcist drew another blade from within his robes and drove it between the archbishop’s ribs.

  Lauriana screamed. “Dear gods! You’ve murdered them!”

  “I do love a keen sense of the obvious,” Nivane sneered.

  “No one ever claimed she was the brightest candle in the lamp. But at least she came in useful.” The third exorcist threw back the hood on his robe, revealing an all-too-familiar face.

  Lauriana clutched her throat. “Den? Den Brodson? What’s the meaning of this?”

  Den gave a dark smile. “I’m fulfilling my vow, madam. I’m claiming what’s mine. Thank you, by the way, for all your help in making it so convenient for me.”

  For the first time, Lauriana saw Den for what he truly was—not the brutishly handsome son of a friend or a potential suitor for her daughter’s hand, but as a sneering, cold-eyed manipulator who’d stop at nothing—not even murdering the Archbishop of Celieria—to get what he wanted. “Ellie was right about you all along. You are a filthy little toad.”

  Den’s face darkened with a scowl. He turned to Nivane. “Let me kill her,” he urged.

  “Not unless she gives us no other choice. The master wants her alive. He thinks she may yet come in handy.”

  Lauriana clutched Selianne’s arm. “Selianne,” she whispered urgently, “we’ve got to stop them. We’ve got to save Ellie.”

  Her spine went rigid at the feel of a cold, sharp blade pressed against her ribs. She turned a shocked, disbelieving gaze on the girl she’d all but helped raise. “Selianne?”

  “I’m sorry, Madame Baristani. I can’t let you interfere.”

  “No.” Lauriana’s lips trembled as she whispered the denial. “Not you, too. Ellie loves you like a sister. How could you betray her?”

  “How could I betray her? Oh, Madame Baristani, what is it you think you’ve done?” Selianne’s face twisted in anguish. “They have my babies. They vowed to kill them if I didn’t help them. You, of all people, know there’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do to save her child.”

  “They who? Who’s behind this?”

  “The Mages of Eld.”

  At last, too late, Lauriana realized how completely she’d been duped. They’d discovered her greatest fear and played expertly on it, convincing her that Ellysetta’s soul was in danger. All Selianne’s visits, her whispered worries, had been designed to feed Lauriana’s fears so she would lead her daughter into this trap.

  Everything Rain vel’En Daris had said was true. The Mages were at work, and they would do anything to capture Ellie. They would turn Ellie’s friends—and even her own mother—against her.

  Instead of saving Ellie, Lauriana had betrayed her in the worst possible way.

  Darkness whirled past Ellysetta, but if there was ground beneath her racing feet, she did not feel it. When she stopped running, the High Mage was still there, a malevolent shadow among shadows, a chilling breath of ice down her back.

  “Any hope of escape is futile,” he whispered. “No one will come to your rescue. Everyone has betrayed you. Your mother, your friend, the Tairen Soul. You are all alone.”

  “Not everyone has betrayed me,” she retorted. “Gaelen and Bel haven’t. They’re out there fighting for me even now. They will save me.”

  “Will they? Do you think they did not sense the exorcist hiding in the Solarus? Or read your mother’s and the archbishop’s intentions in their unguarded thoughts? They knew what was in store for you, and they wove a cage of magic around you to ensure you could not escape.”

  For one instant, her certainty faltered. Was it possible? Her heart fluttered in her breast, and doubt stabbed her like an icy dart.

  “Why would they do that?” she challenged weakly. She was ice cold and shivering. Some dark, invisible force was pulling at her, tugging her towards the Mage like steel to a lodestone. She resisted the pull, but her efforts were sluggish and exhausting.

  “Because they know what you are. My child, Ellysetta. My daughter. My greatest achievement. The child I created to destroy the Fey.”

  “Liar.” She tried to laugh, but the chattering of her teeth ruined the effect. She felt so cold, as if all the warmth of the world had been siphoned away. “You outwitted yourself, Mage. Sel’dor doesn’t burn Eld flesh, but it burns mine. I’m no daughter of yours, and the Fey know it, despite your trying to convince them otherwise.”

  She’d hoped to rattle him, but it didn’t work. “You think in such common, limited terms,” he sneered. “Any mongrel dog can
breed a whelp. Where’s the genius in that? I’m talking about siring something far greater than flesh.”

  Cold winds swirled around her. Icy, invisible fingers tugged and poked and prodded, seeking every weakness in her defenses, leeching away her resistance, her hope.

  “Your soul, girl. I’m the father of your soul. I created it, and now I’ve come to claim it.”

  On the lawn surrounding the cathedral, Fey warriors battled what appeared to be an army of demons. Many—too many—warriors lay dead or dying on the ground, and the others fought a grim battle for their lives.

  As Rain ran, he saw yet another demon rising out of the ground and tasted the cold sweetness of Azrahn. He slammed a concentrated five-fold weave at the spot, and the selkahr crystal buried there exploded.

  «Fey, follow the scent of Azrahn. Selkahr crystals are buried in the ground. Destroy them to close the demon gates. Miora Felah ti’Feyreisa!»

  “Miora Felah ti’Feyreisa!” The shout echoed from all corners of the embattled isle.

  Rain took the cathedral steps four at a time and burst through the carved double doors leading to the nave.

  In one glance, he took in the shattered altar to the left of the door, the unmistakable signs of battle, and the group of six Fey weaving powerful magic at the back of the nave. Frost was forming on the pews near Gaelen, and the entire cathedral was filled with a sweet smell so thick Rain’s stomach churned. The former dahl’reisen was weaving deliberate, powerful Azrahn.

  Rage rose up inside Rain. A billowing gray mist surrounded him, sparking with the powerful magic of the Change.

  A tremendous roar shook the cathedral, filtering through the small breach in the Solarus shields and making the crystal sconces rattle. Lauriana flinched and cried out.

  “The Tairen Soul has arrived,” Nivane said. He raised a brow. “I wonder if he’ll scorch the Fey wielding Azrahn, as Fey law dictates.”

  The second hinge melted, and now scorching tongues of tairen flame licked voraciously at the door frame. A sardonic smile twisted Nivane’s mouth. “Apparently not. So much for Fey law. Grab the girl and let’s go.”