Sworn To Transfer (29 page)

He fell to his knees, clutching his head and panting for breath.

And then Barren stood up and the shadows in his eyes were gone.

Barren stood before her, holding out his hand defensively. “Wait,” he whispered.

“We saved your miserable life,” shouted Terris, “and this is how you repay us?”

The owl hooted again and mind-spoke.
Flightfeather is sorry. Flightfeather—

“Shut up, you miserable bird,” said Terris, anger clouding her voice.

She continued forward to Barren and prepared to hit him so hard he would see stars.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, backpedaling fast. “Can’t you trust me for a moment?”

“Hell no. I don’t know you,” she said bitterly.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he said. “I didn’t bring you out here for the shadow man.”

“At least, I didn’t mean to,” he continued.

Terris stopped, “The shadow man?
That
was the shadow man?”

He nodded.

“How dare you,” she whispered in fury. “That man—that
creature
—is killing your comrades, and you gave Ciardis to him.”

“I didn’t give anybody to him,” he said. “It was like I was in a dream, following the sound of his voice. He told me he chose not to let me die. That I had purpose—to bring the Weathervane to him. I fought him, but as long as his magic lingers in your system, you can live at his will or die. There are no other options.”

“And you chose to live,” Terris said bitterly.

“I chose to find out as much as I could about him,” he countered, “for my people. But when he finally decided I needed to serve my purpose, my will was gone.”

She dropped her fist in disgust.

“And now my friend is gone.”

“I know.” He nodded. “But I know where he’s taking her.”

Terris looked at him, wary disbelief etched on her brown face. Contemplating her options, she decided she didn’t have much of choice. Not if she wanted to get to her friend in time.

“Well, then,” she said, “why didn’t you say so in the first place? Let’s go!”

“We need backup,” he said firmly.

“While that man does gods-know-what to her?” Terris replied angrily. “No, we’re going now.”

With Terris standing firm, Barren sent Flightfeather back to the village for the warriors and to alert their guardians to where they were going. And then they were running in the darkness and the night, hoping with all of their might that Ciardis Weathervane was still alive.

*****

T
he world folded and time stood still.

When Ciardis awoke, she was no longer in the clearing. She lay in a makeshift bed of vines. She twisted and turned, trying to see more. Her head was the only thing capable of movement, her body from her shoulders to her feet bound by the moving vines. The vines were twisting, never still, and a dark color that shifted like smoke. Stifling a scream, she saw that the vines were made of shadows.

The man must have brought her here, but where was here?

Looking up, she saw more trees, but they were different. The trees had huge trunks and red leaves falling to the ground. She looked around but couldn’t see much else. The shadow man walked out of the darkness of the surrounding forest.

“Ciardis Weathervane,” he said softly. “I’ve been waiting to meet you.”

“Who are you?” she said while trying to fight against the vines. But every movement just caused them to tighten, cutting into her blood circulation and making her feel faint.

“And can you call off your creepy vines?” she snapped.

He looked at her with unreadable eyes.

“It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

She glared at him. “I’ll ask again: Who. Are. You?”

“I go by many names. None of which are important to you. Just know that I work in the service of the empire.”

“By killing
kith
?” she said sardonically.

“By doing whatever is necessary to right the wrongs against
me
,” he hissed back.

She watched him impassively. He was very focused on his anger.

“You and the Duchess of Carne?” she questioned more cautiously.

“Who?” he asked in genuine confusion.

Guess that means she had nothing to do with the
kith
deaths. Guess that means I owe the duchess an apology. She still tried to kill my mother, though.

But Ciardis had more immediate problems to deal with. The Shadow Mage had decided that they had talked enough. He released the shadow vines. Before she could even comprehend that she was free, he’d moved swiftly and grabbed her wrist, twisting it in his grip and smiling as pain flashed through Ciardis’s arm.

She fell to the floor screaming, her wrist still in his hand.

He said, each word distinct, “And I will do anything to accomplish my goals.”

Maybe angering him isn’t such a good idea
, she thought when the pain arcing through her body like fire had been subdued enough for her to think.

He released her wrist and smiled down at her.

“And you, my dear, are my key.”

Snatching her wrist back, she fought hard not to let the tears welling up in her eyes fall down her cheeks. He’d think it was because she was weak. Because she was afraid of him. She was anything but. Furious, angry, tired, but never scared.

“What do you mean I’m the key?”

“You’re calm for a girl who thinks she’s going to die.”

“Am I
not
going to die?” she asked hopefully. “I mean, I assume you wanted me here to help you increase your powers, but it’d be nice to get some assurance.”

When in dangerous situations, Ciardis tended to be flippant.

He looked at her as if she were crazy. With a motion he called forth his shadow. Out of the darkness of the trees behind him it came, first a dark indistinct blob moving on the forest floor. When it reached a bright pool of moonlight in the clearing, it began to rise up. The blob elongated until it was as tall as a man, and then it began to take a human shape with arms and legs, a head, and a chest. Ciardis watched in detached fascination. And then the shadow man extended its two middle fingers into a long, pointed shape. Ciardis knew she was in trouble. It was a sword.

Ciardis began to backpedal across the grass. Stumbling and looking around for an escape, she noticed her way was blocked by the shadow vines, which had grown shoulder-high and were writhing together to form a wall.

“Damn vines,” she muttered, turning desperately in a circle.

The man watched her dispassionately as his shadow stalked her.

“It’s not personal,” he said lazily, “but with your death I can spark the war. It’s funny, really, how one death among so many counts for everything. Maybe then you’ll amount to something bigger, something great.”

“What do you mean?” she asked shakily.

Seeing the shadow pause as he contemplated her, she asked again. Desperate to get more time.

“What do you mean?” she repeated. “Why does my death mean so much?”

“There are bodies and there are bodies, Miss Weathervane.” He shrugged. “I’ve been killing for years—at the behest of the emperor, at the behest of the nobility. But they don’t care if the job gets done with casualties. Especially non-human ones.”

“So you’re one of the emperor’s men?” she said, trying to sound calm while eyeing him and his shadow. If she could keep him calm, then maybe, just maybe, she could reason with him.

He laughed cruelly. “The emperor’s man? No, never that. I do my work for the empire, but I was never good enough to be called the emperor’s man. I do the Empire’s dirty work and disappear into the shadows.”

“What kind of dirty work?”

She noted that although the clearing they stood in was devoid of weapons of any sort, long vines were hanging loose from the trees above into the clearing below. If she could reach them perhaps she could climb over the vine barrier.

Assuming the shadow man stays where he is and assuming the living vine barrier doesn’t grab me. Lots of assumptions there.

“Assassinations and disappearances mostly,” he said resentfully.

She took note of his tone. “And you wanted to be more? To be recognized for more?”

“Impossible,” he hissed. “Always impossible living in the shadow of my brother. I was never good enough to be a true mage. I could do parlor tricks calling shadows and fading into the night, but now I can do more—so much more.”

His mouth curled distastefully. “The mages had no use for things like that after the wars. Well, now...now they will.” He said it in a tone that gave her the creeps. The man was insane.

But he was still talking to her, and as long that kept up she was still alive.

“There’s another war,” she said. “One in the North. You can go there and be the important person you’re supposed to be.”

He laughed. “My brother’s war, you mean?”

“Who’s your brother?” she said, fishing for a name, anything to link him to a place, a time, or a family.

He continued furiously, ignoring her query. “He never wanted me by his side. Never thought I was good enough. Well, we’ll see who is good enough now.”

Looking at her in surprise, he admitted, “You’ve been a good listener.”

Ciardis smiled, relieved that she was breaking through his barriers.

He smiled back and looked over at his shadow man to give a single order.

“Kill her.”

T
erris didn’t bother replying; she could hear Ciardis speaking now and was looking for a way around those damn vines. The best way seemed to be to climb the tree trunks. Surging forward, she tried and fell on her ass just as quickly. Her people were great swimmers and divers, having lived on small islands their whole lives, but tree climbers they were not.

“Quiet,” whispered Barren. “I’ll go over the barrier. Once I get those shadow vines down, you come in as backup.” Before she could object that she hated his plan, he was up and scaling the large tree like a squirrel. As he disappeared into the leaves, she hoped he got over the barrier.

She paced around the perimeter, keeping an eye out for weaknesses and hoping for a fallen branch that arced over the side.
A girl can dream, right?

A crunch of leaves was her only warning that something was behind her. She felt something hit her across her back and push her face first into the dirt and leaves. It felt large. She tried to get up. Whatever it was still lay on top of her. Maybe it was just some dead forest thing that had fallen on her. She raised herself up on to her hands and knees, trying to roll it off. And then she felt its warm breath on her neck.

Her heart pounding as the thing moved, Terris looked at the clawed hands resting on either side of her own and she almost sobbed in fear.

Then she heard its voice.

“Human. Food,” it cooed.

“No,” Terris corrected desperately. “Friend. Not food.”

“Food,” it insisted.

Terris was frightened beyond belief. Any second now it was going to bite down on the back of her exposed throat.

Feeling the wendigo on top of her, she prepared for death, closing her eyes and hoping it would be over quickly. And then her eyes snapped open. How had she known it was a wendigo, and why did it feel familiar?

Tapping into her power silently, Terris sent her feelers out. There was a bond there. However slight, she could feel a tenuous connection between her and the disgusting creature that was crouching on top of her, ready to eat her brains.

Pushing for more, she realized that it was the same wendigo that had nearly killed her that first night in the forest. Then it began to hum deep in its throat. Why wasn’t it chomping down on her neck yet?

She felt its confusion and its hunger. It wanted to eat her, but it also recognized her.

Second shock of the night: The thing was sentient. Most
kith
were but she never expected a cannibalistic carnivore that howled in the night like a banshee and looked like the living dead to be intelligent.

She tried once more to reason with it. “Up! Get off me. Not food. Friend.” It stayed put, still humming with hunger, confusion radiating from its mind.

Talking wasn’t helping. Maybe magic would. Her talent was supposed to give her the ability to assume control of any creature, magical or mundane. As the wendigo’s drool crept down her neck and it sniffed her, she felt like there was no time like the present to figure out if her ability to assume control of the practice dogs in Sandrin extended to
kith
.

Silently hoping that Barren and Ciardis were doing okay—Ciardis was still talking, after all—she mind-merged with the wendigo
.
Just as she lost herself in the creature’s mind, she heard the shadow man say two chilling words: “Kill her.”

Barren managed to drop from the trees at the exact instant the shadow mage announced the death sentence. With the strength of a childhood spent in the Ameles Forest, he tackled the shadow mage, bringing him down quickly. Unfortunately Barren had no weapons on him and the shadow mage was no slouch—he clearly knew hand-to-hand combat.

As they struggled on the ground, the shadow creature raced from where it stood over Ciardis Weathervane and maneuvered to defend its master.

“Barren!” cried Ciardis. “Watch out! That shadow is coming and it’s got a sword.”

Barren was too busy trying to unwrap the mage’s fingers from around his neck to answer.

The mage stared down at the boy in confusion in the meantime.

Narrowing his eyes the Shadow Mage spat out, “Who are you?”

Barren smiled through a bloody mouth—courtesy of the mage on top of him—and said, “What? Don’t recognize me? You nearly killed me.”

When recognition flowed into the mage’s eyes, Barren head-butted him, sending him tumbling back and clutching his forehead in pain.

Unfortunately that didn’t take care of the shadow creature; it was almost on top of him. Ready to defend its master.

And then their world dissolved into a high-pitched screech.