The Truth of Shadows Read online

  He reached up one trembling hand, gently questing, and yanked it away as soon as he felt the furrow the beast’s talon had left. A slight, almost imperceptible touch, yet his fingers came away slick with fresh blood. Snarling, he looked to where the creature thrashed on the ground, the sound issuing from its throat somewhere between a growl and a pitiful mewling.

  Baring his teeth, Sevrin rose to unsteady feet and stalked toward it, his hands knotting into fists at his sides. The creature was still thrashing frantically, and its claws found his arm, drawing fresh blood as he reached and jerked the sword from its flesh, but Sevrin barely noticed. His mind was full of rage, a rage that left no room for anything else, not caution or fear, not even pain. He grasped the blade in both hands and howled out his fury as he brought the blade down on the creature’s squirming form. Again and again he struck, black ichor spraying out onto his skin and clothes and ravaged face. The creature’s struggles slowed then stopped altogether, but Sevrin did not. He brought the blade down over and over, as if each wound the steel left might somehow heal his own flesh, might reknit the skin along his cheek and forehead, a flap of which had been torn loose and was hanging near his eye, obscuring his vision.

  By the time he finally stopped, the creature was little more than a pile of ravaged flesh and broken bone. He regarded it in the ruddy torchlight, his chest heaving with each ragged breath, the muscles of his arms trembling from the exertion. “Damned…mutt,” he wheezed, and there was a slur to his speech he did not like, one that made him aware of a burning, ripped sensation along his lips.

  That brought back the rage in full, and it was some time before he stopped swinging the blade again. Finally, he let the bloody sword fall to the ground, collapsing to his knees beside it. He felt half mad from pain, but he gave a small smile to the corpse. “Not…this…time,” he panted. He was no longer a child, would no longer be second to his father’s hounds. This one, at least, had learned as much, and even the thought of his father being angry once he discovered one of his dogs dead, did nothing to weaken the satisfaction Sevrin felt as he gazed upon that mangled form. He realized then that he was losing his grip on reality, that the past and present had merged within his mind. But just then, full of satisfaction at his own vengeance—vengeance that had went unfulfilled all his life—he did not care.

  “Is it…cold, hound?” he said. “Is it…painful?” He laughed then, a sound very close to a shriek. “Well. Failure always is.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when something struck him from the side, and he was knocked spinning to land on his back. Blinking against the darkness gathering in his eyes, he looked up to see shadowy forms gathering around him. He could not see much, for their bodies obscured most of the torch’s light, but enough of the glow leaked through for him to make out fangs sprouting from what must have been at least a dozen creatures gathered around him. Gods, I’m a fool, he thought. After all, his father had raised hounds all of Sevrin’s life. He knew, he should have known. His father never only had one. And when they hunted, they hunted in a pack.

  Fear, fresh and new, surged past the anger that had driven his battered body, occluded it, and he began to tremble. “P-please,” he said, and though he knew he was a man grown, the voice he heard, whimpering and desperate, was that of a child. “Please. Don’t.”

  He felt a tug at his leg and cried out, looking down to see that one of the beasts had fastened its teeth around his leg. This one was smaller than the one he’d killed, smaller than the largest of his father’s hounds, but Sevrin barely noticed. He was too busy remembering a time long ago, not just remembering it, but living it as the creature’s malevolent eyes, these shining a sickly yellow the color of pus, studied him in much the same way the dog had.

  But there were no guardsmen this time, and this creature was not one of his father’s hounds. A moment later, it chomped down hard, bringing its teeth together and tearing a chunk out of Sevrin’s thigh, ripping it away. Sevrin stared in shock at the hole in his leg, the ravaged, puckered wound where once his leg had been and now, most of it, torn away to reveal the pale white of slick, bloody bone.

  Then he screamed.

  The pain was incredible, worse than anything he had ever imagined. Then the others joined in, taking their own bites, their teeth joining their companions, and he realized that there was no limit to how much pain a man could feel. His last thoughts before the darkness took him were of Eriondrian Tirinian. It was his fault, it was him who had brought Sevrin to this place.

  Hate, at the thought of the man. Hate and pain and rage.

  Then only darkness.

  ***

  He opened his eyes some time later, and found that he was lying on the ground. A dream, he thought with relief, just a dream. A nightmare, true, but not real. Not… His thoughts froze as he tried to move and found that his body would not obey his commands. Frowning in confusion, he raised his head, straining with the shocking amount of effort it took, and looked down at what remained of his body.

  Then he screamed. He screamed, and he screamed until there was no air left in his lungs, until his screams turned to hacking cough, his hacking coughs turned to whimpers, and his whimpers into dry, croaking wheezes. Movement at the corner of his vision caught his attention, and he knew then the truth.

  It had not been a dream, and if it was a nightmare, then it was a true one. The creatures were still there, all around him, gathered and watching, their lambent eyes shining in the gloom. Yet they did not move toward him, did not stalk forward to finish what they had begun. Instead, they only watched, as if waiting for something.

  “F-finish…it, you…bastards,” he croaked, but the creatures made no move, and had he been able to do it himself, he would have finished the thing, yet such efforts were beyond him. He knew it, and they knew it too, and it seemed to him that they took pleasure in the truth of that, in the sharing of that mutual understanding.

  “Kill me!” It was somewhere between a demand and a plea and despite his earnestness, his voice came out in a weak, pitiful mewling, but he did not care. He had once cared so much how he was perceived, how people, how the world viewed him, but his vanity had been taken from him, ripped from him piece by bloody piece, and what was left was raw pain. He laughed then. It began low at first, a breathy chuckle, then it was loud, braying, shrieking laughter. If someone else had heard it, they would have taken it not for laughter at all, but as the wailing of a mind broken, beyond all reason or hope of return. And they would have been right.

  Yet knowing this, he did not stop. Was not sure if he could, had he wanted to, and he did not. For within that mad laughter was escape, within those cracking, desperate shrieks was another world, a different reality, one in which what little remained of his body need not be considered, for when all is pain and loss and tragedy, then there can be no memory of what was lost, of what had once been. He did not know how long he stayed in that place, how long his shrieks rang out into the night, for in that place to which he had come, time had no meaning. The only proof of its passing came in the ebb and flow of the agony coursing through his body, pushing in and receding like the tide but never leaving fully.

  Time meant nothing, there was only the pain, that and nothing else, until there was. Something. A voice, rasping and low, so quiet that it might not have been there at all. “Hello, Sevrin.”

  A stranger’s voice, one he did not recognize, yet one that, somehow, sounded familiar. He tried to speak, to give answer, but nothing came out except for a wet gurgling croak.

  “Ah, but you have suffered greatly, haven’t you?”

  Yes, Sevrin thought. Yes, end it, please. By the gods, please end it.

  “End it?” the voice asked, as if the speaker had somehow heard his thoughts. “I could, you know. They could.” As if on cue, the creatures surrounding him shifted forward, drawing closer, close enough to reach out and touch, had Sevrin been able.

  Yes, please, he thought, and though he did not speak, could not, he felt hot
tears of hope winding their way down his ruined face. Kill me.

  “It would be easy enough,” the stranger said, “they would be happy to do it. For they are always hungry, Sevrin—theirs is a lust, a greed, that can never be sated. But then, you know that, don’t you?”

  The tears streaming faster now. Yes.

  “Are you in great pain then, Sevrin?”

  Yes.

  “Your body cold from what it has lost, the flesh that once kept you warm no more?”

  Yes.

  “Then that is as it should be, for pain is the cost of failure and cold its companion, and you have failed greatly, haven’t you?”

  Failed?

  “Oh yes. For you set out from Valeria to make your enemy pay, did you not? With visions of him bowing beneath you whirling in your mind. You know the enemy of which I speak?”

  Eriondrian Tirinian. Rion. The bastard.

  “Yes, and does he now lie prostrate before you? Does he weep and moan and beg you for mercy?”

  No but, please, the pain—

  “Pain is nothing,” the voice hissed, the sound like snakes crawling across his skin in the darkness, like the feel of a spider gliding along his skin as he awoke, and had he been able to move, Sevrin would have recoiled from that voice.

  “Pain,” the stranger said, its voice low and barely audible once more, “is not the the most important thing, Sevrin. For surely it pales beside revenge, revenge on the one who brought you to this place of torment, revenge on those who would cast you into the darkness and let it devour you. Vengeance, Sevrin. It is ever the great arbiter, the true ruler of mortals and gods both. Do you understand?”

  Vengeance. The word sounded good, striking him like cool water to a parched throat and soothing away the worst of his despair and the pain—emotional more than physical—which had wrapped tight around him, squeezing him. Yes. Vengeance was good. Vengeance on Eriondrian, on those others who had allied themselves with the bastard. Vengeance on his father. I understand.

  “Ah, I see that you do. There is power in hate, Sevrin. This, too, I think you begin to learn. Now, tell me what you want. I can give you the death you have asked for, if you wish. They will give it to you quickly enough. Or, I can give you revenge. Revenge against your enemy and those others who travel with him, revenge against your father too, against the world that has so wronged you. For it is not your fault, is it, Sevrin? It could never be your fault that you are here.” The stranger’s voice now was smooth as an eel, comforting and quiet. “It is not you, after all, who allied with a criminal, is it? You have only done the best you can, haven’t you?” the stranger crooned. “Who could expect more? Who could have done more?”

  No one, Sevrin thought viciously, it’s their fault. All their fault. And had someone asked him then who he meant, Sevrin would have told them. The world. The world and everyone in it had brought him to this place, this pain, and they would suffer for it. Revenge, he thought. I want revenge.

  A shadow glided forward out of the ranks of creatures then, and though he could see nothing of the figure himself, for he remained cloaked in shadow as if it were a garment he wore about his shoulders, a cowl about his face, still Sevrin felt a thrill of fear race through his heart. There was something about the figure, something obscene, something wrong about the way it moved, about the way it looked. Gazing at it, Sevrin felt unclean, felt as if his very insides were twisting, somehow being tainted by this figure, those shadows.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, but could not stop the whimper that escaped his throat.

  “Are you afraid, Sevrin?” The words wriggled into his mind like worms churning through the remains of some desiccated corpse.

  Y-yes.

  “Good,” the figure rasped, looming over him, and he felt its regard like the sickly-hot touch of fever on his skin. “You are right to fear.”

  P-please…I don’t want…

  “Oh no. It is too late for that. The choice has been made, the pact sealed. You will have your revenge, Sevrin, whether you wish it or not. We will both have our revenge.”

  Tears now, leaking from his face. W-why? W-who are you?

  “Why?” the shadow asked. “Perhaps you will come to learn, in time. As for who I am…well, haven’t you guessed yet, Sevrin? I am a god. I am your god.”

  Sevrin knew well the visages and names of the many gods, Amedan and Shira and their children, their grandchildren, for his father’s tutors had schooled him rigorously on the subject. Knowledge, his father had liked to say—when he bothered saying anything to Sevrin at all—was a tool, yet another weapon that one might use against his enemies. But for all his education, Sevrin did not know the god standing before him, had never heard of him, and that thought, more than any other, terrified him.

  The shadow laughed then. A rasping, cruel laugh that felt like sanding paper dragging across Sevrin’s mind, his soul. “Yes, Sevrin, you do not know me. They do not know me, but they will learn, as will you. I will have my revenge.”

  R-revenge…for what?

  “For what?” the shadow asked, his voice sounding amused. “Well, for the same reason that all seek revenge, of course. For being born. Now, it is time, for even my powers cannot hold you any longer in this realm. You are broken, Sevrin. Your enemies have broken you, but I am the great fixer. I will make you better.”

  Sevrin felt a flash of hope at the thought of his body mending, as he imagined being whole once more. He feared this god he did not know, feared the dark gifts he offered…but my face. Gods, he can fix my face. And then, when he was better, he would take his revenge. They would suffer for what they had done to him. They would all suffer. P-please, he thought. I am ready.

  Laughter again, and the shadow seemed to kneel beside him, yet instead of being able to make out any of its features, it was as if Sevrin had been cast into the darkest shadow, into a pit in which even the memory of light was long dead, a pit where things crawled and slithered in the darkness.

  “Are you ready? Truly?” the figure asked, but the question did not seem to demand an answer, was one asked with amusement and something like glee, and a moment later a tendril of shadow reached out, touching him.

  A slight touch, brief like a spider questing to determine if this new thing it had found in its web was its next meal, getting the feel of it before it began to devour it. A slight touch on his mangled face, yet with it came a cold deeper than any Sevrin had ever known, and he gasped in shock and pain. No, he thought desperately, trying to recoil away from that touch, but unable to move, for his body had long since lost the ability to obey his commands. A mistake. I’ve made a terrible mistake. Please, no, he begged, have mercy.

  “Mercy?” the shadow asked, and it was closer now, within him, the sound of its voice digging a furrow through his mind as if a blade were being dragged across it. “Mercy?” There was laughter then, laughter without joy or happiness, laughter fueled by nothing but hate. “Oh, Sevrin, you ask me for mercy? I am a god, you see. But I am not. That. God.”

  With that, the shadows surged forward, seeming to pour into him, and the change, the shaping he felt in his limbs was not healing, not at all, but twisting, perverting. And he screamed. I-it’s too…much, he thought wildly, t-the pain…the pain is—

  “Yes, Sevrin,” the shadow hissed, and to his great despair, the voice seemed to come from inside of him, seemed to be a part of him, “there will be pain. For everything born into this world is carried into it on a river of pain, and this will be no different. You will want to stop, but what has begun cannot be stopped, Sevrin. That is something you will learn—something they will all learn. You will want to die, I see that you want to already. But you will not die, Sevrin, Son of Shadow. You will be born…and there will be great pain.”

  Chapter Two

  Rion hissed a curse, snatching his hand away from the campfire and frantically brushing away the small ember that had landed on his arm. In doing so, he lost his balance and tumbled off the fallen log on which he’d been sitting
, giving a strangled cry as he tumbled over onto the forest ground, the dew-laden grass soaking through his thin clothes instantly and sending a fresh chill through him. “Night-cursed fire,” he grumbled, as he picked himself up and tried, vainly, to wipe off the dust and grass. “Night-cursed forest.”

  He shot a quick glance around him at the shadowy forest, at the traitor’s tree, its thick trunk visible only a short distance away. He did not see any of the nightlings, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. The darkness was their home, after all, and it hid them well enough. Swallowing, he stepped over the log and sat down again, scooting it as close to the fire as he could. “Night-cursed night.”

  “That is a lot of cursing, friend Eriondrian.”

  Scowling, Rion glanced up at the Ferinan who was squatting by the fire as he had been doing for the last several hours. I hope the bastard is sore in the morning—it would serve him right. Though if staying in the same position for so long gave the man any pain, he showed no sign of it. “Well, there’s a lot worth cursing just now.”

  Darl grinned. “Oh? We are alive, friend Eriondrian. We have faced the shadow’s creatures and survived. Faced, too, many servants of the darkness, yet we still have breath in our lungs and strength in our muscles. I believe we have much to be thankful for.”

  Speak for yourself, Rion thought sourly. I’d be thankful for a tall mug of ale, maybe a nice, comfortable bed. Oh and, while we’re wishing, why not wish to be somewhere besides a dark forest at night with only a single fire to keep the nightlings at bay? The thought made him look around again, sure that one of the creatures was even now creeping up on him, sticking to the shadows and preparing to launch itself at him in an attack. But there was nothing. Not this time, at least.