Shadowfall

by James Clemens

With Darjon atop him, Tylar swung out with the only weapon available: the dart impaled through his wrist. He felt the tip graze more than cloth.

  Darjon hissed, confirming the strike, and fell back.

  With space now, Tylar brought his sword to bear.

  An arm’s length away, Darjon hunched. The wild lash of the sharp arrow had cut through the masklin hiding his features. For the first time, Tylar saw the face of his adversary.

  The knight’s paleness struck him first—not a snowy white, but more an absence of any color, bloodless. Had it ever been touched by sunlight? Even the glimpse of hair was too starkly white, brittle in the moonlight. His other features were as sharp as his eyes: thin lips curled in fury, a narrow nose pinched in distaste. A ghost cloaked in shadow.

  But it was not his paleness that gave Tylar pause. A more disturbing revelation was exposed. It was not the presence of something, but the absence. The fish-belly whiteness of Darjon’s features was unmarred by mark or blemish.

  He bore no triple stripe of knighthood.

  Darjon read the realization in his opponent’s eyes.

  Angered and shocked, Tylar missed the flash of silver until it was too late. A dagger, thrown from the hip.

  “I believe you left this behind,” the false knight spat.

  Tylar twisted. The blade shot beneath his raised arm, carving a path along the underside of his limb, slicing tunic, skin, and muscle as it passed. It impaled into the tall fin behind him. Tylar recognized its quivering hilt. It was the same dagger he had used to pinion Darjon outside the gates to Meeryn’s keep.

  Darjon followed the attack with a savage thrust of his sword. Tylar, off balance, parried the blade poorly. He managed only to deflect. He had no footing to counter.

  Panic slowed everything, like a nightmare. Darjon expertly trapped Tylar’s sword with his own. Tylar, weak from the dagger’s cut, could not stop the blade from being ripped from his grip.

  His sword flew and struck the curved back of the Fin.

  It slid toward the waiting sea.

  Tylar lunged for it, desperate—only to see its black diamond pommel slip beyond his fingertips and plunge away. Weaponless, wounded, he rolled around to his back.

  Darjon stood a step away, death promised in his eyes as he raised his sword.

  Tylar felt the hot trickle of blood down the inside of his arm, pooling around his hand. He tried to scramble backward, but the footing was slick from the slosh of waves. His back struck the end of the Fin.

  If he could snatch the dagger . . .

  But a fast glance showed it was beyond his reach.

  Darjon closed, his sword point scribing a sigil of finality in the air.

  Tylar, wiping cold sweat and blood from his eyes, flashed back to Delia, pressing her palm against the glass. He realized it had not been a good-bye, but a warning.

  He looked at his fingers. Sweat and blood. As his yellow bile had charmed the miiodon, his perspiration could do the same to the nonliving.

  Such as a wooden craft in the middle of the Deep.

  Tylar brought his hand down upon the Fin’s surface. As before, he willed the world to ice, touching his memories of frozen tundras, snowstorms, and frost fogs.

  From his fingertips, runnels of ice shot outward. In a heartbeat, the damp surface of the Fin froze over, sheeted with planes of ice, crystalline and scintillating in the starlight.

  Tylar felt the frigid bite through the damp seat of his breeches, freezing him to the deck.

  Darjon had hesitated as the Grace flowed. He now took a cautious step backward, confusion plain on his face. His inattention betrayed the heel of his boot on the slick ice. He skated for balance, lost it, arms pinwheeling.

  With a distinct lack of dignity, the man’s legs flew out from under him. He landed on the slippery surface and continued his slide. Hands scrambled for purchase. But burdened by the sword he refused to abandon, he failed and soon slid over the edge and splashed into the sea.

  Tylar ripped himself free of the frozen clutch of the Fin’s surface and crawled on hands and knees. He spotted Darjon a few lengths away, fighting the waves and the weight of his waterlogged cloak.

  Shivering, Tylar crossed to the hatch. He fought to lift it, but a coating of ice locked it tight. He pounded a fist on the door, trying to break through the crust. He was too weak, left with only a child’s strength.

  Across the sea, the fleet of corsairs swept toward them, filling the starry world with firelit sails.

  A muffled call sounded below. He could not answer.

  Then with a crack that sounded like splintering wood, the hatch banged open, coming within a hairbreadth of smashing Tylar’s nose. Rogger popped his head out, scanned the immediate area, then settled on Tylar.

  “Figured the chill had to be more ’n a sudden change of seasons,” he said, his eyes drawn to the nearby splashing as Darjon swam toward the sweep of ships. “Looks like you shook loose that black-robed barnacle.”

  “For now,” Tylar said hoarsely, picturing the murder in the false knight’s eyes. “For now . . .”

  Rogger finally seemed to note Tylar’s bloody state. He helped Tylar below. Tylar bit back a groan when the arrow in his wrist jarred against the frame of the Fin’s hatch.

  “Ay, take a care there,” Rogger said with his usual late concern.

  They fell together the rest of the way into the cabin. Out of the sea breeze, the cabin was as warm as a hot bath, heated by the blaze of mica tubings. Rogger reached up and slammed the hatch.

  Across the cabin, Delia dove the Fin deep.

  Rogger helped Tylar sit up. “You took a foolish risk back there.”

  Tylar shivered and coughed. “I had no choice but to fight the bastard.” He again pictured the unmarked face of the man, a false knight. For the moment, he kept silent, needing time to mull over this newest mystery.

  “I meant,” Rogger continued, “it was daft going back to free the captain.”

  Tylar shook his head. “Captain Grayl deserved the effort. My blood was a small price against his life.”

  “Dead is dead. Debts end with one’s last breath.”

  “Honor does not.”

  “Spoken like a true knight. I thought you had given up on that.”

  Tylar let his scowl answer for him. When he’d been a broken scabber in the alleys of Punt, his life had been without responsibility, even to himself. Now hale again, burdened at every turn, he found the need once more to acknowledge honor . . . even in death. Grayl would not have wanted to end his presence here by rotting at the end of a rope. If Tylar could grant him nothing else, he could acknowledge that and act upon it.

  Rogger shook his head.

  Delia called back. “Rogger, man the wheel. I’ve taken us under the waves. Just keep us moving straight. I’ll ministrate his wounds.”

  “Ministrate away,” Rogger said as they switched places. “But do something about that stubborn streak of righteousness. It’ll kill him faster than any sword.”

  Delia waved him off. Tylar allowed her to free his coat’s laces. Blood flowed from scalp, right wrist, and left upper arm. He read the concern bright in her eyes. “I’ll heal,” he insisted.

  “Of course you will. Firebalm will mend the worst.” Delia expressed her true concern as she parted his sodden coat and saw his soaked linen tunic, more red than white now. “But you’ve lost so much blood.”

  The world swam at the edges, watery and loose. “I’ll live.”

  “That’s not my concern.” Realizing what she had said, she quickly corrected herself. “Rather that’s not my only concern. We need pure, uncontaminated blood to fuel the Fin. But we can’t risk taking more now. You’ve wasted so much of it.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She slipped a fruit-paring knife from a pocket and sliced off his tunic with deft strokes. She used the strips to bind the cut on his upper arm, then had him hold a wadded piece of his own shirt atop his head.

  “We must free the arrow.”

>   He nodded. “Break the iron head, then withdraw it backward.”

  “It’ll bleed afresh.”

  “Then you’d best collect it,” he said with a tired smile.

  She kept her eyes down. “Sorry . . . after so long with Meeryn. Every drop is precious. To see it spilled to no purpose . . .” She shook her head.

  “Then you’d best find a bowl as you work the arrow out.”

  “Only glass will preserve the Grace. Any other vessel will allow it to seep out.”

  Tylar focused on her words as she worked the wooden haft behind the head of the arrow with her knife, scoring the wood to snap it clean. Each scrape stoked the pain in his wrist. He felt it in his teeth. He spoke to keep from screaming, his voice strained with the effort. “Why glass? Why not stone or metal?”

  “Stone, clayware, bronze, steel, all come from the ground, from the aspect of loam. Grace wicks into it.”

  Crack.

  Tylar gasped out as Delia suddenly broke the arrow’s haft. She had given no warning. “But glass comes from sand,” he said tightly, riding down the pain. “Is sand not loam, too?”

  “Yes, but glass has strange properties.”

  “How so?” He used his curiosity like a crutch.

  “Glass, though seeming solid, actually flows . . . like water.”

  Tylar’s disbelief must have been plain.

  She shrugged. “Despite appearances, alchemists insist on the nature of glass. It’s this constant flow—too slow to see— that keeps the Grace preserved and protected behind glass.” She reached to his wrist. “Now let’s see about removing the rest of this arrow.”

  Tylar waved his bloody wad of shirt toward the bow. “Help me to the Fin’s tank. You were right a moment ago. We’ll need the fuel to make landfall.”

  He allowed Delia to wrap an arm around his bared midsection as he climbed to his feet. The world went black for a moment. His heart thudded in his throat. Then after a breath, vision returned.

  He hobbled forward, leaning more upon Delia than he had intended. Shame was a useless emotion at the moment, and he was still unaccustomed to his hale form—yet to lose it again discomfited him.

  They reached the tank. Rogger eyed him, true worry shining.

  “Shall I pull it out?” Delia asked softly.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Maybe you two need a bit of privacy,” Rogger snorted, but his humor sounded forced.

  Ignoring him, Tylar yanked the arrow free. His knees buckled. He hadn’t expected that. But Delia was there, catching him, struggling with his weight.

  Maybe there was a use for shame. It returned strength to his legs.

  He positioned his arm over the open spigot atop the crystal tank. Blood poured copiously into the vessel. He felt it drain from him with each heartbeat.

  Again darkness squeezed his vision to a narrow point. He found himself no longer standing, but slouched in one of the rear seats, head lolled back.

  He craned back up, assisted by a hand from Delia. Her palm was so warm against the back of his neck. A moan escaped him.

  “There he is again,” Rogger said.

  Delia held a cup in front of his face. “Drink,” she insisted.

  Water flowed down his throat. He choked on it. Before he drowned, he pushed her arm away. He saw his wrist was bandaged. How long had he been gone? Delia tried to dote on him. He waved her away, more gently this time.

  “I . . . I’m better.”

  Delia sank into the other seat. Her words were for Rogger. “We must get him to a healer.”

  “Fitz Crossing is closest,” the thief answered at the wheel. “We could be there by morning. But no doubt that Shadowknight and his corsairs will guess our course and head there, too. They may even reach the island before we do.”

  Delia wrung her hands. “We must take the risk.”

  “No,” Tylar croaked. “We make straight for the Steps. We can reach the First Land in two days’ time.”

  Rogger stared back at him. “Of course, there’s a third choice. We’re free . . . with a boat. Why not head to some distant backwater where no one knows us?”

  Tylar met the thief’s gaze. A part of him was drawn to this dream. But his mind’s eye kept coming back to Grayl, bare toes swinging overhead. He slowly shook his head.

  “Why not?” Rogger asked. “Live our lives with no past.”

  “Or future.” He swallowed hard, a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’ve been there before . . . the place you say you want to go.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Where I came from. Where I’d been hiding. Some distant backwater. A place like Punt. I don’t want to go back.” As he spoke those words, he felt a noose around his own neck cut free. Something loosed in him and dropped away. “We go,” he said, putting every last bit of firmness in his voice.

  Rogger slowly nodded.

  Delia looked less convinced. “More than anyone, I want to expose what happened to Meeryn, but you must rest. I found a cache of supplies, old from the look of them, at the back of the Fin. There was powdered nyssaroot for pain.”

  “Nyssa? I’ll sleep for days.”

  “Exactly. You’ll leave your wounds undisturbed and give your body time to mend. I insist.”

  Tylar frowned, sensing a core of determination in her that he didn’t have the strength to fight. He nodded. The world spun with even that small motion.

  “Good. You should be feeling the numbness in a few moments.”

  “What . . . ?” He glanced to the abandoned cup. “You already—”

  The world rolled backward, darkening.

  “Sleep,” she urged him.

  He had no choice.

  A timeless span later, Tylar woke to snoring. It was not his own. He turned his head.

  Rogger curled on the floor beside him, nestled in a pile of netting. Each breath rattled in and sputtered out, regular as a well-wound clock. The thief smelled ripe—or maybe it was Tylar himself.

  He shifted.

  The only light in the cabin was the perpetual glow of the skeletal tubing. Beyond the Fin’s window, the waters were inky dark, except for the speckling of spinning bits of phosphorescence. Tiny sea sprites chased and harried the stranger in their midst.

  Delia stood silhouetted against the window, chewing on the knuckle of one finger as she inspected the tangled mekanical heart of the vessel. She was mumbling, in midargument with herself.

  Tylar shifted, aching all over, but it was a wooly discomfort. Not sharp. He tried sitting. The world shivered, but it settled quickly.

  Delia turned.

  “You’re awake.”

  “I think so . . . Ask me again in a few moments.”

  “Would you like some water? Do you need to relieve yourself?”

  He nodded to both but asked only for water. He couldn’t face her trying to preserve his morning humours. Delia helped him up into a seat. The effort was like climbing a mountain with a full pack of rocks. He sat heavily with the cup in hand.

  “This is just water, right?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Through an entire day. It’s night again. But the rest has done you well. You look good.”

  “I wish I could say the same about how I feel.”

  Concern crinkled her brow.

  He held up a hand. “No, I’m doing better. Truly. Don’t worry.”

  Her face relaxed. In this moment, her simple beauty shone. A softness and clarity that was pleasing to look upon.

  Tylar cleared his throat, suddenly awkward with such thoughts. She was near to half his age. He glanced to the mekanicals. “How is the Fin holding up?”

  Delia sighed. “We lost a few tubes. Shattered away. But if we don’t press the works, the rest should hold.”

  “And the blood?”

  “We’re fine. Plenty. But it’ll take another two days to reach the Steps.”

  Tylar didn’t complain. They were moving, safe for th
e moment. And much of it was due to the woman seated across from him. He was impressed with her resourcefulness and skill.

  He motioned to the crystal tank. “How did you come to know so much about alchemy? Were you schooled in it?”

  She shrugged, shook her head, then glanced to her knees, pulling into herself. “My . . . my father had an interest in alchemy.”

  From the hunch of her shoulders, there was more history than the words implied. Something unhealed. Only now did Tylar realize how reticent Delia had been about her past. Then again, he had been no more forthcoming, having been orphaned himself, birthed as his mother drowned, his father dead. His own past had no family stories or histories, so he had not missed the same from Delia . . . until now.

  “Where did he practice his alchemy?”

  She seemed to shrink further. “He was not an alchemist, only a dabbler. But his interest became mine when I was very young . . . before my mother died of the pox. She was a healer.” She added this last quickly, proudly. “She caught the pox during the Scourge, going into places others wouldn’t tread for fear of contagion.”

  Tylar did a quick calculation. That meant she lost her mother when she was only eight birth years.

  “After that, something died in my father. He sent me off to my mother’s family, a land away, a family who hardly knew me. He took back his name and left me my mother’s. I was not the easiest child at the time.”

  Heartbroken and angry, Tylar guessed. He could relate. He had been bounced around from home to home himself. But he recognized a deeper pain in her. He had never known his family, long dead and buried. Hers had cast her away like so much refuse. A cruelty that surpassed tragedy.

  “How did you end up in the Summering Isles?”

  She shrugged. “My mother’s family could not control me. I was sent to the Abbleberry Conclave, where I was eventually chosen.” A small smile broke through the gloom. “One of the happiest days of my life.”

  “And what became of your father?”

  Her smile vanished.

  “I’m sorry. I’m intruding . . .”

  “No, it’s just . . . we haven’t spoken since I was sent off. I doubt he even knows what became of me. The only thing I have left from him is my interest in alchemical studies.”