Shade and Sorceress

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© Catherine Egan, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Edited by Laura Peetoom

Designed by Jamie Olson

Maps by Jonathan Service

Printed and bound in Canada at Friesens

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Egan, Catherine, 1976-

Shade & sorceress / Catherine Egan.

(The last days of Tian Di ; bk. 1)

EPUB-ISBN 9781550507218

I. Title. II. Title: Shade and sorceress. III. Series:

Egan, Catherine, 1976- . Last days of Tian Di ; bk. 1.

PS8609.G34S53 2012 jC813'.6 C2012-904407-5

Issued also in print format.

Library of Congress Control Number 2012936051

Print books available in Canada from:

Coteau Books, 2517 Victoria Avenue, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada S4P 0T2
www.coteaubooks.com

Publishers Group Canada, 2440 Viking Way, Richmond, British Columbia, Canada V6V 1N2

Available in the US from:
Orca Book Publishers • www.orcabook.com • 1-800-210-5277

Coteau Books gratefully acknowledges the financial support of its publishing program by: the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

For Joshua and Jordan

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Citadel

Part 2: Tian Xia

Part 3: The Sorceress

Map of Tian Xia

Map of Di Shang

PART 1:

The Citadel

~

~ Chapter 1 ~

The Mancers came without warning
on a windless, azure-skied day. At first they looked like a flock of birds in the distance, but as they came closer the islanders paused in their tracks to look up and wonder aloud what they were seeing. When whatever was approaching from above became very obviously not a flock of birds, the streets began to empty. The war had ended ten years ago, but fear was an old habit not easily shaken off. They all remembered stories of the terrible beings that had crossed over, whole towns laid to waste before help came. Throughout Holburg Town bolts were drawn and windows firmly shuttered. Nobody imagined that the five bright, winged shapes growing larger and larger in the sky over Holburg might be Mancers. None of the islanders had ever seen a Mancer before.

~

Eliza Tok was squatting perilously close to the edge of the rocky promontory. It was nearly a thirty-foot drop to the crashing surf below. The waves rolled in, one great blue swell after another, smacking against the cliff and bursting into white foam.

“I seriously doubt that Nat Fillion really jumped off here,” she said.

“Adwin
saw
him,” said Nell, twisting her glossy chestnut hair into a ponytail.

“Adwin worships Nat,” said Eliza. “They made it up.”

Nell gave Eliza a sideways look and shrugged, adjusting the straps of her swimsuit.

“So what if he
didnay
jump? We can be the first, aye! What did you come here for, if you dinnay want to do it?”

Eliza chewed her lip. The south of the island, with its craggy cliffs and lack of clear trails, was deserted even on a bright June day like today. They should have been at school, sitting at their desks and listening to Mentor Frist spit out arithmetic problems as if he couldn’t stand the taste of them. It was a fair question: Why
had
she come, if she didn’t want to do it? She wasn’t
scared
, not really, but still.

“I knew a boy in Huir Kosta broke both his legs jumping off a cliff into a lake,” she said darkly. “You should’ve seen him round town in his wheely-chair for months, both legs in fat white casts and sticking out in front of him. Water was nay as deep as he thought it was.”

But Nell just rolled her eyes and made a final irrefutable argument for the jump by canon-balling off the cliff’s edge, screaming the whole way down. She landed with a great splash and disappeared, the waves rolling over her. Eliza watched anxiously until Nell’s head bobbed up again and she waved her arms, laughing and shouting something that Eliza couldn’t hear. Eliza grinned with relief and shook her head. There was no getting around it now. She would have to jump too.

As she stood up, something made her look over her shoulder. She saw the five glittering shapes descending over Holburg Town to the north. She squinted but couldn’t make them out well. A small, dark fist of fear clenched tight in her gut.

“Look, Nell!” she shouted, pointing, but Nell couldn’t hear her. Eliza took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and leaped out into the warm salty-spray air. Her fear was wiped out by the exhilaration of the drop and then the crash into the sea, the rush and roar of white water all around her. When she surfaced, Nell was already splashing towards their Secret Beach, a half-moon of pale sand enclosed by the cliffs, visible only from the sea. Eliza followed with swift, strong strokes.

“Was nay that
prize?”
shrieked Nell as soon as she reached the tiny beach. “Let’s go again!”

Eliza pulled her wet hair back from her face and blinked the seawater out of her eyes. “Nell, I just saw something...some
things
over the town,” she said, still a little breathless. “Like huge birds.”

“Like
huge birds?” said Nell. “Were they birds or nay?”

Eliza thought about this, doubting what she had seen for a moment. “They were nay birds,” she said. Of that much she was sure. “They were bigger than birds. Much, much bigger.”

Forgetting all about their jump off the cliff, Nell grabbed Eliza by the arm. Her eyes sparkled with joy under wet, spiky lashes. “Come on, let’s see what’s going on.”

From the beach it was an easy climb diagonally along the cliff for a nimble child unafraid of heights. They clambered up like twin monkeys and made for the Lookout Tree, one of the only trees on the cliffs that withstood the yearly battering of typhoons. This was the highest point on the island. From its topmost branches they could view the whole archipelago. The sea shone bright and blue to the horizon, dotted with emerald green clusters of islands, and the sky was clear. Far in the distance, a ridge of dark volcanoes smoked.

“Lah, I wish we had binoculars,” said Nell, squinting towards the town. “I cannay see a thing. Does your da have binoculars?”

Eliza’s father was a source of endless mystery and fascination for Nell. As far as she was concerned he might have a chest full of pirate treasure and it would not be the least bit surprising.

“I dinnay think so,” said Eliza doubtfully. They didn’t have much in the way of belongings.

“We’ve got to go back and find out what’s going on!” said Nell. “Say again what the things looked like when you saw them.”

“They were big, aye,” said Eliza. “And shiny. And they had wings.”

“Wings!” breathed Nell. She had a faraway look in her eyes that Eliza knew all too well. “Holburg might be under attack. Eliza, we might have to save the whole town!”

Eliza’s heart began to beat a little faster.

“What do we do?”

“We’ll go back through the caves,” said Nell firmly. “That way we can get a peek without anyone seeing us first.”

Eliza agreed, and the two girls swung down from the tree.

~

The police force on Holburg was not large. Ander Brady, the chief, was a native of the island and a decorated war hero. Everybody liked Ander. He was an affable fellow who took good care of his aged mother and was always up for a barbecue or a game of cards. If you brought up the war, though, he’d get a haunted sort of look and then excuse himself. He must have suffered something terrible, the islanders agreed, and they felt even more kindly towards him. Ander knew more than most about the otherworldly threat. Ten years on and his dreams kept the war alive inside him night after night. The five young men and women on his force had never faced anything more dangerous than a domestic dispute or a con artist from the mainland. How could he prepare them for what they had to face now?