Shadowdance 01 - A Dance of Cloaks

by David Dalglish

  “I am not taking you to the temple. If I were, you’d be blindfolded.”

  Yoren chuckled. He stood a bit straighter, as if insulted by the very notion. His left hand clutched his sword while his right straightened a few errant hairs hovering over his forehead. He was a handsome man, his skin smooth and bronze while his hair was a healthy blond. When he smiled, his golden teeth gleamed in the light of the torch the priest carried.

  “Forgive me for my false assumption,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I assumed meeting disciples of Karak would involve Karak’s actual temple.”

  “Our hallowed walls are sacred,” the priest said. “Discipleship to Karak involves a life combating this sinful world, and we do not tolerate weakness. Those whom you seek are not worthy of staying within the temple, despite their … insistence to their faith. You’ve asked for the most unruly of Karak, and so to them I bring you. Whatever you need them for, I pray it is worth it. Keep your sword sheathed. My presence may keep us safe, but if you draw steel, you alone will deal with the consequences.”

  Yoren had never been to Veldaren before, but so far he was hugely unimpressed. The enormous wall surrounding the city had seemed ominous, and the towering castle doubly so. The god Karak was rumored to have built them, and it seemed few argued otherwise. What was inside, however, seemed to almost mock the great walls and castle. Much of the southern district had slowly died off. King Vaelor had ordered all trading caravans to enter through the west gate, where the guards were thicker and the road easier to watch. Poor slums and weather-beaten homes had greeted Yoren when he entered from the south.

  The city improved near the center, but it was all wood-and-plaster buildings. Other than the sheer size, and a population of three hundred thousand men and women crammed together just begging to be exploited, Yoren saw little that would make him wish to live within the walls.

  “Where are we now?” he asked.

  “It is better you not know,” the priest said. “It would be dangerous for you to come again without my assistance.”

  After meeting him in the center of the city beside some ancient fountain of an even more ancient king, the priest had led Yoren through a winding crisscross of roads and back alleys. Yoren had long lost track of which direction he was headed in, though he guessed they’d traversed back into the southern slums.

  “I am not the weakling babe you treat me as,” Yoren said.

  “You are young. Young men are often hotheaded, foolish, and governed by their loins more than their wits. Forgive me if I treat you like all other men of Dezrel.”

  Yoren felt his face flush but bit his tongue. His father, Theo Kull, had insisted he treat the priests better than he would the king. If that meant enduring a few false comments about his nature, so be it. Yoren stood to gain much from his father’s plan. His pride could withstand a few barbs.

  “Here,” the priest said, stopping before a house that looked just as dilapidated as any other. “Enter through the window, not the door.”

  Perhaps it was a trick of the eye, but when Yoren pushed his fingers up against the glass of the window his fingers slid through, and he realized no glass was there at all. He lifted his foot and climbed the rest of the way inside. He turned, expecting the priest to follow, but his guide had already vanished.

  “Such wonderful hospitality,” Yoren muttered before turning and taking stock of his surroundings. The walls and floor had been stripped bare. Stairs led higher up, the steps rotted and broken. Through the single doorway farther in, he saw shelves coated with mold. Massive piles of rat droppings covered the floor.

  He took a step, and then the room darkened. He heard whispers in his ears, but every time he turned there was no one there. The words kept changing, his mind unable to lock down a meaning. Yoren reached for his sword before remembering the priest’s words. Shadows swirling all around him, the young man released his blade and stood up straight. He would not be afraid of cantrips and echoing whispers.

  “You are brave, for a coward,” a serpentine voice whispered from just inches behind his neck. Yoren jumped but refused to turn around.

  “That seems a contradiction,” he managed to say.

  “Just as there are skinny sows and smart dogs, there are brave cowards,” said another voice, eerily similar in sound and tone. Instead of behind his head, this one seemed to come from under his feet.

  “I have done as asked,” Yoren said as the shadows thickened before him. “My sword is sheathed, and I came through the window instead of the door.”

  The shadows coalesced before him into a shrouded figure. Every inch of its skin was wrapped in purple and black cloth. Even the eyes were hidden behind a single strip of thin white material, obscuring the features just enough while still allowing sight. From her shoulders hung a pale gray cloak. Despite the tight wrapping and modified voice, Yoren could tell by the slenderness of body and the curve of chest that he dealt with a woman.

  “Doing Karak’s will involves more than following orders,” the woman said, wisps of shadow floating off her like smoke. “You ask for aid from the faceless. For us to interfere in the squabbles of lesser men we must be certain of your heart, as well as whatever sacrifice Karak may receive for his blessing.”

  A serrated dagger curled around his throat and pressed against his flesh.

  “Sacrifice,” whispered another faceless shadow behind him.

  “I come with the promise of my father,” Yoren said, for once glad of his infallible sense of ego. It was the only thing that kept him from stammering. “We have no temple in Riverrun, though the priests of Ashhur have begun building one on land loaned to them by Maynard Gemcroft.”

  “Is that so?” asked the woman before him.

  “If you help me, then that land becomes my own,” Yoren said. “You may no longer war, but I know Karak and Ashhur’s followers are far from, uh, friendly. If you do as I say, I will cast out the priests. Karak may have the temple and the land on which it was built. Will that suffice?”

  The faceless woman’s ragged cloak pooled on the floor as if it were liquid darkness, yet when she stepped back, it immediately snapped erect and wrapped about her sides.

  “It is a start,” she said. “Yet how does land owned by a Gemcroft end up in the hands of a Kull?”

  “Because Alyssa is my betrothed,” Yoren said. “And everything that is hers will become mine.”

  The faceless woman glanced to one behind him, and Yoren felt a conversation passing unspoken between them.

  “What is it you need from Karak’s most zealous servants?” one asked at last.

  Yoren licked his lips.

  “They say you can handle even the most impossible task,” he said. “So let’s see how good you really are. As for what I need, it is rather simple. For the daughter to inherit, the father must go first.”

  He grinned at them.

  “I need you to kill Maynard Gemcroft.”

  At least she had a blanket. For that, Alyssa was grateful. The cells underneath the Gemcroft estate hadn’t been built with comfort in mind, and it had been ages since the light of the sun touched the gray stone. While growing up, she had heard one of her father’s men brag about how the stone walls had been cut just the right way to ensure a draft always blew to every corner of every cell. Soaked in moisture that dripped from the ceiling and unable to avoid the constant, chilling blow of air, many prisoners had broken down in desperate clamoring for warmth. While the deep cold of snow and ice eventually numbed the skin, the Gemcroft cells chilled relentlessly.

  With that draft in mind, her father’s head guardsman had given her a thick blanket. Still, no matter how tightly she wrapped it around her body, she always felt a draft sneaking up her leg or down the small of her back. She trembled, remembering tales of men who had been imprisoned naked. Growing up, Alyssa had always thought such a simple chill merely uncomfortable. After all, how could a bit of cold air really break a man? But now, given just a taste of the drafts, she understood its po
tential for torture, especially over the course of months, if not years.

  And that wasn’t even counting the actual torture that went on, something she was obviously spared.

  Alyssa wasn’t sure how long she’d been in her cell, though judging by her meals it hadn’t even been two days. The first day she’d shouted and threatened and demanded her release. When she finally crumpled into a corner, huddled underneath her blanket, most of her anger had subsided. A deep core remained in her breast, but she did her best to keep it contained. She had more important things to deal with.

  There was only one thing that could have rankled Maynard so, and that was any mention of the Kulls. Along the eastern coast, the Kulls were in charge of acquiring the king’s taxes, among many other responsibilities. That alone had caused strife between them and her father, strife Alyssa thought childish. Her father often prattled on about how the Kulls were using the tax money to build their own trading empire along the coast, slowly pushing Maynard out, and that it was only his superior number of guards that kept Theo Kull, the elder and ruler of the family, from seizing his lands. But that was business, all business, and Alyssa had seen no proof of any such claims in her time with Yoren.

  Alyssa pulled the blanket tighter, scrunching her knees against her chest to preserve every shred of warmth.

  He’ll come for me, she thought. Her father would have to. He just wanted to show her how seriously he took her words. When the door opened, and he appeared holding a torch in one hand and another blanket in the other, she’d forgive him for this punishment. She’d wrap her arms around him, kiss his cheek, and willingly tell him everything. Theo and Yoren had no sinister plans. They had no ulterior motives. The Kull family was only trying to protect its interests, for if the Trifect fell, then the scum of the underworld would turn its hungry maw upon the Kulls next.

  “You know how you stop a raging bull?” Yoren had asked her. “Kill it before it starts running. It has already gored the Trifect. It needs to die before it turns its horns to us.”

  Maynard did not come that second day.

  On the third morning he appeared with two guards. One held another blanket, while the other carried her food. Maynard stood between them, his arms crossed. He wore no cloak or vest, as if the sweeping chill meant nothing to him.

  “Believe me, my daughter, when I say I have no ill will toward you for this foolishness,” he said. Alyssa fought down an urge to stand and fling her arms around him. “But you must tell me what the Kulls are planning. They are liars, girl, liars and thieves and conniving men, so tell me what it is they want.”

  She shook her head. Her anger lashed out, temporarily uncontrolled.

  “They’re mad at your incompetence, same as me,” she said. “And if they plan a move against you, it is your own doing, but I swear I know nothing.”

  Maynard Gemcroft nodded, and the sides of his mouth drooped a little.

  “You have your mother’s wisdom,” he said, “but sometimes you are such a stupid girl.” He turned to one of the guards. “Take her blanket.”

  She felt panic bubble up in her throat as she watched the second blanket leave, and she felt even worse when her first blanket was ripped from her arms. She clawed at it frantically, screaming that it was hers, hers, they couldn’t take it. But they did, and she was cold now, very cold, and it was only day three, and she still knew nothing.

  On the fourth night she was cold, miserable, and suddenly not alone.

  “Do not be frightened,” a voice whispered into the cell. Alyssa jumped like a startled rabbit. Her lips were blue, and her skin a sickly pale color, wrinkled from the moisture that hung thick in the air and clung to the stone walls. She felt wet and disgusting, and her mind leaped to the darkest conclusions about why someone might come calling in the deep of night.

  “My father will find out,” she said from her crouched position on the far side from the cell bars. “He’ll punish you if he…”

  Her voice caught in her throat, for there was no one at her cell. Again she heard the voice, echoing from wall to wall like a magician’s trick. This time she clearly realized that a woman was doing the whispering, a fact that should have calmed her but strangely did not.

  “We are Karak’s outcast children,” said the whisperer. “We are his most fervent, his most faithful, for we have much to atone for. Are you a sinner, girl? Will you lift your arms to us and accept our mercy?”

  Shadows danced around her cell, not cast from the torch flickering outside the bars. Alyssa put her hands atop her head and buried her face in her knees.

  “I want to be warm,” she said. “Please, my father, he’s not bad, he isn’t. I just want to be warm.”

  When Alyssa peered over her knees, she saw the shadows swarm together, grow volume and mass, and then finally fill with color, becoming a woman shrouded in black with a thin white cloth covering the gap left for her eyes.

  “There is warmth in the Abyss,” the woman said as she drew a serrated dagger. “Would you like me to send you there? Careful of what you ask, little girl. Be clear with your demands, or accept the cruel gifts fools and selfish men may give.”

  Alyssa forced herself to stand. She felt skinny and naked before the strange woman, and it took all her willpower to suppress the shaking of her hands and keep them at her sides.

  “I want out of this prison,” she said. “I have done nothing to deserve its cold. Now tell me, who sent you here?”

  “Who else would send us?” the woman asked. “Do not ask questions you should already know the answer to. Remain quiet. We are few, and some things must be done in silence.”

  She wrapped her cloak around her body, its fabric seemingly made of liquid shadow. A sudden jerk and she was gone, her body exploding into dark fragments that splashed across the walls and faded like smoke.

  “You have accepted the help of the faceless,” echoed a whisper throughout her cell. “Remember, the cost you pay is always dearer once it has left your hand.”

  Alyssa sat back down, curled her knees to her chin, and began to cry. She wondered what Yoren would say if he saw her like that. He was so beautiful, and she knew she could be too, but not here, not cold and wet and crying like a pathetic street urchin. Her tears did not stop as she hoped. Instead she cried louder.

  Far away she heard a door open, the sound thick with bolts and metal. Her eyes lifted, and with detached curiosity she watched and waited.

  A hefty man lumbered into view, his thumbs tucked into his belt. His eyes were beady and close together, and his long mustache dripped with grease. Alyssa had never met him before returning home to Veldaren, though she had quickly learned his name. Jorel Tule, master of the cold cells.

  “I got dogs howling up a storm,” Jorel said. “Figure I’d make sure you’re nice and cozy.”

  “A blanket,” she said. Her teeth chattered, and it was no act.

  “Maynard says to wait until you can’t stand no more,” the man said, hoisting up his belt. “I think he means to have me wait until you’re close to dead before warming you up.”

  A hard edge entered his eye. Alyssa recognized it as perverse joy in seeing one of noble birth sunk to his level and then put at his mercy. When shadows began coalescing behind his back, she openly smiled.

  “I think you can wait a bit longer,” Jorel said.

  “A blanket might have saved your life,” Alyssa replied. Jorel gave her a funny look but did not respond. When he turned to leave, a serrated dagger awaited him. It sliced his throat and splattered blood across the floor. The blood slid off the faceless woman’s robes like water.

  “He never would have served you,” the woman said. “But there are others that will, and we must spare them if we can. Otherwise, your rule will be disputed and last as long as a sputtering candle in a storm.”

  “My rule?”

  Alyssa waited until the faceless woman opened her cell, then grasped the door with one hand and held it firm.

  “Tell me your name,” she said.
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  “I have no name,” the woman replied.

  “You said you are faceless, not nameless, now tell me.”

  Alyssa could not see the woman’s eyes through the white cloth, but she had a feeling that behind it and the wrappings hid an amused smile.

  “A strong candle,” the woman said. “My name is Eliora.”

  “Then listen well, Eliora,” Alyssa said. “I will not accept rule of my household over the murdered body of my father. Whatever you were paid or promised, I can match it. All I ask is that Maynard be captured, not killed.”

  “You assume much. How do you know we have been sent to kill your father?”

  “Why else would you mutter nonsense about candles and my rule?”

  Eliora let go of the door and stepped back so Alyssa could exit.

  “You are clever, child, and you are also correct. This world is chaos, but I will do what I can. Be warned: your father may already be dead. If that is the case, turn your anger on who hired us. Do not blame the sword for the blood spilled, only the hand that wielded it.”

  The faceless woman led her up the winding stairs out of the dungeon. They encountered no guards, dead or living. As they ascended, Alyssa heard the ruckus the dogs were making. Eliora must have noticed the look on her face, for the hounds sounded as if they were ravenous for blood.

  “They are frightened and angry,” she explained. “It is a simple spell we cast upon them to draw the guards out of the estate. My sisters are all inside, I assure you.”

  Alyssa nodded but said nothing.

  The stairs ended in a cramped room with bare walls and a lone door, the outside of which was normally bolted. Eliora gently pushed it open; Jorel must have gone down without alerting anyone, otherwise they would have locked it behind him.

  “How many are with you?” Alyssa asked. Eliora shot her a glare.

  “We are three,” she said. “Though we may be less if you continue braying louder than a mule.”

  With so little time between her arrival and subsequent imprisonment, Alyssa had not taken stock of her father’s defenses. She knew they could not be light. No matter how much she might belittle the thief guilds, she was not an idiot. Without adequate protection, cloaked men with daggers would be lurking under every bed and within every closet.