Prologue One – Shadow Hunter
Grevault felt like his left eye had been scooped out with a hot spoon the moment he opened it, but vision was there, if a little strange. He could see the waves of cloud above clearly with his right, but on the left, all was shards of blue heat. Memory returned faster than movement. He had been running. There was a cliff.
Having fallen most of the eighty feet from escarpment to beach, Grevault drew out an updraft to arrest his drop just before landing, feet and hands slapping down against the hard-packed sand in a short, sharp staccato. The golden shard of amber he had drawn the winds from shattered in his hand as he struck. He rolled out of his landing and vaulted immediately into a stiff sprint southward on the white sand, the heat of the day still remaining to punctuate each footfall as he ran. Counting his breaths as he went, Grevault estimated there were maybe five hundred paces between him and his objective, the shimmering barrier marking clearly the beginning of enemy territory. From there it would be a short wait until the great luminary fell and he could move in toward the enemy camp in true darkness.
On the sandy plain to the west, between the running mage and the ocean, battle roared. The harsh cries of steel against steel marking each engagement of the regular troops, bright flashes splintering the falling darkness as pins of light fell to the sand and erupted, sending swaths of beach and often dozens of bodies, friend and foe alike, flying into the heavens. Grevault pulled to a stop quickly as one of those burning pins hit the sand not twenty paces to his right, ripping the terrain to shreds. Too close, he thought sourly. They knew my route, damned Weavers are getting sloppy. Taking the opportunity to catch his breath, the mage began his run again, this time carrying one of the many stones he kept hidden in his scrip, the air about him glistening with the warped light of a personal barrier. It would make him more easily visible to the enemy camp, but he would have to take the chance and blame the Field Mage when he returned to base in the morning. They had known the plan, and someone deviated. Bad for business.
Worse still, Grevault worked without the benefit of armour. While four dozen feet to the west, men and women wearing as much as fifty pounds of metal and wood let their heavy clubs and bladed weapons to their work for them against the light and agile warriors of the southern army from Dorna Major, Grevault was clothed more like the enemy than like his allies. Layers of white and tan linen, a khaki burnoose covering his shock of black hair and most of his face, leaving only sharp, icy green eyes peaking out – he could almost pass for Dornan, except that he stood easily two hands above their tallest warrior, and carried a pair of crystal knives in lacquered scabbards at his belt. No Dornan would be caught dead with such weapons, lest they be branded a heretic.
Heresy. It was the core of this war, and it made Grevault sick. The Gods had created Maredran together, yet somehow their children, the many races of men, had decided to favour one god or another and decreed, almost unanimously, that the god they favoured outweighed all others in merit, dogma and, most of all, stricture. Scripture could be rewritten to suit the times, but tradition and heresy remained, and were the hardest of all beliefs to change. The concept of “other” – whatever that might be – would always hold sway.
So there would always be men like Grevault, who had tried and failed to choose no sides in the eyes of religion, but were dragged into conflict by their mere posture of arbitration. Few would fail at that as spectacularly as Grevault had, however, finding themselves playing not the arbiter, but the judge. Not regulator but killer, assassin. As he closed in on the barrier wall, Grevault tucked himself against the deep shadows of the escarpment and slowed. He tried not to think of the task ahead. It was anathema.
When he reached five feet from the barrier, the heat from its trade-winds causing him to halt and gather himself, Grevault looked back the way he had come. In the distance, he could see sparks of light licking toward the sky, arcing for the great green luminary – magic, the mists of creation, released by his camp’s own barriers, returning home to the green god, father Jag Har’Oah. Above the ocean, the lower edge of its rings slicing into the waters the god was setting, slowly. The immense sphere dominated the skyline, its light warping depth perception in the cool night. Magic was strong this night. Much as the scholars of Maredran may deny it, the tug of Jag on Maredran’s tides affected more complex things than water. It would be several hours until the luminary set fully; almost half the night. He reached out with his left hand. It brushed against something like invisible snake’s scales, tiny shards of blue-white light following his fingers and disappearing skyward.
He couldn’t remember how to move. He tried to breathe, but something was wrong. He felt his muscles move, felt his chest expand, but the relief from suffocation wasn’t there. He closed his eyes – tried to, anyway, his right eye shut but the fragmented vision was still there in his left – and focused. He was stuck, felt trapped. His chest moved, but there was no relief. No, that’s wrong. A relief of a different kind. No wind entered his lungs, but now he felt no need of it. Perhaps he no longer breathed air. The pain returned, dizzying, as a flash of light overhead exploded into cinders as it passed the prism vision of his open left eye. Suddenly Grevault felt he could move. It would be simple work to get up and leave.
It was simple work, getting through a barrier such as this, but it was a trick very few Weavers knew. Drawing the crystal knives from their scabbards, the mage made contact with their tips against the wall of light, the blades resting side by side. The wall groaned in protest, drawing a breath against the incision he was making, causing Grevault to frown. He hadn’t anticipated the wall being so thick, surely the mage working it would sense this disruption. Planting the hilts of his knives firmly into the sand as he drew them apart, the killer slipped through the small hole he had made, before turning, and reversing the process. If he was lucky, the monitoring mage would believe some small animal had crept through the wall. After all, this was a barrier for magic and humans in that order, not woodland creatures.
Collecting himself, Grevault stood up slowly with his back to the bluff directly behind the barrier and peered over his shoulder, keeping his profile as small as possible, exposing barely any of himself to enemy viewing. There, nearly a hundred yards away, the camp crouched like a wounded wolf, khaki-wrapped figures seething about the large, sprawling tents. Frantic. Like ants, repairing a kicked hill. Good, he thought, we’ve done them some damage today. They’ll be preoccupied with their wounded, perhaps won’t even notice what’s going on before it’s over.
When he was through it would be over. But not yet. The mage curled back up against the bluff in the small space between it and the barrier wall. He would have to wait for more of Jag Har’Oah’s bulk to set into the sea before he moved. No reason to reveal himself or his methods now, while there was light by which either one could be examined. It was risky even keeping his crystal knives out of their holders this close to where the Dornan Negators could feel their invested mists seeping out, but the sundry barriers and wards they provided far outweighed the risks.
The weight was gone from his body, but getting up was far less simple than expected. Muscles refused to obey,
An hour passed. Then two. By the time great Jag was halfway under the sea, Grevault was ready to move. He looked up again, scanning the camp. More docile now, almost quiet. The guards would be at their places, but by now anyone who could be spared to rest would be resting, and everyone who was not would be exhausted. Slipping his knives back into their warded scabbards, the mage pulled himself up over the bluff’s edge and began to work his way on his stomach toward the camp. It was slow going, but it was the safest way.
Half way between the bluff and the camp, he stopped, coming to his knees. It was time. Pulling a stylus of ruby seven inches long from a hard case in his scrip, the mage began to draw a mandala in the sand. A circle, filled with intricate symbols memorized years before in the formulation of this Weaving, the preparation for Summoning.
Not a common talent. In all of the records of Keen Rimmor, where Grevault had trained to Weave, there were less than a hundred Summoners, spanning eight centuries. The training to make use of the talent was rare, but Grevault had managed, and the Weaving he now readied was one of the final results of that training. He had created more than fifty bound spirits since he had learned, but these which he called for now were the last. He had failed when he created them, and he had hidden his failure for five years. Now, however, there was simply no other tool for the task at hand, no other weapon as formidable. There was sorrow in his heart as he completed the circle. He had hoped not to ever see them again, these monsters he had called the Beneath.
Having finished, Grevault tapped the center of the circle with the end of the ruby stylus and sat back on his heels. Within the circle a face rose, human and beautiful, high cheek bones and shining, completely black eyes.
“Before us stand nineteen thousand souls,” he told the face, his heart breaking to see the sadness show in those pools of inky darkness. The Beneath knew what was being asked of them. “Only the one in the largest tent must be left. He is for me to deal with. Can you do this for me? Yes, of course. Perhaps, when this is over, you and your brothers will sing for me again?”
Grevault and the face smiled at each other, but there was no joy there. The song was their only shared luxury, the one spark of inspiring light in a creation so full of darkness. The face sank, disappeared into the sand, and all about Grevault the ground shifted as the Beneath moved toward the camp. Biting back the gut wrenching ache of sorrow he felt at the thought of the brothers’ song, he stood and followed his creations, wrapping stone about his heart as the screams began moments later.
They called for their friends as they died. The called for their families, their parents, their lovers. Their god, Rahrin the Architect, the Destroyer of Magic. Where is Rahrin now, Grevault asked silently. Where is your saviour, amidst this torment? I never should have learned Dornan.
He was nearing the tent of the chieftain, the massive pavilion the only piece of the camp untouched by his minions. There would likely be guards inside the tent, watching the entryway. Circling around the back of the pavilion, Grevault dropped himself to the ground and slid under the thick cloth, freeing his knives as he did so, pushing himself up from the ground as he let the tent wall fall back into place –
- Only to find himself blinded by the light of a single candle in the center of a completely empty tent.
“Didn’t expect to be caught, did you Griever?”
The voice made Grevault sneer, the moniker raising the hunter’s hackles. Only one man called him Griever.
“I was expecting to he caught a long time ago. But not by you, Garath. We thought you were dead, at Merdol, four months ago. When did you switch sides?”
“Oh, here and there, I’ve been back and forth. Much like yourself, Griever, unless your conveniently short memory has acted in collusion once more with your ego. What’s your personal body count, now, hm? Seventy, not counting these soldiers?”
“Sixty three, bastard,” the hunter growled, wrenching both Athama around, sparkling with silver fire –
- Only to be met by a flashing wall of pain, nearly sending Grevault into screaming oblivion. After a moment, the soldier shook his head of its fuzziness and looked across the tent to see the imposing figure of Garath there, a tall, perfectly polished pillar of granite in his gauntleted hand.
“Embraced Rahrin, have you Garath? Typical.”
“Any tool for the job, Grevault. You know as well as I there must be balance to -”
“Oh shut up, you pompous ass. Where is the Chieftain?”
“Tisk, Griever, I would have thought you to know better. I am the Chieftain.”
Garath smiled softly, letting his hand fall to his side.
“Have you no easy words for your old mentor, Grev? Your father would be disappointed.”
“Father has joined Jag Har’Oah, Garath. As you will momentarily, if you are lucky enough.”
The dark figure’s smile turned grim, his head shaking lightly.
“Oh no, my friend, you have a long way to go before you can challenge me so. You’ve your own road to travel, and I am but the guide to set you upon it.”
As Grevault struggled to stand, the towering form of his former teacher lifted another tool into the air, a glimmering length of blue-purple crystal the hunter did not recognize. Garath began to chant in a language foreign to the mage, every word sending aches running through Grevault’s joints. The crystal burst before Grevault’s eyes, sending spears of anguish into his brain. Wracked by waves of pure, seemingly chaotic magic the hunter screamed.
The flash of light became a shimmer, the pain dulling. He stood, at last – or thought he did. As soon as the thought came, the shimmer began to fade, and he found himself standing upright in the centre of a field of smooth, shining glass. Careful of his footing, Grevault turned about, fighting nausea – and failing. Gasping for breath that would not come, the weaver fell to his knees, gritting his teeth against the return of the light. And he saw himself, reflected in the endless sky trapped in the glass beneath him. Haggard and old, black hair glimmering white in the bright noon sun. From his left eye, shrinking with each passing shimmer of broken vision and light, jutted a shard of the crystal Garath had enchanted him with. As it dissolved, his vision returned, as did his youth, leaving the young assassin with only ivory hair and a bright blue scar across his cheek as souvenirs of the encounter. He screamed again.
And screamed.
And his last thoughts, as his Athama fell from numbing hands, rested not on the war or its seemingly impending end with his absence. Rather, he saw a beach and a figure all in white. A figure that was strangely like his mother in appearance, with the smile of heaven’s very own sunrise. The pain gone, the memory of the encounter already fading away, Grevault drew a breath, and smiled, and fell into the arms of living light.