Shadowblood

Chapter Eighteen

“This is not been quite the welcome I was hoping for,” said Tamara, looking up at Rik. He had entered the chamber silently and stood looking at her from the doorway. It was a busy night. Inquisitor Joran had just left.

“Did you really expect Asea to greet you with open arms?”

“A little more sympathy and a little less I told you so would be appreciated.”

“Given what Asea knows about your father I think she’s doing rather well by you.”

“You are not the one weighed down by truesilver chains.”

“There is that.”

“It’s nice to see that you are still so open-minded.”

“I came to see if you wanted anything.”

“A key to these fetters would be appreciated.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have one. You are lucky — I heard Karim suggesting they should be welded shut. He fears you might be able to pick the lock.”

“If I had a mirror, a lock-pick and prehensile toes he would be right. Sadly I don’t.”

“Is there anything else I can get you besides a lock-pick?”

“You can tell me what you want. I know there is a reason you came here. Charity is not your style. Did Asea send you?”

“No. I came of my own accord.”

“Well, it’s nice of you to come and pass the time. Now ask me whatever it is you want to know?”

“What did you tell Joran?”

“As little as I could. But I suspect you are asking about whether I mentioned your connection with my father.”

“That is perceptive of you.”

Tamara shook her head, realising that she had found a lever that might help her in this situation. She possessed knowledge that might be useful to pressure Rik. She could threaten to reveal his secret to the Inquisitor. Of course, it would have to be done carefully. The simplest solution to that threat would be to have her killed.

“Can you really teach me how to walk through shadows, change my appearance and all that?”

“I can try. I have never actually taught anyone before. All I can do is teach you the way my father taught me.”

“Asea thinks it might be a trap, a way to corrupt me.”

“You are quite corrupt enough without my help.”

“That’s what I told her.”

“You have the gift of self-awareness.”

“One of my many talents. How would you teach me?”

“I would start with the basics and work my way up?”

“What are the basics?”

“I think you already understand some of them. You could sense when I was going to arrive when shadow walking, couldn’t you?”

“I think so.”

“That means you have the gift. I imagine Asea has taught you basic exercises for sorcery as well.”

Rik nodded.

“Excellent. Your feet are already well set upon the path then.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Fix your eyes on the nearest shadow.”

“Done.”

“Now concentrate on it. What does it look like?”

“It’s your shadow, seen from the side.” The shadow shifted as Tamara turned to look at it. “Focus on it really hard. Fix every detail in your mind. Now close your eyes and picture it exactly as it was.”

A look of concentration passed across his face as he did so. “Now what?” he asked.

“Just hold it in your mind. Try and picture it as clearly as you can. As clearly as if you were seeing it.”

“Right.”

“Now open your eyes.”

His eyes snapped open. “Is it the same as you visualised?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean maybe?”

“It’s not perfect. Maybe because you have moved your head.”

“Or maybe because your ability to visualise is far from perfect.”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Try again, and keep trying again until you can get it right.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“If Asea has been teaching you sorcery you must have done this sort of thing before. From repetition comes mastery.”

“That is certainly something I have heard before.”

“And you’ll certainly hear it again, because it’s a basic truth of all magic and all learning.”

“Now you do sound like Asea.”

“I don’t take that as a compliment.”

“Somehow I thought that would be the case.”

“When you can visualise the shadows around you perfectly, see them as they are, without opening your eyes you will have walked aways along our path.”

“I trust you had an enlightening chat with your half-sister?” Asea said when he entered the chambers in the old farmhouse that they shared.

“She has begun to explain to me how a shadow walking works.”

“Describe the technique.” Rik did so. When he finished Asea nodded and said, “It sounds like it should work. She is preparing you to begin manipulating shadow at the most basic level unless I miss my guess.”

“Could you do this? Could you learn what she is teaching?”

“I could do this elementary exercises but I am sure that she will soon teach more complicated things, and the ability to work those is in the blood, passed from parent to child. My talents do not run in that direction.”

“Is it dangerous- what she is teaching me?”

“All knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands, Rik. Be very careful of what she tells you. A teacher can place all manner of traps in her spells to ensnare the unwary apprentice.”

Rik smiled at her. “The same could be said of you.”

“I am sure it is, Rik. But this is deadly serious. I have no reason to want you dead. What will you do if Tamara teaches you the way into the Shadow paths but the way she gives you to exit them fails to work?”

It was a good question and one to which he had no easy answer. It rather took away his pleasure in learning a new form of sorcery.

“By the way, you had better get dressed in your best. We have been invited to dine with my brother this evening.”

Wonderful, Rik thought. What could the General possibly want with him?

Rik felt out of his depth in the tent of the inhuman General, Lord Azaar. A floating chandelier illuminated the sumptuously furnished space with magical light. Spells of silence deadened the noise from the army camped around them. The shadowy outlines of servants and sentries loomed through the water-repellent spidersilk. It was the night before battle and all of the staff officers had been at dinner and gone. Neither Asea nor her brother could sleep. He had no idea why he had been asked to stay on. The voices whispered to him to be careful.

On one side of a rune-inlaid table sat Lady Asea, tall, stately and beautiful as a painter’s dream. On the other side of the table, his features concealed by a silver face mask, his rotten stench not quite concealed by the heavy musk wafting from his neck-hung pomander, lounged Azaar, Lord of Battles, Commander of the armies of the West.

On the table between them was a chessboard. As far as Rik could tell the two were equally matched, but their play was far beyond his understanding so his opinion on the subject was worthless.

Asea finished her contemplation and raised her queen moving it to a position that threatened the General’s left flank. Azaar nodded and moved a bishop immediately in response. It was evidently a move he had anticipated.

“I don’t like it,” he said. His voice was clear and rasping, his accents those of one used to being listened to respectfully and obeyed instantly. “These damned winds have blown plague out of the East all winter. The dead stir in their graves. The living fall sick and die faster than we can burn them. My scouts report that we will encounter the Eastern army tomorrow and it is much larger than I expected. I would have considered retreating before it but it's moving faster than we are and anyway I have my damned orders to advance East and engage the enemy.”

Asea stared at the board, her eyes concentrating on her pieces. She seemed to be paying no attention to her half-brother’s words. She moved one of her pawns moved forward to block the bishop’s attack on the Queen.

“There’s dark magic at work in this plague, for sure,” said Asea, as Azaar’s reached out and pulled his bishop back. “I have not seen anything so virulent since we left Al’Terra, and the way the victims rise afterwards is disturbing to say the least.”

"What's more disturbing is that the dead seem to be joining with Easterners."

Asea steepled her fingers in front of her and studied her reflection in the General’s mask. “Someone has cast a necromantic spell of immense power. I can feel its workings over this entire land.”

“Can you disrupt it?”

“Perhaps locally but even then perhaps not. I have not felt magic this powerful since we left the home world.”

“I wish you had not told me that,” Azaar said. “I'd like to think that you were the most powerful wizard on the planet.”

"Not anymore," she said. "Whoever is behind this is far more powerful than I."

Rik did not find this in the least reassuring. He shuddered. The General turned his bright mad eye on Rik. It took all the youth’s self control to keep from flinching. Azaar's family had been killed by Shadowblood and that if the General ever suspected what he was, the best he could expect was a quick death.

"I hear that you have the Lady Tamara in truesilver chains. Is there any particular reason for that?"

"Despite her appearance, she is a very powerful sorcerer."

"So was her father so that does not surprise me. Why do you think she chose to join us now?"

"She claims to have fallen out with the new rulers of Sardea. She claims that the Prime Minister is a follower of the Shadow and that he has a grudge against her."

"The bit about Xephan is quite possible," he said the General. "Her father and Xephan were great rivals. Xephan schemed to have old Malkior replaced for decades. Do you think there's any truth to the other part of Tamara's claim?"

"I fear there is. All of this sorcery, the plague, the war, the assassinations, the rising of Elder daemons — it's all connected."

"Then it's happening — what we've always feared. The Shadow has followed us to this world at last."

"Yes," Asea said. "And we are not ready for it."

"We were never going to be ready for it."

Asea seemed amused. As always she met adversity with perfect poise. Rik wished he could emulate her but he lacked her centuries of practise. Azaar looked at Rik as if trying to judge how he was taking this. Rik realised that he was in a position of immense trust if these two members of the First were prepared to discuss this in front of him.

The beadiness of the General’s stare increased. “There’s something about you I can’t quite fathom, boy. Something uncanny.”

Rik took a deep breath and willed himself to be calm. What did Azaar suspect? Rik had many secrets, any one of which would be cause for having him executed. Deep in his mind, the voice of beings long dead whispered to him. He did his best to will them to silence but it was hard to do under the circumstances.

“You’ve been teaching him sorcery, haven’t you, Asea?” It was not a question. “It’s written all over him. The question is why?”

Asea did not answer and the General went on speaking so quietly it seemed like he was talking to himself. “And he’s always there when strange things happen. He was at Achenar when the Spider God woke, and he was with you in Morven when you destroyed the Serpent Tower. He saved Queen Kathea and then he was accused of killing her. Easy to see why the Inquisition might be interested in him.”

He stared directly at Rik and said, “The eye of the storm always passes over you, boy. Have you any idea why that is?”

Rik’s mouth was dry. What did the General suspect? Why had he mentioned Inquisitors? “I have no idea, sir.”

There was no mirth in the ancient General’s cackling laughter. “I am not entirely sure I believe you.”

Rik wondered what he was supposed to say to that. He was in no position to argue with the supreme commander of the army. Technically speaking, he was still under his authority in the eyes of the law, even if he was no longer a soldier. At this moment, despite what he said, Azaar was the dictator of Kharadrea and would be until Queen Arielle sent someone to replace him.

"Leave Rik alone, Azaar," said Asea. "He's your guest and he's been adopted into our clan."

“Of course, where are my manners? I apologise, Rik. I have yet to congratulate you and I have something to give you — a gift to welcome you into our extended family.”

He summoned a servant with a gesture and the man brought a long wooden case. Asea looked up with interest, her gaze flickering between her brother and Rik. The servant gave the casket to the General and he offered it to Rik with his own hands. “Go on, take it!”

Rik took the box. It was made of a wood he had never seen before, ancient and polished. There was a smell of wax and incense about it and his thievish instincts told him at once that it was old and valuable.

“Open it up!” said Azaar. Rik did so and saw that there was a blade contained within it. The sword was long and straight and there were runes set on the blade. It was quite the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“A princely gift,” said Asea. “That blade came from Al’Terra, didn’t it?”

Azaar nodded. “It was made before we came to this world. See that you do nothing to disgrace it.”

Rik realised that this sword was probably worth more than all the things he had ever owned put together and then some. It was a weapon that could protect its owner from magic and which could kill daemons and Nerghul and other monsters.

“If this boy is going to be your bodyguard, I suspect is going to need a weapon like that,” said Azaar. He snapped his fingers and the servant brought a scabbard. It was plain and gave no hint of the wealth represented by the sword it was made to contain. Rik slid the blade home and then strapped the scabbard onto his belt. It hung there as if it had been made for him, and he barely felt the weight.

He bowed low to the General and said, “I thank you, sir. It is a gift beyond price.”

“My sister has brought you into our family. I want the world to know that I have welcomed you too. It may prove some protection to you in the days to come.” He shrugged and then maliciously added, “Then again, it might not. I am not without enemies myself.”

“I will do my best to see that I bring no disgrace on you or your sister,” said Rik.

“You’d better, boy. You’d better. Tomorrow we meet with the Sardeans so you’ll have a chance to live up to those words.”

“Look at them,” said the Barbarian, he pulled the sausage he was warming out of the fire and pointed the spit in the general direction of Sergeant Hef and his family. The Sergeant, his wife and all of their kids were on their knees praying, beside the small tent they all shared.

“It’s good someone is praying for our survival,” said Weasel “Maybe the Light will listen. You never know. Stranger things have happened.”

“Waste of time,” said the Barbarian, taking another slug from his vodka flask. The burning liquid scorched his throat. He offered the flask to Weasel who took it gratefully enough. “If your time is up, your time is up. No amount of praying will do any good.”

Weasel gave him a crazy lop-sided grin after he had finished a long pull on the flask. “You know that for certain, do you?”

“How many guys have you seen pray the night before battle that had their brains blown out the next day?”

“A fair number,” said Weasel “But I’ve known a few that prayed and they were spared too. Who is to say it didn’t make a difference?”

“I’ve never prayed before battle and I am still here.”

“There’s some would say it’s because you’re too stupid to die.”

“Show me where they are and I will show them how stupid I am.”

“Why this sudden interest in religion?” Weasel asked. “It’s never bothered you before.”

The Barbarian considered voicing what was on his mind. He felt ashamed. It was not the sort of thing a man was supposed to admit to. He kept a wary eye on the praying family and eventually managed to force the words out. “I am worried,” he said at last.

“About what?”

“Things.”

“What bloody things?”

“I’ve heard folk talking. Some of them think the end of the world is coming- what with the dead men walking and the Elder demons waking and all.”

“I could see where they might get that idea,” said Weasel. “But it’s not like you to allow an idea to force its way into your head uninvited.”

“I know and that’s one of the things that’s bothering me. What if they are right? What if the end of the world is here?”

“Not much the likes of you and me can do about it, is there? I doubt God or his Shadow are going to pay much attention to what we think.”

“That’s it you see, maybe they would if we prayed to them.”

“If you think it would help, maybe you should give it a try.”

“What about you?”

“I am not much of the praying kind.”

“But it might help. Maybe a couple of extra prayers might swing the balance. They say in the balance of power between the two is very close.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll pray with you.”

“I thought you have to be sincere when you pray.”

“Believe me when I ask God to spare us and give us some loot, I will be sincere.”

“Fair enough, let’s get started then.”

“What now?”

“No time like the present.”

Weasel gave him a nasty grin. “I just thought of something.”

“What’s that?”

“You never prayed before any other battle and you’re still here, right?”

“Right.”

“What if that’s why you have luck?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Well you never prayed before and you survived. Why break a winning streak, that’s what I am saying.”

“You think if I pray I might die in the next battle?”

“You said yourself that you’ve seen it happen to lots of others. Do you really want to risk it happening to you?”

“You’re winding me up right?”

“No- I am just asking you to think about it.”

“You’re winding me up.”

“All right, I admit it. Do you want to pray or not?”

“I’ve gone off the idea now.”

“Somehow I thought you might.” Strange witchfires burned on the distant hills. It was a long time before the Barbarian dropped off to sleep.