The Tyranny of Shadows Read online

  “I would speak with your leader,” Choson said.

  “And I would kill them all. Why the fighting stops I do not know…” the giant rumbled.

  “Roos, quiet,” Choson said.

  Amelia gathered Momaentum about her fist and struck Roos where the neck joined the skull, and he fell unconscious. Gillis turned to Choson and raised his eyebrows.

  “Will you come without struggle?”

  “I will, if you would please inform your leaders or elders that I wish to speak with them. I trust that I will not face immediate execution?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Amelia said. “At least, not ‘immediate.’ ”

  “There is questioning first,” Gillis said. “Also, Gweidorian, you will have to carry your friend.”

  Amelia bent over Roos and cast the spell to lighten him for carrying, and then did the same to the swords. The spell showed as tendrils of soft blue light that snaked around the objects in a slow, coiling motion. Gillis led the group up the steep and winding way to the Monastery as the day wore on. Choson staggered under the combined weight of his plate armor and Roos’ limp form, despite the enchantment, though he did not complain or pause. Amelia trotted behind the others with the captive’s weapons held aloft as though they were light as twigs.

  Hours passed as they climbed, until finally they rounded a rough outcropping and the Monastery came into view. The entrance was a yawning black mouth cut into the very mountain. Huge stone blocks paved the ground and lined the walls within. Spires of rocks and towers of stone that jutted far overhead were connected by arched walkways and steps. Much of the mountain rose high above them; the Monastery entrance was a third of the way up.

  Still, the hinterlands surrounding the mountain stretched out in every direction, and Gillis looked around and admired the view, just as he did whenever he returned. The foothills were little more than blue-tinged bumps.

  At the threshold of the entrance, a damp, chilly draft met their sweating faces. Though it was clammy, Gillis welcomed the cool. The vast walls opened up into many torch-lit hallways, and from one such hallway two robed and hooded Mordenari emerged. They caught sight of Gillis and the others, and approached quickly. Gillis held up a hand to halt the others, then strode forward to meet the Mordenari.

  “We have two trespassers,” Gillis said in a voice low enough that the prisoners would not hear. “Have you seen any to whom we may report—”

  “There is no time,” one hooded figure whispered.

  “There is a hanging now, and we make haste to it,” the other said.

  “Very well,” Gillis murmured, and as the two robed figures left by a hallway opposite the one from where they had entered, Gillis turned to Amelia and the others.

  “We must hurry,” he said to Amelia.

  She hurried to Gillis’ side, with a glance back at their captives. Choson’s knees shook, and his face was a deep red. The giant, even with the enchantment snaking around his torso and limbs, evidently still weighed a great deal.

  “What is it? Where is everybody?” she said.

  “Later. Not in front of them,” Gillis said.

  Choson sank to one knee with a crack of metal on stone that reverberated through the hall. Roos fell off his shoulders and to the side.

  Amelia sighed in frustration and thrust the two greatswords into Gillis’ hands. She knelt beside Roos and slapped him repeatedly.

  “Hey! Come on, you brute, get up.”

  She slapped him again, with no result. As she rummaged around in her satchel, Gillis moved to stand over the still-kneeling Choson. Amelia drew out a vial of white powder and tipped some onto her hands.

  “We need to hurry, Amelia,” Gillis said.

  Amelia traced a finger through the white powder on her palm, humming quietly, and in seconds the powder turned sky blue. At this point she clapped loudly right over Roos’ large nose. The powder coated his face, his eyes shot open, and he looked at each of them. His eyes fell, disconcerted and bleary, onto the two greatswords held effortlessly in Gillis’ hands.

  “Come, Roos,” Choson said. He stood and stared down at the shorter Gillis. “I trust that if we cooperate we may stand a better chance of meeting someone of leadership. Come.”

  Roos grunted, but acquiesced. The group marched single-file through a hallway at the back of the entrance cavern, down neatly carved stone steps, and through endless natural tunnels. They arrived in a small dungeon that smelled of hay, and was lined with simple cells. These were little more than cramped rooms with thin iron bars over the doorways and small cots against their walls. Choson and Roos were herded into one such room, Roos’ eyes on Gillis holding the swords. Gillis and Amelia left them there without a backwards glance.

  They locked the prisoner’s greatswords in an otherwise empty cell nearby.

  Gillis beckoned Amelia to follow him.

  When they were out of earshot, Amelia asked, “What did they tell you back there?”

  “A Mordenari is to be executed.”

  ****

  Amelia and Gillis drew their hoods over their heads and entered the Chanting Hall through the heavy, creaking doors. It was an immense room, almost as large as the entrance, with pillars streaked with glossy blue stone that towered all the way to the domed ceiling above. Neat rows of Mordenari, all hooded as Gillis and Amelia were, remained facing the front, despite the noise of the creaking doors. Gillis felt he was disturbing the deep quiet of some undiscovered cave.

  Gillis led Amelia toward the front of the room, at times pushing through the Mordenari, who mostly refused to move. Amelia kept both hands tight around her hood. As they pressed forward, Gillis counted the rows and guessed there to be around three hundred Mordenari present. It would easily be the whole population of the Monastery, excepting those who were away executing writs.

  They reached the front, and now clearly saw the dark-timber platform at the head of the crowd, as well as the two men that stood upon it. Both wore white robes, yet they were starkly different. One was younger by far, with short-cropped blond hair and a waxy pallor to his skin. His robes were of simple cloth, and though they were too large for him they did not conceal the trembling that wracked his body. His hands were bound behind his back. The other man was ancient and pale, wearing richly patterned white and pearl-colored robes. He was High Monk Javius, the ceremonial and administrative leader of the Mordenari.

  Javius surveyed the crowd with a steady eye. The only sounds now were the gasping breaths of the young man. Gillis’ eyes were drawn every few moments to the noose at the center of the platform.

  Gillis knew the trembling blond man, knew precisely why he was to be hanged, knew that he, Gillis, was the one who had reported him, but kept his mind from wandering to these places. No matter the circumstance, Gillis thought, confronting death in this quiet can be agitating if your thoughts are not controlled. He would not be agitated, not in front of the High Monk or the crowd of Mordenari. Not in front of Amelia.

  The heavy door at the rear of the hall burst open. A bald man, robed but unhooded, entered. His movements were so graceful it seemed like a grey apparition was gliding through the crowd. The Mordenari parted quickly to let him pass, some stumbling in their haste. After a few moments, the man reached the front of the crowd just a few places from Gillis and Amelia, and the Mordenari reformed their neat lines.

  High Monk Javius bowed. “Verandert.”

  Amelia stared at Verandert.

  Gillis looked too, from the corner of his eye. Verandert’s features, when one saw him this close, were strangely blurred. It was like looking through thick glass at a figure on the other side, or perhaps at a portrait that had been smeared by water damage. In profile, the slope of his narrow, straight nose seemed to cut into the air in front of him, ending over thin and anemic lips set between cheeks that held neither color nor pallor. Gillis soon had to look away, for the longer he looked at the shifting features, the more his eyes felt strained. It took a moment of staring straight ahead at the
platform to clear his head of a feeling strangely like waking from an intense dream, where things shifted as Verandert’s face did.

  “Proceed,” Verandert said.

  High Monk Javius turned to face the man on the platform. “Duvelt. You have violated our laws. You were suspected of tampering with Blood Magic and have been condemned by two. The first, an unnamed Mordenari, noticed the bone rot on your fingers, which you shall now present.”

  Javius crossed the platform and cut Duvelt’s bonds with his dagger. Trembling and shifting nervously, Duvelt held his hands in front of him. Murmuring broke out in the crowd as they saw that his fingers were stained dark brown, mottled and wrinkled like rotten wood. Amelia’s nostrils flared and she clenched both fists. Gillis raised his eyebrows in question, but she only shook her head.

  The High Monk addressed Duvelt once more, “The second to condemn you is Verandert himself, who, taking on the form of another Mordenari that you trusted, heard your confession first-hand. You intended to seek out materials to perform further Blood Magic. The life force within you, tainted by Blood Magic, is forfeit. Come now to the noose and, before the Mordenari here gathered, accept judgment.”

  “I would speak first,” Duvelt said.

  High Monk Javius turned an eye to Verandert, who nodded. Duvelt gathered a shuddering breath and began to address the crowd.

  “I am guilty only of mercy … and attempting to correct a mistake. I am a talented enchanter, and as many do in deeper studies of Momaentum, I came upon knowledge of Blood Magic. I dabbled in it,” Duvelt said. He paused as the crowd hissed and jeered at him in hushed voices.

  “In my work to help guard a small Veldenlander village against slaver raids, I encountered a family with a very ill daughter,” Duvelt said. “She was fading quickly. I had the ability to save her with a minimal transfusion of my own life essence. The entire village had extreme prejudice against Blood Magic, but her parents were desperate, so they agreed for me to help her. And so, remembering the words of Ardent Momaenta, I tried to save her.” The crowd yelled at him now, and Duvelt shouted above them in a cracked voice, “The greater good! Always, the greater good!”

  “You did not save her,” Verandert said. His voice was a forceful and clear baritone, and it filled the entire Hall. The crowd fell silent.

  “I did not know of bone rot at the time,” Duvelt said. “I have learned more since. I only wanted to—”

  “You committed an act of evil,” High Monk Javius said, shaking his head. “One beyond your comprehension. The girl’s fingers, even now, will be as yours are. Her parents will watch in horror as she succumbs to the disease, inch by inch, her body turning to drying, rotten bone until she is a husk. If they are wise, they will give her a quick end now. This noose on your neck is better mercy than she will receive.”

  “I was trying to save her!” Duvelt yelled. “I was going to return!”

  “Enough,” Verandert said. “It is time. Face it with dignity, Duvelt.”

  Duvelt stared at his hands. Every Mordenari in the room took up the Chant of their laws in the Old Velden tongue. They repeated it a few times over as Duvelt inched toward the noose, his head hanging low and tears falling from the tip of his nose. Amelia, Gillis saw, was not chanting, but was watching Duvelt with narrowed eyes. High Monk Javius placed the noose around Duvelt’s neck. Duvelt’s eyes locked forward, looking over the crowd. He pressed his lips together and tensed his entire body, so that his face reddened and cords stood out in his neck.

  Gillis felt a curious sensation, a stifling humidity, like the heat of a baking sun trapped by close-knit clouds. Movement swept through the Mordenari crowd as some fanned themselves with their robes, so Gillis reasoned that it was felt by all. The Mordenari faltered in their chanting, and some looked questioningly at their neighbors. High Monk Javius pulled the noose tight around Duvelt’s neck and the humidity was gone. Amelia’s eyes snapped wide open.

  “Duvelt, don’t!” she breathed.

  The lever was pulled, and Duvelt dropped. A red glow emanated from his neck, like the light of the sun seen through closed fingers. The noose held Duvelt, but he was unharmed. He began to chant in a strange tongue, and as he chanted the red glow burned brighter. In response, the Mordenari’s intonation swelled in a crescendo that reached the pitch of a storm trapped in the vast stone room.

  “What is he doing?” Gillis said.

  Verandert leapt onto the platform, leaving in his wake a crackling trail of Momaentum. Gillis’ hairs stood on end; it was like lightning had struck the floor next to him. There was a great flash of blue light that blinded Gillis for a few moments, and then all was still. Verandert stood unmoving, his hand on a black dagger that he’d plunged into Duvelt’s chest. He faced away from Duvelt even as he held the dagger firmly, and Gillis had the wild impression that Verandert was averting his eyes.

  The glow was gone and Duvelt hung silent. There was a hushed minute when, transfixed, the gathered Mordenari stared at the frozen figures on the platform. The only sound was the gentle creak of the rope straining against Duvelt’s weight.

  “You have now all seen the futility of Blood Magic,” High Monk Javius said. “Duvelt attempted to extend his life for a few pitiful moments. Even without Verandert’s intervention, he would surely have perished.”

  Verandert slowly slid his dagger out of Duvelt’s chest. Blood poured from the wound and spread down the dead man’s white robes in wide, dark ribbons.

  Amelia rubbed her eyes. Gillis knew why: his own eyes still stung from Verandert’s immense display of Momaentum.

  Verandert sliced through the rope holding Duvelt, and his corpse fell with a meaty thud into a hidden chamber below the platform. Verandert vaulted down the trapdoor after him. Amelia raised an eyebrow at Gillis, who held up a hand and nodded at the platform. Verandert climbed back up a few moments later, holding Duvelt’s heavily bloodstained robes, then jumped lightly down from the platform and strode through the crowd to the exit. The Mordenari gave him a wide berth, some stumbling into their neighbors in their haste.

  “Come,” Verandert called from the doorway.

  Tentatively at first, the crowd of Mordenari began to follow, until the entire Hall had nearly emptied.

  “Ignorant,” Amelia muttered under her breath, “So very ignorant…”

  Gillis was on the verge of asking her to clarify, but held his tongue.

  Together with the other Mordenari, Gillis and Amelia trailed behind Verandert. They were led back outside through the cavernous entrance of the Monastery. Up and around the side of the entrance, they filed along a seldom-used path that wound farther up the Mountain. After a short journey, rendered harder by the thinning air, the Mordenari came to a colossal bone-white tree with uncountable stiff branches. Hanging from many of the branches—by as many ropes, swaying in the thin breeze—were Mordenari robes. Some were bleached by the sun, many were tattered and frayed. Some had deep brown stains on them. There were hundreds of them; more robes dangling from the tree than were worn by the living Mordenari that beheld it. Verandert hung Duvelt’s robe from a rope, red on the front with its bloodstains and dripping heavily. He spread his arms high and wide, commanding the attention of the entire group. All eyes fixed on him for a breathless moment.

  “Do not join them,” Verandert said.

  ****

  Gillis’ hand, after days and nights of ointments and soakings and frequent re-bandaging, still throbbed and gave him trouble with delicate tasks. He clumsily peeled a potato with a small paring knife alone in the kitchens in the early hours of the morning. The best progress, he found, was made when he used the bandaged hand to hold the paring knife steady and the other to scrape the potato along the blade. Though he did manage to strip the skin of the potato away, it came off along with much of the potato’s flesh.

  He sighed and set the potato alongside a half-dozen other misshapen potatoes. Those Mordenari who were not of Dreyen rank were tasked with some measure of menial work. Naturally, Gillis c
ooked. Amelia, as Gillis understood it, reported to highly skilled enchanters among the Dreyen in experimenting with new uses for Momaentum.

  As he set about peeling the next potato, his thoughts turned to Amelia, and to Duvelt, and then on to Beldas. Gillis would not normally wish to flaunt that it had been he who reported Duvelt for hanging. But the thought came to him that he hoped Amelia would not hear about it. In fact, he had an instinct to actively conceal it from her. Could it be, he thought, that in seeing her reaction and distaste for Duvelt’s hanging, I want her to come to a better understanding of our laws and beliefs? Perhaps then she would understand, even appreciate, the service I performed. But she should not find out before that.

  And then there was the recurring thought of Beldas, the image of the struggles as Gillis fought him. As ever, Gillis maintained calm and did not resist the thoughts. Beldas, an unfortunate innocent, had died in service of the greater good. Duvelt, an unfortunate lawbreaker, had died also in the service of the greater good, in a way. My duty is to remember them calmly and to hold, at the same time, the laws of Mordenari justice clear in my mind. But the calmness evaded him. His agitation grew, but he knew not why. Perhaps it was the frustration with the blasted, throbbing fingers of his. They chose that moment to fail him, slip, and gouge a third of the flesh from the potato he held.

  He flung the potato at the wall opposite, where it left a small wet mark before bouncing out of sight.

  At that moment, Amelia burst into the kitchens, humming merrily, though her eyes had dark rings from evident lack of sleep.

  “Brought you something to wake you up,” she said. She carried her satchel and held two steaming cups in her hands. She placed one before him, and the smell of it hit him at once: bitter and dark and welcome. She was dressed in the plain grey Mordenari robes with her hair neatly coiled atop her head.

  “Risking gout root tea in the heart of the keep? My thanks,” he said, taking a sip. He closed his eyes in appreciation as a heady sensation of wakefulness buzzed across his scalp. It was slightly over-steeped, yet he did not criticize her. There is no teaching Amelia cooking-related crafts anyway, he thought.