Conqueror's Shadow
The most wonderful thing about it was that it was a simple, ordinary house.
Not a large structure, but roomy enough for the comfort of its inhabitants, with a bit of space to spare. The walls were solid, dependable, fitted together over many months by loving hands. The builder had used no magic in the house's construction, though certainly he could have. But that would, in a way, have defeated the entire purpose.
Windows sparsely dotted the structure, numbered and positioned perfectly. They were sufficient to admit the bright sunshine during the day, and the glimmer of moon and stars at night; to cool the house during the warm summer months, yet not so numerous as to make it difficult to warm against winter.
The house sat on the very outskirts of town. It was near enough to be neighborly, but retained a certain modicum of privacy unachievable in the heart of the small but bustling village. Chelenshire, it was called, a rather weighty name for a community of perhaps five or six dozen souls.
Another advantage to the house's position at the edges of Chelenshire: it kept the inhabitants away from the slow but steady traffic that passed along what was once a major trade route. The odds of a stranger recognizing the house's inhabitants were minuscule, but even "minuscule" was a risk not worth taking.
This morning, in particular, was a sunny one. The air was warm without quite crossing the fine line into hot, the sky a bright and cloudless blue. Birds wheeled above, droves of them, rejoicing in the last of the fine weather before the blistering heat and the rare but torrential storms of summer fell heavily upon them. Squirrels, gophers, and the occasional fruits, vegetables, nuts, or whatever else might volunteer itself for lunch. An entire garden's worth of food lined up in toes, carrots, radishes, tomatoes, onions, squash, and more tomatoes the lady of the house was abnormally fond of tomatoes all beckoned invitingly. But though they would occasionally stop beside the garden, perched upon hind legs, to stare longingly at the repast calling to them, none of the rampaging rodents ever set paw into the garden itself. Something about the area itself kept the animals as well as slugs, snails, and a huge variety of harmful insects at bay.
There may have been no trace of magic in the building of the house, but the garden was another story entirely.
With a soft grunt of pain, the man currently at work yanking weeds from the bed of squash leaned back on his heels, one hand pressed to the small of his back. He was, he reflected grimly, too old to be spending hours on end hunched over the vegetables.
Hell, he didn't even like gardening! It was his wife's passion, she who spent so much of her time maintaining the place day after day. For his own part, he'd have been quite content to purchase the vegetables at the market. But though the money was not an issue he'd enough saved from past endeavors to live many years in luxury she had pointed out that such a lifestyle in Chelenshire would attract unwanted attention. And it was to avoid notice, after all, that they'd moved to Chelenshire in the first place.
Thus the garden, and their occasional hunting trips, and her embroidery and needlework, and his days spent in town, helping old man Renfro down at the forge or advising Tolliver on matters of policy.
But the forge was silent today, as was most of Chelenshire, in observance of Godsday. The westerly sun shed the last rays of the day upon the lingering vestiges of barely controlled chaos. Streamers of bright cloth littered the roads, as though a ranbow had shattered above the city, strewing shards carelessly about. Children, their exuberance not quite worn down by a full week of freedom and too much sugar, ran around madly, laughing happily or shouting at one another, determined to experience the absolute maximum of fun before their parents called them home for supper and bed. Even a few adults still danced in the streets, one hand clenched about a flagon of ale or mead or wine, the other clenched about the waist or wrist or, in a few of the darker alleys, other parts of a second like-minded citizen. Vendors shouted hoarsely to passersby, trying doggedly for one final holiday sale.
But most of the city residents, worn out from a full week of revels, were snug in their beds, beginning the painful recovery that all too often follows excessive jubilation.
At the edge of town, Guild-hired mercenaries cranked the handles of a huge wooden wheel. Chains clanked, gears rotated, wood creaked, and the gates of the city ponderously slammed shut. The sound, a solitary clap of thunder, rolled across the city. Drunk men sobered slightly at the sound, and the happiest citizens shivered briefly, for it was a palpable reminder of what they were celebrating, what they had so very nearly lost.
Outside those walls, atop the same small rise on which the regent's tent rested so long ago, a figure stood, watching the city's lights wink out one by one. The people of Denathere would sleep soundly this night, worn out from celebrating their liberation from the Terror of the East, safely ensconced behind their walls. And impressively walls they were, higher and thicker than those that had fallen before Rebaine's assault, topped by guard towers equipped with catapults and ballistae. Even given Denathere's poor position, the new walls alone made the prospect of taking the city a daunting one.
Or they could have, had their enemy not already waltzed in unchallenged, bearing food and drink and gifts for the celebration.
Whistling a tune just loud and obnoxious enough to wake anyone in the neighboring rooms, Kaleb climbed the inn's rickety stairs and went out into the Mecepheum night. The heat of the day had begun to dissipate, its back broken not merely by the setting of the sun but by the falling of a faint summer drizzle. Kaleb flipped up the hood of his cloak as he went, more because it was expected than because he was bothered by a bit of rain.
Through the center of town, through the city's most well-kept streets he made his way. Glass-enclosed lanterns gleamed at most intersections, burning cheap scented oil to keep the worst of Mecepheum's odors at bay. The capital of Imphallion was a witch's brew of old stone and new wood, this neighborhood far more the former than the latter. The rods were evenly cobbled, the rounded stones allowing the rain to pour off into the cracks rather than accumulate along the lanes. All around, wide stairs and ornate columns, some in fashions that had been ancient when Mecepheum itself was new, framed the doorways to edifices that were home and workplace to the rich and powerful, or those rich enough to appear powerful.
Despite the hour, Kaleb was fr from the only traveler on these streets. The many lanterns illuminated all but the narrowest alleys and deepest doorways, and patrols of mercenaries, hired to police the roads and keep the peace, gave even the most timid citizen sufficient confidence to brave the night.
So it had been for some years now, even since the Guilds had effectively taken over the city. Tight-fisted they might be, but keeping the shops open and commerce running into the hours of the evening was well worth the expense.
Kaleb kept his head down, sometimes nodding slightly to those he shove past on the streets or to the occasional patrols, but otherwise ignoring the shifting currents of humanity entirely. And slowly, gradually, the traffic on the roads thinned, the lanterns growing ever farther apart until they were replaced by simple torches on poles, spitting and sputtering in the rain. Gaps appeared in the cobbled streets, missing teeth in the city's smile, and the great stone edifices vanished, edged out by smaller buildings of wood.
On the border between Mecepheum's two separate worlds, Kaleb briefly looked back. Looming high over the inner city, the great Hall of Meeting itself. Here, now, it looked magnificent, untouched by time or trouble. Only in the brightest noon were its recent repairs visible. Despite all stone matched the old imperfectly, giving the Hall a faintly blotchy facade not unlike the earliest stages of leprosy.
Kaleb smirked his disdain and continued on his way.
Six years &hellip; Six years since the armies of Audriss, the Serpent, and Corvis Rebaine, the Terror of the East, had clashed beyond Mecepheum's walls. Six years since Audriss, gone mad with stolen power, had unleashed horrors on Mecepheum in an apocalyptic rampage that had laid waste to scores of city blocks. Six years, more than enough for the Guilds to patch Mecepheum's wounds, if not to heal the scars beneath.
Oh, the citizens had avoided those mangled neighborhoods for a time, repelled by painful memories and superstitions dread. But cheap property near the heart of Imphallion's greatest city was more than enough to attract interest from outside, in turn inspiring Mecepheum's own merchants and aristocrats to bid for the land lest outsiders take it from them. The rebuilding, though slow to commence, was long since complete. An outsider, ignorant of the region's history, might wonder at the abrupt shift from old stone to new wood, from the affluent to the average, but otherwise would never know that anything untoward had ever happened.
The confident footsteps of the richer, and safer, neighborhoods transformed into the rapid tread of pedestrians hoping to reach home before trouble found them, or else the furtive stride of those who were trouble. Coarse laughter staggered drunkenly through the doors and windows of various taverns, voices argued behind closed shutters, ladies (and men) of the evening called and cooed form narrow lanes. Still Kaleb ignored it all. Twice, men of rough garb and evil mien emerged from doorways as though prepared to block his path, and twice they blinked abruptly, their faces growing slack and confused, continuing on their way as Kaleb passed them by.
The rain had grown heavier, he lowered his hood and glanced about, his magics granting him sight beyond what the night and the storm permitted anyone else. Even in brightest day, no other would have seen what he did, but there it was: scorched wood and ash, the last remnants of the lot's former edifice, mixed in with the dark soil.
He knelt in the dirt behind the ponderous structure, digging his hands deep into the earth until he was elbow-deep, first through clinging mud, then drier loam the falling rains had not reached. It smelled of growth and filth, things living and things dying.
Very much like Mecepheum itself, really.
Kaleb tensed in concentration, closing himself off from the world around him. As though he had melted in the downpour, he felt himself, the essence of what he was, pour from his eyes like tears, flow down his skin, and meld into the yielding soil. He cast about, blind but hardly unaware, seeing, seeking &hellip; There.
He rose, the soil sliding in chunks and muddy rivulets from his arms. He moved several yards to his left and knelt once more. But this time, when his hands plunged into the soil, they did not emerge empty. He carefully examined his prize: a skull, cracked and broken, packed with earth.
Without hesitation or hint of revulsion, Kaleb lifted it to his mouth and drove his tongue deep into a socket, probing through the dirt to taste the essence within. It was not a technique his "master" Nenavar would have recognized. For all the old wizard's skill, there were secrets of which even he remain ignorant.
Six years, but there was just enough left to work with. Just enough for Kaleb to taste, and to know that this was not who he sought.
No surprise, that. The dead from Audriss's rampage, lost amid burned ruins and collapsed buildings, buried by nature, by time, and by the rebuilding, numbered in the hundreds if not more.
Kaleb, frankly, had no interest in taking the time to search for them all.