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  Shadowfall

  ( Godslayer - 1 )

  James Clemens

  James Clemens

  Shadowfall

  The way is open to all who seek power,

  The low road ends at one’s heels

  And the bloodred path, lined with bones and petals, lies at one’s toes

  Alone

  This is the path one must walk.

  But not the only way.

  — the last spoken words of the Tongueless God

  All shite stinks

  But from it blooms the most fragrant roses.

  — an unsubstantiated proverb from a rogue god

  In Darkness…

  It glides, a shadow seeking the light. Its true name cannot be spoken within the logics of flesh and breath. It is no more than a trembling, a dark vibration along the plane that lies beneath rock and storm. It has no form, no shape, no substance.

  Naethryn.

  That is its being, but not its name. It is a creature of the naether, that vast and empty void.

  It glides up to one of those rare places where its existence overlaps into the world of substance. Few know of these moiety points. But they exist. Just as the sea rides up onto a rocky shore, so do the tides of the naether roll against the world above.

  The naethryn finds a hidden estuary, an opening where its world and the upper world blend and shift. Rising, it swims up a choked channel, silty with substance, into the world above.

  Abandoning the naether far below, it enters the depths of a black sea, birthing into the icy waters. Light never reaches these depths. Here is eternal darkness, blurring where one world ends and another begins. But the naethryn knows its way. It’s been told, instructed, willed.

  The shadow creature rises through the cold, dark sea. It shudders and gains form, drawing bits of luminescent life from the ocean. The deaths are small, but they thrum through its being, vibrations of pleasure. It sails upward. More and more life is drawn. Substance builds, layer by layer, like barnacles on a ship’s keel.

  Form and shape bloom out of nothingness.

  Pressure lifts as aquamarine moonlight bleeds down, bathing the naether creature’s new form. As it nears the surface, schooled fish flee in clouds of scale. Even a monstrous rill shark flicks its muscular tail and vanishes.

  Unconcerned, it allows them to escape. It has all the structure it needs for this world. It tests its black limbs, its long snaking tail, and swims upward out of the dark womb.

  At last, the naethryn breaks the waves with a crested head and breathes the night’s salt-soaked air, testing its lungs. Lidless eyes shine with a light that does not belong to this world. It stares across the foam-limned waves toward the distant shore.

  Islands breach the waves: shoals, reefs, atolls, volcanic peaks.

  An archipelago.

  The Summering Isles.

  A hiss escapes the broken fish bones that make up its teeth. It swims toward its destination, the largest island of the archipelago. Eyes reflect the flickering lights that sparkle from the isle’s crowned peak and spill down its slopes to the sea, describing homes, streets, and ramparts. A few lamps even skip out into the waters, marking moored fishercraft and masted deepwhalers.

  The naethryn ignores all, knowing its purpose.

  As it crosses the ring of reefs, none note its undulating passage. Even the lesser moon hides her face behind fog and cloud. The naethryn moves through the seawater as easily as through the insubstantial reality of its home.

  Land rises beneath the waves. The naethryn resists touching such solidness, gliding through the shallows, remaining in water for as long as possible. But soon, force and blood and promise drive it from the waves.

  Clawed feet dig into sand. Climbing upright, it balances with a long tail. Though it wears flesh and bone, edges blur with the shadows of the dark beach. It does not belong here.

  It steps forward.

  It must.

  Water sluices from the assassin’s shoulders as it lurches forward. Steam rises from its scales. Claws drip with more than water. It moves across the sand, turning each step to molten glass behind it.

  It has come here to slay.

  To slay a god.

  FIRST

  FALL FROM GRACE

  Hu. mour, u mer, n. [Old Littick

  — L? — ? to be moist.] (1) any functional fluid of an animal (2) one of the quadricals of greater bodily fluids (blood, sweat, masculine seed, feminine menses) or quintrangle of lesser bodily fluids (tears, saliva, phlegm, yellow and black bile) (3) the blessed fluids from which flow the nine Graces of Gods.

  — Annals of Physique Primer, ann. 3593

  1

  PUNT

  Some nights simply never end.

  Tylar de Noche rolled to one knee atop the broken cobbles and wiped blood from the scrub of dark beard under his chin. A moment ago, tossed out of the Wooden Frog, he had landed hard on an arm that was more club than limb. His support had given way, slamming him facedown onto the unforgiving street.

  As he kissed the stones, he was reminded of an old adage concerning the Summering Isles: A good night can last forever, but a bad night lasts even longer.

  On his knees now, Tylar prayed for this particular evening to end. Forget raising a pint and acknowledging, if only to himself, the thirtieth pass of his birth year. He wished only for his lone bed in the garret over the fishmonger’s shop.

  But that was not to be. He would be lucky to see sunrise.

  Tasting blood from his split lip, he swept his gaze right and left as he sought any means of escape.

  Upstreet spread the terraces, palacios, and gardened heights of those with enough wealth to enjoy the cooler breezes of the isle’s cliffs, leading up at last to the white castillion that blazed atop the Summer Mount. Guarded heavily, there would be no escape in that direction.

  Nor downstreet. That direction led to the crooked alleys, whored corners, and dark narrows of Lower Punt. Safety never lay in that direction.

  So, trapped in the middle, he faced his adversaries.

  Bargo and Yorga.

  The pair of bulky Ai’men bore matching tattoos on their shoulders. Two halves of the same slave ring. Once bonded and linked combatants in the blood circuses, they were now freemen.

  Only their sport hadn’t changed.

  Yorga fingered ebony guild beads woven into a lock of his mud-brown hair. Tavern shield beads. Marking him as a hired guardsman to the alehouse.

  At his side, Bargo, the one still with his tongue, barked, “Goodly Master Rind don’t take to Punt scabbers crawling into his tavern a’beggin’.”

  Tylar, his eyes narrowed, kept his post in the street, knowing better than to protest his innocence. He’d come to the tavern with two brass pinches, plenty for a pint. But it seemed he had chosen the wrong tavern. He knew better than to risk the establishments of the high city. This wasn’t his place. Yet sometimes he forgot himself. Sometimes he simply sought some memory of a different life.

  He shut out such thoughts and crouched on the cobbles as a warm black rain misted from the dark skies. It was not the pleasant, cleansing downpour of a true storm, but more of a fog that trapped the day’s heat and held it to the islands.

  Still, it wasn’t the weather that pebbled Tylar’s brow with sweat and made his ragged clothes suddenly seem too tight.

  Yorga balled up a fist, and a garbled sound flowed from his scarred throat. Laughter.

  The pair of Ai’men strode out from under the creaking sign of the Wooden Frog. Tylar was to be their amusement this night.

  Yorga came first, all fist and muscle. Little finesse. But skill was not needed against Tylar-at least not any longer. Once a Shadowknight, Tylar previously could have taken both with hardly a wind.

&nb
sp; But the Graces had been stripped from him, along with rank and title. Additionally, the empty vessel left behind had been broken by a half decade spent in the slave rings of Trik. His sword arm was a callused club, numb from the elbow down. His legs had fared no better-one knee was a knot of locked bone from an old hammer blow, the other slow and painful. Even his back was crooked, tightened by scars from the whip.

  He was no knight.

  Not any longer.

  Yet his Shadowmaster at Tashijan had taught him not to depend on the Graces. A cuff usually accompanied his instructor’s gruff words: Remember, the deadliest Grace comes not from a God, but from the heart and mind of a cornered man.

  It seemed a small lesson compared to the size of the combatants here.

  The hulking Yorga, bare chested and sweating of ale, outweighed Tylar by half.

  “When we’re done with you in the streets,” the Ai’man warned, roughly grabbing his crotch, “we’re going to finish you in the alley. We always wanted to bugger a Shadowknight.”

  Tylar narrowed one eye. Finally it was clear why these two had chosen to harangue him. It wasn’t his shabby attire, nor even his broken form. It had been the stripes tattooed on the sides of his face, running in jagged lines from the outer corner of each eye to ear, heralding his former rank, forever marking him. Three stripes. One for page, one for squire, one for vowed knight. What he had once borne with pride was now a mark of disgrace.

  A fallen knight.

  He kept the stripes hidden as much as possible, letting his black hair grow long and ragged, hanging over his storm-gray eyes. He kept his head bowed away from the sight of others.

  Still, anger burned deep behind his ribs, a fire that never dampened. Though it might smolder to embers, it was always there. Always ready to flare.

  Yorga lunged an arm at him, meaning to grab a fistful of hair.

  A mistake.

  Tylar rocked out of the way, pivoting on his clubbed arm. He lashed out with his other, swiftly, bringing his elbow around to strike the bridge of Yorga’s nose as he leaned down.

  Bone crushed.

  Tylar didn’t feel it-but he heard it, along with the howl that followed. It wasn’t a cry of pain so much as outrage. Yorga lurched backward, blood spraying from both nostrils.

  Bargo roared, coming around his partner’s side.

  Tylar rolled to his scarred back, kicking out with his legs. He knew where to strike. The heels of his boots smashed into the larger man’s knees. Bargo’s legs flew out from under him. He toppled forward, toward Tylar, arms outstretched, face a mask of rage, spittle flying.

  Tylar, still on his back on the cobbles, rolled to the side, wrapping himself in his tattered cloak. Bargo crashed to the stones beside him, landing as Tylar had a moment before, face-first.

  But the slave fighters knew how to work together.

  Yorga’s fingers clamped onto Tylar’s ankle. With blood flecking from his snarled lips, Yorga hauled Tylar toward him. As a squire, Tylar had once fallen off his horse, tangling a boot in the stallion’s stirrup, and had been dragged behind the beast. Yorga was stronger.

  With a grunt, Tylar flipped from his back to his stomach. The Ai’man had a grip on his mangled leg, the one with the frozen knee. It was like holding a bent shepherd’s crook. The twisting forced Yorga to loosen his grip, lest his own wrist be broken.

  Partially free, Tylar slammed his boot heels together, catching three of Yorga’s fingers between them. Yorga half-lifted Tylar and tossed him away.

  He rolled on a shoulder and allowed the momentum to put distance between himself and his attackers. He stopped in a half crouch, back to his enemies, glancing over his shoulder. He ached everywhere, his small reserves of strength ebbing.

  Yorga helped up Bargo. Fire burned in both men’s eyes. Tylar had caught them by surprise. That was over. Together the Ai’men approached, stepping to either side to flank him.

  “Hold!” The voice froze them all.

  It came from farther up the street.

  Bargo and Yorga parted to reveal a single figure in a black surcoat trimmed in silver, with a matching cloak, standing still. No chain, no armor, no shield. Only a sheathed sword hung at his waist. The black diamond on the hilt’s pommel glowed with its own light. That was all the protection needed here. The figure had been blessed in Grace.

  A Shadowknight.

  The same light from the diamond shone in the eyes of the warrior.

  Tylar could not match that gaze. He turned askance.

  A wind caught the edge of the knight’s cloak, willowing it out. Maybe it was a trick of moonlight, but as the cloak swept across the knight’s form, darkness consumed the figure, vanishing him half-away.

  Tylar knew it was not a trick of the light… but a blessing of shadow. The Grace of such knights: to move unseen, to shirk into darkness and away. At night, there was no greater foe.

  Bargo and Yorga knew this and bowed out of the way, heads lowered, backs bent. Yorga dropped to a knee as the knight stepped past him.

  “What is the mishap here?” the knight asked, his heavy gaze settling on Tylar.

  Rather than looking up, Tylar maintained a focus on the knight’s boots. There was much to tell from a man’s boots. Calfskin and mullerhorn. Fine tooled leathers from the Greater Coast. Worn well at the arch from riding hundreds of reaches in the stirrup. Since none of the Summering Isles were more than five reaches across, the knight must be an outsider to this sea-locked realm. Perhaps a blessed courier from another god-realm. Or perhaps a new conscript called in service to the god here, Meeryn of the Summering Isles.

  Either way, he’s new to his cloak, Tylar concluded, or he wouldn’t scuff his boots on such a petty street brawl.

  Bargo finally coughed loose his tongue. “This scabber were a’beggin’ in Goodly Master Rind’s tavern house. We were bending his arm a bit to send him back down to Punt.”

  “Is that so?” the knight asked. Tylar heard the wry amusement in the other’s tone. “From my vantage, I’d say he was the one doing the bending.”

  Bargo blustered.

  The boots Tylar had been studying stepped closer. “Your name, sirrah?”

  Tylar remained silent. He didn’t bother to look up. There was no need. The knight’s features would be hidden behind a wrap of masklin, a facecloth cut from the same blessed material as the knight’s cloak. All that was ever seen of a knight’s face were the eyes and the triple stripes that blended into the masklin.

  “Is what they claim true?” the knight continued. “You are aware, sirrah, that begging of coin is not allowed after sunset.”

  As answer, Tylar reached into his pockets and tossed the pair of brass pinches on the cobbles before the knight’s toes.

  “Ah, so it seems the scruff here has a coin or two. Sirrah, perhaps your pinches are better spent in a tavern of the lower city.” A toe nudged the bits of brass back toward Tylar.

  Such rare kindness earned a curious glance toward his benefactor. The knight was tall and lithe, a willow switch in a cloak. His face was indeed wrapped in masklin. Eyes glowed at him. Tylar saw them pinch in surprise. A step was taken back.

  “He’s a stripped knight,” Bargo said. “A shiting vow-breaker.”

  Tylar pocketed his coin and gained his feet. He stared the knight up and down, anger burning away shame. He read the disgust in the other’s stance. He met the other’s gaze fully for the first time. “Fear not. Disgrace is not contagious, ser.” He turned swiftly away.

  But not swiftly enough…

  “Ser Noche…” The knight spoke his name with raw shock. “ Tylar ser Noche.”

  Tylar’s step faltered. A thousand reaches from his home-lands and he still could not escape his cursed name.

  “It is you, ser, is it not?”

  Tylar kept his back to him. “You are mistaken, ser knight.”

  “Curse my blessed eyes if I am!” Boots scuffed closer. “Face me.”

  Tylar knew better than to disobey a Shadowknight. He tu
rned.

  Beyond the knight’s shoulder, he spotted Bargo and Yorga slinking back to the Wooden Frog, happy to escape the knight’s attention. They knew their game had ended, but Bargo stopped at the threshold. He wiped blood and snot from his lips and cast a murderous stare toward Tylar, a promise of pain to come, a debt he meant to collect. Then the brawlers pushed back into the tavern.

  Tylar’s attention focused back to the fellow before him. “As I was saying, you mistake me for someone else, ser.”

  As rebuttal, the knight reached to the clasp at his throat. A shadowy waft of masklin fluttered free.

  Tylar instinctively glanced down. Only a knight was allowed to see another knight’s features.

  “Face me, ser.” Command lay thick on the other’s tongue.

  Tylar trembled and obeyed.

  He found a familiar countenance framed within the cloak’s hood. Tylar knew those features: high cheekbones, white-blond hair, amber eyes. The young knight was all sunlight and autumn fields, in contrast to Tylar’s stormy and dark countenance. Time sailed backward. Tylar recognized the peach-faced boy behind the bearded man who stood before him now.

  “Perryl…”

  The last time he had seen this face there had been only two stripes. Perryl had been one of his three squired lads back in Tashijan, under his tutelage before… before…

  He glanced away, his heart aching.

  The Shadowknight dropped to one knee before him. “Ser Noche.”

  “No,” Tylar refused. “No longer Ser Noche. It is simply de Noche.”

  “Never! To me you will always be hailed as ser.”

  Tylar twisted and stumbled away. “Get off your knees, Perryl. You shame yourself and your cloak. It seems even in this small task I have failed the Order… training you so poorly for your station.” He continued down the street.

  A scuffle sounded behind him as his former squire gained his feet and fled abreast of him. “All that I am, I owe to you.”