Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm

by Shadow's Realm (v1. 0)

  Taziar realized Silme spoke the truth. The urge to work alone was strong, but refusing his friends’ aid would make his own task more difficult and endanger them as well. “Is mind-reading a Dragonrank skill?”

  “A woman’s skill, actually,” Silme corrected. She smiled. “Shadow, you’re just going to have to find some new friends. We know you too well.” Silme raised her voice; and, after the exchanged whispers, it sounded like a shout. “Speaking of women, if you’ll kick Astryd awake, I’ll take care of Allerum.”

  “I’m up!” Larson said quickly. To demonstrate, he leaped to his feet, scattering blankets and sending the pack he used as a pillow sliding across the planks.

  His antics awakened Astryd who groaned. Her eyes flicked open. Finding all her companions awake, she swept to a sitting position, cloak pulled tight against the chill. “No fire?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Glad for the distraction, Taziar trotted to the woodpile and began arranging logs in the hearth.

  Larson pulled on his boots. “I don’t suppose we can get room service around here.”

  Taziar cast a curious glance over his shoulder.

  Larson laughed good-naturedly. “I didn’t think so.” He maneuvered on his boot with a final twist. “I’m going to the kitchen to get breakfast. Any requests?”

  Taziar knew the question was polite formality. The fare would depend on the supplies and the inclination of the cook. “Anything not jerked, smoked, or dried for travel.” He piled another row of logs, perpendicular to the first.

  “Fine choice, sir.” Larson assumed a throaty accent Taziar did not recognize. “Anyone else?”

  Silme thrust the empty, pewter pitcher into Larson’s hand. “More water so we can wash up this morning.”

  Taziar added a third layer to the stack. “And a brand to get this fire going.” He rose, brushing ash from his knees as Larson slipped through the door, pitcher in hand.

  Silme slammed the shutters closed and threw the latch. “Hand me three or four logs.” She stretched out her arm for them.

  Taziar selected four narrow branches and tucked them beneath his arm. He carried them to where Silme waited on a bare area of floor between the window and the table. One by one, he set the wood on the floor beside her. “What’s this for?”

  Silme knelt, settling the logs into a crooked rectangle. “Astryd’s spell requires a boundary. No need to waste time. Once we know what we’re up against, we can make a plan of action.” Silme summoned Astryd with a brisk wave. “Besides, if Harriman is a sorcerer, best if he doesn’t know we’ve discovered his secret. And we don’t want to give him access to our plot.”

  Though not spoken directly, Silme’s meaning was clear to Taziar. She wants to take advantage of Allerum’s absence. Should Harriman turn out to be a sorcerer, he could dredge any information we give Allerum from his mind.

  Astryd walked to Silme’s side. Taziar touched her encouragingly as she passed, and the warmth of that simple gesture sent a shiver of passion through him. Everything about Astryd seemed functional, from her close-cut, golden ringlets to the dancer’s grace of her movements and the plain styling of her dress and cloak. And, where Silme’s beauty could transform a man into a tongue-tied fool, Astryd had a lithe, homespun quality that made her more real and more desirable to Taziar.

  Astryd crouched before the lopsided outline of wood.

  Taziar scooted the table closer; the screech of its legs against the floorboards made him wince. Hopping onto its surface, he let his legs dangle, allowing him a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings.

  Silme traced the outline of the rectangle, patting logs securely into place. “Ready?”

  Astryd lowered and raised her head once. “I’ve been considering shortcuts all night.”

  Silme appeared outwardly calm, but her attempts at delay revealed hidden anxiety. “Any more questions for the man who met Harriman?”

  “No.” Astryd continued to stare at the rectangle.

  Silme glanced questioningly at Taziar who shrugged. The grueling inquiry of the previous night had tapped his memory and powers of observation to their limits.

  Astryd closed her eyes. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged. She stirred a finger through the confines of the rectangle. For several moments, nothing happened. Then, white light swirled between the logs on a shimmering background of yellow. Lines of black and gray skipped across the picture. Colors appeared, erratic splashes of amber, red, and brown that melted together and separated into a blurred, featureless man and woman lying close upon a pallet of straw.

  Astryd made a high-pitched sound of effort. She sank to her knees, and the image within the rectangle smeared beyond even vague recognition.

  Alarmed for Astryd, Taziar gripped the ledge of the table.

  “Concentrate,” Silme insisted with a casual authority echoing none of Taziar’s concern. Her composure eased Taziar’s tension, and, apparently Astryd’s as well. The picture reformed, strengthened, and became discernible as the stiff-bearded figure of Harriman. Back propped against the wall, he reclined with bed covers drawn halfway up his abdomen. A tangle of golden hair enveloped a well-defined chest. A thickly-muscled neck supported features that might have appeared handsome if not for the unmistakable glaze of madness in his eyes. One arm was draped across the breasts of a slender woman. She lay, wooden with fear, trembling and half-exposed by the turned back blanket.

  “That’s Harriman,” Taziar confirmed. He leaned forward for a better look, holding his balance with his hands on the lip of the table. “That’s Galiana with him.” Overgenerous to Shylar with his money, Taziar had always found her prostitutes eager to take him to bed.

  Despite fatigue, Astryd gave Taziar a sharp look.

  Immediately realizing his error, Taziar tried to save face. “I knew a lot of Shylar’s girls.” He clarified, “I mean I met a lot of Shylar’s girls.” Fearing to offend his companions, he amended again, “Women.” Then, not wishing to overemphasize the prostitutes’ maturity, he returned to his original description. “Girls.” Suddenly aware his antics were only driving him deeper into trouble, he changed the subject. “That hand at the edge of the picture. I think it’s Skereye’s. Can you focus in on him?”

  “Astryd centered the spell on Harriman,” Silme explained. “Anyone else in the image is coincidently within range. To see another, she’d have to recast.”

  “I don’t see an aura.” Astryd slouched on the floor, her hands trembling and her expression strained. “Harriman can’t be a sorcerer.”

  Silme bent forward until her head blocked the patch of magics from Taziar’s view. She gasped in alarm. “Astryd, look again.”

  Astryd shifted to her hands and knees and tilted her face closer. Silme’s thick cascade of hair distorted her reply. “There is something there. Fine and almost transparent. He looks awfully alert for someone who’s drained life energy that low.”

  Silme’s words scarcely wafted to Taziar. “We’ve seen what we need. Don’t waste your energy.”

  The women sat up, and Astryd dismissed her magics. The image disappeared immediately, and the polished wood floor replaced Taziar’s glimpse of Harriman’s room.

  Taziar propped a foot on the table. “What’s an aura?”

  Engrossed in thought, Silme said nothing.

  Astryd’s head lolled; her eyes narrowed to haggard slits. Distracted by Silme’s intensity, she answered without emotion. “It’s a gross, visual measure of Dragonrank strength. It looks sort of like a halo of light. The color and magnitude change depending on fatigue and mental state.” She rolled a bleary gaze. “Mine looks like porridge right now. But Harriman’s is worse. The last time I saw an aura that weak, its master was in a coma.”

  Silme seized Astryd’s arm in a grip so fierce that Astryd snapped to attention despite her exhaustion. “What’s wrong?”

  “You didn’t recognize that aura?”

  Astryd met Silme’s intent stare. “No. Should I?”

  “You may never have
seen it.” Silme released Astryd and swept the logs into a pile. “Harriman’s not a sorcerer, but he is a product of sorcery. I’ve seen the spell used before. It requires a Dragonrank mage to kill its victim, body and soul. Then, the corpse can be animated to act as the mage commands, without knowledge, memory, or will. It can only obey simple directions; it can’t speak or initiate actions.”

  The description contradicted Taziar’s experience. “Silme?” He cleared his throat, choosing his phrasing to correct rather than confront. “I saw Harriman interact, and speak, too.”

  “That’s impossible.” Silme’s words implied certainty, but her tone betrayed her doubt.

  Taziar persisted. “I watched him extort money from a group of children. He’s an expert.”

  Silme went silent in thought, as if deciding whether to challenge her experience or Taziar’s observations. Her chin sank to her chest. Her blue eyes dulled, then went vacant as a corpse’s.

  “Silme!” Taziar jumped down from the table and skidded to the sorceress’ side. “What’s wrong?”

  Astryd answered in Silme’s stead. “She’s channeling thought. I have no idea where.”

  Taziar stepped behind Astryd, massaging her knotted shoulders through the fabric of her cloak. Her muscles quivered, as if from a grueling physical battle. “Is it safe? What about the baby?”

  Astryd’s voice sounded thin. “Thought extension doesn’t cost life energy the way spells do. Just concentration.”

  “Oh.” Taziar accepted the information easily, but his concern for Silme lessened only slightly. Unless she had chosen to contact Larson, she cculd only have attempted to gain access to Harriman’s mind. If so, she had disobeyed her own tenet. After threatening me not to go off alone, why would she try something like this?

  Suddenly, Taziar found Silme returning his gaze. Her face was slack, and her fists clenched and loosened repeatedly, as if of their own accord.

  Unable to read her emotion, Taziar prodded. “Silme, are you well?”

  “Shattered,” she replied, her voice strained. “Shattered like winter leaves beneath bootfalls, like a castle door beneath a battering ram.” She cleared her throat and addressed Astryd in her normal tone. “I’m supposed to be one of the most powerful mages in existence, second only to the Dragonrank schoolmaster. But what I saw was the result of magic beyond my imagining. Someone smashed a hole through Harriman’s mind barriers, accessed his thoughts, then rearranged them to the pattern and purposes he wanted.”

  “Are you certain?” Astryd’s words emerged more like a statement than a question; she had asked from convention rather than disbelief.

  “There’s a hole, and pieces of the barrier still cling like shards of glass to a window frame. Thought pathways are looped, cut, and tied.”

  Taziar’s hands went still on Astryd’s shoulders. “Who?”

  Silme ran her hands along her face. “I don’t know. I didn’t dare to delve too deeply. Surely, the person or thing who damaged Harriman is in frequent contact. If I used anything stronger than a shallow probe, he might have noticed me. At the least, Harriman would have detected my presence and called on his master. Alone and without magic, I couldn’t hope to stand against a sorcerer with the power to break through mind barriers.” She pressed her palms together, lacing her fingers with enough force to blanch them. Her manner clearly revealed the extent of her fear to Taziar. Even with spells and her companions’ aid, Silme obviously harbored no illusions she could win a battle against Harriman’s master.

  “But I did discover Harriman’s basic purposes.” Silme stared at her fingers. “He’s been instructed to see Shylar and your friends hanged, to destroy the underground, and ...” She paused, avoiding Taziar’s curious stare. “... to cause you as much physical and emotional pain as possible.”

  “Me?” Taziar blinked, stunned.

  “Shadow?” Surprise and distress etched Astryd’s voice, to be instantly replaced by accusation. “What did you do? Who did you offend who has enough power to do this?”

  Taziar considered. His reckless drive to accomplish the impossible might have gained him enemies. But he could only recall two instances where his antics could have angered sorcerers. He had once robbed a jade-rank Dragon-mage, but that sorcerer’s powers were weaker than Astryd’s. He spoke the second circumstance aloud. “I did scale the walls of the Dragonrank school and bypass its protections.”

  Astryd shook her head. “You didn’t steal anything or hurt anyone. Even if the Dragonrank mages wanted to make an example of you. If they could locate you, even the diamond-rank archmaster would not have the power to destroy mind barriers.” She snapped to sudden atten-tiveness. “Unless ... Silme, what about a merger?”

  Silme dismissed Astryd’s suggestion. “It would require every mage at the school to cooperate, an impossible feat in itself.” She explained for Taziar’s benefit. “It’s supposedly possible for Dragonrank mages to combine life force. It’s a lot like seventeen artists carving a masterpiece with only one allowed to make the actual cuts and every life hanging on the king’s approval of the final project. I’ve never known any mage willing to entrust his life energy to another. I’ve been told the magics that ward the Dragonrank school were a result of such a merger. One was slain, drained of life force. Three others fell into coma. Later, two of those died and the third became a babbling idiot. The mage responsible, the one entrusted with channeling life force, eventually killed himself out of guilt.”

  “Besides,” Astryd added. “There are easier ways to kill a man than risking forty-three lives to create a monster. If the Dragonrank mages wanted Taziar, they’d simply kill him or take him back and hang him from the gates.”

  Taziar stiffened, displeased by the turn of the conversation. “So, whoever Harriman’s master is, he wants me to suffer. And we have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

  “Not no idea,” Silme’s tone went calculating. She stood, rubbing her hands together for warmth. “We know he wants to torture you rather than kill you, or at least before he kills you ...”

  Taziar twined a finger through Astryd’s hair. “Thanks for clarifying that.”

  “... his delay might work to our advantage. And, we know he or she is intelligent. Notice, he hasn’t come after us himself. He sent a pawn. My guess is he found some interesting and frightening things in Allerum’s mind, and he’s not excited by the prospect of taking us on personally. Ignorant and weakened as we are, I don’t think we could stand against him. We need to keep the master away, to reinforce his reluctance by making him even more certain we’re powerful. We have to encourage him to send lackeys we can use to assess his abilities.”

  “Fine.” The explanation sounded logical to Taziar. “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “By removing Harriman, either by capture or death. It’ll get rid of one obstacle to freeing your friends. It’ll remove our real enemy’s means of keeping watch on you. And it will give us time to organize while Harriman’s master decides his next plan of attack.”

  “I don’t know,” Taziar started. The idea of killing an innocent pawn repulsed him. But he also realized that Harriman’s command of the underground might put his friends, once released, in greater danger from old companions than from the baron’s guards. Besides, Harriman’s mind has been ruined. He’s no longer truly a man, just a sorcerer’s weapon.

  Before Taziar could protest further, the door swung open and Larson appeared in the entryway. He held a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm, and the pitcher in the same hand. Spilled water slicked his fingers. His other hand balanced a bowl of butter and the flaming brand. Steam rose from the bread, gray-white against Larson’s sleeve. The aroma of fresh dough twined through the room.

  Silme tensed, casting a warning glance at Astryd and Taziar who went stiff and silent.

  Larson caught at the corner of the door with the tip of his boot. “Are you all going to sit there watching me struggle, or will someone give me a hand?”

  Leaving Silme to deci
de what information to share with Larson, Taziar crossed the room and accepted the brand and bowl.

  Larson closed the door, shifted the loaf to his hand, and set pitcher and bread on the table. “So, is Harriman a sorcerer?”

  Returning to the logs, Taziar placed the bowl on the floor and feigned engrossment in the fire.

  “No,” Silme replied truthfully.

  Larson sighed in relief. “Good. Worrying about some stranger reading my mind, I was beginning to wish you hadn’t told me about the baby.”

  Taziar cringed. The brand tumbled into the hearth, and the Climber felt certain he was not the only one holding his breath.

  Larson did not seem to notice the sudden change in his companions’ attitudes. He rapped his knuckles on the table-top. “So what now? We go to the baron, tell him who’s causing all the trouble in his city and talk him into letting your buddies out of jail while the guards round up the crime lord and his cronies?”

  Just the mention of the baron sent horror crawling through Taziar. “No!” Retrieving the brand, he jabbed it between the lowest layers of kindling. “We take care of the problem ourselves. The baron is a crooked, self-indulgent idiot who thinks loyalty is measured in moments. I’m not going to let my friends take chances with his depraved idea of justice.” Taziar looked up to find every eye fixed on him above expressions of shock at his abrupt and seemingly misplaced hostility. Not wanting to deal with his friends’ concern, Taziar returned his attention to the fire.

  A brief silence followed. Then Larson spoke in the direct manner he used whenever he felt his otherworld perspective gave him a clearer, more levelheaded grasp on a problem. “Look, Shadow, you’re being stupid here. I understand you don’t like the baron. That only makes sense, and it really doesn’t bother me. But the baron knows this town. We can use him. Hell, you ought to get a perverse joy out of using him. He makes the laws, for god’s sake. I mean, he basically runs the town, doesn’t he?”