The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  “What?”

  Alyanna pursed her lips, and Keilan had the sense that she was deciding what he should know.

  “Tell me, please,” he begged. “If we’re going to stop these things then we should share our secrets.”

  Alyanna gave a little crooked smile. “I suppose you’re right, Keilan.” She sighed, running her fingers through her long black hair. “Where to begin? Perhaps . . . perhaps with what has already happened to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. A half-year ago, the world trembled. It was like a bell deep under the ground had sounded, and all the great Talents felt the vibrations. It was what brought you to the Crimson Queen’s attention.”

  Keilan remembered what Vhelan had told him long ago in the ruined city of Uthmala. The queen had noticed him when he’d done his dowsing aboard his father’s fishing boat. He’d pushed too far into the deep and disturbed one of the Ancients, a great beast that slumbered at the bottom of the ocean. It had come close to waking, and from what Vhelan had said, that would have brought about a cataclysm to rival what had happened a thousand years ago.

  “I can see in your face you know what I’m speaking about. You touched the Sleeper in the Deep with your sending. During the time of the Imperium, that creature lay at the bottom of a great lake, and the sorcerers of the Star Towers made sure that access to it was strictly controlled. No great Talents were allowed near the god-beast, except for a tiny order of sorcerous monks that lived on an island in the middle of the lake. Their duty was to make sure the Ancient stayed asleep.”

  “How did they do that?”

  “The Ancients are sensitive to those with Talent, just as those with Talent are sensitive to them. If their sleep is troubled, great sorcerers can soothe them into a deeper slumber . . . but they can also drag them towards wakefulness, if they are mad or foolish enough to do such a thing. No Ancient has ever come fully awake, to my knowledge. The sorcerers of the Star Towers believed that if that was ever to happen, the resulting destruction would end the age of man.”

  Keilan thought back to the memories Alyanna had just shared. The child had existed in some strange abyss, with a terrifying presence lurking below which must be pacified whenever it verged on waking . . .

  “You think these Chosen or Betrayers or whatever they are called were once tasked with keeping an Ancient asleep?”

  Alyanna nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Yes. And let us follow the other breadcrumbs that are scattered about. The child-demons came from the Empire of Swords and Flowers. They were Shan once. The Shan arrived in these lands fleeing a great devastation that destroyed their ancient homeland utterly. The Raveling, they called it.”

  “A cataclysm,” Keilan said softly.

  “Indeed. And from that glimpse into the memories of one of the Chosen, they were forced to appease one of the Ancients against their will. They were prisoners.”

  “But they woke the Ancient.”

  “It destroyed their lands.” Alyanna grimaced. “And now they are trying to wake another.”

  Surprise shivered through Keilan. “How do you know this?”

  “Something has been prying at the edges of the seal that imprisons the White Worm of the north. Not enough to wake the beast, but it has disturbed its sleep. I can feel it, and I’m sure Cein d’Kara has as well.”

  “That’s why the Betrayers are in the Frostlands,” Keilan said slowly.

  “Yes. And why we must go there quickly, so we can ally with the queen and her school of sorcerers.”

  Keilan shook his head, dazed by these revelations. “But why would the children do this?”

  “Revenge,” Alyanna replied. “Surely you felt the wrongness in that memory. Something terrible was done to them, and they want the world to share their pain.”

  Keilan thought back to the vision the Oracle had shown him. The shattered ruins of Menekar, all life extinguished. That was what they had to stop. Every city, every kingdom, ground to dust beneath the coils of the White Worm. He glanced again at Senacus, still snoring softly. The paladin had not trusted Niara, and in the end he’d been right. Yesterday he had begged Keilan not to join with Alyanna. But this was a greater threat than any lone sorcerer, no matter how wicked they were. This was the end of the world.

  “When do we leave?” he asked quietly.

  “Today,” Alyanna said, suddenly rising. “There is no more time to waste.”

  Marialle helped Keilan replenish their supplies, bringing up from her cellar several wheels of aged cheese, slices of dried fruit and mutton, and enough hard bread to keep hunger away for a fortnight. While they separated out everything into portions for each of their travel bags, Keilan told the farmer’s wife that Senacus’s presence here should be kept a secret, that there were enemies out there looking for him. She listened solemnly with wide eyes, and set down her knife to make the sign of Ama’s sun in the air in front of her. Then she swore on her children’s souls that they would tell no one about the Pure, and assured Keilan that Senacus could stay until he was fully recovered.

  It was late morning when it happened.

  Keilan was preparing a cold compress for the still-sleeping paladin, washing a cloth in the stream outside the farmhouse, when the first reverberations hit him. The air seemed to tremble, and a wave of prickling numbness washed through Keilan that was so strong he actually dropped the cloth in the water. Shaking, he checked the faded cut on his arm before bending to retrieve the cloth, fearing that another of his spells was coming on. His veins were fine, though, no sign of the blackness that had swollen them earlier in the day.

  Another great rush of sorcery, and his head spun. Keilan staggered away from the stream. What was this?

  Alyanna appeared in the doorway of the farmhouse, her hand on the frame to steady herself. The expression on her face was bleak.

  “What’s going on?” Keilan asked, stumbling towards her. He realized he’d dropped the compress again, but the thought of trying to find it in the grass was nauseating. It was all he could do to remain standing.

  Alyanna looked at him with hooded eyes, her mouth set in a thin line. “Something that has happened only once in the last century, and was vanishingly rare even before that. Two great Talents are fighting to the death. In the days of the Star Towers, we did not” —Alyanna grimaced, and shook her head as if to clear it— “we did not allow such conflict. Any sorcerers who unleashed this amount of power would be considered anathema and hunted down.”

  “When did it happen last?”

  Alyanna mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Only a few months ago. Atop the queen’s tower at Saltstone.”

  “Ah.” Keilan had been half-conscious elsewhere in the fortress, which must be why he’d never felt like this before.

  “This is greater than the duel between Cein d’Kara and myself. We were forced to focus our sorcery and keep it contained, lest we shatter the tower we stood upon. Whatever is happening in the north” —she winced as another wave washed over them, staggering Keilan— “is completely unfettered. The devastation must be awesome.”

  “Is it the queen?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  Keilan swallowed, staring off towards the north. “Then we are too late.”

  “It would appear so.”

  “Do you think she’ll win?”

  Alyanna shrugged. “She has great power, even for a Talent.”

  “She bested you.”

  Alyanna made a face. “With help. I was ambushed by several of her magisters – weak, pathetic creatures, but in a contest like that, any distraction can prove the difference.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We leave. Immediately. If the queen destroys the children, we can celebrate, but if she does not . . . then it still falls on us to stop the Ancient from awakening.”

  Cho Lin spent the rest of the day r
ecuperating from her ordeal. She’d escaped significant injury during her fight with the Flayed, and even the small cut on her cheek faded into nothingness a few hours after drinking a gulp of the silvery water at the shrouded statue’s feet. Most of what had been in the basin when she’d first come here had by now been consumed, but there was enough left that she made a short foray back into the ruins to search the corpses of the men she’d killed for any kind of container to store what remained.

  Cho Lin had half expected to find the plaza where she’d ambushed the Skein to be empty, their bodies swallowed by the dead city, but the Flayed and the priest were still there when she arrived, though now they were covered by a light dusting of snow. She searched for anything that could be of use, wrinkling her nose in disgust – the smell of spilled innards and voided bowels was bad enough, but the stench rising up from their greasy furs and matted hair was even more stomach-turning. She doubted any of these men had been washed since their mothers last dunked them squalling into a wash basin.

  On the body of the blond-bearded giant she found a stoppered wine skin – at least she thought it was wine, until she unsealed the top and took a quick sniff. The spirit inside was strong enough that the smell made her eyes water and her nose itch, but still she emptied out the skin’s contents into the snow and tucked the container inside her own furs. This was not a time to be squeamish. Scavenging from the other Flayed yielded a few pieces of dried and salted meat – horse, by the smell of it – and an assortment of coins and other treasures: a small gold figurine of a serpent that looked like it had once been part of a tzalik set, a knife with a silver hilt inset with moonstones, and, to her great surprise, a jade hairpin that looked to be of Shan make that one of the warriors had been using to secure his rucksack. Cho Lin would have preferred to not take from the men she’d slain – this was the way most vengeful spirits tracked their killers – but she suspected having some things to trade would improve her chances of surviving the Frostlands.

  When she returned to the sanctuary to which the Pale Lady had led her, Cho Lin devoured the food she’d taken from the Bhalavan, saving the horse jerky for a later time. If she had been told as a young girl that one day she would be stripping meat from bones discarded by barbarians and savoring every bite, she never would have believed such a thing. Yet here she was, licking cold grease from her fingers and wishing she’d scrounged more scraps from the feast hall.

  After her belly had finally quieted, she spent some time cleaning her butterfly swords. She used snow that had drifted in through the hole in the ceiling to rub the gore from the blades and where it had collected in the etchings of the intricately carved ivory handles. This made her think of Verrigan, standing at the balustrade above the pit, having just thrown down these swords. There was no doubt that he had saved her then, just as he had saved her when she’d been ambushed by the wraiths. Cho Lin wondered what had happened to him. Some terrible punishment, most likely, and she felt a pang of sadness. He must have known that helping her would be his death, and yet he had done it anyway. Her fingers traced the contours of a tiny wolf’s head engraved into the hilt. In Shan, wolves and dogs were symbols of loyalty, and Verrigan had been a true and loyal friend. She would not let his sacrifice be in vain.

  The fragments of sky visible through the broken roof darkened while she rested and recovered her strength. By the time the first glimmering stars had emerged, she felt better than she had in many days – the hollow ache in her belly had been assuaged, the wounds she’d received in the arena and fighting the Flayed were nothing more than a distant memory, and for the first time since she had woken to find Jan had slipped away from her she had a clear direction in which to travel. She must bring the remnants of her family’s sword to the Crimson Queen and see if the blade could be reforged, and also inform the sorceress of the Betrayers’ desire to wake the great beast in the north.

  Cho Lin thought back to her own journey through the Frostlands. It had taken her ten days on horseback to reach Nes Vaneth after she’d passed through the Bones, and she would have to assume that the Dymorian army the priest had spoken of would not march too deeply into these inhospitable lands. She would need supplies and a horse if she wanted to entertain any realistic hope of surviving the Frostlands and reaching the queen.

  Finally, when the night was at its darkest, she was ready to leave this place. The bundle with the shards of her father’s sword was slung across her shoulder; the skin she’d scavenged was filled to the brim with the healing water; and her butterfly swords were again at her side. She even pulled back and bound her hair with the jade pin she’d found. She felt like she had been truly reborn in this place. Before she departed through the shattered wall, she stood before the statue and placed her hand on the shrouded girl’s damp cheek.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and it might have been her imagination, but she felt like there was a presence watching her in the chamber.

  Cho Lin slipped from the crumbled building and into the tangled streets of Nes Vaneth. The moon was hidden behind a veil of clouds, draping the ruined city in shadows. Once, the darkness might have frightened her, but even though she knew this place was haunted, she did not think the spirits that persisted here wished her ill. They mourned what was lost, yet they did not covet what the living had, unlike the hungry ghosts of the Shan. Cho Lin searched for any glimpses of the Pale Lady as she passed through the ruins, but the spirit that had saved her and shown her the secrets of the city did not reveal itself.

  She retraced her way back to the great avenue that led to the Bhalavan, and then cautiously approached the darkened feast hall. No light spilled from the cracked-open doors, but torches had been set in the snow near the entrance, and Cho Lin noticed several dark shapes slouching in the shadows. Someone had wisely posted guards since she had been here last. Cho Lin frowned, uncertain what she should do. There was nothing she needed in the Bhalavan, but the stables were beside the feast hall, and she doubted she could lead a horse down the avenue without being seen. Still, she needed a mount. Braving the Frostlands without a horse would be suicide.

  Keeping far from the edges of the puddles of light cast by the torches, Cho Lin crept towards the long, ruined building the Skein used as a stable. Offering up a quick prayer to the Four Winds that she would not be noticed, she dashed inside, quiet as a hunting cat. No cries went up behind her, and she let out a sigh of relief – just before her foot kicked something soft curled among a pile of hay and rags. The shape grunted, and before whoever it was could come fully awake Cho Lin threw herself down on top of them, the jeweled dagger she’d taken from the Skein in her hand. She was just about to plunge the blade down when she realized from the high-pitched gasp and slender limbs that this was only a boy. Cursing her luck, she pinned the thrashing shape, covering the boy’s mouth so he couldn’t scream.

  “Quiet,” she hissed in Menekarian, laying the steel of her dagger against his neck, “or I’ll cut your throat.”

  Cho Lin wasn’t sure if the boy understood her words, but the prick of the metal must have conveyed what she wanted, as he went very still. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath her as he drew in deep, panicked breaths.

  What did she do now? She didn’t want to kill a child. But without a horse there was no hope of her reaching the Dymorian army and the queen. Could she keep him quiet? Or should she take him with her, and then release him when she’d at least put a few leagues between her and the city? Whatever she decided, she needed to do it quickly.

  The boy had mastered his breathing, and he didn’t seem like he was about to scream a warning. Quite a brave lad, Cho Lin admitted.

  He mumbled something into her palm. Cho Lin bit down on her lip, unsure what she should do. The boy tried to talk again, and Cho Lin increased the pressure of the blade on his neck.

  “I’m going to remove my hand,” she said, imparting as much menace as she could into her words. “Speak softly.”

&
nbsp; She lifted her hand, readying herself to slash his throat if he began to yell.

  “I know you,” the boy whispered. “You Shan.”

  “Yes, me Shan,” replied Cho Lin.

  “You see me.”

  That surprised Cho Lin, though certainly she’d seen hundreds of Skein in her days in the Bhalavan.

  “Uncle give me your horse. I take horse here.”

  For a moment she was confused, and then she remembered the boy that had dashed up to Verrigan when they’d first arrived at the Bhalavan. He’d said the boy was his nephew, and the memory of him tousling the boy’s hair affectionately made her breath catch in her throat.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I remember.”

  “I hear . . .” His voice trailed away, and she could hear his pain. “I hear Uncle give you swords. Throw down, then you kill demon.”

  Cho Lin nodded, though she wasn’t sure if he could see this in the dark. “Your uncle was a friend.”

  The boy shifted under her slightly. “I no say you here. Promise.”

  Something in the way he said this convinced her, and she pushed herself from the boy, then reached down to help him stand.

  “Your uncle . . . is he . . .”

  The shadow shook its head, and her heart fell.

  “The priest . . . he . . .” The boy could not finish, and Cho Lin had to restrain herself from leaning forward to comfort him.

  “I must leave the city,” she said instead. “Your uncle was a good man. He saved me then, but now I need your help.”

  The boy was quiet for a moment. “What you want?”

  “A horse. And a way so that the men outside do not see me when I leave.”

  Cho Lin tensed as the boy’s hand closed around her wrist, but it was only so he could lead her deeper into the stables. Even in the dark she could tell that most of the makeshift stalls were empty, though the smell of horse was overwhelming. The Skein were apparently not so concerned with keeping their stables well mucked.