Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return

“Aura Illustri!” He let his arm fall and closed his eyes, fighting down a rush of nausea as more fragmented memories seeped back.

The ambush. The smell. The shock of seeing the hideous black dra’gorgos bearing down on him. How could such an abomination appear on Aurënfaie soil? It could only mean that one of their attackers had been a necromancer; no one else could summon the unclean things.

And screaming. He was certain he remembered someone screaming.

“Alec!” Real panic set in then, and he managed to raise his head enough to see that there was no one else in the bed, and no sight of anyone else in what he could see of the room.

He’d called out for his sister, but not his talimenios? Panting, sick, and overwhelmed with guilt, he fell back against the pillow as tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

Screaming. Who had been screaming? Was it Alec? Was he dead, like all the others?

No! he told himself fiercely. No, I’d know. I’d remember that!

Yet try as he might, he couldn’t be certain, any more than he could summon the memory of what had followed.

The slaver’s mark was all he had to go on, and that was the worst possible news, for there were only two places he could be right now: in Plenimar, or in Zengat.

And yet for slavers to venture so far inland on Aurënen soil was unheard of in that part of the country. And what would they be doing with a necromancer?

He tried again to move, but the last of his strength had deserted him. As consciousness fled, however, a sudden realization followed him down into the darkness.

“Betrayed!” he mumbled to the empty room. “Phoria, I’ll see you dead!”

FOR THE FIRST few days, Seregil didn’t have the strength to get away even if they’d left the door open for him. Instead, he had to settle for alternating between fretting over what could have become of Alec and making what observations he could make from his bed.

From what little he could recall from the ship, his captors had probably placed some sort of magical ward on him, and apparently he’d had his usual reaction to it. His skin was still sallow and he’d lost a considerable amount of weight. His belly was sunken and his ribs were more prominent than usual. The magic had eaten into his muscles, too, and his arms looked thin. In addition to the brands, he had sores and scabs over a good part of his body. The old woman had been right in thinking he’d nearly died.

He had no way of knowing what the collar around his neck looked like, or was made of, but it was very hard metal. At least it wasn’t magicked. He wouldn’t be feeling as well as he was if it had been.

Despite his dire situation, he was glad to be clean and comfortable. Even his hair and nails had been neatly trimmed. He knew better than to mistake this for kindness on the part of whoever had bought him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it for now. It was certainly better than the condition he’d been in, and it gave him a chance to start recovering his strength.

Judging by the slant of light through the window, and the slice of blue sky he could see, he guessed that his room was on an upper floor. It was a surprisingly fine chamber for a slave. Though sparsely furnished with a bed and a heavy armchair by the hearth, the walls were paneled with polished wood; here and there the patina showed lighter in places where some hanging or furniture had been removed. The stout door was locked from the outside and no one came in except for the old woman. He caught a glimpse of an armed man at the door whenever she entered.

He slept a great deal and thrashed through nightmares of the ambush-dreams in which Alec lay dead on the ground with the others. He woke trembling and sweating, sick with not knowing whether it was a memory or a phantasm created by his fears.

Interspersed with these dark dreams were others, more snippets and flashes of his own past-of Adzriel and events from his childhood, before he’d been banished. Some were clear, others jumbled and confused, with only the impression of gentle hands touching him. At times they were innocent and he thought it must be his sister, but at others those hands roamed over his body, stirring his flesh and making him ache for more. No matter how he tried, he could not see who his dream lover was. He woke from these feeling sick in a different way, and strangely guilty.

The old woman came to him several times each day, bringing him food and helping him bathe. He was kept to milk and bread, and thin broths, but the servings were generous and he ate everything offered, in order to gain his strength back. But it was a frustrating battle and his body was slow to mend.

His nurse was a hard one to draw out. She was kind to him in her way while he was weak, but grew more shy and nervous as he regained his strength. He kept at her not only because she was his only link outside this room but because it distracted him from his fears.

With some charm and persistence, he learned that her name was Zoriel and that she’d been a possession of “the master’s” family for generations, since she was a young girl. She couldn’t even remember the name of her clan. Looking into those faded blue eyes, he saw no spirit there, only long-ingrained resignation and lingering traces of fear. She spoke of the “master” with reverence but refused to tell Seregil anything of him, not even his name.

“I daren’t,” she said, nervously fingering the worn metal band at her throat.

Seregil didn’t press her but instead tried to get a sense of the household and whether there were any other ’faie there.

“A few,” she told him, eyes going vague. “But I’m not to talk to you about that, either. Please, don’t ask any more, young son. It’s not for me to say.”

“Please, just one more question,” Seregil said, taking her hands. Her fingers were bent and chapped by years of hard work. “Is there a young man with long blond hair here? He’d have arrived the same time I did, most likely as a slave. Please, old mother, he’s dear to me, and I don’t even know if he’s alive.”

“I’ve seen no one like that.” She pulled free and began gathering up the day’s soiled linens and empty dishes. “You’re the only new slave I know of, and you’re my only concern. I don’t know what the master will say when I tell him of all your questions! It’s not proper for a slave to act so, and the sooner you know that, the better!”

“I’m a slow learner,” he muttered, feeling tired and sulky.

She shook her head sadly. “Then you’ll find yourself at the wrong end of the whip soon enough.”

“Didn’t you ever try to get away?”

This was met with a look of blank incomprehension. “Get away? Where would I go?”

Seregil positioned himself for a good look out the door as she went out. Yes, the door was most certainly under guard, but only by one man. A few more days, he promised himself, and he would be strong enough to fight his way out.

But after three days, he was only just strong enough to leave his bed for a little while and limp slowly about the room. When Zoriel brought him a soft woolen robe to wear, he noticed that she seemed distracted.

“Is something wrong, old mother?”

“Getting above himself, the scoundrel,” she muttered, then began fussing over him as she helped him over to the chair by the window.

“Who is?”

“That’s no concern of yours,” she snapped, tucking a blanket over him.

Seregil spent the morning there, glad to have something to look at besides these four walls.

As he’d guessed, he was on an upper floor. There were iron bars over the casement on the inside, set in new mortar. The window was thickly leaded and glazed. Peering out through the rippled panes, he could see part of a small garden courtyard with a fountain in the middle and a pillared colonnade. A nobleman with dark hair walked there for a while, and later, a pair of small children appeared with a dark-haired woman with a veil over the lower part of her face. Another slave, no doubt.