The Tyranny of Shadows Read online

  “I have a question. We both know Verandert doesn’t want us having goud due to the coin it gives to slaving groups—though, of course, everyone here uses it. How can you, in all your devotion, justify your heavy use?”

  “Well…” Gillis said. “It’s different. I make sure to get goud that has been confiscated, so none of my coin passes to the slavers.”

  “Ah, so it’s not breaking a rule when Gillis does it and has some justification?”

  “It’s … still breaking a rule, yes,” Gillis said. “We are not all of us perfect.”

  “He’s human after all,” Amelia said breathlessly.

  “Yes. I have vices like any other,” Gillis said. “Better a small mischief like this than a great, foolish blunder like Duvelt’s.”

  Amelia slumped a little in her seat, and gazed into the middle distance, then shook her head and sipped her goud root tea. Gillis returned to peeling the potatoes, feeling a rising heat on his neck as Amelia watched him struggle. He flicked his eyes to her and, seeing that she was suppressing a grin, put down his knife.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just—”

  “Come now. I am in no mood.”

  “Every time I picture you breaking your hand using the most basic of Momaentum—”

  “Enough!”

  “Are you sure you won’t come practice with me?” Amelia said.

  “I’ve no need. I won’t be using it again.”

  “You may, if you wish to be the next High Monk,” she said with a slow and exaggerated wink.

  A red flush came to Gillis’ face, and he started on peeling the potatoes again with more force. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I could teach you on the road to Gweidor.”

  “We are not going to Gweidor.”

  “We could if we requested a writ there. There must be somebody that needs poisoning.”

  “Why Gweidor?”

  “That Choson—he came all the way here to the mountain. It’s so very curious. I can’t help but wonder, why?”

  Gillis pared the skin from the potato in his hand even faster. “Pay him no heed. They are madmen, the both of them. I’ve seen raving beggars behave saner than those trespassers.”

  “He spoke of Mordenari doing wrong. Surely that interests you?”

  “He is a rabid dog, barking at shadows—”

  “You said that about Pauloce,” Amelia said, and folded her arms.

  The potato slipped in Gillis’ hand, and the paring knife twisted along with it, bending his broken fingers backward. A sharp pain flared quickly, and then became a hot throbbing throughout the rest of his hand.

  “Here.” Amelia drew bandages and ointments from the satchel she had brought. Gillis held out his hand, Amelia took it, and gently removed the fraying bandages to apply a sweet-smelling ointment that stung his fingers. He breathed hard as she did, as at first the stinging of the ointment was like the sudden cold of ice, but it was in opposition to the hot pain of the broken fingers. The longer the ointment was on his skin, the more the pain subsided and left cool relief instead.

  As Amelia re-bandaged Gillis’ hands, several of the other Mordenari cooks filed in. Gillis quickly took the goud root drinks and tipped them into the washtub. Without a word, Amelia turned and left the kitchen. The cooks came to their stations, all standing rigidly, all working with dull faces and downcast eyes and quiet focus.

  Gillis set about peeling the potatoes once more, when a curious thought about the Mordenari cooks struck him. It was the sort of obvious thing that went without attention for a long time, for years, before it finally rose and gave him a gentle disquiet. Though he had cooked alongside them for many months, he knew none of their names.

  Chapter 7

  Flash of Blue, then of Red

  Mordenari got your head!

  Veldenlander Children’s Rhyme

  Roos and Choson sat across from each other, dressed in thin, clean, white Monastery prisoner robes. Their cell was set below the ground level, and had a small window near the ceiling that overlooked the ground outside and down the slope of the mountain. Between them was a simple wooden table Choson sometimes stood upon to look out the window. The view was magnificent, jagged hills peppered with orange foliage stretching down and away from the mountain. To look out the window became their only pastime, and it did little for Choson but distract him from the reality of their situation. When he had asked the red-headed Mordenari whether they would face immediate execution, she had said those words that now echoed ceaselessly in his mind, “No, of course not … At least, not ‘immediate.’ ” As Choson watched Roos gazing out the window, he wondered if the giant might possibly be enjoying the view in earnest. Roos always smiled a little.

  Then there were times, as the days passed, that restlessness took Roos for hours at a time. He would train his muscles with pushups and other more aimless exercises. Choson soon learned that asking him to sit still was fruitless. To pass the time Choson honed his plan of what he would say should they meet the leaders. He ran over the words again and again, for if he was to die, he would at least make his final case with clarity. The redheaded one had looked at him with curiosity on the climb up. That curiosity, he hoped, would lead to someone listening to him.

  They were fed regularly but simply, by different Mordenari each day. These Mordenari never responded to Choson or Roos no matter what they said or how they said it.

  One day, Roos’ fit of restlessness carried on far longer than usual.

  “I hate this,” he said. He paced around the room, kicking his cot and pounding the dungeon wall with his thick fist each time he passed them. “I want enough space to freely walk at the least.”

  “I want someone among them to speak to,” Choson said. “They cannot all be broth-and-bread-serving mutes.”

  Roos wrapped his hands on the long bars of the door of the cell.

  Choson pressed his palms against his temples. “If nobody responded to your banging and yelling on the first day…”

  Roos rattled them hard and they clanged roughly, but did not give.

  “… then they certainly will not heed you now.”

  “Let those back home see me now, locked up. I think not!” Roos growled. “Some quest. Pfeh! Never should I have left.”

  “I wish I had not left either, friend.”

  “It takes some getting used to,” a female voice said, coming from the high window of the cell. A shadow blocked the light streaming through the window for a moment. “Hearing a Gweidorian and a Wittewolder on such terms, I mean. I don’t travel north much, but aren’t your people sworn enemies?”

  The pale, red-headed woman peered down at them through the bars. From her position, she would have to be lying on the stony ground outside their cell. Choson remembered the bald one had called her Amelia.

  “It is her, Choson,” Roos bellowed. “Quick!”

  He charged at the window and stuck his hand through the bars. Amelia moved, and stood at a safe distance as Roos clawed at the air where she had been.

  “Do you wish to talk with us or taunt us?” Choson said. “My companion and I have had no chance to speak to any of you, much less any of your leaders.”

  “You were not actually promised any such chance,” Amelia said.

  “There are no guards. Are your leaders even aware we are here? Were it not for the food, I would think we had been forgotten completely,” Choson said.

  Amelia peered through a gap in the bars beside Roos’ trapped arm. “You have not been forgotten. Not by me, at least.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “To be blunt, raving madmen tend to make interesting conversation partners,” Amelia said. “And considering the immense stupidity of your attack, I thought I would try my luck.”

  Roos finally pulled his arm free, then retreated to the far end of the cell and sat on the floor. Amelia lay down by the window and peered in once more.

  “I hate to disappoint you, but the madness of our
actions was born of my desperation. I am not raving,” Choson said.

  “Pity.”

  “Will we truly be executed? That was what you said upon our capture, was it not? I came only to talk,” Choson said.

  “We do tend to react rather harshly to people who waylay us while swinging huge swords and making all kinds of fuss, as it turns out,” Amelia said.

  “For that, I apologize,” Choson said. He glanced at Roos, who rubbed his arm where the bars had left red marks. “You must understand, for his people an attack like that is a thing of honor. I assure you I meant only to come to talk.”

  “I let my sword do the talking!” Roos said, but the others ignored him.

  “So you won’t rave, even a little? I used to know a perfect lunatic when I was younger. Believed he could bring the moon down from the sky to kiss him if he enticed it with certain parts of his body at night.”

  “I have no such delusion for your amusement,” Choson said.

  “Pity. Well, goodbye.”

  She sprang up lightly and was gone from the window, letting the full light of the sun in once more.

  Choson could not let the only Mordenari that had spoken to them in days leave so suddenly. Should he froth at the mouth and say mad things? What do the mad say? Well, Choson thought wryly, I seem beyond the bounds of normal madness. Look where I am—who I am with. These are things of children’s rhymes and wives’ tales. I should simply speak as myself.

  “I was Captain of the Guard in Gweidor,” Choson yelled through the high window. “I am cousin to the King Sangun-Yon. A murderer was set free and many innocent lives were taken, and you Mordenari are at fault.”

  Amelia lay down at the window instantly. Choson narrowed his eyes. Had she been waiting there for him to say something? Or perhaps that was the magic that quickens their movements.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “The tale is long,” Choson said.

  “No matter, as long as it bores me less than the chores I am due for,” Amelia said.

  “As I told you,” Choson said, and he stood upon the table to face Amelia straight-on. “I was Captain of the Guard in the Capital city of Gweidor. I would say the full, proper Gweidorian name, but you Veldenlanders call it the Capital. A prisoner in my care vanished, leaving no trace. When I did investigate, I was told I asked too many questions. I was reassigned to guard a remote village by my King.”

  “A prisoner disappeared? That’s all? Why the reaction?”

  “He was a killer born to a rich family. The Sen family, ‘Ox’ in your tongue. My Lieutenant, Jun, was struck while watching the prisoner and … well, what he says he was struck by, I did not believe.”

  “What struck him? Come on!”

  Choson smiled inwardly. This was not the impassioned speech before benches of old, robed men he had imagined. But she was intrigued—her eyes were wide, she held the bars. If this should be how he ended his quest, telling the tale to a young assassin from inside his cell, so be it.

  “He was struck by what he described to be a magical force—”

  “What color was it?” Amelia said.

  “Do not interrupt,” Choson said. “I find that as a prisoner, my patience wanes easily.”

  “I’ll be silent.”

  “It was blue. As in the rhyme of children, a flash of blue struck him senseless,” Choson said. “He did not see his attackers—they attacked him from behind. When he woke, the prisoner Goru-Sen was gone. A disgusting man, though I never saw him. He made sport of the young and vulnerable. When we searched his manor we found strange strips of flesh, dried and salted for later eating. At first we could not match it to any animal or fish. And then we found rib-cages, skulls. The flesh was human; they were the last remnants of those he preyed upon. When he disappeared, two guards were missing also—one a young man, and the other a young woman of the Yu family, ‘Goat’ in Velden. I feared that they had been killed by whoever had spirited away Goru-Sen. All the while we searched and questioned, Jun muttered to me that the Mordenari had done this. He was always a believer in intrigues and secret assassinations, movements in the shadows of the civilized world. I ignored him at first, but exhausted of options, I brought the matter to my King—my cousin, Sangun-Yon. Despite our family bond, he did not listen. That was when he assigned me to the Yu village, far from the Capital. Jun came with me. I had never believed him: his talk of magic and the Mordenari. But during our stay in that village, Jun proved to be correct.”

  Chapter 8

  Two years ago, in the Gweidorian Mountains, in the Ancestral village of the family Yu.

  ****

  Choson rapped on the village Elder’s door as a rising wind carried a flurry of snow all about him. For some time there was no sign of movement within. He thought of knocking again, but finally he heard faint movement. An ancient woman answered, leaning heavily on a walking stick. She was very short and had tanned skin and a flat, wide nose. She smiled up at Choson.

  “Do not stand long, Yiseyo,” Choson said. “I only wished to return the bowls from tonight’s supper. My officers and I agreed that your noodle soup is the best we have ever tasted.”

  She nodded, her silver bun bobbing on the thick scarf wrapped about her neck. She wore a faded red dress that had once been scarlet, the traditional Elder garb, and on its back was embroidered the Yu mountain goat crest. She made to take the bowls from Choson, but he held them high. Some snowflakes slid from the shoulders of his armor.

  “Allow me, please! I feel indebted to you. My men’s appetites must be depleting your grain stores. They are from the Capital and don’t understand shortages.”

  Silently, she beckoned him inside. Her home was a cozy cottage on stilts, painted a faded red that stood out starkly against the snow, with a gently sloping tile roof. Inside it was little more than a small kitchen table, a bed, and a fireplace. Choson stooped to avoid the pommel of the greatsword slung on his back from knocking against the ceiling. To think that this is the home of the wealthiest woman in the village, he mused.

  Yiseyo began filling a washtub with water from a collection of buckets kept warm by the fireside. Choson removed his gauntlets and placed the bowls in the warm water and cleaned them one by one. The heat of the water stung away the chill of his hands.

  “Sit, please, Elder. May I make you tea?” he asked.

  She shook her head as she sat on the edge of the bed, her tiny feet hanging a few inches above the ground.

  “Captain, is war coming? Soldiers …” she said, then paused. Choson could hear her dry breath in her throat while she found her words. “Soldiers have not stayed by the village since the Wittewolders came…”

  “No, Yiseyo, we are safe from invaders,” he said. “Our King sends us here to maintain order as a precaution. Some villages are in great danger, but those places are far from here. My soldiers and I will have to stay until the King calls us back.”

  “The King!” she barked. The exclamation made her cough. “He asks too much of us, of tax and grain both. The upper wells freeze, and the climb to the lower wells is icy and treacherous. But what King understands? What King has slipped on the ice for a bucketful of water? And our fuel dwindles, so we have little to burn to melt the snows. All the while he takes our coin.”

  Choson said nothing. He finished washing and stacked the bowls.

  “Some say he grows mad. Jun tells me, he tells me …” she said. Her pale eyes narrowed as she struggled to remember. “He takes the taxes not for his people, but for the ones of the shadow.”

  “I will talk to Jun about sharing his theories. However, I believe the village will thrive come spring. Your people are strong.”

  “Hmph. Strong!” Yiseyo laughed, a dry and crackling sound in her throat. “What better targets for the slavers than strong farmers?”

  “There are no slavers near enough to cause worry. But it is good that my soldiers and I are here.”

  “They bade King Sangun-Yon to send you. Their bidding is everywhere, but you do not se
e until long after it is too late.”

  “ ‘They,’ Yiseyo? If Jun is confusing you—”

  “I knew this before you and Jun came to my village. The Capital is filled with these rats. Any that come close to discovering them are sent away. Is that familiar to you? If they are not sent away, they are captured as slaves—or worse, they are bribed to silence. They become wealthy keepers of slaves. They buy you or they kill you or they exile you. And all the while they proclaim that they end slavery. We never have open war, but in their shadow we never have peace.”

  “I’ll put Jun on the dawn watch for this…”

  Yiseyo leaned an ear toward him. “Hmm?”

  “Do not dwell on these thoughts, Yiseyo. Jun has been spinning tales for you. They are not true. I will speak to him.”

  “Jun. I like him. He is a handsome young man. Will you take him more soup? He must eat. He is handsome, but too skinny for a soldier.”

  “Yes, Yiseyo. I will send him tomorrow, and he will tell you the truth of his stories himself.”

  “Good, good.”

  “Yiseyo, before I leave,” Choson said, “there is that trader that arrived the other day, but I have not seen him around the village.”

  “He stays in his tent. Some villagers go in to see him, but he does not come out.”

  “Has he shown you his papers?”

  “No.”

  “He should have seen you here, or me when he passed the camp on the way in. I will speak to him in the morning,” Choson said.

  “Good. He’s a good-looking young man.”

  “The trader?”

  “No, the … the other one.”

  “Jun?”

  “Yes,” Yiseyo said, and she blinked slowly and smiled. “Jun. Do not be hard on him. He is a good man. He tells me good tales.”