Beneath the Vault of Stars

by Blake Goulette

  “Might as well stretch our legs a bit,” he suggested as he leapt from the cart and unhitched his horses.

  Shosafin cantered into view, making no effort to camouflage his approach. With his signature fluidity, he slid from his saddle as Breaker slowed his gait and approached his stablemates. Ilbardhën unsheathed his sword and swung it through the air with quick motions, violent and serene at the same time. Kalas jumped down and approached him, his interest bare. Though the old soldier’s eyes and focus never strayed, Kalas knew he was aware of his presence, his appraisal. Neither spoke, but Kalas had the sense that Shosafin’s careful, considered movements were for his instruction.

  I need to understand this, he told himself.

  “What’s he doing?” whispered Zhalera, who’d joined him.

  Together, they watched as he moved—danced, really—across the meadow, his weapon his partner: a harmonious spectacle synthesized from grace and danger.

  “Teaching,” Kalas answered.

  6.

  Back in the cart, Kalas struggled to balance two new ideas: Shosafin’s almost hypnotic swordplay and the pains he’d taken to present his “lesson;” and, of course, Falthwen’s revelation about the Song. He closed his eyes, tried to exercise the “privilege” the old cleric claimed he possessed.

  Nothing happened.

  Laughing at himself, he half-wondered if Falthwën had been less than forthright. He dismissed the suggestion, noting that even when the silvered sage had been rather opaque with his words, he’d never been untruthful.

  That privilege is best exercised in accordance with his will, he’d said.

  You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, he’d added, and Kalas felt his cheeks flush as he remembered Falthwën’s sympathetic admonition.

  A couple more hours and Falthwën instructed Rül to stop at another clearing they’d soon approach. To Kalas’ surprise, Shosafin had traveled with them for the last fistful of leagues: he lagged behind, vaulted ahead, and wove his sylvan circles through the encroaching forest, but overall, he remained within sight. Kalas thought he seemed somewhat distracted.

  That’s not like him…

  Deepening shadows cast from thickening woods displaced the memory of the meadows’ serenity as Rül steered his team toward the clearing. Though nowhere near as dense as the forest in which they’d spent the previous night, Kalas found himself eying every wavering shaft of waning sunlight in search of…something. He had no idea what that something might be, but Shosafin’s uncharacteristic disinterest in his environment had him worried.

  “There’s a small stream that should be flowing this time of year,” began Falthwën as everyone prepared camp. “Maybe half a mile into these woods and—”

  “—And down a steep bank,” interrupted Shosafin. “I’ll be right back.”

  He grabbed the buckets Rül had fished from the cart and disappeared into the trees.

  “He’s not wrong,” the cleric shrugged with a twisted grin. “It’s really the same stream from last night—well, a direct tributary, at least. We’re gaining elevation through these first few days; soon, we’ll reach the steppes. Out there, water could become a concern, but there are wells—deep wells—that should suffice: the rains have been good the last few years. Still, when Ilbardhën returns, we’d do well to conserve as much as we can.”

  While Rül tended to his horses, Kalas dug a shallow fire pit and lined it with stones. Zhalera helped Falthwën gather fallen twigs and limbs from the surrounding area. Soon, with a few strikes from his knife against a block of flint, Kalas coaxed a subtle fire into existence. The four of them huddled around its weak glow, its reluctant warmth as it grew stronger. The second sun was gone now, leaving a chill in the dry air as her light dwindled. Rubbing his hands together, Kalas realized Shosafin still hadn’t returned. He tried to see beyond the immediate confines of their campsite in the light of the rising moon, but nothing seemed amiss. It wasn’t much later when Zhalera said, “Where’s Shosafin? It’s been an hour: shouldn’t he be back by now?”

  “Indeed,” said Falthwën as he stood and took a few steps.

  “Something—”

  An arrow embedded itself in his staff with nothing more than a faint thunk.

  “What—?” said Rül: that was all he could manage before rough hands reached out of the darkness, splayed him on the ground, and pressed a blade against his neck. Kalas and Zhalera suffered similar fates as a collection of figures dissolved from the dancing shadows and crowded into the light. Falthwën remained motionless until one of the figures—holding a bow, string drawn and arrow nocked and aimed at the old man’s heart—stepped forward.

  “Then Ilbardhën is here, somewhere?” he said, his voice a curious mix of wind and gravel.

  Falthwën said nothing. No one did.

  The bowman gestured for Falthwën to sit, the razor-like tines of his broadhead glinting in the firelight. The cleric obeyed.

  “Yes, he’s here,” he continued, answering his own question. “Very well. We’ll wait.”

  Chapter XII.

  Underneath the Well upon the Steppes

  W

  here is he?!” Kalas hissed at Falthwën. Long minutes had come and gone with no sign of Shosafin. None of their captors—excluding their spokesman—had uttered a word; none of their breathing belied their recent bursts of exertion. Kalas wasn’t convinced they were breathing.

  “Watching us, no doubt,” laughed the bowman even as he kept his weapon trained on Falthwën. “Biding his time. Waiting for us to err. Waiting for an opening.”

  Even as he spoke, his eyes seemed to dart in multiple directions at once without moving or losing focus on the cleric. Kalas tried to parse the impossibility. Couldn’t. The bowman’s clothes, cinched at the waist, billowed with subtle ripples in the wind that stirred the deepening twilight. Colorless against the dark grays and rich blacks of the encroaching night, he seemed to oscillate in and out of view with every breeze. He kept his face wrapped in some kind of bandage, it seemed, made from the same fabrics as his other garments that left naught but his flat gray eyes exposed. From what Kalas could observe, his minions wore similar—maybe identical—costumes.

  “What do you want with him?” demanded Kalas. Zhalera tried to silence him with a hiss, which drew a chuckle from the bowman; however, their chief captor said nothing.

  Without warning, one of the silent assailants seemed to fly backward into the air without so much as a gasp. The bowman swung his bow toward the empty space just behind his henchman’s former position and let his arrow fly. Kalas watched as he fired his missile: the stranger had already nocked another by the time he looked back at him.

  “There he is!”

  He aimed at Falthwën and loosed another arrow: before it reached the cleric, it collided with something metallic and veered off into the trees with a reverberant ring. At almost the same instant, the figure guarding Rül collapsed on top of the farm boy as blood sprayed from an impossible gash across the man’s neck.

  “Get off me!” shouted Rül, who gave the fresh corpse a rough shove. He stood, then knelt when he realized the bowman was still launching broadheads with astonishing fluidity.

  “Sharp as ever,” the man muttered as he unleashed another volley.

  Kalas closed his eyes and willed the Song to…do something: what, he had no idea.

  C’mon! he insisted with no result.

  The figure standing over Zhalera split in two, his torso tumbling to the side as his innards, steaming in the night air, spilled onto the ground.

  The remaining figures formed up on their leader, each having found an opportunity to raise their own weapons. Kalas leapt to his feet and would have charged the bowman had something not grabbed at his ankle, causing him to trip.

  Tree root? he allowed himself a moment to consider before attempting to right himself. Whatever had latched onto his leg hadn’t let go. He turned to look and screamed: the halved figure that had been guarding Zhalera had dragged itself toward him
and wrapped its fingers around him.

  “ALE FAN HWER!” he demanded, his heart in his throat, and with the briefest shimmer, the thing’s fingers ruptured in a cloud of fine black dust. Tendrils of faint light spread along the length of its arm and didn’t stop until the creature’s entire upper half had been reduced to powder, soon carried away on the breeze.

  “What’s this?!” exclaimed the bowman, his eyes wide and fastened on Kalas as the boy finally reached his feet. For a moment, his weapon drooped—and in that moment, Shosafin was upon him.

  2.

  “Shosa…shosayedhume?” Kalas wondered with a glance toward Falthwën. The cleric nodded, though his gaze lingered over the gritty remnants the wind had left behind.

  Rül stood. Zhalera, too, and raced toward the cart to retrieve her—

  “Not now, child!” said Falthwën with an intense whisper.

  She stopped for a moment, regarded their one-time captors, and, with a nod, retrieved her hammer instead.

  With an enraged snarl, Rül kicked at the animated pair of legs, splitting it in two. Disgusted, he wiped his booted foot with fallen leaves.

  “I…I don’t even want to know,” he spat.

  “I thought you were dead, Kindu Marugan,” said Shosafin from behind the man. He held his sword across Marugan’s neck.

  “Dead enough, Ilbardhën,” he growled. With a wry smile, he tossed his bow to the ground.

  “And these…these…Your friends: that’s new.”

  Marugan said nothing.

  “Where’s Rufàran? Where’s the King?”

  Again, nothing.

  “Fine,” Shosafin growled, his voice tainted with the slightest hint of emotion. In one quick move, he pressed the back of Marugan’s head against his blade while drawing it across the man’s throat. The former bowman gurgled something akin to laughter as his blood frothed and bubbled from his neck.

  Marugan collapsed when Shosafin released his grip: at the same moment, the bodiless legs ceased kicking and the remaining shosayedhume crumpled like empty sacks of meal.

  For an uncomfortable moment, no one said a word. No one stirred. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

  “I…the water’s by the cart,” said the soldier as he wiped the blood from his sword and returned it to its sheath.

  “Who was that? Why’d he have shosayedhume with him? Was he…was he controlling them?!” Kalas, Zhalera, and Rül assaulted Shosafin with questions, and although Falthwën busied himself about the camp, he couldn’t hide his own curiosity.

  “Kindu Marugan,” he said. “One of King Rufàran’s counselors. One of his friends, I thought. Like I told you, lad, the wolves tore him to pieces, too…”

  “The wolves?” interrupted Rül.

  “Ah, right…”

  After relating an abridged version of the tale he’d previously shared with Kalas, Shosafin continued: “All the men were dead,” he insisted. “Including Marugan. If his face looks the way it did the last time I saw him, it’s no wonder he keeps it covered. I imagine what’s left of it would scare even those…what did you call them? ‘Spirit-men?’

  “That was a neat trick, by the way,” he paused with a nod toward Kalas.

  “Trick?” said Zhalera. “Is that what you were shouting about?”

  Did she see it? Maybe she didn’t, he realized. Maybe none of them did?

  “I…uh…Trick?”

  “Right,” Shosafin nodded, ignored Kalas’ deflection. “I’m curious, though: I’ve never seen, never heard of such creatures as these shosayedhume, yet here you…You know something about them, that much is clear.”

  “We met one at Kalas’ house,” supplied Zhalera. “It…it had taken over my father—what was left of him, that is. That was the first time I’d heard about them, too! I thought it was going to…I don’t know, it looked like it was going to hurt Falthwën, but he said something and it was gone.”

  “‘Spirit-men.’” he scoffed after a moment’s reflection. “Perhaps.”

  “Are you serious?” said Kalas, insulted. “You just watched half a man crawl across the ground and grab my leg! You…you watched him turn to dust, and all you’ll allow is ‘perhaps?!’”

  “I know of draughts that can free a man from every pain imaginable. I’ve seen heads severed from their bodies mouth the shape of loved ones’ names…

  “Did Marugan command undead shagabme—warrior assassins? Doubtful. Did he have access to such powders and potions as I’ve described? Ïsriba is home to all manner of pharmacological pursuits. If he kept to the shadows all these Sevens, there’s no telling what he might have acquired.”

  “And the ‘trick’ you saw?” Kalas whispered through gritted teeth.

  “Do it again,” suggested Shosafin.

  “I—what?”

  “Just a glimpse of magic. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Magic? I don’t—I can’t—I don’t think…It doesn’t work that way,” Kalas stammered.

  “Doesn’t it?” mused the skeptical soldier, his eyebrow arched.

  “Perhaps,” interjected Falthwën, “you could ask Marugan for his opinion.”

  Shosafin started to laugh until he caught the cleric’s gaze and followed it to the edge of their fire’s inconstant light. There, in the shadows, stood the Kindu.

  “Maybe your sword needs sharpening?” he laughed as purple-black tracery undulated around the dark red chasm carved across his neck. Kalas thought the substance leaching from the figure seemed to absorb light, to drink it up as his gritty laughter corrupted the night.

  “Impossible!” shouted Shosafin as he vaulted from his seat and sliced the empty air in a single movement.

  Marugan had dissolved into the expanding darkness.

  3.

  Falthwën whispered his incantations over the defeated shosayedhume while Shosafin searched the surrounding forest for Marugan. Rül, somewhat numb and wearing a thousand-yard-stare, went through the motions of watering the horses. Kalas watched the cleric transform the fallen corpses to dust. Zhalera watched Kalas.

  “I missed something didn’t I?” she accused.

  “What?—Oh! The ‘trick’ Shosafin was talking about? I…yes, I guess so.”

  “So tell me about it!”

  “I’m not sure what there is to tell! I don’t remember doing anything. Not really. When I saw what had grabbed my leg, I just wanted it to let go. There was a pop and then…I don’t know, tiny rivers of light that…made it go away.”

  Zhalera nodded.

  “I tried to…I tried to make The Song do something earlier today, too, but nothing happened.”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “I mean what did you try to make The Song do?” she laughed.

  “I…” Kalas thought for a moment and realized he hadn’t had a specific purpose in mind.

  “Something to think about, maybe,” she mused. “C’mon, let’s put a meal together. Maybe a full stomach will help Rül get over the shock of everything.”

  “So those things are real?” mumbled Rül through a mouthful of dried meat. “First skydogs, then magic, and now undead warriors…”

  “Not ‘undead,’” Falthwën corrected. “‘Inhabited’ would be a better term.”

  “Whatever: all this stuff scares the life out of me, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!”

  “Fear isn’t the answer,” countered the old man. “Respect is. Appreciate the danger such things are capable of and interact accordingly.”

  “If you say so,” Rül shrugged and reached for another strip of meat.

  “He’s gone,” said Shosafin as he materialized from out of the shadows, sword in hand. Falthwën said nothing, though his indifference indicated that he’d expected no less.

  “You weren’t acting like yourself today,” Kalas noted. “Did you know he was out there?”

  “I suspected. Not Marugan personally—I know he was dead—but yes, those two men from the other night…I suspected they had companions. I th
ought I might give them what they were looking for, draw them out with a sloppy, distracted target.”

  “Your strategy seems to have worked,” Falthwën observed. “Tell me, Ilbardhën: are you familiar with ekume?”

  “I’ve heard stories,” he scoffed.

  “Of course.”

  “What’s an eku?” asked Rül.

  “It’s probably simplest to think of ekume as ‘dark stars.’ Once, they dwelt among the erume as kindred lights, but that was a long, long time ago. Now, most serve the twisted will of Ilnëshras. Which makes me curious regarding Marugan’s place—his plans—within the Poyïsriba court.”

  “I thought you said ekume were the least of Ilnëshras’ servants: yet shosayedhume are egunàm, right? It looked like Marugan was commanding them,” Kalas noted.

  “It did,” admitted Falthwën, his brow furrowed.

  For the rest of the evening, no one seemed to have much to say as they finished their meal. Shosafin remained with them for a brief while; soon, he disappeared—again—muttering something about vigilance as the shadows swallowed him whole. In his absence, the four huddled around the fire and spoke in low voices.

  “Exciting night, wouldn’t you say, Rül?” Kalas prodded. He’d been surprised by the farm boy’s acceptance of the evening’s fresh revelation.

  “That’s one way to put it,” he agreed, his eyes following the twists and turns of the flames as they snaked along the firewood’s incandescent surfaces. “My grandfather—Mother’s father—used to tell me stories. Bits and pieces about the erume, I guess—though he didn’t use that word. About something called Zhi Sâash. Zhi Kathin Sâash. Something like that. I got the idea that most of what he shared with me was stuff he’d heard from his grandfather. They were colorful stories, for sure, but I thought that’s all they were. Father certainly didn’t care for Grandfather’s ‘fairy tales.’”