by David Benem
Lorra stared at him, seeming to await a response.
His shoulders sagged. “We must follow Alisa’s guidance. We should be safe so long as we do.”
Lorra’s hard features crinkled in a scowl and she looked ahead. “And who is he?” she said, gesturing. “The man in the white robes?”
Bale’s eyes followed the point of Lorra’s bony finger, spying the cluster of men near the arched gate. The robed man seemed harmless enough, a young Arranese with angular features and skin of light brown. Yet there seemed something unnatural about him, something Bale could not place.
“Quiet, now,” Alisa said firmly. “Make ready. Do precisely as I say.”
“Bale?” Lorra whispered, gripping his hand tightly.
“The enemy watches,” he replied, “and listens.”
Alisa rose slightly, looking about them and rubbing her bracelet of black iron that glowed now with a greenish hue. She snatched a bolt of blue silk from the goods about them and shoved it toward Bale. “Cover yourselves with this and be ready to move the moment I fetch you.”
Bale clutched the silk and looked nervously to the gate. “This will fool no one,” he hissed.
Alisa slipped from the wagon. As she had when they’d first come upon the merchant caravan, Alisa seemed to transform her appearance to that of a simple wanderer. She regarded him with a stare that was inescapable. “We are concealed for the moment. Do it now.”
Bale nodded and pulled Lorra close. He unfurled the fabric and dragged it over their heads, then pressed a finger upon Lorra’s lips. “Say nothing,” he whispered.
They waited for tense moments, feeling the slow rock of the wagon as it rolled over the avenue’s bricks. Bale dared to shift aside the fabric’s edge and peek toward the street. He saw Alisa move to the wagon’s lead, toward the Khaldisian merchant guiding the horses. There was some exchange of words, then Alisa gave the man a handful of coins. She returned to the wagon’s side as it creaked to a stop.
They were at the gate and he spied the young Arranese man robed in white. At first Bale only had a vague feeling about him, but soon he noticed a gnarled stitch of black at the very edge of the man’s dark hairline. He shuddered, ducked under the blue silk and cowered against Lorra. Terror seized him, an icy fear gripping his heart. His lungs churned, frightened breaths sucked through clenched teeth.
He heard deep voices murmuring, the words muffled.
“A pilgrim,” came Alisa’s voice, yet in a perfect Arranese accent with words harsh and angled. “A pilgrim seeking to witness the glorious city of our Spider King, may the shadows guard him always. I come also with a humble tribute for his coffers.”
There was the tinkling of coins. Low voices rumbled but then fell quiet.
Short moments passed, though the time felt immeasurably long. Bale’s body shook and he felt tears tumbling down his cheeks. A hand gripped his shoulder—Lorra’s—but he was not soothed.
Another voice, clearer. “Leave the tribute and move along.”
The cart lurched forward. It wobbled over the bricks and, after a time, Bale’s breathing eased.
“We’re safe,” whispered Lorra beside him in the dark. Her hand slid to his.
Bale clasped her hand tightly, his fear receding somewhat. He sucked in a long and soothing breath, swaying with the movements of the wagon.
Then someone pinched his neck. He stifled a yelp and started, then recoiled as the edge of the fabric was swept away.
“Get out,” said Alisa, standing aside the wagon. She looked herself again, framed by the waning light of the sun. “Now.”
Bale clambered out of the moving wagon and onto the street, tugging Lorra after him.
“This way,” she barked. “Quickly.”
They followed Alisa across the wide thoroughfare and down a street that seemed barely more than an alleyway. Alisa gestured for a faster pace and they sped to a jog, slipping through the squeeze of stone and shanties, around strewn refuse and over the swell of a sleeping drunk’s round belly.
The tight road intersected another. Alisa stopped and guided them down it, directing them to a path even narrower. The road bent in odd places and seemed to move away from the wall. “Hurry,” Alisa called after them.
Bale ran and as he did he felt something, a tingle on his neck. He halted and turned, and saw the far end of the road behind them had become steeped in a heavy darkness. Fingers of deep black, like shadows bound together, stretched toward them along the street’s edges. The tendrils wove swiftly through the zig-zag of paving stones like a torrent of water to within mere feet of Alisa.
Bale trembled. “Alisa! Behind you!”
Alisa caught sight of the dark. She uttered a few sharp words then sprang forward with an unnatural agility. She dashed ahead of the shifting shadows with her green cloak whipping about. She reached Bale’s side and shoved him onward.
Bale’s feet tangled and he stumbled but Lorra was there to catch him. The three of them sprinted with abandon, not caring for the protests of passersby who were forced to make way.
They ran for several minutes, turning this way and that where roads intersected. Clay pots and tall baskets of wicker cluttered the road and someone shouted at them with accusations of thievery. Down one street then another, through a slum where sad hovels of torn cloth huddled against stone ruins. The hands of beggars clawed at them as they swept past.
The hot air burned and sweat stung Bale’s eyes. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his robe. His lungs felt afire and his achy legs screamed.
Sweet Illienne please spare your loyal servant!
He could run no longer. He wilted against a rough tumble of sandstone and sank to the road’s dusty bricks. Alisa and Lorra were several strides ahead before noticing, then both returned to his side.
“Get up,” Lorra urged, wrapping a hand under his arm.
“Hurry,” said Alisa, an edge on her voice. “We don’t have far to go.”
Bale struggled upward, knees creaking as he did. “I can’t…” he huffed through heaving breaths.
He looked back to the stretch of road behind them, an uneven path between walls of crumbling stone. A few Arranese children played in the street, rolling and then chasing after a round fruit of some kind. There was no sign of the strange shadows.
“Is it gone?” he said weakly, bracing against the stone.
Alisa took a step down the road, a hand rubbing her iron bracelet. “I still sense something.”
Bale felt it, too. A faint chill, an eerie coldness that raised his short hairs.
“Bale!” Lorra screamed. She grabbed him and spun him about, toward the street’s other end.
There, just more than ten yards away, thick tentacles of murky black poured along the road, darkening the stone as they passed. They seemed shadows possessed of substance, darkness given physical form.
Bale frantically searched the distance between them and the twisting blackness. There were no side streets or other means of escape, only blank walls of broken rock. He whirled to Alisa. “Back the other way?”
“No,” she hissed. “The shadows are there as well.”
He glanced back and saw the road was empty, the playing children gone. In their place crept more swirls of heavy darkness.
“Bale?” Lorra pleaded, grabbing at his robes with fear upon her face.
Alisa sprang ahead of them, her iron bracelet aglow with a greenish hue. She brandished her short sword, the weapon wrapped in the same luminescence as her bracelet. She charged at the shadows, slashing her sword about. The shadows she struck relented, though others formed and curled about her.
A desperate courage arose then within Bale. He pulled Lorra close with one arm and held the other upward, hand clenched in a thin fist. He drew a deep, calming breath as his mind focused upon the words Lector Erlorn, his Sentinel, had taught him what seemed ages ago.
“Illienne!” he said, “Illienne abralide y ganode allum!” Illienne awaken and give me light!
He op
ened his hand and from it came a brilliant blaze of white, a great beacon lashing pure light at the shadows in every space about them. The light exploded across the street, engulfing Alisa and the black tendrils about her. The shadows immediately shrank and shriveled and slunk out of sight. Alisa lowered her sword and looked to him, an awed expression on her face as she shielded her eyes from the light.
Bale turned his head and saw only brightness behind him, an empty street awash in blinding light. He exhaled and drew his upraised hand to his side. “They’re gone.”
“Not gone,” Alisa said, “just diminished. Run this way!”
Bale’s legs felt unsteady and he slumped exhaustedly against Lorra. He tried to stand and withdraw his arm but she held him tightly, nearly carrying him as she barreled ahead to follow Alisa.
“I have you,” she said, tugging him forward.
The light he’d cast began to fade—quickly—and Bale worried the strange shadows were waiting not far ahead. They ran. Slung upon Lorra’s gangly form, he provided what effort he could, pained legs churning. They made their way through a confounding maze of narrow streets, following the green swirl of Alisa’s cloak.
After a series of manic turns through another slum, Alisa stopped suddenly in the midst of a thin street shouldered by tents of yellow cloth and brown animal hides. Night was drawing near and fires glowed from between the parted flaps of several of the structures. A pair of uneasy eyes stared at them from the entrance of another.
Alisa turned about, studying the tents while caressing her Coda. After a moment she seemed to settle upon one of the drooping hovels and approached it, hands nearing her sheathed blade. She patted the closed hide flap that formed the entrance and took a step back, waiting.
Bale stretched his neck and looked behind, nervously surveying the twisting street behind them. Night was falling and the shadows were deepening, so he couldn’t be certain whether any of the darkness seemed somehow unnatural. The uncertainty unsettled him and his heart fluttered.
“Is this wise, Alisa?” said Bale. “Is this safe?”
Alisa waved aside his question and swatted the flap once more.
An eerie quiet hung over the street and the darkness of night seemed to descend with an awful quickness. Alisa looked about, holding her bracelet which once again held a green glow.
“I think—” she said, just as the flap was swept aside.
A ringed hand shot from the tent and hurriedly gestured. Alisa clasped the hand then summoned Bale and Lorra to her side. They moved with furtive glances to the tent, then together they plunged into the dark shelter and away from the night.
A’Sha was a heavy-set Harkanian with brown skin and a bald head that glowed warmly in the light of the fire pit dug into the shelter’s floor. He sat at the fire’s edge in loose, multicolored robes, thoughtfully stroking a beard of black curls while a gray ferret perched upon his shoulder.
Bale and Lorra huddled on a plush pillow opposite A’Sha, Alisa upon another nearer him. Bale’s eyes wandered about the tent, an octagonal space filled with warbling birds, sniffling rodents, and other creatures he could not identify. Many twittered within wicker cages but others roamed free, some approaching Bale with tiny eyes bulging.
It was a menagerie wholly unlike the musty halls of the Abbey where the only creatures of note were the occasional spider, roach or bothersome bookworm. Yet as much as the sight fascinated Bale, he felt his gaze drawn to the tent’s flap. He wondered what shadows stalked the night.
“You are safe here,” said A’Sha in his ponderous baritone. “Be at ease. The eyes of those foul sorcerers cannot enter this place.”
Bale rubbed at his nose. After a moment he realized he sensed nothing of the sickening chill that had plagued him earlier, just a weighty worry over its return.
A’Sha smiled. “I must say it is delightful to have three visitors from Rune, even during such troubling times.” He gathered his robes about him and rose to stand. “Tea?”
“Thank you,” Alisa answered. “That is most kind.”
A’Sha shooed a hummingbird from a cabinet and retrieved a ceramic teapot. He poured into it water from a pitcher, then hung the pot’s handle on a hook dangling from a metal tripod. He lowered the contraption into the pit, suspending the teapot just above the flames.
He grunted as he settled upon his pillow, his ferret scurrying to his shoulder once more. “Alisa, it is a pleasure to have you beneath my roof, though I must say I’d not thought you’d return so quickly. As I recall, you left Zyn to track the enemy to Rune.”
Alisa nodded. “I did, but I left that to another once I encountered Bale. It seemed his was a task far more urgent and deserving of my aid—and of yours.”
“Oh?” A’Sha said, his dark eyes turning to Bale. “And what task could be graver than determining where our ancient foes are headed?”
Bale said nothing. Lorra squeezed close to him and grasped his hand.
“What is it you seek?” A’Sha asked.
Lorra spat into the fire. “Who are you to ask? Just because she trusts you, we should as well?”
Bale forced a polite smile. He waved a hand at Lorra but she brushed it away.
“You have no idea,” Lorra continued, “no idea at all of what we’ve seen and what we’ve endured.” She grabbed Bale’s shoulder and held his eyes. “I say we’d be better off without the help of any more strangers.”
A’Sha tangled a hand in his beard. “No doubt the two of you are anxious after all you’ve witnessed. I understand this land is strange to you, and you are wise to give your trust only sparingly. But I assure you, I am a friend.”
“Bale,” Alisa said, “you can speak freely here. Remember I told you of a disciple of the Sentinel Pastine, one who might help us?”
Bale’s eyes widened. “Here? In this place?”
A’Sha swept his hands outward then bowed as deeply as his round belly would permit. “I am A’Sha, practitioner of ancient arts strange and wondrous, a Harkanian wizard, witch, what-have-you. And yes, my master was none other than Pastine, Sentinel of Rune.”
“Was?” Bale craned forward. “Does she live? What can you tell me of her? Is she still dedicated to the safety of—” He stopped himself, realizing the words were tumbling too quickly from his tongue.
A’Sha laughed, the sound a joyful rumble. “You have many questions for me, Zandrachus Bale, and I have many for you. We’ll answer them in time. For now, though, suffice to say I am a loyal servant of Rune. My purpose and yours are, at the end of things, the same.”
Alisa looked to Bale. “During my last visit I told him of the murder of your Lector, of the displacement of Castor’s spirit. You can tell him why you’re here.”
Bale tucked a wayward strand of hair behind his ear. Lorra gripped his hand almost painfully but he gave her a nod. He’d grown to trust Alisa and knew they needed all the help they could muster. “Castor intended to summon the Sentinels to Rune,” he said, “and warned the Necrists were trying to recover Yrghul’s power. I continue his errand, and have learned Kressan is somewhere in this city.”
A’Sha looked to him intensely, his glare penetrating. “In Zyn? How is it you know this?”
“My order has means, methods taught to us by Castor. Kressan is here.”
A’Sha shook his head. “I never… I came to Zyn a year ago upon learning troubling things of the Spider King’s ascendance. What I found was a vile hive of Necrists, an unholy temple to Yrghul. I can’t imagine a Sentinel would reside here. Unless… Unless she too learned of the Necrists’ rise and their association with the Spider King, perhaps?”
Bale looked to the fire. “I don’t know, though the possibilities are cause for concern.”
A’Sha arose, drawing his fingers through his beard with eyes downcast. “But are you so sure?”
“I met with Lyan the Just in Cirak. She empowered me, and I have no doubt.”
“He did these things, A’Sha,” said Alisa.
A’Sha rounded th
e fire pit, robes rustling as he moved. “Lyan! You have been witness to a rare and spectacular thing, Zandrachus Bale!” He paused. “But in Cirak? I thought that place an abandoned ruin. Why there?”
“There is something beneath it,” Bale said. “There is a holy shrine to the Sentinels known as the ‘Sacred Place.’ Lyan waits for us there, where she intends to confer with the other Sentinels and decide whether to honor her old oath and defend Rune.”
A’Sha let out a low whistle. “Then your task is indeed a profoundly vital one. But you must take great care in this city. Know that peril surrounds you at every turn.”
Lorra stared at A’Sha sharply, yielding nothing. “Does it surround us now? Here?”
A’Sha froze, hand tangled in a loop of his black beard. “Yes,” he said at last. “Even here, even now. But you do not face such peril from me.” His dark eyes widened. “Aha! Our tea!”
The teapot puffed a steady steam from its spout. A’Sha strode to a cabinet and retrieved a few items, then returned. He handed them each a shallow ceramic bowl, wrapped a heavy cloth about his hand, then delicately removed the teapot from the tripod’s hook. After removing its lid, he crumbled a handful of sprigs and spices into the pot.
“There,” he said with satisfaction, falling back into his pillow. “The spices will steep for a moment and then you shall enjoy finest tea in all the world.” He lifted the teapot and shifted forward, gesturing for their bowls. They passed them to him, watching as he gently filled them and then returned them full and steaming.
Bale sniffed at his bowl, a pleasant concoction that smelled of rare cinnamon from Khaldisia and even rarer clove from Rimgald. “Kressan is here, in this city,” he said, sipping carefully from the bowl. “We must find her, or Rune may perish.”
A’Sha lowered his bowl to the floor and looked to him with glittering eyes. “I will do anything my blood and bones will endure to defeat this so-called Spider King and save our dear kingdom. I will help you in any way I can.”
15
