Shadow

 

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Map

Dramatis Personae

Outside of Time

In the Sky

In the Quiet

A Drake's Visit

Outcast Country

The Wolf's Foe

The Hidden Village

Stranger

Hunters

Mighty Wizard of the Tower

Aziel's Flight

The Tower

Thing in the Woods

Her Rain Falls

The Warrior's Return

An Empty Bed

Beneath the Surface

Tell Us About the Dragons

Visitors

Shapers in the Quiet

A Visitor

In the North, In the South

The Pendulum's Swing

Swing

Setting Out

In Flight

The Warrior's Redeemer

Is Shadow Here?

Into Danger

The Castle

A Discovery

Acknowledgements

Tor Books by Will Elliott

About the Author

Copyright

 

For the people of Canada,

who produced (among other fine things) Melissa,

the finder of lost cats

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

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 ‘the 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

OUTSIDE OF TIME

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. ‘Who are you?' he says hoarsely.

A voice, quietly commanding, answers, ‘I 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. ‘Hear me,' says Valour. ‘There 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?'

‘I 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.

‘Stand again. You are a warrior, not a servant.'

He staggers to his feet. ‘For what purpose do I live, my redeemer?'

‘Act 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.'

‘But, my redeemer … why would you go?' The thought fills him with profound sadness.

‘The 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.

‘Wait! I love you dearly. Stay with me! I do not understand your words, my redeemer.'

‘Then 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. ‘I give you a part of myself,' says Valour, ‘so 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.

IN THE SKY

1

‘
Asked
for me?' Case laughed. ‘Now 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. ‘If I jump, you're going to catch me, aren't you?'

Said the Invia, ‘Yes. Don't!'

He laughed. ‘Why the hell not?'

‘It would annoy me.'

‘Which 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. ‘Watch 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. ‘Where're your dragons then?' he said.