The Tyranny of Shadows Read online

Amelia raised a hand to knock on the High Monk’s door, but hesitated. She stood there frozen for a few moments, staring at the gargoyle knocker at eye level on the door while her throat constricted and her stomach churned.

  “Enter,” croaked a voice from within.

  She started. Looking down, she saw that there was enough of a gap under the door that the High Monk would have seen her standing there, hesitating, by the shadow of her feet.

  Her hands trembled as she opened the ornate door to the High Monk’s chambers. The creak of the door, slight though it was, sent echoes to the high ceiling and gave the room a distinctly cold and still feeling. Pale sunlight fell on High Monk Javius at his desk. His eyes, a very pale blue, gazed at her steadily as she traversed the long stone floor between them, his expression somber.

  She felt as if she had forgotten how to walk, and each step was either too heavy or too quick. The nearer she got, the more she saw his head nodding slightly as though his neck had trouble supporting it. He gestured for her to sit, and she pulled out the chair. The heavy legs scraped across the floor, sending dissonant echoes around the room.

  “Amelia,” Javius said.

  “Yes.”

  “You killed Lord Pauloce.”

  She nodded. She did not think it sounded like an accusation, but it stung like one. A few seconds passed while he watched her. It seemed to Amelia that it took him great effort to focus his eyes.

  “I do not recall a writ for Pauloce coming to me. So I had it retrieved from the libraries.”

  Javius held up the writ, then smoothed it flat on his desk and peered down at it. Amelia gripped the edges of her seat, her fingers feeling bloodless, and tried to swallow the constriction in her throat.

  “This has my signature,” the High Monk said.

  “Y-yes, High Monk Javius,” she said. Her words had caught in her throat as she spoke. Javius’ pale, sharp eyes flicked up to hers from the parchment.

  “I do not recall making this signature,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “In fact, I think I did not make this signature.”

  “Perhaps you forgot,” she said.

  “Perhaps I forgot. Hm. That is what you think? Perhaps the High Monk grows weak of mind with age, and you’re the one better suited to take his place?” Javius’ eyes flashed as he spoke, and his hand curled into a steady fist on the desk.

  “I-I … well, no, anyone can forget, I just meant—”

  “Stop your bleating.”

  Amelia’s mouth snapped shut.

  “This isn’t the first forgery of my name that has led to an assassination. But it is your first forgery. Why?”

  The last word rang sharp and clear through the room and to the high ceiling. Amelia shrank into her seat as she took some time to compose her words.

  “Pauloce is—was—a monster. I myself was witness to many instances of the following offenses: infliction of pain and death for his own pleasure, keeping a larger standing army than allowed, sheltering of Blood Mages—”

  “We were made aware of these offenses—in those precise words, no less—the last dozen times you applied for Pauloce’s death-writ. We told you to wait and that Pauloce’s time would come. So I ask you again: Why?”

  Amelia stammered and was not able to answer.

  “Do you feel that Mordenari law exists for your own benefit?”

  “I killed him to avenge those I saw him kill, and end my nightmares,” Amelia said to the cold stone between her feet.

  “So it was personal. You’ve brought me, then, to the next point. Every killing can be understood, and though every loss of life is senseless, wasteful, and regrettable, there is always a knowable reason, and now we know yours,” Javius said.

  “I am sorry, High Monk.”

  “Be sorry only for yourself. I care not. When you petitioned to kill Pauloce, you were told his importance in the northern region of the Veldenlands, were you not?”

  “Someone did explain it to me, yes. It was all very dull,” Amelia said with a weak smile.

  Javius did not return it. “Like threads in a web. Like branches on a tree. One life taken can destroy many, many more. We only kill when it is for the greater good.”

  “I just could not bear for him to live a moment longer,” Amelia said.

  “Should Verandert find out, and weigh this desire against the needs of the people within Pauloce’s lands, you will find his judgment is not in your favor. I will not condemn you; I will not speak a word. If every infraction was met with Verandert’s judgment, we would have empty halls indeed. But know this: no law is higher than Verandert’s command. His command on Pauloce was that he should live, for now, until Verandert’s decision changed. Pauloce caused horrible things and death, yes, but he held his lands stable. You are not justified in killing even one who has broken all five of the Laws, if it goes against Verandert’s will.”

  Amelia blinked, mouth agape, but did not speak.

  “We are not callous monsters. We are the guardians of peace and justice. Verandert, though, is not as forgiving as I. He must never discover what you have done. Leave now, I expect him soon.”

  “Yes, High Monk,” Amelia said.

  Javius stood and turned his back on her. He shuffled to the vast shelves behind him and muttered as he ran his finger along the numerous rows while finding the place for the writ. Amelia picked up her satchel, causing the vials within to rattle. Javius was still riffling through yellowed papers on the wall. She snatched the vial of Hearing Oil and flicked a few drops on the ground near the desk. Footsteps approached along the corridor outside.

  Immediately after she returned the vials to her pockets, Verandert entered and walked toward the High Monk’s desk while Amelia made to leave. She stepped aside to let him pass, but he stopped beside her and looked at her with narrowed eyes. While she stood this close to him, his face was strange to perceive: it was at once a waxy mask that did not move while also seeming to shift like oils on water; his features were blurred or sharp one moment to the next; she could not tell the color of his eyes, for the dominant color changed.

  Verandert stared hard at Amelia, and then leaned toward her and sniffed. She backed away and slowly made for the door.

  “Whatever it was, I will find out,” Verandert whispered without looking back.

  She stole out of the room, hugging her satchel to her chest, then once out in the corridor she doubled her pace. Around the corner, she set the Hearing Oil to transmit one way so that she could listen through the drops in the High Monk’s office, but they would not hear any sound from her.

  She whisked through the halls and stairways of the Monastery, almost blind to where she went, but always descending and always distancing herself from the High Monk’s office. Her small feet tapped along the stony floors and her breath came in ragged gasps. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath. It was then that she looked up and saw the windows and the shape of the corridor—she was near the kitchens. She gulped in the cold air and clasped her hands together to still their trembling as she made her way to the kitchen door. She pushed it open, cringing at its loud creak. Inside, Gillis and the other cooks were cutting, peeling, boiling, and mashing large piles of various root vegetables. Amelia, wearing a wild and rigid smile, approached Gillis and bent close to him to whisper, “Can I have a word, Gillis? Privately?”

  Gillis looked up at her. She could feel throbbing in her neck and hear the pounding in her ears. Surely Gillis can see my veins jumping, hear my heart pounding, she thought.

  He nodded and called to the room, “Cease work, leave us.”

  The other Mordenari left quietly.

  “Verandert is meeting with Javius.”

  “He is?” Gillis asked as he watched her hands twisting and her eyes flicking around the room. “What does it matter?”

  “I have an ugly feeling in my gut that I may be in trouble. I have broken some rules …”

  “What rules?” Gillis asked. When she did not reply, he barked, “What
rules, Amelia?”

  “It may come to nothing. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Verandert may not find out, after all … but I feel so very sick,” Amelia said. She paced back and forth before Gillis, saying, almost to herself, “Athers, will they find his part in it?”

  “What is that noise? That murmuring?” Gillis asked.

  “The Hearing Oil. I left some in Javius’ office.”

  Gillis’ face whitened at the same time that Amelia’s reddened, and she dropped her gaze from his to stare at the peelings of a carrot.

  “Even you must know how serious this is,” Gillis said. “If you are caught—”

  “What will they do? I will say I spilled it.”

  “Leaving the Oil, is that what you mean by broken rules?”

  “No. Just listen. If my name comes up…”

  Gillis’ mouth tightened, but he said nothing. Amelia took out the vial, and they both leaned in to listen as they had on the bough of the oak at Pauloce’s Keep. Very little came through the vial clearly, only snatches of words and phrases. Both Verandert and the High Monk were speaking in low voices. As they listened, Amelia whistled in short complex patterns. In response to the whistles, the liquid in the vial rippled as the sound from the High Monk’s office grew and diminished. She could not make it louder without it distorting, so she gave up.

  They heard ‘Gweidor’ and ‘the Veldenlands’ a few times each. Once or twice Amelia heard ‘Min-Yu,’ and each time she asked Gillis if he had heard the same. He would just hold a finger to his lips and listen harder. The meeting between Verandert and Javius showed no signs of ending soon, so Amelia and Gillis agreed to continue listening in Gillis’ chambers and let the Mordenari cooks back in the kitchen. Once they reached Gillis’ chambers, they locked the door.

  Verandert and Javius were speaking louder now, almost shouting, and there was clear fury in Verandert’s voice.

  “I only used a few drops, and the size of the room is distorting the sounds,” Amelia said. She whistled and tapped on the glass again, but that only made the voices distort more.

  “Amelia, it isn’t working. We shouldn’t even be listening,” Gillis said.

  Amelia ignored Gillis, almost pressing the glass to her ear, praying for something of import, praying not to hear her name. She strained her hearing to its utmost until she caught a few isolated phrases.

  The talking stopped. High Monk Javius, after a moment, spoke again in a wavering voice. Then Verandert whispered something, and there was the scraping of a chair against the stone floor, which came through as a din that stung their ears. Footsteps faded, and Verandert was gone.

  “Why would they argue?” Amelia breathed.

  “It isn’t our place to know. I shouldn’t have indulged your curiosity. Let Verandert and his business alone.”

  “But Gillis, what they were saying … I think it was about me.”

  “I didn’t hear your name. Don’t worry so.”

  “Don’t worry so?” Amelia hissed. “Verandert was yelling ‘she’ and ‘the girl.’ Did you not hear that?”

  “All I heard was some talk of the prisoners, and other things about Verandert’s work in Gweidor.”

  “The prisoners? Roos and Choson?”

  “Yes. Why the note of concern? Are they now your friends?”

  “No. But I have spoken to them. I thought nothing of it, but after hearing what Verandert was saying … the prisoner’s words make sense. Things about a rogue Mordenari …”

  “They would say anything to change their fate. It was a mistake to listen to them.”

  “It sounded true enough to me. There are plenty of writs we could take. I say we go to Gweidor, together. Help me prove the hunch wrong, if nothing else.”

  “What is this? You fear you broke some rule, so you latch on to whatever outlandish claims these prisoners make?”

  “I just need to keep moving.”

  “Whatever you’ve done, just face it. You will pay for it whether you stay or leave. And besides, you could stand to face a little discipline.”

  “What do you think I did, shirk some cleaning duties?” Amelia said.

  “Honestly, yes!”

  “This is not what I expected from you. I wanted help.”

  “The best help for you now is to own up and learn from it.”

  Amelia trembled with rage. Just tell him, tell him about the writ and what Verandert said, she thought. You can neither run nor hide forever, so just tell Gillis they’re going to kill you and hang you and leave your robe on that white tree in front of the rest, just like they did Duvelt.

  Gillis stared at her as she stood immobile, his brow knitting closer and closer together, his mouth thinning to almost nothing.

  But no. Blockheaded as he is being, if Gillis knew what I did and that he was part of it, he would confess, she thought. The idiot needs protection from his own morality or he’ll hang too. Just perfect that I’ll have to act selflessly and he’ll never know.

  “Perhaps you are right,” she said in a forced calm, though she felt her hearth thrumming.

  Gillis sighed, and all the tension on his face went slack. “I was unfair, I think. If it was more than shirking cleaning duties, I could help. You are so agitated over it all, telling me might ease your burden.”

  Amelia pulled her mouth into a tight smile. “Don’t worry. It’s only a trifling matter.”

  “You are sure? A minute ago you eavesdropped on our leaders, trembling like a leaf, certain you were the subject of their argument.”

  “I overreacted. As you say, I have to face what I did.”

  Gillis looked at her, slowly nodding with his eyebrows drawn close together.

  “It’s all nothing,” she said, putting on a wider smile. “I haven’t faced actual trouble before, so the thing with Duvelt rattled me. I shouldn’t have used the Hearing Oil.”

  “You are right there.” Gillis leaned forward and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve been through more reprimands than you might guess. When you’re ready—if you’re ready—you can tell me and count on my help. Just don’t be so agitated. It’s as if you did Blood Magic right here in the Monastery, the way you’re behaving!”

  Gillis laughed at his own jest, making Amelia nod and pull her smile even wider as she headed to the door. Still smiling faintly, Gillis left in the direction of the kitchens. Amelia headed the other way, and soon was aimlessly wandering the corridors.

  The fool doesn’t know what I’ve spared him from, she thought. She pulled her hood over, keeping in the shadows as a group of Mordenari passed her. What can you do now? she asked herself repeatedly. What have you gotten yourself into? The dreams haven’t left you, killing that monster did nothing. And there’s no-one to help you now. No-one you wouldn’t drag down with you, anyway. She hit her forehead with the heel of her palm and gasped in anguish. More thoughts of the strife she brought on herself and others rose against her like a black tide, but there were some thoughts that stood against the dark ones. You did it to avenge those girls, and yourself. You did the right thing. Pauloce can’t hurt anyone else now.

  She found herself in the cavernous entrance to the Monastery, and took one of the many abutting corridors and headed for her room. As she went, she muttered to herself and kept her hands tucked beneath her armpits, falling silent and straining to walk with calm as she passed several groups of hooded Mordenari. She reached her room, darted inside, and snapped the door closed. Satchel in hand, she swept as many vials and reagents as she could fit, enough to make Sleepers, Hearing Oil, and other useful potions. One vial, Fireball, she handled with great care and placed in the pack wrapped in rags. She then changed into her leather traveling gear and strapped on every weapon she had: throwing knives, her inscribed dagger with the curved blade, and her thin, straight short-sword.

  She turned to take the handle of her door, and paused. What are you doing? she thought. Leaving? Just leaving, no plan? Her hand lingered an inch from the door handle. Well, she thought as she pushed the door o
pen, planning always was a weak point of mine.

  Once she was out in the corridor, striding quickly, someone called her name and she snapped to face the speaker. It was Athers, who now ran to catch up to her. She walked the other way at once.

  “Amelia!” he said again as he drew level and fell into step with her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not a care in the world, Athers.” She held her satchel firmly. “Things are perfect, simply perfect.”

  Athers sighed dramatically. “It’s as I thought: you’ve been avoiding me, and now you’re running away to hide in the kitchens again, I suppose. I haven’t seen you since you returned. You’ve some enchanted trinket that warns you when I approach, no doubt?”

  “You sound like a child,” she spat, then lowered her voice. “It’s the writ. The High Monk questioned me about it, and Verandert knows—I’m certain he knows.”

  The blood drained from Athers’ face. “How could he know?”

  “If he doesn’t know yet, he soon will. He sniffed me and said, ‘Whatever it was, I will find out.’ ”

  “Oh, God,” Athers said. “Pray that it is nothing…”

  “So, I’m leaving,” Amelia said, and as she did a strangely cold feeling slipped into her belly.

  “You can’t leave,” Athers said. “None that leave survive.”

  “I have heard otherwise.”

  “Hold on. Verandert’s ways are odd, so his remark could just be a trick.”

  “What?”

  “Would he not pressure people at random and hang those that act guilty? He sees you looking ill at ease, leaving a meeting with the High Monk … perhaps he whispers something to unsettle you on the off chance—”

  “What are you talking about?” Amelia said, and they both stopped dead in a warm sunbeam coming through a nearby window.

  “I’m just saying that leaving is the surest admission of guilt,” Athers said. “At best you would die a little later, but that is not likely. You would die sooner, and in a much, much worse—”

  “You are out of your mind!” Amelia said, shoving him backward. “So I stay and get hanged nicely, is that it?”

  “No, we stay and we tread carefully. Say he does suspect you, but has no proof, and he said that to provoke you. If you act differently, it will only confirm it for him!”