Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series (5 page)

Bel listened, trying to understand the noise, trying to understand how the sound could be in his head. The wail grew fiercer the longer he listened to it. He remembered a storm, full of wind and salt and gale, smashing against the side of the house as if it would throw it to the ground like so many sticks, long before he left Lavaala. He was young, just a boy at his mother’s knees. She cried for the storm and his older brother told her everything would be all right and Bel did not understand until later. His father was out on the water.

The roaring grew stronger, ecstatic, excited, as if a hunting dog found his scent and was calling out to the others, “Come! I have found them! Here! Here! Here! They are here! Follow me! I have their scent! Let’s get them! Attack!”

Bel stared straight ahead, into the black, suddenly trying to squeeze the clamoring, shrieking sound out of his mind, trying to beat it back.
Get out! Get out! Get out of my mind!
He stared into the darkness of the forest, shaking, and he could see nothing but in his periphery he caught glimpses of motion, something in the shadows, and he knew it was something more than ghouls. It was like when he was on the path but now he refused to chase his eyes around after them. He was terrified. He knew they could not reach him—there was an enchantment—but they were somehow in his mind. He couldn’t stop shaking. He knew they would not be there when he looked. He knew where they really were and it was all he could do to keep himself from going insane.

The four slept on the dirt floor huddled near the fire. Bel slept fitfully and awoke restless. There was nothing to eat in the abandoned home so Muolithnon took the situation into his own hands. “Kerlith, we are hungry. See if you can call a few pigeons. Or rabbits. Mmmmn, that would be good for a stew.”

Kerlith bounced up and headed out the door. Bel looked at Nes’egrinon and the old wizard only said, “Fifth Year, ready the pot. Find some water so we can boil whatever the apprentice brings back.”

Bel went outside and looked around. There was a woodpile behind the structure and most of it was still usable. The house couldn’t have been abandoned for too long. Next to the woodpile was a small three-walled shed with some crude tools and next to that was a hand-pump well. Bel retrieved a pail from the shed and began pumping but nothing came out but dust. Bel retrieved his staff, waved it above the pump and called to the water until it came.

Hunger didn’t bother Bel. He was quite used to it, being a fisherman’s son on the western coast of the Basque country. Becoming a wizard was never about becoming rich or having a full belly. He wanted to help people. People like the fishermen in his village, people who no one ever seemed to want to help. Their home was shored up enough to keep out the storms, barely, and they had more than many, a small boat, a couple of nets and a gaff. Bel had his own knife that he used to cut crustaceans off the rocks for soup when his father was gone for days. They had much and much to be thankful for.  He wondered how his family fared without him.

By the time Bel had the pot full of water coming to a boil, Kerlith returned with four fine-looking rabbits and two pigeons. It would be a feast. As they ate, Nes’egrinon said, “Now that’s the best rabbit I’ve had in ages. We will stay here until Muolithnon has regained his strength. Maybe a few days. You can get us more rabbits, right?”

Night came slowly and even though the day was as dark as night, something changed in the air, and all of them felt it change, when it would be too dangerous to venture away from the safety of the home. Bel sat out on the front steps with Kerlith, both staring into the forest, Bel trying to understand what happened the previous evening, Kerlith’s mind pondering their future journey. Kerlith shivered as the night air grew colder. Then the howling came.

Bel asked, “Do you hear that?”

Kerlith blinked hard then said, “I don’t hear anything. What? You going crazy? Hearing things? It’s getting cold out here. I’m going inside.”

The roaring grew louder even though Bel wasn’t listening for it, wasn’t seeking it. In fact he was trying to block it out. Bel stood and involuntarily stepped backwards until his back was against the wall and fought the shriek with all his might. Then the ghouls came.

They stepped out of the forest and walked calmly towards him, a young man and two women. They were dressed like forest people except they were all gray: their skin, their clothing, everything about them was a dull, dusty gray. They walked up to the edge of the steps, just to the border of the enchantment. Bel knew they couldn’t see past it but somehow they knew he was there.

“Hello? Hello in there?” the dead man croaked as if his throat was full of dust.

Bel did not respond.

Groggily, the dead man said, “Please. We mean you no harm. This is my family. This was our home. Please, we just want to talk.”

Bel walked to the edge of the enchantment. The male ghoul’s face was inches from his.

“Please, we mean you no harm. Look at us. See. See. Look at these women. I know you are in there. Please.” He strained to get the words out.

Bel knew the enchantment would hold them back. They were dead; they could not reach him. If they were living, breathing human beings, they could walk right up the stairs and step into the house. But the dead could not. Bel knew he could turn around and walk away. He could go inside. But something was pulling on him, something was still raging in his mind.

The ghoul-kind turned despondently and began to walk away when Bel said, “Wait!”

The group stopped and turned around.

Bel said nervously, “Step back. Step back a few feet.”

The dead man motioned to the others then Bel stepped outside of the enchantment and stood on the final step of the house. He dared not venture further.

The gray-skinned man strained. “Please. A few drops of blood. Please, just a few drops.”

“You will answer my questions? Then, when I say, you will leave?”

“Yes.”

Bel took out his knife and cut the tip of his finger and squeezed a few drops of blood onto the dirt.

“More. More, please,” One of the women groaned.

“Come forward one at a time,” Bel said holding out his knife in front of him.

The woman who spoke stepped forward slowly and stood in front of Bel. He cut his finger a little more, let the blood cover the knife and held it out toward the dead woman. She licked the knife eagerly. As she licked it color ran into her cheeks, then her face, then her clothing. A calm swept over her and the darkness left her eyes. She seemed almost… normal, almost human.

“Ask. Ask what you will. I will answer what I know.”

“Tell me who you are. What happened to you? How did you become like this?”

“My husband is there. The other woman is my sister. My children… we have not found them yet. Last winter we aided a traveler. He was sick. When my sister also became sick my husband sent him away. He didn’t want the sickness to spread to the children but it was too late. We lost my dear Kith, Tor and Bel a few weeks later. Then my sister died too.”

“I share your child’s name. My name is Bel also. I’m sorry for you.”

The woman smiled softly then continued, “There was no healer in these lands and with the weather the way it was, we could not travel. We buried the children and my sister behind the woodshed.” She looked back at her briefly.

“And you two?”

“My husband and I were a mere shadow of our former selves after the children died. We wanted to leave, to forget this place, but where would we go? When the ghoul-kind came, they promised that we would see the children if we joined them, if we gave them our blood. How could we refuse?”

The gray began to spread into the woman as she sadly turned and walked back to the others. The other woman took her place.

Bel cut himself again and held out his knife. The woman quickly consumed the blood and gasped as color poured into her frame. She smiled widely.

“Hello Bel. My name is Shii. What would you know of me?”

“What do you know of this?” Bel waved his hands at them as he asked it. “What do you know of the ghouls? Why do they wander openly? How did this come to be?”

Shii looked perplexed. “This I do not know exactly. I died from the wasting disease, as my sister said, and when I died I found myself in the underworld, the land of the dead. I do not know if you know this but the dead don’t talk to each other too much. One day—oh, old habits die hard, I suppose—one day? Hahaha. In the land of the dead there is no day. No night. No time really. It is all just one continuous moment. It is eternity. Yes, eternity because there is no such thing as time there. It is hard to think of, no? How can you, who has never been there, understand such a concept?”

“You are right. I don’t understand.”

“No matter. What I mean to say is that suddenly there was time! Suddenly something happened. I do not know what it was or why. All I can say is that I was drawn to it, inexplicably. It was time. Somehow, someway, time had invaded the world of the dead. I walked towards it. We all did. Well, most of us anyway; some feared it and stayed back. But we were all drawn to it. I walked out into it and through it and came here. I came back to my home.”

“What was it? What was drawing you?”

“I do not know. But when we got there, to the breach—I don’t know what it was but that is what we called it—when we got to the breach, I stepped through and eventually I made my way here.”

“So not everyone came through? Why did they fear? What scared them?”

“Everyone? No. Not hardly. Do you know how many dead there are? In all of time? Think about it. That was a silly question.” The color in the woman’s face began to drain before she could finish and her smile left. She glanced down at the knife and the blood on it. Bel could see the desire in her face but she still turned and joined the others.

Finally the man stepped forward and licked the blood from Bel’s knife. Brightness entered his cheeks.

Bel asked, “Where are the ghouls now? What is their plan? Does anyone rule them? Is there a leader?”

The man frowned. “A leader? Not that I have seen. The dead are people, just like you, only dead. We were once living and we know what it means to be alive. Perhaps you can feel it now. You are a wizard in training are you not? I can tell; I met one once before. Perhaps you can feel it? The desire? The desire for life? It is in all living things. All living things love life. All that are sane anyway. And this exists with the dead also, only it is amplified. We love life more than you can know. One day you will understand.”

The man paused as the color in his cheeks faded to gray, wanting more blood, wanting more life, but knowing there was no more to be had here he turned around and joined the two women. Bel stepped back behind the shelter of the enchantment and watched them wander back into the wood slowly.

Bel contemplated all that he heard. He felt that they did not answer his questions but he knew much more and he thought it was worth the risk. Bel opened the door and just as he pulled the door open Nes’egrinon was walking across the room just a few steps away. Bel thought that he might have been standing at the door just now. Maybe listening. But he could not be sure. The other two were already asleep in front of the fire.

Bel slept quickly and dreamed vividly of a boy with one arm, standing on the edge of darkness, surrounded by ghoul-kind, him calling out to him. The boy spoke, “Don’t trust him. He is a liar. He is lying to you. Watch him closely and do not trust him.” Bel shook the image of the boy from his mind when he woke but it troubled him.

The next day was slow and long but Muolithnon seemed a bit better. That night the roaring came again, calling Bel out, trying to drive him insane but it had less power over him than the previous two nights. He didn’t know if he was becoming accustomed to it or perhaps it was not so close tonight or maybe it had given up on him. Or maybe it was working, maybe he was going insane.
Do the insane know when they are insane? Do they know when it happens, when is the exact moment that they lose their minds?
Bel pondered. After he fought with the howl in his mind he stumbled indoors to try to sleep. Nes’egrinon looked at him curiously but said nothing. Bel almost wondered whether his master was really waiting on Muolithnon’s healing or on something entirely different. They had plenty of time to talk in these last few days but his master said nothing to him.
Was he watching me? Testing me? Maybe if I screw something up he will reject me?

Although they hadn’t really done anything in this shelter, Bel felt tired. He placed himself next to Kerlith and Muolithnon, trying to lie close enough to share their body warmth. The dream came quickly.

His silhouette stood out from the black. Bel walked towards him to get a better look but somehow he already knew whom he was, the one-armed boy. Bel stopped a few feet away and waited for him to look up.
Odd how I can see him at all in the darkness,
Bel thought.

The one-armed boy looked up and said, “You didn’t listen. I told you. Why don’t you listen?”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“He’s lying to you.”

“Who?”

The one-armed boy was about Bel’s age, about his size and weight too. They even looked a bit alike. They could be brothers.

“You’re not too bright are you?” The one-armed boy turned slowly and Bel couldn’t keep his eyes from staring at the empty socket where there should have been an arm much like his own. It was a burnt hole. The boy stepped slowly in front of him and extended his arm at Bel and suddenly a glowing staff appeared in his hand.

Bel awoke with a start, sweating, and huffed, “He was an apprentice!”

“Aye, I feel strong,” Muolithnon said.

Nes’egrinon stood creakily and said with disappointment in his voice, “No more rabbit then. I guess we have to walk.”

Kerlith hopped up and grabbed his few belongings. The image of the one-armed boy still burned in Bel’s mind as he gathered up his cloak and his short staff and headed out the door. The group stepped out from behind the spell of protection and Bel felt the eyes of the forest on him. He spied three sets of red glowing dots just at the edge of the tree line and he knew who they were, the dead from the other night, waiting, still looking for their lost children, their lost, dead children. For some reason Bel thought that they would never find them.