A Threat of Shadows (3 page)

Alaric shook his head. He couldn’t go back to court. Not right now.

The Shield’s voice grew quieter. “How is Evangeline?”

Alaric felt the familiar stab of guilt. He took a deep breath. The library air smelled of paper and ink and knowledge. He’d missed that smell. He took another breath. That was all he seemed to do these days, take deep breaths.

The Shield let the question drop. “What are you looking for from Kordan?”

Another hard question. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell the Shield, exactly, but it was hard to say out loud. The hope was too fragile, like the new skin of ice over a pond. Just the effort of shaping it into words could shatter it.

But that fear was irrational. He looked down into the Shield’s face. “I’m looking for the antidote to rock snake venom.”

The old man’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I wouldn't have thought to look in Kordan's work.”

Under other circumstances, Alaric would be pleased that he’d told the Shield something he didn’t already know.

The Shield turned back to the book, and his surprise turned into a scowl. “This lists one reference in the library from Kordan, a scroll. But it’s not in the medicinal section.” He glanced up at Alaric. “It’s on the restricted shelves.”

The restricted shelves? Alaric felt the hope he’d been carrying so carefully crack.

The Shield gave Alaric a long, measured look. “I hope you find the answers you need, Alaric.” He turned to go.

“There were ghosts outside the Wall,” Alaric said quietly.

The Shield paused and turned back. “There are always ghosts on the path back home. They must have never had anything to say to you before.”

Alaric looked at the old man in surprise. “You see them?”

The Shield gave a short, bitter laugh. “Every time. The sentinels may be the reason that so few of the older Keepers ever leave. They’re too afraid to take the path back. You live long enough, Alaric, and you build up quite a few ghosts.” The smile he gave Alaric now was tinged with sadness. “I meant what I told you before you left. No one is defined by a single choice. All of us have ghosts. And regrets. If you ever see a road back to us, I will be glad of it.”

Alaric felt a momentary swell of gratitude. But the Shield didn’t know what Alaric had done, the places he’d gone, the things he’d been a part of. He didn’t know how many lines Alaric had crossed trying to save Evangeline, only to fail again and again. He tried to return the old man’s parting smile, but he couldn’t quite force one out before the Shield was too far away to see it.

Chapter 3

Alaric watched the Shield leave the library before he moved. Then he went to the ramp and headed to the lowest floor. Two levels down, he almost ran into another Keeper walking with his nose in a book.

The man looked up with an apologetic smile. When he saw Alaric’s face, his smile withered. Alaric held in a sigh.

“Mikal,” Alaric said, nodding his head slightly. Of course it had to be Mikal.

Mikal narrowed his eyes. “Back so soon?”

Alaric felt a pang of regret at the Keeper’s reaction. But here, at least, was the welcome Alaric had expected. “I’m not really back at all.”

Mikal gave a little snort, his eyes running down Alaric’s worn cloak. “Never thought you would be.” He stepped around Alaric and disappeared up the ramp.

Alaric stood still for a moment. It was surprisingly depressing to realize he was living up to Mikal’s expectations, not the Shield’s.

Alaric descended quickly all the way to the deepest floor of the library where the oldest books were stored. Their spines, even with the meticulous preservation of the Keepers, were flaking off, leaving a fine dust along the front of the shelves. There were books on this level written in runes so ancient that none but a Keeper could read them.

He crossed the floor to a bookshelf covered by a wooden gate. When Alaric touched the wood, red words flared into existence.

Herein lie words of darkness and death.

A year ago when he’d touched this gate, he’d been looking for a way to save Evangeline’s life among these restricted books. A way that was different from all the ways a Keeper would try. A way that might work. Most of these writings were from Sidion, works the Shade Seekers had written. They spoke of dark magic that the Keepers would not consider using. When the red warning had sprung up that time, Alaric had almost walked away.

Almost. He hadn’t heeded the words. He thought he had found new paths of life. He had been wrong.

“Darkness and death,” he agreed quietly.

He opened the gate and began to look carefully through the first shelf that held scrolls. At one end of it, he found one ruined, crumpled red scroll. Alaric winced in guilt and skipped down to the lower shelves. On the very bottom sat the unassuming brown scroll labeled,
Death and Life of a Seed
by Kordan the Harvester.

He pulled the parchment from its place and moved to a nearby desk positioned between the shelves. The cheerful glow of the golden orb above it felt out of place.

He unrolled the thin, crinkling paper.

Herein, I write the final record of my work. I cannot bear to write any more. I will store all of my memories in the Wellstone, and bury my treasure beneath a young oak. Then I am finished with it all.

It is only now that I see the darkness in what I have been studying.

I realized, as every farmer does, it is only in dying that a seed creates a new plant. I remembered that the Shade Seekers have a way of manipulating the energy of a creature at the moment of its death. If I could use that power with a seed, I might grow a plant greater than expected. I failed many times before I finally succeeded. I was elated when a sunflower sprouted and grew to an enormous height overnight.

I was coming to understand the exact nature of the seeds, the exact way in which they died, the exact moment in which to impart my magic. I began to see that I could control death, even stop it and replace it with life. Far from frightening me, I was thrilled by this new power.

Everything went perfectly for a quarter of a year.

Then came the day when Peros, the farmer’s son, was bitten by a rock snake. Roused by the commotion, I ran outside and saw his parents holding him in despair. A man had killed the snake, but too late. Blackness was seeping up the boy’s leg. There was nothing to do. No way to stop it.

Sometimes, I try to justify myself by remembering that I had been cooped up for months, focused exclusively on my seeds. But I know that does not excuse me.

When I saw the boy dying, it was as though he were a seed. I could see the life in him and knew how it would leave. I knew the moment of action. The despair of his parents drove any thought from my head, and I raced to the boy, cradling his head in my hands, whispering the words of death and life. Through his pain, he looked up at me, and I know that at the last moment, he understood what I did. Oh, worthless man! To have that moment back and watch the life fade from his eyes!

The boy did not die. A seed, when it is ‘reborn’, splits open and a new life springs from within it. But a boy is not a seed—Peros had nothing inside him to grow. There was nothing but the snake’s venom and death.

The fear that he would split open paralyzed me for a moment, but he did not. He writhed and screamed in agony, an agony far worse than the bite. His parents tried to calm him, but everyone else drew back in terror. What came out of him was his energy, the essence of him. I can still hear the scream he let out as a green glow radiated from every part of his body. This glow swirled and pulled away from him, causing him terrible pain. It coalesced into a green focus of light as the last tendrils were torn from him.

The screaming stopped, and he collapsed to the ground. His eyes were glazed and empty, but he breathed. An enormous rough emerald dropped onto his chest, the solid form of the green light, the solid form of the boy’s vitalle. His father cast the gem off the boy and clung to him. He spoke his son’s name, but there was no response. The boy’s eyes stared vacantly. He was alive, but hollow.

Eventually, they stood him up and led him away. He followed their every command, but lifelessly. They had never trusted my powers, but now they looked at me in horror as they left.

I picked up the emerald. It was warm and pulsed with a swirling green light. The Shade Seekers call it a Reservoir Stone. I almost took it to his family, but I did not. I do not know what I hoped to learn from it. Maybe it was a sort of punishment to keep it with me and remember what I had done. I did nothing with the gem but look at it and weep.

Although the boy felt no more pain, the venom continued to eat away at him.

The light in the emerald dimmed through the night. When the boy died near dawn, the gem grew dark and cold.

It wasn’t until days later that I realized that I have an antidote to the snakebite. It had never occurred to me. Perhaps this is the danger the Keepers warned me of. Not that my experiments were evil, but that they focused on death to the extent that I stopped looking for life.

Tonight, I end the record of my experiments. I have not the heart to work even with the seeds again. I will return to the Stronghold one last time. I know they will accept this scroll, even if they no longer can accept me. After what I have done, I can no longer call myself a Keeper. There are decisions that can’t be unmade, paths that cannot be unchosen, choices that change us too much for us to ever change back.

The emerald sits next to me now, dark and empty.

I will leave here and give the villagers their peace.

Tomorrow, I deliver this scroll to the Stronghold. May it serve as a warning.

Alaric stared at the page in horror. His hand reached for the pouch around his neck. Trembling, he yanked it open, dropping its contents into his hand.

Out fell a huge, rough, uncut ruby filled with swirls of blood-red light.

Alaric rested his forehead against the warm gem, shutting his eyes against the red light. The same red light that had glowed while Evangeline had screamed in agony as he’d slowly drained her of her life energy to form the Reservoir Stone.

He opened his eyes and watched the eddies move through the ruby, the light scattering between the irregular faces of the gem. The energy was still there, still moving, just as it had for the last year. The crystal he had placed around her body to preserve it was working. She lived, and would until he removed the crystal. But that wouldn’t matter, not if he couldn’t find the antidote.

Alaric set the ruby off to the side and picked up Kordan’s scroll and scanned it again, desperation rising. Kordan must have written something more. He had an antidote to rock snake venom. He must have recorded it somewhere.

With a growl of frustration, he flung the scroll away.

I will store all of my memories in the Wellstone.

Alaric dropped his head onto the table with a thud. How hard would it have been to write out one antidote?

He turned his head to look at the ruby again, letting the swirls of light calm him.

A sliver of darkness spun past the surface.

Alaric grabbed the ruby. He watched it closely. The currents flowed around each other until the black line appeared again, no wider than a blade of grass, wrapped around and through one of the streams of light.

Alaric’s hand clenched the stone.

When the boy died near dawn, the gem grew dark and cold.

Alaric held the ruby with shaking hands. The bit of blackness continued to swirl in with the red. When had the darkness appeared? He studied it for a long time, but the black line didn’t change. How long did he have before the ruby went dark?

He needed the antidote. Soon. If Kordan had put it in the Wellstone, then Alaric would use the Wellstone.

Alaric put the ruby back into the pouch at his neck. A tight ball of anger began to grow in his gut at the thought of sharing with the Keepers the things he had done during the last year. Once they knew, Alaric would never be welcomed back here. They wouldn’t be able to look past it.

But he needed the antidote, so he would use the Wellstone, and then he would leave before they had to ask him to. He would get the antidote and go back to Evangeline.

Alaric stood up and placed Kordan’s scroll back where it belonged. The warning gate closed on the bookshelf with a click.

He left the library quickly. The center of the Stronghold tower was open to the ceiling, its white walls rising up a half-dozen stories, drawing closer together as the diameter of the tower shrank. Along the wall, a ramp led upward. Dotted with arched doorways, it spiraled up until it passed through the ceiling. Through that opening, he could see flashes of light from the Wellstone.

Alaric began to climb the ramp. He passed his favorite study, the one with the deep fireplace and deep chair that always smelled like bread from the kitchen below.

Up near the top of the tower, Alaric passed his old room. It was thickly rugged, the walls blanketed by shelves of books, scrolls, and jars. All the things he used to value sat patiently, waiting for him to come back.