Shadow
Authors: Will Elliott
Â
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at:
us.macmillanusa.com/piracy
.
CONTENTS
Â
For the people of Canada,
who produced (among other fine things) Melissa,
the finder of lost cats
Domudess: a wizard
Gorb: a half-giant
Shadow: a mythical being
Stranger: a magician of some kind
Stuart Casey, aka Case: a changed man
Mayors' Command:
Anfen: former First Captain of the castle's army
Doon: Faul's nephew, killed by Kiown
Eric: a journalist (and fan of Superman comics) who went through the door
Far Gaze: a folk magician
Faul: a half-giant
Lalie: an Inferno cultist
Loup: a folk magician
Lut: Faul's husband
Sharfy: one of Anfen's band
Siel: a low-level happenstance mage
Tii: a groundman
Castle:
Arch Mage/Avridis: Vous's advisor, confidante, and overseer of âthe Project'
Aziel: Vous's daughter, imprisoned in the castle; heir to rule, in theory
Blain: a Strategist
Envidis: a Hunter
Evelle: a Hunter
Ghost: a conglomerate of five personalities housed in Vous's mirror (and other glass surfaces)
Kiown: a Hunter
Tauvene: First Captain of Kopyn
Thaun: a Hunter
Vashun: a Strategist
Vous: the Aligned world's Friend and Lord
Council of Free Cities:
Erkairn: Spokesman of the Scattered Peoples
Ilgresi the Blind: mayor of Elvury
Izven: mayor of Yinfel
Liha: mayor of Faifen
Ousan: mayor of High Cliffs
Tauk the Strong: mayor of Tanton
Wioutin: Advisor to the mayor of Tsith
Gods/Great Spirits:
Nightmare: young god
Valour: young god
Wisdom: young god
Inferno: old god
Mountain: old god
Tempest: old god
Dragons:
Dyan: a Minor personality
Ksyn: one of the eight Major personalities
Shâ: one of the eight Major personalities
Tsy: one of the eight Major personalities
Tzi-Shu: one of the eight Major personalities
Vyan: one of the eight Major personalities
Vyin: one of the eight Major personalities
1
There are horse hooves thudding on the Great Dividing Road. Their beat is fast, urgent. The world has the soft blurred edges of a dream, the deep purple twilight seeming to filter through water. Fragments of memory like broken possessions float in a dark pool but do not break through to its surface. There is just the beating of hooves: closer, closer it comes.
The man's heart, recently still, now beats in time with that sound. He groans. Warmth flushes through his cold flesh, beat by beat, until it reaches his stiff cold fingers. He cannot remember a thing, not a cursed
thing:
not his name, not how he came to be here in a pool of dried blood. His hand goes to his belly, his hand remembering something his mind does not. Then to his neck.
A light approaches from the south, comes close, swallows him, then heat is washing over him in pulsing waves. Above him is a rider on horseback, who pulls his steed to a halt. It hurts to look at the rider directly. The steed has silver barding which glows jewel-bright. Halted or not, the man can still hear the hoofbeats thudding down. âWho are you?' he says hoarsely.
A voice, quietly commanding, answers, âI am Valour. You are reprieved.'
Blooming light flares brightly about the god, filling all the world. The man feels for a long time that he is floating in it, laughing, forgetting everything and knowing only joy until the god speaks again to drag him back to the Great Dividing Road and the pool of dried blood. âHear me,' says Valour. âThere shall be no second reprieve, if again you fall. Not for you, nor for any other. I have altered the world itself to return your mortal life. I cannot do so again, lest my creator rise in wrath. Do you understand?'
âI do, my redeemer,' he says though he does not understand. He tries to see the god's face but cannot find its features in the light. He can feel Valour's gaze upon him, cold and warm at once.
âStand again. You are a warrior, not a servant.'
He staggers to his feet. âFor what purpose do I live, my redeemer?'
âAct as you will: with freedom, till death take you. Take you it shall. But I say this: do not serve the brood. Come what may. Whether I leave this land or remain.'
âBut, my redeemer ⦠why would you go?' The thought fills him with profound sadness.
âThe brood wish to be free, for we Spirits to be gone. The day will come when I must ride to war. I do not know my future.' The light about Valour begins to withdraw.
âWait! I love you dearly. Stay with me! I do not understand your words, my redeemer.'
âThen hear this. There are two great Dragons, not one. Now they are naked before each other. Ours still sleeps, the far one is awake. They bend their thoughts to war. The Conflict Point is World's End, where stood the Wall. Where the Great Road meets its twin.'
Valour tosses to the ground a chest-panel of plated metal. It lands with hardly a sound. Atop this he drops a sword, sheathed. âI give you a part of myself,' says Valour, âso that part of myself remains, if I am sent away. I cannot better aid a mortal man than this. You will take this sword, this armour. If you find a steed, tell it my name and it will serve you.
Do not serve the brood.
For the Pendulum has begun to swing. Hear me? The Pendulum has begun to swing.'
Tears run down the man's face. Then Valour is gone, and the only way he knew it was no dream or fevered vision is the armour and sword lying there for him, and the pools of dried blood. And his heart, beating again.
1
â
Asked
for me?' Case laughed. âNow why the Christ would a bunch of fucking monster dragons or whatever you got up here ask for
me?
'
Evidently this was a question not worth answering, for the Invia ignored it. Her staring eyes were bright as little pools of water in sunlight, though they and her parted lips expressed nothing other than that she watched him. Case wondered if any human emotion stirred beneath. The wind gaily tossed around her snowy hair and ruffled her wings' long soft feathers. She stood on a shelf of air and stared.
Case's feet dangled from the edge of a jutting shelf just above the thick layer of the sky's lightstone. Though it was dimming to usher in night, its brightness was still painful. A long, long way below them the ground waited to thump the life out of him. He was beginning to get impatient for it. He'd flap his arms on the way down, whoop and bray like a jackass. Try not to land on anyone who didn't deserve it, though the odds were slim. He pictured a bunch of people going about their business and a suicidal old man landing among them making a hell of a mess, and he burst out laughing. He tossed his hat into the sky; the wind whisked it out of sight. âIf I jump, you're going to catch me, aren't you?'
Said the Invia, âYes. Don't!'
He laughed. âWhy the hell not?'
âIt would annoy me.'
âWhich would be just tragic. S'cuse me a moment, some things never go out of fashion.' Case scratched his balls with vigour. The Invia unfurled her wings and picked him up with effortless strength. âWatch what the fuck you're doing!' he snarled as her hands pinched his underarms, already tender from the long flight after she'd plucked him from his would-be plunge to the death.
Her wings beat the air as she carried him higher through a funnel of deep grey stone, away from the lightstone, up to where she had to push him from beneath through a gap hardly big enough. After an uncomfortable crawl the space widened out to a vast cavern of smooth dark walls. Wind came at intervals through a hundred off-shooting holes bored in the cavern's domed roof and walls, singing eerie notes like a huge woodwind instrument being randomly blown. Now and then echoing inhuman cries reached them from deeper within.
Despite himself, Case was intrigued by the sense this vast bare dome was ancient, far older than anything people had built anywhere. Its age pressed down on him so tangibly he could
feel
it. The air was thick with a strange smell. âWhere're your dragons then?' he said.
