Lord of Shadows

by Alix Rickloff

  His eyes grew steadily wider as she spoke. His concentration almost visible in the keenness of his gaze. “You . . . but . . . how . . .” He seemed to ponder her confession, tapping his chin. Mumbling to himself. “Think, Brendan . . . that would mean . . .”

  “You don’t think I’m mad, do you? Or that Máelodor’s spells have infected me with some evil magic?”

  He focused back on her with a start as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Mad? Who called you mad?”

  “Aidan said—”

  Brendan snorted. “You know our brother’s opinion of magic. I’m sure it hasn’t changed much since I last saw him. No, Sabrina, you’re not mad. I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but it’s rare. There are few Other who can pass through time. The true Fey guard that power fiercely.”

  “I can’t pass through any time. Only his time. His memories. And I don’t do it intentionally. It just happens.”

  Pent-up frustration and fear spewed out of her in a torrent of explanation and conjecture and worry and grief until sobs choked off her words. Brendan was as good as his word. He listened to everything, interrupting only to ask a question here. Obtain a clarification there.

  Rain dripped puddles across the floor and their breath fogged the chilly air. Brendan’s shaking intensified, fatigue and sickness carving deep lines into his face. But the scholar’s light burned intensely in his eyes.

  “He uses memory as a way to fight his bondage? Incredible. Nothing like that was recorded in the texts.” His finger’s tapping sped up. “Could Daigh be pulling you in unintentionally as he fights Máelodor’s control?”

  “How?”

  “You’ve said just before it occurs, you experience a surge of emotion to the point where your normal empathic gift is flooded. Like a dam releasing a wall of water.”

  “But how are the two connected?”

  “Suppose he’s opening the door with the force of his emotions and, without even knowing it, you’re falling through.”

  “How do I stop it from happening?”

  His nervous tapping stopped, his expression at once both sympathetic and fearful. “Once Máelodor arrives, I don’t expect it will be a problem.”

  She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. Stared up at the rain-streaked window, numbness stealing over her with every moment passed in horrible uncertainty.

  He broke the silence first. “You never answered my original question.”

  She lifted tired, burning eyes to her brother.

  “Was St. John speaking truth when he called you MacLir’s lover?”

  She faced him defiantly. “He was.”

  He exhaled on a sad sigh, rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, shaking his head. “Oh, Sabrina.”

  “Have I shocked you? Are you disgusted that a sister of yours could lay with a man unwed? That no proper gentleman shall want to marry me now that I’m ruined?”

  “No, I worry over the sorrow still lying in your future.”

  “Daigh hopes to provoke Máelodor into killing him.” Her words seemed to reverberate in the air like an echo.

  Brendan’s mouth thinned to a white-rimmed line. “Death would be preferable. But I fear it is an impossible hope.”

  But did Brendan refer to Daigh’s hopes or his own?

  The coach drew up in the muddy farmyard of a ramshackle cottage. Chickens scattered. A skinny dog strained at the end of a rope, barking ferociously. Smoke rose in a thin, white trail from a sprouting, sagging thatched roof.

  Máelodor emerged from the conveyance as a rangy, bearded man strode from the barn, hollering for silence. Catching sight of the coach, he gave one last swiping kick to the dog before dashing through the rain to the house. Ducking his head inside, shouting the news.

  St. John appeared at the door, shrugging into his coat, an obsequious smile of welcome upon his flushed, sweat-glistened face. “Great One, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. I would have prepared more suitable arrangements.”

  Máelodor clutched the stick, excitement warming a body forever cold. “Douglas. He’s here. In Glenlorgan. I’ve seen it for myself.”

  St. John’s smile widened, though it never reached his eyes. “He’s closer than that. He’s within. I captured him four days ago.”

  Could retribution finally be at hand? Máelodor’s heart lurched wildly, his skin hot, then cold. His lungs pumped as he wheezed, “Show me.”

  “There’s someone else you may want to see first.”

  St. John lent Máelodor his arm. Led him through the front door into a sparsely furnished room. A few broken sticks of furniture. A table upon which someone’s dinner congealed. A fire burning down to a few red embers in the grate. And a man filling a far doorway, his face black as a storm cloud, carved in graven lines.

  Máelodor clutched St. John’s arm tightly. “Lazarus.”

  The man’s throat worked, his hands clenched to fists, his whole body quivering with repulsion, rage, and despair.

  Máelodor feasted upon these dark emotions. Used them to begin re-creating the subtle connections that would bring the Domnuathi to heel.

  Lazarus’s face went blank, his mind slamming shut against Máelodor’s prying. Even now, attempting to defy his master. To become what he could never be. Human. Free.

  Máelodor probed deeper, coming up against the same entrenched wall where no mage energy dared cross. Surprised by the strength of this defiance, he retreated. Let Lazarus feel a moment’s success. Then with a signal to St. John, who nodded his understanding, he tried one final time.

  The tendrils of his mind lashed out, catching hold of the soldier of Domnu. But this time St. John added his strength to Máelodor’s. The Amhas-draoi’s battle magic caught Lazarus square in the chest, driving the breath from his lungs, singing nerves. He collapsed on a howl of anguish, setting off a renewal of the dog’s frenzied barking. His break in concentration momentary, but long enough for Máelodor’s needs.

  Máelodor burrowed deep, filling the hollows in Lazarus’s mind with his coiled awareness. The serpent’s presence unshakeable and unending. And when Lazarus looked again upon his master’s face, there was nothing left behind the Domnuathi’s black gaze but death.

  Sabrina felt a jerk upon her mind, fog seeping across her vision. She shouted for Brendan, grabbing his hand as she plunged into the sucking dark.

  The air cleared, her eyes adjusting slowly. She lay in a warm bed, Daigh’s body pressed against her back, cradling her close. One hand splayed over her belly, his breath soft upon her neck.

  “A girl child as strong-willed and feisty as her mother,” he murmured, his touch igniting a fire between her thighs. “I’ll be back before your time, and we shall welcome her together.”

  Salty tears slid into her mouth. Stained her pillow. He would not see his child. He would not return.

  This was the end.

  A great roaring filled her ears, the fog enveloping her like a shroud. The bed, the room, the world dragged ever downward until nothing remained but a void of endless black.

  The roaring pressed against her brain. Squeezed her organs. Rattled her bones and shook her blood. She sought to clamp her hands to the sides of her head. Felt the heated grip of Brendan’s fingers once more threaded with her own.

  She opened her eyes, but the roaring continued. Only now she recognized it for what it was. Screaming. On and on. An endless, anguished howl battering her mind, the fiery unblinking eyes of a serpent stripping all before it, coils wrapping round and round as walls crumbled, ramparts collapsed, retreat impossible.

  This was the end.

  How long had he been unconscious? Long enough for someone to drag him here. Dump him on the bed to recover, but the rank odors emanating from the thin, soiled sheets made vomit rise into his raw throat. Gagging against the spasms, he forced himself up to shaky feet. Scrubbed a hand over his face as if he might wipe away the shame.

  He closed his eyes, knowing he’d sacrificed the last and most precious memory he possessed and still it had no
t been enough. Sabrina was lost to him. And he had failed her.

  He peeled back his sleeve. The brand burned as if a million stinging ants lived beneath his skin. He dug at it until blood welled from the long rakes left by his nails, but the crescent pierced by the broken arrow remained visible. Nothing could erase Máelodor’s mark of ownership. Nothing could tear the mage from his mind where his serpent’s fangs had now sunk deep enough that only death could shake him loose.

  “Douglas remains stubborn.” St. John lounged in the doorway, spearing Daigh with a lecherous smile, his gaze sliding over him with greasy enjoyment.

  Daigh clenched his teeth and ignored him. What did it matter now? “Douglas will die rather than surrender the location of the stone. His honor demands no less.”

  “He’s a traitor,” St. John snapped to attention. “He has no honor.”

  “From one who knows.”

  St. John’s face went pale, his eyes sharp as cut glass. “My loyalty is to my race. That is the only trust that matters. Arthur’s return will bring about a new celebrated chapter in a history gone sour and forgotten.”

  “Or it shall bring death and destruction and an end to any chance for peace between Other and Duinedon.”

  “Enough conversation.” St. John tossed the billhook upon the bed. “You may need this yet. Máelodor commands your presence immediately.”

  Daigh bowed his head. “I am his to order.”

  “If you don’t want more of the same, you’d do well to remember that, my beautiful beast.” St. John’s smile returned, brighter than before, his lips brushing Daigh’s cheek as he passed.

  He never even flinched. “It is all I can remember. All I have left.”

  Máelodor gazed upon the tapestry spread out before him, staring at the interwoven flowers with a frightening light in his eyes. “You’ve done well, St. John. I’m more than convinced you will make a most competent lieutenant for the new king’s reign. He shall come to value your support as I do.”

  St. John gave a brief bow. “I’m honored at the confidence you’ve placed in me. I vow to serve my new king as I have served you, Great One. With all my being.”

  Máelodor’s lips peeled back from his mouth in a reptilian grimace, his hand fondling the head of his cane. “With the Rywlkoth Tapestry in my possession, there is but one final missing piece. And that too shall be ours soon enough.” He hobbled toward the stairs. “Come.”

  Daigh fell in behind them, his mind alive with an oppressive feeling of impending oblivion. The presence swelled to a crackling roar. Drowned out his questions with certainties of its own. Scoured his mind clean of doubt. Of compassion. And finally—of humanity.

  The upper passage lay scattered with refuse, one gaping doorway revealing a chamber filthy with blankets, old food, a bucket catching drips from the leaking roof in a steady stream, the scattered remnants of a dice game. St. John passed it by with barely a glance. Came to the next, jamming a key into the lock. Opening the door with a screech of rusty hinges.

  This chamber reeked with vomit and piss. Only the breeze whistling through the badly chinked walls and a cracked window kept the air from growing suffocatingly foul.

  Daigh kept his eyes off the woman huddled on the rough straw pallet, though he felt her presence like a knife pressed to his throat. Instead, he focused on Douglas. His bruises had been added to since Daigh’s last visit, the marks vivid against the chalky white of his face. An arm rested close against his side, his splinted hand black and purple and curled clawlike into his palm. But his eyes when they fell upon Máelodor narrowed with deadly intensity.

  “Back so soon?” he chided from a swollen, bloodied mouth. “I’d have thought you and your pet Amhas-draoi might have some new fun planned. Drowning puppies? Beating up grandmothers? The possibilities are endless.”

  Máelodor’s wreckage of a body straightened. Shoulders thrown back, head high. Shedding for a few brief moments, the age and infirmity as he regarded Douglas with a contemptuous sneer. “Always the jokester. That tongue shall get you in trouble if you’re not careful.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Máelodor’s gaze shifted toward Sabrina. “But shall you risk your sister?”

  Brendan blanched.

  “That’s right. It’s all very well to play the hero with your own life, but if she were to suffer for your continued silence?”

  “I’ll answer for my own crimes. Not her.”

  “Your father was so proud of you, but surely you knew that. He held you up as proof of Other supremacy in general and Douglas superiority to be specific. The Fey blood ran hot in you. Powerful.”

  Brendan’s lips pinched tight, his expression hardening.

  Máelodor shook his head with mock sorrow. “I can only imagine what his disillusionment was when he realized it was you who betrayed him to his death.”

  Sabrina uttered a strangled gasp.

  “What’s this? Your sister doesn’t know? Aye, Lady Sabrina, it was your brother and Kilronan’s favorite son who betrayed us all to the Amhas-draoi. I suspected it but had no proof. And would Kilronan hear my warnings? He accused me of jealousy. Ignored me. And in doing so, sealed his fate. And that of us all.”

  Brendan focused on Máelodor with enough venom in his gaze to kill. “It was a lost cause then, and it’s a lost cause now. The Duinedon will fight with every weapon at their disposal.”

  “Perhaps, but their numbers have been sorely depleted in this century of war. Their soldiers are weary. The people dispirited with their current rulers. They want peace. Prosperity. A new beginning. Arthur can give them that. He can restore the world as it was in the Lost Days.”

  Brendan’s defiance mounted, though he had not once looked to Sabrina. As if afraid of the emotion he might encounter. “Even weakened as you claim, the Duinedon are still strong enough to defeat us. We can’t hope to succeed against their numbers. You’ll have brought the High King back to certain slaughter and ignoble defeat.”

  “There are those who could be brought to fight on our side. For the price of their freedom.”

  Daigh hadn’t thought it possible for Douglas to go any whiter, but his whole face seemed to collapse, his body crushed by this revelation. “They can’t survive in this world. You know that.”

  “Not in their current form. But if presented with human hosts . . .”

  “You’re mad. Their fealty will last only as long as their prison walls.” He sought St. John’s aid. “What he proposes is madness.”

  St. John lashed out with a boot, sending Douglas sprawling. “A chance I’m willing to take.”

  Máelodor raised a hand. “Enough. My powers are not so lacking, son of Kilronan. And with your help, I will be greater still.”

  “It won’t work,” Douglas muttered.

  “Give me the location of the Sh’vad Tual, and we shall see who is right and who is wrong.”

  “Never.”

  Máelodor motioned Daigh forward. “Kill her,” he ordered. “Douglas needs to see his sister die and know he could have stopped it had he only been more cooperative.”

  “You kill her and you’ve lost your only bargaining chip,” Douglas brazened. “Besides, I’m no fool. Either way, you’ll not leave anyone alive who can raise the warning against you.”

  “Always so clever, young Douglas,” Máelodor sneered. “Then I shall amend my words. I can kill her quickly or I can kill her slowly. That becomes your choice.”

  Daigh risked his first glance at the woman whose fate hung by a thread. She hunched as far back against the wall as she could, hands clutching her stomach, face eerily expressionless.

  For an instant, their eyes locked, hers shiny with tears. But it was he who looked away first, unable to offer her anything but a clean death.

  “You’re not his slave,” she whispered.

  Daigh kept his gaze fixed upon the battle of wills between Douglas and Máelodor.

  “Don’t let him win.” Her voice came soft as a last breath.

 
His blood moved sluggish and frozen in his veins, his mind carrying naught but a soldier of Domnu’s cold-blooded indifference. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Could only listen to her futile pleading.

  “You’re not Lazarus. You’re Daigh.” One final entreaty, this one ending on a sob that would have torn at his heart had he one left. But that, like his memories, had been taken from him, leaving naught but the presence in its place.

  “Kill her,” Máelodor commanded. “Prove your allegiance.”

  Hate. Terror. Evil. Violence. Murder. The emotions took physical and horrifying form. A scarlet and golden river of flame and smoke. The open maw of the serpent widening as Daigh teetered on the edge. He scrambled for a hold against the gaping emptiness. Anything to stop his final tumble into hell.

  “Do as I say!” Máelodor screamed.

  Daigh drew forth the billhook. Stepped forward, his body no longer his to command.

  “No!” Brendan lunged between them, mage energy crackling the air. The spell on his tongue bursting forth with the speed and strength of a final stand.

  Daigh faltered, his head exploding as it had been cleaved in two. His weapon fell from a hand gone suddenly numb as he dropped to his knees.

  “Sabrina! Now!” Douglas shouted. “Stop him. Use the memories. Find him and—”

  Douglas’s instructions ended in a grunt of pain as St. John backhanded him to the floor. Stood above him, murder in his gaze.

  Daigh looked to Sabrina. The blue of her eyes sweeping him under like a cresting wave. Her hair floating about her shoulders as if caught in the flow of an ocean current.

  Letting go of his last handhold, he sank deep, letting her carry him away.

  She didn’t know what she did. How she did it.

  Dropping through the fragmented, scattered layers of Daigh’s memories, she took up the gossamer threads of his past, winding herself into them. Becoming a piece of that lost life. Entering as if stepping through a doorway.