Luck in the Shadows

41 Scars

The sun was just climbing above the eastern treetops as Seregil, Alec, and Micum set off for the city with Nysander. Thero had stayed behind to assist in the search for the lost documents and weapons.

"I thought we'd finally run through our luck that time," Seregil admitted, riding along between Nysander and Alec.

"You damn near did!" sputtered Micum.

"Nysander didn't even know you'd gone down here until I showed up."

"And when I realized that you were in danger, I could do nothing at such a distance," added Nysander. "I was not certain if you were dead or alive until after we arrived, and even then I could not fix my attention on you with any accuracy until they had you cornered on the roof. By that point it was too late for any but the most desperate measures."

"It was a lovely bit of work, though," Seregil maintained, unabashed. "You haven't turned me into a bird

in years. And never an owl!"

Alec was equally excited. "It was wonderful, at least once I got used to it. But I don't understand why my mind stayed so clear. That time you turned me into a stag I got all confused."

"This was a different sort of metamorphosis," explained Nysander. "The intrinsic nature spell summons an innate magic from the person it is cast upon, and often affects the subject's mind, as in your case. Changing you to an owl was a metastatic spell. Though it demanded far more of my powers, especially at such a distance, it altered only your outward form, leaving your mind unaffected. My greatest concern was whether you would master your wings in time."

"He's a fast learner," said Seregil, resisting the impulse to clap Alec on the shoulder. He could tell from the way the boy sat his horse that his burns were giving him more pain than he was admitting.

"What you didn't learn is who the Lerans were planning to replace Idrilain with," Micum pointed out. "With everything destroyed back there, we'll never track down the others."

"That's not entirely true," said Seregil, tapping his temple. "I got a look at some of those papers before she burned everything. There're a few nobles we can go to for answers. It'll be a start."

Nysander nodded. "I will set some Watchers to it as soon as we get back. I think you three have had enough excitement for now."

"I suppose so," Seregil agreed, stealing another concerned look at Alec riding stiffly beside him.

The day grew brighter as they rode on. They reached a crossroads in sight of the city walls and, bidding them all farewell, Micum turned his horse for home.

"You know where to find me if you need me," he called, kicking his stallion into a gallop.

"I assume you will be at the Cockerel now?" Nysander asked, reining in while Seregil and Alec pulled up their hoods.

Seregil nodded. "Lord Seregil and Sir Alec will be back in town in time for the Sakor Festival. You'll keep our names out of the inquest over this business, won't you?"

"I believe I can. The Queen values the Watchers enough to respect our methods. I must ask you to stop at my tower before you return home, however. There is one last matter to be seen to."

Catching a questioning glance from Alec, Seregil raised a gloved hand to his chest.

Alec flexed his left hand thoughtfully, looking down at the smooth circle of healed flesh on his own palm.

At the Orлska House, Nysander insisted on breakfast before anything else. Having fortified himself, he led them into the small casting room and closed the door. Instructing Seregil to remove his shirt, the wizard inspected the troublesome scar closely.

"This ought to have stayed covered," muttered Nysander.

"This isn't the first time it's reappeared," Seregil reminded him, staring nervously up at the ceiling while the wizard gently pressed and prodded. A sudden thought occured to him and he reached for Nysander's wrist. "But it didn't when you changed me into old Dakus."

Nysander shook his head. "That was a lesser transformation. I simply altered your existing appearance."

"You mean I could end up looking like that someday?"

"Do be quiet, Seregil! I must concentrate."

Pressing his hand over the scar, Nysander closed his eyes and waited for any impressions to form. Little came: the streak of a falling star; a flash of the mysterious blue; the faint roar of ocean; the hint of an unfamiliar profile. Then nothing.

"Well?" demanded Seregil.

"Just bits and pieces." Nysander massaged the bridge of his nose wearily. "Fragments of memories, perhaps, but nothing to suggest any residual power in these marks. It is most curious. How is your hand, Alec?"

"Nothing's changed," Alec replied, holding it up for him to see.

"Most curious indeed," mused Nysander, unruly eyebrows beetling. "The problem must lie in the markings of Seregil's scar."

Seregil studied them in a hand mirror. "The side of the wooden disk that burned Alec was smooth, no carving at all. But these of mine are getting clearer instead of fainter. Don't you sense any magic at all around it?"

"None," Nysander answered. "So it must somehow be the configuration of the characters themselves, whatever they are."

Seregil looked up. "And you truly don't know what they are?"

"I recognize the sigla, as I have said. What lies beneath it is as much a mystery to me as to you. You have my word on that."

"Then we're right back where we began," Alec exclaimed in exasperation.

"Perhaps not," Nysander said softly, touching Seregil's scar a last time, then casting another obscuration over it. "It reappeared after Seregil changed bodies with Thero, and again when he changed back from the owl form. There must be some significance to that, though I do not yet know what it means."

"It means I'm going to spend the rest of my life trotting back to you to get it covered up again," grumbled Seregil, pulling on his shirt. "I bet Valerius could get it off."

"You must not do that. Not yet, at least. To destroy it before we understand it could prove most unwise. Bear with it awhile longer, dear boy. Perhaps we may yet solve its riddle. In the meantime, it appears to be doing you no harm."

"It's done enough of that already!" Seregil scowled. "Take care, Nysander. We'll be close by if you want us."

Nysander retired to his sitting room after they'd gone. Sinking wearily into an armchair, he rested his head against its back and summoned up the impressions he'd gotten from the scar—the star, the sea sounds, the flash of blue, the hint of a face—

His head ached. He'd had no rest since the raid and he was exhausted—too exhausted to delve further into the matter. A quick nap here in his chair was called for, he decided. Later, after making the proper preparations, he would meditate further on the matter.

The quiet of the room enfolded him like a thick, comfortable blanket. The warmth of the fire was like summer sunshine on the side of his face—so pleasant, so soft, like the touch of a woman's lips. As he sank deeper into the welcome languor, he seemed to feel Seregil's chest beneath his hand again, the tiny ridges of the scar brushing his palm. But now Seregil's skin was cold, cold as a marble statue—

Nysander stirred uneasily in his chair. A vision is coming, he thought in vague dismay. I am too wearyfor visions.

But it came anyway.

He was standing in the Orлska's central atrium. Bright sunshine streamed down through the greatdome overhead, warming him deliriously. Other wizards passed by without looking at him. Apprentices and servants hurried past at their daily tasks.

But then the Voice spoke and all the people around him turned into marble statues.

The Voice came from somewhere beneath him, a faint, sinister chuckle vibrating up from the depths below the stone floor. He could feel it in the soles of his feet. Looking down, he noticed for the first time that the mortar of the mosaic had crumbled. Large sections of the design, the proud Dragon of lllior, had been loosened and dislodged, the brilliant tiles trampled to powder.

The Voice came again and he turned, striding through the motionless throng to the museum.Across the shadowed room, beyond the ranks of display cases, the door of the antechamber leading to the vaults stood slightly ajar.

As he approached it, he heard something scuttle away into the darkness ahead. It was a scrabbling, clicking noise utterly unlike rats. Something crackled beneath his foot, a fragment of wood. The case that had held the hands of Tikбrie Megraesh was empty; a splintered, fist-sized hole had been clawed through the bottom.

Summoning a gleaming sphere of light in his left palm, he continued on. As he neared the door itflew open with such force that it split from top to bottom and hung shattered on its hinges.

"Come, old man," a sibilant whisper beckoned. "Old man. Old man. Old, old man."

Skin prickling with revulsion, he obeyed.

The antechamber was as it should be, but the plain stone stairway beyond was gone. Instead, a terrible black chasm yawned before him, devoid of bridge or pathway. Summoning a second light in his right hand, he spread his arms and launched himself into the fathomless darkness, plummeting like an osprey.

He could not tell how long he fell; it seemed like a very long time. There was no wind, no feelingof passage, only the knowledge that he was descending until at last, in the way of dreams, he came to a gentle landing on uneven stone. In front of him, an archway led into the familiar brick-paved corridor of the Orлska's deepest vault.

The low passage branched out into a warren of corridors and storage chambers. He'd made his solitary way here countless times, passing this corner, turning at the next to make certain that thePlace, the unmarked, unremarkable span of mortared wall and all that lay behind it, was as it should be.

But this sojourn, he knew, was not to be a solitary one. The Voice was ahead of him and loudernow, shouting to him from the Place.

"Come, old man! Come, Guardian!" The bellowed challenge echoed coldly through the dampstone corridors. "Come and view the first fruits of your sacred vigil!"

Rounding the final corner, he found himself face-to-face with the dyrmagnos, Tikбrie Megraesh.Bright eyes, moist and alive, looked out from the desiccated black face. The hands that he himself—then a young wizard new to his robes—had cut off had found their way back to their owner's arms, visible below the sleeves of the hideous creature's festival robe.

"Pass, O most noble Guardian!" Tikdrie bade him, stepping aside with a slight bow. "The Beautiful One awaits. Pass and join the feast." The voice of the dyrmagnos, like his eyes, had retained a terrible humanity.

Passing his ancient enemy, he found the passage blocked by a huge pile of naked corpses.

Creatures in colorful rags crawled and scuttled over the dead and he could hear the greedysounds of their feeding.

Some were human, and among these he recognized many long-vanquished foes, returned now tohaunt his dreams.

Others were twisted, monstrous creatures of revolting form beneath their robes.

And all were feasting on the dead. Swarming across the limp bodies, they hunched like jackalsover their victims, tearing chunks of flesh out with teeth and talons, crunching through bone.

A tall figure emerged from the shadows, its dark cloak revealing nothing of its form.

"Join the feast," it commanded in a voice like wind groaning down the chimney of an abandoned house. Stretching an impossibly long arm into the heap, it tugged a body loose and cast it at his feet.

It was Seregil.

Half of his face had been cruelly gnawed. Both hands were gone and the skin had been flayedfrom his chest.

A moan rose in Nysander's throat as grief paralyzed him.

"Devour him," the specter invited, reaching again into the pile.

Micum was next, chest torn open, both strong arms gone at the shoulder.

Then Alec, robbed of hands and eyes. Blood streaked his face like tears, and matted his softyellow hair.

Others followed, faster and faster. Friends, lords, servants, strangers, thrown about like cord wood until he was ringed in with an ever heightening wall of bodies. Another moment and hewould be immured in a tower of dead flesh.

Battling grief and horror, he summoned the twin lights he still carried to increased brilliance andhurled them before him, charging over the maimed bodies of his companions. The obscene specterswelled in his vision and was gone, taking the awful pile of corpses with it.

Before him stood the possessor of the Voice, and Nysander's grief crystallized into stony terror.The huge figure was shrouded in shadow except where light fell across one perfect, golden-skinned shoulder.

He stared at it, trying to see his foe in spite of his mounting dread. He could feel the cold powerof its eyes upon him; it burned his flesh numb like the water of a winter stream.

Then it raised its hand in greeting and the shining skin of shoulder and arm and hand split likerotten cloth, hanging in dulled shreds from the putrid flesh swelling beneath it.

"Welcome, O Guardian," it said. "You have been most faithful."

Lurching out of the shadows, the thing smashed a fist through the smooth stone wall as if it were a paper screen, reaching into the cavity beyond—

Nysander leapt up from his chair, panting and drenched with sweat. The fire was nearly dead and the room was full of shadows.

"O Illior!" he groaned, pressing a hand over his eyes. "Must I be the one who sees the end of it?"

To Be Continued.

About the Author

Lynn Flewellinggrew up in presque isle, maine. since receiving a degree in english from the University of Maine in 1981, she has studied veterinary medicine at Oregon State, classical Greek at Georgetown University, and worked as a personnel generalist, landlord, teacher, necropsy technician, advertising copywriter, and freelance journalist, more or less in that order. She currently lives in Bangor with her husband, two sons, and other assorted mammals.

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