Cloak and Spider: A Shadowdance Novella

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Thren Felhorn watched the merchant’s stall, his stomach rumbling as he imagined the food he might eat if the score went off as intended. His friend Grayson was already there, asking question after question of the merchant busy trying to sell his wares to a wealthy couple dressed in red silks and fox fur. At best Grayson earned himself a swat at his head, but Thren’s dark-skinned friend always ducked aside just before it connected. After one aggravated swipe, and a yell to get lost, Grayson turned toward him and winked before sidling back up to the stall.

That was the signal. Thren kept his head down, his hands in his pockets. Most importantly, he kept his eyes to the ground. Without eye contact, he would be invisible to the populace of the grand city of Mordeina, just one of a hundred orphan boys forced to beg, borrow, and steal for their daily bread. But today Thren planned on eating far better than stale, cracked bread that had gone unsold the day before.

“…the finest silver,” he heard the merchant say to the couple as he made exaggerated gestures as if to express his amazement at the quality of his own wares. Thren slid closer, using the couple as a screen for his movements. Head down, eyes low, using just the corners of his vision to guide his movements. When he was almost there, the merchant let out a cry, turning toward where Grayson had tried, and failed, to snag a knife from on display. The merchant, a bearded man with a large belly, let out a roar and swung a meaty fist. This time Grayson did not dodge in time, the fist connecting squarely with his face. Blood splattered down his chest, and he let out a cry as he stumbled to the ground.

“I didn’t do nothing!” Grayson cried.

With all eyes on Grayson for that split second, Thren brushed against the lady of the couple, his movements pulling out her dress the tiniest bit, giving him the screen he needed. Arms crossed over his chest, he walked on, not once looking at the merchant busy yelling for a guard. Slid into the folds of his ratty shirt, the metal cool on his skin, were a pair of silver spoons. It took all his control to continue normally, to not smile or show the slightest sign of life. Orphans weren’t supposed to know happiness. Happiness was suspicious.

When he reached one of the many exits of the long market street winding through the western half of the city, he dared let out a laugh. He’d made it. Grayson would easily elude whatever guards might come running, and then…

A hand latched on to his shoulder, spinning him about. Thren let out a cry, and he lashed out with his right hand, still holding the spoons. He expected a fat merchant, maybe a guard, but instead a blackened hand caught his own. The skin looked as if it’d been charred in a fire, and the many glittering rings on its fingers made it seem all the more ugly. Thren felt his heart freeze in his chest, felt his breath catch in his throat. The man’s hair was a dark umber, his long coat wrapping about his slender frame. After his hand, it was his ears that were most telling, the long ears of an elf with the tops brutally scarred to remove the slender upturned points. Held still by a grip impossibly strong, Thren stared up into the icy blue eyes of a man he knew only by legend.

“It’s dangerous to take what isn’t yours,” Muzien the Darkhand said, “especially when you take from one of
my
merchants.”

The grip on Thren’s hand tightened, and he released the spoons. The polished silver clattered on the ground, but Muzien did not look at them, nor move to pick them up. Instead he continued to stare, his hand brushing aside a few strands of umber hair that had fallen across his face. Thren kept his mouth shut, knowing nothing he could say would help him now. He was at the man’s mercy. Thren gambled that strength was what he needed to show now, not cowardice. Even with that strength, he struggled to meet Muzien’s gaze.

“You had help,” Muzien said. “Who was it? Tell me his name.”

Thren swallowed. Turning on Grayson would gain him nothing, he knew that from the coldness in Muzien’s eyes. So he lifted his head, clenched his jaw, and waited.

The reaction came more swiftly than he’d anticipated. Muzien flung him against one of the city’s winding walls, the uneven red brick stabbing into his back. Despite his attempt to brace himself, Thren let out a cry. Muzien towered above him, and his hand drifted down to the hilt of a sword strapped to his side.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Nine,” Thren said, remaining on his rear.

“Good, so you can tell the truth if necessary. So let me try this one more time.” He slid his sword out of its sheath, just enough to let it catch the light from the midday sun. “Who helped you in your attempt?”

“I was alone,” Thren said, figuring that if he was to die he’d at least try to spare his friend. “Did it all on my own.”

Muzien stared at him, a long hard gaze that made Thren feel as if he were being dissected.

“Only nine,” he said, shaking his head. “And to think I had thought myself beyond surprises.
Alric!
Bring him over.”

From around the corner came another man with a similar coat to Muzien’s, only he was more heavyset, the muscularity of his frame more obvious. In his arms he lugged Grayson, who was still trying to squirm away.

“Cut it out already,” Alric said, dumping Grayson beside Thren. A quick glance showed Grayson’s nose was still bleeding a bit, but that was the only real injury he’d suffered from the merchant’s hit.

“They were waiting for us, I swear it,” Grayson said, springing to his feet. Thren rose as well. He wouldn’t die sitting down. Muzien let go of his blade and crossed his arms.

“I have need of servants,” he said. “Are you both orphans without family?”

The two glanced at each other.

“We are,” Thren said, purposefully leaving out any mention of Grayson’s sister. The last thing he wanted to do was drag her into their mess.

“Then you shall live with me, and serve the Sun Guild directly. Is that understood?”

“What if we refuse?” Grayson asked.

Muzien knelt down so they might see eye to eye.

“What makes you think you may refuse?” he asked.

Thren had seen Grayson stand up to the toughest of bullies and the meanest of guards, yet still his friend shrunk beneath that gaze. Grayson lowered his head and nodded to show he understood.

“Good,” Muzien said, spinning on his heels. “Alric, take them in and get them cleaned up. The ceremony’s almost here, and we have no time to waste.”

Thren and Grayson had served under Muzien for three days when he led them into the grand dining hall of his Sun Guild’s vast headquarters. There were over forty people seated along three rows of tables, with a vast variety of foods atop silver platters before them. Twenty more of the long rectangular tables were empty. Most of the men and women held cups, and Thren saw an opened keg in one corner. Along one side of the room were five thick stained-glass windows, each pane depicting the sun as it marched from dawn to dusk.. Multiple chandeliers hung overhead, dozens of candles in them burning bright. The size of it all left Thren with an uneasy feeling, as if he were overexposed. The dining hall could easily hold two hundred people, if not three, yet right then it felt so empty.

“There,” Muzien said, pointing to an empty corner. “I do not need you now, so go wait there until I come for you.”

The two boys nodded, having quickly learned that speaking was necessary only if they might misunderstand the order given to them. Thren led the way, and at the corner he slumped down and tried to relax. Overall his time with the Sun Guild had been one of fine food and far nicer clothing, yet he still felt exhausted from the variety of chores, all menial and tedious, that Muzien subjected them to. They were yet to eat their midday meal, too, and seeing the vast banquet spread out before the others left Thren in a foul mood.

“I bet we’ll be the ones stuck cleaning all this up,” Grayson said, unafraid of being heard due to the great din of celebration from the forty in attendance.

“I bet you’re right,” Thren muttered back.

At Muzien’s entrance many had stood and raised glasses in salute to their guildmaster. Muzien smiled back, showing a kindness neither of the orphans had seen directed their way. The elf took an offered glass, then walked to the center of the table. He lifted his glass and slowly turned so he might look upon all forty.

“Today is the start of a grand beginning,” he said. “With your aid I have built a kingdom. Merchants tithe to us for safety. The underworld fears to cross us, for our wrath is as sure as the rising sun. The priests turn blind eyes to our deeds, the king pretends we are but stories told by foolish men. Nine decades I have ruled, and for decades more I plan to rule from the throne I have fashioned out of silver and gold. Yet the world is fickle, and the paths we walk ever dangerous. Every king, no matter how great his reign, must have an heir. For that I have summoned you, so think well on the privilege such an invitation demands. Think well on the seriousness of the position, the cost of such a gift.”

He turned to where Alric stood by the door, and Alric pulled it open with a creak.

“The door is open,” Muzien said, and he drank. “The door will always be open.”

And with that he set down his glass, bowed to them all, and walked out of the room.

Awkward silence followed as the forty men and women looked to one another, unsure of what to do and what was expected of them.

“Should we go?” Grayson whispered to Thren as the confused chatter grew louder.

“He said he’d summon us,” Thren said, as if it were obvious. “So until then, we stay.”

And so they stayed.

Three hours later the first of them left.

Thren had spent the time wandering among the tables. The people assumed he was there to serve them, and he did nothing to disabuse them of that assumption. He fetched drinks from the keg, mostly, shifted plates of food from one table to another if asked, and stole bites whenever no one was watching. All the while he listened to the men and women talk, attaching names to the various faces. He was filling yet another mug from the keg when he heard the squeal of a chair scraping across the wood floor, followed by a bit of good-natured ribbing.

“You all know I’d be shit for a leader,” said the man, an overweight fellow Thren hadn’t caught the name of. “You can all stick around, settle this among yourselves. As for me, I need to piss more than I ever have in my life.”

His words were spoken in jest, but as he exited the open door a pall came over those remaining. Thren felt it was as real as the cup in his hand. He brought it back to its owner, a pretty woman with dark hair and brown eyes by the name of Jezelle.

“Why didn’t you fill it?” she asked as he set it down before her.

“Can’t,” Thren said.

“Can’t?”

He shrugged. “The keg is empty.”

“You hear that?” said a man beside Jezelle. “The keg’s empty! What in the fiery Abyss are we to drink now?”

“Give me a few minutes,” another shouted back at him. “I’ll give you a cup of warm yellow ale you’ll love.”

Still more joking, but Thren heard the worry in their voices. There was nothing left to drink but what remained in the people’s cups, and nowhere to relieve oneself unless one left the room. The day dragged on into evening, and several more stood up.

“Fuck it,” said a man, Jared.

“I’m coming with you,” said a woman at his side.

The two strode for the door, and they were quickly joined by five others. Those who remained quickly checked the cups of those who had left, the first hint of the hoarding to come.

“We should do something,” Thren said as he took a seat by Grayson in the corner, watching as several more made their way to the door.

“Not yet,” Grayson said, his eyes on the tables. “For now we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“The groups to form.”

Two hours later the number had stabilized at twenty-five. There were no jokes now beyond a few forced laughs. Thren saw Grayson had been right about the groups. There were three major ones, all fairly equally divided, and they positioned themselves into a loose triangle amid the huge dining hall tables. Thren stayed in the corner with Grayson, watching, going out only once to retrieve a beige bowl made of plaster. Slowly he tapped it on the ground, methodically weakening one side.

He was so busy chipping away, watching the cracks spread, he almost didn’t catch the fight.

“I think we’ve all had enough of this farce,” said Crion, a middle-aged man with a long sword strapped to his belt. He commanded the largest of the three groups, and he had a dozen gold earrings in his left ear, signifying kills he’d made in the name of the Sun Guild.

“You’re welcome to leave,” said Jezelle, who sat next to the obvious leader of the second group, a muscular man with a shaved head named Terk .

Crion grinned at Jezelle, revealing a mouth full of black teeth.

“I won’t be the one leaving. You all will. We know what’s going on. The cowards have left, which leaves just us, and if hunger and thirst don’t drive us out, then that means it’ll be a blade.”

“Muzien will come back for us before then,” said Ulgrad, an older man with gray hair and a row of daggers around his waist. Thren had found it difficult to identify the clear leader of the third group, but Grayson insisted Ulgrad was the one.

“Are you so certain?” Crion asked. “Tell me, which of the stories of the Darkhand you grew up listening to told of his
mercy
, or his
compassion
?

“Yet those who kill fellow members of the guild hang at dawn,” Ulgrad argued. “We’ll solve this somehow, but it won’t be through something as stupid and inelegant as a slaughter.”

“You’re just a damn bully,” Jezelle shouted. “You won’t scare us out.”

Crion turned his ugly grin toward Jezelle.

“Say that again when you’re not draped over the arm of your muscle-bound fuck toy, Jezelle. I beg of you.”

Terk rose to his feet, and he drew a long blade off his back and held it before him.

“Insult her again,” Terk said, his deep voice rumbling. “I beg of
you
.”