Shadowbound

by Gage Lee

  “We’re all loaded up,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I took the sack she offered and hoisted it over my shoulder. I’d circulated my breathing while I’d worked, which had lowered my damage to the minor level of a few cuts and bruises. The sack of ore was heavier than the hammer I’d balanced on the other shoulder, and that made me smile. I’d done it. Biz was about to be cured. There was more than enough ore in these bags to send my sister and me back home, even if we lost half of it to corruption. I’d hang out until all of it had been refined, and if there was anything left over after the five thousand I needed, I’d use it to restore as much of the school as I could before we left. For the first time since we’d arrived at the Ghostlight Academy, I felt like I had a little breathing room. With the scrats destroyed, there wasn’t another group of Inphyr’s soldiers within two days’ march of us.

  Plenty of time to do something nice for the Tribunal and set the other students up. It was the least I could do as an engineer.

  We crawled out of the ruined basement with our heads held high and our hearts soaring. The varm sang a loud and raucous tune, and I sang right along with them. It didn’t seem to matter that I didn’t know the words.

  I felt invincible.

  Right up until Darok went quiet. He grabbed my arm and pointed at the sky.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  For a moment, I didn’t see what had attracted his attention. And then a shadow emerged from behind a mound of floating debris with a flap of its leathery wings.

  “A kamarotz,” I said. “And Fell Lord Inphyr.”

  “He’s attacking on his own?” Xin shook her head. “That makes no sense. He’s powerful, but if he could breach the Academy without the scrats, he would’ve done it days ago.”

  But even as my horned friend tried to convince me that Inphyr had lost his mind, my heart sank. Inphyr wasn’t insane. He’d just outsmarted us.

  Smaller versions of his mount emerged from clouds of shadow. It was far from his entire army, probably only a hundred scrats in total, but it was enough.

  Inphyr had tricked us into moving against his advance guard. His gambit had split our forces badly. Our most powerful fighters were out in the field with me, isolated from the rest of the students in the Academy. Even if we dropped the ore and ran as fast as our legs would carry us, I doubted we’d be able to reach our friends in time to help them repel the attack.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I HAD TO GET WORD BACK to the school. At the speed those bats flew, Inphyr and his team would be on top of them in half an hour. Maybe less. I wasn’t sure what good the warning would do, but it was better than letting my friends and family be slaughtered unaware.

  If only I had a cell phone. I could call, send a text message, even email them if my reception was especially bad. But I didn’t have a phone. This place didn’t even have the internet.

  “Oh.” A rush of excitement shot through me. “Yes, they do.”

  I dropped the sack of ghostlight ore and stormed back to the basement.

  “Where are you going?” Xin called after me.

  “To send an email!” I’ll admit that the laugh that tore loose from me wasn’t entirely sane. The whole idea was so ludicrous that it had to work.

  I leapt into the hole in the ground and raced to the depleted ghostlight vein. The shadowstream was the key. Ylor had as much as said it was this world’s version of the internet. I could use it to connect the interface to the Academy and warn Monitor an attack was coming. The eldwyr had also warned me that it was dangerous to mess with the shadowstream. But this was the only lifeline I could offer my friends.

  I had to take the chance.

  “Wait!” Xin shouted as I prepared to shove my hand into the mass of glowing purple threads. “You can’t touch the stream. It will destroy you. No mortal can survive direct contact with it.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  The horned girl hesitated, then shook her head and spilled her secret.

  “Because I’m from the far side of the shadowstream,” she said quietly. “I’m a demon.”

  Her words sent my thoughts reeling. A few days ago, I never would’ve believed demons were real. They existed in the same make-believe realm as magic and fairies. Now, though, I’d have to be an idiot to disbelieve what Xin had just told me.

  “That’s why you weren’t on the manifest,” I said. “You weren’t supposed to be in the vault.”

  “That’s right,” she admitted. “I escaped from my master and wandered the shadows until I saw a gap. That empty cage in the shadow vault was my way out. I didn’t know what was on the other side, but I took a chance. Anything was better than where I’d come from.”

  I chewed on her words, trying to make some sense of what she’d told me. According to Xin, mortals couldn’t touch the shadowstream and live. But she’d passed through it and into the shadow vault, which meant she couldn’t be mortal. It also meant that someone had manipulated the stream to create the vault in the first place. There had to be some way for me to connect to that purple energy, too. I had an interface that tied me to the Academy. I’d need something else—

  I snatched the hilt of the Blade of Burning Shadows off my belt. The three smooth hemispheres that ran down its length glowed with a steady, purple light. That was new. Flashes of memory burst like fireworks inside my head. The whispering voices of the ghostlight. Finding the hilt hidden behind a seam. Words emerging from the darkness inside me as the advancement nearly tore me apart. And the hunch that I’d need this weapon on this most dangerous mission. None of that was blind chance. The dead had seen all this, somehow. They’d given me the tools I needed. I just had to put them to use.

  “No!” Xin screamed as I thrust the broken weapon into the crack in the wall.

  >>> The secondary quest “Blade of Burning Shadows” has been completed.

  You have received five reference points and five Akashik network interface upgrade credits.

  You now possess the Blade of Burning Shadows.

  To activate the Blade and connect to the shadowstream, you must accept the title of Shadowbound Guardian of Incaguloth. Note that this title may not be forsaken, nor may its duties be ignored until such time as the Grand City has been restored to its rightful place among the many worlds.

  Do you wish to accept this title, engineer?<<<

  There was no real choice to be made here. I had no idea what the title and its duties would entail. It didn’t matter, either. The only way to connect to the shadowstream and warn my people was to accept the quest’s rewards.

  “I accept,” I whispered.

  >>>You have received the Blade of Burning Shadows.

  This energy-based weapon inflicts grievous wounds to all creatures native to the shadowstream, and mortal wounds to all creatures aligned with celestial or infernal powers. The Blade ignores all non-enchanted physical armor, overcomes magical resistance, and may be used to sunder mundane weapons.

  This is a soulbonded weapon. The user may banish it from their hand to his or her soul space at any time, and may summon it with a thought.

  Value: Immeasurable

  Rarity: Occulted

  This weapon may only be wielded by the Shadowbound Guardian of Incaguloth. Do you wish to review the honors and duties associated with this title?<<<

  No, I did not. There’d be time for all of that after I’d dealt with Batboy and his sidekicks.

  “You’re not dead.” Xin’s voice was barely a whisper. “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “I’m tougher than I look,” I said. “I’m also connected to the shadowstream, which, you know, seems pretty awesome. I’m going to need a couple of minutes to do something. If I fall over or pass out or something, can you keep an eye on my body?”

  Xin nodded, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open. She’d really expected the stream to fry me when I shoved that metal rod into it. It was a big day for surprises. I had one more to show her.

 
I raised my new weapon and willed it to activate. A translucent blue blade expanded from the hilt and crackled with restrained power. A thin black core extended from the tip to the base, and the fiery blade seemed to feed on that darkness. The Blade of Burning Shadows had turned out to be a surprisingly literal name for a magical weapon.

  “And for my next trick,” I said.

  The weapon vanished from my grip. I could still feel it, sort of, like a word you couldn’t quite remember. I wasn’t sure what my soul space was, but that was a pretty cool gimmick.

  “How did you do that?” Xin’s eyes were so wide I was afraid they’d roll out.

  “Ancient guardian secret,” I said with a wink. “Okay, I need to make a few calls. Don’t let anything happen to me.”

  “Monitor,” I thought, focusing on thoughts of the shadowstream. “Gather the Tribunal. You’ve got trouble incoming. Inphyr and about a hundred flying scrats are headed your way.”

  My vision blurred and shifted, and a strange static buzz filled my ears. For a few seconds, that was the only sound I could hear. And then a faint, tinny voice pushed through the buzz.

  “Kai? Is that you?” Monitor asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let me know when everyone’s together. You don’t have much time before the Fell Lord gets there.”

  I waited impatiently for word from the soulforged. Xin watched me cautiously, her hands resting on the hilts of her knives. When I flashed her a smile to let her know I was all right, she chewed on the inside of her lip. I’d never seen her nervous before, and I wasn’t sure that I liked it.

  While I waited for Monitor to get back to me, I checked in to see how many blades of ghostlight we had in our reserves. Xin and her team had dumped a bunch off in the refinery the night they’d come back. I crossed my fingers and hoped it would be enough.

  >>>There are currently one thousand and seven hundred blades in your reserves. Would you like to add any restorations to the production queue?<<<

  I didn’t, at least not at the moment. We had a little more than a third of the ghostlight we needed to go home in the tank. At the rate the refinery processed ore, we’d need another half an hour or so to clean up the roughly three thousand blades necessary to get Biz and me home. I didn’t include the time to repair the gate, align the constellations, and power everything up. I also had to account for the walk back, which would take a good half hour if we found an easy path and ran the whole way. That might be possible, since we no longer had to worry about scrats.

  Altogether, I imagined it would be at least two, maybe three, hours before the gate would be ready for us to make our escape. It was an awfully long time with a bunch of bats and a Fell Lord trying to kill us.

  And I still wasn’t sure I could turn my back on these people. There was nothing more important to me than getting Biz back home. But the Academy’s residents needed me, too. None of this was my problem. I hadn’t asked for any of this. I had every right to save myself and my sister.

  Could I really do that?

  I didn’t know.

  “I’ve gathered them all,” Monitor said. “Would you prefer to continue this conversation in person?”

  >>>Soulforged Monitor has opened a direct avatar connection. Would you like to engage?<<<

  I informed the interface that I definitely wanted that.

  >>> Please be seated in a safe and comfortable position. Avatar connection initiating in five...

  Four...<<<

  “I’ll be back,” I told Xin as I took a seat and leaned back against the stone wall.

  >>>Three...<<<

  “What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” she asked.

  >>>Two...<<<

  “Drag me back to the Academy!” I shouted.

  >>>Avatar connection complete. Please allow yourself three seconds of silence and immobility before attempting to control the avatar to avoid damage to it or yourself.<<<

  Everything went black, faded to purple, then slowly resolved into a red-hued vision of the great hall, complete with the busted-up table that no one had bothered to clear away. Baylo, Ylor, and Reesa stared at me expectantly, their faces pinched with concern. There was no sign of Monitor. The scribe said something, but I couldn’t hear it. The red tint bled into orange, then yellow.

  That felt like three seconds had passed.

  “Okay,” I said and heard Monitor’s voice. Oh, that was weird. I was inside Monitor.

  ***Correct, engineer. And I would greatly appreciate it if you did not damage my body by engaging in any dangerous activity.***

  Well, that was definitely weird. Now I had two voices inside my head.

  “Let’s try this again,” I said. “Trouble is headed your way. The Fell Lord tricked us, and he’s coming in hard and fast. Apparently, he was holding out about a hundred of those bats. And they’re all in flight. I’m coming back, but we need a way to stall him.”

  “So many soldiers?” Ylor’s face paled. He clasped his hands in front of him and shook his head. “We cannot fight such a force. I suggest we return to the shadow vaults and seal the Academy. The Fell Lord will not be able to breach the containment. Those of us here will be safe until another engineer can arrive to free us.”

  “Thanks for your concern about the rest of us,” I said. “I’m going to veto that option. Reesa, did you finish those sutras I asked for a while back?”

  “Yes, this morning.” She patted the case over her shoulder. “But they are single target only. I’m not sure that will help against such a large force.”

  She was right about that. The sutras I’d requested were sneaky and would be amazing in a one-on-one fight. Against a hundred scrats and the Fell Lord, though, they’d be less effective than throwing snowflakes at a bonfire.

  “But,” she said hesitantly, her fingers fluttering at her sides, “there is something we could do. You should activate the soulforged armor.”

  Ylor and Baylo both looked at each other with surprise. The warrior nodded, slowly, and the eldwyr joined her. I was so shocked that the three of them agreed about anything that it took me a moment to understand what Reesa had said. Baylo had begged for the soulforged armor when I’d first arrived, but it had been so expensive I’d completely forgotten about it. Now, though, we might just be in business.

  “One second,” I said after I’d recovered. “Let me see what I can do.”

  >>>It will cost five hundred blades to restore the soulforged armor and an additional five hundred blades for five minutes of fuel. You currently have one thousand and seven hundred blades in reserve storage. Would you like to add this restoration to the production queue?<<<

  The armor’s cost, not to mention the ongoing fuel needs were brutal. I’d burn through a lot of ghostlight, very quickly, and had to be absolutely sure it was worth it.

  “You think this armor can hold off the Fell Lord until I get back?” I asked. “We only get one shot at this. If there’s anything else that will work, now’s the time to spit it out.”

  The Tribunal members watched each other for long moments. I fully expected Ylor to demand we bust open his chapel again, but finally he shook his head and shrugged.

  “This is our best chance,” he said. “It is not guaranteed, but if it appears that it will fail, we can still seal ourselves in the shadow vaults.”

  And abandon the rest of us. Ylor was turning out to be a real nice guy.

  “That’s a last resort,” I said. “And if I get back there and find that you’ve already pulled the trigger on the final option, I will definitely leave you in there after I’ve dealt with Inphyr. Watch out for my sister. I’m restoring the armor.”

  >>>Soulforged armor restoration in progress. Estimated time to completion is five minutes.<<<

  “Monitor,” I said, “I’m jumping out. I need to know the instant those bats land. I’ve only got enough fuel to power the armor for ten minutes. I can’t afford to waste any of it.”

  ***I will terminate the avatar connection now, engineer. I will reacti
vate it when the enemy is near. Good luck, sir.***

  I came to with my legs dragging over cobblestones and both my arms numb to the wrists. It took me a second to realize a pair of varm was dragging me through the ruins, each of them holding onto the shoulders of my shirt. The material had rucked up into my armpits and was cutting off the circulation.

  “I’m back,” I said. “Put me down, I’ll walk on my own.”

  “Thank the Bright God for that,” Darok grunted. “You weigh more than ghostlight ore.”

  I regained my feet and brushed the dust off the back of my pants. I looked to the sky to get an estimate of how far we were from the Academy, but without the tower as a landmark, I had no idea where we were.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “The drem scouted out a path for us,” Xin said. “With no scrats to bother us, we’ve followed a more or less straight line back. We’re fifteen minutes out, maybe less now that we don’t have to drag you around like an anchor.”

  “He really is heavy,” Darok groaned and stretched his back. “Have you ever thought about skipping a sandwich or three at mealtime?”

  “You’re hilarious. Let’s go,” I said. “I may have to check out again, so be ready to carry me if it comes to that.”

  The varm groaned at that, then chuckled and slapped me on the shoulders. We took off at a dead run, Xin in the lead, me right behind her, and the green-skinned fighters covering our backs. The demon’s footsteps echoed through the ruins, a rapid-fire slap that echoed like gunshots through the empty city. For the first time since we arrived, I didn’t feel like hunching my shoulders against an invisible sniper’s bullet. When we reached an intersection, one of the drem called down to us from the rooftops and directed us with quick hand gestures to indicate the path we should take. With the little guys’ aid, we tore through the streets at a dead sprint, sacks of ghostlight ore banging off our shoulders.

  I caught sight of the Academy’s watchtower a few minutes later. I pushed myself harder, faster, because I also saw the bats closing in on it.