Shadowborne

by Matthew Callahan

  “Your back is still steaming.”

  “Still… what?” Will’s voice dropped again.

  “You don’t understand,” Madigan said as he shook his head. How could he explain it to Will? How could he explain what had happened? “You were in the middle of it, Will, a whirlwind of lightning so bright I could barely look at it. But there you were. And you destroyed everything around you. Whatever the hell that thing in the water was, it was screaming—pain, terror, all of it. I’ve never heard a scream like that.”

  Will opened his mouth to speak but then paused. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mad.”

  “Yeah, I figured that.”

  With nothing else that he could think of to say, Madigan stood and walked over to his brother, helping him to some very unsteady legs. For the first time, he realized that the wall they had been leaning on was actually a monument of sorts, some kind of inscription. On either side of them was a sheer chasm that stretched out toward the cavern’s distant walls.

  This was nothing like the tunnels they had come through previously. The narrow path was a single track of rock jutting forth, the doorway through which they had come set upon a lone, crude pillar of stone. He craned his neck and saw that beyond the pillar was only empty space and vast darkness. He turned back and saw that the rock ran for a short distance and then stopped; the path beyond was a bridge over the chasm. At the far edge of the bridge appeared to be a tunnel of some sort. The tracks led toward the passage.

  Despite the emptiness, there was something grand about the cavern. It was no ancient river, long since dried, nor was it the result of shifting tectonic plates. This place had been shaped with purpose, with intent. The small wall of the monument was inlaid with intricate filigree carvings and strange designs, runes and ancient writings that Madigan could not comprehend in the least.

  “So, is now the time we’re supposed to lose our minds in excitement?” he said, trying to alleviate the tension between them. “I mean, we’re actually in one of Grandda’s stories now. If we were younger, we’d be bouncing off the walls.” He paused and nodded his head toward the far side of the abyss. “Well, not that one at least.”

  Will chuckled then grimaced. “Yeah, I hear you. I just hurt too much to be excited right now.”

  “I’d believe that,” Madigan said. He walked back to Will and traced the etchings in the wall with his fingers. “We’ve arrived. We’re here. But where, exactly, is here?”

  “Not Portland,” Will said, shaking his head.

  “No, definitely not Portland.”

  Will slid back down the wall to a crouch and put his head between his knees. Looking at the door they had come through, Madigan saw that the entrance was far bigger on this side. A large stone arch covered the column, inlaid with tree roots that bound and held them all together. It stretched upward and the tree formed the head of the arch, standing majestically and towering over the entire cavern, its branches stretching along the ceiling. Yet, like so much of the cavern, it was marred by a great crack that spanned the length of the tree and down along each root.

  He turned and dropped to a knee next to Will, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder. He reached for his brother’s water bottle only to discover the metal had melted within the blackened straps of his pack. Giving Will a small shake, he pulled the pack off as his brother groaned and shrugged out of it. The groan turned to a wince and a small laugh as the pack came free.

  “You okay?” Mad asked.

  Will nodded. “Some kind of static in the air or something. That key from Grandda keeps zapping me.” Madigan shrugged, his own key cool and silent against his skin, and returned to inspecting his brother’s pack.

  It wasn’t ruined, not entirely. The outer layer was charred and shredded while the small outer pockets had burnt off entirely. The emergency rations and first aid kit were gone, but for the most part the outer layer held the worst of the damage. The sleeping roll at the base of the pack was gone, one lone strap dangling from where it had been secured. The main inner pocket was mostly intact once he scraped past the ashen remains of Will’s heavy jacket at the top, and beneath it the contents had survived. All in all, it would suffice for the time being.

  Will managed to stand up and move around, wandering a short distance down the path, tracing the wall and staring at the roof. “Where do you think the light comes from?”

  Mad hadn’t noticed before but Will was right—there was no visible light source but the entire cavern was lit with a dusky glow. No shadows were visible, as if the pale light filled every crevice. “Is it crazy if I said it looks like it’s coming from the rock?”

  “Crazy? Yeah,” Will said. “But also accurate.” He abandoned the wall and walked back toward Madigan. “What do you think?”

  “I think,” Mad said, glancing back toward the carving of the tree and the strange light that surrounded them, “that we better get moving. This place doesn’t feel right.”

  Will shouldered his pack and followed him forward. As Madigan moved, his key suddenly began throbbing, sending a cool little jolt along his skin, a shiver down his spine, the sensation like the first touch of the frigid waters of the Oregon coast. He turned and glanced at Will to find that his brother had paused and, with burnt gloves, was fumbling at the zipper along his outer jacket, pressing against his chest. Madigan pressed his key against his own skin. The feeling stayed the same.

  “Yours too?”

  His question obviously caught Will by surprise but his brother nodded. “Yeah, constantly.”

  “Hmm. Mine just started,” he said. The icy chill was slow and steady, a strange hum. “Do you sense anything?”

  “Sense anything, what?” Will said, his face a blend of confusion and trepidation. “What do you mean?”

  “You know,” Madigan said, dropping his voice to a whisper and giving his brother a surreptitious glance, “sense anything. Your version of spidey-sense, shade-y-sense, or something? Super powers are always like that.”

  Will’s expression flattened.

  “I mean come on, ‘Super Will,’ you’ve got to be sensing something.”

  “Shut up.”

  Madigan laughed and turned, dragging his hand along the monument again as he began moving. He hoped that Will couldn’t hear the effort behind the laughter, the force of the joke. While it may not have been genuine, he felt that the attempt at banter was probably for the best. It had been a long week, an especially long evening, and somehow he knew that things weren’t going to get any easier. Between indoor lightning storms and magical keys and gateways into other worlds, the last thing either of them needed was to get lost in their own imagination.

  They moved on, treading carefully along the bridge to move away from the door within the stone tree. The stone bridge neither veered nor curved, the tracks set within impossibly straight and level. The filigree extending from the stonework of the arch was mirrored on the cavern walls as they drew toward the mouth of the tunnel, the designs growing in size and detail. The lighting never wavered nor dimmed and cast no shadows. Even when they raised their feet for each step there was no shadow beneath it, the ground itself glowing.

  They breathed a sigh of relief as the bridge ended and they had walls to either side once again, the vast chasm now behind them. Moving forward into the tunnel, the great stone tree passed completely from their sight. They followed the etched tracks along the passage until they arrived at a large junction where the tunnel opened into another massive cavern. This one, fortunately, contained no sheer drops whatsoever.

  The walls were slick but far from smooth, like molten rock that had been molded as clay upon a crafter’s wheel. Carvings jutted from the stone like friezes on ancient Greek temples, yet something about them felt older than Madigan could even imagine. The friezes were grand and detailed with figures from the depths of his imagination: dragons with flames surrounding them, warriors with weapons fending off demons and creatures he couldn’t name, centaur and minotaur and every being from all t
he fantastical stories he dreamt of as a child. All were depicted before him like an enormous panorama of a horrific battle from his nightmares.

  Will paused and his breath caught as he spun around slow and took in the spectacle. Madigan, knowing that his brother could very easily get caught here for hours by so many carvings, pressed forward. Will made a noise of protestation as he realized that his brother wasn’t going to let him explore.

  “Mad, come on,” he said as he ran to catch up. “Look at it all! Have you ever seen anything like it? We should camp here and regroup.”

  “No, I’ve never seen anything like it and no, we’re not going to camp here to regroup,” Madigan answered his brother without stopping.

  “But Mad—”

  “This place is ancient, Will,” Madigan cut him off. “Which means it isn’t going anywhere. We can come back once we have some idea of where we are.”

  “Forward then, I take it?” Will said, his voice a mixture of resignation and petulance.

  “Unless you’ve got a better idea. Grandda didn’t explain much about this part. He just said that we’d get through the Ways and from there set out to Undermyre.”

  “But he had a plan for after that, right?” Will said hopefully. “One he shared?”

  Mad paused and considered before answering. “He had a plan. We’re just going to have to improvise.”

  “Wait,” Will said, catching his arm. “Back on top of the mountain, the two of you were talking, planning!”

  Mad nodded and shrugged out of his brother’s grasp. “A bit, yeah. But it was for while you were supposed to be away training. Somehow I think lots of that got put on hold. ”

  Madigan didn’t know how to tell Will that he was completely in the dark, that Grandda hadn’t filled him in in the slightest about what this was or where they were supposed to be going. All he could do was keep moving forward and hope for the best, trusting their luck to guide them.

  Luck. They’d been lucky, whether he wanted to admit it or not. In spite of the misfortunes they’d experienced they had still managed to come out alright. Most of the time, it seemed to have nothing to do with any of the training either of them had received. It was all just plain dumb luck.

  As if the universe had the same thought at the same moment, everything changed. A distant sound echoed faintly down the corridor they’d moved into. At first, Madigan thought he was imagining things. A moment passed before he heard it again.

  They weren’t alone anymore.

  Something was coming.

  Madigan raised a hand. Will stopped in his tracks and dropped to a crouch, removing the tattered remnants of his gloves and placing a hand upon the metal tracks in the ground. He closed his eyes and cocked his head to the side. There was silence again as the pair waited, bodies tense in the faint luminance of the passage. Then the sound came again.

  “Something’s coming,” Will said. “The vibrations are faint but they’re there.”

  Madigan glanced at his brother askew. “You could feel something that faint in the tracks?”

  Will gave a quick nod. “Barely.”

  Madigan cursed under his breath. There was nowhere to hide. Behind them lay only the cavern with its sprawling expanse of carved artwork, and behind that was only the way they had come. To backtrack at this point and stay far enough ahead of whatever was coming would require speed, and in their condition, there was no way they could do so quietly. Whatever was coming would be alerted to their presence immediately.

  “Any chance you can whip out that Shade of yours?” he asked Will.

  “Tried already,” Will said, shaking his head. “Plus, with all this light coming from the stone, a shadow would draw attention like a flare.”

  “Of course,” Mad said, his voice a hushed hiss. “Nothing can ever just be easy.”

  The sounds were increasing in volume and Madigan was able to make out that they were footsteps. Not loud and thundering, not another gargantuan creature, but small and in near unison. Multiple things then, not just one. Maybe people? Their grandfather had come from here, so there was no reason to expect that whatever was coming would be anything other than human. Unless it’s multiple shadow monsters or tentacled water beasts.

  He shook the thought away and looked back at the cavern—there was nothing there to give them any kind of advantage. Glancing at Will, he saw that his brother had loosened the blades at his sides, clasping and unclasping the hilts repeatedly.

  “People, if we’re lucky,” Mad said, his voice a whisper. “Hold back unless absolutely necessary. We don’t know anything about this place. Not really.”

  Will didn’t meet his brother’s eye, instead keeping his gaze focused on the corridor. “Play things close to the chest, got it.”

  “And whatever happens, keep yourself under control,” Mad went on, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Was it nerves? Or was Will about to break out in another lightning storm? “Don’t let them know about your Shade, otherwise we may not be able to let them leave here alive.”

  “What?” Will said as he met Madigan’s gaze with a glare. “What if things get out of hand? Are you really suggesting that just because someone finds out that—”

  Madigan grabbed his jacket and pulled him close. “Grandda warned us about the dangers and we have no idea what we’re in for here. You’re Shadowborne. I don’t know much about that but I do know that it can be pretty goddam divisive down here. If they’re hostile and you make a move, I’m keeping you safe.”

  After a moment, Will nodded and Madigan released him. The footsteps were closer, only moments away from rounding the bend in the tunnel. Once more he scanned the walls looking for a crevice, a nook to hide in, anything—but they were unnaturally without blemish. Even if they were somehow able to reach the friezes high above, they were shallow at the base and offered little in the way of cover. There was no way around it: He and Will were exposed.

  “We got lost,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “You’re injured. We were exploring the tunnels for fun and got into trouble. We don’t know where we are. Nothing about Shades. Nothing about Valmont.”

  It was the best kind of lie he could muster, staying close enough to the truth to be convincing. Plus, with Will’s ravaged clothes, he certainly looked the part. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was the best he could do.

  Will, though, was never one to just let things go. Moving quickly, he unclasped the belt that held his knives and stuffed it into his tattered pack but not before he slipped one of the fangs from its sheath. Before Madigan could stop him, he had tucked it under the arm of his shirt, clutching it against his side and hugging the arm as if it were injured.

  Madigan opened his mouth to protest but halted as the footsteps rounded the bend. In the distance, a group of armed soldiers appeared. There was the briefest pause before they erupted in a flurry of shouting and drawn weapons. Fighting every instinct to draw his own weapon, Madigan put on a mask of nerve-wracked fear and raised his hands in a gesture of submission.

  The group charged and both brothers tensed. This was not the elegant band of soldiers depicted in Grandda’s stories, bedecked in plumed helms and shining plate. This ragtag assembly before them wore intricately cut, blackened leather armor that bore no resemblance to any armor Madigan had ever seen. On each of their left shoulders was an epaulette in the shape of a giant raven with a silver beak. Each of them carried an elaborately adorned halberd. As they moved to surround the brothers, Mad saw the weapons’ edges shimmering in the dim light.

  Still, Madigan could tell that there was something strange about the band of soldiers, something he had not expected. There was an air of sadness about them, something tired. Their bodies seemed rough and harsh, as if hewn from salt and rock. The leather of their armor was cracked in places and poorly kept. They looked old, ancient even, despite the youth of their faces.

  Three of them barked out orders at once and turned to look at each other sharply. Something was amiss. Madigan realiz
ed that they were out of their comfort zone. That could be bad. It occurred to him that the troops were patrolling the Ways, a destination that his grandfather had basically called a dead-end after it had been closed. So, either these soldiers never expected to find anything and Grandda had been correct, or something had drastically changed since the last time he’d been here.

  “Sorry to startle you.” Mad shifted slightly and spoke in a calm, even voice as he opened the conversation. “We seem to have gotten a bit turned around here.”

  He was met by cold stares. Whoever they were, they didn’t look surprised to see them. Instead, determination and cool fury were building within them. After a brief pause, Madigan continued speaking.

  “My brother here took a rather nasty tumble, as you can see from how banged up he is,” he said. “We were simply trying to—”

  “Silence, filth,” said a voice he couldn’t locate.

  “Really now,” Mad said, balking at the comment, “there’s no cause to—” He was cut off by the butt of one of the halberds ramming into his stomach. He wheezed harshly and sank to the floor, gasping for air.

  Will gave a shout and whirled to help him to his feet but was struck across the face by another of the weapons. Madigan saw Will glare up toward the group with as much defiance as he could muster. He was about to speak to his brother but was cut off.

  “Either one of you speaks another word, I’ll slit the other’s throat,” the same voice spoke again, closer this time. Will spat blood as Madigan, clutching his abdomen, laid a quieting hand on his shoulder. Mad looked up to see a gap form in the surrounding troops as another soldier, taller than the rest, stepped forward. A halberd was strapped to his back and in his right hand he carried a cruel-looking dagger. Madigan bit his tongue and swallowed the rage rising in his throat.

  “Good, you’re learning,” the man said, glaring at the boys and gesturing to the soldiers at his sides. “Take them.”

  There was a rush of movement as rough hands and biting ropes overtook the brothers. Their packs were torn from their bodies and thrown to the stone ground. They were thrown to the ground and searched and, to Madigan’s shock, they somehow missed the knife Will had hidden. The corners of Madigan’s mouth grated as a large knot of rope was shoved between his teeth. His eyes bulged in pain as the gag was forcefully tied around the back of his head.