Lord of the Shadows

by Jennifer Fallon

Neris shook his head and pointed to the harbor. “You're going to have to get back soon. You'll be missed.”

  “That's my problem. Now get down here this instant,” he ordered, like a parent talking to a particularly intransigent toddler, “or I'll go back and tell them you're up here.”

  Neris thought about it for a while, looked down at the ledge and then shrugged. “You're right. I'd probably just break a few bones. I'd need something much higher to actually kill myself.”

  Dirk let out a sigh of relief as Neris turned from the edge and headed down the well-worn path to the lower ledge, where he was standing. While he waited, he turned and looked back at the battle still in progress on the other side of the bay. The Orlando was well and truly alight now, and there was some hand-to-hand fighting going on near the beach, but, from what he could see, it was a token resistance force. Most of the people in Mil were gone.

  “It's like the end of an era,” Neris remarked, as he came to stand beside Dirk to watch Mil reduced to ashes. “It felt a bit like this when the Age of Shadows ended.”

  “Speaking of the Age of Shadows, you lied to me, you old charlatan. There was nothing useful in that damned cavern. You destroyed it before you sealed the tunnel.”

  “But the Eye is very pretty, don't you think?” Neris asked cheerfully. “And, you have to admit, it must have been a fairly impressive building in its heyday. I never did figure out what it was for, though. Maybe it was a museum. It might have been a temple, but I'm not convinced it was. I've a feeling any civilization smart enough to work out something as complex as the orbit of a binary star didn't waste a lot of time worshipping gods.”

  “I spent months up in those ruins. And it was all for nothing.”

  “No, it wasn't,” Neris disagreed. “You got to see northern Senet.”

  “There's a lifelong ambition fulfilled.”

  “Don't be such a child! I gave you the key to untold wealth by sending you to Omaxin.”

  “Untold wealth? Is that what you call it?”

  “Don't be so dense!” Neris scolded. “Didn't you see that place? Didn't you have your eyes open at all? Omaxin was built by our ancestors, Dirk. They were like gods compared to us. But what happened to them? What happened to the wondrous world they created? Find that out, and you'll truly bring enlightenment to Ranadon. That's the real challenge, my boy.”

  Dirk scowled at him, but didn't reply.

  “Anyway, if nothing else, you got to sleep with my daughter, didn't you?” he added with a sly grin.

  “Did Tia tell you that?”

  “She didn't have to. Of course, it was only a matter of time, I suppose. She's always had a thing for you. Probably because you look so much like Johan. Although you have your mother's eyes…”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  Neris frowned at him. “No, we can't. I'm having a rare paternal moment here and I'm not going to be denied. What you did was very cruel, Dirk—”

  “Just mind your own business, you old fool.”

  “You knew you'd have to betray her eventually.”

  Dirk shook his head, knowing his actions were probably indefensible but somehow still needing to find a way to defend them. “I didn't plan on it happening, Neris. And if I could do it over again, I'd go to Omaxin alone. Or take someone else. And if I ever get the chance, I'll apologize to her.”

  Neris suddenly giggled. “That's unlikely. She's going to kill you the next time she sees you.”

  “I know,” he sighed.

  With one of his lightning mood changes, the problem suddenly no longer seemed to bother him. “Well, that's a challenge for another day. Tia said you told them about the eclipse. You don't believe in doing things by halves, do you, boy?”

  “This is worse,” he replied, waving his arm to encompass the destruction of Mil as he stood by and did nothing to prevent it.

  Neris placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You might not be as smart as me, lad, but I wish I had even a fraction of your balls. I'd have had the courage to kill myself as soon as Belagren got that gleam in her eye when she realized what she could do with the information about the return of the second sun, if I did.”

  “Having a gift for sophistry doesn't make me a hero, Neris.”

  “No, but being willing to act on it does. It's a pity nobody but you or I will ever know the truth.” They stood together in silence for a time, watching the battle below. “Tell Tia, someday, if you ever get the chance.”

  Dirk smiled ruefully. “I doubt that will ever happen.”

  “It might. If you succeed.”

  “If I succeed, she'll hate me even more than she does now, for not taking her into my confidence. She won't be too thrilled with you, either, I suspect.”

  Neris didn't answer, apparently absorbed in the battle below. Dirk glanced at the madman for a moment, wondering what he was thinking.

  “You know, I told Belagren that her followers were pathetic. I wonder what I'll think of them if they follow me.”

  “They'll still be pathetic,” Neris predicted. “Most people are. It's why we have gods and goddesses. The human race is so insecure and afraid, we must invent a protector or cower in the shadows, hiding from a universe full of things bigger, uglier and more powerful than we are. People want a parent figure to alleviate their pain, Dirk. To make their crops grow, to shield them from the realities of life. If we can't find a real god, then we have to make one up. Do you think that makes us a higher species or a lesser one? Every other species seems to cope just fine without the need to imagine there's a divine being out there somewhere masterminding the whole show.”

  “You really are a cynic, aren't you?”

  “The greatest of them all,” Neris agreed. “It's one of the little-known side effects of faking insanity.”

  “I wish there were another way.”

  “They've all been tried, Dirk, and they've all failed. Spectacularly.”

  “But this… I'm really no better than Belagren.”

  “It's not about who's better or worse, or even who's good or evil. It's about the road we take. One path leads to barbarism, the other leads to enlightenment.”

  “Are you sure what I'm doing will lead to enlightenment?”

  “No. But I am sure of where the other path leads.”

  Down below, Dirk spied another boat rowing across the bay. The longboat was crewed by half a dozen sailors, and had several armed men on board. Dirk turned to look at Neris. “They're coming for me.”

  “And me.”

  “We probably won't meet again after this.”

  “Probably not,” Neris agreed.

  They were silent for a while.

  Suddenly, Neris smiled. “Shall we go down to meet them?”

  “Are you sure, Neris?”

  The madman nodded. “It's time.”

  With a nod of understanding, Dirk led the way to the narrow beach and waited with Neris by his side as the longboat drew nearer. Even before the boat reached the shore, the soldiers jumped out and splashed through the shallows toward them with swords drawn. Neris's eyes were alight with anticipation, which Dirk was fairly certain was genuine, not inspired by poppy-dust.

  The madman turned to Dirk again with a broad grin.

  “Don't let me down, Dirk,” he said.

  And then he charged at the soldiers with a blood-curdling yell.

  The first sword thrust took him in the chest. Dirk didn't see the rest of it. He turned his head away, unable to watch the soldiers cutting Neris Veran down.

  The Senetians were efficient and made little fuss as they brushed Neris out of their way with a few sword strokes. Then strong hands latched on to Dirk's arms and he was forcibly marched down toward the boat.

  “You weren't supposed to leave the ship, my lord,” one of the men reminded him gruffly. Dirk glanced down at the body as they pushed him past it. Neris was covered in blood, but his eyes were closed and his face was not pain-stricken. It was serene.

  “Who was t
hat?” the other guard asked as he stepped over the body.

  “Just a stray villager,” Dirk told him tonelessly. “I saw him over here and thought there might be more of them.”

  “Noble sentiments, my lord, but Prince Kirshov's orders were very specific.”

  “I know,” Dirk said, shaking free of his captors once they reached the longboat. “I'll go back quietly. There's no need to treat me like a runaway debtor slave.”

  The sergeant waved the others back as Dirk climbed into the longboat. The two guards who had restrained him ran the boat out into the water and then clambered aboard. As they drew away from the beach, Dirk turned back again to look at Neris's body lying on the black sand as the smoke drifted over the water.

  The madman had finally found the courage he'd been searching for. For the first time in decades, Neris Veran was at peace.

  irk was not taken back to the Tsarina, but across the bay to what was left of the village of Mil. The soldiers climbed out of the boat when it hit the sand and beckoned Dirk to follow. The beach was littered with bodies, most of them Baenlanders. There were a few familiar faces among the dead, but he was given no chance to stop and examine them. The soldiers escorted him across the beach and onto the steep path leading up to Johan's stilted house that looked out over the bay.

  Kirsh was waiting for him in Johan's study, sitting behind the desk going through a pile of papers. He glanced up when Dirk entered. He was splattered with blood, but none of it seemed to be his.

  “You disobeyed my orders.”

  “I was bored,” Dirk shrugged, looking around the room. It was untouched by the battle. “Did you find Misha?”

  “The best we've been able to extract out of anybody is that he was here and then he wasn't. Nobody seems to know where he is now.” Kirsh looked up at him with a frown. “There's no sign of your girlfriend, either.”

  “You mean Tia? That's not likely to be a coincidence.”

  “Where would she have taken him?”

  “I have no idea,” Dirk answered honestly.

  “One of the prisoners mentioned something about caves.”

  “The caves above the settlement?” He shrugged. “You could check them, I suppose, but it's unlikely. I've been through those caves. There's barely enough room in them to hide a couple of children and a milk goat. And they're far too accessible from the settlement to be safe, not to mention dangerously unstable.”

  “I think I'll have them checked, anyway.”

  “If you think you can spare the time,” Dirk agreed.

  “I've got plenty of time, Dirk.”

  “Have you?” Dirk wandered over to the open doors leading out onto the veranda. Mil was a smoking ruin below him. His nonchalant tone was at complete odds with his inner turmoil. Even the longhouse was nothing more than a charred shell. Dirk felt physically ill. “If Tia Veran managed to slip out of the Baenlands with Misha,” he added, “you've got very little time to find them before she goes to ground again.”

  Kirsh was not so easily put off the idea of searching the caves. “But I don't know she has slipped out of the Baenlands with Misha.”

  “Of course she has,” he scoffed. “Look around you, Kirsh. Those bodies on the beach don't belong to the villagers. They're mostly sailors from the Orlando. Tia Veran, your brother and most of the population of Mil are long gone. I warned you they'd probably been tipped off. You'd be far more gainfully employed finding out who did that, than wasting time here on a lost cause, giving the pirates—incidentally—all the time in the world to stash Misha somewhere you'll never find him.”

  Dirk sounded so reasonable that Kirsh had little choice but to agree. While he was determined to raze Mil, he was even more determined to find Misha. The thought that he might lose his brother completely if he lingered too long here in the Baenlands was an easy fear to encourage.

  But it was time to change the subject. Dirk had been responsible for enough death for one day. He didn't want Kirsh dwelling on the idea of searching the caves. “What have you got there?” he asked, indicating the papers Kirsh had been examining when he walked in.

  “These are Johan Thorn's journals.”

  “They would make some interesting reading,” Dirk remarked.

  “They are the ravings of a heretic,” Kirsh replied. “I'm going to burn them along with the rest of this place.”

  “They're an important historical record, Kirsh,” Dirk told him, aghast at the idea. “You can't just destroy them out of hand.”

  “Care to wager on that?”

  A knock at the door prevented Dirk from being able to argue his case. Alexin Seranov and the captain of Kirsh's Senetian Guard came in. Between them, they held two prisoners, both of them women. One of them was Finidice, the old servant who had tended Johan and his family since they had fled to Mil. The other woman, Dirk realized with a sinking heart, was Lexie Thorn.

  “We found these two hiding in the pantry,” Sergey announced, shoving Finidice forward. The old woman turned and hissed at them. She was unable to say anything more. Belagren had cut out her tongue during the Age of Shadows.

  Kirsh studied the women for a moment and then looked at Dirk. “Who are they?”

  “The old woman is called Finidice,” Dirk told him in a disinterested voice. “She was the cook here. The other woman is… Alexandra … somebody or other. I never did learn her full name. She was a seamstress, I think. I saw her around the village now and then while I was here. Neither of them is important.”

  Lexie met his eye, but she was too smart to let her surprise show. He hoped she understood what he was trying to do and that, under these awkward circumstances, it was all he could do for her.

  Kirsh stared at the women for a moment and then shrugged. “Kill them, Sergey.”

  “I've got a better idea,” Dirk suggested, before Sergey could act on the order.

  Kirsh looked at him in surprise. “What better idea? I've got enough prisoners to find out what I need to know without these two, and you just said they weren't important.”

  “Have Alexin do it.”

  Sergey appeared disappointed. Lexie was stunned. Finidice hissed at him. Alexin Seranov stared at him with eyes burning with fury and hatred. Even if he hadn't been secretly allied with the Baenlanders, Lexie was his aunt, and what Dirk was asking of him was unconscionable.

  “Why?” Kirsh asked.

  “Because the whole purpose of bringing the Queen's Guard on this little excursion was to make it patently clear to the world they are allied with you, and through your regency, with Senet. You let Sergey do all the killing in Tolace. Right now, all the blood is on Senetian hands. Share it around a bit, Kirsh. Have the Queen's Guard put a few innocent women and children to the sword. Then they'll be feared as much as your father's soldiers, and they won't be able to take the high moral ground the next time you order them to do something they find unpalatable.”

  Kirsh stared at Dirk, obviously surprised at his harsh and uncompromising reasoning.

  “You have a point,” he conceded after a moment of heavy silence, then turned to Alexin and nodded. “Do it.”

  Alexin threw Dirk a look that promised savage vengeance for forcing him into such a dreadful corner. He drew his sword reluctantly.

  “Not here!” Dirk snapped. “For the Goddess's sake, Captain, we don't need to watch. Take them outside, at least. His highness wants you to kill them, and while I'm sure he appreciates the sentiment, there's no need to prove your loyalty quite so enthusiastically by doing it here. We don't need to suffer through the pitiful death throes of a couple of serving women.”

  At last, comprehension dawned on Alexin. “I'm sorry, my lord,” he muttered, and then he pointed the sword at Lexie, who also had the presence of mind to understand that Dirk was desperately trying to save them. “Out!”

  Sergey stood back to let them pass. “Need a hand?”

  “I can take care of a couple of serving women without any Senetian help,” Alexin told him coldly.

 
; The Senetian smiled and said nothing further. As soon as Alexin and the women had left, he turned to Kirsh. “Did you want me to follow him and make sure he does it, your highness?”

  Kirsh shook his head. “That man just saved my life, Captain.”

  “It doesn't automatically follow he'll kill in cold blood for you, sire.”

  As if in answer to Sergey's doubts, a scream echoed through the house, and was abruptly cut off.

  Kirsh glanced at Sergey and shrugged. “Does that answer your question, Sergey?”

  “He really did it,” the captain laughed. “I'm astonished.”

  “Well, when you're finished being astonished, Captain,” Dirk remarked frostily, “do you think you could arrange to have some men sent in here to pack up these papers?”

  Kirsh glared at him. “I told you, Dirk. I'm burning them.”

  “I can't let you do that, Kirsh,” Dirk told him. “These aren't just the ravings of a heretic. They are the personal journals of the man who very nearly brought the Church of the Suns down. How he did it cannot be destroyed just because you're feeling a little miffed. As Lord of the Shadows, and the right hand of the High Priestess, I am claiming these records on behalf of the Church.”

  Kirsh glanced at Sergey uncertainly. “Can he do that?”

  “I'm no expert on Church law, your highness, but I suspect he can.”

  Kirsh turned his attention back to Dirk. “Are you sure that's the only reason you want them?”

  “What other reason would there be, Kirsh?”

  “Take the damn journals, then,” he snapped impatiently, rising to his feet. “I've got more important things to worry about. Sergey! Get some men in here to pack these up and then burn this damned house to the ground.”

  “I'll do it,” Dirk offered.

  Kirsh didn't seem to care. “Whatever, Dirk. Just see that it's done.”

  Sometime later, Dirk took a last walk through Johan's house as the soldiers packed up the dead king's papers, ready for removal to the Tsarina. The house reeked of oil. It had been splashed around quite liberally to accelerate the flames once Johan's journals had been removed. Memories Dirk didn't feel strong enough to deal with crowded his mind, demanding his attention. He forced them away. He couldn't afford the luxury of nostalgia.