Shadeborn: A Book of Underrealm (3 page)

Gem blinked and looked uneasily at Loren. “But . . . surely we will not be here that long. I should have thought we would be leaving any day now.”

Loren could see—or rather feel—Xain staring daggers at her from the other side of the table. She held her peace, excusing her silence with a mouth full of food, which she chewed slowly so as not to obligate her answer.
 

Albern caught Loren’s unease, and likely Xain’s dark look, for he shrugged and said, “You shall all set forth when you are ready. There is no great rush. Certainly, Mag enjoys your company.”

“But she cannot enjoy the food we eat, the wine we drink, nor the rooms we sleep in without so much as a copper penny in exchange.” Despite his words, Chet took a deep pull of his ale before continuing. “Still, I do not know why she refuses our coin.”

“Mag and I have long been friends, and your comfort is her pleasure,” said Albern. “Do not inquire again, or she might bring her sword from retirement; then you would be doomed.”

“I can look after myself,” Chet muttered.

“Not against her,” said Albern. “Years might have passed since she wielded a blade, yet I would wager all my coin upon her if she were to fight any man across the nine lands. You would too if you were wise. When we were young, Mag was renowned as the greatest fighter in our company, and when she hung up her shield—”

“Every mercenary captain across the land poured a cup of wine into the dirt,” Chet finished. “As you have said so many times before.”

“And do you doubt the truth?” Mag had emerged from the crowd to stand over their table. Gem and Annis both turned toward the sound of her voice with delighted smiles. She fixed them with a stern look and gestured at the table. “Where is my plate? Where are my mug and chair? Surely, the two of you know better courtesy than this.”

Gem scuttled off toward the kitchen while Annis ran to fetch an empty chair—few and far between in the crowded room. She finally found a drunkard slumped unconscious over a table and tipped him from his seat.
 

“Our apologies, Mag.” Annis pushed the chair up to the table. “We thought you were busy in the kitchen and did not guess you could sup with us.”

“Sten finally rustled his useless hide out from the stables and came to relieve me. My company is yours, if you will have it.”

“We will, and gladly,” said Gem, who had returned with a bowl and a mug. He set them down with reverence, as if serving a king. “And mayhap you can settle a matter over which I have spent much thought. None of us doubt Albern when he calls you the greatest fighter he has known. But how can that be, when you look no mightier than most in this room? Why, your arms are not even so thick as the bowyer’s.”

Mag arched an eyebrow. “If you think me a weakling, mayhap we can wrestle.”
 

Gem stammered, stuttered, and finally fell silent, eyes to his lap.

Albern laughed out loud. “Come, Mag, leave the boy alone. You cannot blame the child for wondering when he has seen only the sort of fighting you get from common street thugs and the footmen of a city guardsman.” He leaned over to speak conspiratorially to Gem, as though confiding a great secret. “Not in strength of arm, little master, but more often in skill will you find the greater warrior. What use is a man’s brawn when his blade cannot come within a foot of our Mag? The most dangerous fighters are those who dance with their foes like lovers and can stay on their feet swinging long after the other man has soiled the ground with his vomit.”
 

“Surely, you have seen this truth,” said Loren with a halfhearted smile. “If all things depended on strength alone, you and I would have died in a ditch long ago.”

Albern shook a finger at Loren and nodded. “Just so. Why, once our company was fighting in the kingdom of Calentin, putting down the insurrection of some upstart who thought he could seize the throne with a flock of pretty knights at his back. One of these dullards came riding down on Mag with lance lowered, but she—”

A fist crashed on the table and threw their party into silence. Xain held his hand to the wood, eyes raking their faces. Loren’s heart beat harder, remembering his madness in the mountains, when he had cast thunder and flame with abandon, stricken with the magestone hunger as he was now.
 

She moved a hand under her cloak and rested it upon her dagger’s hilt. From the corner of her eye, she saw Albern’s hand steal beneath the table. The common room hushed around them.

“If I must listen to one more of your simpering tales, I will fling myself into the Melnar and drown.” The wizard stood and, seeing Albern tense, raised a hand. “Stay yourself, bowyer. I need only the girl. Loren, you have avoided this too long. Come with me, now, or do not expect to see me darken this inn’s doorway again. If you are determined to steep in sorrow until the nine lands fall, I will carry our task on my own.”

Xain stalked off, swept between tables without another word. Several men glanced at Mag with doubt, but she gently shook her head, and they allowed his passage. He disappeared into the darkness outside.
 

“Something gnaws at that man,” Mag muttered once he had gone.

“You speak truer than you know,” said Loren quietly.

Chet leaned over to whisper in her ear. “You need not go.”

Inside, Loren fumed. The wizard spoke to her as if she were a child, whimpering in the corner because she wished for seconds at supper. He had been there in the mountains when the Mystic had fallen and had openly wept with the rest of them. If his mood had darkened since, and if his cravings for magestones clawed at his mind’s edges, he had only himself to blame. How dare he mock her pain, speaking as if Loren had forgotten her duty?

She shrugged. “I should have had words with him days ago. If it will stay his foul temper, I will have them now.”

“I can go with you,” said Albern.

“No,” she said quickly. “Stay. Tell the children your story. Surely, they will enjoy it.”
 

Loren stood to follow Xain into the city.

She saw him standing across the narrow street, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of a wall lamp hanging on a building across the street. He scratched furiously at his sleeve, his head darting about the darkness.
 

Xain saw her emerge and seemed to sigh with relief. Loren slowly approached him, in no hurry to grant the wizard’s desires.

“I . . . I may have spoken harshly,” he muttered once Loren was in earshot. “Forgive me.”

“Mayhap. Still, you have me here now, wizard. What shall we speak of? You make it sound most urgent, though you yourself have had days to open the door. A conversation takes at least two always, and never just one.”

“What we have to say—what I must tell you—I would not utter in more than a whisper, and not where so many ears may overhear.”
 

Xain’s voice was no longer bitter, angry, or exasperated. Instead, he sounded afraid, and his words held a darkness that made Loren shiver in spite of herself. She tried disguising it as falling victim to the evening chill and drew her cloak closer about her.

“What, then? Do you mean to fly us into the air with your magic? For we are still within the city.”

“At my best, that would be no mean feat, and I am far from that. If it pleases you, Nightblade, let us stroll beyond the Northwood walls.”

She did not treasure the thought of walking unknowing into the darkness with the wizard, but his calling Loren
Nightblade
had served to mollify her. She had dreamt up the name as a child, when imagining her someday life as a great thief. Only her friends and a few others knew of it, though Gem tried spreading her tale wherever they went—an effort she found more annoying than endearing, though she rarely had the heart to stop him.

Xain pushed off from the wall and strolled down the street. She had little choice but to follow. Rather than north, as she had traveled with Chet, Xain took her east. The gate lay open, despite the late hour. Northwood had been removed from wars inside the nine lands for so long that she felt no need to lock her doors against them. The gate guard gave them a close look, peering at them from behind the weak light of his torch before finally letting them pass. Soon, they were in the farmlands beyond the city, wandering in the sprawling darkness with only the tiny glow of candlelight bleeding through the farmhouse windows to cut the inky black.

Loren saw the faint glow of Xain’s eyes and heard him muttering words of power. A small spark of flame found life in his hand, but almost immediately it guttered and died. He muttered a curse and tried again. This time, the fire hovered above his palm, thin and wispy compared to flames she had seen him cast before.

“You still have some command of your gift, I see.”

“It grows weaker by the day. Soon, even this small magelight will require all of my power and focus. It will be a long while before my powers return.”

“How long?”

“I do not know. I have never witnessed a recovery of one plagued by the sickness. They are, as you may know, strictly outlawed by the High King.”

The wizard barked a harsh laugh, and Loren found herself joining him. But she also thought, with trepidation, of the packet of magestones she carried in her pocket even now. Xain knew nothing of them, and Loren did not like to imagine what he might do with such a discovery.

Soon, even the farmhouse lights vanished behind them, and Xain’s was the night’s only flame. But the moons had already risen and gave Loren enough light to keep from stumbling most of the time.
 

The wizard finally stopped, turned to Loren, and without a word sat cross-legged upon the ground. With a furtive toss of his hand, he gestured for her to follow.

“A moment.” Loren stepped off into the darkness, searching around in the grass. Though green, it was mostly dry. From the hedge running beside the road she pulled some dead branches, piled them before the wizard, and waved her hand at it.
 

“Light this. It will save your strength, for if we must finally speak of dark matters, I would have all your concentration.”

“My concentration? I find it difficult to think of anything else.” But the wizard lit the tinder, and soon the branches caught. Soon they had a small fire, and Xain let the flame perish in his hands.

After a moment of silence, Loren spoke.

“I should tell you what Jordel said before he died, though I know little of its meaning.” She paused and scooted toward the now crackling fire. “The Mystic said that the dark master of the Shades had returned, and that Trisken was a captain of special significance. He said—as you and I saw—that magic is no proof against them.”

The Shades were a secret order that Loren had only recently learned of a few weeks ago, when she and her friends had become lost in the Greatrocks and stumbled upon their stronghold. Jordel had said precious little about them, only that they were an order somewhat like the Mystics. Except that great order, who wore red cloaks, preserved order and upheld the King’s law throughout the nine lands. Loren had never learned the Shades’ true purpose, though she had an uncomfortable feeling that would soon change.

“All of this I had already guessed.” Xain waved a hand in dismissal. “Any fool could have pieced it together.”

“Then it was no great crime for me to wait so long,” said Loren, her irritation growing. “Tell me what
you
know and why it is of such great importance that we must meet out here where only grubs in the dirt may hear us. Who is master of the Shades?”

Xain looked at Loren, his eyes black as they had been under the magestones’ power. It made her shiver, though she refused to flinch.
 

Xain averted his gaze, picked at his sleeve, and spoke with no answer.

“What do you know of magic?”

“Not much.” Loren blinked. “Enough to know I wish to learn more. Of course, I heard tales as a child. And Jordel taught me some more when we were searching for you. I know of its four arms, which you call . . . oh, I cannot remember their scholarly names just now. But they are fire magic, mind magic, weremagic, and alchemy.”

“Elementalism, Mentalism, Therianthropy, and Transmutation,” said Xain stiffly. “Yes, every child in the nine lands knows this. Wizards are few and far between, but rare is the man, woman, or child who goes a lifetime without seeing at least one. Yet we are all of us ignorant. For there are two other branches, hidden and never taught to children. For in them our fate lies buried, and a dark and terrible fate it is.”

Loren felt as if her world had gone still. She struggled to hear even crickets.
 

“What—” her voice cracked. She stopped, swallowed hard, and tried again. “What are the hidden branches?”

“Ceremancy and Necromancy. Life. And Death.”

Loren frowned. “Those . . . those are not magic. They are . . . they are . . . they simply
are.
”

“So I, too, thought. Yet in Wellmont a day with the Mystic taught me the truth. Life magic and death magic are the sources of every other branch. The essence of power itself. My power, that of every wizard, and the magestones. All are linked, forever entwined with the two hidden branches.”

“But there are no life wizards and death wizards,” Loren said, irritated. “Surely, if there were, we would know. You were the first wizard I met, Xain, but I had heard tales aplenty before I knew them for what they were. I was told of four branches. Never six.”