Scowling, Rez dropped his arms. He liked his jokes, that was obvious, and he didn’t like being told to cut them short. He sighed, nodding his head in surrender. “Fine,” he said.
“You're right. Okay, Shel, here’s the truth. The Empire runs on souls. Our benevolent master is the greatest Soulweaver who ever lived, and he’s been living for quite a while. He may be a thousand years old. No one knows for sure. It’s his magic that keeps the cold wind at bay. But think on this: how many souls must a man possess to exert dominance over the turning seasons? How many lives must be emptied to feed and preserve his power?”
Shel shook her head mutely side to side. Like most people, she had never bothered to wonder about the Long Summer. She took it for granted.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I imagine it takes a lot.”
“You wouldn’t even believe,” said Maul.
“Okay.” Shel took a slow, deep breath to dispel her surprise. “So the Empire runs on souls. I didn’t know that. I don’t think many people do. But so what? You see souls being sold on the street corners of every city, every day. What’s it got to do with you?”
Rez smiled darkly. “We're the cold wind.”
Chapter 6 - Shadowman
Shel sat in the room they had given her, on one of the upper floors of the abandoned fortress Rez’s gang used for a hideout. She still didn’t know where exactly she was, but Rez had answered many other questions. He’d given her a lot to think about.
Shadows stretched across the spartan room, and beyond the two narrow windows – hardly more than slits in the stone tower wall – the sun was sinking behind mountains to the west. Shel sat in one of two chairs, eyes cast down at the floor, deep in thought.
She had stolen fat purses full of gold. She had stolen clothing, both to wear and for trading. She had stolen food to eat. Once, she had stolen a pair of sapphires from an unattended carriage. But jewels were harder to sell. Mostly, she stuck to gold and less valuable items the gang could use. She’d been the best out of all of them; even West acknowledged Shel was the best.
She had never dreamed of stealing souls.
It was audacious. It was shockingly outrageous, the sort of thing no thief she had ever known would ever contemplate. But Rez and his gang made their living stealing souls.
No soul could be stolen from its owner, of course. Everybody knew that. Even Shel, who had always felt uneasy about the trading of souls. Something about the whole thing made her skin crawl and her stomach twist. But at least no soul could be stolen. Its owner must give it up freely, of their own will.
Once that happened, though, the soul was loose. That was Rez’s word for it, anyway. It could be absorbed, after a fashion, by its new owner. But it remained separate from that person’s own soul, and therefore it could be taken. For the thief who could pull that off and – perhaps far more importantly – find a buyer afterward, souls were the most valuable prize imaginable.
A soft knock sounded at the door, startling Shel out of her thoughts. Jerking her head up, she turned toward the door and wondered who it could be.
“Hello?”
The door opened slowly, and an indistinct figure moved into the room. Shel was surprised to recognize Sanook. The Shadowman.
“Am I disturbing you?” His voice was soft and silky, with a hint of sibilance. It was muffled slightly, and when a weak spear of dying sunlight found its way into the drooping hood of his heavy robes Shel saw that he wore a rigid, form-fitting mask covered with dark velvet and golden filigree. A tiny slit marked his mouth, and two more narrow openings allowed the Shadowman to see. She noticed he also wore gloves. No barest glimpse of his skin was visible. She wondered why.
“Sanook,” she greeted him, hesitating over the foreign-sounding name. Shadowmen, she thought, amazed at herself. This morning she hadn’t believed in the name. Following Rez’s stunning revelations, she was no longer sure.
“You are Shel,” Sanook said, coming further into the room and closing the door behind him. “I am told you have consented to join our little tribe.”
“I…Yes.” Shel cleared her throat nervously. What did he want? He was just standing there. Nothing was visible of the man but those impossibly dark eyes peering out through slits in his mask. Just standing there…
“Oh!” Shel blushed. “I'm sorry. Please, have a seat.”
Sanook bowed his cowled head and took the other chair. He settled himself slowly into it and shifted the chair slightly so that he was facing her.
“You have not met one of my kind before,” observed Sanook.
“Er, no,” Shel told him. She felt nervous and uncertain around the Shadowman. She had always heard they were wicked and deformed. They were tales to frighten children. She didn’t know what to say to him.
“Most people in your empire have not.”
“You're not from the empire?”
“No. I come from far away, as do all of my people. Few of us remain.”
“I'm sorry,” said Shel, who thought she had heard sadness in Sanook’s words. She thought back to those childhood scary stories of Shadowmen. Creatures of winter, they had been defeated and ultimately destroyed by the emperor long ago. Remembering what Rez had told her of the emperor, she wondered if he was the same one after all this time. The thought made her shudder.
“Do I frighten you, child?”
“No,” Shel insisted, realizing Sanook must have misunderstood her shudder. “I'm sorry, but no. It isn’t you. And don’t call me child.”
A strange sound, halfway between coughing and a dog’s bark, came from under the hood. Shel realized Sanook was laughing at her.
“What?” she demanded, bristling at the laughter. “What’s so funny?”
Sanook held up both hands, palms forward, in front of his chest. “You are frightened,” he said. “But you master your fear. That is good. Children become adults by mastering fear.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that, but decided he meant it as an admission she was no child. “Thank you. I think.”
“Tell me,” Sanook continued as if he hadn’t heard. “What do you know of the Shadowmen?”
“Rez told me you don’t like that name.”
“True enough. But the true name of my people would give you difficulty.”
“Try me.”
Sanook said a word. It was a long word, made up of unfamiliar sounds and guttural intonations. It began with what might have been a “sh” sound, but after that Shel gave up. There was no way she could have repeated it correctly.
“Okay,” she relented. “You're right. What does it mean?”
“It is the name of my people,” Sanook told her, spreading his hands as if to say what else?
“Yes, but it has to mean something.” Shel frowned, leaning forward in her chair. Her uneasiness was forgotten. “I mean, look. I'm a thief. That’s a word that describes me, but it means someone who steals. I'm also a girl. It’s a name for what I am, but it means…well, you know what it means.”
Shel trailed off. She didn’t think she was making her point very well. There had to be a way to explain what she meant.
“I take your point,” said Sanook with another brief laugh. Then he said that long, impossible word again. “It means the People Who Swallow the Souls of the Dead.”
Shel blinked. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but that wasn’t it. Seeing her expression, Sanook laughed again.
“Sinister, isn’t it?” he asked. “But to my people, it isn’t. It is natural. It is the way of things. This life is a dream. When the dream ends and the body dies, there is a force within us which goes on. Death is another dream, where this force continues without the physical form. You call that force the soul. In the empire, these souls are bartered and sold like common goods. To my people, the soul is the sacred essence of life. We wouldn’t allow another possession of our soul, even if it were possible for us. You see, my soul cannot leave my body while my body lives. But when the body dies…”
He spread his
hands again.
“Your soul passes on,” Shel said slowly. “Another of your people…swallows it?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Sanook leaned forward. She couldn’t see his face, but she imagined he wore an earnest expression. “You have met one of my people before.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You have,” Sanook insisted. “In the dungeons. His name was Aemond.”
The dying man, broken and beaten and bloodied, hanging by leather straps around his wrists. A man who had seized her and whispered strange words…Aemond, she’d heard that name before.
“Aemond passed to her,” Rez had said. Maul had reacted as if he’d been punched in the gut.
The dying man in the dungeon torture chamber had been…a Shadowman.
“He gave me his soul,” whispered Shel, scarcely able to believe it. It had to be some kind of trick. A lie. Something.
“I believe he did,” confirmed Sanook. “Rez is certainly convinced. He sent me here to talk with you about it.”
“I don’t…” Shel swallowed a lump that was forming in her throat. Her mouth opened and closed but no more words came out. She didn’t have any words. She didn’t know what to even think. “I don’t understand.”
“That is why I'm here,” Sanook told her gently. “The passing of souls carries a heavy responsibility. For my people, it isn’t the tawdry thing found in the empire. We don’t collect souls for power and profit. When a soul is swallowed, it is taken within and mixed with that which is there already. My own soul has grown many times, but still I have only the one. Do you see?”
“I think so.”
“Good.” Sanook sat back in his chair, folding his hands together before him and regarding Shel over the tops of his intertwined fingers. “Aemond’s soul was very large. Now it resides in you.”
“But how can you be sure?” She still couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it. “I don’t feel any different.”
“No?” Sanook cocked his head to one side and shrugged one shoulder. “Perhaps not. You have never gained another’s soul, I presume?”
“Never!”
“Then you wouldn’t know the feeling, would you?”
“I suppose not,” Shel admitted. She hadn’t thought of that. Still, there had to be something. By saying she wouldn’t know the feeling, he implied there was something to feel. She didn’t feel any different. Except she had felt something in the dungeon. The explosion of pain and pleasure had sent her reeling.
“He did it,” she whispered now, completely stunned. The dying man had given his soul to her. She remembered the glowing white mist. Was that Aemond’s soul? “He really did it. His soul is inside me, somehow.”
“Yes.” Sanook unfolded his hands and reached out to her. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “That is why Rez brought you to us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Aemond was central to our plans,” Sanook explained, taking his hand off her shoulder and sitting back in his chair. “His capture was a terrible blow to the…to the gang. Besides Rez and myself, he was the only member of our little tribe who possessed the abilities your people call weaving. And there was one weave in particular, a very important weave, which only Aemond knew.”
Shel gasped in realization. Though the shadows had deepened and she could see nothing within his hood but darkness, she stared at Sanook in amazement. “Does that mean I'm a Soulweaver now?”
“It does,” Sanook said slowly. “All of Aemond’s abilities are now your abilities. Even his memories are a part of you now, though it will take much training before you are able to use them.”
“And you're going to train me?”
“That’s right.”
Shel thought about it. Weavers had always made her uncomfortable. Everything about the soul trade bothered her. Now that she knew what made it so that summer never ended, everything she’d ever believed about the empire was called into question. She hadn’t had time to really take it all in yet. But the way Sanook talked about his people, and the way their souls passed on, was different.
It didn’t seem so wrong.
“Okay,” she said. “When do you we start?”
Chapter 7 - Preparations
“He’s summoned the archons,” said Rez, striding into the council chamber. Maul and Kal both sat at the massive table, studying the charts and maps laid out there. It had been a little over a week since Rez brought the girl Shel to this room and told her the darkest secret of the empire.
“There isn’t much time then,” said Kal, looking up from the map. Beside her, Maul grunted.
Rez took a seat at the head of the table. Besides the chairs occupied by Maul and Kal, there were two empty seats. Sanook was busy training the girl. The fourth chair…well, maybe Shel would sit there one day. It seemed fitting that she would take Aemond’s place among his lieutenants.
But not yet.
“No,” Rez said aloud, answering Kal although she hadn’t asked a question. “Time is short, indeed.”
Too short. He needed Aemond’s talents, but Shel was still a long way from earning her place at this table. Rez couldn’t be sure of her; not yet.
Sanook had come to him the night before with a report. Shel was doing well in her training, according to the Shadowman. Almost as though she were born to weaving. Sanook was pleased with her progress and seemed to think she’d be ready in no time.
In a way, that was an even bigger problem than if she were struggling. Very few people were “born” to weaving.
“You still plan to strike before the Conclave?” Kal watched him closely, searching the leader’s face for subtle hints to his thoughts. Five years with him, and still the honey-haired thief didn’t entirely trust him. Rez sighed.
“I don’t see much choice,” he said. “Do you?”
Kal said nothing, and Maul only grunted again. They both knew what was really at stake, and they both knew that once the emperor’s archons were gathered at the palace there’d be no hope of facing them. After the Conclave began, there wouldn’t be another opportunity for half a year or more.
“Murdrek Thorne has the longest distance to travel,” Rez went on when it was clear there would be no further objections. “Our scouts report him still in the northern provinces, at his estates in the foothills. He will no doubt be on the move soon, and there is the added benefit that his most likely route will pass by quite near to us here.”
“Thorne.” Maul’s grunting repetition of the name carried a weight of disapproval despite its low, monotone delivery. The burly giant scowled, sitting back in his chair to cross his arms over his massive barrel chest.
“Again,” added Kal, glancing curiously between Maul and Rez. “We struck him twice last year.”
“And we'll strike him again this year.” The leader’s tone brooked no argument. Placing his fists knuckle-down on the table, he leaned forward to fix a hard stare on his chief lieutenants. “Thorne hasn’t been to the capital in months. He’s been hiding out in the countryside, building up his power and licking his wounds.”
“His men will be watching for any sign of danger,” protested Kal, drawing another grunt and a serious-faced nod from Maul. “They'll be paranoid, hard to sneak up on, and ready for a fight.”
“All true,” said Rez. “But they won’t know about our secret weapon.”
“Secret weapon?” echoed Kal blankly.
“That’s right.” Rez paused, sucking in his bottom lip and watching Kal closely before he continued. “Aemond is dead.”
“You're not serious!” It was Maul who figured it out first, and the giant dropped his arms and jerked forward in surprise. “Rez, she’s an untried girl!”
“Who just so happens to possess all the knowledge and abilities of our late friend,” argued Rez. “Why do you think I've had Sanook pushing her so hard? She’s got to be ready in time. She will be ready in time.”
***
The long-bladed knife thunked into the wall
inches from Shel’s head. She darted out of the way, diving and rolling across the floor as a series of blunt projectiles tracked her and slammed against the flagstones. Pottery shattered. A lamp made of brass and iron dented slightly on one side as they bounced away. A trio of knives struck sparks as they glanced off the stone floor. Shel kept moving.
She came out of the roll, springing to her feet and flinging up both hands. This was the hardest part. She envisioned a smoky extension of herself, a tendril of pure spirit emerging from the palms of her hands. She willed the invisible energy to stretch out and grab hold of two of the knives. She could almost feel the rough leather strips wrapped tightly round their hilts, as if she were holding them with her own hands.
Jerking her hands up and back, she pulled. The knives responded, leaping up off the floor and hurling themselves across the training room at Shel’s attacker.
Sanook, still in his heavy robes and mask, simply waved one arm in a lazy gesture. The rocketing knives struck an invisible barrier in mid-air, still more than a dozen feet from the Shadowman. They bounced off the shield and fell to the floor.
Shel grunted in irritation, but didn’t dare waste too much time on her disappointment. She was already moving, reaching out with her Soulweaving to find another weapon. There was a heavy brazier in one corner, its brass bowl full of simmering coals. Shel wrapped her mystical energy around its slender strut and lifted the entire brazier off the ground.
Brow furrowed in concentration, Shel manipulated the brazier. She wanted to fling it at the Shadowman like a spear, with the bowl full of burning coals striking first. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she quickly turned the brazier in the air and sent it flying.
Before she had even released her hold on the burning spear, a seemingly solid mass of air slammed into her from the side. Shel lost her grip on the brazier and it clattered to the floor, spilling its smoking coals all over the flagstones. Shel was thrown off balance, slamming painfully into the wall. Before she could recover, she felt the air wrap itself around her legs and tighten. Gripped by nothing more than air, Shel was pulled feet first toward the center of the room where another gust of air lifted her up toward the ceiling.
Soul Weaver: A Fantasy Novel Page 5
