added.
Kiska nodded. ‘Yes. Poor fellow. He was harmless enough. Did you see the hound?’
He nodded behind the cloth pressed to his face. ‘Yes. I know a fellow who’d love to tackle that thing.’
Kiska decided that perhaps the man had taken too hard a blow to the head. ‘That was the beast we saw before we entered.’
‘Could’ve been.’
She looked down at the fallen priest — and frowned. Something was wrong. Then the man lifted his head and took a squinted, one-eyed look round. ‘Is it gone?’ The spear fell with a clatter.
Jheval let go a savage curse, blood exploding from under the cloth. ‘I saw you impaled!’
‘Not at all! It passed through my shirt,’ and he pushed a hand through the slash, waving it.
Jheval stalked off, cursing afresh. Kiska studied the old man while he dusted himself. ‘He’s right,’ she said. ‘It could not have missed you.’
The old man waved deprecatingly. ‘It was nothing. I merely edged aside.’ And he turned sideways, mimicking a dodge, and laughed.
That laugh raised Kiska’s hair; she’d heard it before, she was sure. It held an undercurrent of mockery that she found unnerving. Just who or what was the man deriding? She couldn’t be sure it wasn’t herself. In any case, she was far from satisfied. She watched while the old fellow picked up the long spear and held it out before him, bobbing it up and down. He glanced at her. ‘You wouldn’t by chance have any string, would you?’
Once Jheval returned, morningstars retrieved, they continued on, albeit at a slower pace. Kiska kept watch for the hound: was it following? Or had it fed its fill? Peering back she saw Jheval watching her and she cocked a questioning brow.
The man touched gingerly at his nose where a rolled-up bit of cloth blocked one nostril. ‘It’s there,’ he said, his voice pained.
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve spent a lifetime hunting and being hunted. I know.’
Kiska was only half convinced: more of the man’s bluster? He raised his chin to indicate Warran, who walked ahead carrying the spear jauntily over a shoulder. ‘That one. He’s up to something…’
‘Who isn’t?’ she answered, eyeing him sidelong, smiling to take the sting from it.
‘Yes. Well. I mean it. He’s playing his own game and at some time it may not include us. Just a warning.’
‘I will keep it in mind.’ Yet not so long ago the Seven Cities native had dismissed the old man as useless. In any case he was only affirming her own intuition; the priest was dangerous — but if he was so dangerous then why travel with them? Safety in numbers would hardly be a concern of his.
They continued on under the unchanging sky, where sinuous writhing lights glowed both in the dimness of night and in the only slightly brighter diffuseness of day. Their bat guide flitted about them, apparently tireless. A band of bruising developed across Jheval’s face as black as tattooing; his dark eyes peered out of shiny swollen circles. The hound still followed, keeping its distance. Or so at least Kiska believed, as she caught occasional glimpses of snowy white on the edge of her vision. The two huge ravens, she noticed, went nowhere near the beast.
Ahead, the priest Warran suddenly stopped. He knelt to examine some long black shards lying on the scoured granite. Kiska and Jheval came abreast of him and halted as well. Jheval stooped to pick up a piece but the priest batted his hand aside. ‘Do not touch it.’ Jheval glared at the man’s hunched back. The priest held his hands over the shards as if sensing or testing for a time; then he gently lifted one of the longer shards and examined it closely.
To all appearances it might as well have been black glass. Kiska thought that if you were to reconstruct the pieces they would form a crystal-like length of about an arm’s span.
The priest let the shard fall. ‘This is very bad.’
Jheval snorted, straightening. Kiska asked, ‘What is it?’
‘A kind of prison. Very ancient. Perhaps from before the shattering of this Realm. It was forged to contain some thing for all eternity. But Chaos has eaten at it, weakened it, and the entity contained within has burst free.’
Jheval snorted again, scornfully.
Warran eased himself up. He peered about, squinting. ‘Shadow is something of the rubbish heap of time. Over the ages whatever others want hidden, or buried away, into Shadow it goes…’
‘Enough of your charlatan mumblings,’ Jheval growled. He waved to Kiska. ‘Let’s go.’
‘I believe him.’
Jheval gestured helplessly. ‘Fine. It matters not. We must keep going regardless.’
Nodding, Kiska tore her gaze from the seemingly infinite refraction of crystalline light and shadow. She forced herself to walk away; something deep within her shuddered at the fascination those broken slivers of night cast upon her.
After a time the priest sidled up next to her as they walked. He still carried the spear over one shoulder. ‘You said you believed me,’ he said, peering up at her with his age-yellowed eyes.
‘Yes.’
He was glancing about; he’d been doing that a lot since they found the shards. Even suddenly darting looks behind — perhaps only because it so obviously drove Jheval to distraction. ‘Why?’
She shrugged. ‘Because it sounded a lot like something someone I met in Shadow would have said.’
The man’s greying brows rose as he walked along. The extraordinarily long spear bounced on his shoulder. ‘Oh? Shadow? Who?’
‘A strange being named Edgewalker.’
The priest stopped dead. Kiska walked for a time then stopped, peering back. The man was studying her narrowly, his eyes pinched almost shut. ‘Met him, have you?’ he asked, something tight, almost waspish, in his voice.
‘Yes. Once. Long ago.’
Now the priest snorted his disbelief. ‘An unlikely claim.’ He continued on past her. ‘He doesn’t talk to just anyone, you know.’
Kiska watched the man’s stiff back as he marched off. She had to stifle a laugh. Was this jealousy? Is the man put out that I’ve met and spoken with this strange haunt of Shadow? A kind of… what?… rivalry? She walked on, shaking her head.
Later she caught Warran watching her, only to quickly glance away. Good. About time I gave someone something to think about. I’m tired of being the only one here without some kind of cloak of mystery. The old man has his past; Jheval has his. Even the ridiculous ravens are enigmas. Maybe now he — and Jheval! — will take me more seriously.
Some time later all three suddenly stopped. Even the two ravens, exploring forward, came wheeling back squawking their alarm before flying off into the distance.
A figure stood ahead, midnight black from its rounded half-formed head to its feet. Sensing them, it turned. It held something in one hand close to its face, studying it. A tiny, frantic, flapping thing.
Oh, damn. As Warran said: this is bad. Kiska felt her insides tighten at the aura she sensed surrounding the thing. Intensity. Incredible potential. What use staff or morningstars against this foe? It would laugh at such toys.
‘Let me play this one,’ Warran murmured beneath his breath. Then he rushed up to the figure and clapped his hands as if in pleasure. ‘Ah! There it is! We’ve been searching everywhere. My thanks, sir, for catching it.’
Kiska and Jheval arrived to flank Warran. Fear coursed through Kiska more strongly than it had in years. She decided that at any sign from the entity she’d drop the staff and try her two throwing knives first — for all the good that would do. Jheval, she noted, kept his hands on the grips of his morningstars. She glanced about for the hound but prudently the beast appeared to be keeping its distance. No fool it.
The disturbingly blank moulded head edged down to regard the short priest. Ripples crossed the night-black visage and Kiska was unnerved to see a mouth appear and eyes blink open. ‘This construct is yours?’ The words sounded unlike any language Kiska knew, but she understood them just the same.
Warran was rubbing his hands together. ‘Well… not ours, of course, so much as our master’s…’
