Shadow's Son

by Jon Sprunk

“Nice and brisk. A good night for some fun.”

  Caim grunted. This wasn't his idea of fun. It was business, down and dirty. He meant to have some answers tonight, even if it meant exposing Josey to the rougher side of his trade. He didn't have time for civility. One way or the other, Ozmond Parmian would give him what he needed.

  As Caim peeked out from the mouth of the alley, he wished for the hundredth time that he'd been more diplomatic with Kit. She would return, of course, in a day or a month, whenever she got bored of wandering the byways of the world. She always came back. Once he had remarked that she was too much in love with him to stay away for long. Now, he wasn't so sure. Recent events had put a strain on their relationship, and Josey's presence didn't help. Caim didn't understand why it should matter. It was like she was jealous, but Kit was immaterial, a ghost without the cares and troubles of the physical world. Yet sometimes she confused him every bit as much as a flesh-and-blood woman.

  The streets below Sabine Hill were quiet, with only occasional revelers out to enjoy the evening air, but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that had settled between his shoulder blades. Like he was being watched.

  Hubert had brought along a few of his “friends.” One skulked in a doorway on the other side of the boulevard. From time to time a ruddy glow illuminated the man's hiding spot, probably from a tinderbox brought to warm his hands. Caim exhaled a jet of white steam into the night air.

  Amateurs.

  “How dependable are these men?”

  Hubert's answering shrug raised and lowered the stiff collar of his twill jacket. “They're all good men, handy with a cudgel or a knife in a scrap, but they won't stand up to armed soldiers.”

  “I don't think it will come to that.”

  “I thought you said we were just going to talk to this man,” Josey said.

  A sharp whistle saved Caim from the need to respond.

  “That's the signal,” Hubert said. “He's coming.”

  Caim reached under his cloak and eased his knives in their sheaths. He hoped Josey was right. He wanted answers, not more bodies, but anyone who didn't prepare for the worst was as good as dead in this city. She'd have to learn that sooner or later.

  A gate stood at the end of the street, a remnant from Othir's younger days when the city was much smaller. Rough umber bricks composed a wide archway inset with bronze doors. A flicker of light emerged from the gate, followed by footsteps. As the glow came nearer, Caim made out two figures. A linkboy in a white tunic held a lantern on a pole for a narrow man wrapped in a long gray jacket. Their footsteps clacked on the cobblestones as they approached the intersection where Caim and Hubert had positioned their ambush.

  Hubert started to move, but Caim grabbed him by the sleeve. “Not yet.”

  “Sorry,” the young aristocrat replied. “I always get a bit jumpy before some action.”

  Caim glanced to Josey. “Is that him?”

  She studied the figure coming toward them for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. He's the one.”

  Caim waited until the target was directly between the alleys. He motioned for Hubert and Josey to stay behind him as he glided out from his hiding spot. The Church man never saw him coming. The linkboy looked up, but not until Caim was within arm's reach, too late to do more than give a tiny squeak before Caim threw his left arm around the target's throat. The point of his knife touched the man under his ear, firmly enough to get his attention, but not to draw blood. The linkboy stood like a statue, his eyes stretched wide open. They fluttered as a fist bashed into his cheek and sent him to the ground. The lantern smashed on the stones as Hubert, rapier drawn, loomed over the boy and delivered sharp kicks.

  Josey flew out of the darkness. She shoved Hubert aside and knelt beside the fallen servant. “He's just a boy. Help me get him up.”

  With a sheepish look to Caim, Hubert hooked an elbow under the boy's arm and helped Josey walk him to the alley.

  Caim got there first. He pressed his captive against a wall with a knife point against his neck. “Are you Ozmond Parmian, assistant to the treasury keeper?”

  To his credit, the man held himself erect. He stood a couple inches taller than Caim, but his slight build and sloping shoulders made him seem smaller. The symbol of crossed keys was displayed prominently on the breast of his jacket. Caim noted a silver chain under his collar and two rings of plain gold. He wore no weapons on his person, not even a knife.

  “I am not in the custom of answering street ruffians,” he answered. “Unhand me.”

  Hubert dropped the linkboy against the wall. Josey knelt at the boy's side and dabbed at his bleeding lip with her coat sleeve.

  “Yep.” Hubert's breath puffed through the fabric of his mask. “That's Ozmond in the flesh.”

  “Do I know you, sir?”

  Caim nudged Hubert back a pace and shifted to put himself between them. The young man meant well, but his presence could be a hindrance.

  “Why did you visit Earl Frenig's home two days before his death?”

  “You have no right to interrogate me,” Parmian replied. “I promise you, the night watch—”

  Caim pressed the knife tip deeper. “The watch is too far away to help you at the moment, and a moment is all you have left if you don't answer me. Why did you go to see Frenig? Was the earl involved in a government plot?”

  “Who are you working for? Whoever it is, I'll see that you receive more if you will just release me.”

  Caim scratched the man. A bead of blood trickled down into Parmian's collar.

  “Frenig despised the theocracy!” Parmian said, almost shouting.

  “Quietly,” Caim admonished.

  Parmian drew in a long breath, but shallow so as not to impale himself on Caim's knife. “If you had known the late earl, then you would know what I say is true.”

  “I knew him.” Josey came over to stand beside Caim. “Very well, in fact. And you're right. He despised the Church and what it had become, although he didn't air his grievances in public. How did you know him?”

  Parmian took in Josey with a long glance. “The late earl was a family friend. He'd known my father many years ago. He helped me achieve my position in the treasury. I visited him on a social call.”

  “From what I've been told”—Caim leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper—“it didn't sound very social. It sounded like an argument.”

  When Parmian didn't reply, he moved the knife point to the groove of the man's neck, where the big artery throbbed. “I'm losing patience, Master Parmian.”

  Something changed in the man's eyes. A bulwark of resistance crumbled and he collapsed against the wall. Caim pulled the knife point back to avoid killing him by accident.

  “I went to warn him.”

  “About what?”

  Parmian's eyes shined as he lifted his head. “The Elector Council was moving against him.”

  “That makes no sense,” Josey said. “He was retired, a hero of the realm. Why would they want to kill him?”

  Parmian hesitated a moment, until Caim caught his attention with a pinprick. “They'd found out about his activities.”

  “What activities?”

  Parmian drew in another deep breath. “Earl Frenig was the head of a secret society sworn to restore the empire.”

  The words hit Josey like a runaway coach.

  She reached for the alley wall, forgetting for a moment about the crud and grime coating the bricks. “You're wrong,” she said. “My—the earl withdrew from politics after he resigned his post.”

  If Parmian caught her slip, he gave no indication. “I'm sorry, but it's true. My father was a member of the same society before he passed.”

  No, no, no! The denial echoed in her mind, but deep inside she knew it was the truth. After all, she had seen it herself.

  Hubert whistled. “No wonder the Council did him in. They've got enough trouble on the streets without the nobility trying to bring back the old regime.”

  “Shut up!” Josey s
houted, much too loudly, but she didn't care.

  She spun away as Caim looked at her. She couldn't face him like this. Cold splatters fell on her face like the pieces of her world falling apart. The hidden chamber beneath her family home appeared in her mind, just the same as it had looked all those years ago. The hooded participants of the bizarre ritual stood in a circle in the dim light. Their chanting echoed across the gulfs of time.

  Her hand crept up to the cool talisman dangling between her breasts. Her father had said it was the key to his heart, a sentimental gesture she had thought little of over the intervening years, but it had been more than that. She knew now what the key truly was, what it would unlock.

  Caim's voice intruded on her thoughts. “So you were their spy.”

  “No,” Parmian answered. “I never wanted any part of their schemes. I'm little more than a glorified accounting clerk, but I see everything that crosses the keeper's desk, and everything that happens in the city eventually makes its way through the treasury. We control the funding. When I saw the indications of a coup, I went to warn the earl. For my father's sake, I felt I owed him that much.”

  “I don't buy it,” Caim said. “Why try to resurrect an extinct regime? What's the point? The emperor and his family were killed when the Church came to power.”

  “I was just a kid,” Hubert said, “but I remember. They called it an execution, but it was murder, true and simple. Anyone related to the imperial family was either eliminated or forced to show their support for the prelate.”

  Parmian's voice regained some of its initial confidence. “When I spoke with him, the earl said he possessed a secret, something so powerful that if it was revealed, it would bring down the Church.”

  “What secret?” Josey blurted before she realized what she was doing, but she had to know.

  Parmian shook his head. “He never told me. He said it would be safest if kept to himself until the time came to unveil it. Those were his exact words.”

  “What else?”

  He lifted his empty hands, but dropped them as Caim applied more pressure with his knife. “That's all. I urged the earl to leave Othir as soon as possible.”

  “What do think, Caim?” Hubert asked.

  Parmian perked up. “You're Caim? The one they're searching for?” He looked at Josey. “Then you're…”

  A bevy of whistles split the night. A cry went up from a nearby roof as hard footsteps pounded on the cobblestones. Josey wrapped her arms around her body, but her shivers had nothing to do with the cold. She couldn't catch her breath. She felt like she was running, so fast her lungs might burst, but her feet never moved.

  “We're done here,” Caim told Hubert. “Take your men and disappear.”

  “Sure. I'll go rally the rest of the boys. Once word of this reaches the streets, every hand will rise against the Reds.”

  As Hubert disappeared into the night, Caim turned back to Parmian. The man stood up straight, his shoulders squared as if expecting the worst.

  “What do you intend to do with me? My family will—”

  Caim stepped back. “You can go.”

  The man didn't move. “Just like that? I know who you are. I could have every able-bodied soldier in the city searching for you.”

  Caim sheathed his knife. The whistles were getting closer. “Can't you hear? They already are. Go home, Ozmond, and think about taking your own advice. Things are heating up. Othir's going to be a very dangerous place, no matter which side you support.”

  Caim turned away, but Parmian stopped him. Josey watched a host of emotions play across the treasury man's face. He grimaced, shook his head slightly, and then settled into a look of resignation.

  “Wait. There's something else.”

  He looked at her. “The order to have the earl killed came from the highest level.”

  Icy fingers constricted around Josey's windpipe. She couldn't breathe. What did he mean, the highest level? The Church hierarchs? The prelate himself? They killed Father, and now they want to kill me.

  She gasped and shook. Then, Caim put an arm around her and the air rushed once more into her lungs.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling her away. “We have to get out of here.”

  Josey leaned into him and felt his warm breath against her cheek. She needed the contact, to feel the touch of another living person. She felt like she was surrounded by ghosts. She looked back over her shoulder, but the alley and Parmian were gone, hidden in the night. For the first time, she realized it was raining.

  “I know,” she said. They hurried through the slick, black streets. “I know where we have to go to find the next piece to the puzzle.”

  Caim regarded her with an amused expression. Something flickered across his eyes, too quick to follow. A blossom of heat spread through her chest as she realized she trusted him.

  She turned her head as the warmth spread into her face. She gazed into the sky, into the rain and gloom, to the heights of Esquiline Hill.

  “I have to go home.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A shadow crouched by the riverbank where a gentle breeze pushed through the riparian jungle of rushes and cattails. Dark masses of silver-black clouds scudded across the starless sky. Somewhere an owl hooted, and the shrill howl of a coyote carried on the wind.

  Amid the Memnir's sleepy currents, where the river slid past the fortified walls of Othir, Castle DiVecci perched on a spur of bare rock. The castle's white parapets loomed over the water like cliffs of alabaster in the waning moonlight. Banners hung slack from the sturdy towers.

  A stone span joined the isle to the mainland, guarded at both ends by a gatehouse manned by soldiers of the Prelate's Guard. Othirians called it the Bridge of Tears for all those who had crossed and disappeared into the dungeons beneath the castle, never to return.

  The shadow had no need of bridges. One moment it stood on the riverbank. The next, it appeared inside the castle's mighty donjon, in a hallway on the top floor.

  The shadow listened as its sandals touched down. The rhythm of the castle was slow and steady, like the heartbeat of huge slumbering beast, broken only by the discordant groans of the damned far below in the catacombs.

  Content, the shadow began to hunt. It crept past rows of closed doors and paused as it came around a corner. Firelight spilled from a doorway at the end of the hall. Two bodyguards in white-and-gold livery stood outside, leaning on the polished shafts of their immaculate halberds.

  One of the guards looked up as the shadow approached, but too late to give warning as a swarm of inky globules dropped from the ceiling. The men jerked and tried to shout as the shadows wrapped them in tight cocoons, but nothing emerged from their straining mouths. The little darknesses devoured them in silence.

  The shadow stepped over the dying men, through the doorway. Shelves of books lined the chamber walls from floor to ceiling. Logs crackled behind an iron grate in the broad hearth. A water clock on the mantelpiece dripped out time's passage. Above the fireplace was mounted a graphic bronze sculpture portraying the Prophet of the True Faith. The half-starved demigod hung by a noose on a twisted rope with an expression of supreme sorrow etched on his long, pained face.

  The crackle of paper drew the shadow's attention as a thin hand, spotted with age, appeared over the arm of a massive cushioned chair beside the fireplace. It turned the page of a large tome before sinking once again out of view.

  Levictus pulled back his cowl. There was no one else in the room. The darknesses, finished with their meal, pooled around his feet. He shivered as they scaled the hem of his long black robe and vanished within the garment. A long knife appeared in his hand. For many long years he had waited for this moment. He wanted to make it last, to savor this thing that had consumed his thoughts since the day, long ago, when armed soldiers came to his family's home and took them away, depositing them into cells under this very castle. His parents, both elderly and in failing health, had died under torture on the first night. His brother expired a few
days later. Only he had survived.

  A voice rose from the chair. Perhaps once strong with authority, time had left it weakened and wavering. “Gunter? There's a chill in the air. Could you bring us another warm brandy?”

  Levictus crossed the intervening distance as a bald pate leaned around the side of the chair, followed by rheumy eyes and a wide nose. He made no attempt to hide, but strode purposefully toward his prey. The old man's rubbery lips formed a hollow O as the knife rose. The blade's dark surface drank in the light of the fire.

  “Mercy!” the prelate cried. “Mercy in the name of Almighty God.”

  But Levictus had none. The knife sliced through the man's wrinkled flesh. Thick streams of blood poured down the breast of his snowy robes. It splashed on the book that fell from his hands. The firelight caught the spine and illuminated the golden words printed there. By Fire and Blood: Bringing the True Faith to the North.

  As his victim tumbled to the floor, Levictus opened the folds of his robe and brought out a wooden box. He set it on the floor as he knelt beside the prelate's corpse. Blood pooled beneath the body while he worked.

  When the deed was done, as Levictus stood and put away his prize, he studied the man at his feet. No archangels had rushed in to defend His Sublime Holiness; no thunderbolts had fallen from the heavens. For all his majesty, the prelate had died like any other man, less well, in fact, than most. So much for the vaunted power of the True Church.

  A strangeness passed over Levictus while he stood over his victim. Something buzzed in his ear like a flying insect. He made a pass with his hands, whispered a sibilant phrase, and the sensation fled on soundless wings.

  Levictus went to a cabinet on the wall and rifled through its contents. Leaves of parchment fell to the floor. Then, he held up a sheet to the flickering light. His eyes followed the neat handwriting down to the surprise at the bottom, stamped in a blob of old wax. He stuffed the paper into a pocket. Then, he stepped into the dark space between two massive bookcases and vanished.

  He reappeared inside the city, speeding through the slumbering avenues, just another shadow under the sequestering cover of the night.