Shadows of Blood

by L. E. Dereksen

  I wanted to stay here in this quiet place, this moment of seclusion and simplicity—and yet the wash of peace I’d felt with Tala was already slipping away. I remembered I had to finish planning the expedition. I remembered the dead eyes of a friend, staring from a Sumadi’s corpse. I remembered the unanswered problem of my oath: E’tuah, standing in the desert alone, condemned. Yet that ominous presence, powerful beyond words, a fortress in the Unseen. How could I confront that? How?

  One week.

  The words came back to me, almost forgotten in the turmoil of our return. E’tuah standing there, knowing everything.

  I sat up.

  One week.

  “Tala,” I whispered.

  She stirred. “Mmhm?”

  “How long since I came back from the desert?”

  She frowned. “Almost a week now, isn’t it?”

  “Tala, where is the stone?”

  “I gave it back to you.”

  “I know. What did I do with it?”

  She snorted, but began moving around, sifting through our robes and blankets. “Ah hah!” She held it up. “I knew I was lying on something uncomfortable.”

  It had returned to its steady glow. But that pulsing. I thought maybe I had woken it by accident, but what if I hadn’t? What if . . . ?

  “Tala, I’m going to do something and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

  “And that’s supposed to surprise me?” She grinned.

  “I’m serious. I need . . . I need to use the stone.”

  “Oh?” Instead of the shocked dismay I was expecting, she actually leaned forward, watching me eagerly. “I was hoping you’d say that!”

  “And . . . you’re okay with that?”

  “You’re right. It’s a terrible idea. But you can’t ignore it forever. The High Elder gave it to you for a reason: you have a duty to attend to, and I think there’s more to this . . . non-exile than we know. If he’s out there in the desert, I think it’s best we deal with him before the expedition.”

  I nodded. Yes. That made sense.

  “Plus it’s ytyri!” she grinned. “I’m dying to see how it works.”

  “Good.” I lowered my voice. “But it’s very important this remains a secret. They’ll rope me if they find it.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Vanya. I know what’s at stake.”

  “So no one can find me with it.”

  “I know.”

  “Mani’s on watch tonight. If I’m not back before the Darkening prayer, I need you to tell them I don’t feel well, but they can’t see—”

  “I’ve got this, Vanya. Now go. Quickly, while you have a chance!”

  I nodded. I glanced down at the stone. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure about this, but there was no turning back now.

  I circled it with my thumb. It stirred, latching on to my heartbeat, echoing my breath.

  “E’tuah,” I whispered.

  The world jerked, everything wrenched out of place, just long enough I thought I would be sick. Then the Realms collapsed and I rushed into a tumult of soundless cries.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ishvandu ab’Admundi

  It was dark.

  Colours and sounds leapt around me, permeating the Unseen with vibrant images.

  I hurried somewhere—behind the wind—rushing across emptiness. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt heavy, my body seemed clapped with weights, unable to move. The world spun out, unravelling like a tapestry undone while I was being crushed beneath the nothingness of the Unseen.

  Time stretched.

  I couldn’t breathe!

  I tried to move. Was I being drowned again? Darkness and light roared like shifting water, yet infinitely more disorienting. The heaviness increased. My mind shrunk, bombarded beyond its depth. Yet I was being carried—far, far—swept along with the Unseen wind.

  Until I saw it.

  The presence, the looming weight, a dark sun, binding the Realms to its command.

  I hurtled towards it.

  Then darkness. True darkness. And the smell of earth and dust and deep, old places.

  I knelt on bare stone. My stomach rocked. My fingers pressed to the cold ground, clinging desperately to its solidity.

  Sands, where was I?

  I had come far. I felt it in my spirit, the churning distance between selves: one unconscious in the Guardian’s Hall, the other here.

  I groaned, wondering how I’d ever move again. I touched my face. It was hot, dripping with cold sweat. Chilled and feverish.

  No. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t my body. Not my real one. My mind was trying to project the nauseous feeling of being wrenched through the Unseen, but the sickness was not real. At least, I hoped not.

  I had to move. This trip would be meaningless if I didn’t get up and find E’tuah.

  I gathered my courage like shreds of a torn cloth and wrapped it desperately around myself. A Guardian. Be a Guardian.

  Tala was right. I had made an oath. I had sworn myself to a task. If E’tuah wouldn’t explain himself, I would act. It was time for answers. This was his last chance.

  I rose shakily, trying not to groan. The darkness was full. It rose on either side. Yet when I glanced up, I saw a line of stars, carving a cold, bright strip through the shadows.

  I was surrounded by cliffs. Maybe even mountains.

  I pressed a hand to the nearest wall. The rock was smooth—and surprisingly warm. I chose a direction and began to walk, tracing my fingers along the wall, my eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom. My sandals scuffed along the ground, no matter how quietly I tried to step. It was eerily silent.

  Then a blackness opened to my right and the air stirred. I paused mid-step. An entrance way? A gap in the stone? I turned towards it, taking a few cautious steps.

  The stars disappeared above me.

  Go back. Get out. The idea of walking into an unknown passage under the earth gripped my heart with dread. I thought of the holds beneath the tower. The tight, cloying space. The unnatural cold. The pressing shadows. And nowhere to run. Nowhere to escape. Trapped in my own haunted memories.

  Kynava. Kynava.

  I forced a laugh between my teeth. Childish fears! I’d faced Sumadi many times now and lived. I had seen them. I knew them. A Guardian had no place for fear.

  Light blossomed behind me, almost blinding me. It bounced from wall to wall and on into the distance. I gaped. I was staring into a vast tunnel that burrowed straight into the earth.

  “I see you dressed for the occasion this time, Ishvandu ab’Admundi.”

  I glanced behind me. E’tuah was standing in the entrance of the tunnel, holding a lantern. The light was impossibly bright, emanating from a sphere no bigger than my fist, with no fire or flickering of which to speak. I stared in wonder, then quickly looked away, dazzled by its whiteness.

  “What do you mean?” I grunted.

  “You’re overcoming some insecurities, little Guardian. Congratulations.”

  I glanced down. I was dressed in fine Guardian robes, edges lined with stark black stitching and held by a blood-red sash.

  Good. Somehow that made my job easier. Confronting E’tuah. Demanding answers. I was a Guardian, and I believed it.

  I reached for my keshu, and gripped nothing.

  “Weapons cannot pass through the Unseen,” he said. “At least not those of wood and steel. Come.”

  He strode past me, carrying the light by a silver chain. I noticed half of the sphere was clouded, directing the light forward so it wouldn’t blind the one carrying it.

  What was causing the light? I wanted to ask, but with everything else pressing against my mind, it seemed like a wasted question.

  “Ytyri,” E’tuah answered anyway, as if reading my thoughts. “A simple, yet marvellous invention. Just a taste.”

  I grunted. “What is this place?”

  “Very old.”

  “I meant where?”

  “A long way from Shyandar.” He strode forward into the tunn
el. “Come.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not—”

  I stopped. The light of the sphere grazed the walls and out popped glittering ropes of colour, twining around and around, dancing over the folded layers of silver-grey rock, patternless.

  Then the light moved on and the walls faded again into darkness.

  Yl’avah’s might!

  The light turned up ahead—and vanished.

  “Wait!” I cried, running after E’tuah. I hurried along the wall until I saw the light appear again on my left, higher up. I almost tripped on the bottom step, but caught myself, cursing as I stumbled up the carved passage.

  He was waiting for me at the top, and without a word he turned and continued on.

  “Wait!” I demanded. “Are you going to answer my questions or not?”

  “Not all answers are a matter of words, Ishvandu. Come, or do not. The choice is yours.”

  He moved on. I hesitated, loathe to trail meekly after him into the dark. But this wasn’t Shyandar anymore, and wonder compelled me. What answers might I find here if I held my peace a little longer?

  I went.

  I found myself trailing a hand on the walls as I walked. They were smoother than anything our crude tools could accomplish. From time to time, a passage opened. Once, I tripped over the crumbling remains of cut stone. An archway?

  I was in a city. An underground city.

  E’tuah turned confidently to the right and I followed. Immediately, I felt the stirring of old air. The space opened. It was large—large enough to swallow E’tuah’s suddenly meagre light. My footsteps echoed above me. I sensed the grandness, the alienness of the place, pressing around me like a cloak, and I fought the urge to shrink.

  “Do you want to see?” E’tuah asked.

  “How?” I whispered.

  A moment later, the light swelled. I watched the shadows flee, rolled back like a scroll. Pillars emerged, crumbling steps, ledges dotted with ancient doorways. They rose and fell around me, each design symmetrical in and of itself, while seemingly random amongst the greater whole. Yet there was beauty in its scatteredness, as if columns and doorways sprouted naturally from the stone, unhindered by the limits of rationality. Like Gitaia, I thought. Not a carefully tended garden, but unbound nature, free to grow where it willed.

  Yet the longer I stared, the more the shape of it emerged. Steps twined around each other, a bridge spanned overhead, columns and arches joined them in wondrous displays of architecture, and doorways appeared in stone, leading at random angles into other caverns, other rooms. You could move around the chamber like a dance. Efficiency, speed of movement: those were survivalist tendencies. Those were of the desert.

  And I was no longer in the desert. I’d left the barren lands behind. I was in another world.

  E’tuah’s world.

  I saw it in the way he moved, leading me through bizarre passages without hesitation. Nor was he diminished by the grandeur around him; in fact, the strength of his bearing grew. He seemed taller, stronger, more unyielding than ever. Yet if this was his world, where were his people?

  We climbed a massive stair, its width equal to the whole of the inner yard of Guardians, and with every step, I felt myself shrinking. We moved beneath a massive arch, into another corridor, its length reinforced with pillars of stone. I followed breathless. I wiped more sweat from my face.

  It was warm. E’tuah led me down the corridor, then beneath another arch, and the glow spread into a vast space.

  I felt it before I saw it. My footsteps were swallowed into nothingness, then echoed distantly back. Loose strands of hair drifted across my face, and I pushed them aside. There was a current of air. I took a deep breath, tasting unfamiliar stone.

  I gazed around me. We had stepped out, yet even the powerful light of the orb could not pierce these wide shadows. I glanced up and saw, high, high above me the pinprick of a few stars, relegated to a tiny, distant opening.

  “Stay close,” E’tuah said. A few moments later, the words echoed back.

  “Why?”

  “The path has crumbled in places. If you step off the edge, you will fall.”

  “Fall where?”

  “Into the earth,” he said, and the finality of that made me shudder. I followed closely.

  We walked in silence. The dislocation of sound unnerved me. My own voice seemed to come from elsewhere, as if stolen by the wind.

  We came to another stair. This was surprisingly steep and narrow, compared to the others that I had seen. At once, E’tuah began to climb.

  I hesitated. I felt like I was standing on the edge of an abyss. If I fell, could I tear myself across the Unseen before hitting the ground? Or would I die, my spirit lashed to this alien place?

  The light moved ahead, threatening to plunge me into monstrous shadow. Yet as I stood there, I noticed a milk-white strip of stone running along the middle of the stairway. I reached for the sinewy line. It was cold and hard and unnaturally smooth, without a single blemish or variation. It ran unbroken up the stairs and down, travelling into the floor beneath my feet.

  My curiosity rose. Shoving aside my doubts, I gripped the steps and began to climb. E’tuah seemed perfectly balanced, yet I went hand and foot, hauling myself up as quickly as I dared.

  The sweat rose on my back and under my arms. It was a long climb, and I had to struggle to keep up to E’tuah. Sands take that man, could he never just tell me?

  But no. He could have met me anywhere. He had told me to find him on this day. This exact day. He’d even summoned me through the stone, then chosen to wait for me in a dark tunnel on the very edge of the city.

  Not all answers are a matter of words.

  He was showing me something. Right now. With every step. He was telling me who he was. Did the High Elder know? Had he seen this?

  Is this why he wanted E’tuah dead?

  The thought chilled me. E’tuah was no exile of Shyandar. So what was the High Elder afraid of? What if E’tuah’s crime was nothing more than the dangerous allure of greatness beyond the desert? What if the High Elder was merely trying to get rid of E’tuah before I saw too much?

  If so, it was too late for that.

  Besides, if E’tuah was not Kyr’amanu, then he was beyond the authority of any Guardian. To kill him would not be law—it would be assassination.

  Was that reason enough to dismiss my oath?

  By the time I reached the top, I was exhausted. My arms and legs shook. I was used to pushing myself hard, but our Guardian training involved more sparring and running than it did extended climbs. I made a mental note of that. If we were going to explore the desert more, we’d need to train ourselves for every possible obstacle.

  E’tuah was waiting for me on a narrow platform. He showed no sign of physical exertion whatsoever. He stood perfectly still, his brow dry, his face calm as he watched me.

  “Yl’avah’s blasted might,” I panted under my breath. “Are you even human?”

  “Come,” he said. “Let me show you something.”

  I grunted, breathing hard. We were frighteningly high. I could sense it, even if I couldn’t see the extent of the cavern. Yl’avah’s might, I hoped whatever he wanted to show me was worth the climb.

  E’tuah gestured to the far end of the platform, still holding the orb of light. It shone now on a strange stone formation. It was a waist-high pillar of stone, and as I approached, I saw the silver vein that had travelled with me up the stairs. It ran up the pillar’s side and pooled into a hand-shaped indent.

  I glanced at E’tuah.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Well, what?”

  “It seems obvious, I would think.”

  I swallowed and glanced at the imprint of the hand. The milk-white ore filled the palm and streamed to every finger. Obvious—and terrifying.

  “You want me . . . ?”

  “Why not?” He smiled. “You may not have this chance again.”

  I had a dozen questions, but I didn’t w
ant to sound as nervous and awestruck as I was. So I reached out and settled my hand into the indent.

  It was cool at first. Then, just like the Sending stone, a warmth rose beneath my touch. My heart beat faster. I felt it in my chest before I heard it: a deep, resonating hum, coming from within the pillar and vibrating up beneath my feet.

  “E’tuah, what . . . what’s happening?”

  “Watch.”

  “But . . .”

  Light!

  It hit me like the blast of a furnace, like the sudden unveiling of a sun. I leapt back, or tried to—but my hand was stuck to the pillar. I covered my face. So much light. So . . .

  The light eased, and I cracked my eyes open. Light filled the silver vein. It poured down the stairs like water, faster than my eyes could follow, then scattered. The veins branched, and branched again, and branched again, dancing up the walls and plummeting down.

  In a few heartbeats, the cavern was bathed in impossible light. I was standing on a high platform, and, as I gazed around, I saw light scurrying across the walls, wrapping around distant reaches of stone, tracing patterns of light that danced and crossed and braided through each other like veins of ore. The whole cavern was as wide as Shyandar itself—and the light didn’t stop there. It spun above us, toward the sky, and down, down into the earth. I leaned over as far as I dared, watching the light fade beyond the reach of my eyes.

  A wave of dizziness hit me. I had never known such heights before, nor such depths.

  “Welcome to Ne’adun,” E’tuah said. “The City of the Undying Sun.”

  My hand lifted off the pillar. I was shaking. Tears pricked my eyes from sheer wonder. Was I dreaming? But no—not even my wildest feats of imagination could invent this.

  I gazed around me. I drank in the sight: a thousand paths carved into stone, bridges of incredible span, structures lifting from the cavern walls, doorways into the earth, pillars and arches and stairs. I drank and drank.

  “How many lived here?” I breathed.

  “Tens of thousands. And that was but a fraction of the greater civilization.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t even fathom that number of people.

  “Come,” E’tuah said. “There is more.”