Jon Sprunk - Shadow’s Lure

He found an open doorway behind the gigantic throne. The corridor beyond ran straight as far as he could see. The shadow beast entered, but the hairs on the back of Caim’s neck stirred as he followed.

He held the sword before him as he advanced. He saw movement down the corridor and made it out to be a shimmering sheet suspended across the passage like a black curtain stirring in the breeze. The shadow beast stopped and growled. Caim reached out with his sword. The curtain’s surface yielded before the tip, stretching like skin. Then the point pierced the membrane. Too fast for Caim to follow, the curtain detached from the corridor walls and slashed at him with curved ebony claws.

Caim lifted his knife to block, but the claws passed through his suete to score stinging furrows down his arms. Fluid as quicksilver, the rippling creature struck again, scoring on his thigh and hip; shallow cuts, but they burned under his skin. He jumped back to make some space between them, but it harried him with rapid swipes. Caim managed to deflect one with the flat of the sword, but the thing was more powerful than it looked, and the parry almost tore the hilt from his grasp. The creature dipped under his guard, and Caim braced for another set of fiery cuts, but before it could strike, the shadow beast jumped onto its back. The two creatures rolled across the floor. Then, with a sound like tearing leather, the shadow beast tore a hunk of material out of the creature’s center. A keening wail filled the corridor as pieces of silken flesh fluttered in the air. Caim prodded the curtain to make sure it was dead.

The shadow beast sat a couple paces away. It didn’t lick its paws or pant with a lolling tongue; it didn’t do anything a normal animal would do.

“You ready?”

The shadow beast started down the hallway, and Caim followed. Another fifteen paces brought them to an ornate archway that marked the end of the corridor. Intricate scrollwork was carved into pillars of pale limestone and across the arch above. Beyond the aperture there was only blackness.

Well, I’ve come this far.

Caim called, and the shadows gathered around him in the hundreds. Their tiny voices hissed in his ears. With their bodies wrapped about him like a second skin, Caim stepped through the doorway. A moment of panic gripped his chest as the temperature plunged. A bitter wind snatched at his clothing. Once he was through, he looked back and saw only a wall of bare stone behind him. His breath curled in the air as he tapped the wall with the butt of his knife. Solid. At least a foot thick. What did I do?

He was in some kind of chamber. It had a subterranean feel. A shroud of shadows obscured much of the walls and vaulted ceiling. The place stank of alchemy and death, quicklime and camphor infused with the rot of the grave. Caim couldn’t see Sybelle, but he got the impression she was here, in the dark that ebbed and flowed around him. His skin prickled from more than the cold. He had stepped into the viper’s lair.

At least the shadow beast had come with him. It stood near his feet, its broad head swinging side to side, nose to the ground. That’s it. Sniff her out.

Without warning, the beast leapt into the murk. Caim froze, listening for sounds of fighting, but all was quiet. The shadows clung to him as if afraid to wander from his person. A lilting chant whispered in the dark. Caim looked around, trying to pinpoint the source, but the song came from multiple directions. The words were alien, but also somehow familiar. Had he heard something like them before? It almost sounded like…

Caim dove sideways as a stream of bitter cold rushed past him. He came to his feet with both weapons extended. A throaty laugh tickled his ears.

“I remember that night.” Her voice filled the air, like she was speaking directly into his head. “When we came to crush the worm who dared to abduct my sister.”

Caim slunk forward, straining every sense to locate his quarry. The floor was covered in something like gravel or broken glass. He strived for utter silence, but he’d only taken a few steps when the sword’s point struck a wall and rang like a gong. He jumped back, and another jet of freezing air hurtled past the spot where he’d been standing. The shadows on his back squirmed while Caim listened. Obviously Sybelle couldn’t see him either, or this hunt would have ended already.

“Your father was twice the fool,” she said. “First, to think he could abscond with a daughter of the Shadow, and then to believe he might live the rest of his days in peace.”

Caim kept his ears open as he traveled along the wall.

“The truly absurd thing about it,” Sybelle continued, “was that my sister didn’t resist once we got her away from that sty where she’d been living. I think she longed to return to proper civilization almost as much as I did. If we hadn’t come for your mother, she would have left on her own in time.”

Caim bit his tongue as he worked his way around the edge of the chamber. His fingers found the splintered remains of a cupboard or bookcase, and he avoided the debris. But as he crept onward, it became increasingly difficult to concentrate. The urge to lash out built inside him, as palpable as physical lust, until his blood was pounding and sweat ran down his back. The sword thrummed with fury, as if the blade had its own vendetta against the witch. He saw his father again. Dying.

He knelt at their feet, with a sword’s pommel jutting from his chest.

Caim shook his head, but the image refused to leave. The sword’s vibrations shook him from his thoughts. The witch’s voice had moved again.

“The conceit! To think he could keep her,” she said. “Mud-born aristocrats. Grant titles to a nest of vretch and it would mean as much. Even my Erric, for all his beauty, is still only… was…”

She sounded nearer now, but Caim still couldn’t pinpoint her. He decided to leave the safety of the wall and strike out into the unknown middle reaches of the chamber. He held the sword up to his chest so it wouldn’t give him away again as he probed the area for Sybelle, but she had fallen silent. When he reached a point he judged to be the center of the room, Caim stopped.

“A shame about your fair duke,” he said. “Whose handiwork was that?”

Caim threw himself flat to the floor as furious shrieks assaulted him from all sides. Blasts of ice-cold air exploded above him. Rubble showered the floor. Confined to the darkness, he imagined titanic sorceries gouging holes in the walls and ceiling.

When the clamor died down, he crawled to his feet. Deep sobs sounded in various spots around him. Then he realized what she was doing, and a plan came to him. It was risky, maybe even fatal, but he didn’t see that he had many options. Let’s see how you enjoy it when I play your game.

Opening his mind to the Shadow, he formed a portal and stepped through. It snapped shut the moment his feet touched down on the other side of the room. The vertigo lasted only a heartbeat or two as he stood still, listening for any sign he might have been heard.

“I will make an example of you.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “For what you’ve done to me and my family, I will feed your soul to demons of the Outside, bit by screaming bit.”

Caim turned to his right. He thought he had a bead on her now. When she dropped the volume of her voice, the reverberation was lessened and the source seemed to come from a far corner. He kept low as he circled toward her position.

“Would you like to see her again?” the witch asked. “One last look upon your dear mother before you die? I could make that possible.”

Caim halted in his tracks. The shadows trembled against him, and the sword swung back and forth regardless of how he fought to hold it back. He growled as something inside him refused to remain silent.