The Conqueror's Shadow (2 page)

“What's your name, child?” asked the voice from behind.

“T-Tyannon, my lord.”

“Tyannon.” The name rolled around in the speaker's mouth, as though tasting it for imperfections. “And why am I speaking to the back of your head, Tyannon?”

“B-because I'm f-facing the other way, my lord?”

Most of the captives, and indeed several of the guards, gasped in disbelief, and the young woman tensed in expectation of a sudden blow. After a moment of silence, however, a soft chuckle was the only response.

Then, “Turn around, Tyannon.”

Her shoulders slumping, as if she'd consigned herself to whatever fate the gods might hold in store, she obeyed.

The figure looming before her came straight from one of the fairy
tales she read to Jass every night—one of the darker ones. Shorter than his ogre minions, he nonetheless loomed over her, filling the entirety of her vision. A demonic suit of armor concealed his body head-to-toe: midnight-black steel, with thick plates of bone that gleamed unnaturally white in the orange glow of the lanterns. From small spines of bone on his shoulders hung a heavy cloak of royal purple, a coincidental match to the regent's banner on the fields outside. The flickering lanterns sent his shadow dancing across the walls, as though guided by some mad puppeteer. Atop it all, a helm of bone, a skull bound in iron bands. Nothing human showed through the grim façade, no soul peered from the gaping black holes in the mask.

With a desperate surge of will, the young woman pulled her gaze away from the hideous mask, glancing downward instead. Her eyes fixed momentarily on the chain about his neck. It dipped down beneath the bone-covered breastplate, linked perhaps to some pendant or amulet she couldn't see. Her eyes traveled lower still, to the large axe upon which his gauntlet rested. It stood upright, butt of the handle upon the ground. The blade was adorned with minuscule engravings-abstract shapes that gave the impression, though not the detail, of thousands of figures engaged in the cruelest, most brutal acts of war. Tyannon whimpered quietly as she saw that there were worse things to stare at than the blackened eye sockets of the helm. Things like that axe, and the figures engraved upon it, figures that seemed almost to move on their own, independent from the dancing torch-light …

“Do you know who I am, Tyannon?”

“Yes.” Her voice never rose above a half-drawn breath. “You're Corvis Rebaine.”

The iron-banded skull tilted in acknowledgment. “That frightens you.” It was not a question.

“M-my lord,” Tyannon told him, “you frighten people much greater than I.” For some reason, that realization seemed to relax her. Beside her, Jassion cried out softly; she carefully steered him behind her, putting herself between her brother and the monster before her.

“Do I?” For a moment, the man who'd conquered half of Imphallion fell silent. Tyannon's muscles twinged in protest, so rigidly did she hold herself.

A black-and-bone gauntlet gestured abruptly; despite herself, the young woman jumped, a tiny yelp escaping her lips. But Rebaine merely pointed at the arm she held behind her back, fist clenched with a death grip on Jassion's wrist. “You do your family credit, Tyannon. But your brother is safe with me. As are you.”

Tyannon's countenance shifted abruptly, a surge of anger seeming to drown her fears. “Are we?” she asked, her voice gone bitter, her stammer gone. She waved, her gesture indicating not merely the people present in the room, but the entire city suffering beyond the thick stone walls. “You'll forgive me, my lord, if I have some difficulty taking you at your word.”

Whatever response the warlord intended was aborted by a sudden scuffling within the pit, followed quickly by a raised voice. “My lord! The diggers have found something.”

Rebaine forgot everyone else in the room. He stepped to the rim of the hole, glancing down, past the thick earth, past the mass of nobles and Guildsmen he'd pressed into service as excavators. He peered into the thin, stone-walled hallway they'd uncovered, part of a small complex of rooms buried beneath the Hall of Meeting since before the birth of the city itself.

“It's really here.” It was barely a whisper, inaudible to anyone else.

Or at least it should have been.

/Did you doubt that it would be?/
The voice, as always, was mocking, sarcastic, even when its words were not.

Ignoring the speaker, Rebaine leapt down into the pit, a cloud of dirt billowing upward at the impact. The diggers drew back fearfully-many quivered visibly at his mere presence, including one man Rebaine recognized as the Baron of Braetlyn.

I wonder
, Rebaine thought to himself in passing,
where the young woman gets her spark from. I can't imagine she learned from watching any of
these
people
.

At the bottom of the pit loomed another, smaller hole, leading into the ancient stone tunnel that was Rebaine's objective. An inky blackness filled the corridor, but Rebaine had never been frightened of the dark.

He knew what was in it.

Fingers twitching within heavy gauntlets, his mouth formed words that did not exist in any human tongue. Behind the horrid mask, his eyes began ever so slightly to glow, and the blackness parted before him.

“Get these men out of the pit,” he ordered his guards. “Make certain they have water and food.”

“At once, my lord. Will you be wanting some of us to …” The soldier swallowed, unable to finish, as he stared nervously into the black.

“No. I will go in alone. Find Valescienn. Inform him that I expect him to hold off Lorum's armies should they attack before I've returned. Tell him that Davro and his ogres are to fall back from the main walls and surround the Hall of Meeting. They're our last line of defense. The gnomes and the other soldiers should be able to hold the wall for some time without them.”

“Very good, my lord. Best of luck down, um, down there.”

Rebaine nodded, and swung down into the passage.

/We're being watched, you know,/
the unseen speaker informed him idly.

“What?” Rebaine glanced down in annoyance. “Any particular reason you waited this long to tell me?” His heavy boots landed with a resounding clang on the ancient stones paving the floor. Unhesitating, he set out toward the north.

/You were having such fun conversing with the young lady, I felt it would be inappropriate to intrude./

Rebaine snorted. “Of course you did.” He brushed an enormous cobweb from his path, then chose the leftmost of three identical passages. “Watched how? Seilloah assured me she could block any scrying spells sent our way.”

/Seilloah lacks imagination. It's not a scrying spell. Someone—it tastes like Rheah, though I won't swear to that—has sight-linked herself with a fairly large and exceptionally ugly beetle. It was lurking in the corner of the room upstairs, and it is now scurrying along the wall some few feet behind you./

Another pause as he glanced at the relatively unmarked walls around him. Which intersection was this? He'd studied the map for days, but it was impossible to be certain.

Right this time, he finally decided. Then, “How can she see anything? It's rather dark, or hadn't you noticed?”

/Why, so it is. How foolish of me to have missed that. I surely can't imagine how the little creature might be able to see us down here./ A
sudden gasp sounded in Rebaine's mind.
/You don't suppose she's using
magic
, do you?/

The heavy sigh echoed in the depths of the hideous armor. “I imagine you think you're funny, don't you?”

/Well
, I'm
amused./

“One of us ought to be.”

/Shall we kill it already?/

Left turn, straight ahead twice, left again. “Deal with it, if you wish. I have no concern but your happiness.”

/Of course not./
The crystal pendant hanging beneath Rebaine's breastplate warmed faintly, and a sudden crunch echoed through the hall behind them.

Rebaine continued, frustration mounting each time he stopped to think about his position on the map. It would have been convenient to have it with him now, but he'd burned it once he'd memorized it to his satisfaction. Despite the chill in the air around him, he lifted his helm now and again to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Why do I wear this bloody thing?” he snapped finally.

/Something about fear and terror among all who see you,/
the voice replied drily.
/Or that was your claim, anyway. Me, I can't picture any of your kind being all that frightening./

“Fear.” Rebaine shook his head. “This would be so much easier if they'd just cooperate. I wouldn't
have
to terrify them all.”

/The girl didn't seem all that scared, toward the end there./

Rebaine once again saw the girl—Tyannon, he corrected himself—the fear in her eyes burned away by her sudden anger. “She's got spirit, that one.”

/She does indeed./
A pause.
/You should kill her before it spreads./

“I don't think so, Khanda.”

/I'm serious. This sort of thing is dangerous. Let her stand up to you, and others may decide they, too, can get away with it. You need to put a stop to that immediately./

Another head shake, this one forceful enough to send the helmet clanking against the armor's shoulder spines. “I don't kill children, Khanda.” Although Tyannon hardly qualified as a child; she certainly showed more maturity than most of her elders in that chamber.

/Of course not. You just have your armies do it for you./

Rebaine swallowed the enraged comment working its way into his throat, choking it back in a tide of bile. There was nothing to be said, no reply he could make, that wouldn't play right into Khanda's hands. Nor was this a topic he enjoyed discussing. He'd decided long ago, when he first set upon this path, that the end results were worth whatever it cost him. Still, he didn't find it pleasant.

Instead, he directed his attention back to the twisting corridors.

“This is it,” he said finally, examining the enormous, rust-coated metal door impeding any further progress. “We're here.”

/Congratulations. Can we get on with this already?/

“Not much for savoring the moment, are you? All right, fine. Let's do it.”

/Shall I? Or would you prefer to batter it down with that oversized shrub trimmer?/

Rebaine glanced down at the wide-bladed axe. It could do the job, certainly. For this was Sunder, one of the last of the Kholben Shiar, the demon-forged blades. It was said that with enough patience, a man could carve apart a mountain with such a weapon.

On the other hand, why take the risk of sending chunks of steel flying through the chamber? He'd pursued this prize too long to risk damaging it now.

“The fancy way, I think,” he said after a moment of contemplation.

/Very well./

The warlord concentrated, focusing his thoughts. His own skills at magic were unremarkable at best. Never formally tested, he imagined he'd qualify as a mere Initiate of the First Circle, or at best an unskilled Second. Pitiful compared with many of his enemies—such as Rheah Vhoune, Initiate of the Seventh Circle. Of all Lorum's allies, she was the most dangerous: in recorded history, only Selakrian himself, Archmage and Master of the Tenth Circle, had achieved the Seventh at a younger age than Rheah.

On the other hand, Corvis cheated.

So accustomed had he grown to the process that he no longer consciously noticed it. He visualized the effect he desired, thrust forth a gauntleted hand, and drew upon not his own power and skill but those of his inhuman ally. Flakes of rust fell from the door, as though agitated by a mild earthquake, yet the corridor itself held steady. The metal began to glow red, then white, in a very specific pattern of lines, dividing the door into eight sections that met in the middle. The air in the corridor grew acrid, painful to breathe. First one wedge, then a second, pulled back from the center, in rather the same way a man might peel an orange. The metal fragments plastered themselves to the wall, the floor, the ceiling, and slowly cooled back to their normal state, welded permanently with the stone.

Even before the segments fully cooled, Rebaine stepped through the ring of metal into the room beyond. Yes! There it was, lying upon a table, coated with webs and the dust of ages. It had waited for millennia, waited for him. With this, there would be no more bloodshed. There would be no more
need
. With this, and this alone, he would rule.

Eyes gleaming beneath the nightmarish helm, Corvis Rebaine strode forward, hands outstretched …

“RHEAH?
Rheah, can you hear me?”
A familiar voice. Concerned, worried. Also anxious. More on his mind than just the question
.