The Shadow King

by Alec Hutson

  Jan and Cein d’Kara were, like him, also kneeling in the chamber, though their backs were arched and their heads thrown back, as if gripped by a terrible force. They both stared forward sightlessly, their lips slightly parted, and beneath their sallow skin were the shadows of dark lines. Behind each of them stood one of the Chosen, their hands reaching around to rest upon their faces. Where those corpse-pale fingers were splayed, the black veins were darkest, radiating out like cracks in broken porcelain.

  “Your Highness?” Keilan whispered, but the queen made no indication that she could hear him. Her once-beautiful red hair was matted and snarled, and dirt smudged her pale cheeks. If it were not for the tattered remnants of her royal finery, just noticeable beneath the furs draped over her, she would have looked like one of the ragged street urchins Keilan had seen in the streets of Herath.

  “Jan?” he tried, but the immortal was lost in the same dark sorcery as the queen. He was barely recognizable as the handsome, confident sorcerer who had cut such a dashing figure in Saltstone. He looked to have aged a decade in the months since Keilan had last seen him, his bones etched stark against his skin and his one visible eye deeply sunken. Livid red scars covered half of his face; Vhelan had told Keilan how the Chosen had struck Jan down beneath Nes Vaneth, but the wounds were worse than he’d imagined.

  “He was the only one following us?” the Skein shaman asked.

  the scent of the sorceress who first freed us is heavy on him. she is here as well.

  “She must have power, to enter the Worm. This child could not survive the city on his own.”

  she is dangerous. after the barrier is breached we will hunt for her.

  “And will I be rewarded with her as well?”

  Sharp hissing rose from the Chosen. no. consume these sorcerers, but she is ours.

  The shaman inclined his head, but Keilan caught the faintest trace of a grimace on his lips.

  she will be coming here. we must finish quickly.

  “Then let us begin,” the shaman said, turning away as he faced the great door.

  Keilan tried to stand, but a small hand fell upon his shoulder and forced him back to his knees. He cried out as his bones creaked under the crushing strength; he felt the presence of the Chosen standing behind him, but he could not see what it was doing. He ignored the pain and reached for his sorcery, but he lost all semblance of control as another of the demon’s hands reached around to touch him on the cheek. Searing cold flooded his body and he tried to scream, but he could summon nothing past his numb lips. Shadows gathered on the edges of his vision, squirming like the tendrils of monstrous things. He could feel the Chosen. It was inside him, wriggling beneath his skin, reveling in his terror and helplessness. Against his will he was falling within himself, tumbling into nothing, the chamber at the center of the Worm becoming a dwindling point of light.

  It guttered and went out, and the darkness consumed him.

  daughter of cho xin.

  The words were Shan, spoken with an archaic lilt. Cho Lin retreated as the Betrayer stepped from the shadows, drawing her black knife and holding it like she would one of her butterfly swords.

  “Daughter of Cho Yuan,” she corrected it, as calmly as she could with her heart thundering in her chest. She wasn’t sure what she had expected – something monstrous, given what these creatures had done. Yet it looked like nothing more than the drowned corpse of a child, its pale flesh marred by swollen black veins, its dark clothes hanging in tattered strips.

  daughter of shan.

  “I am,” she agreed fiercely. “And I am your doom, demon.”

  The Betrayer’s blackened lips curled back from yellow teeth. It brushed away the ragged dark hair covering its face, and Cho Lin saw the empty pools of darkness where its eyes had once been. As it lifted its head slightly, she also glimpsed the ragged wound across its neck where a blade had sliced its flesh, purple and livid.

  She remembered memories that were not her own. An ancient sorcerer in snow-white robes leading a small boy towards a blood-stained rock. The flash of a dagger and the child’s life spilling out in that terrible cavern. A ghost huddled in the darkness, sobbing.

  “You are him,” she said softly. “The last of them. The one that freed the others. You started all this.”

  we did not start anything. we are the end, not the beginning.

  “The Shadow King. Do you call yourself that because you do not know your own name?”

  The veins beneath the child’s skin writhed. everything we had was stolen.

  Its bare feet whispered as it approached her with slow, measured steps. Cho Lin reached for the Nothing within her Self, every detail of this moment sharpening. Behind her, she heard the rumble of the waterfall as it emptied into the lake. The clotting rot of this thing filled her nose, sickly sweet beneath the pungent, festering smell of the Worm’s flesh.

  She lunged, slashing with the black knife.

  Keilan floated in the emptiness.

  He had been here before, or somewhere very much like it. A vast, oppressive darkness, though it was total no longer, as the hovering point of light had flared again. If he concentrated on this pinprick, peering at the scene beyond, he could see a man standing in front of a great black door, his arms upraised.

  This was important, though it took him a frustrating moment to remember why.

  The shaman and the Worm. One of the monstrous children had touched him and he’d fallen within himself. Into the Deep, where monsters dwelled.

  And one was here with him now.

  Keilan could sense something drifting nearby, lost in the blackness. Pulses of cold air washed over him, and he had the feeling of being observed.

  “Hello?” Keilan cried out, and his voice returned to him in a hollow echo.

  The pale face of a child emerged from the dark, followed by a black-threaded hand. It reached out and gripped his arm; he tried to pull away, but the fingers were sunk into his flesh. No blood welled up, nor did he feel any pain.

  “What are you doing?” he cried, frantically attempting to escape. The child ignored his struggles, pulling him closer, and for the first time he clearly saw the face behind the tangled hair.

  He knew it.

  “Ko Yan,” he stammered, but there was no flicker of recognition in the child’s face. “Please. Don’t do this.”

  The Chosen brought its other hand up, reaching towards his head.

  “Stop. I know you’re in there . . . stop!”

  Clammy fingers touched his lips. He turned his head away, trying to keep his mouth closed. Keilan battered at the Chosen, prying desperately at the demon’s fingers, but it was like trying to bend iron. With implacable strength it worked first its fingers into his mouth, then its entire hand. Keilan gagged, overwhelmed by the horror of what was happening.

  The Chosen reached down his throat and seized his sorcery.

  Slowly, it withdrew its arm, and when its hand slipped free, Keilan saw that it gripped a shimmering strand, and he knew this extended back down into his gut, into his core where the forces of the Void welled up. He felt his sorcery unspool deep inside him, drawn forth by the child demon, and then it was fed into the mote of light hovering in the darkness. Something on the other side grabbed it roughly and yanked hard.

  His sorcery was no longer his own.

  The hand on his arm disappeared, but he was still firmly in the grip of the demon.

  “Ko Yan,” he cried, surprised he could still talk with the torrent of sorcery flowing from his mouth. “You had a brother! You went swimming with him in the river! Your mother sang to you!”

  Keilan trembled as the fire swelled inside him. He reached out to the blank face of the Chosen, but its dead eyes watched him without mercy.

  The Betrayer leapt away with preternatural quickness, and the black knife carved the air a half-span from its savaged
neck. It landed on all fours, its limbs bent awkwardly, and scuttled backwards before rising to its feet again. Even with Cho Lin’s hold on the Nothing the child seemed to move with frightening speed. It watched the dark-threaded blade in her hand with wary caution as it began to circle her.

  “You fear this?” she taunted, flourishing the knife. “It has already ended one of you today.”

  it smells like our flesh and blood. the old blood, the first flesh.

  “From when you were just children. Innocents. Apprentices of Lo Jin.”

  The Betrayer’s face contorted, the black lines that fractured its face writhing. he said he was our father

  “And he murdered you. I saw. It was a terrible crime.”

  the anger, the hate. It burned a hole in our prison and we were changed by what we found on the other side.

  Cho Lin licked her lips, edging closer. Keep it talking. If she could distract the demon for just a moment she could end this nightmare. She tensed, the strength of the Nothing coiling inside her like a serpent ready to strike.

  “You have had your revenge. You killed Lo Jin. Every Shan who was alive when your spirits were first bound is now dead.”

  the rage still burns. it will not be extinguished until all men suffer like we do.

  The bone amulet suddenly pulsed, warmth spreading from where it lay against her skin. The Betrayer had tried to use some sorcery, but this relic of the northern god had protected her. Cho Lin thought she saw the child hesitate, as if surprised that its power had slid away from her, and she used that moment to explode forward. All her years of training – in the gardens of the emperor by the Tainted Sword her father had hired, in the halls of Red Fang against the finest warriors in the world – were channeled into this one strike. She had never moved faster in her life, the world blurring around her, every shred of her being focused on the corpse child.

  The Betrayer flowed out of the way. Cho Lin stumbled forward, caught off balance by the sudden movement. She lashed out awkwardly with the blade, hoping to catch it by surprise, but again struck nothing.

  Long nails raked her arm and the black knife was ripped from her fingers. It tumbled end over end and splashed into the dark pool, instantly vanishing. Cho Lin barely had enough time to comprehend what had just happened when more burning lines opened in her belly. She fell, landing flat on her back, her hands going to her stomach.

  “Oh,” she said softly, trying to keep her insides from sliding out. Warmth gushed between her fingers, making them sticky.

  She stared up at the ceiling of the chamber, her vision fading, and then the Chosen was there, crouched above her. She felt herself being pulled into the endless black abyss of its eyes. Cold fingers pushed past her hands, reaching into her belly.

  I’m sorry, Father.

  He had been emptied, hollowed out. All the sorcery that had pooled deep within him had been drawn forth and fed into the man outside. The point of light had swelled larger even as the thread of power grew more attenuated, until Keilan could clearly see what was happening in the chamber with the iron door. The emaciated Skein blazed with the power of four Talents, a roiling maelstrom of sorcery. Near him, their faces sallow and slack, Jan and the queen stared sightlessly. Even drained of their power, the Chosen were still holding them in thrall.

  The Skein began to weave, braiding countless strands of sorcery into a shimmering tapestry. Keilan was awed by the skill the sorcerer displayed; somehow, he was keeping track of hundreds of threads simultaneously. His movements became faster, the spell reaching a crescendo, and then he extended his arms towards the door and a hurricane of raw power erupted from his outstretched hands.

  The door shattered. Glowing cracks spread through the black iron, and then it crumbled, chunks of metal spilling across the floor. The Skein swayed and then fell to one knee. Wearily, he raised his head, and Keilan could see his back rising and falling like he was taking great, gulping breaths. The raging sorcery that had filled him was gone; he must have thrown all his strength – and the strength of Keilan, Jan and the queen – against the barrier. Slowly he rose to his feet.

  Keilan couldn’t see what had been revealed beyond the door – the sorcerer was partly blocking his view – but it looked like a black tunnel. He strained towards the light, yet the grip on his arm was unrelenting. He had a terrible sense that once the Skein passed beyond the broken door there could be no way to stop the cataclysm he had seen in the coral temple.

  “Ko Yan,” he pleaded, turning away from the light and staring into the child’s empty eyes. “Let me go. Wan Ying wants this, not you. Not you.”

  Her hold did not slacken.

  “You are Ko Yan,” he continued, desperate. “We stood on a beach.” Keilan reached down, searching for the hand that hung at her side. He found her cold fingers and twined them with his own, as he’d done in the dream they’d shared on the shore of the Broken Sea. Surprisingly, she did not pull away.

  “You said it was beautiful.”

  The light suddenly swelled until it enveloped him, and when he blinked away the spots in his vision he realized that he was again kneeling in the chamber. His mind had been returned to his body.

  The feeling of the Chosen’s fingers on his cheek was gone, but he could sense its cold presence. A quick glance to his side showed him that Jan and the queen were still lost to the demons hovering behind them, their skin threaded with blackness and their eyes staring blankly ahead.

  The Skein shaman had paused for a brief moment at the threshold to examine the glowing remnants of the door he had just split asunder.

  Keilan lurched to his feet.

  The sound made the Skein whirl around, and he brought up his hands as Keilan stumbled across the chamber towards him.

  Keilan screamed in rage, expecting to be enveloped in flame or struck down by lightning, but nothing flashed from the Skein’s fingers.

  The shaman must have used all his sorcery to tear down the door, Keilan realized, ripping his sword from its sheath. He had done what Alyanna had warned Keilan never to do – pour all his strength into a single spell.

  The unnaturally blue eyes of the Skein widened in shock as Keilan plunged his blade into the sorcerer’s chest. There was a moment of resistance as the point of the sword struck something hard, then that gave way and the length of steel sank halfway to its hilt. Keilan lost his grip on the sword as the sorcerer was driven backwards a few steps and then tripped over one of the scraps of metal that had once been the door. The Skein went sprawling, the blade pushed entirely through his thin body. Blood poured from the wound, darkening his already black robes; the sorcerer’s fingers were wrapped around the hilt, as if he was trying to pull the sword from his chest, but whatever strength was in his thin limbs had fled. When he realized the blade would not move, he raised his head, staring at Keilan with blazing hatred and baring red-stained teeth.

  Then a shudder passed through him, his hands slipping from the outstretched silver wings of the sword’s hilt.

  Keilan stood over the sorcerer, his chest heaving. He had reacted without thinking, desperate to keep the Skein from passing through the shattered door.

  Slowly, Keilan turned back to the Chosen. He let out a long, shuddering breath, certain that the demons would end his life in the next heartbeat.

  But they had remained where they were. Two of the Chosen still stood behind Jan and the queen, but they had turned their heads and were now staring at their sister, the one who had released Keilan. And she was staring back at them, her dead face expressionless.

  The pain was unbearable. It rippled through her in pulsing waves, radiating from the hand that had been plunged into her abdomen. Cold fingers fluttered inside her, plucking and prodding at things that were not meant to be touched. Cho Lin mewled from the agony, weakly pulling at the Betrayer’s arm with blood-stained hands. The demon ignored her. Its thin lips were pursed and its empty eye so
ckets slightly narrowed, as if it were a master artisan concentrating to ensure its work turned out perfect.

  She realized she was crying when the tears fell from her cheeks and trickled down her throat. There was a flame in her belly, eating away at her from the inside. She was going to be consumed, burned to ash by this thing, this monster that had haunted her family for a thousand years. Cho Lin moaned, turning her head to stare out upon the glistening black lake. Her father stood in the liquid up to his waist; he had unbound his long hair, and it fell in a dark river over his shoulders. Behind him were arrayed a dozen more figures, all men. All silent, all watching.

  “I’m sorry,” Cho Lin whispered, then closed her eyes and moaned as a sharper pain pierced her stomach. She felt the Betrayer’s hand withdraw from her.

  Fighting back the haze that was threatening to carry her away, she focused on the demon crouched above. The hand that had been inside her now hung suspended over her, dribbling gore onto her tunic. The Betrayer looked distracted. It had turned its head, peering into the shadows of the chamber, its corpse-pale face creased in confusion. But there was nothing there. Somewhere else, something unexpected had happened.

  Cho Lin slipped her shaking hand to her waist. Her fingers sought and found what she’d thrust into her belt. Metal sliced her flesh, and fresh blood flowed forth. The Betrayer did not seem to notice, continuing to stare at something only it could see.

  Cho Lin withdrew the last shard of the Sword of Cho and with all her remaining strength jabbed it into the hand of the Betrayer.

  The sorceress had said its power was gone. That the soul of the poor girl who had helped usher in the Raveling a thousand years ago had finally gone to her rest. Cho Lin expected nothing except for the demon to realize that she was not broken, not bowed. That she would pass beyond the Veil raging against the dark.