The Shadow of Malabron

by Thomas Wharton

  The shrowde shifted and flowed around him, and for one terrifying moment its folds parted, and Will glimpsed the bone-white claws of the Angel, scuttling over cracks in the rock like horrible eyeless spiders.

  The Angel was climbing head first down the sheer way of the Rampart.

  Will thought of his knife. It had been made to cut creatures no ordinary blade could harm, Finn had told him. Slowly he brought his hand down to his side, but even as he did so he faltered, remembering that Rowen was in the shrowde with him. If he started slashing blindly, he could hurt her. Or the shrowde might let them go, and they would fall. But he had no choice. Without the knife he and Rowen had no chance at all.

  His fingers never made it to the hilt. As though it sensed what he was about to do, the shrowde tightened its grip. His hand was immobilized as if it had been encased in concrete, and then the shrowde began to squeeze. Pain shot up Will’s arm and he gasped.

  There was a rush of wind, and Will felt a dizzying sense of weightlessness. He had a final glimpse of the cliff wall soaring above them and then all was whiteness again.

  Without warning Will was thrown roughly from the shrowde, out onto the ground. He was in a clearing ringed by dark trees. Rowen lay near him, still and pale. For a terrible moment he thought she was dead, then he saw the faint rise and fall of her breathing. The Angel stood over both of them, but his attention was not on Will or Rowen. He turned this way and that, his hooded head raised to the air, as if he had caught a sound or scent that troubled him but could not find the source. Finally the hood turned in Will’s direction and Lotan’s voice came from the shadows within.

  “Since you’ve chosen to join your friend on her final journey, you can earn your passage,” he said. “Knot-paths. You found one before and almost escaped me. Now you will find another. One that will take us far from here.”

  “I won’t help you,” Will managed to whisper.

  “I can still call off the fetches and perhaps save the lives of your friends on the Rampart. If they still live. Or I can let the fetches finish their work.”

  Will clenched his fists, struggling for words of defiance, for some weapon to hurl at his enemy. Then he hung his head and choked back a sob. He had failed. He was lost. Everything his friends had gone through for him had been in vain.

  “No,” he said, defeated. “I’ll do it. I’ll find a path.”

  He rose shakily to his feet and gazed slowly around. The Angel moved closer to him. As he had in the forest of Eldark, Will tried simply to be aware of all that was happening around him, not trying to shut it out or see beyond it. He breathed deeply as he had before, but his thoughts would not settle. The presence of the Angel was like an unending scream in his mind. His thoughts kept returning to his friends, to ways that he might still escape, even though he knew it was hopeless. He remembered the trick he had played on the Marrowbone brothers. There was no chance anything like that would work on the Angel.

  He thought of his knife, and glanced down. It was still on his hip, in its sheath. The Angel had not taken it from him. But if he hadn’t, it must be that he didn’t see it, or Will, as any threat. The thought only deepened Will’s despair. Then something touched his memory, like a tiny glimmer of light.

  What was it Finn had said during sword practice at Appleyard? In combat you always have two weapons. Yours and your opponent’s…

  The only weapon the Angel had used against him so far was … fear. But was the Angel himself afraid of anything?

  “It’s no use,” Will said at last. “I can’t see anything.”

  “It is because you still hope,” the Angel said. “Do not distract yourself with such vain thoughts. You and the girl are already characters in the story where hope dies.”

  Will took a deep breath and tensed himself. He had the knife, and his own hands. It would not be enough, but there was nothing else. He looked at Rowen, who still had not stirred. Maybe he could buy her a few moments. One more small chance. As he reached for the blade, he heard a new note on the wind, a swift beat of wings. He looked up just as a black shape swooped down out of the trees and soared over his head with a piercing shriek. Will whirled in time to see ragged black wings and talons before the shadow shot skyward again and vanished.

  Morrigan. Will’s heart leapt.

  He turned away from the Angel and there on the far side of the clearing was Moth. He was silhouetted by the light of the setting sun, but there was no doubt it was the archer.

  For a long moment neither he nor the Angel moved or made a sound. Will longed to run towards Moth, but the silence itself seemed to keep him rooted where he was, so that all he could do was watch what was about to unfold.

  At last the Angel stepped forward. He slowly drew back his ragged white hood, and Will cried out. The face before him was a hideous semblance of the one he had seen in his dream. Lotan’s hair was white, as before, but the face was a livid mask of raw flesh. The eyes were black holes, the mouth a wound.

  “Nightwanderer,” the Angel said. “After so long. I knew this boy had a Shee with him whom I looked forward to killing, but I did not know it would be you. And that is your sister, of course. I remember her well. The frantic beating of her heart, as I held her in my hand. Once she had wanted nothing more than to be by my side. Then she only thought to flee. I let her, because I knew that in the end it would make no difference. One by one, the Shee would fall. This day had to come.”

  Moth said nothing. From the dragon-bone sheath he slowly drew the sword of gaal and held it before him. The Angel shuddered and took a step back.

  “I have your freedom in my hand, Lotan,” Moth said, untying his cloak and letting it fall. “We both knew this day would come.”

  “There is no freedom here or in my master’s domain,” Lotan hissed, and the mask of his face contorted with rage. “You will learn that now, as I learned it long ago. Have you never understood?”

  His voice dropped to a rasping whisper.

  “I cared only to help my people. I was ready to give my life for them. And so I stood against him, and I stared into the abyss at the end of all stories, and it swallowed me whole. As it will swallow you, and you will know that your story already belongs to my master, to shape, to end, as he wishes. And then you will think no more about freedom.”

  From the folds of his cloak he drew forth a blood-red sword. As he moved slowly towards Moth, a slanted bar of sunlight fell across him, and for an instant his face twisted with pain.

  The shrowde protects him, Will thought, remembering what Moth had told him. It hides him from the light.

  “You made this sword for me, so long ago,” the Angel said. “It has lost none of its power. While you have become a pale shadow of what you once were.”

  “But you have not changed, Lotan,” Moth said. “You are still an emptiness wrapped in a cloak of lies.”

  The Angel snarled and launched himself through the air.

  Moth braced to meet him and their blades clashed. What followed was so furious and quick, Will could barely follow the moves of the two opponents. The swords crashed and rang in the clearing like flashes of lightning. Back and forth the combatants thrust and parried and in the red light of sunset it seemed that fire ran along their blades. Then Moth came on with a flurry of blows that put Lotan on the defensive and forced him backwards. His arm faltered and the blade of gaal swept down and knocked his sword from his hand.

  The Angel staggered and would have fallen, but in the next instant one ragged shred of his cloak shot out with the sound of a whip and wrapped itself like a tentacle round Moth’s sword-arm.

  The archer struggled to free himself but the shrowde pulled him off balance and the sword slipped from his grasp. Another tendril of the cloak caught the blade as it fell and flung it away into the shadows. Then, faster than Will could see, the Angel’s sword was somehow back in his hand. With a scream he stabbed at Moth and his red blade found its mark.

  Will’s heart went cold.

  Moth sank slowly
to his knees. The Angel pulled his blade free and stood over the archer.

  “Now you see, Nightwanderer,” Lotan said almost gently. “This is how all stories end. Die knowing you failed everyone you pledged to save.”

  He raised his blade for a final stroke but it did not fall. He had forgotten Will, who had crept close with his knife drawn. As Will sprang forward Lotan heard him and easily dodged his knife. But it was not meant for him: instead Will plunged the blade through the folds of his white cloak and into the ground.

  The shrowde shuddered and writhed like a blazing white fire. But it had been caught by the tip of Will’s blade and as Lotan leapt aside, the shrowde was torn away from him.

  The Angel stood uncloaked.

  Without the shrowde he was a gaunt form of rotting flesh and chain mail that had fused into one hideous mass of corruption. The thing that had once been a man raised its arm against the light of the setting sun, its face twisted with such absolute hatred that Will felt his courage wither as though it had been blasted by a fire. He let go of his knife and fell backwards.

  The shrowde tore free of Will’s blade, rose from the grass and flowed like a deadly fog over its master.

  “You … will suffer … agonies for this,” Lotan snarled. He advanced towards Will with his sword raised.

  There was a rush of wings, and from behind the Angel Morrigan swooped into the clearing, the gaal sword clutched in her talons. As she passed over her brother she let the blade fall. With a terrible cry Moth lurched to his feet, caught the sword as it fell and lunged.

  Lotan whirled to face this new threat but he was too late. With a sound like the hiss of hot metal plunged into icy water, the blade of gaal passed through him.

  To Will it seemed as if the world held its breath.

  Moth let go of the sword, stumbled away from his enemy, and fell to the earth. Lotan made no sound, but his flesh began to peel and blacken, like paper caught in a fire. He staggered forward, clutching at the blade that transfixed him, but he could not grasp it: already he was crumbling into shreds and pieces, his lifeless flesh cracking and falling away. After groping blindly about him, he gave up struggling at last. His arms fell to his sides. His face turned to Will and there was no hatred in it now. A pale light flared in the dead sockets of the eyes and then died. The breath fled in a long sigh.

  The Angel sank upon his own collapsing form like a pyre of dying coals.

  The shrowde itself churned and seethed like boiling water, then tore free of Lotan’s remains. It writhed in the air and then caught on the bare limb of a tree, where it went limp and stirred faintly in the wind.

  Flecks of ash whirled like funereal snowflakes. In another moment there was nothing left where Lotan had been but the gaal sword, lying on the grass amid a scattering of mirror shards. While Will gazed in stunned silence, the blade itself crumbled swiftly into dust.

  Will crawled to where Rowen lay, and she groaned, and stirred. She was still alive. Will bent close to her, heard the sound of her breathing. Then he rose and staggered over to Moth. The archer was lying with his head against a mossy stone. He was trembling and his breath came in wrenching gasps.

  Will knelt beside him, tears streaming down his face.

  “Moth,” he said, touching the archer’s cold hand. “I’ll find Master Pendrake. He’ll be able to help…”

  Moth’s eyes seemed to be searching for Will in shadows, and then they fixed on him. The archer smiled.

  “We are both going home, Will.”

  He shut his eyes and uttered a gasp of pain, his body wracked with tremors. When he opened his eyes again he looked past Will and tried to rise.

  “Is she here?” he asked. For an instant Will’s mind was blank, and then he thought of Morrigan. He searched for her, but by now the sun had set and the clearing was falling into deep shadow. There was no sign of the raven up in the trees, and then his eye was caught by a dark shape huddled in the grass near by. It was too large to be Morrigan, he thought, even though it seemed to be covered in black feathers. And then understanding dawned, and Will remembered the story of the Angel’s spell. He rose, went over to the huddled form, and knelt.

  “Morrigan?”

  The figure stirred and lifted its head. It was a young woman with long black hair, her face as thin and dusky as Moth’s. Her eyes burned and gazed past or through Will as if she could not see him. She was wrapped in a ragged cloak of black feathers and although beads of sweat were running down her face, she was shivering with cold.

  She’s dying too, Will thought. She carried the gaal sword without the sheath.

  He spoke her name again, as softly as he could, and at last she seemed to recognize him, and smiled. Then fear came into her eyes and she looked wildly around the glade.

  “He’s here,” Will said. He helped Morrigan rise and walk to her brother. She knelt beside him, and touched his forehead, and the tears slid down her face. Moth’s eyes opened and he saw her. He raised a hand to stroke her hair. Then a shudder ran through him and his hand dropped to his side. His breath came out in a long sigh, and his eyes grew fixed and unseeing.

  Morrigan lifted her brother’s hand to her face and tears fell upon it. She laid her head on his chest and wept.

  “I’ll find the others,” Will stammered, choking back tears. “I’ll get help.”

  He looked at Rowen once more, then turned away and ran into the forest, calling the names of the toymaker and Finn. He called and called until his voice cracked and gave out, and then he ran on silently, the tears blinding him so that he crashed into low branches and stumbled over roots. He ran on and on into the night, knowing that he was running from his own fear and grief, and that he was lost in an unknown land and he would never get home.

  At last, in the utter blackness, he tripped and fell. When he picked himself up, his head spinning, he heard soft voices and saw dim, drifting lights all around him. He shook his head and his sight cleared. The lights became a ring of tall, pale figures, slowly advancing towards him through the trees.

  Will’s only thought was that the fetches had found him again. He had run as far as he could, and it was not far enough. There was no place the Lord of Story could not reach. His last hope, his last strength slipped away. Shadows clouded his vision and he fell headlong into darkness.

  You will journey to strange storylands and meet folk unlike any you have ever seen. Do not think you can pass through these lands unchanged. They will work upon you like the wind and the rain and the long days of your solitary wandering. You will play a part in these tales and they will become part of you.

  — The Book of Errantry

  THERE WAS A GOLDEN LIGHT upon his eyelids, and the sound of birds singing.

  Will opened his eyes. Above him he saw what looked like wide sheets of patched green cloth, held up by poles of peeled white wood. In the centre of all this was a circle of blue sky. He was in some kind of tent with an open roof.

  He had been running from something… He was lost.

  There had to be more, but the memories lay just beyond his reach.

  Will sat up, wincing at the stiffness in his arms and legs. Near the pallet of thick quilts he was lying on sat a woman in a faded blue robe, tending a small fire. The odd thought came to him that she was neither young nor old, and in fact she seemed somehow difficult to see clearly. All he knew for certain was that he had never seen her before.

  When he moved the woman looked up and smiled.

  “Awake at last,” she said. “Your friends will be glad.” She poured a clear liquid from a jug on a small table, and brought it to him. He took the cup and looked into it, caught a faint bitter scent. Someone had given him a drink like this, not long ago…

  What he had been trying to remember returned to him like the cold bite of a blade.

  “Where is Moth?” he asked.

  The woman shook her head.

  “He is gone,” she said, and there was sadness in her voice. “His hurt was deep and could not be healed. Drink.
It will help you regain your strength.”

  Will took a sip of the liquid and then shook his head and fought back tears. He did not know where he was, but the woman was kind, and by the sound of her voice alone he knew she was not his enemy. From the look of her robe and the worn tent, he must have been found by a band of homeless, exiled folk, like those they had met on their way to Skald.

  Then another terrible memory came to him.

  “Your other companions are well and whole,” the woman said, as if she had read his thoughts. “Two of them are here with you.”

  Will looked up through his tears. The woman gestured to the far side of the tent and Will saw Shade there, curled up on a thick bed of straw, and beside him, on a pallet like his own, lay Rowen.

  “Are they…“

  “They are sleeping,” the woman said, and joy and relief flooded through Will. “The Companion was badly hurt, but he will mend. And the other one, the one who won’t listen to reason, is finally getting some rest. She was wounded, too, but still she insisted on staying awake at your side all through the night and most of this day. That is how long you have been asleep. You suffered great harm, more than you know, and you needed healing. It’s fortunate that you found us when you did.”

  “Master Pendrake, Finn, and Freya,” Will said. “Where are they?”

  “Not far away, I believe. Do you wish to see them?”

  Will nodded eagerly. He pulled off his blankets and now noticed that his clothes were fresh and spotlessly clean. He looked up at the woman.

  “Last night in the forest…” he began as he climbed from the pallet. “I thought you were—” He broke off, unable to name the horrors that seemed, in the light of day, like a fading nightmare. Then another thought occurred to him.

  “The Angel,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Is he really dead?”

  “The one given that name died a long time ago,” the woman said. “But his spirit at last knows rest. You are safe from his master, at least for a time. Go. I will watch over your friends.”