Shadowfall g-1

by James Clemens

  Kreel called out, “We have done your duty, Mistress of the Reef. He who has been named Godslayer stands before you for judgment.”

  The island remained quiet, except for the chatter of falling water. After several breaths, a voice finally answered, “Let him come forward.”

  Delia dropped to her knees. “Fyla…”

  The guards uncrossed their weapons.

  Tylar stepped from the bridge to the sandy beach. Rogger moved to follow.

  The voice stopped them both. “Only the godslayer.”

  Tylar glanced to the thief. He saw Rogger’s hesitation and waved him back. “I’ll be fine.” He even felt a bit of confidence in this statement. He didn’t feel like he was going to die.

  Still, a finger of dread traced his spine. He had met only two gods face-to-face in his short life: Jessup of Oldenbrook, to whom he had bent a knee in service as a Shadowknight, and Meeryn, who had died in his arms. But he had heard stories of various gods. Shadowknights talked among themselves after a few cups, sharing tales and stories. The personalities of the Hundred were as varied as their number. Some were reclusive, others gregarious, most were benevolent, a few iron fisted. Yet one fact remained consistent: They were not to be crossed.

  Tylar stepped onto the sandy strand. “I am here. Not as a godslayer as I’ve been falsely accused, but as a man.”

  Behind the sheer screen of the silvery waterfall, movement met his words. A figure stepped forward through the fall. The cascade of waters fell about her: over her head, past her shoulders, along the swell of her breasts, through the flat hollow of her belly, and down her long legs.

  She was naked, yet somehow carried a fold of the cascade along with her. Shimmers of water coursed over her body, forming a gown and cloak. She stepped into the pool at the peak’s base. She was hairless, smooth as her Hunters, her skin pale white with a single black spiral from neck to right ankle. Her eyes were limpid pools of ocean blue.

  Tylar could not meet her gaze and bowed his head.

  She crossed over to him, stepping free of the pond and onto the sand.

  “Mistress…” Kreel whispered, warning in his strained voice.

  “Silence, Kreel.” She continued toward Tylar.

  He began to tremble, unable to stop. He could have been blind and still known she approached. Her Grace sang to his blood. Something stirred deep inside him, and he began to fall to his knees in the sand.

  But a hand touched his cheek, freezing him in place. Fingers traced the three black stripes on his face.

  “A Shadowknight… so it is true.”

  A finger lifted his chin. He found eyes blazing with Grace. Her two hands slipped to either side of his face. He sensed her strength. She could easily crush his skull, yank his head from his neck.

  Instead, she pulled him up to her and kissed him deeply.

  For a moment, Tylar felt himself falling into darkness, but a strong tide drew him back. Lips pressed his; breaths were shared. Strange memories flooded through him, warming him. A moan arose between his lips and Fyla’s, a mix of sadness and loss. Then after an untold time, he was released.

  He dropped to his knees, gasping, all strength gone.

  Fyla lowered to him, cupping his cheek with a palm. “It is truly you, Meeryn, my love.”

  Before another word could be spoken, a violent tremor shook through the grotto. Sand danced on the beach. The sheer waterfall trembled and sprayed. The wide pond sloshed far up its banks, while cries of surprise arose from Tylar’s companions.

  Fyla straightened.

  Tylar still knelt.

  More Hunters swept up out of waterways, rising with spears at ready.

  Kreel hurried over from his station by the bridge. “Mistress.. ”

  “A naether-quake,” she said, her voice going cold. Her eyes, still ablaze with Grace, turned upon Tylar-not with accusation, but concern. “You must leave. As I had feared, it is not safe for you… even here.” She motioned him to stand.

  “What’s happening?” Tylar asked.

  Rogger and Delia were led to his side.

  Fyla lifted her arms high, then brought them down in a sweeping gesture. Similar to the deepwater pod, the outer layer of the arched dome crinkled back, revealing the open ocean beyond.

  Tangle Reef glowed on all sides, but now it appeared as a living organism. The entire city writhed in the quake, thrashing along with the weeds, as if a storm raged through the forest. Schools of fish darted in maddened patterns, flashing through the waters.

  Yet more disturbing, throughout the Reef, strange clouds billowed up from below, blacker than the dark water. Lances of brilliance flashed among them like undersea lightning. Where they touched weed, green life charred into black death. Frightened fish entered clouds and tumbled back out as white bone.

  “They sent a Gloom,” Fyla said hotly.

  “A Gloom?” Tylar asked, sickened by the sight.

  “A bloom of the naether into this world. Deadly to all in its path.” She crossed to Kreel. “I must protect the Reef.”

  Kreel bowed on a knee, holding forth his spear. She gripped its bare blade. With a nod from his mistress, Kreel drew the spear from the sheath of her fingers. Blood followed, flowing from her sliced palm.

  She turned to the basin at the foot of the waterfall and allowed her blood to run into the crystalline waters. The stain swirled down and away. “This should ward the Reef against the Gloom for now. But I cannot say for how long. As long as you are here, all are at risk.”

  A sudden crash drew all their attention to the far side. A creature had latched on to the dome. Tentacles writhed against the surface.

  “The jelly shark,” Rogger gasped.

  “It’s gone mad again,” Fyla said. “I’d thought my blood brought it back under control.”

  “Mad again?” Tylar asked.

  Her gaze remained on the miiodon as its venoms attacked the dome’s clarity, trying to eat through. “It was never supposed to have boarded your ship, only driven you to me, so I could see you for myself. But something broke my control, allowing it to attack your ship.”

  Delia grabbed Tylar’s arm and pointed at the jelly shark. It slid down the side of the dome, leaving behind a trail of acid-etched marks.

  “That’s ancient Littick,” Delia said.

  Rogger nodded. “She’s right.”

  “What does it say?”

  Delia glanced to Tylar, her eyes frightened. “It says give us the godslayer.”

  “They know you’re here.” Fyla waved them all to follow. “Hurry.” She led them around the rocky basin and through the shaking waterfall to a cavern hidden behind it. At the back, a smaller pod awaited, tucked in an alcove. “We must get you down to the wetdocks.”

  Tylar stood his ground beside the pod. “What is going on?”

  Fyla stared hard at him, eyes aglow. “The naether is searching for you. I was foolish to bring you so deep. But…” Her bloody hand rose and touched his cheek, a loving gesture. A tingle ran along his skin. “I had to know the truth, to touch you myself, to feel her in your blood. All that is left of my Meeryn. The naether must sense it, too…”

  “I don’t understand,” Tylar said, stepping back. “The naether? It hunts me?”

  The naether was a place meant to scare children, an underworld of eternal darkness and damnation, plagued by daemons and monsters. It was no more real than the aether, a bright land of ethereal spirits, those unseen beings worshipped by the faithful throughout Myrillia.

  Fyla waved them to the pod. “I’ll tell you what I know, but not here. We must go.”

  Tylar allowed himself to be herded inside the pod, along with Rogger and Delia. Fyla joined them, accompanied by Kreel with a fire lantern. It was tight quarters as the pod closed.

  Fyla touched the wall and the pod dropped, falling swiftly away through tunnels. The descent was rough, bobbled by the shaking.

  Rogger held to the walls for balance. “What is this naether-quake?”

  Fyl
a stared overhead. “In a few places in the world, where sunlight never reaches-deep underground, in the midnight depths of the sea, in tombs sealed for millennia-the walls between Myrillia and the naether grow thin. It can be breached, allowing the naether to influence our world for a short time. I felt such a rupture on the eve that Meeryn was slain. Nothing escapes my notice in the seas of Myrillia. I followed it to its source, off the coastlines of the Summering Isles. I am certain something came through.”

  “The black beast,” Tylar said, remembering the lizard creature ripe with Dark Graces that had attacked Meeryn.

  “A naethryn,” she said with a nod.

  Delia gasped at this name. “Impossible. How…?”

  Fyla seemed to finally notice her. “I’m not sure. Such a thing has never happened.”

  “A naethryn?” Rogger asked, parroting the question in Tylar’s own mind.

  Fyla sighed. “What do you know of the great Sundering?”

  “What all know,” Tylar said. “How the kingdom whence the gods came had been shattered, bringing you to Myrillia.”

  She nodded. “But it was not just our kingdom that was shattered.” She glanced to Delia. “We were shattered ourselves. Into three parts. That which you see here, gods made flesh, but also two others. A part of us was thrust into darkness, into the land you call the naether, and another into brightness.”

  “The aether,” Delia whispered.

  “Correct. What was once one became three, separate yet still weakly connected. I can sense my other selves, in the other planes. The dark and the light. But only here do we have substance. Or so we thought.” Her eyes flashed with fear, a sight that would chill the stoutest man.

  What could scare a god?

  Fyla answered his silent question. “The naethryn are the undergods, our counterparts in the naether realm, dark shadows of ourselves.”

  Silence settled over the pod as it glided through the heart of Tangle Reef. The tremors of the quake continued.

  “One of these naethryn came to slay Meeryn?” Tylar mumbled. “Why?”

  “I had hoped you knew.” Her face creased with worry. “For the past decade, there have been stirrings in the deep, strange creatures found rotting on ocean beds. I shared knowledge of these disturbances with Meeryn when last we met. She promised to speak to others across the Nine Lands, to consult with the masters at Tashijan.”

  “She must’ve learned something,” Rogger said. “Something she wasn’t supposed to know.”

  Fyla shook her head, unsure. “The last message I received from her was cryptic. She had great trepidation about something and wanted to consult with the Court of Tashijan before speaking of it.”

  “She had called for a blessed courier,” Tylar said, recalling Perryl’s summons to the Summering Isles. “She was slain before he reached her.”

  “Which is cause for more worry,” Rogger said. “She was slain after she contacted Tashijan-it makes one wonder if someone betrayed her.”

  “Someone at Tashijan?” Tylar could not hide his disbelief.

  “You of all people should not place so much confidence on the folk that banished you into slavery.”

  Tylar shook his head, deeply troubled. Though he had been sourly treated, a part of him knew his punishment had not been unwarranted. He had bargained with the Gray Traders… and it had cost the life of an innocent family. Though it wasn’t his sword that slew them, he was still to blame.

  “There are black tidings all across the Nine Lands,” Fyla said. “Corruptions and bouts of madness. Who can say if Tashijan has been spared?”

  “That was where we were heading,” Tylar grumbled.

  Fyla glanced at him. “Why journey there?”

  “To seek answers from its libraries.”

  Rogger nodded. “And now we have another reason to continue there. If someone at Tashijan betrayed Meeryn, then therein may lay your salvation, Tylar. Expose the scabber and prove your innocence.”

  The pod shook more vigorously, striking the sides of the tunnel. Everyone fell against the walls.

  “Before any journey can be undertaken,” Fyla said, “I must get you safely away. The naether is too strong down in these dark depths. You must escape to the sun, back to land.”

  The pod bobbled again. Tylar sensed they were corkscrewing through a winding tunnel. “Where are we heading?”

  “Even deeper,” Fyla answered. “To the bottom of the Reef.”

  They continued their descent to untold depths, each lost to their own thoughts. But at least the quakes seemed to have subsided for the moment. Tylar finally spoke. “There’s a question I must ask you.”

  “I will answer if I can,” Fyla said.

  Before he could speak, the pod halted with a final shudder. A petal peeled open on to a curving hall, flooded to the level of their knees. Water rushed in-cold, but not icy.

  “The wetdocks,” Fyla announced.

  “Well named,” Rogger said glumly as Kreel waded into the water. The others splashed after him.

  One side of the passage was honeycombed with large half-submerged alcoves. Some were empty, but most sprouted tails of strange-looking craft.

  Fyla waved to one of the nearest occupied alcoves. “Here we dock the Fins, the bloodships of the Reef.”

  The Fins appeared to be made of the same ubiquitous dark green material as the pods, but in this case, it was elongated and pinched at either end, surmounted by a prominent fin. Along the belly ran a pair of smaller fins, like runners on an ice sled.

  Kreel showed them how to open the top hatch and climb inside.

  “Looks like the inside of a tiny flippercraft,” Tylar noted, inspecting the four seats: two in front, under a crystalline dome, and two in back. The inside walls were lined with mica tubes, all leading to a central crystal sphere full of gently glowing crimson liquid.

  “It’s fueled by a similar alchemy as the flippercraft,” Fyla conceded, still standing in the outer passage. “But rather than the Grace of an air god, this is fueled by my own blood. It will speed you through the seas faster than any ship.”

  Kreel checked the levels. “There should be enough blood to reach Fitz Crossing.”

  Tylar nodded. Fitz Crossing was a rim island in the middle of the Meerashe Deep, a god-realm of Dain, the domain of orphans and runaways.

  Rogger sighed. “I know some folk in Scree, on the far side of the island from Dain’s castillion. From there, we should be able to book passage to the First Land.” He jangled a pocket. “I guess it’s lucky we still have Captain Grayl’s gold marches.”

  “But the island is still a far ways off,” Fyla warned. “You must be wary of the Gloom. It will sap the ship’s reserves if you travel through the naether bloom for very long. Flee upward as soon as you leave, away from the deep.”

  Tylar nodded. Kreel gave them a fast lesson on the Fin’s controls. They were simple enough. Tylar took the captain’s seat. Delia took the neighboring chair, guarding the spherical tank of alchemies. Rogger sat behind her. The Fin rested at a slight angle, nose aimed down a short flooded tube to the open sea.

  Kreel climbed back out and prepared to seal the Fin’s upper hatch. Before he could lock it down, the Reef shook with a new quake, more violent than the others. Tylar was thrown from his seat. He stared back up at the hatch. A wall of water swept along the hall outside.

  Kreel clung to the Fin’s tail. “We’re breached!”

  Fyla stood on the far side, water climbing her form. “Be off! I must see to my city!”

  “I’ll get the hatch,” Rogger said, swinging back to the stern.

  Tylar remembered the question he had meant to ask before landing at the docks. “Wait! Fyla! Does the word Rivenscryr mean anything to you?”

  She froze, half-turned. Her eyes flared with Grace, her whole manner hardened with fury. Ice formed over her body.

  Before she could answer, seawater began to pour into the cabin from the flooding docks.

  Delia opened the flow of alchemies. �
�We must go!”

  “Fyla!”

  She stirred. “It is a forbidden name, one known only to the gods.”

  “What does it mean?” he asked frantically. “What is it?”

  Rogger sputtered under the hatch, seawater flooding over him.

  “Your people gave it a different name.” She stared through the rushing water.

  “I must close the hatch!” Rogger choked, pulling it down.

  Tylar pleaded with his eyes.

  As the hatch clanged shut over the flood, her words reached him, “Though it is neither, you call it the Godsword.”

  More confused than before, Tylar fell back to his seat. The water sloshed over his ankles. The only light came from the glow of the mica tubes as the alchemies raced through them.

  Delia twisted the valves that controlled the flows. “Now, Tylar!”

  He grabbed the wheel with one hand and pushed the plunger with the other. Grace surged out into the fins and the ship jetted forward, flying down the dark chute and out into the bright sea.

  Once free, he concentrated on using the foot pedals and wheel to control the craft. The Fin raced through the water, carving a path beneath the Reef above. Against the city’s glow, the patches of Gloom were easy to spot as steaming columns of blackness. Scintillations of lightning crackled through their hearts.

  Tylar sped around the trunks of tangleweed, many now blackened and leafless from the touch of the naether.

  “Once we’re clear of the Reef,” Rogger said, “we should angle both up and away, make for the open water beyond the weed. We don’t want to get snarled up in the surface tangle.”

  Tylar nodded. They were almost at the city’s edge, where the central corona cast off spiraling arms leading to sea plantations and hatcheries. Tylar aimed between two such arms.

  As they shot upward, water sloshed to the back of the cabin. The shift threw off Tylar’s balancing of the controls. The Fin spun in a fast spiral as he struggled to rein it in. They crashed through some branches of tangleweed, jarring their ship.

  “Maybe you should slow,” Delia suggested.