The Tyranny of Shadows Read online

  ****

  Gillis woke with his limbs as weak and numb as sacks of feathers. He shook his head and forced his eyes open against the heaviness of sleep that still pressed on them.

  “Is it just your age impairing you?” a woman’s voice asked him. “Or did you just never learn Momaentum? God, I’d have killed him in one blow!”

  Gillis grunted.

  “You are a Mordenari, aren’t you? Grunt twice if you’ve ever heard of the Monastery, thrice if you’re just a very confused farmer that got in a fight.”

  “Choose always the greater good no matter the cost,” Gillis murmured.

  “He speaks! To quote Momaenta, at that. I suppose it proves you are no farmer. You fit the description of my accomplice, anyway. Well, even if you’re not the one, you won’t be troubling me while my Sleeper powder keeps your eyes heavy. Works double on the head of a drunk. Quite an extraordinary effect! I may be a Momaentum warrior, but excelling in enchantment pays off just as well. I can’t believe you struggled in that fight with the cook. Anyone with the slightest Momaentum training could finish someone like him with their eyes closed. At least you played the part well in the inn, and you do resemble the target. Well, enjoy your stay in my lean-to; I’ve got to leave for a bit while I hunt down something for supper. We’re in Pauloce’s lands now, technically, so you’ll have to rehearse your cooking or whatever it is you poisoners do. I most certainly hope you cook better than you fight!”

  She chortled as she left the makeshift tent. Gillis caught a glimpse of fiery red hair—a shade brighter than was natural, like copper pulled from a forge—and then fell back asleep.

  ****

  The red-haired woman, Amelia, rifled through the heavy pack Gillis had left behind in the tavern.

  She had been watching him intently from under her cloak hood, unnoticed, while he’d gathered the information he would need to pose as the cook. They were assassins of the same order, the Mordenari, and though they had never met Gillis’ reputation preceded him. He was a serious man who followed his equally serious orders down to the letter without a question or complaint. It was also true that Gillis was cunning in his spycraft, but that he was worse than useless in a fight. This made him perfect.

  A man so obsessed with Mordenari law would never conceive of another Mordenari breaking near every single one of them, Amelia had reasoned. But if he did, she would be reported for the noose before she could down a celebratory ale. Let that all be damned. She would not let her chance to utterly destroy Lord Pauloce slip away.

  Maybe I’ll keep a skin of ale—or wine or something—on hand just in case, she thought as she smiled to herself and continued to rummage through Gillis’ pack. It was stuffed with fragrant ribbons of dried meats and hard traveling breads and bizarrely specific cooking tools like a small mortar and pestle.

  Once she had taken his pack at the tavern, she had sprinted after the two men so that she could throw her Sleeper powder on them no matter the outcome of the fight. Gillis had to be knocked out so that she could prepare in peace. As it happened, Amelia thought as she tutted and shook her head, Gillis needed the target to be put to sleep so that he could survive the fight at all. She had put the dagger to the sleeping Beldas’ throat and dumped him far in the woods. The letter tucked in Beldas’ tunic was bloodstained, but removing blood magically was easy—though it was not, strictly speaking, the kind of magic that was allowed. Then she had enchanted Gillis’ body for lightness, a simple thing, and carried him a half-day’s walk to a spot in Pauloce’s land where she made camp.

  From the pack, she drew Gillis’ battered, yellowed copy of Ardent Momaenta, the book of the Mordenari laws and the origin story of their immortal leader Verandert. There it was.

  The High Monk, second only to Verandert, signed each copy of Momaenta as it was given to new acolytes. Gillis’ copy had extensive notes of praise accompanying the large, looping signature. She drew from her own satchel a thin piece of white paper, a writ bearing a wax seal and the signature of the High Monk, who authorized all assassinations. Glancing between the writ and Gillis’ book, Amelia tore the page that bore the signature out—and some others at random for good measure—and tossed them into the campfire, then stowed the writ away in her satchel.

  Amelia had no choice but to ensure that Gillis, the one Mordenari who thought himself above magic, the one Mordenari who lived and breathed the laws of Ardent Momaenta, had no way of comparing the signatures and discovering that Amelia’s writ, the basis of their mission to kill Pauloce, was a forgery.

  Chapter 2

  Ardent Momaenta

  The Five Laws

  There are five offenses that I shall not suffer; these are my Five Laws. We, the righteous Mordenari, exist to purge the sinful that there might be justice.

  None but we Mordenari may take a life.

  None may torture or maim the helpless.

  None may keep, or profit from, slaves.

  None may use Blood Magic, and none who are not among the Mordenari may use Momaentum.

  No Mordenari may disobey the sacred writs.

  Verandert

  Gillis woke to the smell of something awful. Lethargy and vague concern battled in his mind, the former winning for a few minutes as his senses gathered. Something sizzled and spat. The odor was suddenly recognizable and concern won out—food was burning.

  As he lurched upright in the darkness, his head grazed the canvas of a makeshift tent, and he felt that he was bound with bandages. His jaw ached. Looking down at himself, he saw that the clothes he wore were not his. They were what Beldas had been wearing, cleaned of blood and dirt. He poked his heads from the shelter. The red-haired woman whistled as she turned a small game bird over a campfire. The flames jumped in time with her whistling, a joyful dance to match her merry tune. She wore tight, dark leather with a pair of daggers sheathed on her chest, a short sword on one hip, and a curved dagger on the other. The sheaths and handles matched the dark leather in color so well that Gillis saw them in outline only when the flames were brightest. There, on the fire, the pheasant was quickly turning black.

  “What are you doing? It’s burning!” Gillis said.

  “So?”

  “So take it off the fire!”

  The woman smirked. “It’s better when crisp. Go rest, please,” she said.

  He limped to the campfire and yanked the bird away from the heat. The skin of it was dry, and in some places black as coal.

  “Hey!”

  Gillis paid her no heed. Ignoring the heat, too, he picked some flesh off the bird and inspected it. Then he saw the underlying meat.

  “How could this pheasant possibly be burnt on the outside and raw inside?” he said.

  She resumed her smirk and produced another much larger and better prepared pheasant and nibbled daintily on one of its legs. She gestured toward Gillis’ hands. “That one’s yours, by the way. And you know, this is a very poor impression for us both to make on first proper meeting. Let us begin again. Hello. I am Amelia, I saved your life. And you are?”

  He groaned, replaced the pheasant over the campfire, and sat as far from Amelia as he could, almost outside of the circle of warmth and light. The fire surged brightly.

  “I’m curious. Why not use Momaentum when he turned to you?” Amelia said.

  Gillis massaged his temples.

  “You can’t use it, can you? Shall I teach you the basics?”

  “I’d not have needed any of those tricks if you hadn’t drawn his attention. I had him.”

  “You had him. Hm. Your methods are unconventional indeed. To me, it looked like his was the hand with the dagger, and yours was the chest in its path.”

  “He looked up because you ran past—at the worst moment, right before my strike. Why did you not help?”

  “I did; I threw the Sleeper powder.”

  “Why did you not make yourself known to me at the inn?”

  “I don’t do as you say. You are not my superior. And, I wanted to watch.”
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  “In the future you should either help from the outset, or leave me be. I do not like to improvise,” Gillis said, then he rose to check the pheasant. Still raw. He moved stiffly to the lean-to he had slept in, found his pack, and dragged it back with him to sit by the fire.

  “What do you want that for?” Amelia said.

  “Guidance.”

  Gillis reached and felt around in the pack, then drew out Ardent Momaenta. On opening it, he saw the first pages were missing. As he turned through the rest of the book and he counted a half-dozen pages missing in all. He looked sharply up at Amelia.

  “What happened?”

  “What?” said Amelia.

  “Where are these pages?”

  “You have missing pages from that ancient thing? What a surprise. You should be pleased they’ve not all turned to dust,” Amelia said.

  “What did you do?”

  “I did nothing besides save you from certain death, and I brought your precious pack along too. Things move about in a pack, you know, and pages can come loose,” Amelia said.

  Gillis dumped the entirety of the pack’s contents onto the grass and pawed frantically through them.

  “Easy! What are you doing that for, you madman?” Amelia said.

  “I need those pages. There are things on them. Written to me, a personal…” Gillis said, then trailed off into feverish mutterings.

  While I can remember the words always, Gillis thought, to read them over again is the one thing that brings me pleasure no matter the hardship. To feel the assurance that the High Monk himself wrote so well of me, that perhaps one day I may have the honor, the highest honor, of ascending to be the next High Monk.

  “I knew that batch of Sleeper was too potent,” Amelia said. “You’ve gone raving.”

  “Did you drop them? Did you see where you dropped them? Which way did we come?” Gillis said, and he rose and looked in all directions. Soon, though, dizziness took him, and he was forced to sit again.

  “Why worry so about a few missing pages? Once you know the laws there is no use re-reading the thing,” Amelia said.

  “Easy for a Momaentum warrior to say. You don’t understand, you…” Gillis held his head for a moment. The world swayed around him, and sleep that he could not blink away threatened to overtake his eyes. Every few seconds, he shook his head and jerked upright while the feeling lingered. Could she have torn out the pages with the High Monk’s writings on them from jealousy? There are many who would covet such praise, Gillis thought.

  “Well, moving along from your delirium,” Amelia said. “The reason the pheasant is raw inside is a bit of ingenuity on my part. I prefer to keep my food cold, so I made that Icer over there.”

  “Icer?” Gillis asked in a flat tone.

  She indicated a small leather case at the base of a tall pine. “Keeps food frozen so it doesn’t go bad.”

  The bandage around Gillis’ head was stifling this close to the fire. There would be no recovering the pages in the dark. Being sure it was cooked through, Gillis took the pheasant from the fire and chewed on small morsels.

  “To the task,” Gillis said finally. “We have a few weeks before the feast at Pauloce’s Keep. I will go in, prick my ears to such gossip as there is, serve poison to the target during the feast, and then we leave. You remain nearby, you do not interfere—you only help if my plans go awry, which they will not.”

  “Are you so sure? There is ever a risk posing as someone else. Suppose somebody knows the real Beldas?”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “It could. People from the south travel up here all the time.”

  “I trust those who make the arrangements.”

  “I will prepare for a fight all the same.”

  “You will prepare for long weeks of waiting and not interfering.”

  “You are not my superior,” Amelia said with a small edge in her voice.

  “Nor you mine.”

  Amelia threw her half-eaten meal over her shoulder, where it landed noisily in some bushes. Gillis groaned. Such waste, even for a poorly cooked bird.

  “Regardless,” Amelia said. “I brew the poison itself. If trouble comes, I can fight, and I can also enchant anything as needed. I can do everything except cook—your job.”

  “Multiple specialties. You are trying, then, to reach the Dreyen rank?”

  “No, oh God, no, no, no. Too involved, too boring, too much waiting and thinking,” Amelia said. “All the unpleasant parts, yet no reward.”

  “No reward? You get to work with him,” Gillis breathed. “As one of the most elite Mordenari, under only the High Monk and Verandert. To be one of his chosen few—”

  “Verandert. Hm,” Amelia said as she screwed up her face a little. “He’s not right.”

  Gillis hissed at her.

  “What?” she said. “He has a … his face is all…” She made a grotesque mask of her own face in demonstration.

  “You should not say such things,” Gillis said. “It is for the best that one like you does not aspire to be a Dreyen.”

  Amelia shrugged, and picked at her teeth.

  “May I see the writ from the High Monk? Which of these Lords will it be?”

  Amelia retrieved a roll of parchment from her satchel. Gillis frowned over it for a few moments.

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “Need glasses?”

  Gillis flicked his eyes at her, but read on. He shook his head upon reaching the bottom, and when he looked up Amelia was strangely stiff and watching him very intently. A moment passed, and then she resumed casually picking her teeth.

  “Strange,” Gillis said. “Lord Pauloce himself. Last I knew, there was a ban on writs targeting him. Too many moving pieces … What has changed? Verandert must know something, must have a plan.”

  “What does it matter what Verandert thinks? The High Monk is in charge of writs,” Amelia said.

  “You warriors are famously ignorant, but this is beyond the norm. The High Monk signs the writs, yes, and he upholds the Mordenari code, but Verandert wrote the code. He is the leader, and the nearest there is to a God among men,” Gillis said, then continued in a mutter. “He must have decided on a replacement. Someone to come and hold those lands as stable as Pauloce has, though without the rumors. Could help to ask the right people the right questions as I—”

  “Now hold on. Pauloce is—he’s a monster! If you’ve heard half of what he—”

  Gillis held up a hand. “I’ve heard it all. But that is not why we do our duty. What good is it to kill one man if it displaces thousands? What good is it if slavers and thieves and Blood Mages infect the Veldenlands? He has held the highborns in this region together, in his own brutal way. We have to act, but we must think before we do. In any case, as I say, Verandert and the Dreyen must have a plan, must know something we do not. Elsewise we would not be here carrying out the assassination.”

  “Seems we, the guardians of the innocent and slayers of the wicked, are quite practically minded.”

  “Perhaps it is best you resume your blissful ignorance. Follow the writs without question, as the rest do.”

  Gillis rose then and returned to his shelter. This Amelia has strange priorities, Gillis thought. I cannot picture one like her taking the pages out of jealousy. She must simply be careless. And ignorant! She’s like the rest of those Momaentum fighters, it is all about the thrill of combat. She has no sense of duty, or of priorities.

  He fell asleep and dreamed of well-seasoned broth and fresh-baked bread.

  ****

  The next day, Gillis went to Pauloce’s Keep, presented the twice-sealed letter to the guards, and was ushered to his quarters among the outer buildings without comment. Though Beldas had been sent for specifically in anticipation of the great feast, Gillis was started on simple work. That night, at dinner, Gillis cleaned dishes. The next day, he cooked eggs for Lord Pauloce’s breakfast. On the third day, the Prime Cook made a surprisingly burned roast for Lord Pauloce and Gillis was asked t
o quickly cook a replacement meal. The Prime Cook was taken away, kicking and dragging on the floor, insisting the fault was not his and that the meal had been tampered with. Gillis was made the new Prime Cook.

  While Gillis ran the kitchens, Amelia brewed the poison. Gillis, visiting her in secret some nights, thought it took an inordinate amount of time. Every morning, Amelia hunted pheasant with her throwing daggers, kept the catch in her Icer, and ate a dry, burnt, and poorly plucked bird for her evening meals. She enchanted the fire so that it gave no smoke, though she lit it only when needed. As the feast approached, he visited her more frequently, taking great care not to be seen. He always wrinkled his nose at her dinner. Their conversation, as Amelia said often, was as dry as the pheasant. She pledged to liven up their interactions, and took to badgering Gillis with personal questions and what she believed to be humorous comments. No matter her persistence, however, Gillis always steered the conversation back to their work. Eventually she stopped asking.

  One evening, only several days away from the feast, Gillis brought a large bundle of food tied in a canvas sack to her camp. She was turning a pheasant over the jumping flames when he arrived.

  “I’ve something for you,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, behold this little trick.”

  She reached into her satchel and drew out a square of thin grey cloth the size of a handkerchief. Gillis raised his eyebrows. The cloth fluttered a little sluggishly given that there was a steady wind rising, but he had no idea what it might mean. Amelia tore the cloth down the middle, and as she did tiny blue sparks jumped out of the tear. She separated them, then gradually drew them farther and farther apart. Each strip of cloth wavered in the direction of the other. It looked like they were fighting weakly against her grip and trying to rejoin.

  “The two strips seek each other,” Gillis said.

  “Do you see what it means?”

  Gillis said nothing for a time. He briefly thought of making a deliberately ignorant guess, like suggesting it was an innovation for tailors. Instead, he shrugged.